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Gary Michael Dault, The Globe and Mail, Sat. 21 Dec 2002, page R9

2. The New Sobey’s in Ajax | by Sobeys Club Member 8549376081

As part of Andrew Patterson’s timeline running through the YYZ Publication of Money Value Art, we find on page 220 the following:

“1994-An anonymous Halifax artist place homemade cookies in a local Sobey’s grocery store. The cookies were shaped like letters, spelling out “WORDS”. The packages included Sobey’s style bar code stickers. Sobey’s engaged the RCMP, but no avail”.

A new oppurtunity for such interventions (and a chance to get onto their Art Award radar) has opened in the sleepy little car heaven of Ajax Ontario. Ajax is like the battle ground of a Japanese Anime or Godzilla movie. Two giants go head to head in lumbering combat - in this case, it’s big box retail outlets engaged in capitalistic competition. Sobey’s opens up a new 24 hour store, at the corner of Westney and Hwy 2 - while up the street, there’s a 24hr Dominion, and down the street, a Lobelaws. It’ll be a good christmas for the plastic bag manufacturers. The colour scheme is a bit depressing, a coca-and-cream motif with beige and Sobey’s green. Gastrointestinal propaganda is everywhere, “This way to great meal ideas” “Great meal ideas await you” “May your next meal be a great one” etc etc, although, those are paraphrases since I don’t want to remember such sillyness verbatim. The ceiling reveals the girders and ventilation pipes covered with clumpy foam insulation , painted that terrible brown, which I find distasteful.

The layout is awkward. My first impression, with low fruit stalls and bakery at the entrance, is that it resembled the Dominion up the street. I wanted to buy bath supplies and looked all over nearest the entrance, where such things usually are grocery stores, but it was way in the back where one would expect to find frozen food. I had a hard time finding everything I was looking for. This happens whenever I go into any new g-store, so that’s not really a surprise, but it is still annoying. Why is it they flirt with standardization (putting fruit at the entrance) and then do something unique (like putting the bath supplies in the far corner)?

Just as we know that the foam monster with flailing arms in a Tokyo studio is just some guy in a suit making some easy money, we also know that Sobey’s doesn’t give a shit about it’s customers as long as they keep choosing their store over the kilometre away competition, so they too can make some easy bucks to give away at cheesy award ceremonies. Everyone is complaining about the staff - they’re undertrained and are making mistakes. At checkout, the girl had to cancel one input three times before she got it right. The other day, my mother was charged 21.95 instead of 12.95, which she was lucky to catch a couple of days later and get corrected. The staff all look young, the majority seem to be under 25, and “in store procedure” takes precedence over “customer service”.

I think I’m going to stick to buying my food at Lobelaws. Rating: 5/10

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3. Timothy’s Letters | Timothy Comeau

A. Letter to Google News
From: news-feedback@google.com
To: Timothy Comeau
Subject: Re: Google Arts News [#930186]
Date: Thursday 26 September 2002 2:46 PM

Dear Timothy,
Thanks for your helpful email about Google News. We’re considering a number of improvements based on feedback from our users, and we will certainly pass your comments on to our engineers. Given that we’re still fine-tuning this service, it’s too early for us to know which of the many great ideas we’ve received will be implemented. Thanks again for taking the time to write us and please visit Google News in the coming weeks to see our additions and improvements.

For the latest on Google News and other Google innovations, you may want to sign up for our Google Friends newsletter at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/google-friends/

Regards, The Google Team

—–Original Message—–
From: Timothy Comeau
Subject: Google Arts News
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 02:41:43 -0400
I really like the Google news so far, but think you definitely need an arts page. I don’t give a shit about sports so your algorithms are wasting processing power on that one when it comes to people like me - and you know there are a lot of us out there! The lack of arts coverage in the media in general is depressing. With Google News which is new and hot, why shouldn’t you add to your hipness by making sure arts gets covered just as thoroughly as sports?

Thanks,

Timothy Comeau
Toronto

B. Letter to CBC Newsworld Program CounterSpin
From: “counterSpin”
To: “Timothy Comeau”
Subject: Re: not that pleased
Date: Friday 18 October 2002 10:25 AM
Timothy:

Thanks for your comments. CounterSpin is an independent co-production and all decisions regarding scheduling, broadcast frequency and commercials are made by the CBC management. I encourage you to forward your comments directly to the CBC through cbcinput@toronto.cbc.ca, or by contacting CBC President Robert Rabinovitch.

Brent Preston
Senior Producer
At 01:11 AM 10/18/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Eeeewwww….
>
>….it seems that whenever the higherups take a great show and make it
>once a week, than it’s on its way to being cancelled….
>
>Counterspin is such a great and important show (though you too often have
>the same right-wing windbags on -Jonathan Kay from the National Post and
>Jason Kenny from the Alliance Party / please find more intelligent people
>to articulate the views of the right -who with them as their spokespersons-
>often seem like the Wrong Wing, which can’t be true given that they’re so
>popular out west….) that I would hate to see it made irrelevant by being
>on only once a week. Please say that it’ll be on for at least an hour and
>half, or failing that, commercial free. Last season you were lucky to have
>any conversations at all, since you kept going to commercials (which is
>actually quite insulting to the demographic who is watching the show,
>young people like myself who are concerned about contemporary
>politics/state of the world, and not McCain’s french fries).
>
>Regardless, I’m looking forward to the new season.
>
>yrs,
>
>Timothy Comeau
>
>ps. I’d nominate Mark Kingwell from U of T to be the new host (if his
>schedule permits of course. I also realized it’s far fetched, but hey,
>wouldn’t that he great?) or Daniel Richler (god Big Life was a great show)

C. Letter to his MP
From: Timothy Comeau
To: McTeague.D@parl.gc.ca
Cc: email@danmcteague.net
Subject: Please support the Kyoto Accord
Date: Monday 21 October 2002 8:11 PM
—————————————————————————–
To: Right Honorable Dan McTeague
Member of Parliment for Pickering, Ajax & Uxbridge
Room 302 Justice Building
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
K1A 0A6
Mon. 21 October 2002

I simply want to express my support for the Kyoto Accord, and hope that you will be voting in favour of it when it comes up later this year.

I am a young person (27) who is very concerned about the world I am in the process of inheriting. While I understand that Kyoto will have economic consequences, I believe that scaremongering on this basis is both irresponsible and representative of a narrow minded parochial view. It would seem to me that those so heavily invested in a fossil-fuel based economy are refusing to see the economic benefits (and I would think, great opportunities) of a Green based one. The jobs that will be lost are - like an “executioner”- jobs that probably shouldn’t exist in the first place, since they are detrimental to the long-term survival of the biosphere.

You are from a generation older than mine. You have experienced and enjoyed an ecosystem that will probably not exist for my children or grandchildren. This is something new for us as human beings and as citizens of Canada; the rural generations of a century ago did not imagine their descendants not enjoying clean rivers and clean air. Why should we make the future pay for our selfishness? Kyoto may be considered a small and almost insignificant step, but we have to start somewhere.

Please vote in favor of Kyoto. You can count on my vote in the next election if you do.

Sincerely,
Timothy Comeau
tim@instantcoffee.org

Review - The covers of the books nominated for the Booker Prize (British Editions) | Timothy Comeau
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The cover features an aerial shot of a tiger at one end of a boat, while a figure in the fetal position is at the other end. The view is from directly overhead, and one sees a school of sharks with a couple of turtles swimming beneath. The colours are muted, and it almost has the feel of a medieval fresco.

This cover would not make me want to pick up the book, let alone read it. The art is somewhat crude. The fetal position silhouette screams some kind of philosophical sentimentality, and the presence of the tiger makes no sense. The fact that these are details that the text takes care of seems beside the point. I wouldn’t want to read a story about a tiger lost at sea, but that’s just me. Rating: 5/10

Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
I find this to be a very attractive cover. The title text is in a purple or a blue (scanning usually distorts colours right?) and the author’s name is in red. It is a photograph of someone looking out over the sea; the allusions to Freidrich’s paintings are obvious. The fellow is wearing a gray hat and a matching coat, and is holding an umbrella. We see him from behind. He is also wearing white pants that are short and we can see his bare ankles. The details of his shoes are lost in the darkness at the bottom of the photo. Overall, you have a composition divided into three: the sky/water, the top of the concrete, and its side. The man straddles all three and dominates.

With the hat and the umbrella combo, an anachronism today, the picture is evoking a 20th Century romance and the aesthetics of Beckett, with his tramps in bowler hats. Beckett had said that Freidrich’s paintings helped inspire his work, especially “Waiting for Godot”. This image brings the 19th Century romantic and the 20th Century existentialist together under Mistry’s theme of emigration (Mistry emigrated to Canada from India when he was 20) which seems to embody the existentialist doctrine of determining one’s fate while at the same time alluding to the romance of travel and adventure. Freidrich’s characters confront nature with their independence, while Beckett’s are crushed by nature’s indifference. The 20th Century wrestled with those two concepts in wars that proved man could control nature, but which also showed that nature couldn’t care less about our pettiness. In uniting these two disparate philosophies, this cover is excellent. I’d pick up the book and want to read it. Rating: 10/10

Unless by Carol Shields
This image at first glance evokes nothing of what the potential contents could be. It is a black & white photograph of mostly tree, but then you notice a girl in the lower right, stooping to pick up (?) or push (?) a ball. She has a bag at her waist, but it looks old as if it could be made of leather. You can also see that her hair is tied in a pony tail, and that she is wearing a white shirt with a skirt. The message conveyed is that she is either on her way or coming from school. Has she found this ball? Is she picking it up to toss it back to an afterschool soccer game?

The tree is an oak, and by it’s size one can see that it is very old. A creature of endless centuries next to one so delicately young. A picture from the 1930’s or something. I wouldn’t be inclined to pick up this book. The image is a sentimental evocation, and the author’s name is bigger than the title. At the bottom one reads that she won the Pulitzer Prize: obviously now the author is a literary Midas and if she wants to bore us with some sentimental memoir cast as fiction, than the publishing industry isn’t going to stop her, because, hey, it might get nominated for the Booker Prize or something.

The fact that the novel isn’t a sentimental memoir set in the 30s is why this cover ultimately fails semiotically. The image is a nice enough photograph and it would look nice in a hallway I guess (the hallway of some dreary bourgeois). In the way it freezes the dynamics of the scene it leaves me uncomfortable, which creates a dynamic nonetheless. Rating: 7/10

The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
For some reason, amazon.co.uk doesn’t have a “see larger photo” for this title, so I have to work from the unclear image provided on it’s sales page. At first glance it looks like the stone markers of some prehistoric Stonehenge-like ring, though through squinty eyes, one can make out the ripples of sand on a beach. This image then is perhaps the weathered and eroded wooden stumps of on old pier at low tide. Both the initialy percieved image and the one actually present convey age, and the handwritten title, white against the gray-blue sky, also implies a story set in an era before typing was so common.

The sea sure is popular with these cover designers. The use of handwriting points to an historical story. The book begins in the 1920s, so this is effective. But the use of the sea image is so generic, and in the context of the other nominated books, clichй (it’s clichй anyway but worse when next to 3 other books with the same subject matter) but the designer cannot be faulted for that. I’m bored by this cover and wouldn’t pick it up off the shelf. Rating: 4/10

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Is the text set in the 19th Century, or are these the gloves of an archivist? They have buttons, so I doubt it. Perhaps these are servant’s gloves? The title’s font features an elaborate “f” and the rest of the word is a little shaky, like something that came from an oldschool press with a metal typeface.

This cover would entice me to pick up the text, though, I must say at this point, reviews always reflect the bias and predilections of the reviewer, and just because I have a thing for old documents and the dust of archives can’t necessarily translate into your wanting to pick it up too. I’m just sayin’…that because of my interests, this text featuring an image of white gloves on an old table top lying next to a patterned something or other which looks like some book from the 19th Century, would pique my interest.

The online review at amazon.co.uk describes the text as “engrossing lesbian Victoriana”. In communicating the era, this image is effective semiotically, though it still looks a little prissy, and the author’s name is printed too large and with too much kerning. Rating: 8/10

Dirt Music by Tim Winton
This image conveys a youthfulness that comes across in somehow framing another sentimental sea image (it’s like a rule in book design or something: all novels must have sentimental covers to tug at the heart strings of nostalgia…but then again, I shouldn’t talk, considering the covers of some of my bookworks…). It conveys this youthfulness through the use of the title fonts and the framing. If they’d used a more standard “Times New Roman”-esque serif font, this would have been sentimental. But the use of a sans-serif font speaks to younger folk, and in the way the title is italicized gives it sarcasm. The youth, afterall, are dripping with sarcasm and irony.

Ugh. I thought post 9-11 irony was dead. I was thankful for that, but no, it’s like aspirin, (a cheap and simple miracle drug): there is no better defense against the bewildering stupidity of the status quo than the roll of the eyes. The humor-irony formula is what gets us through the CNN days. That, and turning off the TV to read books with covers of beached boats, seen from the front, with waves gently in the background, the text hovering above the horizon line sans serif, simply conveying author’s name and title.

I’m attracted to the subversion of what could have been another sentimental image. But gawd, another fucking sea cover. I’m in the bookstore browsing and I’m getting seasick. This is absurd… Rating: 7/10

Winner: You can’t judge a book by it’s cover, but you can judge the cover. This year’s winner of the Booker Prize was Life of Pi but my winner is Family Matters.

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untitled zine, James Whitman 536 E20th Ave Vancouver BC V5V 1M8 jameswhitman@hotmail.com

There’s not much to say beyond the fact that I really liked this zine. One: I appreciated the use of cardstock rather than paper, to give the book a secure feeling in the hands. Second: I liked the drawings, simple squiggly abstract line drawings in elegant black and white; no text and no title allows one to make what one wants to out of them. In my case, they reminded me of the work of the design firm M/M from Paris, whose work I am currently interested in (check out the album packaging of Bjork’s “Vespertine”). Summary: staple bound cardstock booklets printed with black and white squiggly drawings are hot. (Timothy Comeau)

Passenger & Tour Guides Exhibition catalogue, Kevin Rodgers, Derek Sullivan, published by ArtSpeak Gallery, Vancouver.

As the intro says best, “Rodgers and Sullivan explore the construct if the West Coast as it is seen from the outside, with its attendant romanticization and associations with the ‘frontier’”. The package overtook the content, consisting of a beautiful card envelope printed with wild flowers which opens up to photographs of the exhibition of the same name. Other standard tourist images are printed on the envelope sleeves, in such a way that they could be used as postcards if one so wished. The envelope contains sheets of folded paper; most are cream, one is white. The cream sheets, evocative of elegant stationary, contains random handwritten fragments from something like a journal or personal letters. The white sheet unfolds to gorgeous hand drawn map of an imaginary coastal city. This one gets a grade of Z because A+ seems low. (Timothy Comeau)

Losercore Issue 1 and Older Man Younger Woman zines, 2$ each. c/o Pleasure Point RR 2 Barry’s Bay ON KOJ 1BO weetzie@webhart.net

There seems to be a need in our narrative culture to tell our stories no matter how banal; Maureen MacMillian has shown her ID card at the gate of humanity with these humble publications: unlucky in love alternated by luck with love. The first, “Losercore”, tells the story of self-pity (”being the girl you leave behind when someone better comes along (usually better means bigger boobs, better figure, longer hair)… “) and regrets (…”regret # 43 I never told you how I felt and now you’re gone…”and 44 “…you were the coolest most magical soul and when I had you I let you go…”). A crueler reviewer would say that this is all cliché crap, but that would show a lack of respect for the universal experiences that allow such things as love and regret to exist in the first place. I’m sympathetic to this type of expression, whereas the other need we have to proclaim love from the rooftops I find more alienating. One gal’s prince charming is another’s sleaze; in “Older Man Younger Woman,” she’s found love with someone who’s thirty years older and has an ex-wife. He sounds great, she sounds happy, but the strength’s of this zine isn’t the exposition of her subjectivity, but rather it’s pleasant design, using standard 1950s nuclear family imagery with typewriter font and headlines done up in ransom-note-cutup style. Nothing groundbreaking here, this stuff feels like the literary equivalent of a chocolate chip cookie - sweet trivia. (Timothy Comeau)

small dead woman Exhibition catalogue, Kevin Yates, Diana George and Charles Maude, published by ArtSpeak Gallery, Vancouver

I recently saw Kevin Yates’ “small dead woman” at Toronto’s YYZ gallery, where its art world charm seemed rather forced, since in essence it just looks like some child’s forgotten doll. This catalogue is part of Artspeak’s series of matching up a text with a piece that has been exhibited in the gallery - in this case the accompanying text is by Diana George and Charles Maude, and entitled “Last Seen”. It expounds upon the unfortunate habit prostitutes have of getting murdered, and their bodies being found in public wilderness. The attempt is made to create meaning in this arc of being “last seen” in urbia and “found” in nature, ignoring the rather obvious fact that brush is good for hiding large things like bodies. I for one don’t believe there is a need to generate metaphorical significance out of the pragmatic practices of psychopaths. This book came in the unusual format of a file folder, which was aesthetically attractive, but makes for an awkward read. Given the binding is one of those slidy bar things I suppose the idea would be that I as the reader could disassemble it. However like all art in galleries which we are invited to touch and decline (due to tradition of not touching anything) I didn’t want to take it apart. Summary: food for thought with poor ergonomics. (Timothy Comeau)

4. Letter to Timothy
Ed Deary Sometimes when I read Instant Coffee I think about how much of a “affliction” living in a small town in the middle of nowhere is. So here is a short list of events:

This weekend:
Star Belly Jam, a music festival featuring “hippie” bands.
Free camping, the all-day ticket price is 20$ a day.
(note- I don’t think the bands are the reason to attend this: the lackey crowd, laced up should provide anybody with a reason to go. This is the equivalent to a trade show on drugs. I won’t go, but I look forward to the inevitable stories that will flow out. Really, some of the things that I have heard have been quiet re-tellable).

So much should have been written down. My memory is not what it should be, and I am so afraid my weakness will keep me away from what I want.

What are you doing now? Are you working out of the house and with your “instant coffee”? Do you still fight with your sister?

I have to leave this place, move in with my mother in North Vancouver, and put my stuff in storage. You did this, how was it?

Sometimes I think that I should get more student loan money and go to UBC’s English department. Other times I think that I should keep going with what I’m doing, (the relentless studio practice).

At the Khyber, your stairway show blurred the separation between studio practice and the contemplative act. Sometimes I think of that show, the way you were able to weave idea and thing together. Sara’s art of cooking pulled me so far from school. Now I’m sewing trousers. Happy to run away from the institutions, learn to cook, and name it badly with the feminist quip; the private is political. God, some days I actually believed that I was doing art- staying home making myself dinner. Black on Black paintings have the same effect as picking one’s nose. So what the f–k, I want to leave the house now - engage with this public society. I live alone and plan to move home. Maybe that’s o.k?

1. Pope Mass Sunday 28 July 2002, Downsview Park
by Timothy Comeau I got up at the time that I usually go to bed and took the TTC with people who were all dressed in their Sears best. I arrived at the grounds at 7am and walk into the crowd. It rains. Umbrellas go up. The boys choir begins to sing, and I shiver hearing Vivaldi’s “Gloria” which of course reminds me of the intro to the Frontline Pope documentary that was one of the reasons I wanted to see him in person. They also sang Handel’s Hallelujah, and this was entertaining while we waited. Then Elvis entered the building.

The Pope’s helicopter flew over the crowd and people got excited. The Pope is like a Santa Claus who dresses in white and doesn’t have a beard. I guess this was the adult version of the Santa Clause parade. People were yelling, “close the umbrellas so we can see!” Enough people did this, so that I caught a good glimpse of him. When he drove by I saw him from his bad side (cause with his illness he leans to one side, so I saw him from the side he leans away from) so I didn’t really see his face, but it was more than a little awe inspiring. I got caught up in the moment, with people yelling; “wave!” and I waved. The excitement was intense. I was awed and joy filled to see him, which felt a little embarrassing, but then again, that’s why I was there, to see in person this man who I feel has had a influence on my life.

I had faith that the rain would stop for the Mass, and it did. Throughout, I would follow those who were trying to get closer. For the most part the Pope was a green dot on the stage, and I watched the screens, but by the end I did get close enough to see the white of his hair. People were busy chatting and looking for lost members of their group and taking photographs, so it had this odd mix of solemnity and rock concert. With all the mud I thought of Woodstock, and one of the papers had described it as Popestock earlier in the week, and that seemed really appropriate that day. I felt bad when I had to squeeze past a couple of girl’s who praying during the benediction of the host, and I realized that I interrupted them in their moment. The Australians were on their knees at that point, which reminded me of the passage in the Bible where Jesus says, dont pray in public because then you’re just showing off and not honoring God, rendering the act sacrilege.

Rating: 8 out of ten

My rating for this is 8, cuz it was a once in lifetime experience and it was memorable. But that’s being totally subjective. If I wanted to pretend to be objective, I’d give it and the week surrounding it a 4 or even a 3, because the Catholics were weirdos, they trampled the grounds into mud, clogged up the drains so that business got flooded with sewage; preached their usual bullshit about how sex is bad and that all men had a duty to fatherhood, “whether spiritual or physical”, protested in front of the abortion clinic, clogged up the TTC, sang sing-alongs on the Go Trains, (especially that abysmal theme song, ugh) and generally drove me nuts with their fairy tales and “spontaneous discussion groups” on whether or not it was ok to marry Jews or Protestants. What an embarrassment to 2000 years of history and thought. (Timothy Comeau)