HELENA BONE HIM SMARTER.

Hey what's up I tricked some people I know into thinking I was fronting a style blog.

First Evan and Sara in holy matrimony...





















Then Kweku post-Milton breakfast, en route to score numbers no doubt...






















Then Tommy, who may or may not have a bald spot??





















Sorry boys and girls, he's not up for grabs but ain't he fun to look at??

Supposedly when Tommy is bored sometimes, he holds a suitcase on the French version of Deal or No Deal. I watched Deal or No Deal once with my old roommate Alliy and our downstairs neighbours Matt and Stevie when they invited us over to watch the Superbowl in 2007 and then eventually the Superbowl was over and I guess Deal or No Deal was on and I was like last time I saw that guy he had way more hair.

Style blog/vile snog!

So these are some dresses I picked out at 2 am last week on my way home from the library at a fancy store on de la Montagne that I would probably get dressed up for if I ever actually ventured inside.

Who wants red the most??





















Who wants black the least??





















I thought these would be great for Bjork and Helena Bonham Carter to fight over.

I think that maybe if they went to the same party and traded halfway through the night, that would be a really great solution.

Bjork! Bjork! Let's not break an egg over this!





















Okay, okay, you can have this one too.





















Sorry Helena Bonham Carter, I just don't think it would suit you.





















Whateva gurl, Tim Burton thinks so too.















Johnny! Hey! I didn't know you were coming! Nice moustache?

That's enough style blogging for today, check out Little Dragon if you're bored, I think they make cool music.

Gilles Peterson played a new jam of theirs on Radio1 on Thursday called Never Never that really made me feel like I wish this was my song and my band and we were jamming on a rooftop garden in Paris, you know??
















Damn she cute. [God damn you half-Japanese girls.]


The Little Dragon jam kicks in at about the 26:48 minute mark and you could skip in to find it but it's really just such a good show to hang out to, you should just go listen to the whole thing and also there is a cool song right before that one sung by this lovely voice belonging to a little lady named Melody Gardot and I am really feeling on this sugar, yup yup yup.

And it's fun how British people have a way of making things sound way more exciting, as in "HUGE CHOONS!" and "WU TANG REVAMP".

You can vamp your way into an alternate universe 36 chambers with some new Shimmy Shimmy Ya action within the first 5 minutes of the show, cool yeah!

Okay, go listen to da whole fing!

This past week I got some cool reminders of the cool thing about when my friends leave Montreal.

COOL MAIL!

My friend Sarah from Vancouver made me this postcard out of the cardboard that tights come wrapped around!

















And my friend Dina from Boston made me this card and you can't tell but it's actually not just a funny postcard sized card it is THE SIZE OF A STANDARD PIECE OF LINED PAPER WITH THREE HOLES IN IT.





















It came in a HUGE envelope.

SO exciting. Seriously, it was the coolest thing to come home to after a long night at the Concordia library at 3 am on Friday night/Saturday morning after basically machete-ing my way through the masses of trampy legs and heels and Marciano and Ed Hardy and cologne and hair products that never fail to harsh my mellow on St. Laurent between Prince Arthur and Pine.

I asked my sister if it was a cool band I'd never heard of in the picture and as far as she knew it wasn't but maybe it's Skeeter, Dorm and Spawn or a band with a cool name like that maybe.

THIS IS BONEY M, OF THAT I AM SURE!!!






















Their greatest hits are always on sale at Pharmaprix for $9.99 and every single time I have to wait too long for prescriptions I almost accidentally/on purpose buy it.

PEACE AND LIGHT. Seeya!

KAROAKE= CARRIE SMOKIED???

Hey y'all, this goes out to Ben...
















...who was in my dream last night saying how much he prefers being called Benjamin...and also because he came to Cock & Bull on a last-minute whim (I guess you don't have to explain that a whim is last minute??) and that was cool because I didn't really invite anyone yesterday because I had a lame day (until I met up with Caroliner at Café Depot and Laura made me a caramel latte and I didn't have to pay for it and also Caroliner and I had sushi for dinner!)

Three cheers to Laura and SarahfromNapanee for giving me their cheers (which plus Ben equaled three cheers!) and for making the connection that a good way to remember what my friend's name is to think "Ben...like Ben Covington!"





















Ben Covington loves the pot.

What I'm trying to say is that I didn't have enough peeps at karaoke last night to give me their votes even if I did a sour job...and I did a sour job and did not win over the strangers.

THEREFORE....please click on Cock & Bull and then pick Nicola when you follow this purple to vote for me online and tell all your friends to do so also so that I may be saved!!!

TELL YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK!!! I DON'T HANG OUT THERE LATELY!!!

Have a cool day.

LOVE,
Nicola

MONTREAL, JE T'AIME...

Around this time last year, I had just finished school and I had a garage sale with Alison and Dane at Henri-Julien and Prince Arthur and made like 80 dollars and I also went to Dairy Queen for the first time that spring which is always a big event and it was also an important weekend in history because I remember stopping in on Maryam studying on her balcony on Sunday afternoon and I was like oh what happened by your eyebrow and she said oh that's a zit and well I don't think Maryam had a zit before or since so history stops there.

One time Heidi Klum said, "I had a zit once...I think it was 1993." Now that is funny.





















I believe I bought my brother the Sport Illustrated Swimsuit calendar the year of this photoshoot.

I believe I questioned my sexuality a fair bit in the year of the 1998 Swimsuit issue...I think the year was 1998??




















Heidi, Heidi, Heidi...oooh, you wreck me (baby).

Gilles Peterson has done it again with the All Winners 2009 episode, love on that Radio1 hot shit yo.

LONG LIVE TOM PETTY!





















I fell in love with Ed Burns when Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers did the whole soundtrack to She's The One.












I thought Walls was pretty much the greatest song to be attracted to Ed Burns to.

Speaking of big hearts crushing towns, I did a social experiment last night sort of. Well I thought I'd do something small that would make me feel good and then see if anyone noticed.
















I met Katie for a drink (and grilled cheese) at Pistol and I hadn't seen her for more than three months so of course there were giggles and tears over the course of it all and I think she said something about me having a big heart and she also said "You have a sticker on your shirt." Some people think heart stickers are a waste of space and that is too bad.

I love Katie. Danielle and Mel and Chrissy were at the table next to us for Danielle's sister Andrea's birthday and her sister Kristen was there too in white jeans and she pulled it off like she was Farah Fawcett the same week as the red swimsuit pic...





















Hmmmm...this image seems to have lost its fire today [but generally I think of it fondly.]

I brought fortune cookies knowing Andrea's birthday crew would be in our midst, but anyway, I knew Howie would make my grilled cheese so I made sure he got a fortune cookie and then it was cool when he came and joined me later and said "Hey, your heart is on your sleeve!" and that was what I'd hoped someone might say and THEN the "There is a true and sincere friendship between you both" fortune was there on the table between us and you know how I love stuff like that.

You know what? I don't care if it's corny but Montreal is always looking out for me. When I got hit by a car and everything flew off course, that wasn't Montreal's fault...

Montreal, what a challenge you are! But you love me long time!

What I mean is that I've lived five winters here and I've been in the depths of despair sometimes but there is always something in this city to surprise me and pick me up when I am down, be it running into friends that fill my summers or just...stopping.
















I should probably do a "Let me count the ways..." series because I see a lot of uplifting shit when I keep my eyes open.

Sometimes there's even cool stuff on the ground!
















Seeya!

THE GIRL WITH THE MOST CAKE...

Let's go.

Today I had my last class of my undergrad! It was Montreal & Quebec Writers and the man of the hour (or rather 2.7 hours) was David McGimpsey, a professor I was glad to give my final moments of undergrad lecturedom to. (Until I do another undergrad in like 6 months probably unless I move to Paris to cuddle French babies...)
















YEEEAH. That goes out to my girl Emma Jane Cridge, for always knowing just what to write in a Valentine to her soul sister.

Do you know what this is??















It's my beloved Bayview Public School on Riverside Drive across from Mooney's Bay in Ottawa, as it appeared 50 years ago.

I first set foot in this school in 1989 and human remnants of my time there still linger in my life today. That came out wrong, like Silence of the Lambs-ish but really I just mean that had I gone to the school over the hill (Holy Cross aka Holy Crap), this quarter-life crisis I am currently in the midst of might be a whole other can of worms entirely in terms of who's who/what's what.

Kweku and Laura (Emma's way cool sister that has slumber partied me sassy lately) joined my dad and I for a leisurely drive back to Ottawa Sunday morning and after we dropped those suckers off...and Kweku's dentist dad advised me against using superglue on my acrylic teeth...something my dad (the ear/nose/throat doctor) had thought was a great idea...well we drove down Riverside Drive to see that most of Bayview had been demolished...

My brother Alex said they started it last week and then it was the holiday weekend so that was why there was still some left, the part where it says BAYVIEW in the 1959 photo actually.

Alex was super tough about Bayview, like it wasn't even worth shedding a tear over!





















[SIDENOTE: My mom makes the prettiest most delicious cakes.]

So Bayview's demise...I knew it was coming but I didn't know when. Last night when I was still in Ottawa, I thought I might bike over to say goodbye to what was left of it...

I didn't, and this morning as my dad drove me to catch the 7am bus back to Montreal, Bayview was gone. So on the day I clock out of 20 straight years of institutionalized learning...the place I clocked in breathed its final breaths.

Sigh...

And it's funny, I didn't think to mention it to my favourite bus station ticket booth fellow 6 foot WHOA Kelvin Lee this morning because my brain was broken, but it's sort of wild that I should cross his path today considering I met him at Bayview as my brother's little buddy way back when.

Aaaaand, Kelvin told me in a no way way that Darcy took the 6am bus to Montreal today, Darcy being Darcy Cooke my old roommate, he who I also met way back when at Bayview Public School.

Darcy in our old apartment in the year 2006.














Sigh...

It's kind of sad and beautiful isn't it?

Anyway. Just because I'm done classes don't mean I don't got no more essays or zammers to write so I really ought to get on that shit.

So the most important thing right now is that I give my sister Hilary the cyber-gift of the Easter eggs I made her since she couldn't take part in the decorating festival because she was in Halifax at the library I think.
















The giant robin's egg with hearts is important because I love and miss my sister. The cats are important because Hilary hates cats. And the purple egg is important because when we were decorating them Hilary called and my dad asked her what colour of egg she wanted him to make in her honour, she said "purple" and he had to tell her the sad truth, which was that the purple wasn't really working out for us...

So I made her a purple egg to the best of my ability, you know? I mean, what more could I do, right?? Come on, orange you glad?? Me too, yeah!

Oh wait! I forgot to mention that I did say goodbye to Bayview, in December. I went for a walk with my parents to the Country Grocer to get some chips for Hilary because she wanted some chips of course. And we walked through the schoolyard on my way home. And as my parents walked ahead I lingered outside the window of my junior kindergarten classroom. The window was broken in the bottom right-hand corner and I stuck my hand inside so that I could be in that space again for what I imagined was probably the last time. Then I caught up to mom and dad playing that game where you try to run fast enough that you never really break the snow-ice surface enough that you actually have to stop and retrieve your boot and take off your sock that has basically come off your foot anyway...

If you can't even try to live vicariously through my sentimentality then bless your cold cold heart. (And your still-standing kindergarten classroom??)

On that note, I felt that today was a good day to buy myself a book for pleasure and a new shade of pink nailpolish to enhance my academic endeavours.





















That pink is called Mod Squad which is pretty boring and unoriginal (as a certified teenager, I want to be anything but) but the book should be neither of those things because I find Tracey Emin to be all kinds of good things like empowering, cooler than Damien Hirst (duh), and straight-up soul sister material.

This means that I would like to talk to her and ask her lots of questions and ask her what she thinks about all my secret art dreams that I like to think of as pre-production realities rather than imaginary daydreams...

MUCH RESPEK 4 TRACY EMIN, YO!
















What about the flowers back there?? My dad got them for me, duh, because he is a righteous dude who knows how a lady ought to be treated.





















He also made sure not to leave out a sunny afternoon stroll on St. Denis with a decadent brownie (with ginger in it, what kick!) and the most supremely exciting hot chocolate ever. It vaas HOT CHILE style top-notch straight fiyah.

Did you notice that that last sentence could be part of the answer to "sounds like...BIG WILLY STYLE"?? Me neither, but more power to it.

SO BIG UP 2 MA FAM YO, LOVE YOU LONG TIME, YO YO YO.

Alex, you didn't even make me cry this time! Which isn't to say you don't squeeze too hard when you hug...which isn't to say you should stop lifting heavy objects... I think your girlfriend Victoria probably likes that about you.

My dad told me that if a child does not take notice of the wonders of nature by the time they are twelve, chances are they will never find pleasure in the changing of the seasons, which would of course be tragic.

He had some vague proof of this, and related it to how this woman let her kid in small-town Mississippi was walk to soccer practice last month and the neighbours called the cops and there was all this controversy because he was like, only 12 or something...maybe he didn't have a cell phone or he forgot to turn on his GPS switch to notify the mayor or the mid-wife who helped his mom out back in '97...

My dad talks about plants as though they have feelings, so proud of the "brave little crocuses" for making their way through the cold hard ground to greet us in spring.
















AYE-AYE, CAPTAIN.

F-YOU CON-U

I talked to my brother this morning and he said "Wow, you sound so chipper." And I told him it was because I woke up to this song on AM940.



I love this song. I talked to my sister and told her I was tidying up and she said "I know that you're kind of old when you say things like 'tidying up'." I guess I could say the same for my brother saying "chipper".

I wanted to hear Lisa Bonet singing and came across this which makes it even better.



Lisa Bonet is magic.

I read this article in Vogue the other day with her daughter Zoe Kravitz and her BFF Olivia Thilby (Ben Kingsley's crush-worthy daughter in The Wackness/Juno's BFF in Juno) and ummmm couldn't really decide if I wanted to hang out with them or if I really didn't want to hang out with them ever...

I think I was maybe just jealous that they were going shopping and I was taking a break from essaying...

That said, a fortune cookie told me recently, "You are going to have some new clothes."

Yesterday was my last official day of classes at CON-U.

I spent the night at the library and I got 4 chocolate-covered almonds from the Hall building after I told the security guards I was only going to my locker.

I told them about the almonds though when I came back to get my student ID, just so I could make sure that someone else thought it was outrageous that I only got 4 chocolate-covered almonds for 25 cents.

Tonight is Mel's fancy birthday...WINE AND CHEESE.

Does this mean I have to wear a dress??

My dad is coming to visit me today. Today it's not raining.

Also, I have for some reason been receiving Star magazine in the mail for like 2 months. I never ordered it. No one ever ordered it for me. It's cool I guess because now I don't read it at the grocery store, I can read it in secret.

HAPPY PASSSOVER.

RAIN RAIN RAIN

On this day in history, Kurt Cobain was no longer.





















Écoutecela.

Since I don't think I'd be that great at Nirvana I considered Hole for part deux of karaoke tonight(which might really upset some people??) but then remembered the last time I tried Hole, the video fucked up and eventhough it was a different karaoke spot, I should take it as a sign maybe. That said, I ran into my girl Theresa twice today and so the second time it was pretty obvious that we had to sing some Hole so we did and Kweku was pretty into it I think?? Violet took the most effort.





















I believe this photo was from Sassy magazine... I'm sure you could easily find out but I like just thinking that I know a picture well enough to tell you where it came from.

Black Hole Sun?


Such an awesome video. This jam reminds me of that same period of my young life but it was a major bummer last time I tried it at karaoke, quelle désastre... I had seen my evening going more in the way of a nice long dinner with scintillating catch-up conversation and fortune cookies maybe but you can't win 'em all so I invested in sponges for a spongless home that wasn't my own, going on to clean that kitchen top to bottom because I thought it would make me feel good about myself?? That and a single-serving microwave lasagna. YEAH RIGHT GUYS.

I am more inclined to clean when I feel awkward when I'm somewhere that isn't my apartment, which is unfortunate because my apartment is usually a disaster.

That said, I feel awkward enough in my own home that I can't wait to move out in July.

HOLY SHIT I CAN'T WAIT.

I do not want to live alone anymore.















It has become majorly lame.

Therefore! I won't travel far from the pre-menarche era of my young life in terms of ce soir's karaoke jam...I'm going with Blind Melon's No Rain.

Isn't it funny? There's been so much rain here lately!





















The contest starts at 11:30 at Cock & Bull.

COME AS YOU ARE!

Bring Supernibs??

SO I GUESS WE'RE GOING DOWN IN 2012...

Hey hey happy birthday to Melania Hadida-Trump.


















You excel in gold-digging. What are you doing Melle Mel? You at work surfin the web?? Hoping that for your birthday, I will fulfill your wish and do a special feature on all the different theories for why the world will end in 2012??

SURE!

Ask Gilles Peterson about the world ending in 2012 and his theory will probably have something to do with how last Thursday was the special Q-Tip episode, complete with interview and live shit.

Here's Q-Tip's ManWomanBoogie video, seen it??

At first I thought maybe it was sort of cool but now I think it might be sort of boring?? I like the jam though, sexy beat.


See the thing is...if you're going to do a "IT WAS JUST A DREAM!" video in this day and age, you might think to look back and consult with your girl Janet, who got the right idea. That dreams should involve off the hoook teen ragers or they're not worth dreaming, you know??



Anyway, as for 2012 and the world ending...Mel! I heard there was some Mayan theory?? Have you seen this ring-bracelet thing Ayan has been wearing lately?? It's sort of Mayan looking. It's really complicated. Like Mayan ruins... It's like a ring, maybe two and then there's this part that goes over her hand and...well anyway, I'm not the only one who has brought up a certain Janet Jackson video we love to love upon seeing Ayan's cool jewelery...

SUCH A GOOD VIDEO!!!


Mel, I got you some presents at my favourite store LE CHAINON: Coffre de Trésor on St. Laurent on my way home from yoga.

This is some other stuff I got for like 80 cents total.





















EXCITING!






















YEAH, I SAW THAT MUSICAL!

If you look closely you can see that it says "Chris Brown in the role of Christ".

What a coincidence! Chris Brown turned up 25 minutes late to court to plead not guilty!

The world is definitely ending in 2012!

Old cigarette ads are funny.






















Marigolds, daisies, mums.
A shop full of flowers.
But for them, it's one perfect rose.
He chose it. For her. To remember.
Their cigarette? Viceroy. They won't settle for less.
It's a matter of taste.

Smoking in a flower shop! I can't think of anything more tragic or less romantic!

Except I guess if you think about the world as a flowershop that is getting Jamaican showered with shit to the max. Mom's gonna find out, you know? Mother Earth?? She's onto you guys, you guys.

WATCH OUT.

I hope the world doesn't end in 2012, mostly because I have some faraway friends I have to visit first...

Tony! Toni! Toné!



And Mary-Kate and Ashley!

And...






















Siegfried and Roy??

Cultural ambassadors for aluminum foil freaks apparently. Or as Gilles Peterson might say...ALUMIN-IUM.

Big up Melle Mel on the big two five!

BIG UP RAH DIGGA.

And here you have the go-to study jams of the day and/or week. I think that Ayan and Ben will be into it.

Shout-outs to Ayan and Ben for all the hard work they've put into the choreographed dance I won't be able to see tomorrow night and here's hoping they will show it to me some other time.

So this is boring...

So here are my artworks I've been super hard at work on!

This is called Death to Rave (End of a Scare-aaaah).


















And this is Life After Death (It's Murda).

















These are from two different walks on two very different days.

Sometimes I wear the same pants and shoes for days on end, it's crazy you guys.

This is what they call "found art".
















It was a joke at first but now I think it's sort of interesting because an aquarium wants to hold onto water and an umbrella wants to repel it...

Cool work Avenue de l'Esplanade, you've really outdone yourself!

Let's close with something that greeted me in my internet mailbox a few days ago from a dear old friend...

A word from the wise on library crushes...


"i live for library crushes. i have about seven. i met one recently. just giving you a tip never meet your library crushes....it ruins everything and they never live up to the mysteriousness. b/c most of the time they are just regular or loud and annnnnnoying. i met one of my 23 library crushes. big disappointment. i always look good at the library minus exam time...then i have a single dreadlock."

MELANIA HADIDA-TRUMP 4 APPRENTICE.

Hello.

















This is a Henri Silberman print I am greeted with when I wake up in my sweet little bedroom, the bedroom I have come to believe is a make-shift rose garden in the midst of a wunderkammer that furthermore has the luxury of existing above a bakery (in my imagination, but I do pretty well by way of scented candles.)

I am very into the idea of the wunderkammer because it basically epitomizes my decor philosophy which is maybe more of an anti-philosophy...

I just heard about the wunderkammer this year in my Art and its Changing Contexts class, taught by Mark Clintberg. It has come to my attention that he had something neat going on at the National Gallery back in oh five that I never experienced but maybe you did considering there is a 42% chance you are from my Ottawa or were living there at that time...

Back to Poet's Walk, I have enjoyed it following me from apartment to apartment, and the other day I came across my very own version just around the riverbend.

Not that I have never walked along l'Esplanade by Parc Jean Mance before, but on Tuesday morning when I strolled along in the calm aftermath of the rain, I realized there was something familiar about it. It reminded me of what I see when I wake up in the morning, and occasionally in the afternoon...

















Cool.

On my way home from work tonight, my Gazelles really tasted rain for the first time.

It's okay though, I think it gives them character and maybe I love them even more now because they are less than perfect.

















Oh! And since you forgot to ask, I made it to round 2 of the karaoke contest so I'm taking suggestions for next week. THIS IS NOT A JOKE. I had a surprising fan club show up at Cock & Bull and that was really cool and fun, respek 2 dem. BLESS.

LOVE AND PEACE.

JAH BARE LEGS ONCOMING, MON.