BY: AL DONATO At some point in your life, you might find yourself arms-deep in pumpkin guts, seeds falling out of your hair and resisting the urge to carve something phallic into the offending squash. The tradition of carving jack-o’-lanterns…
Expression & Culture
Why do Artists Have to be Poor and Fucked Up? A Portrait of Author Andrew Kaufman
BY: AYA TSINTZIRAS Andrew Kaufman writes in a notebook, seated at a tiny circular table in a courtyard. The tiles below him are stone, and the building above him is beige stucco. It’s a mere façade, though, standing above a…
This Band Practices Weekly But Has Never Met In Person: Second Life’s Avatar Orchestra
BY: DANIEL KORN You make your way to the concert hall and take your seat. The performance space is a grassy field in the middle of a mountainous enclosure, surrounded on all sides by a baby blue sky filled with…
Comedian Chris Turner: Your Parents Might Be Disappointed, But You’ll Get The Last Laugh
BY: PILGRIM Don’t be discouraged by the look of disappointment you’ll receive from your parents when you tell them you’ve figured out what you want to do with your life; stand-up comedy is an optimal career choice for a twenty-something.…
Country Fictions: Maybe There Was Once A Countryside
BY: JUAN ABALLE In the rural corners of the Iberian Peninsula, Juan Aballe shows a vision of the serene country road that exists within everyone’s imagination. Forever bathed in morning sunlight, conscious breath is the only pulse by which time…
Hippies, Punks, Nomads, Nudists – Rainbow Gatherings are a Festival of Freedom (PHOTOS)
PHOTOS BY: BENOIT PAILLE In the isolation of the woods gather tribes of the miscellaneous and open-minded. From gays, punks, Christians, sectarians, nudists and Krishna followers, to Nomads and conspiracy theorists, like a vivid palate of paint; they meet at…
From behind bars to behind the needle: Portraits of Mexican criminals turned tattoo artists.
BY: JONATHAN MAY Riddled with bullet holes, cocaine hangovers, and wrinkle inducing prison sentences, a past life is not always a destiny foretold. Out of the furnace and onto the black tarmac ascended eight Mexican tattoo artists who united together…
The real faces of Africa don’t look like a dejected World Vision commercial (Photos)
BY: RYAN BOLTON Some charities like to fuck with your ignorance and sympathy. Hell, that’s how some make their money. Kids in Africa. Go Google that right now. You get your stereotypical, late-night World Vision commercial notion of kids in Africa. Take…
This is what the world looks like when you’re blind
BY: JONATHAN MAY Bordered by rays of red and violet, narrow bands of visible light are constantly relaying a massive amount of information to our brains. Our entire civilization hangs upon the ability to perceive the rapid vibration of that…
The daily routine of a “Ladyboy” in Thailand (PHOTOS)
BY: SOOPAKORN SRISAKUL There is a third gender, and in Thailand it is called “Kathoey”. It loosely translates as “Ladyboy”, the main difference between transgender women being that although Ladyboys often undergo “feminizing” medical procedures such as breast implants, silicone…
Astron 6 converted their used underwear into a TIFF film
BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA Being heavily deprived of sleep while filmmaking is a lot like being drunk—everything becomes inexplicably hilarious, and you end waking up confused and naked miles away from where you started. Enter directing/acting duo Matthew Kennedy and Adam…
The CNE in slow-motion— Bright lights scar the sky after sunset
BY LILITH I’ve always thought that urban scenes had more character at night. As the sun goes down, the gap widens between shadows and light, bringing out the faces of life hidden in the hours of daylight. Now 135 years…
The battle between art and entertainment
BY: KESTREL Art is in flux these days. There seems to be equal opposing sentiments that art is either intrinsically important or a complete waste of time. When art galleries acquire highly valuable pieces with public money, people jump at…
This 18-year-old hopped trains for 5 years and caught it all on camera (Photos)
BY: ROB HOFFMAN In 2003, Mike Brodie, aged 18, left home to hop freight trains across the USA. Freight train hopping – a form of travel that is equal parts illegal and romantic – is thought of by most to be…
Arkells’ High Noon gets me just as hot as classic photos of Grace Kelly
“High Noon” is a moment of decision defining a situation’s outcome. Serving as the midday meeting time for epic showdowns in Western films of generations past, High Noon is also the title of a ’50s Western film starring Gary…
Wildlife (band) lays carnage to tired clichés
BY: ATLAS Between winning the SiriusXM Indie Award for rock artist of the year and debuting a behind-the-scenes studio documentary, Toronto five-piece Wildlife is having a big year. Frontman Dean Povinsky talks about clichéd heart metaphors, Bruce Springsteen, and what…
Living as a god among men – The beard life
BY: RYAN BOLTON There’s a lot of fur on my face. Like if a possum gave up on life and took up permanent residence on my cheeks. I have a beard. Not a small, I haven’t shaved for three weeks beard.…
How three fired guys started a craft beer revolution (Steam Whistle Brewing)
BY: TYLER FYFE In 1988, Greg Taylor was a bike courier pedalling nervously towards the house owned by his girlfriend’s boss, clad in a cheap-checkered-necktie. He had been invited as her “plus one” to The Upper Canada Brewing Company’s employee…