mariko tamaki news

It’s been a bit of a busy year — which says a lot when you consider the fact that it’s February.

In the interests of contributing to even more online traffic I’ve added a TUMBLR site to my semi monthly/weekly upload routine.

You can check it out at lookmariko.tumblr.com

As a bit of trivia, the title “Look Mariko” or “Look, Mariko” is actually a bit of a my-friend-ali-ism (truly, one of many).  When we were in NYC several years ago I began randomly starting conversations with the controversial, vaguely intense and often over-dramatic, “LOOK.”

As in:

“Look, I’m not saying I’m NOT into having sushi for dinner, I’m saying I want to hear my options.”

“Look. Technically, there’s nothing wrong with a busy street.”

I like “look” as a bit of a u-turn type of conversational element.  It’s a bit bossy and implies that you are about to say something that is going to

a) put everything that was previously said into some sort of focus

b) rebut (effectively) what was previously said

c) at the very least, cut to the chase.

“Look” seems like something a very efficient and level headed person says, when surrounded by babblers.

Ali dared me to use “look” in an upcoming panel discussion I had to participate in.

And.

I did.

So, there you have it.

In other news I am currently tripless until later in April.  STAYING PUT I AM!  Kind of exciting.

xm

I read this book while on tour in Montreal with the Scandelles, sitting in my living room surrounded by said show’s various props and poles, and then on the plane and in the midst of the incredible whiteness of Saskatoon this past week.

The book is like one of many books I’ve read in the past that chronicles the complexity of an artistic scene, which means referencing a lot of names that - if you don’t know - kind of just wiz by you like gravel spraying up from a dirt road.

See: 

Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life
Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties
A Different Kind of Intimacy by Karen Findley

Beyond that, Smith’s chronicle really feels like a sort of remembering, especially the way she drifts in and out of scenes.  She’ll do a pretty extensive build up to what feels like a kind of important event and then kind of just look the other way and fall into another place and another time, which I kind of liked.

One thing I thought, as I was reading, is that IF I had been around back then, you know, all amazing and hanging out in the back room of Max’s, I don’t think I would have liked Patti Smith very much.  Even though I connected to her intense symbolism, and I think we would have been able to compare notes of all the stuff we were hoarding and why (magical objects galore), I can’t imagine having a conversation with someone that intensely into their own poetic self and process.

Not that I’m thinking Patti Smith is missing out, you understand.

I just sort of pictured her in the corner of these vibrant rooms full of the amazing queers, the Jackie Curtis’s and so on, in her little black outfits, pinning for French monuments and books I’ll never read.

Again, I’m sure that’s way cooler than what I’d be doing at Max’s (like trying to steal Jackie Curtis).

Just saying, I guess.

I’d love to hear what other people thought of this book, actually.  Which made me super sad as I finished it, and thumbed through these haunting black and white photos while my plane skittered down onto the runway and the woman next to me finished watching GOING THE DISTANCE for the second time.

While I’m not a fan of new year’s resolutions, it has recently occurred to me that I don’t read nearly enough.  The most recent indicator was when someone asked me about my literary influences and all my references were from something like 10 years ago.

Like, if you were to ask me about what’s influencing me NOW it would be less “literary greats” and more a mix of 16 and Pregnant and The West Wing.

Don’t get me wrong, I READ, okay?  But I certainly don’t read enough.

So my resolution for NOW, and for as long as I can remember to maintain it, is to read at least one book a month.  You know, obviously, more if it comes up/happens.

So this month I started with Emma Donoghue’s ROOM, which has been nominated for a zillion awards (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (for best Canadian novel). It has also been a finalist for International Author of the Year (Galaxy National Book Awards) and the Governor General’s Award.).  Actually, if you go to Emma Donoghue’s site, there’s a ton of stuff about the book, Donoghue’s research, and the list of awards noms I just copied and pasted.

I have to say, I was not thrilled by this book for the first few chapters.  I was kind of… annoyed by it.  I think my initial take on that was that I didn’t like being stuck in this little five year old boy’s styilized narrative.  After a few pages it felt like being stuck in a room with the Teletubbies and a bunch of moms and kids watching kids tv.  Although, later a friend of mine picked up the book and she noted that you’re kind of immediately immersed into it, like immediately your put right into the middle of the situation Jack and his Ma are in.  And as I kept reading it felt like a very effective approach to pulling the reader into this place, this ROOM.

I got frustrated with this kid, kind of hated this kid at times, but I was also pretty hooked by the middle of the book.

And, hey, symbolically, possibly an odd choice for the beginning of the year but ultimately a really good book I thought.

Next I have:

Just Kids by Patti Smith
Player One by Douglas Coupland
and
FAT VAMPIRE by Adam Rex.

So a bit of a mixed bag.

I’m off to Montreal to hang with the Scandelles while they’re in Montreal - come see Neon Nightz at the Centaur if you’re around.

Today, in honour of Charissa’s one and only day off (aside from Christmas) this holiday, we spent the day on the couch watching action movies.

Including (and in order of watching):

SALT
Devil
The American
Bourne Identity
The Other Guys

Lessons learned are as follows:

1) Spies/assassins make crappy life partners.
You really cannot just date people in this profession.  It’s deadly.  Even though they are well equipped to look after you, they’ve got that whole “being hunted down” thing going.  Safe, with an assassin especially, is always only safe for now.

2) As a result, spies/assassins are lonely.
Movies that focus on said loneliness are terribly boring.  All movies about loneliness are a little bit boring.  The American, though, seems to top the top of boring movies possibly because there are so many cobblestones involved.  Sorry Clooney.  But what’s the deal? Your movies are either zany or spit drying on wall slow.  Did you sign something saying that these would be your future films?  Was it an Ocean’s Eleven contract?  What?

3) M. Night Shyamalan’s movies are awesome.
Devil is probably the few of his movies that you can actually write about without giving away the cool ending.  Basically, it’s five people trapped in an elevator, one of them is the devil.  Needless to say, it is always nice to see a movie that some put thought into the beginning, middle and end and how these all make sense TOGETHER.  Needless to say (2), I will be taking the stairs for the foreseeable future.

4) Will Ferrell’s movies are the Naked Guns of today.
It is so hard to say if The Other Guys is actually funny.  I think it is, but, that said, I only really laughed out loud for two lines:

Allen Gamble: I was so drunk, I thought a tube of toothpaste was astronaut food.

Terry Hoitz: What is this?
Allen Gamble: Its my car, Its a Prius.
Terry Hoitz: I feel like we’re literally driving around in a vagina.

I had no idea Prius’ were so mocked.  There was another line about a Subaru shitting out a Prius.  I also had no idea Subarus were so cool?  It came up a couple times, the Subaru thing.  Did they sponsor the film in some way?

5) People dye their hair black when they want to go under cover.
I suppose, logistically, bleaching would take a lot longer and a complete bleach job would be hard to accomplish in the tiny crappy hotel room sinks these jobs are done in.  That said, the average girl does appear to be able to pull off a nice looking shaggy bob with just a pair of dull scissors and a dream.  Still I have to wonder, in terms of identity/feature changing abilities, does the black dye job really work?  Does it work when you’re Angelina Jolie and your lips take up half your face?  Seriously.  Even if she shaved her head people would still just have to look south of her nose to know who they were looking at.

That’s it for tonight folks.

Tomorrow I’m going to hunt down some more M. Night action.

Happy first day (now second) of 2011.

I just finished writing a meme post on my livejournal, and it occurred to me that I might want to take a little time to mention some amazing things about 2010 on my official web site of residence, if only because it’s something I’m going to try and do more often from here on in.

No time like the present, that sort of thing.

And so here, in no particular order, some things of note for 2010.

1. Documentaries RULE

2010 has really been the year of the HBO documentary for me.  To name a few: Spike Lee’s “If God is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise,” “Public Speaking” (on the subject of Fran Lebowitz directed by Martin Scorsese), “Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals,” and “Good Hair” with Chris Rock.  I thought Good Hair was kind of a mix bag: on the one hand I think it was an incredible commentary about “race” and aesthetics and industry and how all of these things combine in our personal aesthetic choices. On the other hand Rock’s take on how Black women’s hair choices affect their relationships with Black men seemed to be a little more front and centre than I thought was really deserved.  The final quote by Ice T, especially, seemed like a strange note to end things on.

Aside from HBO docs, I also fell in love with Every Little Step, which is a documentary about A Chorus Line, about Michael Bennett’s original creative process and about the casting for the 2006 remount of the show in NYC.  Just an amazingly complex and detailed and thoughtfully constructed analysis of what this show said/reflected about the life of actors/dancers.  I read a review that said that this movie essentially provides a series of interconnected answers to the question “Why do you dance?”

2. I Need to Read More

This year I probably read more books than I typically have read in past years.  I will say, though, that a fire has definitely been lit under my ass when it comes to me and reading and me needing to do more reading.

Some noteables that I did manage to read include:

Chuck Klosterman’s Eating the Dinosaur, Brecht Evans The Wrong Place, Art Spiegelman Maus, John Hodgins Master of Happy Endings, Objects of Worship by Claude Lalumière, Black Hole by Charles Burns, Wilson by Daniel Clowes, How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti.

I’m considering imposing some sort of reading mandate for next year, which may translate into either a “more TTC” rule or a “less TV” rule.

3. Theatre is Still Kind Of Fabulous

This year I spent quite a bit of time with Toronto theatre company The Scandelles. It’s proved to be a pretty amazing thing, working on and for theatre again.  Even just as a reminder of the different layers of effort that go into art, the different layers of space that exist in art worlds.  When I was in University I spent a lot of time reading Goffman and thinking about his theories of front and back stage areas and relating that to my experiences in theatre.   Not that I have any plans to read Goffman again, it’s just something I’m thinking about… again.  PS. I will be in Montreal from January 10 -17th with the Scandelles, who will be presenting their incredible show Neon Nights at the Centaur Theatre.  More info here.

4.  You know what else is fabulous?  PARIS.

This year Jillian and I were invited to Belgium and Holland in order to promote the Dutch translation of Skim (published there by Sherpa).  We figured since we were in the neighborhood, we’d take a couple extra days and visit Paris.  Of course I was pretty sure Paris would be amazing.  I don’t think I was quite prepared for how I would end up kind of LOVING Paris.  Seriously.  And it wasn’t even all the touristy stuff like the Louvre and all the other touristy sites.  It was pretty much the whole city I kind of just quietly adored.

It helped that the weather was insanely beautiful the whole time.  It also helped that Europe seemed intent on feeding me sugar. In Belgium, coffee (which is fabulously yummy) comes with two cookies, a waffle and a chocolate, automatically it comes with these things.  It took me two days in Belgium to realize why the waffles were so good.  BELGIAN WAFFLES.  Hello?

5. TWITTER

Ok so I’m on Twitter now.  I have mixed feelings about it.  I think it’s a kind of interesting and fun  to read a series of people’s random thoughts.  It’s entertaining in a super time suckage way.  It’s annoying, though, the way the media seems to spend more and more time focusing on the thoughts and tweets of people, including media celebs who are famous for nothing more than fame, as NEWS.  Depending on upcoming turns and twists of this phenomena, I might be a no-longer-tweeter.

6. Aesthetic Plateau

As a final thought, it occurred to me at my recent birthday festivities that I have definitely reached some sort of holding pattern when it comes to me and my personal aesthetic.  It may be that I have finally come to accept that I am a goth for life, or that my aesthetic will never be… glamorous.  Only, sometimes, glam.

Recently my SOY bowlathon team, the Goth Balls, won best team costume and a friend of mine, from my Rocky Horror days, commented that really and truly a costume is not a costume when it’s just a slightly amped up version of what you wore on a daily basis for 10 years.

Food for thought.

Happy holidays everyone.  Cheers to all the people who made my 2010 super awesome.

Big x and big o.

mariko

Seems like just yesterday I was dusting off my swim suit and jumping in the city pool.  Yesterday I went to ride my scooter home and I ended up one-handing it the whole way because my knuckles were FREEZING OFF.

Things are busy.  In addition to writing as much as I can humanly write (including my Xtra.ca column here) I’m currently teaching a Continuing Education Comic writing course at the University of Toronto with the amazing Willow Dawson.   Willow is a super awesome co-teacher and the class is turning out to be a great teaching tool for teachers.  It’s amazing the kind of insight you gain from telling people what to do!

I’m also teaching at St. Mildred’s-Lightbourn school in Oakville.  Today we had our first class (my first class, not theirs) and I learned:

* That a surprisingly high number of creative writing students have broken bones.

* That it is possible to fear pine needles and overcome that fear.

* That girls older than Justin Bieber, love Justin Bieber.

* That Doritos Cheeseburger chips inspire more disgust than pleasure in this set.

In other news:

I’m an AUNTIE!  My fabulous brother Fraser and his wife Becky are now the proud parents of the first of the next generation of Tamakis.  Kid will grow up in Alaska.  Will likely be tougher than any other Tamaki EVER.

I have some travel news as well but will wait until more details are available to post.

In the meantime, VOTE

in the Toronto election if you live in Toronto or otherwise HERE

CBC’s Canada Reads 2011 is seeking nominations for their next Canada Reads.  Vote for your favourites!  Increase the landscape of Can Lit appreciation.

I actually recorded a little promo nominating MY favourite but I’ll let you log on to the site and check in to find out who I voted for.

Till next time.

Bundle up folks, it’s getting CHILLEH!

x

mariko

Summer is just flying by.  Feels like just weeks ago I was all up in Pride, now fall looks like it’s around the corner (a very hot corner but around the corner nonetheless).

So far it’s been a hectic season.  My big trip was a jaunt over to Moosejaw, Saskatchewan for their Festival of Words, which was amazingly fun and involved hanging out with lots of incredibly talented people.  I did two readings with Richard Scarsbrook, whose book The Monkeyface Chronicles I’m still reading.  I also had the good fortune to hear Jack Hodgins read from his new book The Master of Happy Endings, which is reminding me of Alice Munro and Margaret Laurence.  I keep calling it a kind of less angry/intense Stone Angel, although that’s not exactly right.

Upcoming I have a bit of a break from performing.  I’m planning to teach my comics course again in the fall at U of T, this time with the incredible Willow Dawson by my side full time.  You can find more information and sign up HERE.

In print, a chapter from a book I’m working on, tentatively titled either Freshman 15 or You Set Me On Fire, can be found in the latest edition of The New Quarterly, which you can order HERE.

Recreationally, I’m doing a lot of swimming, thanks to my lovely friends with lovely pools.  Not a lot of crafting although I am hard at work hitting the skins on my new Wii Rock Band.  There are plans in the works for a HOMO Beatle show.  I’ll keep you posted.

Hope you’re keeping cool!

mariko

Well, after a RIDICULOUS start, Pride is getting into gear in Toronto.  My pride, this year, kicked into party mode with Shane MacKinnon and Kaleb Robertson’s amazing BFF cabaret, starring GLYPH, Ina unt Ina, Unicorn Spit & Angel Hair, Faye Slift, and the amazing JAT girls (amongst other cool stuff).  Lindy and I performed as BFF’s Strawberry Shortcake and Blueberry Muffin, as evidenced in the amazing photo below taken by Wig Master/Photographer RIKKI ZUCKER.

Best costumes EVER.

This Saturday, July 3rd, I will be appearing as part of Proud Toronto’s PROUD VOICES - proudly - at the James Canning Garden - just off Yonge Street - 15 Gloucester Street.  I’m on at 7 PM.

Come say hello!

This summer I will be teaching a small course as part of the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies.  I’m pretty excited about it.  The goal is to create a class where students can learn a little bit about comics but mostly have a space to work comic book proposals and - ultimately - the beginnings of a first chapter.  Guests will include the fabulous Willow Dawson, who is a frequent co-conspirator of mine, and a lovely lady overall.

Here is the blurb.

Mariko Tamaki, author of the graphic books “Skim” and “Emiko Superstar,” presents a comic writing workshop for hopeful comic/graphic novel creators.  This “Comics 101″ is a combination of theory and practice, designed to provide students with an introduction to the amazingly diverse world of comics and a space to develop their ideas.  The goal of this workshop is for students to create their own comics, moving from character and plot concepts to finished pages.  Artistic genius is not a requirement but a passion for words and images is a must. Toronto illustrator and writer Willow Dawson will make a guest appearance.

Here is the LINK.

Hey folks,

My latest installment as a “culture reporter” for Xtra is online now.

The column is kind of an interesting collage of ideas and was inspired by: recent firings at a local radio station, a play by David Tomlinson, my recent trip to Bellair spa for a consult for hair removal.

I love when a combo of things comes together into one piece.

Tonight is the anniversary party for Barbie’s Basement Jewellery.

I will be appearing as a princess.

Bit of a stretch but I’ll make it work!

m