I glanced over as he sat down and a hot thrill of pleasure shot through my stomach, the same sensation I get on a rollercoaster when it careens downhill. He’s just three tables down from me, shiny white hair, age spots dotting his tanned face, a navy blue polo, khakis, and Teva sandals. He catches me staring and I quickly look away , but I can’t stop glancing over to see what page he’s reading first. It looks like Letters. Here he was — the elusive Walrus reader — taking a coffee in Dooney’s Cafe to leaf through the last issue I’d fact-checked as an intern.

After four months of slaving away, checking fact after endless f’ing fact and phoning everyone, everywhere — a retired pilot in B.C., an expert on the Khmer Rouge trials in Cambodia, a mother who lost her son to Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Kurdish TV broadcaster in Diyarbakir, Pico Iyer on a book tour, a famous librettist and artist in London, my old history professor — who would have thought this lone reader would bring me such a straight shot of unadulterated joy?

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Kent Monkman’s Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: a Portrait (profiled in the May issue), left me wondering what has changed in how Canadian society imagines the Indian^{* (huh?)Just to be clear: The Indian here refers to Daniel Francis’s definition of “the Indian as the invention of the European . . . [and] anything non-Natives wanted them to be,” and is not to be confused with First Nations people living in Canada today.} since Paul Kane’s majestic braves captivated British North America in the mid-nineteenth century.

For the last three months, on my daily, three-kilometre stroll from Trinity Bellwoods to The Walrus office, the Indian has greeted me twice. Across the street from the Meeting Place, a drop-in frequented by addicts and the homeless, including some First Nations people, a bare-chested Indian stands on a tree stump. Leather straps, a shade darker than his bronzed skin, are knotted around his bulging biceps, a matching leather bag filled with tobacco drapes across his chest down to his green, fringed suede pants. He gazes up at the grotty Reverb nightclub, feather headdress tilted back, right hand blocking his eyes from the perennial sun. Red paint marks his handsome chiseled face like battle scars. His lips are perfect. At “West Side OPEN LATE Tobacco” the cigar store Indian kept a daily vigil (the store mysteriously closed up shop and left, with its Indian, last week). But no fear: the made-in-the-Philippines, cigar-store Indian marks a number of Toronto tobacconists. (Yorkville’s classy Thomas Hinds Tobacconist keeps its wooden Indian tastefully indoors.) (more…)

If, like me, you’d never guess this shimmery post title is also the name of a soon-to-be released album from Minneapolis hip hop artists Atmosphere, your indie music radar needs amplifying.

Help is out there. The Indie Music Filter, put together by tireless music promoter Chris Budd, is a great start. Budd keeps his entries mercifully short letting the tracks and videos do the work. His discerning taste points virgins and doyens alike to the choicest indie gigs, artists and tracks.

This week he’ll follow the axis of indie to Austin, Texas for South by Southwest. Guided by his geeked-out Excel spreadsheet of must-sees, his picks should be on point.

*check out Road to Riches on Atmopshere’s myspace for a taste of the hip hop duo’s styles