Winter is fast approaching, and the most important piece of clothing isn’t something you can find at your regular clothing store, but rather your local pub. Yes, its time to dust off those beer jackets…

You remember the first time you felt invincible against the elements – alcohol does that to the human body. Your first martini never tasted sweeter, and you danced dangerously with your gag reflex at your first keg stand. Sooner or later, copious drinking ensues – whether in celebration or in mourning, with friends or in solitude. We’ve all been there – binging and blacking out, waking up in the puke-stained alley/a stranger’s bed/on an island. We don’t remember how or why, but the first that comes to mind – never again. Until the next time…

Drunken shenanigans on boats, embarrassing episodes revisited by heartless “pals,” passionate arguments with interrupted with blank stares. All sights on this tour towards drinking maturity – been there, done that. And yet, despite this curriculum vitae in beer-ology, I’m occasionally asked to show proof of age.

I’m not mad at the the beer girl at the ball game – she is just doing her job; the button above her left breast can attest to that: “We ID anyone under 30.” Rules are rules, even if they are meant to be broken.

I’m not saying to lower the drinking age – the last thing I need are more prepubescent boys and girls bragging about how drunk they were the night before. They dress horribly as it is – let’s keep the alcohol out of their crazy hands for now. What I am advocating however, is responsible drinking in the only way government can provide: drinking licenses.

That’s right ladies and gents, if you are serious about your alcohol, prove to the powers that be that you can be trusted with a bottle of booze. Hell, we are required to do the same when driving, and to me, maneuvering a ton of metal, while other equally monstrous hunks of metal are hurtling right beside you is scary enough. At least with alcohol, the only real risk is to yourself.

How would you go about obtaining a drinking license? For starters, take a written exam that tests your knowledge on various topics: fermentation, blood alcohol levels, laws, history of booze, statistics. Then the practical. It’s a known fact that alcohol affects every one differently, so it’s only fair that your own physiology be put to the test. In a controlled environment, proctors can assess whether you are more liable to get plastered on beer, hard liquor or wine coolers. They can measure the rate of absorption, or chart your descent from an upstanding citizen into a blubbering shell of your former self.

Would this actually work? Who knows, in a perfect world it might. But one thing is for certain: the online mutterings of a cynical drunken fool can only be tolerated for so long.

The haggard old bag lady wandered Toronto’s streets at night, pausing briefly in front of the emergency entrance to a hospital. Perhaps provoked by some unseen dislike of health care, she launches into a commentary of her life, shouting out obscenities, professing her lack of control over her situation and cursing names that drift away in the wind.

Where did she come from? Why is she homeless? Did her family leave her on the curb, when the toll of alcohol and drug abuse became to painful a burden to bear? Or is she struck with a mental disorder that distorts her reality, and has been let loose on the urban jungle? Are the people she blames real, or figments of her imagination?

These questions may seem trivial in the face of potential nuclear destruction on the Korean peninsula, but it dawns on me, like the first shaft of the morning sun piercing skyscrapers and condominiums, that this individual is living proof of perhaps the greatest skill known to mankind: the ability to falsify.

Everyone lies – that’s the plain simple truth. Whether they are huge whoppers (Iraq had WMDs), entertaining exaggerations (I once caught a fish this big), or convenient falsities (Not tonight honey, I have a headache), lies allow individuals to carry out their lives by avoiding confrontation. Quoting Nietzsche: “The most common sort of lie is that by which a man deceives himself: the deception of others is a relatively rare offence.”

Other species on this rock are content fulfilling their animalistic needs: I need food, I hunt or graze. I don’t want to dehydrate, so I find a watering hole. Every so often, I get raunchy and the need to procreate takes over. Simple needs, simple solutions…if only we were so lucky. In fact, our capacity to think (and consequently, to believe) is what separates us from the rest of the earth’s inhabitants – it allows us to continue existing in falsehood.

At a very fundamental level, each and everyone of us plays an ongoing game of deception. We create an ideal “me” that is projected outwards and continue to repress the real “me” under a technicolour dream coat of deceit. I’m not fat, I’m just big-boned – these size 30 jeans fit perfectly, even though my love handles sag like an out-of-control souffle. Kim Il Jong sincerely believes his atomic crotch-grabbing will force bilateral negotiations with the US, even though the likelihood of that happening is slimmer than whatever celebrity waif graces the covers of this week’s tabloids.

We create our own realities – there’s nothing wrong that, mind you, since a good imagination is a terrible thing to waste. We just have to be cognizant that doing so utilises un-truth, deception and fakery – appropriately enough, the central theme of Martin Scorcese’s The Departed, an adaptation of Infernal Affairs.

Adaptation: the word itself means changing something to make it suitable for a new situation. Like the book adapted to a play, or a movie into a comic book, adaptations are an easy way to make a quick buck in the world of entertainment. The movie industry has finally admitted the truth in storytelling, namely that there are no more new, original stories to tell. Every narrative is another permutation of mythical archetypes, every filmmaker is influenced by his forerunners – its just easier to “borrow” from another source.

Back to the film: For those in the dark, here’s a brief synopsis: The mob has a mole in the police, and the police has mole in the mob. Each has created a web of lies that threaten at each twist and turn. Both moles (or rats) must discover his counterpart before succumbing to the pressures of living a false life. Perhaps Scorcese’s return to cinematic glory, this thriller excites, entrances and shocks the audience. It also shatters their preconceptions of how a story should end. Without spoiling it (go see it already), let’s just say the ending ain’t pretty for Msrs. DiCaprio and Damon.

As tonight’s title (from Metallica’s “The God That Failed”) dictates, at the end of the day we make the decision, conscious or not, to fool ourselves.

The deep bass rumbles ominously, as light patterns oscillates above my head. The thick fog recalls film noir, as the train of people disappears ahead of me. California Dreaming…

Someone stole a black pawn.

It’s a sorry state of affairs when a free, all-night contemporary art exhibition in this city is marred by petty theft. Although the perpetrator may have decided to showcase his own art of stealth and larceny, Toronto’s first Nuit Blanche was a huge success. This 12 hour extravaganza was full to the brim of enthusiastic and grumpy participants, waltzing and skipping their way through the exhibitions into the wee hours of the day.

The impromptu tango never manifests. Can homosexuality be reliably manifested in caricature – even in the form of balloon penguins? Like reflected stars, the illuminated lilies coax serenity.

Its not often that I (or the average city-dweller) gets an opportunity to immerse myself in expressionism in its modern artistic form – but on the flip side, as my date for the evening remarked – “Art overload.” Even though I sampled but a fraction of the 130+ exhibits on display across 3 zones, I’m definitely over-saturated with colours, themes, sounds, images and everything in between. Hence my inner desire to awaken the artiste in moi to perform literary diarrhea…

A penny for my thoughts: My choice is passion (or is my passion choice)? A fresh french loaf never tasted better than at 7 am. Giant floating pills tethered to balconies bring a whole new meaning to getting high…

The arrogant aesthete that also occupies my being is proud to be one of the handful of stragglers who survived the ordeal. As I shivered in the brisk morning air, I wondered how many people were aware that a city wide exhibition had taken place, and not simply encountering the herd, saw an installation or two and remarked “Well wasn’t that neat?” Indeed, the Saturday night club crowd seemed oblivious in their drunken shuffling home, even as the white night made the streets seem even brighter than normal.

Lorenzo, Makiko (or was that Makika?) – never trust a 17 year old blitzed on SoCo with pliers. Grazing sheep have never been so calming – even if the group behind me wanted something to attack them. Quantum Theory = a testosterone fueled disco dodge ball game gone awry.

Heidegger remarks that “Art lets truth originate” – whether through visual, sonic, tactile or lettered media, every artist pulled back the curtain of our normal existence and revealed some shimmering absolute, enlightening others, bathing them in what is. Truth is manifested through art, and as such, the artist continues to play an important role in today’s society. No matter how the economy fluctuates, how often racial/religious conflict flare up or how senseless violence is waged in our streets and schools, take solace in the fact that there are some things in this world that force you to step back, contemplate and transcend to a higher state of understanding.

Fuzzy colours remind me of old men and caterpillars. The rodent painting kit is useless as they don’t have opposable digits. I can’t remember what thought I held when told – but I do know this: it was right for the moment.

At least they didn’t steal the king – the red velour cushion, an adequate substitute for the lowly pawn, would not have done square e8 any justice.