Went to the Toronto Zoo yesterday with Lisa and Amy, it was quite a bit of fun. The first thing we did was go to Stingray Bay, which is an additional charge exhibit ($3, I paid in quarters) that lets you pet stingrays. It was a lot cooler than I expected, it's a huge pool with a shitton of stingrays and a couple sharks floating around. They've been de-barbed so they won't kill you (although I did find the Crocodile Hunter merch in the gift shop to be in poor taste) and you can just grope as many stingrays as you can get your hands on. I would suggest you get your ass over there, I don't know how long it'll be around. Very cool, though. If you're wondering how stingrays feel, the answer is slippery. You get to feed the stingrays, too. They come around with lil fishheads that you place between your fingers and lower into the tank. The stingrays are supposed to just glide over your hand, but the one I was trying to feed splashed me with dutty fish water and tried to fight me...then made his way around the pool and splashed me AGAIN! fucking sonovabitch stingray!

We found that the bar at the zoo is only open on the weekend. If you ever want to get hammered at the zoo during the week, you should make other provisions. We did not, so it was good clean fun. We saw hippos, lions, yaks, lynxes, sloths, jellyfish, seahorses, whole buncha things. We didn't make it to the grizzly bears because they're ridiculously far, but we saw giraffes and that's pretty much all that matters.

After the zoo we went to The Rose and Crown and drank a bunch of doubles and shots. I ate an AWESOME veggie sandwich with yam fries, their food is ridick-good. After we were properly sauced, we made our way to Sound Academy for the TV on the Radio concert and Amy went home. We started at the bar and then made our way through the crowd. We met some cool British Columbians and saw Fonzie and her boyfriend, when Wolf Like Me came on we ran inside and danced like maniacs. A tasty show!

After that, we made our way back to the Rose and Crown and hung with Sonia, and a cool band called The Unknown Culprits. They were nice guys, they played friggin' In the Mood, so either they're entirely delicious or they were in high school band together. Lisa and I danced for a while and drank more, then I made my way back to the subway station. I noticed I was alone on the subway, so I loudly sang Now Is Well by USS to myself, and I was very heppy-heppy. Then some skag came on the train and didn't leave until I got to downsview. Gad-dammit! Then I got to the subway station and ran into a girl who had been at the concert and a guy who told me I was very relaxed, before divulging how infrequently he brushed his teeth, (Less than once a week) while bemoaning his jealous girlfriend's reaction to his...falling asleep at the subway station for several hours? I kind of stopped following his story, because what he viewed as relaxation was mostly drunkenness and some tiredness.

I took the bus to York and realized that for once I was at York when Matthew was doing his show. I thought I was locked out, after about four minutes I realized the door was open. Matthew does Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove from 2-4 on Wednesday mornings. We chatted about how Luca's a failure for having missed the TVOTR show, petting sting rays, and Matthew dedicated a song to goats being eaten by snakes. Rightly so! That blessed event will happen at Reptilia the first Sunday of every month. I had a lot of fun, and heard a lot of great songs--check out Luxury Pond and Wintersleep if you haven't yet, and he also played some fab soundscapes. If you're ever around a radio on late Tuesday nights you should have a listen.

Here are some of my favourite audio scraps!

The very talented Joshua Parsons and myself, Linda Jay, the Bonnie to his Clyde.

For this one the majority of the ad was improvised and edited scraps of long takes of tomfoolery.
A loose vision formed over the course of the improvisation and my interlude in the middle is taken directly from the back of the bottle of the product, Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific!

Slightly flowery...slightly spicy. Deliciously nice to be near!

I actually love this commercial.

A powerful PSA...just my voice, the odd quality of the recording is due to a rookie mistake, I'm not valiumed up, as has been suggested. The joke is obvi. pretty cheesy but it's also just a way of getting STD discussion back in popular discourse, it may be an unpleasant topic, but sexual education should be publicly attainable. salt n pepa passed the torch to linda jay and you and I.

The recordings with a lot of friends on them are my favourites, they are the sweetest and the most fun.
this one is a fictional movie commercial...I love the music! WHEE!

finding the pot of gold at the end of the reading rainbow.

Hmm...I'll be receiving a lot of books in the mail in the next week and I'm real excited.

Stupid free shipping tricked me again.

At any rate, I will be getting:

Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo: A Novel by Ntozake Shange, who wrote For Black Girls who have Considered Suicide.... I am picking this one up for a book club I am in with members of my African American Family course. We're meeting for a pot luck. I hope I finish the book in time, but, more importantly, remember to book off the 11th....i'm talking to myself again.

I find some of Shange's work just isn't my bag, (it's too...something) but maybe I'll enjoy her narratives more than her plays/poems.

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo my absolute all time favourite book, beating out luminaries like Terry Southern (Candy, The Magic Christian and Abbie Hoffman ( Steal this Book, Revolution for the Hell of It) among many others. This book is life-changing, I read it several years ago as a wee lass (it led to my pacifism) yet its concepts still strike me as haunting. They're making a movie with the douche from the o.c. this year, which will break my heart when I see the cover of such a poignant novel with some dork and "NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE!!!" le sigh. I guess anything that gets people to pick up this fabulous novel is a good thing. I'm buying this copy to lend out and eventually give to a friend of mine, well travelled and with a story.

Revolution for the Hell of It by Abbie Hoffman (pen name :Free) which is the how-to guide for revolution written by the man himself. absolutely brilliant observations on a range of topics, and his insight is timeless, and becomes more and more relevant as time goes by. I'm arming my militia with copies of this bible. I'm purchasing a copy because it went back to press a few years ago and I'd like to lend it out to worthy people.

The Dubliners by James Joyce. It's time for me to become more familiar with the riches of Irish literature, and this two dollar dover thrift edition seems like a great place to start. 13 or so short stories about the motherland? nothing to sneeze at.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I began reading this book in grade 7, but got distracted halfway through, when Pip begins really coming of age. two buck dover thrift seems like a good reason to finally finish it, although I think I could actually get it off my sister today if I truly wanted. No matter.

AND MORE I AM TOO LAZY TO COMMENT ON.

All's Well that End's Well by William Shakespeare, because it probably would be a good idea to familiarize myself with more of the Bard's work...will assist in radio and theatre, no? He kind of seems like a necessary (though not entirely unpleasant) evil.

Tao Te Ching I've it read online, but I would appreciate a solid copy.

Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain has apparently been thrilling young readers the world over since its publication...why deny myself the pleasure?

Will post reviews when I read 'em. Stay happy, kiddies!