The Forks Market, Winnipeg, Canada

The Forks Market
105 Waterfront Drive
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
1-888-942-6302
www.theforks.com/attractions/at-the-forks/the-forks-market

Have you ever been to Manitoba? As a Torontonian living in Montréal, I tend to hang around the central-eastern parts of my huge country. But when the opportunity arises, I like to cover untrodden regions of this 9,984,670 square kilometre nation and it’s not too often that I get to out west. When we Canadians talk about Western Canada (or way over there from where I’m from), we mean the province of Manitoba and its neighbours to its left — Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. Manitoba was one of the few provinces that I had not discovered until recently when I visited the southern parts of this prairie terrain. And where’s a better place to discover Winnipeg culture than The Forks, a lovely meeting place of community and commerce for the past 6,000 years?

Le Hip-Hop Café, Mile End, Montréal

​Le Hip-Hop Café
4801 avenue du Parc
Montréal, QC H2V 4E7
(514) 439-2771
www.hiphopcafe.ca

I love finding good coffee, and I also love supporting independent cafés. Good thing Montréal has both, and some of my favourite cafés can be found downtown, in the Plateau, and the Mile End. Le Hip-Hop Café is a relatively new addition to the Mile End neighbourhood and I had been meaning to drop by and check out the place since it opened in February. Mind you, the establishment situated at the corner of avenue Parc and rue Villeneuve is not just a café but more of a business with a concept — one that happens to offer good coffee and eats but operates for the purpose of promoting hip hop culture in Montréal.

Just for Laughs Comedy Festival, Montréal

Just For Laughs Comedy Festival 2014
Métro Place-des-Arts
Montréal, Québec Canada
Wednesday July 9th to Monday July 28th 2014
Box Office: 1-888-244-3155
www.hahaha.com/en

Montréal’s annual comedy festival is back and flashbracket was there too to soak up the summer laughs. Every year, we try to see one or two shows, and this year we opted for The Ethnic Show hosted by Maz Jobrani and Date Night: The Relationship Show hosted by Godfrey. But you don’t need to buy tickets to partake in this summer festival favourite — head to Montréal’s Quartier des Spectacles at Place-des-arts metro and see the free outdoor stage events, spontaneous on-the-road magic and comedy acts, and a funk-playing bank dressed up as aliens (see picture below).

Watching the live performances at Quartier des Spectacles at Place des Arts

Puces POP at POP Montréal

Puces POP at POP Montréal 2013
Église St-Michel
105 St-Viateur ouest
Montréal, Québec
www.popmontreal.com

Oh wow, POP Montréal was three weeks ago! Alas, I never got around to blogging about it until now. But I had such a great time wandering around the Mile End and partaking in various events of the indie music festival, including the very much loved arts and crafts fair, Puces POP. Hence, this is worth mentioning now though we’re already midway through October.

It was actually my first time dropping in at Puces POP which, as part of the POP Montréal festival was held in the basement of Église St-Michel, the looming landmark in the Mile End neighbourhood. A few years back I had attended the performance by the Montréal art bands The Luyas and Yamantaka // Sonic Titan, but every September I am so swamped with fall time busyness that POP Montréal comes and goes without a blip. Until this year. I had a good friend visiting me from Toronto and because she is always in the city for work, I figured it would be fun to show her around other parts of the island and indulge in some artsy-fartsy-ness, a throwback from our old days in art school.

Chihuly at Le Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal

Chihuly: Utterly Breathtaking
Exhibition at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal
1380 Sherbrooke St. W.
Montréal, Québec H3G 1J5
(514) 285-2000
www.mmfa.qc.ca

My talents in art never lay with sculpture. I am not very good at creating anything in the three dimension, and I have been much more drawn to the use of vivid colours and curved lines on traditional surfaces as canvas or paper. So the works of Dale Chihuly — he who looks like your favourite pirate neighbour — intrigue me. His medium is sculpture and his talent is beyond being just a master glass blower, producing creations far from the kinds of art works I am usually drawn to. But Chihuly’s brightly hued shapes and installations are so unique they are compelling to just about every viewer: myself, other art lovers and the general public.

Detail of Persian Ceiling from top photo

L’Affichiste: Vintage Poster Gallery, Montréal

L’Affichiste
471 rue Saint Francois Xavier (east of rue Notre-Dame ouest)
Montréal, Québec H2Y 2T1
(514) 656 3301
www.laffichiste.com

Montréal brought us various temperatures and weather activity this weekend, but it did not deter us from going out and about in the city. On Saturday, we walked around the Old Port, which I usually avoid doing during the summer weekends since the beautiful neighbourhood can be awkwardly packed with visitors during the tourist season. However, our goal was to drop by L’Affichiste, a vintage poster gallery with collections mostly derived from European and North American sources.

Though I had not heard of this gallery until recently, a friend of mine was looking for a particular type of print poster that would complement one that she bought in Paris during the spring. Her research brought us to L’Affichiste whose walls are decorated with beautiful and bright illustrations, many from France. We were focused on the posters from the Loterie Nationale that were commissioned from the French National Lottery established in 1933. These posters held by L’Affichiste are sized around 16 x 24 to 32 x 47 inches, and priced around $240 to $1,675 CDN. Many of these art works are illustrated according to the Art Deco style of the period.

Throwback Thursday: Street Spirit (Fade Out) by Radiohead

Thom Yorke of Radiohead and Atoms for Peace, and Nigel Godrich of Atoms for Peace (and Radiohead’s producer) were in the news recently when they took a stance against Spotify by criticizing the music streaming website’s economic model. The musicians pulled out all albums from Atoms for Peace, Godrich’s band Ultraísta, and Thom Yorke’s solo work from the website and sparked a conversation about the modern difficulties of musicians earning a living.

The topic is elaborated in an article for The New Yorker and one in Pitchfork, and the fact that Yorke and Godrich brought attention to this issue reminds me how much I love these artists in addition to their creative work. I discovered Radiohead as a teen and have been a big fan of their work — including non-Radiohead projects such as Yorke’s solo work and Atoms for Peace, and his collaboration with Burial and Four Tet — but Radiohead will always be my first love. And one of my favourite videos by Radiohead is Street Spirit (Fade Out) from their sophomore album, The Bends (1995). The video was directed by Brit Johnathan Glazer whose work for Radiohead includes Karma Police from 1997’s OK Computer and Rabbit in Headlights for Yorke’s work with U.N.K.L.E., as well as two videos for another favourite, Massive Attack. This video, above, is absolutely perfect for the song and was filmed in the desert outside Los Angeles in black and white. The visuals are moving, breathtaking, and beautiful, and is one of my favourite videos of all time. Click above to watch.

Korean Stationery from Brooklyn, New York

As an exclusive user of virtual calendars, contact lists, and notes, I have come back to the fold of paper-based agendas. How did this happen?

Two years ago, I went to Indigo Bookstore here in Montréal in search of a proper, physical agenda — paper ones that you can actually write with a pen. A sales associate showed me their current collection which was a measly three or four hard cover books that did not meet my size and content specifications. Since then, I have relied entirely on my Google Calendar, Google Tasks, Google Contacts, and Apple Notes. I used to have both a paper agenda and my virtual organization platforms that I would access with my laptop. But once I got a smartphone, I transitioned entirely to the virtual agenda. I thought to myself, “How on earth did I live without a smartphone?!”

Target Shopping in Toronto

Target has not arrived in Montréal — or Québec — just yet but during a quick trip to Toronto last month, I dropped by the Target location at Cloverdale Mall in west Toronto (Etobicoke).

My reasons for dropping in? Curiosity, to grab a stick of deodorant left at home, and to check out their makeup aisle. Target in the U.S. carries makeup lines like E.L.F. Cosmetics (eyes lips face), Sonia Kashuk, and Pixi, brands that you cannot get at any Canadian retailer as far as I know, though E.L.F. was carried by Zellers before all but three stores were purchased by Target to convert into Target Canada. I also wanted to see how the retailer was doing during its first few months operating in Canada as I had heard of inventory issues where aisles were already out of stock, as well as complaints that the pricing was not as cheap as usual U.S. Target retail prices.

Art + Biochemistry + Music = Immunity

What happens when microscopic crystallization is set to electronic music? A music video for Jon Hopkins’ new album, Immunity.

I have been listening to the U.K. musician for a few months now as I find his work perfect for winding down or as background instrumentals for working purposes. So I was excited to hear about his new album, which was released yesterday, and to promote the release Hopkins teamed with The Creator’s Project to showcase tracks from the album. The team includes Linden Gledhill, a former biochemist, who is now a photographer that specializes in taking magnified, abstract images of chemical reactions under the microscope.

Image is of Linden Gledhill’s work station from www.creatorsproject.vice.com

Gledhill teamed up with art director Craig Ward to create this bright and animated feature that includes snippets from all eight tracks of the album. The photographer used food dyes to show the reaction of crystal growth to Hopkin’s music vibrations. This innovative project results in beautiful, and almost hypnotic images that provides a sneak peek into the world not visible to the naked eye.

Go to The Creator’s Project for more photos and the complete story of this video.

Jon Hopkins’ new album, Immunity, is now available.

Update: I listened to Immunity in its entirety and it is soooo good! It is honestly one of the few albums that I managed to love in its entirety on the first listen. Please support this talented musician and purchase the album for low-key weekends or to play head-nodding beats while you work. Listen to Collider, track four from Immunity here.