NEWS
Shhh, don’t blow our coverc
“In Canada, we have this reputation for protecting the environment, which I’ve always contended was nothing more than a lie.”
—Author and reporter William Marsden
LEGEND IN BED: Yoko Ono
What, Niagara Falls
was booked?
“You know, we just wanted to do something for our honeymoon.”
—Yoko Ono, on the genesis of her and John’s Bed-In for Peace
Now that’s an ironic statement right there
“The Origin of Species is like the bible.”
—Redpath Museum’s Ingrid Birker
Guys, the perfect excuse for forgetting!
“Not only is buying flowers a poor ecological choice, but in Colombia, where 50 per cent of the flowers sold on Valentine’s Day come from, flower workers labour up to 100 hours a week in advance of St. Valentine’s Day.”
—Doc filmmaker Sarah Charland-Faucher
Not for mewing like a
cat on Big Brother?
“His delivery of medicine, ambulances and fire trucks to Palestinians living under siege in Gaza is the reason they’ve banned him.”
—Local Palestinian activist Laith Marouf on controversial British MP George Galloway, denied a visa to Canada
Yeah, a .45 will do that
“I’d been drinking so, like, I didn’t even really feel it, just this burning sensation, right? So now I’m mad that they fuckin’ shot me [with a .22] and I keep on after them until I get shot again by another guy, right in my forearm. And this time it’s with a super big shiny gun, a .45, and it really, really hurts.”
—Local boxer Sylvera Louis, on getting shot twice
Isn’t it?
“A lot of Canadian lefties consider Canada unimportant, so they spend more time writing about U.S. foreign policy.”
—Yves Engler, author of The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy
But that’s how you let off steam!
“It’s teaching them how to compete at a high level and still accept a loss without getting pissed off, wanting to damage property or vandalize.”
—Burgundy Urban Mediation Project’s Ronald Mungal, on his basketball league for Little Burgundy kids
iGas
“We were astonished.”
—Randy Laporte, on the popularity of his fart-sound “Pull My Finger” iPhone app
Are you talking about Mile-End again?
“This is no place for people to live.”
—Concordia geologist and fossil fuel expert Dr. Judith Patterson, on the Faubourg Contrecoeur housing complex, located near East-End refineries
That’s a new one
“I still haven’t paid my tuition this year because the bedbugs ate my tuition.”
—Concordia student and bedbug infestee Rachael
Wait, is your name Scott Saxon?
“I wrote it on toilet paper using a prostitute’s eyebrow pencil.”
—Egyptian author, activist and academic Nawal El Saadawi, on how she wrote Memoirs From the Women’s Prison Ooh, look, the poor!
“The population’s a bit tired of seeing the media here. They’re not trying to resolve anything, so residents feel like they’re living in a zoo.”
—Montréal-Nord Républik’s Will Prosper
A NEW MEANING TO “LET’S DO
SHOTS”: Sylvera Louis
As long as it makes us horny
“We want to show younger people that wow, culture is cool, fun, beautiful.”
—Jennifer-Lee Barker, a producer of the Montreal Erotic Art Festival
Lube is to both though
“A lot of resources specific to queer folk aren’t specific to the prison context, and vice versa.”
—Ashley Fortier of the Prisoner Correspondence Group
More than just squeegeeing and begging??
“We want to demystify street kids, show that they have all kinds of talents.”
—Festival d’expression de la rue organizer Kim Heynemand
Feasting on a dead king
“He shouldn’t have been planning a major concert tour, he should’ve been in the hospital. But he was surrounded by vultures who wanted him to perform and make money. That’s all they cared about.”
—Author Ian Halperin, on Michael Jackson
ON LIFE, DEATH AND M.J’S MONEY:
Ian Halperin
Didn’t take funding cuts to figure it out
“We know where the Harper government stands in regards to our community.”
—Fierté Montréal’s Jean-Sébastien Boudreault, on federal funding cuts to LGBT fests
The veggie aisle, duh
“Most kids don’t know where their carrots, potatoes and tomatoes come from.”
—Fête Éco-Bio Paysanne organizer Jean-François Demers.
Isn’t that what that German tiger trainer said?
“The baby T-rex hops around and is sort of cute at times—which is weird, because I still stand close enough to it to go, this thing could just swallow half my person, and yet it’s cute.”
—Lucas Worth, an actor with the Walking With Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular show
I asked for a pint of beer!
“I’ve been tending bar for 20 years in between my four children. I even broke water with my last baby here.”
—Cock ’n’ Bull waitress Missy McCann
BEER AND BIOLOGY:
Cock n’ Bull’s Missy McCann
Now that’s earning your tip
“One guy even lost his ear here once, but we saved it for him.”
—Cock ’n’ Bull waitress Missy McCann
In that case, let’s get bankrupt
“Clothing is currency.”
—Take Off Your Clothes benefit organizer Aleece Germano
Seafood delight
“In one of them, a guy is going down on a woman and the title card says something like, ‘Clam soup for lunch!’”
—Sex, Labour, Smut film fest co-programmer and Concordia prof Tom Waugh on old-time-y skin flick food humour
Gangsta mom
“The most dangerous person out there is a woman driving her kids to daycare in a 4X4.”
—Projet Montréal’s Luc Ferrandez
Can’t wait for the jokes about public shitters
“It made a SPLASH. It became a NUMBER ONE priority for me.”
—Independent city council candidate Marc-Boris St-Maurice, on his campaign to install public urinals on the Plateau
Sure it wasn’t the Scheisse video folks?
“They created a new movement. In the course of techno parties, they became a mass culture, a national movement of young people in Germany.”
—Mechtild Manus of the Goethe Institute, on East and West Germany’s post-Wall common ground
No surprise there
“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get the cooperation of the big cell phone giants.”
—UdeM linguist Patrick Drouin, who is studying the language of text messages, on participants still being charged a fee for forwarding him their texts
Is that what you call sitting in the dark and jerking off?
“I think our success is because the cinema is not just about porn, it’s about social interaction.”
—Cinéma l’Amour owner Steve Koltai
It’s okay, that was always annoying anyway
“Canadians are going to be ripping the flags off their backpacks when they go travelling.”
—H2Oil director Shannon Walsh
Unlike, say, 9/11 conspiracies
“The war on terror is bogus.”
—Native American activist and Truther Splitting the Sky
MUSIC
A depression, even!
“Whenever there is an economic recession, bands like us find ourselves perfectly in place. Historically, the only people who ever do well when the economy is in the dumps are bars, music and films. People need that escapism more than ever, so from where we’re standing, I say bring on the recession.”
—Gern F. of United Steel Workers of Montreal
News to no one but Torontonians
“We’re interested in the U.S. and European markets. Because sometimes what Toronto thinks is cool just isn’t, and sometimes what Toronto has no idea about is mind-blowing.”
—Violca Yryku of Mansion
LOOKING GOOD: Samantha Fox
Touch her
“My boobs are real, my face is real, I work out six times a week, I look great,”
—Samantha Fox, 42
Never gonna give him up
“Clearly, the Internet is a very strange place. I’ve been Rickrolled myself, many times.”
—Rick Astley
Battery as flattery
“We are trying to create a violent atmosphere with our music, so if the audience is particularly violent, then they are really at one with the band. We played a show where a girl broke her leg while moshing and didn’t leave for the hospital until we were done—that was a big compliment.”
—Voldamars of black metallists Eclipse Eternal
Life’s so unfair
“I’ve always had an old man’s soul, but then I got the looks of a 17-year-old and the voice of a 12-year-old.”
—Lykke Li (22)
Merry piss-mas
“I must confess that it’s not the type of subject that they like to talk about at a Christmas party. My brother came to see us in concert and kind of felt embarrassed because I ‘urinated’ in the mouth of [bassist] Dirty Mary with a plastic penis in front of him, but he understood it was all fun and games.”
—Virgin Slut of the Horny Bitches on family reactions
File under “fun”
“That’s the new genre, get with it, Google it, it’s called fun. We’ve been called electro-booty, lazer-zap-zap-boom-bap crap. So many words. Whatever. It’s called fun music. Don’t over-complicate things.”
—Isis of Thunderheist
Could say the same for Nickelback
“I think we’re a lot easier to like when you don’t have to listen to us.”
—Gerard Van Herk on the posthumous popularity of his 1980s band, Deja Voodoo
NO FREE PASS: Ice Cube
Diminished expectations
“I figured that, by this point, you’d be interviewing me as president of the one-world government from my seat in the United Nations and I would be wearing a crown of iron and gold, but that is not the case. I’m sitting on my front porch taking care of my two wonderful children, one of whom is ill and, as a result, we’re not going to play in Lexington, Kentucky tonight.”
—Bobby Conn
And caused a fair bit too
“That album was made with all five people in a lot of pain.”
—Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood on Rumours
Today’s bands need more beatings
“The one thing about current bands, I find, is that they give it up too easily. They say it was so easy in my time but that’s bullshit. I got my ass kicked every day just walking down the street and looking the way I did because I was a walking, talking art show, but that’s how you announce yourself.”
—Sylvain Sylvain of New York Dolls
Equal opportunity attacks
“If you’re black, you don’t get a free pass. If you’re white, you don’t get a free pass. If you’re a man or a woman, you don’t get a free pass either. Police, politicians, reverends, everybody is held accountable on my records and everybody is criticized.”
—Ice Cube
Advice for Axl
“Axl still has the opportunity to do something that no one expects him to do, which is something cool. I honestly think he can do it, but first, he really needs to control himself a bit, and most importantly, get a real friend.”
—Jesse “The Devil” Hughes of Eagles of Death Metal
Madonna’s getting there…
“I’m happy to be an example because I still think there are far too few women making hideously aggressive, ugly, non-audience-pleasing noise.”
—Lydia Lunch
Dead drummers required
“I think all bands have got aspects of Spinal Tap, and if they don’t, they’re not a band.”
—Gaz Whelan of Happy Mondays
Win some, bruise some
“There are a lot of similarities between music and fighting because you get the same feelings and nervous energy before a fight as you do before playing a show. It really doesn’t matter if you win or lose in a fight, but you have to try and fight your best.”
—Musician and mixed martial artist Xavier Caféïne
As the case may be
“It’s funny how some people are really rubbed the wrong way by it, like I’ve ruined their day by making them use that Shift key.”
—Merrill Garbus on the spelling of tUnE-YaRdS
Nuthin’ but a D thang
“You used to go over to your aunt’s house for Thanksgiving and you would have to watch your nieces tap-dancing in the living room, and that’s the level of bullshit I see on television and radio right now. It still blows my mind that these retards are actually going over with people. If you ever wondered what it would sound like if demons took over art, just look at gangsta rap.”
—Former Flamin’ Groovy Cyril
Jordan, now of Magic Christian
Everyone needs a fire-breathing dwarf!
“Maybe you need 10 dancers, maybe you need confetti cannons and a dwarf to come out and breathe fire, but I don’t need that—because I kill it every night!”
—Amanda Blank
FILM
MASTURBATING MUST BE A REAL WORKOUT
“My cock was an okay size, but suddenly it started to grow. It was fucking amazing! It kept growing, and by 16, it had doubled in size. It’s about 8.5 inches, six inches thick. It’s very fat. I love my cock—thank God I have a big piece. People always want to play with it, touch it, look at it, feel it. It’s a money maker.”
—Pierre Fitch, porn star
FATHER OF THE GODFATHER:
Francis Ford Coppola
MARRIED TO THE MOB
“The Godfather was the freak accident that changed everything. I’m still trying to sort all that out.”
—Francis Ford Coppola
REAL GODFATHERS
“I live in Rome and I couldn’t imagine that two hours from my house there’s a country that’s at war, people who live every day as if they’re at war.”
—Director Matteo Garrone on recreating the world of Italian organized crime in Gomorrah
PACKING A PUNCH
“He referred to the film, when he saw it, as a Greek tragedy. He said ‘The only problem is, I’m the subject.’”
—Tyson director James Toback on the doc’s pugilist subject
HOW TO MEMORIALIZE A MASSACRE
“We felt a responsibility in every frame. Every shot felt like a moral decision. Each camera angle felt like it had a moral weight to it.”
—Denis Villeneuve, director of Polytechnique
MORAL DECISIONS: Denis Villeneuve
FALSE NOSTALGIA
“Much of Quebec cinema is nostalgic, looking back on the ’60s and ’70s. But I think it’s dangerous, because it seems like people are looking back at a time when there were no foreigners around. When it was just members of our own tribe around us. And a film like C.R.A.Z.Y. was pernicious, because it was the Pope’s view of homosexuality. He could be cute but not have sex. I thought it was a bit insulting.”
—Rodrigue Jean, director of Lost Song and prostitution doc Men for Sale
NEXT TIME AROUND, IT WILL BE SALMON
“You’d literally get off the bus and someone would have a bicycle pump of beer ready to pour into your mouth.”
—Broken Lizard’s Paul Soter, on the dangers of promotional tours
EVOLVE OR DIE
“People now watch TV and movies on their iPods or computers, on screens much smaller than the ones in your local cinema. Celluloid has gone the way of vinyl—it’s really a different world right now. Independent film has to learn how to adapt. And film in general is not a medium that is quick on its feet.”
—Legendary independent producer Christine Vachon
LESS IS GORE
“For me, some of those old movies where you never actually saw the monster, they were the scariest. Now we see everything. If you look at The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I don’t think you ever see a chainsaw hit the flesh.”
—Zombie film Pontypool director Bruce McDonald
DID THEY SEND
THEM A TEXT?
“I know a lot of people who’ve communicated with mushrooms.”
—Know Your Mushrooms director Ron Mann
CITY IN DECLINE: Chloe Lum
MENTAL MUSCLE
“You can’t keep following the sheep or you’re just going to run into the sea, like lemmings, off the cliff. The imagination is more powerful than guns or money and one’s consciousness is the most valuable thing one has.”
—The Limits of Control director Jim Jarmusch
Let’s use the blue anal
beads this time!
“I really don’t feel comfortable repeating myself. It’s always finding a different way to express myself, whether it be the sex act that I’m doing or whether it be the thing that I’m saying to the person in the scene.”
—Porn star and The Girlfriend Experience star Sasha Grey
SHE AIN’T TALKING ABOUT
FILM CRITICISM
“It’s another day at the office. You go out, simply have the most dangerous job in the world and then you go to bed—and then you wake up and you still have the most dangerous job in the world.”
—Kathryn Bigelow on the Explosive Ordnance Disposal experts who are the subject of her film The Hurt Locker
FAME IS THE MOST
FRIGHTENING
“We were all kids, including the directors. We didn’t exactly know what we wanted to do next, and hadn’t found our voices as actors. Suddenly we were on the cover of Newsweek and guests on Jay Leno. So that can screw up your head a bit.”
—Blair Witch (and Humpday) star Joshua Leonard on the movie’s whirlwind success
JEWS GONE WILD
“He was asking me questions sort of like, ‘How would the Jews feel about forgiveness,’ this or that. I said, ‘We don’t forgive. Jews collect interest. We’re more mad about stuff from 2,000 years ago today than we were then.’”
—Inglourious Basterds star and “Jewish technical advisor” Eli Roth on inviting Quentin Tarantino to his family’s Passover seder
SHOULD WE BE SNAPPING
OUR FINGERS?
“Street lighting, the wetness of the road, that merciless urban landscape, the barbed wire, the broken glass—it smelt of violence, that film, it smelt of war!”
—Ben Kingsley free-associates on Kari Skogland’s IRA drama 50 Dead Men Walking
SISTER-FUCKING IS THE
BEST REVENGE
“The slavery shit didn’t start in the States. We’ve been in France for over 400 years. I was born in your land; I grew up in your land. I talk like y’all and I’m probably fucking your daughter or your sister. So it’s all bullshit.”
—French actor/rapper MC Jean Gab’1, star of Black, on facing racism at home
ANTI-ASSHOLE INITIATIVE
“Film is not so important that you can ignore the greater impact you’re having on waste. We don’t always succeed, but we try to recycle and have a small footprint—that’s the new terminology for just not being freakin’ assholes.”
—Actor/director (and Low Impact Filmmaking author) Larry Fessenden
HATE TO SEE THE
PIXAR VERSION
“What you saw is the Disney version of the horror that goes on back there.”
—Director Louie Psihoyos on the graphic dolphin-killing footage in his documentary The Cove
THE BACKYARD
WRESTLING THEORY
OF FILMMAKING
“All my films came uninvited like burglars in the night. Like a home invasion. You wake up because you hear a noise and you’re startled and there are five men in your kitchen. And what do you do? You have to grapple with them.”
—Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans director Werner Herzog
ARTS & MORE
Shit can be sad
“For us, it’s a human being. Thank God I won’t be here to pull the plug out. That would bring too much emotion.”
—Artist Wim Delvoye on shutting off his shit machine Cloaca No. 5
You’re next, Vancouver
“Montreal at the time of Expo 67 was really an amazing place, really an exciting place to work. It was crawling with architects. But that all really changed. That cosmopolitanism disappeared. The Olympics really killed all that.”
—Architecture critic Witold Rybczynski
That’s how the mob
planned it!
“It feels like everything here is built so that it’ll eventually get replaced. It’s a city that’s built on the idea that it’s going to be obsolete.”
—Seripop’s Chloe Lum on how Montreal inspires their work
Don’t expect a follow-
up any time soon
“Years ago, I had a big problem finishing things, and Braid is really the first big project I ever finished.”
—Video game programmer Jonathan Blow
Our money’s on LSD
“Everybody thought I was either crazy, or they thought it wasn’t painting...”
—Claude Tousignant on his minimal colour compositions
But can they 69?
“Suggestions on how you’d like to see them gyrate are more than welcome.”
—Rick Trembles on his genitalia-like sculptures Bijoux
GYRATING GENITALIA:
Rick Trembles
We thought God
was a vagina
“I transferred Super 8 videos of me as a child and edited it to reflect my personal religion, one that replaces God with the vagina.”
—Val Desjardins on her Edgy Women show Pur Laine
It’s never as big
as you hoped
“I even took pictures of what came out of me and I love looking at that stuff. I was disappointed in what came out—I was hoping to pass out an anaconda.”
—Comedian Gina Yashere on enemas
So Vivaldi would’ve
been the Celine Dion?
“These were young people and this was something cool. It was the new music. Going to the opera back then was probably like going to Justice now.”
—Aleks Schürmer on baroque spectacle Party Like It’s 1699
JAMES ELLROY, LIFE OF
THE PARTY
“It comes from a lot of time spent alone in the dark, thinking obsessively about this shit.”
—Author James Ellroy on writing |
quotes