Nude art and lollypops

I was slightly saddened but not surprised last night at the nude art auction to see how much art was going for. We have to remember that half the money was going to the artist and the other half was going to TRADE magazine to keep it alive. There were so many great pieices, peices that if I was staying in the country I would have thought more about bidding for, but then remembered I am on a tight budget . . . but if I was staying in the country I wouldn't be paying tution . . .(dream art world). Most of the pieces went between 25 and 45 dollars- which I feel is not very much for what they were. People were walking away with gorgous photos that I, the cheep skate would pay up to 50 for . . . I really felt that they should be going for more . . . but you get a room filled with broke queers and what do you expect. Throught this art exhibit these three pieces in the lollypop series(yes that what it was called) by GB Jones came out and suddenly their were people who were not their for the nude art auction, they were not there to support TRADE they were they specificly for the art. Or more specificlly they were there for the name. The first two peices were fought over but stopped around the 50 dollar mark, but you could feel the tension, the excitement, which had been missing in the beautiful work surrounding the word "Lollypop" writen on a canvis. But when the finall peices, a painting of a pink and white lollypop came up . . . the last peice of the night, testosterone rose and suddenly 50, 55, do I hear 60, 65, 70 do I hear 80, 85, 90 . . . and this fighting continued until the guy next to me in a strong proud voice takes a final plung at the lollypop for a total of 170 dollars. could he afford it, the look on his boyfriends face said no . . .so why did he do it, well it was part pride . .. I could tell after 150 he didn't really want to bid anymore but felt a need to continue out of shere pride. the other part is that he wanted to own something by this artist, not this piece specificly but a peice by her. he didn't bid on the first one since he was holding the art, he didn't bid on the second one since his boyfriend was bidding and so when his last chance came it took it whole heartedly. He wanted to say that he had a piece by the artist GBjones, not any of her Tom Finland style sexy drawings but a pink lollypop.

this guy at work let me a Harpers mag . . . here are a few great quotes from it:
-a british researcher studying breast tumors found high concentration of preservatives used in underarm deodorants and other cosmetics, and another study found evidence that frequent underarm shaving together with deodorant use could increase the risk of breast cancer.
so I figure I'm safe!
-a study conducted in sweden found that young girls with severe anorexia are much less likely to develop breast cancer later in life, and French researchers concluded that oral sex can cause mouth cancer.
so i missed out on the being a young girl with severe anorexia bit, but I am assuming you have more things to worry about then breast cancer if you are a young girl with anorexia . . . as for the mouth cancer, I will take my chances, I don't smoke so hopefully that will balance things out on that front.
-scientists found that homosexual sheep have peculiar brains. what the hell does that mean, what is a peculiar brain? is it shaped like a traingle and have rainbow colours? what the fuck?

i'm not sure what to do about this guy at work, he is a strange one, I think I blogged about him before saying that he reminded me of a character in the movie The Station Agent. He is consently surprising me with the insightful intelligent things that come out of his mouth, while at the same time boring me with his I know everything attitude and yesterday upset me to no end with a discussion we had about body types. He has a really hard line on bodies and is unable to see anything beyond the 'super size me' problem with american culture. he doenst get the body positive thing and thinks that people who are 'fat' should be made to feel discusting about there body. his reasons are health reasons but this has been manifested into beauty norms and he uses the words disgusting when talking about larger bodies. although he gets the beauty myth and understands to an extent the body fassism in the western world, it came down to him viewing other people as objects. for example he said that in terms of the pressures on women to have this 'sexy' body that is defined by thinness he seeing that as problimatic but his reasons that he gave was that skinny bodies were not sexy to him.

its a fresh breath of air to even have this discussion with a lifeguard, ok maybe not this one since he was coming from a matcho body fasist perspective. yet everyday I get into great discussions with him about vegitarianism/veganism (he is a meet eater), enviromentalism, voting, anarchism, privitisation and so on. What is cool about most of the discussions is that it is not understood that we agree with each other from the outset and some times we do and other times we don't, but usually I feel both of us bring a new perpective to the discussion then we had before.

ok the reason I am even blogging about him is that he suggested that we go out for coffee on saturday. It happened so casually and naturally that only while we were discussing where did i get heart pulputation that this might be a date. he was saying that I shoudl pick my favorite neighbourhood to go out in, then he said except church st. oh course I asked him why and he says because guys always hit on him and he is not interested. then I said that this is interesting since myself and other women are hit on my guys in all parts of the city all the time and we are not nessissarily interested either. we ended up agreeing that it was a problem of people who are not respectful of your personal space and who are extremely persistant that are the problem since you can't say you are upset that someone hits on you if you are not interested since how would they know where your interests lie until they inquire. anyways in this discussion there was a moment where he stood back and said but you are interested sometimes right . . . it seemed less that he was scared to hang out with a lesbian and more like he was checking out his chances.

uggg, lets hope the coffee stays as casual and discussion based as all our lunches and talks at works . . . .

I got a new pair of shoes, a new bag, a new pair of pants and a new blog face all within a few days of each other because my old shoes, bag, jeans and blog fell apart or broke this week. I don't really know about any of this new stuff, I'm not really that good with change sometimes and become very nestalgic. I'm not sure if the new stuff is really me . . . ugg I feel like I am walking in someone elses skin . . .

enough about that, I say this movie last night called Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, its by Charlie Kaufman, which I didn't know going into but had a strong feeling that it was him through the film. He is the guy who did Being John Malkavitch and Adaptation. Both movies that I love and this one goes on that list aswell.

Its a mondern day love story, an exploration of the human mind and a question of ethics and consent of the broken hearted. That movie reinstilled the idea that it is better to love and lose then not love at all, it also reinstile the idea that even if you have pain and the negative memories are the ones that seem inprinted in our minds that we have so many positive memories that don't seem as strong or prevelent when we are down but they are the ones to hold on to not the sad negative ones.

nudity, poverty and creativity Last night I went to this event known just as 'sauna night', it is held in this guys house in my old neighbourhood. It is a clothing optional casual gathering with a roof top padio, a sauna and places to chill. The couple who put it on have been doing this for seven years or so. They had got the house and put the sauna in with this specific idea in mind. Actually at first they said for people to come any time, but much like magpie, no one came since they wanted to be there when others were there and they didn't want to invade their space. I would say about 20 people were there who mainly all knew each other really well, it was like a large extended nude family. Although my friend who had invited me to go had explained it acurately, I really didn't know what to expect. As I took to subway from kipling to ossignton I nervousness/excitment caused the trip to take forever. When I got there I reconised this lovley couple from the poly group, it was nice to see them there, and it took the edge off realising that I will know people here and they are all really friendly positive people like my friend had told me. My friends from the poly group were sitting out and fully clothed, it wasn't until I walked in and there was this large black guy with dreads, talking on the phone nude when it sunk in what this night was all about. I warmed to it slowly, sitting on the roof top on this great swing first still wearing clothes while everyone else was either nude or only had a towel wraped around them. As I sat up there I got so comfortable talking with the people. With the guy who had made the unique swing that I was sit on. This women who was talking about getting funding from the public school board to take twenty kids for a semester, teach them enviromental issues, make films, do zines and other really cool things that would lead it self to the kids getting there credits for the semester without ever having to step into a classroom. While I was talking to her and other equal inspiring creative people I forgot completely about the lack of clothes and sat there myself in the sauna, the chilln' floor and the roof chatting extremely comfortable. Between this event and the anarchist u I have met so many lovley, creative, active toronto people who I would love to get to know better over the next few weeks and next year when I come back. When I ws leaving I walked with my friend who had invited me to sauna night, she is this lovley creative person, we use to work together at TEACH years back, and I spent time with her while in pussy palace a few years ago. It was her nude photography exhibit where I met kim! Since I have been back in Toronto I have meet up with her at various free events in the city. Last night we were talking about how being poor has actually made us feel more creative, changed the activities that we engage in and these newer activities make us feel so much better about ourselves and our interactions with people. It is like straight edge, since you can't afford to run around in noisy spaces getting drunk, instead you spend time in quiter sapces connecting with artistic people, you go for walks, have tea and do other things that contribute to you having healthier more meaningful relationships.