5월 4일 피어슨 공항에 도착했을 때 저는 여러분의 집과 편안함을 찾으러 가는 길이었지만 제 과거에 대한 시험이기도 했습니다. 어린 시절부터 낯선 사람들의 시선을 의식해왔고, 나와 닮은 사람이 아무도 없는 곳에서 태어났기 때문에 한 번도 편안함을 느껴본 적이 없었어요. 제 삶은 제가 어디에 속해 있고 누구인지에 대한 불편한 질문의 연속이었어요. 이는 제 정체성에 오점을 남겼고, 평화를 누릴 수 있는 능력을 오염시켰습니다. 한국에 갈 날이 가까워질수록 다시 … Continue reading 사로잡힌 내 영혼
Raya Sleka was with her friends at High Park when she heard something fly over her head, instinctively she ducked for cover, afraid. Her friends laughed saying “You’re in Canada now, it’s safe.” “It ended up being an air show, but I almost wanted to cry, for me it wasn’t a joke. I just came from Syria. I struggled a lot with just the idea … Continue reading Canada, land of opportunity and distant memories
An empty streetcar and a cold December night, nothing out of the ordinary except tonight, I was on my way to a drag show to experience a new world. According to a study by Michael Moncrieff, professor at Geneva University drag queens differ from transsexual persons in that they are gay individuals wearing feminine clothing with the explicit goal of performing in front of audiences. … Continue reading My night at Crews & Tangos
There was a time when wrestling ruled the world, that time may never come again but that hasn’t stopped the stories of the sport from being told and born. Wrestling is a theatre of madness, a baptism by fire that burned ferociously for decades, the intensity of its flames has cooled in popular culture over the last few years but Canadian indies haven’t stopped saying … Continue reading The squared circle of dreams
Soviet times are often demonized in the West, even a small collection of words in her favor straps in for a ride of a particularly colorful dose of anti-communism. Well regardless of which political stance you take, there is one horror any common person worth a damn could unify under and that’s war, and all the ugly beasts it unleashed. Come and See was a … Continue reading The horrors of war in Come and See (1985)
I ate the apple and fled the garden, I built civilizations and crushed them, all in one breathe. I killed mammoths with pointy spears and bathed forests with great fires. I rode horseback as knights protecting kings, took the form of roaming ronins during the Edo period, chopped heads in Nanjing for my emperor, and dropped nuclear bombs in Hiroshima in the name of freedom. … Continue reading Y
A moment of magic. That’s what I thought I’d experience. I remember, I, a child chasing the seductive ball around the endless green pitch, my first love was football, the charming European cousin to the American brute. And much like a bitter ending to a French new wave film we parted ways, she was far too good for me, I was not up to the … Continue reading Journalism and a momentary rant with no purpose from a disciple
Fred Hampton recently re-entered the public’s minds after the film Judas and the Black Messiah began rumbling with Oscar buzz, yet the story behind the man is a tale worth much more than simple award-season buzz. Growing up a young Black boy I was searching for heroes, I’ll never forget the day I stumbled upon Fred Hampton, It was a voice that made sense to … Continue reading Fred Hampton and the footsteps he left behind
Today was my first time waking into any form of an art gallery, I would often pass by them and think them too exclusive and elite for me to simply understand, never mind entering their immense presence, I felt like I’ll be a frog among princes. Yet this week I found some spare bravery and attended Art Toronto 2021. As part of my habit I … Continue reading what the hell was I doing in an art gallery today?
It’s a brisk morning today, the air is cold with a taste of melancholy, I miss something, something that is still here. Death, why do you come around so gingerly. Oh heavens, something’s staring at me, something that breathes down my neck with a stench of familiarity. I don’t need to speak your name, you’ll just keep picking at my wounds with your sharp talons, … Continue reading To You, Familiar Demon
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