Since the late ‘90s, the Internet has drastically transformed the ways in which an individual can derive his or her information. There’s also been a growing shift in the way individuals conduct their personal lives and go about constructing their social, political and cultural ideals. A bulk of this activity occurs online with sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Wikipedia, online communities fueled by millions of people scuttling about the immensity of cyberspace. One of the fascinating phenomena to come out of the flourishing of the online world since the early ‘90s, is the burgeoning of blogs. Online ‘web logs’ that allow millions of individuals whose personal narrations, which were formerly considered marginal to political and social dialogue, are posted on the World Wide Web for the world to read and respond. Blogs have created an open discourse of shared knowledge and have brought about the rapid spreading and reproduction of ideas, art, and information. While it’s hard to assess the exact magnitude of the phenomenon, the number of people writing blogs, reading them, and commenting on them is estimated at tens of millions. The ‘blogosphere’ or the ‘blogepelago’ as Jodi Dean refers, is an incredible landscape for media theory and culture theory, and for exploring the ways in which a Habermassian deliberative space for free discussion and debate works within contemporary society, and how it affects the individuals and information contained within it. The content of this discussion will revolve around the way blogs work with the individuals who use them, how they have influenced journalism and activism, how they influence art, literature and ideas, and how they contend with issues of Marxism, politics and the public sphere. All whilst relating to conceptual examples of theory and criticism by theorists like Slavoj Žižek, Jürgen Habermas, and many others. The goal is to better understand the way in which Blogs, in their short but rapid emergence, are affecting the individual, information and society.

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It’s that time of year again everyone. That’s right, Jeffrey has gone about a stringent and difficult ‘combing-through’ of his life’s friends and acquaintances. How does one come up with a list of only 15 people in a life so vibrant and full of otherworldly wonder? A 12 pack of PBR, some gourmet roasted peanuts, half of a pack of charcoal filtered Belmonts , and the cold, life affirming pleasure of Jersey Shore (it numbs the senses). Not to mention the blood, sweat and tears of a man who truly appreciates the real life awesomeness he sees in his humdrum day to day. The glory of small town Southern Ontario, and the infinite potential for intrigue, intelligence and moxie, stifled and left stagnant by the ever growing menace of main stream media. So ladies and gentleman, in retaliation to People Magazine and that horse shit drivel Entertainment Weekly pumps out, prepare thine eyes and thine minds for a delightful trip down the 2011 road of beautiful people in Jeff’s Life. Fuck you, Rick Campanelli.

15. Matt McNea

Have you ever felt confident? Successful? Ever had one of those days where you feel like the cock of the walk and you want everybody’s business to be all about yours? Well, Matt here is there to tear it all away from you, smiling with pleasure as his well placed glib remark rips you from your self assured feeling of security and positivity. With the rapier wit and razor sharp ability to cut anyone down to size in any situation, Matt has raised my eyebrow on so many occasions this year. Never have I been so humbled in moments of glory by this man, and to round out the top 15 of the most intriguing, Mathew Gordon McNea wins out.  Matt excels at doing physical labour as fast as humanly possible. Never have I seen a stroke of the leaf rake sweep through a thick layer of matted leaves so swiftly, nor the sure and steady guidance of a heavily laden wheelbarrow, brimmed with the discards of an unworthy topsoil so speedily dispatched from a client’s backyard. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, Crimson Leaf Landscaping’s Head of Maintenance takes his job fucking seriously. And so, this exemplary behavior trickles downward to Matt’s underlings, like his idiot brother Alex, and that weird kid named Brock who cries at the drop of a hat and shits his pants… We’re all made of excellence, and McNea is one of the reasons why. To you good sir, I wish continued fervor in the arena of insults and self esteem lowering, and a happy new year, dick.

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Jacque Derrida

Anyone around here ever stuck their nose into the realm of Literary Theory? Y’know, the crazy place that Sigmund Freud emerges from, or Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, and Stephen Greenblatt? Even Karl Marx, damned communist… Well, I have. At first it seemed like only a place that really intelligent people with cardigans and thick rimmed glasses decided to venture, and its easy to see why, but theory is something that I think has solidified the legitimacy of my pursuance of an English degree, it kind of separates it from the fact that I want to go to teacher’s college, it’s something that really makes sense to me.

Stephen Greenblatt

Literary theory has sort of placed itself in a void created by the lack of recent philosophical and sociological endeavors of the cultural sphere. It has taken the seeming failure and stagnation of philosophy and has risen up to work to find connections between many disciplinary practices that seek to allow us to understand and contextualize ideas and thought within the cultural and literary umbrella. Its pretty interesting stuff, as it’s used as a framework to navigate and map out areas of modern art, music, literature and almost any other form of genre or media in ways that provide new and better understandings of their significance. Theory pursues the creation of a realm of critical understanding and a way of looking at text that focuses strands of philosophical argumentation together, linking and excluding ideas and thoughts, and forming a semblance of clarity on the intricacies of literature and culture.

The dissemination of literary theory on the texts and articles I have been researching has opened up a great deal of differing avenues with which to further my insights and delve deeper into more specialized subject matter that relates to the overall themes I’ve been looking into. In this comparative article, I want to take a look at an essay I found recently from an online journal of sorts, called Proof – Reading Journalism and Society. It’s called ‘New Journalism’, Subjectivity and Postmodern News and it delves into the idea of subjectivity and the ideology of objectivity in journalism, how Tom Wolfe’s brand of ‘New Journalism’ sought to work against it. I’ll compare it to Roland Barthes essay The Death of the Author, which will allow for a more tangible way of defining ‘theory’ for me.

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I decided to take a hiatus from spending so much time using electronic means of communication at the end of September. My brother scoffed at me when I deactivated Facebook, and some people thought it was a tad off to just leave it for a temporary period of time, but I picked up quite a few relevant messages along my two-week stint away. It’s because I found myself floundering in a sea of irrelevance. A distraction all too reminiscent of the bewilderment and utter chaos that can clog a budding mind from the richness and importance of real, tangible interaction with the world, things that can be easily lost in such a quagmire.

I returned to a place that had me relishing in the virtuous trappings of the real and intimate, the fresh and ephemeral, the quiet and the loud, the softs and the stubborns, the dreary and the blossom of the outdoors, and the feel of another human being beaming with joy or tearing with the sadness that catches your breath when you can hear it in their trembling voice. It’s almost sad how much I had missed instances like that, and believe it or not, I’m almost certain that it’s because I was too busy worrying about bullshit on the Internet and not the tangible beauty of my everyday.

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Brave New World elegantly and stirringly places itself as one of the most important novels written in the 20^th century, a true gem of the dystopian canon, and one of the most prophetic. There are some glaring and fundamental reasons for why this novel must be read, and taken into the context of how the majority of society in the present is carrying itself foolishly into the future, despite the symbolic warnings this book posits to those who read it. Huxley satirizes a post World War society relishing in the power of technology, and wrote a novel that has stayed relevant and eerily familiar in its dystopian milieu; a novel that didactically works to transpose humanity’s overenthusiastic embrace of industrial ‘progress.’

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Bitchin’.

Astrology does not denote personality, but this revised list sure does give me the old heave ho!

Anna says I was born during the month of Ricky Gervais. Sweet! Maybe thats’s why I’m such a bitter, hilarious, British beer connoisseur….

Seeing as how I LOVE film, and I have in fact seen The Social Network, I decided to give the soundtrack a gander as well. I love it, and then last night, the Hollywood Foreign Press agreed with me, as the film and the film’s soundtrack won top prizes at the Golden Globes. I guess its a sign of the times we find ourselves in when our media, and most notably the film industry, thanks Facebook.

I’ll easily argue that the film’s success stems from a collaboration between Fincher and Reznor. It’s not the first time either, they both chipped in on a little masterpiece called Se7en. Both of these guys thrive on the darkness and the noir of film and music alike. I was skeptical of what the film would deliver, but all doubt aside, wow. An excellent script, a well casted esemble and a feel and sound that I’m very happy the Hollywood Foreign Press recognized. Also, I’d like to thank Ricky Gervais for one of the best comedic roastings of the Hollywood scene that I’ve witnessed in, well, I can’t remember.

This soundtrack is dark and vivid, I love the way its tempo fluctuates in a way that motivates you to keep listening. It has so many murky layers that allow you to explore and discover new sounds and feelngs everytime you listen to it. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross blow me away with this one. Comparable to Ghosts I-IV, and some of Trent’s work with the Quake and Quake II soundtracks. Here are some solid tracks. Enjoy.

This kind of quality requires headphones. Trust me.

With a heterosexual love from the heart, Hubert and Humphrey show their affection in the most ambiguously gay way possible. HOWLS.

View the whole album in large format here.

Well ladies and gentlemen; it’s that time of year once again, where Jeffrey lists his most intriguing of the past year. I write in retaliation of the likes of Time magazine’s person of the year; Mark Zuckerburg? Eat shit, douchebag. Or perhaps Entertainment Tonight’s most influential… Yeah, Sandra Bullock really toots my horn. Fuck off, that’s what I say to Sandra Bullock. So here, on this precious blog, I write to congratulate, thank and point out the wonder in a local Dundas boy’s life, and in the annals that follow below, reside some of the finest wonders anyone could behold.  Lets begin!

15. Liam Kearney and Stina Dios:

Liam and Stina are like Bonnie and Clyde. They’re criminals, sociopaths, sexual deviants and they’ve robbed me of my ability to appreciate just how sexy a couple can be, because lets face it folks, they’ve topped it (sorry couples to follow). I once witnessed Liam brandish a tommy gun, firing several rounds into the roof of a local TD Waterhouse Branch, just so he could be first in line to cash his paycheck, while Stina looked brazenly out the tinted windows into the bright afternoon sky, as her golden, Swedish locks rippled in the cool exhaust from the wall mounted air conditioner beside the branch manager’s office…. Stina and Liam are so much fun, and I thank them for brightening any house party, bar romp, or wedding I attend. They provide me with food and shelter when I’m in Toronto, and of course, provide me with something to aspire to, a badass, loving relationship. Take a bow, comrades.

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Misunderstood, I’d say. One of the best Simpson’s characters by far. I love this rendition. Artwork by Space Coyote.

Listen to his music. He’s a Polaris Prize winner, and he’s from Dundas, my hometown. Big ups.

Timelapse Montage from Mike Flores on Vimeo.

There are plenty of amazing time lapse videos. This is one. But when you see it paired with Hans Zimmer’s “Dream is collapsing”—from Inception’s soundtrack—it goes from amazingto holy-fuck-the-Universe-is-about-to-collapse-and-we-are-all-gonna-die amazing. Play the HD full screen. Use headphones.

This makes both my jaw drop and and fills me with envy – I wanted to make this but they beat me to it (next time!). [Via Gizmodo.]