(https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/529749811906764804 )
Impressed by his work and his form, I have also been experimenting with the Twitter Essay:
- Okay, let’s talk about Art Garfunkel.
- He was part of the influential 60’s duo Simon and Garfunkel who were responsible for so many classic hits.
- He had crazy hair that reminded me of big bird.
- Nobody thought he had any talent.
- I don’t think he wrote any songs, he just sang in that high voice.
- Does anybody out there know if he wrote any songs?
- No?
- Nobody knows?
- Okay.
- So, he probably didn’t write any songs, he just looked weird and sang like a woman.
- That was enough. It was the 60’s.
- I wonder if he got a lot of groupies?
- Does anybody know? Did anybody out there sleep with Art Garfunkel?
- No one willing to admit?
- Fair enough
- Does anybody else think Art Garfunkel looks like Rex Murphy?
17. Look at this picture:
18. Now look at this picture:
19. DEAD. FUCKING. RINGERS.
20. I hate Rex Murphy.
21. He talks like Russell Brand writes, and he’s always crabby.
22. CBC should fire him.
23. Truth be told, CBC should just clear the decks and fire everybody.
24. Art Garfunkel turns 73 today.
25. He’s a Scorpio, the sign characterized by being stubborn and insensitive.
26. I had a girlfriend who was a Scorpio.
27. We met on Lavalife.
28. Here’s a picture, she’s the one with the nice smile and headband:
29. She broke up with me that day because I wouldn’t do the nude bicycle run.
30. Didn’t care about my physical insecurities, she just insisted it was a way for me to get over them.
31. I’ve had surgeries and am embarrassed by my scars, okay??
32. I don’t want to ride around naked on a fucking bike!
33. She’s the VP of bank now.
34. Art Garfunkel was an actor for a while.
35. Whenever you saw that he was going to be a guest star, like on the Rockford Files or something…
36. You knew it was going to be a good one to miss.
37. James Garner was a real actor.
38. He was a class act.
39. Just look at him!
40.What a man!
41. Art Garfunkel was the son of a traveling salesman.
42. Well, now is probably a good time to wrap up.
43. In sum, Art Garfunkel’s impact on popular culture has been negligible and certainly subordinate to Paul Simon and James Garner.
*I will post this on Storify for those who wish to save a copy for future reference.
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This elegantly airbrushed van will serve as my mobile tattoo center.
Visiting densely populated urban regions like high schools and drunken college parties, as well as sparsely inhabited small towns where there’s nothing to do, Inklings will appear to make tattoo dreams come true! Whenever you get the notion you want a tattoo, you just call us at 1-800-INK-LING, and we will speed recklessly toward you! We will be readily identifiable and branded, like the ice cream truck that came before us, but the music that we’ll always have blasting out of our speakers: Slayer.
It will be equally appealing to teens and their Midlife afflicted parents.
Ideally, I would like Inklings to become a TV show, as I want to expand beyond the confines of the GTA and explore this great nation of ours all the while providing adequate tattoo artistry and a penetrating look at the culture, landscape and psyche of the people that inhabit it. Think of Rex Murphy’s Cross Country Checkup married to Kat Von D’s LA Ink. This hygienic, mobile service will provide rapid tattooing at an affordable price in an atmosphere that playfully recalls some of your favourite serial killers.
It’s a brilliant idea. Fund me.
(Proposal pending the receipt of my valid driver’s license)
Backers:
7
Amount pledged of $50,000 goal:
$95
Days to go:
2
Incentives:
For those who donate $50 or more, an owl tattoo on the forearm.
For those who donate $750 or more, an intimidating owl chest plate.
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In March, over 200, 000 students marched in the streets of Montreal. That’s an awful lot of people, and it warrants some respectful consideration. Personally, when students protest I pay attention. I’m middle-aged now, and I like to know what they think, how they experience the rapidly evolving world, to which we (those generations that came of age before the Internet) are cultural migrants. Because of this, I try to move toward them when it comes to understanding an issue, I want to see it through their eyes rather than try to get them to see it through the eyes of my peers. I want to understand where they’re coming from rather than tell them where they’re going, and I do this for all sorts of reasons, but primarily because I think it will make me a better, more empathetic person.
In the last 15 years the world has changed more than it has in all the centuries it was built upon. The Internet is a more important invention than the wheel, and it’s entirely reasonable to assume that the model by which we’ve successfully lived for 100 years, might not be the model by which we’ll successfully live for the next 100 years. The seeds of a movement like Occupy, that seems so disorganized, loud and dirty to many, will very likely bear revolutionary fruit, and I think that this seismic shift in the way we think about our society, is a wave that’s breaking right over the heads of those who dismiss it as aimless, bongo-playing dilettantism. As Fran Liebowitz said, “ In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country capitalism triumphed over democracy.”
We need to think about that, and perhaps respond to it.
My cousins are students in Montreal and they’re brilliant and so well informed that they’ll make your head spin. And what they are doing in striking and taking to the streets is a purely democratic act. A lot of their money is invested by the government in a way that they don’t agree with and they’re asking the government to redirect that money toward something that they agree with—education. I want to live in a country where post-secondary education is affordable to people. They think of that as a core value. What is wrong with that?
As Dave Eggers said, “The truth is not two-sided, it’s round.”
The mocking tone of certainty issuing forth from elders on this issue lacks grace, empathy and hope, and perhaps even worse, it lacks imagination. I think that we should see what happens, how the students proceed and what goals they might achieve, before jumping in and telling them that they’re wrong and that when we went to school we had to walk 15 miles in the snow.
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