Word and Colour

Children were quite a test of who you were: They walked around repeating things you said, echoing things said in kitchens, like mobile parrots. You couldn’t blame a seven year old kid for having an opinion on Obamacare, or graffiti, or the government funding one branch of religious schools, because, well, they were seven. Born in ’07. You had to give a seven year old credit: They were seven. Seven. No seven year old actually thought I believe graffiti is immoral like tattoos, or I think to backing one religion while saying you’re mul-ti-culti-raw is so embarrassing! No. Or maybe they did. Maybe they were those seven year olds from Guinness, the Youngest University Student, Youngest and Most Bored Person In This Seminar, I Just Want Some Juice.

Parents were these labels used by adults for anything, really, like those scenes in Hollywood movies where the victim got away by saying I’m a parent- I have a daughter at home, and a dog who doesn’t listen to me unless I growl, or the capital P Parent, plastered on resumes, Member of the Parent Action Committee, Volunteer Organizer at Parents Against Obamacare, Director of Parents Against Parrots, Parents Against Alternative Medicine, Parents Against Medicine, Parents Against Parents, Parent Bar Meeting About Nothing.

I’ll have a pint of Guinness

Coors Light for me

I’ll follow the man with the gray hair and have a Guinness

Coming right up

I think you’re just jealous of my gray foxiness

That’s it

Miss Henderson seems to be quite the fan.

Whatever guys back to the issue: All I’m saying is that, sure, I appreciate that some people can be supported by the Government, but it’s been a hundred years: They’re not exactly some fading group

This coming from a man who drinks Coors Light.

Yeah, you forgot your skirt at home or what?

I’ll have you know that it is delicious and crispy. The point I was trying to make is that how can our government benefit with immigration and everything by saying oh, look at how tolerant we are, but we really prefer the Catholics.

You mean accepting.

You know what, I’ll agree with you, just for the sake of moving on.

You guys know what I’m saying

I think you’re forgetting the French thing: They kind of need it to keep their thing going, don’t you think?

The French: I think it’d save us a hell of a lot of tax payer dollars if we just let everyone do what they want

I guess that’s a good point, but why couldn’t they do it in a public system? How can you say we’re not going to think non-catholic means not-normal when there’s a fucking cross on the front lawn? Is that tolerance?

You mean acceptance. And I think that religion is part of culture, and so taking the Catholic away from French would be like, uh, taking you away from your water.

HA

Let’s say this whole culture idea is good, that trying to create this one idea of what a normal person is in our province is like a necessary thing in order to sell the province to companies, it still assumes that the other traditions are foreign, because they’re not Catholic, or from here, although they are now from here

Someone get me a pistol and a bag of chips

Today, in class, we’ll be talking about languages: Does anyone remember about languages? Yes, Kathy?

English is a language.

Yes, it is. Does anybody know the names of some different languages?

French

Thank you, Brian, but please put up your hand next time.

They’re stupid

ahahhahahaha

oh man

you‘re stupid!

Brian: That was not a nice thing to say, please apologize to the class.

I’m so sorry

Nobody is stupid: We’re all the same, it doesn’t matter what language you speak. Does anybody know the names of any other languages?

the French are so stupid cause they took my mom’s job

whatever bry your dad drinks coolers light!

to be continued this Friday

colour by ccekios

words by L. L.

Trending now: The conclusion

Yellow. She had recognized him from the news, and so she went on, despite his boring answers about colour, this brother of the accused murderer, wondering if he had thrown out his forks.

Do you come here often?

Here?

To galleries, do you go often, I mean?

No.

Where are you from?

Why?

I’m sorry if I’m-

Vegas.

She considered taking the next step, asking the question she wanted to ask, about the cutlery, if his sister had ever made any sudden movements during their dinners together, of which there must have been hundreds, thousands of meals that you share with a sibling during the course of your life.

Thousands, probably.

What?

You just said, “thousands,”

Oh, no, you misheard me.

She had again messed up her words, she thought, wanting to ask if she’d ever stabbed him with a fork, or at least used the prongs to fling a pea, but she was insecure about her ability to convince people of things, or draw people closer to her, through the things that she said. She wasn’t as bad as she thought she was, as is always the case with too many mirrors in a house, but she considered that, well, maybe nobody is perfect, aside from Obama, and Sir. John A, but, the point was that everyone made mistakes, it made you human, right, but why did I think I needed to be perfect to start out with?

The news.

What?

“The news.” You just said the news.

No, I said, blue. I like how she used blue, for the necklace.

You aren’t too good at this whole keeping discrete thing, you know.

What?

You heard about my sister.

Did she ever fling a pea at you?

You know, taking news about someone as representative of who they are is the same as believing a stranger who writes the story of your family from your front lawn.*

colour by Indie184

words by L. L.

see the first scene here

Fuck the Millenials

Kids. Millenials. Fuck the Millenials and their electronic orgasms. Things were better before, when you were judged by how well you could act on the phone, instead of on Facebook: It was more natural. Fuck the Millenials and their tattoos and selfies and their waiting on Instagrammed asses for Baby Boomers to retire, itching to snap out to work, like snakes in jars. I remember a time when people really interacted in public, and sat alone on trains reading newpapers, instead of reading on their phones. Fuck the Millenials and their mortgage free apartments, filled with cats instead of kids, producing kittens. I remember a time when a good wife raised children and cooked and cleaned and a man, if a good man, worked, didn’t gamble too much, and didn’t cheat too much. Fuck the Millenials and their questioning capitalism. I remember a time when we knew that the world was about to end, because of communism, because of evil Russians- just look at the villains in film. Fuck the Millenials and their questioning colonialism. I remember a time when the world was perfect, when countries were white or black, rich or poor, and you could draw a line in the fucking sand: Civilized on the Northside, Barbaric on the bottom. Fuck the Millenials who question us.

This piece of satire shared the art of Frau Isa and the fiction of L. L. As a piece of satire, it was intended to criticize the desire to romanticize the past, and to demonstrate how human beings become frustrated when they feel that they do not understand something. We believe that the generational divide is the classic example of this frustration and romanticization, where the old criticize the young for acting differently: Frustration is taken out against new trends that they do not understand, as they romanticize how things used to be, believing that the way they acted at that younger age had different motives. These older individuals, or, ‘haters,’ as say the Millenials, deserve credit because they are acting out of a place of frustration, as human beings do, and are not inventing the tendency to romanticize the past. We used satire as a tool to bring light to these extreme criticisms of the Millenial generation- typically those born after 1980. We believe that, by examining the roots of why we hate, it will help us to provide help and move forward, together, instead of picking fights against individuals. We need to give people more credit, regardless of age- Baby Boomers and Millenials included.

The Death of Chivalry

I remember the earth. I remember when oceans were blue, and you could buy a woman dinner without having to split the bill. I remember before water ran black, when you could roam the streets at night, gazing at stars. I remember the end of the world. You’ve been told it collapsed with the nuclear reactor, those companies, that kitten, but I remember that it died with chivalry. I remember objectively, and I understood the fall completely: What was the point of living if it wasn’t to protect something? The earth had protected us with oxygen, gravity, and water for thousands of years, just as we had protected our women, keeping them safe like delicate flowers. We understood that women were strong, and deserved our respect, these tough, delicate flow- hold on that’s contradictory let me try again: In a time of text messages and technology, we had strayed so far from what was natural: The wind and water the earth had given us; lessons our ancestors had shared with us, those morals that told us what was true, untainted, passed down by our fathers to us from a time when things made sense: A man did what a man did, came home to dinner, kept real problems to himself and the bartender, or shot himself in the face: Things were working: Women acted like women, and everything worked perfectly, in the past: “Dating” a woman meant what it really should: To protect and provide for them, these strong, delicate flowers, being delicate but really strong and intellige- Sorry okay confusing I know last try: Things made sense. People today: walking into newspaper stands because of texting, finding ‘love’ in the club: They’ve lost touch with purity, as our oceans did. I’m not sure how much to blame each person- the system is a big thing that trains everyone to act, sure- but we were the only generation who acted free of the system, with independent ideas. Everything was better when lines didn’t overlap, and you didn’t need to understand how it worked: Your wife looked up to you, and you didn’t ask why. You could knock some sense into a kid, because they needed discipline. You were there to protect your woman from the evils of the world, because they needed protection. Sometimes, for example, you bought her dinner. Ask me if she ever paid for dinner. The answer is no: Men were strong, rational protectors, and so we didn’t need someone to pay for us. The world was together, controlled and pure. You really got to know someone in dinner dates, where you paid, and brought the prepared version of yourself, saying things you had seen on TV or that people had told you, your father, mother, teachers, friends, things that you didn’t understand but it didn’t matter. You avoided awkward conversations on who you were, and how you felt, because the point of talking to people was to make them feel comfortable. You saved those times for when you were really intoxicated. And now- look at what we’ve done. I remember the earth. I remember a time before we tried to convince people that women were our equals- I mean how do you protect someone who is your equal- how do you show power, and buy them dinner? I remember a time before the death of chivalry, when we lived on planet motherfucking earth.*

words by Liam Lachance

This is satirical.

colour by Diego Panuela

Leaves & Branches

Flywheel, clutch disk, crankshaft. Breaking it down to understand why it worked the way that it did. No, not how. Fan belt, rocker arm, alternator. You will itemize the parts, yes, all of them, for the project, with a brief description of their function, yes, every one, and how they affect the engine when it is running- it’s the logical place for us to start the class. Wise words from Telford, AUTO 1102A. Breaking down a family photograph to figure how odd shapes fit. Black palms smudged a hand-drawn draft of the 2010 Camry 2.4 litre, fingerprints smearing a tin hood, near a dent from the past winter. Bent, imperfect. Her mother out for the weekend, the garage cold, a window might have been left open, or the furnace had stopped working, but she wasn’t sure, and who was to blame her.

Her friend left when the heavy work was finished. Alone, with cylinder separated, she considered how their tastes were so different, seeing that their brains were formed under similar variables, having grown up in the same neighbourhood- over two fences- with similar families- alcohol holidays, massive debt- leaned on the same desks- MPS, NGDHS, The Gonq- and dated the same guys- straight white drunks. Twice, they dated brothers.

She liked Buzzfeed, her friend: Reddit. Maybe that was it. Her friend liked Vine, her: Youtube. Her: Gmail, Dropbox, Wikipedia. Friend: Yahoo, iCloud, Google. Mac? PC. Samsung? iPhone. Identical wiring soaking up different images and words to influence different tastes. She dropped the box wrench. She played out the thesis, considering how it explained her friends’ preference for pubs (from watching Arcade Fire and Chvrches videos) while she preferred the club (Drizzy VEVO).

Separating fan belt from crankshaft pulley, she compiled a list of things she had learned from the internet in 2013:

1. Haters own keyboards

2. Miley Cyrus invented grinding

3. People are happy on Facebook

4. All Americans own pistols

5. All gay people are white

6. All black people can dance

7. All hipsters rock beards

8. “Québecois” means “Franco-Québecois”

9. “Anglo-Québecois” means “quiet”

10. Traveling makes you intelligent

11. Lizard people are a legitimate concern

12. Over 6,000 Québecois-white-tailed-deer were hit last year

She put aside the blueprint and tore out a new page

Things Learned Independent of The Gonq Buzzfeed Wikipedia Facebook Youtube Friends & Parents

words by Liam Lachance

colour by Naran Jalidad

DESTROY PARC LA FONTAINE

take away the tourists, the hipsters, the families

take away the seniors

take away the guitars, the bongos, the singers, the accordions

take away the homeless

take away the flowers, and lock up the mowers

take away the blind, whose vision of the place was illuminated by the smells of spilt Cheval Blanc, cigarette and charcoal barbeque

take away the water- drain it away- and plug up the fountain with cement

take away the first dates, the talkers, the shy, the too-cool-to-drink-non-organic-juice kids, the sex workers, the second, third marriages

take away the coffee cups and styrofoam boxes, wine bottles and green tops of Kiosque Mont Royal strawberries

take away the drugs

take away the music

take away the lights: Gut electricity from dépanneur fridges

take away the curd from La Banquise

you can’t take away how the light of fireworks fell through trees: How the branches split apart the light to produce nets of shadow, bending phosphorous light to tattoo blue faces black. When we met under the leaves.*

e-mail me baby

They wouldn’t have found each other on a PlentyofFish search.

IsabelleXoxx: looking for fun
Franco-Québecois
22
Likes: movies that start with credits, lobster
Interesting Story: virginity lost on picnic table
Interests: recommending healthy food via Facebook, diving, watching people in cafés

MarcusForLife: LIFE IS A ROLLERCOASTER OF EMOTION 😉
Anglo-Albertan
28
Likes: bloopers at the end of a solid flic, lizards
Interesting Story: lost v-card in Diddy’s limo #SWAG (!)
Interests: kegstands, Micky Ds, BURNINGMAN ’08-’11

No, without a mutual dentist, they wouldn’t have met, let alone shared some seriously awkward first date dialogue: To Isabelle’s story on training her husky to defecate without a raised leg, our sly Marcus responded with yeah? Only touched one, really, at dinner.

Oh?

Oh, ha, no: It was on vacation.

Oh.

As though being on vacation cancelled the fact that you had eaten a dog. Committed murder- but it was on vacation! In any case it wasn’t the stuff of those Hollywood movies between attractive white kids, but maybe that was the point: The desire to know how you could live like that, eat dog, kept them talking. Part personality-colonialism, sure- how cute, you’re so abnormal– but it worked, and they snapped together like puzzle pieces that need different shapes to fit. Pieces that wouldn’t have snapped online because they would have ticked boxes to search for themselves. For dog-eaters. People-watchers.*

artwork by Jaci Banton

colour by Elian & Seth

words by L. L.

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A switch flicks, darkness brings silence, a glass smashes, a seven year old enters the kitchen, to the argument.

Dad?

Go back to your room, everything’s okay

Can I have a drink?

Just hold your horses, there’s broken glass

Can I have a drink?

Listen to your father, and go back to your room, please,

If I go back to my room, can I have a drink?

We’ll come see you soon. Jenn, I’m saying there’s no question that the system as it stands now in Ontario has been extremely effective in giving preference to young Catholic people and allowing opportunities to have a strong education.

You’re quoting him again.

I’m saying that our government has done everything in its power to strengthen the system that exists – and that means having a strong Catholic education system.

Really- her now? And what would you say, if, say, they cut funding to Catholics, and chose Hindus instead?

I really believe that the system as it exists should be strengthened, with an aim to cooperation, multiculturalism, and tolerance

I guess, well, what politician is going to engage the majority of their support base, and the christian lobby? Who wants to lose their job over that.

Politics aside, Catholic schools teach our kids values, to go and do things, not just to sit around and talk about it, or repeat things they’d heard

WOW so everyone who isn’t Catholic just talks about the weather?

Values, I’m saying, of helping others, to be selfless, to be human- things you couldn’t learn on your own

You have no faith in people- is that ironic?

Jenn, I’m saying, how would you think to pack up your things, save your money, and go teach black people in their country how to be civilized? Education, that’s how-

Oh you’re just quoting the commercial now. I never understood all the clips of people in other countries: how was their suffering related to your white school board attempt to win over some parents-

Our kids went to save them, Jenn: Don’t act as though it wasn’t worth anything

mom mom I think everybody should just drink juice, can I have some