The end is nigh

Original article and photo

Iggy has once again rendered me speechless.

This in itself deserves a vote or two.

What? Me? Pretentious? stfu.

Princess Di just called, and she wants her look back.

I know good pretension when I see it, it's a gift really. Okay, maybe it's not a gift, it's probably more like how a natural liar can spot another liar. (NB: I am an excellent liar-spotter.) Truth be told I am a pretentious bastard, and I come from a long line of them, (not bastards, but we do have a good amount of those in the family tree. And that's another post). Although this is old news, I recently found out that my stodgy old academic institution is #18 on the list of most pretentious universities in the world. Take my word for it, north of the 49th you'd be hard pressed to find a larger bunch of self-absorded, arrogant, asses bandied together in the name of academia.

Now that you know my credentials (and I'm in a giving mood now, sparing you tales from the private school I attended) it is undeniable that I.know.pretension.

Couple this with the other obvious cause for "otherness" (being the browness) and you have a recipe for the most stuck up minority that Toronto has to offer. I was reading this morning's paper when I -- with great glee -- found this article. Not only does it mention an up and coming indie group that features a Sri Lankan, but it addresses the issue of Toronto's white, and very often pretentious, music scene. I would seriously love to see it diversify, I am a music snob, but what is good music if it's not available to the masses? Accessibility is the key, if that means selling your single and having it appear in a car commercial, then so be it.

I like to play a little game called "spot the brown" when I go to concerts, (and other large public spaces). It's always interesting to take a look around and realise that you're the only ethnic minority in a room full of white faces and a smattering of black ones. This doesn't bother me, neither does it bother me that I'm practically the only brown person in the majority of my classes, or that I was the only Sri Lankan in high school (which is crazy when you think of how multicultural our fair city is.)

What does bother me is when people can't see past the otherness. Yes. I'm brown. I listen to indie music. Get over it. If anything, I find myself having to justify my musical tastes not to those who share it (aka white people) but with my other minority friends, brown or otherwise.

I have never felt like this, wanting to be white I mean. (Ya I know, that girl's Indian, and I hate the Indian comparison too, but wth, it serves its purpose for the moment.) One drawback of often being the only brown one in the room, is the awkwardness that it leads to later. For example, people are more likely to remember the "exotic" one with the "beautiful" sanskrit name more than the aforementioned exotic-sanskrit-name-bearer would ever remember the blonde in the corner.

Being an other makes people remember you. This isn't a phenomenon that's limited to me. Thathi works for a fairly large bank, most of his colleagues are white, he's got the same problem. Aiya's a chef, and not a dishwasher, there are no classically trained French chefs in this city who are Sri Lankan. Ammi? She's probably got it worse than any of us, she's in advertising, everyone is old, white and male.

There have been many an occassion when one or another of us has been out in the general public and some random person pops out of nowhere and asks us if we remember them from such and such a place. Fortunately we're all really good liars, we all fake it as if we remember. But really? We so don't.

And that?

That's the closest I've ever become to wishing I was white, so there would be an equal social playing field. Those white folks just always seem to have the upper hand.

And if a shark came up and tried to bite you...

For some reason, I can't get this jingle out of my head. And aiya keeps singing the song and repeating "oh Iiiiii invite you." Don't you think that the lifeguard kinda looks a bit like Summer from Baywatch? It's the hair, I'm telling you.

In other news, I've been up since 3am doing podcasts for work. You best believe that when they're posted I will be making you fill your respective music devices with the dulcet tones of my voice.

Oh I hardly knew ya...

Where the hell did September go? I've been told that we're halfway through October already. Seriously. As the kids would say these days, double you-tee-etch?! So what's been going down yo?

Well. For starters, concerts, and lots of them even by my standards. The Weakerthans, Metric, Buck 65, Holy F*ck, controller.controller, You Say Party, We Say Die! the end of this month brings a little k-os my way and next month perhaps some OK Go and the French Kicks.

TIFF. Managed through divine intervention to catch 2 flicks, Vanaja (which was in my opinion waay too good to have been a MA thesis) and Black Book, both were amazing and I'd recomend them to anyone. Was fortunate enough to have the directors at both screenings, something that's usually a luxury for the gala screeners. But my word. Do people ever ask incredibly stupid questions? One would wonder how they managed to gather up enough brain cells to snag tickets. Despite that however, it is awesome to go into a movie that isn't necessarily hyped to the status of Babel, and create your own opinions unhampered by the mainstream press. Methinks that's the way movie watching really should be. Also, Carice van Houten was all kinds of amazing.

Mac rant. I hate the new itunes. It's like a slug. Also, I'm glad I bought a silicone cover for my keyboard back in the summer, I knew it would come in handy, and did it ever. Who knew cleaning up Vanilla Coke could be so easy?

How awesome is Belinda Stronach? She's like the Paris Hilton of Canadian politics. But Tie Domi? Really? Belinda you could have done so much better than that.

Oh ya, and I survived a pummeling at the hands of my midterms. Who knows, maybe updates will become more frequent? Nah, why kid like that.