Help Yourself

Help Yourself is a gesture of hospitality. Or, Help Yourself means nobody else will do it for you. Somewhere between self-help, self-doubt, and helplessness, we realise we can't do it alone. But look out for opportunistic offers. How do we open up to one another while keeping our guards up and our cards close to our chests? Buy or stream Help Yourself, my latest album on Mirlo.

Projects

One Million Neighbours

Co-creating a vision for an inclusive, resilient, and abundant future led by non-profits and community groups.

https://onemillionneighbours.ca/

Textile Literature: Digital Storytelling Workshop

I taught a group of writers to code with HTML and CSS, the building blocks of the web. They enhanced their published stories with colour, photos, and layout customisations to create a unique immersive experience for the web. Learning the basics of web design has equipped these participants to enhance their narrative in future articles online, no matter where they are published.

https://textilekw.ca/collections/digital-storytelling-workshop

Tri-City Hip Hop

Explore the places in Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge that have shaped local hip-hop culture. Featuring music videos and first-hand stories from the artists themselves.

https://tricityhiphop.com

Gaukel Block

In September 2019, Gaukel Street in downtown Kitchener was transformed into a fun pop-up park. Now, working with a group of downtown community members, neighbourhood associations, businesses, and city staff, we have achieved a long-term plan for redesigning Gaukel St. as a pedestrian-first urban park.

https://gaukel.ca

Posts

How I made a public archive of my Twitter posts

It's past time to stop giving any oxygen to the ongoing dumpster fire that is Twitter/X. For those of us who joined in the early days, it's sad to walk away from the platform that had been a touchpoint for political organizing and local community-building. But it's not that place anymore, and the …

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19 Nov 2024 Web

Democracy Book Review

Joan Didion
In the intertwined lives of politicians, socialites, and war profiteers, the drama of family shame and petty grievances look just as large as the Vietnam war. The characters in this novel are too insulated from consequences to have a sense of purpose, and that makes it hard as a reader to be invested in their stories. Their actions are motivated by a need to run away, to reject closeness, to turn away from inconvenient truths.

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28 Oct 2024 Rating: 3/5

There’s Always This Year Book Review

Hanif Abdurraqib
Hanif’s signature tenderness, the way he calls us “beloved” and trusts that we as readers will reciprocate, is what sets his writing apart. Inventive in form and style, this book espouses a love for a city that seems like it wants to spit you out. It’s not a book about basketball, it’s a book about how we can pin our hopes and dreams on a rising star only to smother its light.

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20 Sep 2024 Rating: 5/5

Terraform: Watch/Worlds/Burn Book Review

Brian Merchant & Claire Evans
This collection of speculative short stories is massive in its scope, with truly divergent approaches from all the contributors. More dystopian than optimistic, they may not paint an ideal future but they try to jolt us out of sleepwalking towards the worst of it.

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23 Jun 2024 Rating: 4/5

Recommended reading

Stuff I enjoyed and that I think you'd like, too.

Bookmarks

Interesting links I haven't had a chance to check out yet.