I feel like any day now one of these posts will be the last one to live in this incarnation of Siteway. Fear not dear reader, I will certainly continue some kind of writing on Siteway, but the very structure of Siteway World is changing, so brace yourselves. ¶ The above George Carlin illustration came to me in a nanosecond earlier today. What it lacks in precision it gains in overall comforting composition, and for this I am grateful. Sometimes that's all a day needs: a fine little drawing, however imperfect. ¶ Speaking of imperfect drawings, I uploaded Vera Farmiga to my flickr photostream.

Labels: Drawing, FeaturedIllustration, Flickr, SitewayWorld

¶ 12:04 AM

I first noticed Vera Farmiga in a movie I recommend, Running Scared, but it's not because of her role. Her role is fine, as it is written, but she really shines in another loosely written role, Madolyn in The Departed. She's even watchable when her character is over-conceived, as in her turn as Irene in Down to the Bone. No matter. What I do know is this: Ms. Farmiga is extremely intriguing, technically brilliant, and full of potential. She stars in Quid Pro Quo, opening in limited release, this Friday. ¶ Speaking of Fridays, last one saw me at the Carlu for this year's National Magazine Awards. A windowless gem of a space, it really did play a starring role in my night. Credit also has to go to Daniel et Daniel who catered incredible food served by exceptional staff: beef and yorkshire, shrimp & scallop station, pasta, mini chicken burgers w/ fries. And more. In any case, it was a great night and I feel especially lucky to have shared it with some good friends. ¶ I'm not sure how many more of these posts and updates will happen on this version of Siteway. Things are heating up, work-wise, and yet I feel really close to launching the new sites. I guess I'll have to find the time. If you have suggestions for future Siteway presentations, then now's the time to get in touch. ¶ I have a David Sedaris illustration in Monday's National Post. Arts & Life cover. ¶ We made homemade pasta the other night. Yes. And it was good. More on this later.

Labels: CareerTalk, FeaturedIllustration, Freelancing, SitewayWorld, Toronto

¶ 12:01 AM

Steve Paikin and Allan Gotlieb. On TVO's The Agenda. These guys are slaying me. "You'd have to be a conspiracy theorist of the first order." HAHAHA. Anyone else watching this worthy show? They still make them like this: today. ¶ Speaking of excellence, this site is: Animation Backgrounds.

Labels: Fan, TV

¶ 8:09 PM

As imperfect as I wanna be. Someone's tagline. ¶ Feeling good. It strikes me: it's been ten years since I discovered Seth and Joe Matt. Oh boy.

Labels: Vague

¶ 8:38 PM

One of the ways a line-of-argument can alienate me is if it under-values the worth of conceptual thinking. Sure, you won't see conceptual thought in lots of important places: ROI, sales figures, or even the plans for the future. Deliverables are the name of the game 99% of the time. The thing, in this life, right now. Whatever that is. But from whence does the thing come from? Where does innovation come from? Where does our understanding of a problem come from? From the conceptual. Conceptual thought requires of a thinker a disengagement with the contingent, with our instantiation, and our histories. People are fond of saying that "we should bring our experiences to the table" but this kind of empiricism only works some of the time. It works well at parties, for example. It also works well in group therapy, I'm guessing, and any other community-oriented or social behaviour. But if you want to look at systems, as systems, then perhaps it's time to think conceptually. It's incumbent on the thinker to separate the necessary from the contingent. It is not incumbent that the thinker constantly cash her ideas out. You need to let some ideas ride. ¶ Had a thought last night. Why not take the main menu down from the feature area. Clean up the top of the page. Feedback welcomed.

Labels: Siteway, Vague

¶ 3:59 PM

I don't usually blog "live," if you will. You know how it goes: the important members of the blogosphere blog in real time. Of course: it's the net. Why wouldn't you? But I don't blog that way. I usually get an idea, write an e-mail to myself and then maybe, just maybe, I'll post it, or some derivation of it. Right now I'm blogging live: Tina Fey is on Letterman! Tonight! Very excited. I guess I've been too busy to check my constantly-updated blogs. ¶ Speaking of George Clooney, I'm pretty happy with how this illustration has aged. Not bad. If you don't my me saying.

Labels: Vague

¶ 11:45 PM

Happy Birthday to my decision to register a domain name, one siteway.com. She's 12-years-old today. Oh boy. ¶ Pick up the National Post this weekend: Saturday's magazine, Toronto will include four noirish illustrations including the cover.

Labels: Freelancing, NationalPost, SitewayWorld

¶ 12:35 PM

I boast the cinematic and I present Harold & Kumar. Ah, hell, I love these guys and dig the franchise. Enjoy.

Labels: FeaturedIllustration

¶ 7:15 PM

I've been going through one of those creative incubation periods. I can sometimes tell because one symptom is thinking of good blog post ideas but never seeing them to fruition. I've been inspired; I am riffing. ¶ One of the reasons why I like Martin Scorsese so much, as an artist, is because he's a personal artist. He is, if this isn't too pat, an honest filmmaker. He responds to criticism with a shoulder shrug. He does what he does well, technically, and everything else is just his spirit. You either dig that, or you don't. But his films resonate with people, emotionally, like my emotional connection to GoodFellas; to Taxi Driver; to Casino. He expresses his ideas without deception through film, and he has good ideas. He also feels the same way as I do about flying. ¶ I've been working to inject more cinema into my work of late. That's why I haven't been updating my feature illustration. As I mentioned above, I'm incubating a few competing ideas on what next to showcase on Siteway, so please stay tuned. By cinema I don't just mean my subject matter, although I do mean that, too. I also mean those elements of cinema that are so appealing: the still-grandness of it, the iconography of it, the spirit of film. In the short term I think it means I'll be depicting not just characters from film, but whole scenes. This involves more labour than pure portaiture, but it's where I'm headed, so there's no sense worrying about the degree of difficulty. ¶ I've got a bunch of work out there or coming soon. I've done a few illustrations lately for Canadian Home Workshop, Meetings & Incentive Travel, and you can continue to see my work in L.A. CityBeat and NewAngeles. ¶ We've been making a bunch of Cypriot meatballs lately. Kief-TE-thez, similar to Greek meatballs, are a combination of beef, pork, potato, parsley, cinnamon, mint, salt & pepper.

Here's my Mom's recipe:

about half a kg. ground meat, half pork and half beef
5 good size potatoes
1-2 onions
quite a few sprigs of parsley
1 egg
salt, pepper
cinnamon, a few shakes
dried mint, 1 tsp
Here's how I prepare it (which differs slightly from my mother's version). I grate the potatoes and add them (grated potato plus their juices) into a big bowl with the meat. Then I chop up the onions into tiny bits, and add them to the bowl, along with the egg, the parsley, and the rest. Then I form them into smallish balls (not the rugby-ball shaped ones you see in Greektown) about an inch in diameter. Heat up some vegetable oil in a large skillet and cook away. It's pretty involved, the frying that is, so get ready (apron, drink) and you'll be fine.

Labels: CareerTalk, Cinema, Clear, Recipe, Vague

¶ 4:01 PM

Spring: please let me explain. I never meant to cause you sorrow or pain. We love spring for the reasons that Charlton Heston still makes audiences swoon: he's charming and human. Spring is humane. ¶ I'm not sure who I've been writing to for about two years. That's a significant amount of time to go before knowing a fairly basic fact. Like a slack university student, I've shied away. I've wanted to write all along, of course, but I can't possibly care about it in the same way I do my drawings. We don't always write or draw when we should, is the thing. As artists, we should admit this. I draw far more often than your average man, but do I draw a lot? Would my drawing be of note? I've always seen my writing as an important component in my creative process. Many posts are early articulations of half-baked ideas. ¶ I walk to work on basic Toronto streets and pass common folk going about their business. There isn't a glamour to any of it. I don't mean to even compare it to glamour, which for all its negative implications, still resonates with me in a positive way. I just mean that there's a valued normalcy to our city (branding geniuses will loathe Toronto's be-all and end-all instinct). ¶ With Siteway turning 12 next month, I've come to realise a few things. One, you have to tell the people you care about about the things you care about. And two, when you're picking a domain name, always go with your gut.

Labels: Vague

¶ 1:14 AM