TAYLOR MADE

What makes someone an artist? Totally a cheesy question, right? But honestly, if you’re willing to forget the bullshit and just think about that, what is it that makes someone an artist? When have you “made it” as a painter? It’s not an easy question to answer.

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WHEN THE LEVY BREAKS

You know that whole, “Dude, what if the red I’m seeing isn’t the same red you’re seeing?” conversation you have? It’s actually a completely valid, sober thought too. If you think about it, everything you see is just what your brain decides is important out of a few flickers of light, and since everybody’s a unique and beautiful snowflake, it’s pretty likely that we’re all living in our own personal realities (some more than others).
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For years, when teenage boys needed to see racy television scenes, they did so by recording to VHS tape on a magical night when Cinemax came in clear. Then along came HBO, which quickly became the destination for boundary-pushing scenes on television. However, recently there have been a number of British, basic cable and, yes, even network shows that have given HBO a run for their money. Move over, gratuitous Entourage nudity; here are the seven raciest scenes on television, HBO excluded (grades in parentheses):

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GARBAGE DAY

Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Heart, yes I am talking about Captain Planet. Many people associate environmentalism with gloom-and-doom predictions about the planet and how we are failing it. Art can be created from many recycled materials and found objects.
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WHO WANTS A BRAIN MASSAGE?

I’m working on a new book project for an exhibition by Year Zero One in Toronto. The exhibition, medium_massage2.0: an infinite inventory, is curated by Michael Alstad and is concerned with contemporary perspectives on the ideas and creative processes illustrated in Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore’s 1967 book The Medium is the Massage.

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What do bacon covered doughnuts, green tea beer, strip clubs and farm-to-table restaurants have in common? A little place called, Portland. Much like the bran-muffin-hippy-jam society Portlandia portrays, Portland’s restaurant culture and nightlife is shockingly progressive for a society supposedly stuck in the 90s.

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RAF SIMONS #15

Should we talk about how cool embroidery is? Your grandma does it. We did it in kindergarten. It was awesome! André Azevedo fuses several artistic techniques; drawing, painting and even sewing over fabrics to build layered pieces. Azevedo’s work reflects his observations of the small gestures and actions of people and the manipulation of the human form. The many textures and layers create an illusion of frozen movement in the eyes of the viewer. In his current series titled Raf Simons #15, Azevedo works with pen, pencil, watercolor paint, and tulle on canvas to pay tribute to iconic designer Raf Simons and his 15 year legacy in the fashion industry.

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THE COSMIC GUTTER

In the late 16th century it already had a bad reputation amongst moralists for being a shithole full of beggars, tramps, drunkards and thieves. Maybe that’s why Shakespeare loved it so much. Founded centuries before Brooklyn, Shoreditch is the world’s longest reigning “it spot”.

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POST-NORDIC CONTOURS

Icelanders are a rare bunch, and with a population just over 300,000, their global profile betrays their modest numbers. Said to be the most literate people in the world, they are a nation of over-achievers, but in recent years, the little green island’s capacity for the exceptional has been smothered under a blanket of disaster.

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If spring is signaled by the arrival of the birds and bees, it might not be a stretch to say summer arrives with beaches, bikes, babes and books. There are a couple of ways to approach summer reading. While some might look to blaze away the long days with an easy page-turner, others might find that the leisurely pace accommodates more difficult reading. Whether it’s a sleazy graphic novel or labyrinthine French prose in translation or some smart non-fiction; we take a look at some of the most buzzed-about books of the year and a sneak peek at two of early fall’s most anticipated releases, because we’re all hoping for a long, hot summer.

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RAW LIKE SUSHI

Just hopped the red eye back from Tokyo town. The city is somehow more profoundly exciting than I remembered it, maybe because the typical tourist stock is missing in action. That phantom nuke paranoia still has the whole world shook, but fear not – there’s never been a better time to check out Godzilla’s old stomping grounds.

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YOU’RE TEARING ME APART

If you’ve ever seen The Room, a movie made back in 2003 yet still enjoying cult status to this day as one of the worst, or at least strangest movies ever made, you know that it’s kind of all over the place. Centered on the story of a love triangle in San Francisco, plot points are mentioned once and then dropped completely from the narrative, characters disappear mid-movie, and the apartment where much of the movie takes place is decorated with artistic spoon photography. That’s part of what makes it so strange; so nonsensical, so enjoyable. As I was trying to process the very surreal experience of having just interviewed the film’s director, writer, producer and star, Tommy Wiseau, a friend framed it for me this way: could anyone else have made The Room? And, after having just a twenty-minute conversation with him, I think it’s fair to say “no”.

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INFINITE STRESS

Zadie Smith called him an “actual genius”, with no equal among living writers. George Saunders said he was “The first among us. The most talented, most daring, most energetic and original, the funniest, the least inclined to rest on his laurels or believe all the praise.” Jonathan Franzen said he “wrote… as well as anyone who put words to paper.” His centrality to this latest generation of American letters was undeniable; his ceiling seemed to be the rarefied air of Melville or Joyce, the frontrunner to diagnose the ills of the present, and to heal or perhaps even save. However he was ill himself, once again stricken by the clinical depression that plagued him since college, the sickness that had him on medication that refused to work anymore. The sickness he once described in his fiction as “a kind of infinitely horrifying billowing black sail at the edge of perception.” And so it’s so unspeakably sad that, on a late mid-September afternoon nearly three years ago, with a nail and a belt, he would decide to hang himself from his porch. The world still mourns David Foster Wallace.

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RARELY DO HOTELS INTENTIONALLY WORK TO ASSOCIATE THEMSELVES WITH FECES AND ILLNESS, BUT AMSTERDAM’S HANS BRINKER BUDGET HOTEL IS NO ORDINARY HOTEL.

Billed as “The Worst Hotel In The World”, the Hans Brinker brand, developed for over 15 years by Dutch advertising agency KesselsKramer, is an exercise in counter-intuitive marketing. As you know, the modus operandi of most advertising is to tell lies about the product being pitched. KesselsKramer wanted to try something different with Brinker, so they created their campaigns for the hotel under a doctrine of “extreme honesty”.

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JESS BAUMUNG
A Manitoba to Toronto transplant, Jess Baumung is at the top of the photography game with a focus on music. A contributor to publications ranging from Mojo to The Globe and Mail, ION is lucky enough to finally feature Jess’ work.

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FOCUS

Friend of ION, DJ, and photographer Hana Pesut recently returned from a trip to Japan. The next few pages are a sample of her experiences in the land of the rising sun.

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THE PROVOCATEURS

What could the world possibly owe four hyper-educated, Ivy-League white males in their late 30’s? A readership, perhaps. At least that’s the case with Marco Roth, Benjamin Kunkel, Keith Gessen and Mark Greif, the founders and editors of n+1, the literary journal that’s positioning itself at the forefront of contemporary critical thought. Modeled on journals like T.S. Eliot’s Criterion, The Partisan Review, and Dissent, n+1 attempts to channel the critical fortitude of patron saints like Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling and Alfred Kazin.

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