FANEXPO 2010: WHICH WORLD IS YOURS?

We all have a shared reality. But it is shared. Not necessarily exclusive. We each have our own reality, our own perspective through which we experience the reality that we all share. But, often, there are others who share that personal point of view. And we discover each other, it's a cause for celebration and an opportunity for pure unbridled geekish glee.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it was time once again for Fanexpo in Toronto

This is an ex that is becoming a victim of its own success. It once again took place at the Toronto Convention Centre but they moved it to the biggest hall in the complex and that still wasn't enough. Saturday, they oversold the advance tickets then opened the doors to same day sales and it was temporarily shut down by the fire marshal for code violations. I went Sunday, it was not shut down but it was clear that this event has achieved a popularity beyond the ability of the organizer's. The line up for tickets stretched from the side of the building out onto Front Street. Once inside, it was almost two hours before I got up to the ticket window

Once inside the show was almost worth the wait, there were a few organizational snafu's here and there but there were tons of vendors, lots to buy and of course, lots and lots of people celebrating their shared realities, their shared worlds, in costume

It is an interesting phenomenon. All these people, most of them very young, so heavily invested in their little subcultures. I'm sure they will have a few friends who share these interests, who are equally ardent fans of the video game or the anime or the sci fi show or the horror movie but at the con, there could be hundreds if not thousands of similar fans. Strangers who discover an instant kinship.
Fanexpo features several points of interest: Comics, sci fi, horror, anime, gaming so it appeals to many many groups, some of whom may rarely rub shoulders together. It's a good thing everyone was in good spirits, with some of these characters, you wouldn't want a fight to break out.

Looking at these pictures one has to think: Did the two bat girls encounter each other? What happens then: Do they band together and kick Supergirl's ass for being a snotty blond? Or did they go at each other, in the ultimate cat fight, I mean, bat fight. That's such a perfect comic book nerd conversation, the kind of discussions that seemed to just flow out of the walls.

And of course, let's not think about what happens when different Supergirils collide

Somebody may have to borrow a force field from Sue Richards

There was more at the Expo to watch than just costumed characters of course. The event attracted a lot of celebrities as well, from a wide range of genres.

Director David Cronenburg showed up, and although with movies like A History of Violence and Eastern Promises he has moved beyond horror, he is still a rock star in that field

There were also your requisite geeky fan faves from Adam West ...

.. to Oscar winner Ernest Borgnine. I'm not sure what specific sci fi projects he's been involved with but he was in The Wild Bunch, that's good enough for me. And he is quite loud, quite vocal, and swears like a trucker.

An actor with genuine sci fi chops is Summer Glau. She was a star of the very short lived but very good TV series Firefly and its even better spin off movie, Serenity. She was also the extremely cool teenaged female terminator in another very good short lived series The Sarah Conner Chronicles.
But there was one attending actor with impeccable sci fi credentials. The one actor who I may have considered paying for the privilege of having him sign a photo. The man I consider today's greatest living actor. No, not Pee Wee Herman, the one and only Mr William Shatner
Yes, I considered paying for Bill's autograph till I realized he was charging 80 bucks. And bucks mean dollars. I may still be in shock. Bill, I love ya, I really do but you have 3 different TV series this year ... dude, you should be paying us.

Ok, to get over my William Shatner sticker shock, let's look at some more pretty costumed girls ..

OK, feel better? I know I do. And for my female readers, I don't want you all to feel left out ...
Well, he is a guy .. I think. Think back to the top of this post and the joke I made about Pride Week. Anyway, moving on ...

A sci fi/anime sub culture that made a big showing at this year's con was Steampunk. This is a sub genre that probably began with a novel called The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. It presents an alternate universe where culture stopped during the Victorian era but technology continued. There is a healthy Steampunk world out there covering anime, web TV series, comics and of course, fashion

The con provided for a few instances of serendipity. Like this young lady dressed as a vintage TV series Cat Woman ...
... only a few yards away from Julie Newmar, one of the actual vintage TV series Cat Women

who in turn was a few yards away from a vintage TV series Batmobile

It's one of the cool things about Fanexpo, how it features passions that can be shared but such a wide variety of people. Fans come in all ages

And this being Toronto, fans represent all races. But it's interesting that so many Japanese Canadian girls, born and raised here, totally identify with the female characters from manga and anime created in Japan
But that's what it is all about. Connecting. Connecting with some art form that moves you. Connecting with its creators or portrayers. Connecting with others who share the same passion.
Judging by the massive crowds, the long line ups, the giddy enthusiasim, I'd say that connection is more than ephemeral. These may be fantasy worlds. But for one weekend at least, the worlds were very very real
For this event I did not have Collette to create her usual beautiful pics so I struggled on my own with her Nikon. But of course I had the palmcorder in my pocket. So here's a very brief video to give you another perspective on the day

Toronto Fanexpo from Collette Scale on Vimeo.

BUSKERFEST 2010

Jugglers and tumblers and unicycles, oh my! This past weekend the St. Lawrence Market district of Toronto was taken over by face painted, colourfully dressed, flamboyant characters .. no, Pride Week has already happened this year. This was, of course, Buskerfest.

This year we went down to the festival not really knowing what to expect. It's a fun way to experience it. Wandering around the area that has been closed off to traffic, the acts spread out along many blocks, basically following the crowed and listening for applause or music or the patter of the performers. Sometimes that means you butt up against a ring of people so thick you have no chance of seeing over their heads and you pray for a "flying" act so you can get a glimpse of the performers as they soar up over the heads of the onlookers.

The first act we came upon was a charity case. Apparently these lovely birds had been abandoned in their cage. A sign stated "Please feed the birds" If you did, they danced and did some acrobatics on a swing and climbed up to perform on the top of their cage

Besides tumbler and caged birds Buskerfest would not be Buskerfest without jugglers. I am, pretty much, over jugglers. Seriously, with a few exceptions all the juggling acts tend to blur together. Almost all street jugglers use, or try to use, comedy to bolster their act. Some are good, but comedy is not a skill set shared by all. What often happens is you get this guy below, a pretty good juggler but a pretty lame comedian. His act consisted of 10 minutes of lame patter to get to 40 seconds of decent juggling

But for all the "been there seen that" jugglers at the fest you always find something fresh and original. Like this group of tumblers from the States. We got to their show a little late and I had a difficult time filming over the crowd (you will see one shot on the video below) but Collette is a good and insistent photographer so got a couple of shots

Now, the St Lawrence Market district in Toronto is an old neighbourhood, the market building itself goes back to around 1901. But the market doesn't seem the only thing held over from the ancient times, apparently dragons inhabited downtown Toronto back in the day and Buskerfest seems to have brought them back to life

Of course what these creatures were, are stilt walkers in remarkable articulated costumes complete with sound effects. They moved about gracefully with so many independent body parts I wondered how many hands the operators must have had.
Although you could say I'm all "tumbled out" the one thing I always like to see at Buskerfest are the ribbon gymnasts. And this year did not disappoint. There was lovely, traditional, elegant ribbon work as demonstrated by this young girl from the Circus School ...

.. or we saw a different take on the art, as performed by the remarkable clown Lulu. Her act involves "discovering" the ribbon rig and deciding to try her hand at it. In perfect clown fashion, Lulu grabs the ribbons and, clumsy creature that she is, tries to be as graceful and elegant as the other girls but of course it is beyond her limited skill set ... The real trick of course is that Lulu is a very skilled aerial artist and knows exactly what she's doing up there. As you'll see in the video, she is like the female Buster Keaton of the ribbons, playing this inept character with a ton of skill and dexterity that is not at first apparent.

It seems that every year at Buskerfest we come across one act that really stands out. Last year it was Dream State Circus a remarkable act from Australia featuring acrobatics, fire dancing and a graceful sexiness. This year it was couple from Japan, Gheeky and Daiki

Cheeky & Daiki seem as far away from Dream State Circus as you could get. The Australian couple are graceful and sensual. The Japanese couple are frantic and clumsy .. on the surface. Cheeky is much like Lulu: A gifted clown who hides her considerable physical skills under a zany surface of playful cheekiness. Yes, she is well named.

Cheeky was absolutely hilarious, playing off of Daiki's worried and embarrassed character. They are very much a Japanese Ricki and Lucy. Daiki, a skilled unicycle rider was trying to put on a trick show, whereas Cheeky was a mess, easily distracted and incredibly flirty. As you'll see on the video, she has a certain fondness for camera men.

As I mentioned, this was basically a unicycle stunt act and both performers were extremely skilled. But both are more than stunt people they are indeed performers. And I acknowledge the skill and art of the straight man, so Daiki is more than a guy who can do some amazing stuff on one wheel.

The couple had a lot of familiar elements in their show: Audience interaction, build ups to stunts, back and forth banter, but Cheeky is flat out hilarious, the show was lifted above the norm. I don't think I'd have been too entranced by a straight out unicycle stunt show but this pair of clowns were able to elevate it to a higher level of entertainment.

So all in all another successful Buskerfest. Collette and I were remembering our first fest, quite a few years ago. It was held at Nathan Phillip's square and I think there were a handful of performers over two days. It has grown. In Toronto that means thousands and thousands of people squeezed into limited space, most of them displaying extremely poor social skills but still .. A hot sunny Saturday, performers who work their asses off cuz if you don't like, you don't pay and a cold beer on a patio ...

What else would you want. Enjoy the video

Toronto Buskerfest 2010 from Collette Scale on Vimeo.

THE SOUND & TASTE OF FIRE

A short post with a short video to follow

This past Saturday Collette and I went down to Harbourfront for the Hot n Spicy food festival. Like any (largely) outdoor festival in Toronto the crowds were crazy. We didn't get to sample all the food we may have liked, but we did get to try a kind of empanada from south america, the exact name eludes me but it was folded grilled tortilla stuffed with beef, beans and a ton of veggies .. and it came with two very fiery dipping sauces. Can you say Yum?

There was the International Marketplace which is set up at Harbourfront on the summer weekends. We didn't make a purchase but it's always cool to stroll through the tents and browse a little

And it's always nice to be down at the Inner Harbour on a summer evening. A nice breeze was coming off the lake, people were strolling along the quay and there were a lot of boats in the water. The number of harbour cruise boats was a bit startling, to be honest. At any given time you could see at least six of them prowling around out there

There were free concerts as well. The little amphitheatre at Harbourfront is one of favorite venues in the city. Although covered, it is outside, it is small and intimate and it's right on the water. Though the performers on stage, gazing out over the audience at the harbour, have the best views

The opening act was a Latin band, which we expected for this festival. The food in the tents was mostly a combination of Latin American and West Indian vendors.

But we also had one of those pleasant little surprises you are occasionally awarded in life. Walking back down the quay, later in the evening, we heard this strange and compelling sound coming from the amphitheatre. It turns out it was a sitar, but not played in any way I've before heard. There was also a guy wearing a large East Indian drum around his torso, and a DJ mixing dance tracks.

"Oh" says Vic to Victor, "it's like an Indian dance band ..."

And at that moment this little red headed female fiddle playing dervish comes whirling across the stage, rocking out some Celtic grooves that would make Ashley MacIssaac proud. Well, that got both Collette and I entranced and we moved in to get a better look

The band is called Deli 2 Dublin. As the name implies, it's a fusion of Indian and Irish music with a lot more going on: Dance tracks, a little rap, songs in both English and Hindi, pop sounds .. a whole musical kitchen sink. It all worked. Collette and I are both fans of Celtic music and I've been a fan of Middle Eastern sounds mixed with European style rock or electro. These guys were taking it a whole new level. The energy level onstage was truly infectious. This is a live band, apparently formed for one-off show in Vancouver and kept together by their festival appearances

Unfortunately you won't get to see any of Deli 2 Dublin in the video. My venerable little Samsung palmcorder, which was bought second hand and which has served me well over the last 3 years, seems to be on his last legs

A moment of silence please

So, wonky video notwithstanding, here's just a little sample of our evening. At one point we got a table at the little patio right beside the amphitheatre, where we could hear this exciting young band while gazing out over the water. We finished the evening off by indulging in some totally messy but totally delicious gourmet ice cream

Hot food, fiery music, a cool breeze wafting in over the Island, cold beer, frosty ice cream .... what more needs to be said

Hot n Spicy Food Fest from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

THE POWER OF THE WHINE

If we didn't already have confirmation of the power of The Hairy Edge, there is even more proof. Earlier this week I wrote another post bemoaning the fact that the government Ontario failed to give in to reason and popularity, and sanction professional MMA fighting.

Well apparently, Premiere Dalton McGinty is a fan of this blog. Because it was announced yesterday that this province will soon me hosting mma fights, including the UFC. Many reporters seemed baffled by this sudden turn of events and wondered what was the impetus for the government's sudden about face on this issue. Not only did McGinty change his mind, the watchdogs could not understand what mysterious, pervasive force held such sway over the powers that be

Well, we all know the answer don't we.

Could it be this blog's incisive, thoughtful, persuasive insight that finally battered down the doors of resistance?

Or could it just be the power of the whine?

I'll let history write the answer

Now the question is: With this issue put to bed, whatever will I whine about? Oh I think that is a rather a moot point don't you. I can always find something to whine about, even it it's just that I have nothing to whine about

Pass the cheese and hang on

NO BLOOD IN ONTARIO? YOU BET!

So ... over the weekend my brother RJ and I went out to see some mma fights, including the UFC middeweight championship. We went to a local bar and for most of the fight, it was pretty packed. As I've stated before, mixed martial arts and the UFC in particular is extremely popular and particularly popular in Ontario. Fights like this one, shown only on pay per view, are purchased more in this province than almost any other place on earth.
But this is not a post about professional fighting, well not entirely. It's really a post about a lack lustre government with no sense of initiative, imagination or a sense of care about it's constituents.

Dalton McGinty's gov't has often used mma's reputation for brutality and violence as one of the principle reasons why they will not sanction it here. Never mind that Ontario sanctions boxing, hockey, football and full contact martial arts tournaments ... mma is the big bad barbaric blood sport that is just too much for us poor unwashed masses to deal with ... isn't it nice that this gov't is looking out for us?


Yeh, this would be the gov't that gave themselves 24,000 dollar raises, pay 25,000 to have their speeches written, squandered millions of dollars (our dollars) on eHealth, and permitted millions of dollars to be stolen by lottery ticket vendors on their watch ...


And that brings me to the crux of this rant. Mixed martial arts tournaments are too immoral for us to view. But gambling is good for us. Gambling is family friendly, ethics-teaching, discipline reinforcing behaviour ... This gov't is heavily invested in gambling. Lottery tickets, off track gambling, casinos, horse racing, slot machines at horse tracks ... But apparently not invested enough. Because now, as if don't have enough access to gambling, the Ontario gov't is getting into the business of online gambling.


Online gambling. Yeh, there's no possibility of that creating issues with people. It's one thing that people have to go to a gas station to buy a lottery ticket or to the race track or to a casino where you can check ID's and scrutinize a credit card and maybe have rules against people playing for 20 hrs straight ...

I have nothing against gambling. I don't really indulge myself but I view it as I view drinking alcohol; it's a choice but it's a choice for adults. I think booze is over regulated here but I also acknowledge that certain controls should be put in place, it's a potentially addictive pleasure and can affect your health. We know gambling can be potentially addictive. And we know it can have long and lasting impacts on people and their families. Having said that, I have no issue with legalized gambling. But if a gov't is involved in it, shouldn't they have maximum concerns about any potential pitfalls?

Their justification for all this: Well all that over spending and mis-spending has put them .. or I should say us ... in quite the economic bind. And they know online gambling will inject hundreds of millions of dollars into the public coffers ... to replace millions of dollars lost to illegal handling of lottery tickets. Gosh, how do you spell irony?

So the UFC is a huge rich organization, legal in several other Canadian provinces that wants to come to Ontario. There is no doubt that sanctioned mma fights will infuse millions into the economy, including from taxes. But watching trained professional athletes beat each other up is a blood sport too rich for our blood; it's too barbaric and too psychologically disturbing.

But online gambling, which will surely have young people all over the province glued to their computers at all hours, draining their credit cards, opening themselves up to all kinds of computer fraud .. now that is good clean moral fun.

Maybe this is it: As popular as the UFC is, we probably won't have a major fight here more than once year and all the other smaller promotions just won't have the economic stamina .. whereas online, hell you can be online all the time, just pumping that money into the system. And hell, people may go into debt, they may develop an addiction, they may neglect their families and their jobs but you know what .. there won't be any blood

No blood in Ontario? You bet

IF A CELL PHONE RINGS IN A FOREST, WHAT IS THE RING TONE

Who the fuck are you all talking to? I mean really ... who are they? What's so important? Did you forget something at home? Do you need directions? Is Timmie stuck in the well?

It's a question I often ask myself, especially when out and about in my city of Toronto.

Everyone has a phone. Some kind of phone. Smart phone. iPhone. Droid phone. Dumb phone. Idiot Savant phone. Phone to be named later.

And literally everyone seems to have one. Bay street robots. Yorkdale matrons. Queen West Goths (they're phones work but are usually too depressed to take the call). Old, young, rich poor. Babies. In Toronto freaking babies have phones, I swear this is true. Babies in strollers with G3 phones pressed to their tiny ears; the phones have teddy bear skins and drool guards.

Who the fuck is a baby talking to on the phone? Diaper service? Soothie Anonymous? "Call now! Girl babies are waiting for you! They're hot! They're gassy! They're wearing lace Huggies!"

Seriously folks ...

Cell phones are great. I have one. Collette has one. We use them. We make calls on them. Ours only make calls, and barely that, but that's all I need them for. Quite handy on long trips, be it to Kingston, Parry Sound or to the produce freezer at Costco's. But come on .. everyone is talking on their phone all the time ...

What are you talking about? Being a nosey old prick, sometimes I do listen in .. and usually they don't seem to be talking at all. Or they're talking about what they're going to do after they do the thing they are not doing now because they are talking on the phone

They talk and they don't stop talking. There they are, phone pressed to ear while they order food, buy a magazine, drive a car, deliver a baby .. doctor and mom both

OK it's not always talking. Sometimes talking on your cell phone in public is frowned upon. Like a movie. Like the movie Inception. No, they weren't talking on their phones during Inception .. they were texting. Now Inception was great, but it's a tightly plotted movie that requires your attention, attention that you paid a lot of money to use .. and they were texting.

Who? What? Why?

It's funny, this technology that has the potential to bring us together sometimes seems to drive us apart. At a street fest, or a flea market, or out in the park with the dog, you have an opportunity to interact with other people, new people, over a common interest. That can't happen when you have a phone in your ear and your only response to me saying "Your dog is pooing over there" is to hold your hand up cuz you are already having a conversation

Sure, we can better keep in touch with those we know, but are we cutting ourselves off from those we are yet to know? Granted, there are a lot of people out there I have no interest in meeting and I suppose a cell phone is a good shield .. but said shield may guard you from a lot of noise .. like the noise of a bus .. now him, you may not want to meet ...

In 1953 Ray Bradbury wrote a story called The Murderer. It's set in a future world where technology has developed to a point where we are in constant touch with one another, where we are constantly bombarded by music, advertising, images .. where we are never alone, where we can never appreciate silence, where we never have time to think ...

I know you may read this. But I know it may take you time. In between calls

THE SOFT REALITY AND THE DREAMS HEWN IN STONE

The title of this post is one of my favorite quotes of all time. It's from The Flounder by Gunter Grass. I read this book decades ago, I'm not even sure if I finished it (it's a very compelling but very odd novel) but that quote has stayed with me all this time. Dreams are powerful things and I've always enjoyed fiction that play with that idea, and the extended notion of reality, exactly what that is, and how fragile it sometimes can be.

It's why I've always been such a big fan of Philip K Dick, rotten movie adaptions (Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, Imposter, Paycheck et al) aside. His great theme, whether the story be placed on Mars or in a future earth just over there, was the idea of reality almost on a Platonic level: Yes I see the chair but if you don't see the chair, is there something wrong with you, or is the chair not there at all.

It was why I enjoyed the Matrix, at least the first movie, this notion that the reality you thought you were living was just one fed to you. Like a movie itself. It's a lovely bit of Pirandello: You're watching a movie, which you know isn't real, but I need you to feel it's real enough so you can accept that it's a movie about a reality that isn't real either ...
A term for this is "suspension of disbelief" I need you to accept something, something rather fantastic, like Germany and Japan really didn't lose WW II (Dick's The Man in the High Castle) or that everything you know is just a computer program. Or that an evil man died but was so evil, had so shattered the lives of his victims that he could live on .. in their dreams
Or that people can go into your dreams. They can enter your dreams, but become a part of them, so that you are unaware they are there, so that you have no idea your dream has been compromised and while they are there, they are able to rifle through your subconscious and all it's contents like a thief going through a vault ... And that is exactly what happens in the movie Inception
Yes, this a review of the movie and it would be difficult to discuss the movie without talking about the plot and the characters and since this is still a current movie in theatres, here is your BIG ASSED SPOILER ALERT ...
Inception was written and directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Prestige, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) and starring Leondardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page and Ken Watanabe. If The Matrix was a lovely little bit of Pirandello, Inception is a big assed, four wheel drive, supercharged Hemi half ton Pirandello. It's a movie about dreams, about people going into dreams, and the dreamer sometimes even know people can come into dreams, but the dream thieves know this too so they need to build dreams within the dreams to fool the dreamer, to the point where you may know you're in a dream, but which dream is it ...
Inception is an almost perfect example of suspension of disbelief. If you can accept the conceit that it's possible to go into another person's dreams, everything that follows is so cleverly constructed, that disbelief is quickly put into your rear view mirror. Nolan has written a remarkable script here just for its attention to detail and its own lovely circular logic.

We all have dreams, all of us, it's one of the things that unite us. We may not all understand our dreams or even try to understand them (that's me with my hand up in the corner) but we've all experienced them. And there are some universal truths about dreams themselves: Like how time is fractured inside a dream, how it's difficult to remember how a dream begins, and how you can suddenly wake up from a dream, with this dizzying sense that you had almost just fallen .. Inception works all these truths into its story and it helps to make the incredible events a bit easier to accept.

The movie is, of course, a special effects machine. Hell, you can do anything in dreams. Yet the effects follow the same steely thread of logic that Nolan has woven through the story. A young woman folds a city over on to itself, a man gets into a fist fight in zero gravity in a hotel corridor on Earth, buildings disintegrate before our eyes .. But all of it makes sense. All of it is set up by the story and we understand why it is all happening.

The movie is two and half hours long but it moves, I found myself glued to the screen for every moment. There are some incredible action sequences (an assault on a winter citadel was very Bond like) but they are mostly "realistic" and not reality-bending as in The Matrix. The point here, is, things inside the dream must seem logical so as to not alert the dreamer than his mind has been compromised

But Inception is more than just a high stakes action movie or a very cleverly constructed script. There is a human element, a very human story, at the heart of Inception and it's driven by DiCaprio, who's performance throughout seems totally spot on.
I will refrain from going into more detail about the story. You really should see it for yourself, there were moments where a detail was revealed that was set up by a plot point earlier in the movie where you could almost literally feel a light bulb switching on over your head ... but then again that light could have been the cell phone of all the idiots who were texting during the movie ... But that's a rant for another time, and another post.

Leave it be said Collette and I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I understand people have seen the film twice to "figure it out". We both had no difficulty following the plot .. but then, thanks to Philip Dick and Neo and even Freddy, I've been on this dream path for quite some time ...

"All we see and seem, is but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allan Poe