Break Neck

Thinking with a broken soul

Squeaky Clean

"I hope it hurts, hurts, hurts."

Your Flesh Means More Than You

Which of me deserves dignity?

In Spite

I write a lot about hope, and I do think it is an important thing to hold close and tight. Yet lately I have been pondering the idea that fear and hope walk hand in hand, that to free yourself from hope is to also free yourself from fear. "

Hello, World

I told you it wouldn't be long I imagine you're here from my former Substack, welcome back. There's a small rebrand on this side (which didn't occur to me before making the URL, oh well). It is inspired by a friend'

Summer Reading 2025

Archived from May 22, 2025: First, an anecdote. A buddy of mine has been dating a woman for the past few months and over the holidays, around mid December they and another friend came over for a holiday brunch. We chatted, ate smoked salmon breakfast bake and drank mimosas as

Tartan

Archived from Feb 19, 2025: There’s a hole in my wool skirt. I bought it at a thrift store somewhere on a dark Toronto evening - I had been looking for pieces of a costume and wound up with a new skirt and ring instead. It never fit quite

Unnice

Archived from Jan 21, 2025: I take the distinction between kindness and niceness pretty seriously. I have been called nice an innumerable amount of times and while I know people say it as a compliment, there’s something about niceness being the observed trait that often rubs me the wrong

It's Not That Serious

Archived from Jan 07, 2025: Last I wrote here, I was floating the idea of doing book reviews - for those of you who had expressed interest, don’t worry, I haven’t abandoned the idea. Rather, I’ve been thinking about media in general. I’ve been thinking about

Hard to Say

Archived from Dec 09, 2024: I don’t remember the first book I ever read. It could be any of many - I am laden with memories of Red Wall, Agatha Christie and How to Train Your Dragon. I remember the Windsor Park library, or the one across from the

I can't stop thinking about Naomi Klein

Archived from Nov 05, 2024: I do not know what is going to happen in the coming hours and I promise you none of it is good but there hope regardless. Trump is clearly a bumbling fascist who hardly knows what the word means, propped up by little other than

10/15

Archived from Oct 16, 2024: I am older today. I am aware of the weight - possibly more than ever. I’m not that old but I’m tired. I have a heart that sits in me like something that could never feel natural, heavy and suffocating. I want to

11:54 PM

Archived from Aug 27, 2024: There’s an icy quality to the fridge light that broaches into the dimly lit kitchen. The air cools rapidly in the humid summer apartment and tumbles down - frosty, rolling steam. The clear plastic quickly gains a veneer of condensation and I squint my

Lulled

Archived from May 19, 2024: The ebb and flow of my energy has been unpredictable lately. I frequently find myself in bed, on the floor, on the couch with no desire to rise and put my life together, let alone make something. I had hoped that the spring would bring

Crushing Hope

Archived from May 10, 2024: "If you're not quite sure if you're on the right or wrong side of the line, find the nearest line of policemen and see which way they're facing." - Bernadette Devlin There is a certain horror encroaching

Clean!

Archived from May 03, 2024: Happy new year, friends. I know it’s May and I am not accepting comments about that fact, thank you. It is not a new observation to say that life is extremely strange. For something we all do, every day, all the time, it can

Fractals

Archived from Jan 25, 2024: “I know what I’m meant to do, who I’m supposed to be. It took a long time to figure it out, but I know now.” Leif, Midnight Burger, Episode 28: Pockets There is something about fractals, iterations, doubles folding in on themselves that

A Monstriosity

Archived from Nov 02, 2023: It has been oddly quiet here for a place called The Cacophony, and for that I must apologise. Life has been…Happening™ over here. I haven’t been publishing for lack of writing, but rather for the type of writing that was happening. I was

ai

Kendall Jenner is Not Your Friend

Archived from Oct 12, 2023: Sometimes, not to be too self centered, I feel like I’m being tested. It feels like our reality is a shitty video game, seeing how many things it can throw at me before I give up or take the evil route. I cannot stress

Interlude: Zozobra

Archived from Oct 05, 2023: I came across this word while I was reading Doppelganger. ‘A Spanish word for the existential and deep gloom, zozobra also evokes a generalized wobbliness: “a mode of being that incessantly oscillates between two possibilities, between two affects, without knowing which one of those to

I Did Not See That Coming

Archived from Sep 28, 2023: I think it will come as no surprise when I say I’m not wild about the government. Now, I’m not a libertarian, god no. Conceptually, governments can exert massive good for the communities they serve. Humans are social and have lived in groups

Post-Mortem Brand Maintenance

Archived from Sep 21, 2023: I’m currently reading Doppelgänger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein. I’m enjoying it, and she opens it with a chapter discussing the rise of personal branding. Famous for writing No Logo, she documents not only her personal journey with coming

There's An App For That!

Archived from Sep 14, 2023: One of my favourite podcasts, Trashfuture, frequently opens with a segment where one host announces the name of a start-up, reads the tagline and has the other hosts guess what the start-up does. Frequently, these start-ups are apps, like Züm, school busses with extra steps,

An Eyesore of Some Sort

Archived from Sep 07, 2023: There’s this scene in Bojack Horseman (stick with me) when Bojack parks a giant boat, almost a yacht, in someone’s driveway. It pans to 2 neighbours who assert, “It’s just such an eyesore”. Obviously, the boat does not get moved. The joke