NIGHT MATERIALS

Friday the 13th in Toronto, Ontario, and I've settled in for an evening of classic slasher movies, childhood nostalgia, and the peculiar comforts of Jason Voorhees. I've been revisiting the Friday the 13th franchise, remembering the VHS tapes of my youth, and contemplating the various indignities inflicted upon one of horror cinema's most celebrated murderers.

Elsewhere, the Canadian cost of living has been weighing upon me, though I've had a few pleasant encounters with good food, old music, and the small kindnesses that make an otherwise difficult existence considerably more agreeable. I've been thinking about community, the value of human connection, and how something almost inconsequential to one person might mean the world to somebody else.

It's getting late, I've got a horror movie waiting, and I'm hoping to find myself somewhere magnificent in my dreams.

NIGHT MATERIALS

https://nightmaterials.online/

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1990s nostalgia, childhood collectibles, Pogs, Batman Forever, and the peculiar economies of the elementary school playground. I've been thinking about photography, the strange private histories contained within ordinary objects, and how a person can look at something apparently insignificant and recover an entire afternoon from thirty years ago.

This has led me back to the magnificent cardboard currency of my childhood, when fortunes were won and lost with a flick of the wrist, and a man's reputation might depend entirely upon the quality of his slammer.

There were rules, rivalries, alliances, and certain gentlemen whose equipment conferred advantages of a frankly unreasonable nature. I've been remembering one of those gentlemen in particular.

His name was John French. His father made him a brass slammer. God help us all.

NIGHT MATERIALS

https://nightmaterials.online/

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A wandering Canadian podcast about human kindness, everyday philosophy, cinema, sleepless nights, and the absurdities of modern life. It's a cold November evening in Toronto, and I've just finished an excellent falafel wrap from a Turkish restaurant whose owners have restored a considerable measure of my faith in humanity.

I've been thinking about hospitality, the strange and wonderful things that pass through my workplace, and the difficulties of trying to get some goddamn sleep. The end of my financial troubles is finally coming into view, though the universe continues to demonstrate its considerable talent for finding new ways to be inconvenient.

There are also some thoughts about Jean-Claude Van Damme, Hong Kong action cinema, and the surprisingly complicated matter of deciding what to watch before bed.

It's an unusually scattered evening, even by my standards.

NIGHT MATERIALS

https://nightmaterials.online/

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Retro video games, Toronto nightlife, Japanese ramen, and the peculiar intimacy of old friendships. Four gentlemen of varying degrees of respectability have gathered to celebrate a birthday, and we've made our way into Toronto for an evening of exceptionally good food, a few drinks, and the surviving arcade machines of our misspent youth.

There's something wonderful about seeing people you've known for years and discovering how life has fermented within them during your absence. I've been thinking about that, about the pleasures of growing older alongside old friends, and the rather considerable emotional investment a grown man can develop in defeating a fictional cowboy.

It's Sunday morning now. I had a lovely evening, and the car has apparently decided to ruin my day.

NIGHT MATERIALS

https://nightmaterials.online/

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A few dollars in the jar, should you feel inclined.

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An unfiltered philosophical monologue about money, materialism, nature, consciousness, and the strange things we decide are valuable. It's nearly eleven o'clock at night, and I'm lying on the cot, somewhere along that peculiar frontier between wakefulness and dreams.

I've been imagining an empty highway disappearing beneath a tremendous bank of storm clouds. I've always loved tornadoes, those great dragons of the sky, and the magnificent indifference with which nature reminds us of our place in the world.

Naturally, this leads me to the spiritual implications of contactless payment, the questionable wealth of billionaires, and the increasingly preposterous quantities of invisible points we've agreed to exchange for the necessities of being alive.

Somebody's calling. At eleven o'clock. Christ almighty.

NIGHT MATERIALS

https://nightmaterials.online/

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Content note: Contains discussion of suicidal thoughts, severe emotional distress, and past thoughts of violence.

A personal journal about divorce, fatherhood, grief, political disillusionment, and the difficult work of rebuilding a life. It's raining in Toronto, and I've discovered an old calendar entry bearing the rather dreadful title The Beginning of the End.

I've been remembering a time when everything familiar to me began coming apart, an awful summer afternoon by Lake Ontario, and the peculiar loneliness of finding yourself surrounded by people celebrating when your own world has fallen into ruin.

Eventually my thoughts turn toward American politics, institutional authority, the theatre of democracy, and the extraordinary resilience of ordinary people. There's a great deal to be angry about, certainly, but I remain stubbornly attached to the possibility of a more beautiful world.

NIGHT MATERIALS

https://nightmaterials.online/

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Friendship, nostalgia, Canadian nightlife, and the magnificent chaos of growing up in Waterloo, Ontario. I've been remembering an old companion of mine, a gentleman known as the Stiffness, whom I met while employed in the noble profession of hauling other people's accumulated shit out of their houses.

He was our navigator, though the title was largely ceremonial, and possessed the sort of intelligence that might have made him a celebrated scholar had he not been so enthusiastically occupied with other pursuits. We were young, frequently intoxicated, and rather less concerned with our continued survival than a reasonable person might have preferred.

This is a recollection of the old Waterloo days, a particularly eventful evening at Chainsaw karaoke bar, and a friendship that remains very dear to me, even as life has carried us in different directions.

NIGHT MATERIALS

https://nightmaterials.online/

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Content note: Contains discussion of suicide and childhood sexual abuse, alongside accounts of violence.

Childhood memories, dark humour, spontaneous comedy, and the strange business of surviving one's own history. November has arrived in southern Ontario, bringing with it the premature darkness and that familiar melancholy which I ordinarily find rather agreeable, though lately I've been having a difficult time of things.

I'm sitting in the car, watching the trees, remembering old friendships, the peculiar misadventures of my childhood, and an ill-advised period in which I fancied myself a stand-up comedian. There are some difficult recollections here, and a few that remain so outrageously absurd that I scarcely know what to make of them.

Somewhere along the way, we encounter a rather formidable grandmother whose disciplinary methods deserve a category all their own.

NIGHT MATERIALS

https://nightmaterials.online/

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The last night at the hotel. The clocks have changed, the cold has finally settled over southern Ontario, and I've gone out walking through downtown Toronto with a camera in my hand and a body that's beginning to remind me, in no uncertain terms, that it has already endured a fair bit of living.

This one isn't about much in particular. Just a walk through the city at night, a few passing scenes, some thoughts on loneliness, silence, and the strange comfort of briefly stepping through the edges of other people's lives. Street parties, pubs, people waiting for something, people with nowhere to go, people in conversation, people in motion, people standing perfectly still.

Then back to the room. Back to the bed. Back to gratitude.

NIGHT MATERIALS

https://nightmaterials.online/

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A woman from Ottawa has written to me about a man she's been seeing, and whether the desire for something more profound in a relationship is altogether reasonable, or merely another of those extravagant expectations we impose upon the unfortunate people who find themselves in our company.

It's a good question, and I don't suppose I'm especially qualified to answer it, but I give it a go anyway, with a White Claw in hand and a perfectly comfortable hotel bed waiting to receive me. Somewhere in the midst of it all, I find myself reconsidering what it means to be fulfilled, and whether there's any particular virtue in learning to live without the things we want.

I may have made the matter worse.

NIGHT MATERIALS

https://nightmaterials.online/

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A few dollars in the jar, should you feel inclined.

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Questions, grievances, confessions, or whatever happens to be occupying your thoughts.

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