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What is your favorite course to teach at UTSC (or uoft in general)? ENGC14: Black Canadian Literature. This is the first course I've taught at UTSC that's entirely dedicated to Black writing, and I find that the space this creates in the classroom to talk about texts and the contexts they emerge from is extremely special. What makes you laugh the most? My kids! They're 6 and 8. Lately we're playing bananagrams and they crack me up with their nonsense words and made-up and definitions. If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? A budda bowl with brown rice, broccoli, tofu and peanut sauce. Mmmmm. I've been vegetarian since I was 15 years old. Tell us a fun fact about yourself (maybe a secret skill/special hobby)? I love doing Olympic weightlifting! Lifting heavier and heavier things is just so satisfying. What was the last TV show you binge-watched? (favorite show) Why, The Chair on Netflix, of course! Who is your favorite author (or filmmaker) and why? The B.C. author Wayde Compton is my favourite writer. His work is packed with startinglingly original ideas. His prose and poetry offers me a language and a framework for imagining the world otherwise. |
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What is your favorite course to teach at UTSC? All of them. We are empowered to teach what and how we love, so I find it impossible to pick a favourite. Favorite Book/Movie? Don DeLillo’s Mao II and Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil. Favorite place to relax at UTSC? The Andrew’s Building. I love wandering the halls to take in the architecture and our campus’s energy. What makes you laugh the most? Right now? Sloppy steaks. What’s your favorite sport to watch or play? Basketball used to be my favourite sport to watch and play, but professional wrestling has surpassed it to watch, and, heck, maybe even to play. Is there such a thing as an amateur professional wrestler? Is forty-three too late to become one? What song would you sing at Karaoke (your favourite song)? My go-to Karaoke jams are the jazz standard “Angel Eyes” and Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees.” (Yup, I’m a downer.) My favourite song is “Gone Alone” by Fiver. If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? My dad’s spaghetti and meatballs, and my partner’s roast chicken and taters. And, of course, sloppy steaks. Who is your favorite author (or filmmaker) and why? Chris Marker. I love the blend of documentary, poetry, politics, and philosophy in his films. I also admire his distinct career and process. He was mobile and independent while also being collaborative and supportive. Tell us a fun fact about yourself (maybe a secret skill/special hobby)? I partied with an absolute gem of an Oscar winner, and, at one point, we stripped our shirts off in the middle of the street so we could “exchange artistic essences.” (It’s worth noting that, after this trade, he won his Oscar and I won the ReLit, which is basically the Oscar for weird poets.) What was the last TV show you binge-watched? This term, I’m living alone at a cabin on a lake, so I thought: what a perfect time to binge the Friday the 13th franchise! I spent a Friday in October watching films 1 through 8. I even mustered up the courage to watch VI through VIII outside by the fire. |
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What is your favorite Book/Movie James Joyce's collection of short stories: DUBLINERS, Oscar Wilde's THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY. Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO
Favorite place to relax at UTSC? on the patio, looking down the ravine
What makes you laugh the most? good stand-up comedy, perhaps with a 0litical or cultural edge: Robin Williams, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Sarh Silverman, Steven Wright
What’s your favorite sport to watch or play? I have been a runner since seventh grade. I love to watch track and field at the Olympics. Also basketball and baseball, especially if a Toronto team is in the playoffs.
What song would you sing at Karaoke (your favourite song)? "like a Rolling Stone" -BOB DYLAN
If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? Spaghetti and meatballs
Who is your favorite author (or filmmaker) and why? James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Toni Morrison, Samuel Beckett
While these artists differ quite a bit, one from the other, what they all do, ea h in unique and brilliant ways, is off the readr/.viewer access to themselves. All of these writers are able to deconstruct "reality" to show reality IS a construction, and should be continually challenged, if we are to live a more conscious life that is less suceptible to the undue inluence of others.
Tell us a fun fact about yourself (maybe a secret skill/special hobby)? I like to do woodworking--I built the wall to ceiling bookshelf featured in the attached photo!
What was the last TV show you binge-watched? (favorite show) SQUID GAMES, MAID
Very different shows, and yet both deal with the difficulty of living without access to a LIVING wage. Both shows make clear a large part of debt and imppoverishment is aided and abetted by fundamentally unfair eonomic realities.
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