Short Rants About Mental Health - Or Its Lack

Everytime I see my cleaning lady, at the office, Claude Gagnon's REVIVAL BLUES and the Seinfeld episode called "The Red Dot" spring to my mind. Bad porn, too. Except that she's not hot. She's just plain answering to every cliché about cleaning ladies : hispanic, a bit too rounded, aging, with nasty-looking hair.

While she empties my waste basket, she tells me about life, and fatigue, and I'm always wondering why on earth some office workers are bored at the point of maybe banging her.

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I have been looking all over the city for my copy of the New Yorker, this week. Not that much, but seriously, the great wide "magazine distribution world" is one I can't fully understand at times.

Back in the good old days, there was a Maison de la Presse Internationale just across the street from the Eaton Center, on Ste-Catherine. So during my breaks, I'd go there and shop a bit, and they always got all I needed. But the place closed & turned into a sports shoes store and now I have to go to this small and busy convenience store near the doors leading to the metro, where today they still had last week's issue in the newsstands. The guy at the cash told me they'd get their stash only tomorrow.

A few steps away was the magazine stands of the Promenade de la Cathédrale, and the current New Yorker was just there, waiting for me. If the "distributor" went there today, why didn't he go to the other goddamn place ? That is simply beyond me.

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In the New Yorker's movie notes, I learned that an adaptation of Jon Fante's ASK THE DUST was being released. Directed by Robert Towne and featuring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek. While that disturbingly sounds like sacrilege, am I really surprised ? Hollywood is getting used to butchering anything and anybody's work, to convert gold into turds, and to reasonably remake every good idea some other countries have, and in the process turn it into complete, utter shit. Can't speak for this one because I haven't seen it, but well, you get my drift.

In other cinema news, Alexandre Aja's new movie, his Hollywood debut actually, after the hard-hitting HAUTE TENSION, come out this Friday, at last : THE HILLS HAVE EYES ! A remake of Wes Craven's early hillbilly effort, it does sound very promising, according to the Fangoria team who saw an advance screening. If everything remains that way and the MPAA doesn't cut away too much meat, it promises to be a shocker for sure, and you might see me waiting in line to get in a theater near you shortly !

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I saw some confusing headlines on "Métrovision", the STM's baddest move ever, on my way to work this morning.

During the same "3 minutes newsflash", two subjects were layed out almost one after another. The first one was : "Within 25 years, the survival hopes might rise to 100 years old". Wow, good news. I guess that if you eat well, exercice and don't exagerate on crap for most of your life, that makes sense now.

The next one : "Number of obese children expected to double in the next four years".

Told you it made sense.

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Speaking of something related to the STM, my good friend Caron, who writes Eternal PMS, reminded me yesterday of one of their weirdest - but most heart-warming - policies. After 7 PM if you're on a bus and you're a lady, you can get off in between stops to get home more quickly and safely. That's good. STM wants you to feel like a woman.



But what about guys ? Aren't they going to be attacked too ?

And what about the fact that not every goddamn street has a bus passing on it ? So if you get off in between two stops but your place is still a couple of street corners away, in any given direction, what gives ?

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Une compétition pilotée par la Fondation N7W de Zurich, en Suisse, est en ce moment en train de "sonder" l'opinion publique afin de décréter, à la fin de 2006, quelles sont les sept "nouvelles" Merveilles du Monde. J'ai quelques idées architecturales derrière la tête, mais les édifices sont souvent là pour rester, et rien ne presse en ce qui concerne leur nomination.

Toutefois, je crois qu'il serait grand temps que l'on nomme des êtres humains, qui mériteraient amplement cet honneur. Mon premier vote irait indubitablement à Miss Bijoux, mais ensuite, qui sait, y aurait-il une frontière à mon admiration ? Jesus Franco Manera pourrait marcher en diagonale sur le tapis rouge avec une cigarette insérée dans chaque oreille. Jesper Dahlback arriver en Alfa Romeo avec son cousin (neveu ?) John sur le siège passager parce qu'il est trop jeune pour conduire... Rem Koolhaas surgirait du sol tel un Houdini hollandais avec à son bras Riccardo Boffil...

Vraiment, il n'y a aucune limite raisonnable à ce jeu.