[OTHER STUFF]
Romance Scams. Fear of Snakes. Denouement of Words.
The Facebook Effect. Obama's Election Night. A Trip to Detroit.
Concordia fine arts student Chuck Cameron* flips through a black leather album packed with pictures mailed to the online dating company where he works, profile shots of members who need help scanning and uploading their images to the Web. Cameron stops on a Polaroid of a middle-aged man with a dragon shirt and a twisted moustache.
“That guy is awesome. Who sends a shot of the back of their shirt? It’s slightly illegal for me to show you these,” he says about the photo album, “but I love this thing!”
Cameron’s adoration for the unauthorized collection of photographs is a testament to how much he enjoys his customer service job at a fifth floor office on Montréal’s Main, which is furnished with sleek frosted glass windows, exposed brick and enough soft drinks to hydrate a small army.
GUARDIAN OF THE GULLIBLE & LONELY HEARTED
Fear is, without a doubt, the root of all evil. Some say it is money, but money merely fights the fear of having nothing. The needy and the greedy succumb to fear. It is universal. No amount of gold or things or bling can stop fear. It will paralyze you. Fear dashes dreams. Fear kills crushes. Fear fakes the funk.
If we can minimize fear, we can approach freedom. You may have met freedom, but fear was just around the corner, telling you know you do not belong. The first time you spoke in public fear was jumping around and cheering and doing a whole fucking routine. Fear has a pretty decent set-up in your stomach, considering it has been there for years.
When I told my family and friends that I was enrolling in a journalism program, I was met with a few concerned looks. The common belief seems to be that the industry is crumbling. But that’s not exactly true. Yes, many newspapers have fallen by the wayside, but new markets continue to emerge and traditional outlets are in a process of reinvention. What better time to join an industry than during a period of transformation?
As journalism dives headfirst into the digital age, one of its fundamental mediums is unfortunately losing its appeal. No more than five years ago, every single student in Concordia’s graduate diploma program, an intensive one-year professional-training curriculum, signed up for the magazine writing elective course. This year, enrollment was so low the class was almost cut.
On October 6, 2010 Facebook held a press event at its headquarters in Palo Alto, CA where Mark Zuckerberg and his team introduced some new tools: Download Your Information, a feature that allows users to transfer their data in a .zip file, and a revamped version of Facebook Groups that allow group chats, e-mail lists and document sharing.
Zuckerberg seems to think that these things are going to address “the biggest problems with social networking” because they allow us to interact beyond an online, one-on-one basis.
I disagree. The biggest problem with social networking these days is, well, the act of social networking. Let me explain.
I am sitting on the armrest of a recliner chair in an apartment on the
Southside of Chicago with a bunch of rich kids that I do not know.
It is Tuesday night, November 4, 2008.
The main room is full of pizza boxes and animated bags of organs, muscles and bones balancing bottles of Heineken both midair and on things.
Every now and then I glance at the TV and catch a glimpse of the two perfect rows of teeth that belong to CNN’s John King, who inevitably finds himself trapped inside a magical hologram castle decorated with colorful percentages that pertain to politics.
FREEDOM FEAR FOREVAH
KEEP WRITING CONCORDIA
PROPRIETORS OF OUR PRIVACY
SHOTGUN STAIRWELL SHITSHOW
CITY OF INFAMY - 60 HOURS IN THE "D"
There was a period at the turn of the Millenium when my dad would be out almost every Friday night. He was a factory worker at the Master Lock plant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
"It's so-and-so's retirement party," he would tell my mom.
He would come home early Saturday morning or not until Saturday night. But he worked most Saturdays so that was always a valid excuse. I like to think that my dad clocked so many overtime hours because he foresaw the exodus of American manufacturing.