I first noticed Vera Farmiga in a movie I recommend, Running Scared, but it's not because of her role. Her role is fine, as it is written, but she really shines in another loosely written role, Madolyn in The Departed. She's even watchable when her character is over-conceived, as in her turn as Irene in Down to the Bone. No matter. What I do know is this: Ms. Farmiga is extremely intriguing, technically brilliant, and full of potential. She stars in Quid Pro Quo, opening in limited release, this Friday. ¶ Speaking of Fridays, last one saw me at the Carlu for this year's National Magazine Awards. A windowless gem of a space, it really did play a starring role in my night. Credit also has to go to Daniel et Daniel who catered incredible food served by exceptional staff: beef and yorkshire, shrimp & scallop station, pasta, mini chicken burgers w/ fries. And more. In any case, it was a great night and I feel especially lucky to have shared it with some good friends. ¶ I'm not sure how many more of these posts and updates will happen on this version of Siteway. Things are heating up, work-wise, and yet I feel really close to launching the new sites. I guess I'll have to find the time. If you have suggestions for future Siteway presentations, then now's the time to get in touch. ¶ I have a David Sedaris illustration in Monday's National Post. Arts & Life cover. ¶ We made homemade pasta the other night. Yes. And it was good. More on this later.

Labels: CareerTalk, FeaturedIllustration, Freelancing, SitewayWorld, Toronto

¶ 12:01 AM

I've been going through one of those creative incubation periods. I can sometimes tell because one symptom is thinking of good blog post ideas but never seeing them to fruition. I've been inspired; I am riffing. ¶ One of the reasons why I like Martin Scorsese so much, as an artist, is because he's a personal artist. He is, if this isn't too pat, an honest filmmaker. He responds to criticism with a shoulder shrug. He does what he does well, technically, and everything else is just his spirit. You either dig that, or you don't. But his films resonate with people, emotionally, like my emotional connection to GoodFellas; to Taxi Driver; to Casino. He expresses his ideas without deception through film, and he has good ideas. He also feels the same way as I do about flying. ¶ I've been working to inject more cinema into my work of late. That's why I haven't been updating my feature illustration. As I mentioned above, I'm incubating a few competing ideas on what next to showcase on Siteway, so please stay tuned. By cinema I don't just mean my subject matter, although I do mean that, too. I also mean those elements of cinema that are so appealing: the still-grandness of it, the iconography of it, the spirit of film. In the short term I think it means I'll be depicting not just characters from film, but whole scenes. This involves more labour than pure portaiture, but it's where I'm headed, so there's no sense worrying about the degree of difficulty. ¶ I've got a bunch of work out there or coming soon. I've done a few illustrations lately for Canadian Home Workshop, Meetings & Incentive Travel, and you can continue to see my work in L.A. CityBeat and NewAngeles. ¶ We've been making a bunch of Cypriot meatballs lately. Kief-TE-thez, similar to Greek meatballs, are a combination of beef, pork, potato, parsley, cinnamon, mint, salt & pepper.

Here's my Mom's recipe:

about half a kg. ground meat, half pork and half beef
5 good size potatoes
1-2 onions
quite a few sprigs of parsley
1 egg
salt, pepper
cinnamon, a few shakes
dried mint, 1 tsp
Here's how I prepare it (which differs slightly from my mother's version). I grate the potatoes and add them (grated potato plus their juices) into a big bowl with the meat. Then I chop up the onions into tiny bits, and add them to the bowl, along with the egg, the parsley, and the rest. Then I form them into smallish balls (not the rugby-ball shaped ones you see in Greektown) about an inch in diameter. Heat up some vegetable oil in a large skillet and cook away. It's pretty involved, the frying that is, so get ready (apron, drink) and you'll be fine.

Labels: CareerTalk, Cinema, Clear, Recipe, Vague

¶ 4:01 PM

There was a time, a time not too long ago, when, if you were a fly on the wall of my office, you'd see me animating banner ads day in and out. And if I wasn't actually animating them, I'd be in a meeting about them, or having beer with my co-workers brainstorming about them, or coming up with concepts for them. I used to enjoy many parts of this life and I'm grateful for my early days in Advertising. Not only do I count many post-university friends in the industry I worked, but I also had my fair share of mentors and insights. I might have even helped a few people along the way. With the positive, however, came some pretty weighted moments where I would feel decidedly unfulfilled, decidedly unhappy, decidedly scared. I don't romanticize this. I was scared. I would expect most people would include these feelings into the category of Necessary Evils, that is, working for a living. I grant this possibility. But I find it curious that ever since I started to take those anxieties seriously, my working life improved, in the sense that I enjoyed it more. And this is long before I left employed life. This started when I started to talk to my managers in the kind of candid professional tone that I'd been trying out since high school. It didn't work as well on teachers, for the most part. This is in part because they had too many things going on at once to ultimately care about an average and well-behaved student who seemed to be heading in a pretty good direction (me). Managers, however, who know the difficulty of creating a good team, have always appreciated it. Even if I wasn't the strongest member of said team. What am I getting at? Two things. 1. You're probably more valuable to your employer than you realise. 2. I built a new banner ad today. It's for Siteway Select. It's promoting my newest print available, of Marlon Brando in the Wild One.

Labels: Advertising, CareerTalk, Freelancing, Siteway, SitewaySelect

¶ 11:19 AM