I don’t have a crib with beautiful views

Or big muscles covered in tattoos

I don’t have extra thousands to spend

Or lots of plans for the weekend

I’m just an ordinary guy

Typing at the cafe, average sort of guy

Top of a guest list was never me

Cuz’ I don’t vibe with high society

Not a member of the coolest crew

Cuz’ I’d rather do what I want to do

I’m just an ordinary guy

Living room yoga, average sort of guy

Still haven’t learned about stocks and bonds

I’m busy listening to the same old songs

Home is the name for where I lie down

Third-hand bike is how I get around town

On the weekends, I dance with my friends

Otherwise, I bob my head alone

I’m just an ordinary guy

Long talks, long walks, average sort of guy

That’s just what I am, an ordinary man

You left behind

I’ll never forget waiting at the bus stop one morning in January. It’s 8 AM, and I’m just one boy inside the bright blanket of last night’s snowstorm. My hood’s on, my eyes are squinted, my feet are on a trampled patch of snow beside the TTC pole. My body is still, and it’s facing the top of the street. Like a dog waiting at the window, my whole being is focused on catching the first sign of the bus. For the most part, my eyes are glued to the edge of the last house on the street where the bus’s head will emerge. I try to stay concentrated, but my eyes can’t help occasionally getting lost in the landscape.

First, I scan the big and dead trees that line the street, specifically looking for snow clumps on their arms. I guess which branches will snap, which piles will fall to the street after a strong gust. Next, I watch the snow stick to passing tires, like chocolate doughnuts being rolled in sugar. Last, I lift my jacket sleeve near my eyes to look at melting flakes. Yet, something always pulls me back, something snaps my eyes back to the spot where the bus will emerge.

Five months earlier, at the start of middle school, my parents gave me permission to take the city bus alone. Don Valley was a 15-minute ride away, and they thought I was ready to go to school by myself, the next step in my maturation.

The first month went well. The novelty was exciting, and I used that energy to wake up on time, pack my bag, keep track of my bus tickets, and get to the stop on time. I loved to say, “No, thanks,” when my mom offered to drop me at the stop. I loved to go on my own way as she went on hers.

But then I started to mess up. I started hitting snooze on my alarms, leaving my lunch in the fridge, and forgetting bus tickets.

And when autumn ended, all my slip-ups compounded. In the winter, everything just took more time. Dressing at the entrance involved figuring out my eternally malfunctioning jacket zipper and locating my ever-elusive balled-up cotton gloves. Listening to music meant threading the cord under my jacket and tucking the buds beneath my toque. Being short on bus fare forced me to remove my gloves and rummage my bare, stiff, and numb hands around the plethora of pockets for a quarter. These delays caused me to miss busses and come to classes late. In December, when my mom would ask to drop me off at the stop, I asked if she could just drive me all the way to school.

But Christmas break was a refresher. And after a couple weeks of snow forts, tobogganing, roasted almonds, tangerines, and hot chocolate, I was ready to be responsible again.

On the morning of my memory, I woke up to my first alarm. I tore two student tickets from the stack on my desk and put them in my breast pocket. My bag had been packed the night before. I played Graduation from the top (Elton John sample), then set up my earphones under my jacket and new toque I’d got for Christmas. I got to the stop seven minutes early.

Waiting for the bus amidst that morning snow stays on my mind because life, at that moment, was simple and meaningful. Doing the right thing, growing up, becoming a better person was as uncomplicated as being ready for the bus. 

Since the seventh grade, I’ve waited alone for countless rides, buses, and planes. Most times, instead of snow, I find myself looking around at tired and restless faces. A new part of me understands them, as this life has only become more complicated and its meaning harder to find. But the old part of me, the bus boy, still feels happy by simply being at the right place, at the right time. And I’m glad that hasn’t melted away.

1. With a title like Women in Music Pt. 3 and a cover that features the Haim sisters dressed as servers, surrounded by phallic sausages and salamis, I expected an angry album about misogynist industry men. Wrong. 
2. Instead, Haim invest their emotional energy in romance, friendship, and regaining self-confidence. The tracks feel like unburdening exhales. 
3. Even though a lot of the tracks are built on Haim’s fears, tears, and heartbreaks, they promote a resilient brand of hopefulness. Their whole reason for letting off steam is not to guilt or justify resentment, but instead to let it go and get back to loving–catharsis. 
4. Lyrically, the group has a way of conveying vulnerability so clearly, so confidently. Lines like, “I get sad, you know I get sad/ and I can’t look past what I’m sad about,” are refreshingly direct. 
5. This unembellished approach also applies to the music. Most songs feel like they’re being hummed, drummed, and strummed by the actual girls, not computers. Paired with frequent microphone distortion, the project has an organic sound.
6. The best part of the album are the harmonies. There is just something touching and powerful about three sisters vocally supporting each other while singing about symbolically supporting each other. 
7. The best of the first four songs is “The Steps”, a stadium-country anthem that captures their unforgivingly emotional vibe. Starting at track 5, the album is in no-skips, straight-hits zone. 
8. Gasoline, my favorite track, is moody soft rock. On the verses, a peeved Danielle vents about her ex over sharp drums and a punchy guitar riff (her face at 18:33 of this video says it all). But come chorus, the tune melts into a bittersweet treat. Danielle’s voice glides into a melancholic harmony, and it all sounds like a sexy but teary eye-roll. 
9. A credit to the album’s stylistic diversity, the band ditches their instruments and goes glittery RnB (think TLC) on “3 AM”. Less serious than the other tunes, it captures the groggy, confused, squint-at-your-bright-screen feeling of getting woken up by a late-night booty call
10. It’s easy to imagine millions of drivers, tapping the steering wheel, cocking their head from side to side, and belting out the chorus “Don’t Wanna”.
11. “Another Try” sounds like tropical pop, as it borrows a reggae rhythm. The chorus sounds like something you’d hear on a cruise ship, something by the Beach Boys. Yet, the production is distinctly postmodern in all the quirky and subte gems sprinkled throughout. There’s the climbing synth bass at 0:51. The stripped-back organ and chime bridge into a head-bopping drum switch between 1:36-2:06. The restaurant chatter at 2:08. The hopeful horns at 2:30.  
12. “Leaning on You” is a heart-thawing folk tune about loving someone while feeling inadequate. In this state, most tender moments of appreciation get threatened by self-doubt: “Do I deserve this kindness?” with a mix of “Well, now that I have it, I’m worried about losing it.” The whole song puts you in your feels, but there are two specific lines that pierce into my personal soul hole. First, “Was I fearless at seventeen years old/or I was I faking it/ I was just a kid.” Second,  “And I like what we got/ but I’m scared of what it’s not…” 
13. “I’ve Been Down” has a tough, keep-ya-head-up sentimentality to it. It reminds me of how you feel after you’ve been confined to your bed, side table covered with tissues, sick as hell for a week. When you finally go outside for your first stroll, you have an extra pep in your step, a renewed appreciation for breathing through your nose, and a surging sense of resilience. 
14. “Man from the Magazine”, very Joni Mitchell, is about the burden of having to process cringy things that weird dudes say, and is what I thought most of the album was going to be like. 
15. A key piece to this album’s “replayability” is its bold and experimental production choices. Case A: the blood-curdling, Banshee shrieks behind the chorus on “All That Ever Mattered”. On brand for their organic style, sometimes screaming at the top of your lungs is the quickest way to deal with frustration.
16. Out of the bonus tracks, the last one is by far the dopest. On first listen, you might think of “summer girl” as a “temporary fling”. However, Haim means it more as “I’m the sun in your life”, and not in a romantic way, more in a comforting friend way. The first two verses are about the relationship in general, but her support is most clear in her last verse, when she directly addresses her friend. She says, “Walk beside me”. Then pauses and gives space, for her friend to catch up, for her friend to understand, for that gorgeous saxophone riff. Then she says, “Not behind me,” which is pretty much what true friendship is all about. The album’s conclusion, the final track’s outro, is like the end of a successful therapy or meditation session, as the girls seem to have found peace of mind in knowing that they’ll always have each other.

Young Saigonese women are in perpetual opposition to the sun. To them, the daystar is a patrolling tyrant, hanging over the streets, threatening to darken and damage their anatomy. Every inch of their skin is covered before a scooter trip. Zip-up hoodies blanket their upper bodies. Pants shroud their legs. Gloves conceal their hands. Helmets, hoods, masks, and sunglasses veil their faces. While men, lightly clothed and tanned, recklessly swerve and skirt through traffic, the women gaze and drive straight with an eerily rigid posture. They try to make no unnecessary movements on their way to work—the hot concrete plus their UV armor cause enough sweat. But at dusk, everything changes. The moon is a liberator, defending them against the sun’s heat and rays. Instead of getting grilled, the roads are washed with starlight and the glow of city towers. Gliding through the night, the women of Saigon have left their masks at home. Many are even without helmets, so their hair waves in the wind like a victory flag. Their bare shoulders welcome the tropical breeze and their legs are freed from long pants and instead of a solitary drive into work, these women can now enjoy the start of a night out. They sit behind their partner in a silk dress, side-saddle, one heel over the other, elegantly facing the traffic’s drift. They relax, laugh, and chat, for tomorrow they will be under the sun once more.

1. The album’s opening pair of songs bury The Weeknd’s voice in distortion. Thankfully, by track three, he sheds the electro-accessories. Then he’s fully unleashed on “Scared to Live”, a goose-bump-giving vocal performance.
2. Speaking of “Scared to Live”, I think the drum hits sound like gunshots: a devious presence behind the hopeful melody and lyrics.
3. What is this genre? Gothic-Electro RnB?
4. The After Hours roll out, the merchandise and music videos, seemed like a well thought out attempt at character building. It seemed to state that, on this album, The Weeknd would not be The Weeknd. Instead, he’d be bloody, red-suited villain: a Vegas vampire skulking under disco balls, preying on hot girls, seeking vengeance against beauty and sex, the pleasures he believes turned him evil. “Cool,” I thought, “I’m down to hear this monster’s story!” But after “Snowchild” and “Escape from LA”, which are clearly from Abel’s perspective, it became disappointingly clear that this wasn’t a conceptual album; it was a collection of singles. And his red-suited villain was like Hello Kitty— a purely visual character that belongs to no world, no story.
5. After hating on L.A. “fakeness”, he escapes to…Vegas!
6. The production on the back half of “Faith”– the confessional chorus into the siren-backed moment of sobriety–has a wonderful cinematic feel. Also, “I take half a xan and I still stay awake,” is a twisted brag about being more tortured, more tolerant to drugs, more about that rap-star life than his fellow Torontonian Drake.
7. Yes, the album is nothing more than singles playlist, but, god damn, “Blinding Lights” and “In Your Eyes” are two monster singles. And it’s no surprise that they’re backed by Max Martin, the biggest force in pop music you’ve never heard of. Seriously, the dude has co-written and/or produced 23 (!) number-one hits since 99’– and I’d bet one of these gets him to 24.
8. Some very MJ-esque sharp inhales on “In Your Eyes”
9. Is there any artist that sounds more unlike their lyrical content? I LOL at the savageness and absurdity of singing lines like, “She a coldhearted b***h with no shame/but her throat too fire” with an angelic voice.
10. It’s pretty amazing how many lyrics he’s milked out of “love is torture, but I can’t give it up” and “I am numb from all the sex and drugs.” But I guess the formula works. It provides a reality-TV type of listening pleasure. You come for the wealth and beauty spectacle. You stay because it’s comforting to assure yourself, “At least I’m not as messed up as this guy,” when he says stuff like, “I want you to OD right beside me.”

Out of all the phrases we’ve invented for fat body parts, “love handles” is the best. It’s more inventive than “beer belly.” It’s less ridiculous than “thunder thighs.” It’s kinder than “cankles.” “Love handles” doesn’t lean on alliteration or portmanteau. It has subtle depth. It tactfully summons the image of torso spilling over both sides of a waistband without saying “waist” or “hips”. “Love”, the first word, emotes compassion, as if it’s giving you the benefit of the doubt that the extra pounds came from the right places, like mama’s cooking or extra birthday cake. “Handles”, the second word, implies your hips will be touched, which doesn’t only defy our fear that no one wants to touch fat body parts, it subverts it: a plump waist makes possible a deeper, more intimate, less fleeting touch hold than a skinny waist could! Together, “love” and “handles” pokes fun at how seriously we take our flabby anatomy on a daily basis while gifting a comforting hope that, even after our bodies have bent, wrinkled, softened, and widened, there will be a pair of hands, firmly, on our side.

i captured beauty

from the road that I’ll keep

on my phone.

floral fireworks. our smiles

spread out.

two scoops of cloud

stabbed by a mountain.

a lonely church

protecting the past.

a sun-sucked, wave-licked

palisade of palms.

But I never

thought of saving

you: a traveller

naked for the world

far and free.

Yesterday, I draggled off

path, rolling down uncombed

life until I found wildflowers

being choked by weeds,

fading underground,

petals drooped like wet rags.

I searched for sunshine

filtered over a clearing.

I found a wildflower

and knelt down, admiring

the corolla swaying to the wind

colour balanced on calyx,

a proud stem.

Then I ripped it

so I could

show it to you.

1. Great albums are both easy and immersive. This is a great album. The choruses are catchy, and they’re all about lost love. Hooks on the album:

1. 1. You make my earth quake
   2. I think I’m falling in love
   3. Running out of time to make you love me
   4. My love’s gone
   5. I don’t love you anymore
   6. Are we still friends?

The simplicity in the choruses ensure Igor’s mood is always clear. Repetition on the hooks isn’t an invitation for “deeper listening”. They are handrails for passive ears. The deep stuff is between the choruses. Igor’s affair with another man who has a girlfriend unfolds in the verses. The album has more bridges than Venice. The outros are long. This project is a versatile listen.

2. Interesting narrative structure, as the story doesn’t really get started until track three. The first track, “IGOR’S THEME”, is like a character profile. The second track, “EARFQUAKE”, is like a movie preview. Then the story starts.

3. “EARFQUAKE” reminds me of “King Kunta”, as I understood it differently in the context of the album. As a single, it sounds like a cheap attempt at the charts, like a sell-out. Yet, within the tracklist, its cheesiness becomes intentional. Tyler’s voice is pitched higher, his notes are belted out too long, and many are sung off-key to mirror the wild confidence of a boy in love. Playboi Carti mumbles and bubbles, like a boy calling his friends after his first kiss. The whole song is wonderfully over the top.

4. To add to its genius, “EARFQUAKE” sounds like a love song but foreshadows Igor’s unhealthy dependence. Even thought the guys he’s singing about is making his heart break, he croons, “Don’t leave, it’s my fault/‘Cause when it all comes crashing down I’ll need you”.

5. My favourite moment on the album is 0:57-1:38 on “NEW MAGIC WAND”. Tyler humanizes the monstrous. His voice is so deep, it’s perfect for emoting darks thoughts. Frustrated love is usually swept to the end of a song (Frank Ocean breaking his guitar at the end of “Ivy”). Or, if given a whole song (like Kanye’s “Blame Game”), the heaviness decreases it “replay-ability”. But the negative cycle of loneliness, aggression, desperation, and threats is the centre piece of IGOR, and it is glorious.

6. The chords in “I THINK” feel like Kanye West’s “Stronger”. Yet, in line with the weird production touches on the album, there’s a recorder (that flute you played in elementary school) sound in the background that blossoms into the bridge, which feels like something from MJ’s Off the Wall. (When I’m not in the mood, I just skip ahead to that bridge)

7. The speeding cars in the background of “Running out of Time” are a great touch.

8. “Puppet” has three parts.

1. 1. The peak of obsession
   2. Advice or reason (in Kanye’s voice)
   3. Exhale 

9. I don’t know if there’s another hip-hop artist that could make that gorgeous psychedelic-alt-rock part at 1:20-1:35 on “Gone, Gone”.

10. Having Pharrell at the end of the album felt like a nod to N*E*R*D, which has a strong production influence on IGOR.

My first full time job was teaching English in Korea. Before I started, I dreamed of being a mentor, building relationships, and inspiring future greats—basically becoming Robin Williams from Dead Poet’s Society. I wasn’t naïve, though. I knew the job was tough, especially emotionally. I anticipated a first week filled with nerves, embarrassment, confusion, and awkwardness. One classroom emotion I didn’t expect: sadness.

It first hit me on a Thursday. I was mid-sentence, scanning the rows, when I noticed that no one was looking at me. After meekly completing my point, sadness passed through my chest. It wasn’t because they weren’t interested in subject-verb agreement, or because I wasn’t getting attention. It was because I felt left out. For the first time, I saw the massive gulf between teacher and student. I wanted nothing more than to spread reading love, a writing respect, and the ability to express themselves. They wanted nothing more than to play phone games, eat snacks, and chat in Korean–without me there.

No one’s wrong, this is just how it is. I (the teacher) hold information. They (the students) need to learn the information. My presence is never comforting. I am a constant threat to ask them a question. They think I’m always judging them. They have no idea what gets communicated to their parents. I am the reason they are tested. I am the one that grades them. All this tension creates separation.

This is how it is 99% of the time. But, there is the 1%, when we shed our roles and share a moment. Ironically, this happens when I make a mistake.

I was summarizing a novel and confused the gender of the main character. I thought Jo was a boy. Jo was a girl. By the third time I called Jo a “he”, smiles were spreading around the class. Looks were exchanged. Giggles were muffled. Eventually, Laura, a girl in the front row, cautiously raised her hand. I sensed a shift, stopped talking, and called on her. Laura apologized, letting out a short, nervous laugh, and pointed out my mistake. While she spoke, every kid in the class stared at me. They caught shame in my body language and, as if they’d seen something they shouldn’t have, they quickly turned to Laura because they felt it was wrong to look at me. Laura retreated into herself, uncomfortable with the attention and the power to bring down a teacher.

I corrected myself but the classroom had become unfamiliar. My chair felt hard, the walls seemed short, and our activity seemed absurd. For a moment there, they knew something I didn’t. I peaked into their existence. They peaked into mine. After a couple seconds, I broke the silence by asking them about the setting of the story. Joshua said “island” but enunciated the “s”. When I corrected him on the proper pronunciation, the classroom normalized, and everyone relaxed, settling back into their seats on their side of the teacher-student gulf.

Korean and Canadian malls hold the same stuff. On the first floor, they got their fashion boutiques, perfumes, colognes, make-up, and serious looking women. Above that, you’ll find Adidas and Nike selling shoes, Levi selling jeans, and Ralph Lauren selling polos. They both got elevators and escalators conveying shoppers between the brands and “international” food courts. Yet, while their parts might be the same, the experience of going to each mall is worlds apart.

Shopping at a Canadian mall is a straightforward event that neatly slots into your day. The mall, a massive rectangular building, stands as a solitary shape amidst acres of concrete rectangles with nothing on them except for white lines, which designate rectangular parking spots. Inside, rectangular stores are divided by rectangular walls and display their names on rectangular signs. After swiping your rectangular card, your items are deposited in a rectangular bag along with a rectangular receipt. If you tracked your walking route around a Canadian mall, it would look like a rectangle.

Conversely, a trip to a Korean mall is a circumlocutory adventure. Instead of rectangles, the stores are in amoeba like formations, not only existing on walls but also in the middle of each floor. As a result, hanging clothes and shoe displays and eager sales clerks are constantly ahead, behind, and on your sides. The opportunity to buy is omnipresent. Furthermore, many of the escalators are not connected, forcing the shopper to walk through more mall and expose their eyes to more potential purchases, in order to get to the next level. The Korean mall is the structural equivalent of a “click-hole”, where one click leads you to the next then to the next then to the next, and the next thing you know two hours have passed and you don’t know where you are. In Korea, a shopper’s walking route resembles tangled intestines. But “walking” implies agency: it seems as if the Korean mall, not the visitors themselves, dictate where one walks. And only when the mall has finished digesting a customer, sending them down its automated tracts, will it discharge them into the subway. After a couple of minutes, the individual will catch their reflection in the cart window and see they’ve gained two shopping bags, a hotdog on a stick, and two aching feet but lost half their day.

Reading stories is my favorite class activity. It takes minimal preparation. My voice takes a break. There’s little to explain. And, as opposed to grammar lessons, where the stronger kids dominate, the rotation of each student reading a paragraph or sentence is fair and inclusive. 

Even after three years, I internally fist bump when a class completes a reading. What can I say? I like accomplishing goals in groups. My students? They couldn’t give less of a fuck. They just want a good story. And their satisfaction levels are damn obvious.

If the story’s boring, the eyes on the weakest readers are rolling around the class. The smart kids are foxily flipping ahead, getting started on comprehension questions. Everyone’s waiting for a reason to get distracted, and in this sense, the outside world is leaking into the classroom. Every car honk, every gust of wind, every knock from next door gets a reaction. Phone fantasies and parent fears creep in from the future. Students read the same line twice in a row. There’s always that one student who never knows it’s their turn.

Even I lose focus sometimes, watching the clock slug forward or taking a cheeky peek at my phone, and scramble to find my place.

But a good story insulates its readers. It pulls shoulders over letters.  Words don’t dissolve; they echo around the student’s small skulls. No one misses a turn or has to pee. The only pauses are questions on definitions, as the student wants to see the story’s world as clearly as possible. The class offers a respectful silence to the reader because they are the ones pulling the plot along.

When a great story ends, I often find myself choked up. I swallow hard and mourn the past version of myself that could spend uninterrupted hours inside a book. Then I get my shit together and address the audience of wide eyes who feel their world has somehow changed and want this magic trick explained.