Description 53 - On the Hill

I'm in the seat of Canadian power (probably), reading a pamphlet, admiring statues of people holding documents, reducing an important monument to a Renaissance Faire hat and saying "awesome" too much. But the kitty-cats make up for it.

Click here to subscribe
Click to download directly

Associated links
Ottawa Tourism
National Arts Centre
A Treasure to Explore: Parliament Hill, including history, the "Hill Cam" and a Flash Virtual Tour
The statues discussed: John Diefenbaker, Queen Victoria, Lester Pearson, Baldwin and Lafontaine, Sir John A. MacDonald
Lester B. Pearson @The Greatest Canadian
Canadian Parliamentary Cats @Wikipedia
Canadian Museum of Civilization
The Women Are Persons! Monument

The song I "sing" at the beginning is a mocking Rhapsody In Blue. In one of the sections I had to cut for time, I talked about a kiosk with ads of upcoming events at the NAC, and one was for Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the NACO in a program which includes George Gershwin's Piano Concerto In F. I was relieved they were doing that instead of that other Gershwin piece that has become such a cliché, then demonstrated what a cliché it's become.

To give you an idea of the multimedia brilliance of the NAC, on that page I've linked for the event, there's a link to an episode of their "Explore the Symphony" podcast, which discusses another composer featured in that night's program, Johannes Brahms. I just had to stop writing this post to listen to it. The NAC has been an important part of the Canadian podcasting community (a word used almost as much as Rhapsody In Blue has been played) for a few years now - in fact, I remember them doing video blogs before the concept was even invented, as early as 2000 (my friend Gavin worked on them). I highly recommend you explore all of their podcasts in English and French. There's even a cooking podcast, for heaven's sake! Other great podcasts produced in Ottawa include Fear and Loathing In Ottawa, The Gaelic Hour, and pretty much everything done by Mark Blevis.

Something else I cut was any mention of the big event going on in town at the time: the Canadian Tulip Festival (though there is the odd mention of tulips). Basically, through most of May every year, there are tulips just about everywhere they can be planted in Ottawa and Gatineau, with the biggest display at Major's Hill Park, sort of across from the U.S. Embassy. It is a pretty spectacular thing if you're so enclined.

Btw, I remember the location of that park in relation to the embassy not because of my background, but because of a time I attended the other big event that happens in Ottawa, Bluesfest in July. A few years ago, I went to see Danny Michel play in Major's Hill Park. During the set, Danny noticed an inexplicable echo. Trying to figure it out, he started playing short bursts to bounce back at him. The echo was a result of the sound going across the park to the tremendous wall of glass on the modern, imposing embassy. Once that was determined, he played a couple more echo games with us, then noted how symbolic it was that no matter what we tried to say to the Americans, it would just get bounced back at us.

One of the good guys in radio

I just saw on CP24 that Marc Chambers passed away today, so I did some googling for confirmation, and unfortunately found some.

When I started working at CJOJ in Belleville in 1995, I heard rumblings that this guy who'd been big at CHUM was going to ride shotgun with our morning man for ratings period. This of course intimidated me since 1) most things do, and 2) CHUM (AM and FM) was kind of an institution to me, and anyone who did well there was automatically a radio hero, even if I hadn't heard him/her. But the only thing really intimidating about Marc Chambers was his voice: a booming, but smooth piece of work that's the sort of thing you think of when you think of real radio. Not surprising, then, that he was one of the most used "image" voices in the business, the guy who declares the name of your station or network. The one he may have been best known for was The Weather Network.

I've probably given the impression that commercial radio people are a weird bunch, and a lot of them have a distinct kind of neurotic desperation to them that can make them assholes. (I'm guessing I could be put in that group at times in my life.) Marc was not one of those guys. He'd do his thing, never being too out-there or cloying, and be done with it, joking around off-mic and just being cool. He had a deep love for radio that emanated from him; he'd been around the block enough times that it could have worn him down, but I sensed no bitterness or cynicism from him. He was confident in his talent, but quietly so, and he was supportive of everyone around him, including me.

I only worked with him for a few months, and maybe talked to him a time or two after that. So for all I know, he actually could've been an asshole. ;-) But I observed the work he did on the mic - which he earned by being a hustling freelancer - and also his work providing support in the business, doing things like his columns in Broadcast Dialogue magazine. All that good stuff still showed through. He was one of those people I'd kept telling myself I should get back in touch with, but never did. And here we are.

But I wanted to let you know that, to me, Marc Chambers was one of the good guys in radio, and that there actually are some. To learn more, 1050CHUM has a great tribute here.

Description 52 - Covered By OHIP

Breasts! Refrigerator noise! Gowns with three sleeves! Baskets of knitting! And me actually talking to people! It's all to celebrate our fine health-care system just slightly less than Michael Moore has. Also with great music by Colleen Brown...and by the pesky neighbours downstairs.

Click here to subscribe
Click here to download directly

Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
"The Birth of Medicare" @ CBC Digital Archives
Health Care in Canada @ wikipedia
St. Michael's Hospital
CIBC Breast Clinic
Rethink Breast Cancer
Colleen Brown: official site, myspace, New Music Canada, CD Baby and... publicbroadcasting.ca!
Second Cup
CP24 (They don't have it on a stream anymore? Crap!)
Stand Up Tragedy X, totally explaining the TTC Strike (Thanks, Todd!)

Until this experience, I'd never been in a waiting room where so many people were talking with each other. To me, waiting rooms have always been places where you come in, (present your health card if you live here), sit down and read something, or in my case listen to an iPod. But when I donned the three-sleeved pink gown and entered, about four other women in similar gowns were chatting. Three of them had finished and were waiting for the okay to go, and they were trying to comfort the other woman, who was waiting to get her mammogram and was very nervous about it, having had a bad experience last time. My rationale was 1) my mom said it's never been too bad, and 2) compared to other exams we have to endure, how bad can it be? Another said it was nothing compared to being in a full MRI machine closed in around you like a smooth white coffin for a half hour. Totally soothing, weren't we? But if nothing else, we emphasized that however bad it would be, stressing about it would make it much worse. True enough. So that nervous woman is the one I'm talking to in the episode after we'd both done our thing; she'd survived, and was a bit calmer.

The waiting room chat was an odd thing for me not just because of the waiting room, but in being some sort of female bonding experience. As you might have figured, I've never been part of many dishy, soul-baring little coffee klatches you might find on any number of tv shows; or identified myself with a kind of sisterhood. But there we were - people with the same pink gowns and the same body parts being tested for cancer. No avoiding that. So somehow talking happened, and it was okay.

Now that I think of it, that idea of strangers connected by a medical procedure reminds me of a more trivial but stranger circumstance. I briefly mention in the episode that I had (and still do to an extent) scoliosis, or curvature of the spine. I put it down to slumping and always cocking the same hip when I stood. I was diagnosed when most kids are, at about 12 or 13 years old, and it mainly involved skipping school once every couple months to get x-rays (for which I waited all day at my local hospital) and then an examination by some doctor who'd come in from Cleveland to check a bunch of us to see if we were getting worse. When he found I was, I was assigned exercises and later a brace (not for the neck, but more like a big thick corset) for a lovely couple years in 8th and 9th grade. Eventually, things solidified, they didn't have to run a steel bar up my back, and I went on with my life with the odd back complaint. Hardly a rare story...and by the way, Dad had excellent health insurance from his work up until a few years after his retirement.

Shortly after Kurt Cobain died, I read a report of his myriad ailments both natural and man-made. Among his natural ones: scoliosis. Suddenly, I could picture the poor kid going through those screenings, the x-rays, the exams, one of the few boys. Still, I concluded that for all the suffering Kurt Cobain endured, I was very thankful scoliosis was the only one to which I could truly relate.

Jane's Walk, and what happens when I talk too much

A couple notes here before I eventually get to the next episode (first there's a Movies For the Blind episode, then taxes as our deadline is the end of April, then I swear I'm all yours!).

Remember last year when I did a show about "Jane's Walk", following Angus Skene around while he said lots of interesting things about my neighbourhood of The Annex? If not, that's what links are for. But regardless, Jane's Walk is back, with a bunch of neat guided walks on the weekend of May 3rd. Angus will be doing his thing again around here, so if you want to finally catch everything he says and watch him do his wicked chalk drawings, you can. I'll be taking my iRiver somewhere yet to be determined, and hopefully that will make for another show. But don't wait for me if you're in the city - go pick out a great walk for yourself!

Also, this Jane's Walk thing isn't even limited to Toronto! (Hard to believe, I know, that there are things not limited to Toronto...) There will be Jane's Walks in Halifax, Charlottetown, Ottawa, Guelph (I personally love that there's one in Guelph, because it's the smallest town among these and it's so fun to say), Winnipeg and Vancouver. And for some reason, there's one in Salt Lake City, Utah, bless their hearts. So get a little exercise and look at your own city from a new (or old) perspective. I guess you can do that without a Jane's Walk, really, so no excuses for anyone.

In other news, I went to a Toronto Podcasters' Meetup a couple weeks ago, had a pint and talked too much with terrific people. Since it was a podcasters' meetup, some of my talking too much has gotten on some podcasts. First, some of the blathering made it to the Audio Dessert portion of episode 99 of the Canadian Podcast Buffet, then a huge slab of it was on episode 137 of Hot Fossils and Rebel Matters (and there might be more). So if for some reason you actually want to hear me talk too much and too loud about podcasting, zoom in on those lovely shows.

(Note: the rest of this post might be self-indulgent crap bloggers do.)

One of the several funny things about that meetup started a series of events where I've learned (again) how perception and momentum can trump truth. I was talking with one of the newbies who had really energized the meetup, when I heard out of the corner of my ear a word I hadn't heard before: "communitize". I turned to Katherine Matthews, of the fine podcasts Purl Diving and Cinéfolle, who despite being sick with some cold-like thing, came from Guelph (see? fun to say!) with her partner Rob to be her intelligent and charming self.

"Did you just use the word...COMMUNITIZE?" I said in the most dramatically amazed fashion possible.

She had, and somehow this blew. my. mind. I told her that was absolutely freaking brilliant. And we went on with our lives, though occasionally I would blurt out the word "communitize" like a Doug Henning impersonator with Tourette's. Sometimes I would even include magician-like hand gestures, as if using my special powers to transform someone across the room to suddenly become embued with the light and wonder of comments and camps and forums and groups, skipping tra-la into the street making K17 calls. Hi-lar-ee-uss.

When I got home, I of course twittered about it, and of course included the thought that "communitize" is going to become a beeeg geek word, like "bacn" and "rickroll". I might have said something about it on Facebook too. A couple days later, the very esteemed and awesome (which has nothing to do with him buying me a beer at the previous Toronto meetup) Mark Blevis of said CPB, Just One More Book and Electric Sky (and other things - I ain't got all day) twittered something about me saying "communitize" and how wicked-cool that word was. I replied that, yeah, wicked-cool, but it's not my word - I got it from Katherine. Then episode 100 of CPB comes out, and Mark says the meetup host John Meadows (of On the Log) said I'd coined that term, then Mark couched it by saying he has since learned I hadn't (yes, like from me), but "I will always remember her when I think of this word".

Sigh. Alrighty.

More twittering, blog-commenting and Facebook wall-writing and statusing would follow. John graciously gave his mea culpas (I believe he had been entranced by the Doug Henning/Tourette's thing, and frankly, who could blame him?), others gave their clarifications, Mark actually found some origin for the word a couple years prior, scoobily doobily doo. So at least in writing terms, it's straight that Katherine brought up the word...well, you know...at the Toronto meetup.

If this story sounds a bit silly, excellent. As the great Newfoundland seperatist Jerry Boyle would say, you're my kind of people.

Does that make you a community? It's not my job to say. It's not anyone's job to say. Unless someone's job is (wait for it...) communitization. In which case, that person better stay away from me until he can grow a super mustache, wear a jumpsuit and learn to levitate.

Description 51 - Beyond the Blue Horizon

I wander through Vancouver, land of "verdant-ness" and floatplanes, and consider the arrogance of Canada's biggest cities - like my own. Includes music by Allison Crowe, moss on the 37th floor, a silver shack on stilts and the inevitable connection between Stargate and Creative Anachronism.

Click here to subscribe
Click here to download directly

Associated links
Why I was in Vancouver
Tourism Vancouver
Vancouver-Alaska cruises
Grouse Mountain
Vancouver 2010
Triple A radio
Allison Crowe: official, myspace, maplemusic, and at publicbroadcasting.ca!
Blue Horizon Hotel
Blenz Coffee
Great Lakes Medieval Faire
Some Vancouver locations for Stargate SG-1
Gateworld!
Coal Harbour
Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre

Cut an awful lot out of this one, particularly more details on the CRTC stuff and the mysteries of trying to start a commercial radio station in this country (which may help explain why some of us are podcasting), but I suspect there'll be other chances to discuss that. Then there are other wonders of Vancouver cut out like DaVinci's Inquest, The Beachcombers, Capers Community Markets and the best strip clubs in the world.

Then there was the preponderance of Dutch restaurants in Vancouver. The city is known for its great Indian, Chinese and Japanese cuisine (especially sushi, imho). But Dutch??? In my wanderings, I'd discovered there's this chain of restaurants called De Dutch Pannekoek House, which seems to be what Chez Cora is in Quebec - a happy, homey place specializing in breakfast, brunch and lunch. It turns out a Pannekoek is a big freaking pancake you often serve with other food on top, although De Dutch does say on their website "we're not just Pannekoeken!" (well, thank God for that!). If I had walked past one of these places while they were open (almost all of them close after lunch), I swear I would have taken the iRiver in there and really dug in. But I had to content myself with gawking in windows and posted menus, still marvelling, "Dutch? Why Dutch?"

It turns out 50 years ago, some Dutch guy wanted out of the Dutch Army. So he emigrated to Vancouver. After working odd jobs and recovering from a car accident, he found work in the restaurant business, eventually got known for a place called "The Frying Dutchman" then took a shot at this Pannekoek thing in 1975. Now they have 17 of these things in the area.

So there you go. One immigrant comes to Canada and gives a city something you're sure as heck not going to find in Toronto or Montreal. At least not yet.

Description 50 - Skating

I lace 'em up for one of Canada's great pastimes (besides complaining, maybe), which turns out to be nothing like riding a bike. Includes lots of non-podsafe music in the background, spilled chocolate milk, wobbly ankles...and yes, a zamboni.

Click here to subscribe, so all you gotta do is sharpen occasionally.
Click here to download directly like you're just renting.

Associated links
The Natrel Rink @ Harbourfront Centre
QuickTime VR panorama of the Harbourfront Stage next door
Other outdoor rinks in Toronto
Great Canadian male figure skaters: Toller Cranston, Brian Orser, Kurt Browning on The Hour, Elvis Stojko, Jeff Buttle, Emanuel Sandhu and new champion Patrick Chan
Play It Again Sports
Learn to skate with wikiHow
(I was supposed to push off with the other foot! Damn!)

I would've gotten this episode done a couple weeks ago, but instead I went on a pretty crazy trip which you'll hear more about in the next episode. Yes, it'll actually be here in less than a month. I just got back last night, so I'm still zoned enough to not have a heck of a lot more to say about this skating stuff. However...

In researching links for this, I went looking for stuff about Kurt Browning, and fell down a youtube rabbit hole. Seriously, I loved this guy, and probably still do now he's lost most of his hair, is long married with kids, is transitioning from the ice to the broadcast booth, and could walk past me on the street at any moment.

While I did find the program that got me to fall in love with him, "Johnny Guitar" for the 1991 World Championships Gala (see, I told you I used to be a geek with this stuff!), a better primer for anyone who has forgotten or has no idea what the deal is with Kurt Browning would be this clip from a "Skate the Nation" special in '95, where he eventually does his Lyle Lovett thing while hooked up to a microphone. Enjoy, as I step back away from that rabbit hole...

A Second Chance

One of the more minor recurring themes of this podcast (yeah, I know - I got nothin' yet) is politics, U.S. and Canada, because as a dual citizen, I'm eligible to vote in both countries. As I explained in Description 26, I vote in the U.S elections I can vote in because of my family and friends in the States, and for non-U.S. citizens who wish they had some say in choosing American leaders because some of what those leaders do affects the world.

I heard from more than a few of the latter in the last several months, and especially in the last few days leading up to "Super Tuesday", a day that had many U.S. states holding primaries for the Republican and Democratic parties. To review, primaries are basically votes on a hundred different levels in a hundred different ways to pick whom each state's delegates are going to vote for in party conventions, and it's usually as lame and confusing as that sounds. Certainly I'd never voted in a primary before. But this election year is of course different, which is one reason why foreigners who usually couldn't care less have gotten swept up. The same is true for Americans themselves, including me.

And so, when I found out Democrats Abroad, an association of people like me without U.S. residency but with U.S. citizenship and voting privileges (yes, there's a Republicans Abroad too), was going to have a "Global Primary", with delegates and everything, I went for it.

A few days ago I got a ballot number and a PIN in my email with an exclusive link to the online voting. People can vote online, by fax, snail mail, or even in person at one of a couple places here in town. I put that in present tense because the primary started yesterday but doesn't end until next Tuesday. I put it in my calendar to vote today, the day after Super Tuesday.

Although I don't think this primary will be very significant in the grand scheme of things, that hasn't stopped me from agonizing about who would get my vote. For months, when I bothered to think about it, I bounced around mentally among Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. In any other year, if each of them was running on his/her own, each would easily get my vote against whomever-else. But here they were running against each other. A perfect circumstance for the phrase "an embarrassment of riches". For a while, I was leaning toward Edwards, because he had so well-refined his ideas and plans regarding domestic poverty over the past few years (when he last ran) and was speaking in the most practical terms. But the media started paying less attention to the "token white guy" and momentum rolled away from him. Finally, he bowed out.

So here I was with Obama and Clinton, Clinton and Obama. Back and forth, over and over in my head, week to week, day to day, and today, hour to hour, minute to minute. If you follow me on twitter, no doubt you got sick of my vacillations. I did too.

The question really boiled down to this: who will accomplish more great things: someone who long ago went in with great dreams and passion, fought and tried but had more losses than wins? Or someone who has great dreams now, not knowing who or what will need to be fought, and not caring because the dreams and passion will win the day? Both are such tempting scenarios.

In Description 14, I ruminated over the concept of the "Philosopher King", at a time I was thinking about Michael Ignatieff sort of like people now are thinking about Barack Obama. Okay, maybe not quite like that, but despite their differences (like in charisma), we still have the romantic idea of the person who comes from atypical experience, out of political nowhere, to sweep through the old musty halls of power and make everything all right with the power of his ideals. Americans like to associate that sort of thing with John and Bobby Kennedy, and they still can because they died before they could screw much up. Canadians like to do that with Pierre Trudeau, although not as much since he lived a long full life well after he did screw some things up. Trudeau was really a special case - to crib some of Obama's words, he accomplished as much as he did because he had as much audacity as he had hope, and that was a lot.

Since RFK was killed the year I was born, I did not feel the hope around those Philosopher Kings. I did have Jimmy Carter, a man of great thought and ideals who proceeded to run through a buzzsaw of politics and circumstance for four years. It was only after that could he really accomplish great things, and he has. And then there was Bill Clinton, with his capable wife at his side, very much on the team. I remember when I was back home in exile in 1992 and we voted him in, and I could hardly believe it. Could things really be different? Is the U.S. truly entering an age of enlightenment?

Kinda, but not really. The buzzsaw would grind on, and many of his actions only sharpened the blades. As soon as he backed down on "don't-ask-don't-tell", my heart sank. As much hope as he had, his audacity would mostly be reserved for the wrong things. Still, like Jimmy Carter, he came out the other side to accomplish a lot of good. His wife, however, chose to do some more time with that buzzsaw. And here she is now, telling us it'll take a ton of work to deconstruct that buzzsaw bit by bit, screw by screw. :-)

Back and forth I would go. Does Hillary have too many connections, or Barack have too few? Does Hillary's aggressive health care plan trump Barack's aggressive plans to get out of Iraq? A better understanding of different genders or a better understanding of different cultures and races? Back and forth, back and forth.

I took my own Trudeau-esque Walk In the Snow. And I came back with this: if a Philosopher Ruler is actually given another chance, what would happen? She could screw up again, which is just as likely as the new guy running into that buzzsaw for the first time. But I've seen new guys run into buzzsaws before. That second chance? Never. What would happen?

So I came back, clicked on that Global Primary link, entered my ballot number and my PIN, and voted for Hillary Clinton.

STILL I go back and forth. My comparisons are messy, am I misdirecting my trust, etc. But that's where I was at the moment, and that's all a voter can go with. And believe me, after the primaries and the conventions, whoever is on the Democratic side on that ballot in November, there will be no hesitation.

(Note: if you're like me, a U.S. citizen living abroad, please go to VoteFromAbroad.org and find out how you can vote in the U.S. elections in November.)

Description 49 - A Christmas Story Compound

The two cities of my life are connected by one movie, so I review the career of the ex-pat who made it happen and visit a magical land of fake overdone turkeys, "headknockers" and leg lamps that go on forever. Promise you won't shoot your eye out.

Subscribe here - I triple-dog dare ya!
Download directly, and you'll feel like you've won a major award.

Associated links
Canuxsploitation interview with Bob Clark
Bob Clark @ the Film Reference Library
A Christmas Story @ wikipedia
A Christmas Story House! (even the site is great!)
How the house happened, in the New York Times
A Christmas Story in 30 Seconds With Bunnies
Who was Jean Shepherd?

Thanks, Jules!

My apologies to anyone who hasn't seen this movie. It's sort of ubiquitous in North America, most likely because the TV station TBS runs it for 24 hours over Christmas Day. But while we make a ton of obscure references to lines and terms in the film, there was a point where we all had to admit that probably none of us had seen the whole thing from beginning to end in one shot - we'd seen different chunks of it at different times, and it eventually added up to seeing all of it. So if you don't have the slightest clue what we're talking about, follow the links up there for the wikipedia article and the 30 second version with bunnies, and I think you'll be pretty well caught up.

In order to keep in the stories from that nasty elf, the lovely Patty Johnson (LaFontaine), I had to cut pretty well everything else in the museum, which is a trove of memorabilia with everything from scripts and behind-the-scenes photos to Randy's snowsuit. But I think you can tell anyway that the guys who put that place together weren't half-assed about anything.

Researching the links, I learned that the man whose stories made up A Christmas Story, Jean Shepherd, was not just a writer (though that would have been plenty), but a radio personality and voiceover artist. That might not be such a surprise considering his voiceover performance as adult Ralphie in the movie. Shepherd first worked in radio as a DJ, but he started telling stories more than he was playing music, so his path in radio soon changed to becoming a storyteller full-time. In fact, that was how Bob Clark discovered him. According to one of the trivia articles on the A Christmas Story House site:

In the late 1960s, "A Christmas Story" director Bob Clark was driving to a date's house when he happened upon a broadcast of radio personality and writer Jean Shepherd's recollections of growing up in Indiana in the late '30s and early '40s. Clark wound up driving around the block for almost an hour, glued to the radio until the program was over.

"My date was not happy," Clark said, but he knew right away he wanted to make a movie out of the stories, many of which first appeared in Playboy magazine and were collected in Shepherd’s 1966 book, "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash."

Jim Clavin, of the Shepherd fansite Flick Lives, writes about listening to Shepherd on New York's WOR:

Here, he spent the next 22 years talking to "me". Every Jean Shepherd listener will tell you that, as he sat there in front of the radio, or had it tucked beneath his pillow, Shep was talking only to "me". He had a method of talking as if he were sitting in your living room holding a casual conversation, discussing auto racing, or a recent trip abroad.

Sounds like that guy would've made a damn good podcaster.

Description 48 - Don't Expect Much

The Dalai Lama classes up an episode with two blizzards, official Canadian Football League turf, a lot of heavy breathing and an explanation why I don't sound quite as sad as I once did.

Click here to subscribe and go on the path
Click here to download directly and take one breath at a time.

Associated links
Toronto "blizzard" flickr set (by Robin Yap)
Zen Buddhist Centre
Edmund Bergler @ Quest For Self
DicksnJanes podcast
Allan Watts Theater!
Urban Dharma - the podcast
Pema Chodron
Ajahn Brahm podcast via Buddhist Society of Western Australia
Tengye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Temple
NOW Magazine on the Dalai Lama's visit to Toronto
Dalai Lama interview on CBC News Sunday

I'm posting this while sitting in the Kingsville Public Library, my nearest source of wi-fi happiness. Thanks, guys.

While all the podcasts I've linked up there are excellent, if you have any passing interest in Buddhism, your primary one-stop shop for a crazy load of info on this stuff can be found at BuddhaNet. From the simplest thing to the lists upon lists upon lists, it's really all there, and for free.

Being home for this long (it will be about ten days in total) is quite the tough proving ground for my nascent buddhist mindfulness. To paraphrase The Feeling, this place makes my head soft. But work like getting this episode together has helped. With tales of family selfishness, sniping and martyrdom (like with all families...and stupid judge shows that are on every frigging hour of the day around here), it wasn't a bad idea to sit myself down in the rocker/recliner in front of one of a half-dozen space heaters and strain to make out what the hell I was saying about inpermanence and unsatistfactoriness while tromping through the snow a couple weeks ago - not to mention trying to make out the echoes (literally) of the Dalai Lama. The much harder work here has been shutting up the chorus of judgements that roar in my head. Strangely, during my time here so far, I'm getting an idea where I got that chorus long ago. Maybe that will help the noise-reduction. We will see.

Help the victims of a bomb that did not exist

You may recall the times I've mentioned or been around the new Michael Lee Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum, which is not far away from me. A couple days ago, it was the site of a strange and stupid incident that has been in the news here ever since.

A student at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) put some batteries and circuitry in a little wooden box, left it inside the crystal not far from the entrance, then took off and youtubed footage of that action saying the box was not a bomb. Needless to say, someone eventually spotted it and everyone went nuts, bringing out cops and the bomb squad and dogs and whatnot, and the ROM closed pretty much for the night until they got it all sorted. Not surprisngly, the guy came out for a couple interviews saying this whole thing was an art project about recontextualization and stuff. (Note I'm not offering links to any of this, because he's gotten enough of the attention he was going for already.)

Now, usually I would be amused by something like this: some smart-ass, faux-pretentious kid making our authority figures freak out unecessarily. So why am I being all uppity about this incident? Well, that night, the ROM was hosting a huge fundraiser for CANFAR, the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research, one of those deals where rich people and corporations shell out tons of money to be there and tons more when they're there and where dozens of amazing volunteers give their time to help make it run well. This wacky little misadventure caused that event to be cancelled, basically taking away a good chunk of CANFAR's budget for the year.

Artist-boy says he had no idea about that event (nice research, dude - it was hardly an underground thing), and is sorry it was cancelled. Yeah, well, doesn't quite make up for the thousands of dollars lost that could've gone toward research, taking care of sick people, and helping with education that could prevent more deaths.

So this morning, I went over to the CANFAR site and donated 50 bucks, which is about all I can spare with no new money of my own coming in right now. I probably should have been donating to these guys for a while anyway, but this thing kind of kicked my ass that fewer rich people were going to be doing it for me at the moment. I think at least in North America, the general public doesn't think much about this issue/cause anymore except regarding Africa, but HIV/AIDS has not gone away anywhere, and the not-thinking-much provides a potential breeding ground for it. (Maybe artist-boy will fold this attention-raising into his "recontextualization" and look good from it, but whatever.)

So if you have a chance, please go to the CANFAR site, find out a little more about them, click the "donate now" button and give what you can. And of course, remember World AIDS Day is tomorrow.

Description 47 - Remembrance Day

Back in Ohio for U.S. Thanksgiving, I give thanks for Canadian soldiers past and present, and try to explain what the deal is with those red plastic flowers on our coats. Also features a tiny dog wrapped in a towel and guys in fluffy hats!

Click here to subscribe
Click here to download directly

Associated links
Remembrance Day @ wikipedia
CBC News In Depth on Vimy Ridge
The Royal Canadian Legion explains the poppy pin
LibriVox reads "In Flanders Fields"
The Suez Crisis and peacekeeping
Kandahar Journal from the National Post
CBC Kandahar Dispatches blog
Torontoist on Remembrance and Public Commemoration

The guy who spoke after Toronto Mayor David Miller at the ceremony was Dr. Ron N. Nickle, Padre (that's kind of like a chaplain) for the Toronto Fire Services. For a benediction, it was pretty strongly-worded concerning religion's relation to war, with the hope we will never feel our way is the only way. Pretty cool.

A few things in the ceremony I had to edit out for time. Shortly after the two minutes of silence at 11am, there was a fly-by of old warplanes, where one plane veered off to the side out of formation to honour those who have fallen. Soon after, we all sang O Canada, and near the end of the ceremony, it seems more people sang God Save the Queen (which I don't know how to sing without doing "my country tis of thee...").

And somewhere in the middle was the laying of the wreaths, where it seems every bloody group in this town laid a wreath - public services, reps from every consulate, unions, different sections of unions, and seemingly every little sub-group of every ethnic group and interest. It took forever. Okay, so it's great all these groups saw fit to honour our soldiers and their loved ones, but I had to wonder if there was something a bit political about it, i.e. "oh, if that group is laying a wreath, surely we must." I wondered if some of those groups could have just gotten together on some of those wreaths, maybe it would have demonstrated a little more of a sense of community that could contribute to some more peace in this world.

But y'know, that may be just me being cynical.

The Kevin Hilliard Retrospective

This is pretty much appropos of nothing, but I just got a myspace bulletin from my friend Kevin, who you may remember from Description 07 and Description 15.

Hey Massive Kevin Hilliard Fan,
You probably wont believe me but an awesome college radio station in Phoenix, AZ is doing a 2 hour 'Kevin Hilliard The Man & His Music' retrospective this Thursday, 2PM-4PM Arizona time (4-6 ET?). Which tracks from the Grace Babies 'Lure' record will they play? You'll just have to tune in to find out. www.theblaze1260.com. Gee, I hope I get SOCAN money for this.

KH

He can make up some pretty cool stuff, but I don't think he's the right kinda crazy to make this up.

(Note to Blogger: I wish you'd quite screwing up my line separation after a blockquote. Grr.)

So what would such a retrospective entail? Well, Kev played drums and bass in the Grace Babies, who made two albums: Lure while still in Halifax and Frequency with Moe after moving to Toronto. Before breaking up, they snuck in another single, my favourite GB song "Wish On It," which can be found on a popguru compilation. I'd love to put some GB on the podcast, but many of the songs I'd like to include, like my fave, were at least co-written by lead singer Damian Dunphy, and I don't see him around much and don't have the balls to ask him when I do.

Then, of course, the Kevster started his own band with fellow Grace Baby (and award-winning Rivoli bartender) Chris Loane, the mighty National Anthem, who also did two CDs, Sing Along If You Know the Words and Radio On. You've heard tracks from those records on Description 02, Description 13 and Description 38 (the Music episode). On and off and on and off, he's played bass alongside Barry Walsh in Galore, who I also played on that Music episode, as well as Description 07 and Description 20. And for the last while, he's been clapping up a storm with his landlord Thom in Small Sins (previously The Ladies and Gentlemen), who are now touring to promote the new CD. They're actually on a label and stuff, so my chances of getting that on the show are slim. Oh, aaannnnnd when not touring, he's recently been playing with The Holy Fields, who've already been on a couple podcasts, so I'm guessing it's just a matter of time.

Only after looking over all this do I realize just how much this bastard's been doing for more than 10 years. So yeah, let those weird kids in the desert give the boy his props. And if you liked any of that music - and the video below - you might want to check it out.

Description 46 - Location Support

So what have I been doing for money? Standing around so Hollywood North can make its magic. Enjoy great rock from The Left and join me for tales of parking battles, cans of snow, mysterious crystals, cardboard-covered walls and the eternal search for a place to urinate.

Click here to subscribe, because it's your permit.
Click here to download directly and pretend your permit hasn't expired.

Associated links
My new podcast!!
The movie I was working on
A location support company I don't work for, but has a website
The Left: on myspace, on iTunes and on CD Baby

A couple days later, I did get a folding chair - not one of those deals with the back and the beverage holder like some of the other guys have, because I don't think I can sit in those and look like I'm working. After another more arduous shift (and a sit-down lunch), I went to the Canadian Tire featured in Description 02 and got a folding three-legged stool, which must be made for hunters because the slip of fabric where you put your ass is in camouflage. (Otherwise, of course, the deer will see you.) Very light, very cheap and therefore losable. It served me very very well a couple days later when I had to watch trucks pull out of a base camp in thick fog at 6am behind a Hamilton mental hospital. Yes, I know - you wish I'd recorded that day.

When I went to Showline to pick up my cheque, a woman in a familiar orange vest was watching the parking lot. Turns out that same film was starting filming in those studios. I realise that's less work for folks like me, but it was nice the actors and the crew were finally working in some more comfortable environs made for folks like them.

For what I did record, I didn't have the chance to mention that across the road where I was, on the huge, forested bank of the conservation area, there are two spectacular houses - real Frank Lloyd Wright kind of stuff. One seems only accessible via a long set of wooden steps (and some sort of ramp/pulley system for deliveries) from the garage on the side of the road; the other accessible via a long, perilous-looking driveway. With about an hour left in my shift, I sat on the location house's steps to the sidewalk watching an Audi pull into that driveway when it stopped. Stepping from the passenger side was a very well-kept woman in her 70's with glasses and her lustrous silver hair cut in a bob. She bent down to me.

"Excuse me, dear - do you need any help?"

I glanced around. "No, ma'am, I'm fine, thank you."

"Oh, all right. You see, we live across the street and have been seeing you sitting here in the cold, and we were concerned someone was supposed to pick you up and never came. We wanted to check to see if you needed anything, like to make a call or something."

I chuckled and smiled. "Sorry, I understand how you'd think that. No, I'm working security for this film set here, guarding the equipment for when they film here tomorrow, and someone else will be here soon to relieve me. It won't be long now."

She nodded, a little embarrassed. "Ah, I see. That's fine then."

"Thank you so much for asking, though. I appreciate it."

"Thank you, dear. You have a good night."

She wrapped herself back in her taupe pashmina and got back into the Audi, which then crawled carefully down that driveway.

Description 45 - Nuit Blanche Plus Tard

The mega-success returns, but can the art really hold out 'til the break of day? I get answers from a church, from under an iceberg and inside a port-a-potty. With cameos by The Gap Band, Clint Eastwood and manicurist furries.

Click here to subscribe to some sort of groupthink.
Click here to download directly and say you meant to do that.

Associated links
Official Nuit Blanche website again
blogTO review
Torontoist photo album
The real Leonard Cohen quote about the ROM Crystal
The Crystal itself
The Word on the Street
Bravo!FACT
Gardiner Museum
Queen's Park @ Wikipedia

As I'd noted briefly, Nuit Blanche actually started at 7pm the previous night, which was when I got off work. Hobbling up Queen's Park to Bloor, I saw coming in my direction a small group of young people in formal clothes, like they came out of the movie Metropolitan. They were trying to dance, but were somewhat restricted by the fact they were attached to each other by the chest or shoulder, so they were this modest, happy mass of limbs toddling down the street toward me. Fortunately, I had read somewhere there'd be this group "dancing" throughout Zone A, so I said aloud "And so it begins," wished them a good night and went on my way.

I hope you around town heeded my recommendation to check out Nuit Blanche yourself. For me, at that time of morning in my little corner of my zone, it was lamer than depicted in the episode (and I know that's saying something). I cut my trip through a piece at St. Thomas' church that was pretty well finished and cut my discovery that a piece on the front of the Bata Shoe Museum had been taken down by the time I'd gotten there. But I hear other zones were still hopping, and that in the end, the event attracted way more people than last year, which I guess would put the attendance over half a million.

Man. Can you believe that?

I do. I don't think they're lying. But that just blows my mind.

When I got to my work location at the Christie Mansion, the guy I was relieving asked me whether I went to the piece in Lower Bay Station. D'OH! I really wanted to see that! But I later learned that the line to get in was every bit as long as the line to go down there during Doors Open, which was give-up-your-day long, so I wouldn't have made it in anyway. However, those kids at Torontoist (to be exact, Tony Makepeace) did a wicked 360-degree panorama of it! So go here and dig it with QuickTime VR. And one of these days, maybe I'll finally make it into that mysterious abandoned subway station known for its appearances in movies. Ha - maybe I'll have to be on a film crew to get there.

Avant Nuit Blanche Encore

Yeah, okay, so it may be just one episode for September. I'm working on starting another podcast series (no, not replacing this one) and sort of trying to get paying work.

You might remember last year, I had an episode about Toronto's first Nuit Blanche event, which was pretty cool (if you don't remember it, go here). That event was so successful, they decided to have it again this Saturday (almost literally at the expense of the Toronto Street Festival, the baby of the previous mayor, the wacky Mel Lastman. I don't think that fest was all that great, and was maybe a bit too earnest, but it did have bouncy castles and roasted corn for just-folks who like that, and I'm not sure about taking that from them. Anyway...).

Unlike many annual events here, I think I'm going to take the iRiver around it again and do another episode about it, because also unlike most annual events here, it's going to have aspects to discover different from last year. I'm also going to try to do it later in the night - things were so busy at 10pm-1am, and I don't think I really took advantage of the whole overnight thing it had. I do think I'll stay in my local Zone A, around Yorkville and the U of T, although there are two other zones with all kinds of stuff going on.

So if you're in Toronto, or like the idea of coming here for the weekend (please like that idea!), I highly recommend you check this thing out for yourself, live and in person, without my babbling and bad audio (which you can enjoy a couple weeks later). Nuit Blanche is really about presenting art, especially conceptual-type avant-garde art, as something anyone can get into, literally and figuratively. It's probably the least pretentious modern art event in existence, and Toronto is one of the very few cities who puts it on. So come take advantage! You can find much of the info (maps, descriptions, etc) you'll need at the official site.

Update: I knew Torontoist would have a nice Nuit Blanche preview, but they waited until I posted. :-P Here ya go.

Description 44 - Okay Blue Jays

My (usually) annual trip to watch my two hometown baseball teams inspires plenty of memories of better days. Still, we can enjoy music from Great Big Sea, browse some "Yorkville Yummies", hear two cowbells and walk through the airport of the apocalypse.

Click here to subscribe and have your season's ticket.
Click here to download directly and pick your game.

Associated links
Official Site of the Toronto Blue Jays
Official Site of the Cleveland Indians
Lovely SkyWalk photo by Snuffy on flickr.
Porter Airlines
The Rogers Centre (Skydome) in wikipedia
Pizza Pizza!
Great Big Sea
(and thanks again to the Podsafe Music Network)
Arrrrrgooooos....
Toronto's Sports Radio, the FAN 590
Tom Cheek, RIP
Toronto Mike remembers Tom Cheek with streaming audio of his greatest calls
Batter's Box Q&A with Jerry Howarth
Toronto Blue Jays history
The "OK Blue Jays" song! (via Toronto Mike again)

The stars of that night's game...
Vernon Wells, who hit that home run:

Roy Halliday, who fell short of winning us pizza:


I'm giving those guys props because I've learned in all the years I've supported teams who suck, it's really important to support and praise the guys who are still awesome and are working their asses off no matter how crappy things get.

For the record, Toronto won that game 8-6. Time of the game was two hours and fifty-seven minutes, and the attendance was 28,526.

(And yes, I know Left Behind was originally a book. Shudder.)

My favourite baseball memory does not involve the Blue Jays, but the Indians, and it's not something they'll have an exhibit about at the Hall of Fame. Back when I was a kid, Dad and I would go see the Tribe one or two times a year at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, and often these games would involve the Yankees. These were the great and universally despised Yankees of the '70's, the subject of that ESPN miniseries we didn't get to see here, The Bronx Is Burning. Indians fans hated the Yankees, with the exception of the late Thurman Thomas because he was from nearby, and regaled them during games with hardy chants of "YANKEES SUCK!" or "REGGIE SUCKS" (for Reggie Jackson) or "BILLY SUCKS" (for manager Billy Martin). Hearing 70,000 people doing that at once is pretty cool. Anyway, we happened to choose that night to sit in the bleachers, but early on in the game, it started raining, and it rained for long enough that we were allowed into the main section of the stadium to wait it out.

Time passed, it kept pouring rain. Sometimes back then, some drunk guy would try to run across the field, and inevitably, the Cleveland cops would catch up with him and beat the crap out of him with clubs. (What can I say - it was the '70's.) I noticed a group of about a half dozen guys in the front row of box seats along one foul line, and wondered what that was about. They suddenly jumped over the little barrier and sprinted to the centre of the tarp on the diamond. Of course, the cops were on their way. Then, the group of intruders all took off, each one going in a different direction!

There must have been a bet on for who would make it back off the field without being caught. I thought in its way, this was brilliant. Sure enough, the cops were initially perplexed, but adjusted themselves as best they could. The chases were on.

One by one, each guy was caught and pounded, then my eyes would dart to the next one, and the next one. As you're picturing this in your head, remember this is in pouring rain, and people on both sides of the law are sliding everywhere. The crowd would cheer and laugh and go "awww" when someone was caught. One intruder had drawn the short stick of running to the outfield fence (which at the time didn't have fancy LCD screens on it), which was maybe six feet high. It looked like he was going to make it - I cheered and yelled for him - but then he had to climb that fence. He reached and scrambled as best he could...but didn't make it. Poundpoundpound! One of them did actually make it, getting back into the box seats on the other side of the field where they'd started. It was euphoric, except for the fact he was running into the welcoming arms of more members of the Cleveland Police, who smacked him around and dragged him off to where he and his friends would dry out (in more ways than one) in a lovely local jail cell.

Yes, that is my great baseball memory from my childhood. Kinda shows you I've been this way all my life. Of course, though, there are lessons to be learned about divide and conquer, working as a team, and knowing that no matter what, eventually we all face an end of getting smacked around by cops and getting thrown in a drunk tank, so run as well and as far as you can.

Description 43 - The Opera House

While listening for fighter jets, I talk about another immigrant who did great things for Toronto and then visit one of the greatest things he did. Yes, there's opera, as well as a steel drum band playing U2. But there are no frosted glass escalators.

Click here to subscribe and pay way less than you'd have to for a COC subscription.
Click here to download directly, knowing rush tickets are subject to availability.

Associated links
Canadian International Air Show
Canadian Opera Company
Four Seasons Centre For the Performing Arts
The (other) Opera House
CBC Arts on Richard Bradshaw and what he meant to the COC
The Toronto Star article I read, by John Terauds
Atom Egoyan talks about Bradshaw (Sorry, it's Real Player.)
National Ballet of Canada
Toronto Life on architect Jack Diamond
World Partnership Walk (I kept saying it wrong.)
Aga Khan Foundation
My opera house photos on flickr (take that, camera cops!)

*Update! (Nov. 8, 2007) Tony Makepeace's wicked QuickTime VR panorama of the National Ballet rehearsing West Side Story in the opera house (take that again, camera cops!)

In this vast world of the internet, there must be an mp3 floating around of Anna Russell's legendary and freaking funny "Analysis of Wagner's 'Ring der Nibelungen'". The best I can find is a transcription someone kindly did. But you don't get her classic, Bob Newhart-level pauses that just make the piece. Sigh...

Okay, Blog Day. I'm supposed to share 5 blogs I like. Again, I barely ever read blogs back when they were the thing before podcasts - no real reason - and I don't think I'm very voracious now, but I have a pretty long list of feeds on bloglines, so that must count for something. Everybody reads Boing Boing, right? Okay, I won't count that...

First, I must note there's a huge list/feed of Canadian blogs at publicbroadcasting.ca, the domain (literally and figuratively) of my podcast landlord Justin, so you should really stop there first. It also has its own group blog here, and it's pretty darn good, though I'm often too lazy to post anything to it. That's where the "group" thing comes in handy. :-)

Now, finally, for my list, which is mainly comprised of places where I can actually learn something.

You've pretty much figured by now that I like Andrew Dubber's blog New Music Strategies. Even if the guy hadn't inspired me to buy an iRiver two years ago, I would still recommend his thoughtful, passionate yet not-bossy opinions and findings on music and musicians online. Required reading for any musician trying to make a living today, but not the equivalent of eating your vegetables. (btw, he's looking for somewhere to stay while he's at CMJ in New York in October, so email me if you have any ideas for him that do not involve putting up a mortgage or needing vaccinations.)

Still on the subject of music but getting a bit muckier, No Rock'n'Roll Fun can be catty and whinge on a bit, but that's part of why I like it. It's simple, constantly updated and takes absolutely no crap. It's really more about the media coverage of music and what gets said there than it is of the music itself, and unfortunately we seem to be in a world where the media does take precedence - at least in the mainstream. But that also means it gets savaged here all the more.

My fave Toronto blog is Torontoist, which is of course part of the "ist" clan. It still feels authentic, it has a little bit of everything, and I like the writing and attitude. Wish I could give an honourable mention to Antonia Zerbisias' media blog for the Star, but it seems it is no more, as the muckety-mucks got all nervous and shuffled her off to the Life section. She still has her columns, though.

Instead, I must be content with the TV Newser blog at mediabistro. American and very level-headed, its strength is not in presenting a snarky opinion, but in delivering the stories that make you come up with your own snarky opinion.

Oh, and I have to be a girl and give props to the Rabbit Blog, where wicked Salon TV critic Heather Havrilesky turns into Dear Abby on crack to dispense very real, very funny and very verbose (see how I can relate) advice to the otherwise-smart lovelorn. Since her baby was born, she slacked off on the posts, understandably, but she's been revving her engines throughout August.

My favourite blog of all time (still a dubious honour coming from me) was the one by "Rance," supposedly an A-list movie star sharing bemusing tales of life in Hollywood. Part of the fun was trying to guess who this guy was - the most popular guesses were George Clooney, Ben Affleck and Owen Wilson - but for me, the attraction was just fantastic writing. As so often happens with the best blogs, Rance found it harder and harder to keep up the posts, and while some very able readers did their best to carry on in his stead at his request (because he respected their writing), the magic had gone. To this day, not even the Museum of Hoaxes is sure of who Rance was, be he actual celebrity or mere insider, though theories remain. It may be just as well to let it stand as the cracking piece of interactive fiction that it was.

Description 42 - The Duty Free

After some screw-ups, we finally go to a store without a country and without taxes. Featuring rawk from Iron Giant, wine by golfers vs. wine by fishermen, moose stuffies and me calling Bonnie Hunt "f-ing wicked awesome".

Click here to subscribe and save on bandwidth duty.
Click here to download directly and hide your smokes under the back seat.

Associated links:
Peace Bridge Duty Free
Town of Fort Erie, Ontario
The Shopping Bags
LCBO (that's Liquor Control Board of Ontario - sounds fun, huh?)
Mike Weir Estate Winery
And who is Mike Weir again?
Bob Izumi Wines from Coyote's Run Estate Winery
Ice Wine in Wikipedia
Iceberg Vodka
Iron Giant on myspace, at underdogma (buy the album!) and playing live on YouTube!
Transcanada Transpondency Part 3 (with the Steam Whistle Brewery tour)
What the hell is Clamato?
Tim Goodman eulogizes Tom Snyder
NBC's tribute (where I got the opening)
Flash opening for Snyder's defunct colortini.com
Tom Snyder and Bonnie Hunt's last time on the Late Late Show: part 1 and part 2 (with her song)

The chili ended up okay...or at least I thought before I got violently sick, sicker than any food has made me. So much for that recipe.

For the opening, I couldn't find a clip of Tom Snyder's complete trademark line, "Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air," so I went with the truncated version on his CNBC show. Consistent with the main subject of the episode, a "colortini" was an alcoholic beverage one may choose to imbibe whilst watching television at that late hour. Also, I don't think Bonnie was on Tom's last Late Late Show, but on the last week. Other classic recurring guests on that show were Dennis Miller (before he jumped the political shark), the author Dean Koontz - and maybe towering over them all, Robert Blake, who spun the most remarkable tales of Hollywood, destruction and redemption. It makes what happened to Blake (or what he did, depending on your point of view) several years later that much more unfortunate, yet somehow fitting into the whole epic.

Chris of Iron Giant offered to send me the new album, but asked if he could snail-mail me a CD because he hadn't quite figured out this mp3 conversion thing. :-) We take a lot for granted, gang. I think they've got it sorted, since new tracks are popping up around the net, so I'll get something postage-free in my gmail one of these days and will play it for you. Thanks again, Chris...and you may want to download iTunes.

Here's my greatest PJ memory (which may not be precisely correct detail-wise). About 10 years ago, PJ, Derek, Steve and Ken were The Monoxides and in Toronto to make their fortune. (When The Darkness first hit, I thought, "hmmm, somebody got some Monoxides records in England.") Not surprisingly, Moe produced their major label album and so the boys became part of the Berg posse, and that's how I got to know PJ. Q107 put on a huge concert at The Docks with The Pursuit of Happiness, Headstones and Honeymoon Suite, with The Monoxides as one of the opening bands. I had brought shirts for Steve and PJ from the first KISS comeback tour (which I'd gotten from my friend Julie, who had done the merch), and they were like kids finding cool bikes under the Christmas tree. The band did their thing and rocked as usual, and soon after, the Suite came on. I dug them back in tha day, and Julie and Gord had worked with them while still living here. By this time, that band had kind of started to run on fumes - only Johnny and Derry remained from the original lineup, I think - and it was becoming clear their hit-making years were behind them. No sin in that (and in fact they have continued, touring successfully), but needless to say, they could not be considered even remotely hot or trendy at that point. So we're being all cool and stuff near the back of this cavernous space, and they start playing...I want to say it was "Burning In Love," it could've been "Feel It Again." It definitely wasn't "New Girl Now" yet in the set. PJ, Steve and Kevin (Hilliard, did you think he wouldn't be there?) suddenly whooped and ran, RAN across the club to the stage and went nuts, jumping up and down and singing along at the top of their lungs with fists aloft. I followed them. I'd never seen such absolute joy in my life. That may be how I always remember PJ, while he will always know me as that girl who gave him that wicked KISS shirt.

Description 41 - Fringing

Theatre, theatre everywhere as I take the iRiver through four productions in this year's Toronto Fringe. Featuring a navigation triumph, a dance contest that never happened, flyers from textile stores, and a Marillion song.

Click here to subscribe, even better than a Buddy Pass!
Click here to download directly, "At the door"

Associated links
Fringe of Toronto Theatre Festival
Theatre Passe-Muraille
Walmer Centre Theatre
Tarragon Theatre
Factory Theatre
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
the brilliant Edinburgh Fringe Show podcast
Fringes in Winnipeg (about to end at post time), Edmonton (in August!) and Vancouver (in September!).
Also Ottawa, Calgary (in August!), Montreal, Regina...and others, but I'm tired.
The Melbourne Fringe is more about art, but there are Fringes in Adelaide and Sydney.
Quirky Nomads
Marillion!
some Young Ones

The featured shows
(um, which I recorded some of without permission...but hey! Links!)
The Fugue Code
Like, Omigawd! (with music!)
Curriculum Vitae (actually, Jimmy Hogg's myspace because there's no site for the show itself, strangely)
Dickens of the Mounted

And yes, there are Fringes in the U.S., more than a dozen of them. Just think of a city, google it with the word "fringe" after it, and there you go.

I think you can tell something about a person by the Fringe shows he/she attends. It's clear here that I have a penchant for guys with British accents who perform alone with humour and pathos. That seems fair. :-) There are many other Fringe shows that involve more than one person (some of whom aren't men) who don't have British accents and are very very dramatic. I just didn't happen to see them. There was also math in my favour in that because of the economics of putting on a Fringe show, lots of them just have one actor, often playing more than one character. I can think of three right off the bat from past Fringes: one last year had Brian Froud doing the Swiss Family Robinson story only with characters from "Family Guy" (Fox later made him cease and desist - drag), one a couple years back was this British guy detailing the history of football (soccer) in England, and one of the first Fringe shows I ever saw was comedienne Brigitte Gall as a young female hockey goalie in Quebec in the 1970's who is told by God to try out for the NHL (it later became a tv special). Now that I think about it, she did have an accent, albeit a Quebec one.

My thing about British/UK accents, along with me just having a thing for them, is probably about me wishing I could go to the Edinburgh Fringe someday, damn Ewan Spence and his addictive podcast with entertaining people. :-) At the moment, it looks pretty impossible to get a flight to Scotland without coughing up thousands or hiding under a wheel rim. Much like a male athlete preferring to be interviewed by an attractive woman so he has something nice to look at while being grilled, I seem to prefer looking at men while getting my theatre messages delivered to me. In all media, I always pick comedy over drama, since drama is inherently a part of good comedy anyway.

And my penchant for solo shows reflects my abilty to understand individual expression better than the dynamics among people. So it goes here.

CBC Museum: get there before it's gone

In Description 39, I went through the CBC Museum at the Broadcast Centre and found it a pretty cool place I'd ignored all these years. If that made you wonder about visiting it yourself, you might not want to wait very long like I did. Tod Maffin's Inside the CBC blog (manned by Paul Gorbould for the moment) suggests the museum's days might be numbered as The Corp considers how do re-do the whole ground floor possibly for more of a Citytv storefront situation. Check out the post here.

Sure, maybe they'll really figure out how to present CBC's long and rich history in a wonderful and engaging way that improves vastly on the little closet we've been given so far. But can you count on it? Believe me - no. So if you're in Toronto for one reason or another, think a bit harder about setting aside an hour to go look around.