The Hairy Edge

THE GREY MOVIE REVIEW: THE WOLVES OUTSIDE, THE WOLVES INSIDE

2012-01-28T01:05:00.000-05:00

The Grey is a movie opening around the country this weekend. Perhaps you've seen the trailers: It is presented as a survival thriller about a group of men stranded in the Alaskan wilderness doing battle with a pack of deadly wolves. That it is, but it is more than that as well.

The Grey stars Liam Neeson, an actor who, after the last few years, finds himself in a rather unique position, career wise. With movies like Schindler's List, Kinsey, Chloe and Michael Collins, he established himself as a "serious" actor who's name on an Oscar nomination list would not be surprising. But he is also a bona fide action star with movies like Taken, Batman Begins and the A Team. As a matter of fact, The Grey is directed by Joe Carnahan, who also helmed The A Team. With that pedigree one would certainly expect a lot of action from The Grey.

The Grey certainly has some thrills to deliver. A group of oil workers and their security chief (Neeson) whose main job seems to be protecting them from on site wolves, crash in the Alaskan wilderness in the middle of the winter. Seven men survive and it is Neeson's task to lead them to safety as a pack of huge aggressive wolves hunts them.

There are thrills in the movie, one in particular involving a cliff and some trees that challenge credibility, and there are also some moments of true creepiness. I've been in the bush when you could hear wolves howling in the distance and then, later you could hear them, almost feel them, very close to you, moving in the trees. I was never in any peril from wolves but some scenes in the movie definitely got the hair moving on the back of my neck.

Those seeking a fast paced thrill ride will be disapointed by The Grey. Director Carnahan (he also co-wrote the script) is after something more than visceral thrills. This is a movie about death, about examining death, not how it affects our bodies but how it affects our minds while we are still alive. Neeson and his companions are placed in a situation where death comes at them over and again: From the plane crash, from the elements, from the wolves

Neeson's character is obsessed with death. His job is to kill wolves. He has lost his wife and he considers his own desire to keep living. As the men move across the frozen landscape with the wolves on their trail, each of them is forced to think about death, about what it means to them, and how they should face it

There is a great deal of contemplation in the movie, presented in the form of almost wordless flashbacks for Neeson and in long monologues for the other characters. These monologues are eloquently written and beautifully delivered. The director wants these quiet moments to contrast with the thrills and the suspense. It doesn't always work. Sometimes the transitions are jarring and sometimes they just seem awkward.

What does work, is the film's smallness. It is a low budget picture which mostly succeeds: The plane crash, shot entirely in the interior and from extreme close ups is shockingly effective as is a scene where characters are swept away in a fast moving river; the shots are close and tight, saving budget on long shots and props and large setups but they are all the more visceral for it. Sometimes the budget works against the movie. Shot on video, some of the wide shots have grain so large you could serve it as a breakfast cereal

The acting is very fine in the movie. Neeson is extremely effective, his face held in incredibly tight close up, every line on his face evident, his eyes filled with emotion. Frank Grillo who plays Diaz, a tough ex con who hides his fear with bravado, is also quite moving.

The Grey is not perfect. Sometimes the movie is a bit of a war between plot and introspection. There is a need to move the story along to the next scene of character revelation but for that, the plot can suffer. There was a point in the movie where I found myself thinking "Come on, not one more thing" The behaviour of the wolves struck me as rather suspect but their realism is not a matter of great import; it's not a movie about the wolves outside of us but of the wolves inside of us, the animal deep inside that knows what death is, that knows death is coming for us, and has to decide if shall flee from it, or stand and fight.

THE BLUE DRAGON AND SUZIE VINNICK: THE ART OF LESS

2012-01-25T18:54:00.000-05:00

Less is more. Function over style. Say a little by saying a lot. A whisper is louder than a shout.

No, I am not collecting platitudes. A couple of recent pieces of entertainment have me thinking about how you can often say a lot by saying very little.

THE BLUE DRAGON is a production of a Robert LePage play currently showing at the Royal Alexandra Theatre here in Toronto

LePage is known for his innovative staging and use of multi media and that was all on display here. LePage uses lighting, moving stages, projections etc. to not only establish location and to advance plot points, but to illustrate the emotion and mental state of the characters.

But for all its spectacle, Blue Dragon is very much about characters. It is, in actuality, a small play. There only three characters in the play. Pierre (played by Henri Chase) is a Montreal artist who has left behind his family and his status and his art to move to China to become an art dealer. Claire (Marie Michaud) is an old friend and lover who gave up her career as an artist to work in advertising; she comes to China to adopt a baby. Xiao Ling (Tai Wei Foo) is a young Chinese artist and, as the play opens, Claude's lover

The play is about changes and relationships and how until we deal with our pasts, we can't effectively move forward in the future. It is in a way a classic triangle; Claude and Marie have never really dealt with their past and the validity of Claude and Xiao Ling's relationship is called into question. It is a small play, dealing with the lives of these three people but it is also larger than that. The play addresses issues with Communist China, it examines loss and commitment, it concerns itself with a person's individual right to grow and how systems both free and close market validate those rights.

These are big issues, but dance (performed and choreographed by the incredibly multi talented Foo) and staging aside, we are presented these issues in the context of these three characters and their interactions. In a small way, that has far more impact than any prosthelytizing ever could. Such issues may make for interesting conversation but when they become part of human being with whom we identify, they become impactful.

Less is more also became an effective strategy in a musical forum.

ME N MABEL is the new recording my Suzie Vinnick. Suzie is a local musician of whom Collette and I are quite fond. We have seen her perform as part of the Women's Blues Review and I have a couple of her CD's but this new one presented to her in a whole new light

Suzie is a full time Canadian musician and that means she has always found a variety of ways to make a living through her art. She is an established studio musician (she plays several instruments) works in a couple of different live bands, sings and writes jingles and has collaborated and recorded with Rick Fines.

Suzie is a great singer and I have loved when she sings the blues; her own recordings are a mix of blues, country, light pop and some jazzie influences. I have always known that she is a talented guitarist. When I first saw her perform some 10 years ago her featured instrument was the bass but I know she also can play pretty much any kind of guitar. But Mabel N Me is a different enterprise. Mabel is her six string acoustic guitar and it is the only instrument she plays on the majority of the songs

The entire album is bluesy in nature and I looked forward to this but it is Suzie's guitar playing that is the revelation here. All alone, just that wonderful smokey voice and with Mabel I realized that Suzie Vinnick is not a good guitarist, she is a remarkable guitarist. The word virtuoso comes to mind but she is more soulful than that term implies. The record is aptly named; this is Suzie and Mabel, both at the top of their games.

By doing less, Ms Vinnick gave me more. And it's the kind of "more" that is all that I could want.

IS WHAT YOU ARE WORTH WHO YOU ARE

2012-01-23T14:47:00.000-05:00

Recently I've been thinking about worth. Not an object's worth, a person's worth

What is a person's worth? What is their value? At first blush it doesn't seem like something you can qualify monetarily. When I think of the people for whom I care I don't think of their worth but I suppose I assign to them some form of value.

What value do you give to the people with whom you are intimate, or familiar. I love this person because they support me, they nurture me, they inspire me, they love me back. I like this person because they are funny, they have skills that they share, we have mutual experiences, they think I'm funny.

How do I value those people with whom I come into contact but with whom I don't share any intimacies. This becomes a somewhat more a more practical exercise, or quantifiable. From casual aquaintances who make me laugh or with whom I share a common interest to professional people, for whom expertise I pay ..

So we come to it. Worth is one thing, value is often equated with money. In terms of money, what is a person worth?

These musings were triggered by some recent events in both the sports and entertainment fields. Areas where we have to match a talent to a monetary value.

Collette and I used to be fans of professional basketball, the NBA that is. Basketball is a team sport but because of the relatively intimate confines of a court and the fact that the athletes are not wrapped in pads to the point of anonymity, you can really appreciate the individual athlete. Watching a Kareem Jabar or a Magic Johnson or a Larry Bird or a Michael Jordan you saw human bodies and human spirit taken to a level that, for us mere mortals, is difficult to understand.

The game still have some awe inspiring individual players, like Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant but the lustre came off the sport, for me, some time ago. Expansion had a lot to do with it, too few talented players spread over too many teams. But there is an intangible also at play here: Greed. I don't know if NBA players are the highest paid athletes, and perhaps it was because I followed that sport more than others, but when I saw the overall quality of the playing going down and the salaries raising to incomprehensible levels, I began to question what the fuck was going on.

Yes, even the average athlete in the NBA can perform physical feats, can maintain a competitive mind set during adversity that I find difficult to understand, but is that talent/ability worth tens of millions of dollars a year ... you see where this is going.

A contemporary military sniper has trained his body to be able to do things that also baffle me; he can control his heart rate, his breathing, he can withstand extremes of heat and cold, he can actually fire his shot not only between breaths, but between heart beats ... You know he ain't making no 15 million dollars a year

Which is worth more?

Collette and I tend to be more fans of the UFC than the NBA these days (we are not fans of the FBI or the CIA or the CRTC but appreciate the efforts of the SPCA and the BBC; I'm digressing but you knew that I would). At this point in time, over all, mma fighters make nothing close to the salary of NBA players .. or NFL or Major League baseball. MMA is an individual sport, yet all of these team sports boast much higher individual salaries.

There has been a recent debate around the salaries of UFC fighters; this is a multi hundreds of million of dollars sport and with few exceptions, none of the fighters would average a million dollars a year. There have been accusations that the UFC is "holding back" on or underpaying its fighters; UFC fires back that on average, their lower tier fighters make more money than equivalent boxer, a comparable individual combat sport.

I admire the skill of mma fighters, their courage and determination baffles me, their discipline is probably comparable to a special forces soldier, though one has a much higher possibility of getting killed on the job .. and that one makes far less.

An argument is often posed that in the field of professional sports the salaries are what, we the audience, permit them to be. If we didn't buy the tickets the tee shirts the posters etc, they wouldn't make that kind of money. Only partially correct. These days I think a lot of sports earn more money from television contracts than from ticket sales. Again, you can say "If you don't watch they don't get paid" That is certainly correct in theory but it still doesn't explain to me why we place such a value on these activities.

Last month Collette and I attended a performance of Cirque de Soleil and we left quite literally in awe. What we saw redefined, in my mind, what the human body and the human heart and the human spirit is capable of doing. The performers were a rare combination of athlete and artists and I can't keep track of the number of times I gasped. I highly doubt any of these extraordinary performers make anything close to what an NBA or even UFC athlete makes.

Who decides this? Who decides that a slam dunk is worth more than a backflip or an arm bar less valuable than a touch down ...

This past week Etta James passed away. I have spent may hours listening to Ms James sing in my headphones, her voice and her spirit have often transported me out of my everyday life, just as NBA once did, just as MMA can do and just as Cirque de Soleil did

That is worth. Worth to me. Is it value?

Somewhere out there soldiers are torturing their bodies, someone is toiling away in a lab, an artisan is shaping a piece of brick, a man in a van is serving hot soup to someone alone on the street at night ...

Is that worth?

Is that value.

STONES OF OTHERS IN THE POOLS OF INSPIRATION

2012-01-12T15:29:00.000-05:00

I thought I would start off the new year by returning to a topic that I've examined several times before: Inspiration. Perhaps returning to the same topic over and over is indicative of a lack of inspiration or it could be that inspiration is an ongoing theme in my life or perhaps I just enjoy thinking in circles because once you start thinking in a straight line you actually have to have a destination ...

Ahem

What inspired this topic, this time around, was one of the gifts Collette got me for Christmas. The Exegesis of Phillip K Dick is a non fiction book by .. well .. Phillip K Dick.

Phillip K Dick was a writer, when I was a fan of his through the 70's and early 80's, he was known as a science fiction writer. Since his death in the mid 80's he has become known as something more; he's become famous for the number of movies based (and I would say very loosely based) on his work, such as Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, The Adjustment Bureau and others. He's also become well known for some of the themes that run through his novels, such as questioning reality and logic, that have brought him recognition outside of the science fiction world

The Exegesis is not a novel, it is a collection of Dick's writings concerning a revelation, an ephiphany you could say, that he experienced in the 70's and caused him to reconsider his fiction in a whole new light. Did I mention he was a serial drug abuser and probably suffered from mental illness?

Anyway, this is not a review of the Exegesis, I have yet to crack the spine. As I stated, it's a post about inspiration. Phillip Dick was an inspiration to me. I devoured most of his novels when I was a teenager. Like all of his fans, I was attracted to his themes of reality or unreality or the sense that there is always something behind whatever we see. I also appreciated his humour and his spare efficiant writing style.

Having this new book and digging out some of those old novels as reference material got to me thinking about the sources of art that were inspirations to me when I was younger, that shaped me as a writing and video creator for better or worse.

Here's a few of them, far from a complete list, but probably some of the most significant works of art in my life, perhaps they will get you thinking about inspired you, what gave you that spark that "aha" moment, that opened your mind and inspired you to do whatever you do, better

A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeline L'Engle. This was the first novel I ever read.

I think I was in Grade Five at the time. My teachers considered me literate because I had a vocabulary that was a little more advanced than my classmates but that came from comic books. All I read at that time was comic books. I never had an interest in anything else, fiction wise, they gave me to read in school.

I remember that the school librarian came into the class and it immediately got my attention: A scientist father who goes missing, mysterious beings who may be witches or ETs, the tesseract, which was basically a wormhole before anyone ever used the term wormhole ... I was intrigued and probably for the first time actually put up my hand. I got the book and devoured it. It started me on a science fiction journey that last a few decades and an interest in other worlds, other realities, other experiences that not only led me to Phillip Dick but that led me to the real life stories of adventuerers and explorers that I follow to this day.

And yes, it had an influence on my writing. I don't think I wrote much before I read this novel. While the greatest influences and motivations on my writing always came from people, like my family members and certain teachers, this was probably the source that ignited my imagination and made me say "I want to so that"

THE CIRCLE GAME by Margaret Atwood. If A Wrinkle In Time got me interested in writing prose, this was the book that got me interested in poetry.

I discovered this book in my first year of high school and up to that point I had never been much exposed to poetry that was structured and lyrical. None of that worked for me. While I would later grow to appreciate Tennyson and such, it was this book that really inspired me to write poetry of my own. It wasn't just the contemporary structure of the poetry it was the subject matter: Atwood didn't write about ancient kings or dead civillizations, she wrote about people trapped in their apartments or lost in a relationship. I related to everything about this poetry

In terms of influences on my poetry or perhaps impetus to write it, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Canadian poet bill bissett. bissett was a radical poet for his time, he took the non rhyming paradigm to a whole new level, using lines and words on the page to create a kind of visual structure for his poems. This was probably my first experience with the concept of negative space. bissett's influence on me continues to this day: He never capitalized his name and when I sign creative works, neither do I.

THE SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN by Leonard Cohen (duh) I don't write music but of course I gravitated towards this album written and sang by a poet

I have a confession to make: I've never been overly fond of Cohen's written poetry but his lyrics are among my favourite poetic compositions. I always had an appreciation for lyrics from the Beetles to Paul Simon but this album, with its fluent language and exotic realities, opened me up to a whole new form of expression. I think this works better for me than Cohen's written words because his somber world-weary voice shades the language here with tones I never gleaned from the page

THE EINSTEIN INTERSECTION by Samuel Delany. Another science fiction novel but like Dick, Delany is an author whose concepts and vision exceeds that of most SF fiction while having to rely upon that form in which to be expressed.

This was a novel that pretty much blew me away when I read it as a teenager. I had a read a ton of science fiction at this point and had read a great deal of mythology, mostly Greek and Norse (thank you Thor, Mighty God of Thunder by Stan Lee). But I had never read anything like this. On the surface, this novel (original title A Fabulous Formless Darkness) is like a post apocalyptic retelling of the Orpheus myth but there is much more to it than that. Delany heads each chapter with a lot of quotes, many taken from his journals as he travelled and lived in Turkey and Asia in the early 60's. Through these passages and characters such as the red headed, gilled Kid Death, Delany weaves a more contemporary (to the writing of the story not its futuristic setting) mythology that includes film and literary references into the story

More than Dick, I can point to Delany as a major influence on my own writing. His entire sf/fantasy collection taught me a lot about depth of character, about permitting your characters to have flaws, to not to be afraid to introduce elements of chaos into your plots and how to use themes like colour or repeated language to express ideals. This book in particular opened me up to introducing elements of my own life into fiction

THE SEVEN SAMURAI by Akira Kurosawa. This movie has influenced a great deal of my story telling.

If I was ever to make a full length, full fledged movie, it would likely NOT be an historical samurai movie. Nor do I ever envision writing such a novel. But this movie showed me a lot of things that I had never really understood before: That an adventure story can be a vehicle for examining interpersonal relationships, that action elements can be used as catalyst for character growth, that indeed if your characters don't evolve or change or progress or fail, no matter how great your plot, your story will fail.

Kurosawa was also a master of pacing, a master of building characters and situations so that they naturally built to a climax. One of my favorite themes, as either author or reader, is that of redemption and that is one of the major themes in this story. It is romantic, heroic, tragic, funny, inevitable, surprising. I can't really think of a more satisfying work of art.

These are just a few examples of works of art that influenced me, that inspired me. There is of course a long list that includes Poe, Bradbury, Burroughs, John Ford, Martin Scorsese, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen ... it goes on.

But still, as much as I have always been inspired by artists, it's been the people in my life who have had the greatest influences on whatever creative endeavours I've indugled. But I'll leave that for some future post

ICELAND IMPRESSIONS

2011-12-31T01:16:00.000-05:00

Just some final thoughts about Iceland. My previous posts and videos focussed on what we saw in Iceland, this time I'm going to attempt to tell you how we felt ...

Wandering jet lagged through a foreign city, cool wind and warm sunlight, written words that could have come from a fairy land, more like sigils than language ...

On the bus, passing through a long tunnel under a fjord, a long narrow corridor of concrete carved out under the crust of a volcanic land, aware of tectonic plates and magma and great pressures and the earth moving around us and we move through it ...

Rain streaming across the windows of the bus, the land outside sliding by us or us sliding through it, the land seemed to be moving as we stood still although the opposite was true, the rain wrapping us, cutting us off, travelling through a worm hole ...

A land of smoke and rain and mist and steam, steam white as cotton, drifting low over the earth, plumes of it wafting out of the earth out of rents in the earth, the breath of the planet, hot and white on the pale delicate dome of the sky ...

Black rock, black sound, black stones on the beach, gleaming on the beach, the waves sighing across them, the ancient susurrus of the ocean ...

Black stone formed from fire and earth, broken shards standing tall in the water, surf pounding the stone trying to further break it but smashing into foam as white and delicate as Irish lace, falling back to the sea, defeated ...

Drinking beer on the bus from tall cold cans, soft cheese and wheat bread and skyr, the food of the gods, flavoured with berries ...

Sky so blue it almost hurts the eyes streaked with delicate strands of white cloud arching high over sand a deep lambent gold fringed with tortured black rock, you feel it under your feet, the warmth, the heat of the heart of the planet, pulsing from somewhere deep below ...

The smell of this country is rotten eggs. Sulphur. Acid. Richness, fecundity, life, warmth, sharing the murky hot water with strangers who become familiar in this place, the environment, this shared ritual of the bath ...

Lava fields, miles and miles of them, low black ragged shapes covered in moss that is green with flashes of red going on forever outside the bus; through the window it's like it's flowing, like an ocean or a great green lake with black below, deep and bottomless going to the heart of the world ...

Long narrow vallies, incredibly green with giant fjords sprawling along their bottoms in some sinuous lazy fashion, giant bales of hay wrapped in white plastic, white blobs of sheep like tiny clouds pinned to the grass, wind moving through the long grass, undulating, and ever in the distance are mountains, frosted with white ...

Glaciers sprawl across this country, indolent and powerful like some kind of lazy gods, their waters feed the greeness of this land or their waters drown this land, the glaciers own this land, have formed this land, we travel along deep vallies that are the footprints of the glaciers, lakes that form perfect circles filled with flat water gleaming harder than any jewel ...

This is our bus, it is our home, at night we stay in little hotels all over the country but the bus is our home; Anna Laura is our mom she organizes our day and makes sure we're fed and wants us to learn and tells us when it's time to eat; Sigi is our uncle, he drives the bus for us, we like Uncle Sigi but we think we shouldn't give him the code to the lock on the beer fridge ...

These are the people on our bus: Canadians and Belgians and Australians, oh my!

This place is an island and therefore surrounded by water but it is a place affected by water in many other ways, the long salmon rivers fast and cold, the frozen water that floats as ice bergs in the lagoon, and of course the waterfalls that cut the stone that wear down the stone that break the land and fill it again with water ...

Horses. White and black and black & white and russet and gold with shaggy coats and long feral manes they move across the spines of the hills, sleep in the lee of the volcanic outcroppings, drink deep of the fast mountain streams, watch us as we watch them passing each other with only that contact ...

Every roadside diner at which we stop serves soup. It's good soup, Peasant soup, It's tasty and it's cheap. After the third day we stop eating the soup. Why? Every roadside diner at which we stop serves soup ...

The toilets in Europe don't flush with little handles. They flush with big push buttons on the top of the tank. If you want to confuse a European person, show him a handle ...

As the summer wears on the days here are getting longer. After a long day trekking through forests of volcanic rock and basking in waterfall spray Collette tries to stay up, poised in the window, camera in her hand, wanting to take a photo of the midnight sun ...

Skyr is the food of the gods. They say it is Icelandic yogurt. That is a ruse. It is a creamy rich orgasm inspiring gift of the gods. I love skyr. Skyr makes me nervous. Something this good, there has to be a catch ...

One of our tour mates is a doctor, his name is Mark. As we climb several hundred meters to view the ice cap in the thin air he quietly comes up beside Collette, hands behind his back, talking to her, watching her colour and her breathing but smiling softly and just walking with her ...

The sagas of Iceland are generally more realistic than other Viking saga's, not poetry but one of the earliest examples of something we would recognize as a novel. Many of them are family saga's or tales of accounting or legislation but still they fanciful and filled with magical characters. The sagas of Iceland are realistic. Puffins are fairy tales. Or clowns. With wings ...

I'm now scared of flying clowns ...

We see snow here on tops of mountains, in floating bergs, laying hundreds of meters thick across the backs of glaciers; it is striped from the ash of a recent volcanic disturbance, the same ash that filled the water pouring over the Dentifoss making it dun colored laced with foam ...

Iceland produces it's own beer, it has a couple of large commercial products like Viking and Egil (each come in a strong version that is always better) and a growing cottage beer industry that creates some very drinkable beers. From 1915 to 1989 beer was banned in Iceland. In the VJK lexicon that period of time is known as the Icelandic Dark Ages ...

We ate putrefied shark. That is shark that is hung in a shack, salted and allowed to rot. We ate it and we smiled. All that means: The guy who runs the shark museum is one scary old fisherman ...

Forests of stone. Cities of stone. All shapes and sizes, some surprising, groups and clusters then individual menhirs standing away from the rest as if leading the way, trailblazing, the stones moving as the thin crust of the earth moves under us ...

The most popular eating place in Iceland is a hot dog cart in Reykjavik ....

The hot dogs in Iceland are made of lamb meat ...

There is a town in northern Manitoba called Gimli, I've been there, it's a tough town. Gimli is a character in Lord of the Rings, he's a tough character. Gimli is an Icelandic surname. Our guide's grandfather heard of Gimli Manitoba because he liked the name, it means something positive. He found an old age home there in Manitoba and returned to Iceland and used it as a model for senior care. He was a tough man ...

Icelandic people are tough. They came a long way to find this island in the middle of Atlantic Ocean, glaciers and volcanoes and floods and earthquakes, no forests and decided what a lovely place to live. Several times their country has tried to kill all of them. For a long time Norway owned them. But here they stand, their own people in a place faraway, their own language their own horses their own sheep ...

A black furry dog with white flashes running on a long black sand beach with huge surf shattering just feet away from him ...

What does a tour bus smell like? Skyr and expectations ...

While in Iceland I did not hear one song by Bjork ...

The bus was our home, it took us to places we could hardly imagine. When I close my eyes, I'm still on the bus ...

In this video I tried to capture what Iceland feels like. Probably I failed. Oh well, we'll just have to go back there some day. The song is by the Icelandic band The Soul's Release

ICELAND EDITED: DAYS NINE & TEN

2011-12-27T00:36:00.000-05:00

I've decided to combine our last two days in Iceland into one post for reasons that will become apparent later

DAY NINE

Day nine we were back in Reykjavik. We started our vacation here but we were so jet lagged that most of the experience was a kind of blur. This time we were alert as we ever were and went off to explore the town in whose environs the majority of Iceland's population resides

As the major city in Iceland, Reykjavik faces the dichotomy of past and present and future. They are trying to build for the future ...

... while acknowledging the past

The day before we had visited the Althing, Iceland's historical parliment, today we visited the current building that occupied a spot with a lot of other historical buildings many of them preserved, some of them "recreated".

We were back in weather a bit more typical for this time of year in Iceland, not terribly cool but with little rain showers popping up suddenly. We developed a formula to deal with it: Rain shower = pub, it worked quite well.

As summer wore on the days were getting longer, we were not quite yet into the midnight sun but it was light out quite late into the night. Reykjavik has a very active music scene and there were bars featuring a wide variety of music late into the night. There are a lot of resturaunts and bars and clubs in the town; we found one with a pool table large enough to accomadate soccer balls

Besides music, Reykjavik is a major centre for many arts. We found this little public square the celebrated what is, apparently and active and appreciated graffitti art scene

The city has always been a haven for the country's artists. We found more statues dedicated to artists than we did to politicians. There were several public sites, such as parks, that were inspired by famous works of Icelandic fiction

Like the last time we were here, we enjoyed the many colourful houses, reminiscant of Newfoundland

Reykjavik is a place where you can book a lot of day trips, like whale watching or going over the Westman Islands, a group of very active volcanic islands just off the course but after living on the bus for several days we were happy to wander around, take it easy and enjoy our final full day in Iceland

DAY TEN

This was our getaway day, when we would fly back home to Toronto. Our flight however would be in the evening so our travel agent had prepared for us a special treat. There are natural hot spas all over Iceland but the most famous in the Blue Lagoon, on the way to Keflavik Airport

The Lagoon is the most luxurious spa in the country and definitely one of the biggest tourist traps. We'd been to one other spa, in the north and it was a lovely, homey, communal kind of place, frequented by locals. The Lagoon is a different experience, not many locals come there and it didn't have that communal spirit. Still, the springs are lovely and surrounded by interesting lava formations

The spa is lauded for the healthful benefits not only of the water, but of creams and lotions made out of the natural sediments. You can buy a massage, there are sauna's, hot rock treatments and you can sample some of the creams right there in the spa. Mostly it had a swim up bar, now I find that extremely healthful

We had a very relaxing couple of hours then it was a short trip to the airport and on our way home. Always happy to go home of course, but it was also sad to leave. Iceland would give us a lot to think about, a lot to dream about, and lot to look forward when next we visited this remarkable island country

ICELAND EDITED: DAY EIGHT

2011-12-22T23:17:00.000-05:00

This would not be our last day in Iceland but it would be our last day with the bus tour. The day began as the previous had ended: Cool and grey but not quite as rainy. We were very much looking forward to this day. Since arriving in Iceland we had heard much about the Icelandic horse and had often seen them as they wandered freely around the countryside. This morning we were visiting a farm which made their living from growing hot house tomatoes but who also bred, trained and showed the remarkable little Icelandic horse

The Icelandic horse is considered to be one of the "purest" horse breeds in all the world. Not terribly unusual on an island but the Icelanders work very hard to keep it this way; no horses are permitted to be imported to the island and if a horse leaves Iceland it or its progeny may never return

The lovely family at the farm put on a show for us, explaining the unique traits of this horse and demonstrating them for us

One of the things that makes the Icelandic horse special are its gaits. It was explained to us that there are six possible gaits at which a horse may move. Most horses do the same four gaits. Some horses can do five but only the Icelandic horse can use all six gaits

The Icelandic horse has had historically many uses: Transportation, haulage, sheep herding and they do all of this in one of the most extreme and diverse environments on the planet so they have to use all their gaits to travel across it, including the rigid lava fields. The horse show demonstrated this horse's remarkable dexterity (does that word apply to horse hooves, well now it does) by riding the animal with a full mug of beer without spilling any ... now that is a unique waiter

It is easy to see why Icelanders love their horses. Even to the point where they use their images to adorn the walls of their .. um .. bathrooms

After the horse show back on the road, travelling across the southern part of the country to look at .. what else .. another spectacular waterfall

This is Sigridarstofa, a waterfall on one of Iceland's numerous salmon rivers. There is, in fact, a salmon run down the side of the falls and the day we visited an ardent fisherman was taking advantage

On our way to our next waterfall we saw more Icelandic horses, this time in a more "natural" environment. Like the sheep here the horses are free range, during the summer they are allowed to roam where they please finding the best fodder and water

Our next waterfall was Gullfoss, the Golden Waterfall. This was to be our last waterfall in Iceland but it was a pretty spectacular one

Almost hidden in a deep valley, if it wasn't for the sound and the mist this waterfall could surprise you, falling down a series of terraces into a chasm 32 meters deep

Gullfoss is one of the most popular waterfalls in Iceland. Even on this cool and windy day there were tourists everywhere, including this incredibly attractive and powerful couple from Ontario Canada

Back on the bus and continuing along Iceland's famous Ring Road. The weather improved, still overcast and a bit cool but not as much rain. We stopped at one of the biggest tourist attractions on the Ring Road. Collette's pic below pretty much says it all

Yes, this is the area that gave us the word geyser, the first hot spring of its kind to be recorded in print by Europeans. This is an area with several hot springs and a few geysers, but the one that we came to see goes off about every 15 minutes or so. There was a lot of activity in the area besides the geyser itself

It was always fascinating to walk around these geothermal areas and be reminded that where you are walking, the crust of the earth is thinner than virtually any other place on the planet. Some of the water that was coming up to the surface was in excess of of 100 degrees Celcius.

But of course the main attraction at Geysir is, of course, the geyser (that is a real "duh" moment for you) and never having seen one in actuality before, it was definitely worth viewing. The "pot" from which the geyser spews is constantly steaming and slowly roiling. Then every 15 minutes or so pressure mounts under the earth, pushing at the vast water table that lays under the entire site up through the relatively small opening; you could see this huge bubble of water pushing itself up until it exploded into a spume of water and steam about 70 meters high

We continued west back towards Reykjavik and the rain was following us now. Our next stop would have us move back in time. Iceland has one of the oldest and most firmly established democracies in Europe. The Althing, or general assembly, was created in 930 at Pingvellir, the assembly fields. This was where we were headed.

The current parliment is no longer at this location but we went to the spot that held the speakers stone where any person, regardless of economic or social standing could be represented, usually by someone else but you had the right to do so in person.

As in most of Iceland, there is also a geographical significance to this area. This is the continental divide, where east literally meets west. The southwest tip of iceland pretty much straddles this divide, which is why things are so active in this country.

For a place that encompassed massive tectonic plates at war with each other, and even in the cold blowing rain, a lot of it was quite idyllic. The water here was incredibly translucent, pooling amid the broken, moss backed volcanic rock

That's pretty much it for Day Eight. Forty five kliks later we were back where the trip started, in Reykjavik. We were a little tired but not jet lagged as we were the first time so we were looking forward to seeing the town, finding our new hotel and as much as we loved our bus tour, just not moving for a while.

ICELAND EDITED: DAY SEVEN

2011-12-19T01:15:00.001-05:00

Vatnajokull, the Glacier of Rivers. It is not only the largest glacier in Iceland, it is by volume the largest ice cap in Europe. Over 3 square kilometers, rising to 1300 meters, comprising about 13% of Iceland's total mass

The national park named after the glacier is equally oversized, the largest in all of Europe. It is not only the jumping off point for excursions up on to the glacier, it is also home to Iceland's largest forest but of course, this island is not a place of forests.

We would not be going up on to the ice cap itself on this trip to Iceland. Perhaps next time. But we would be hiking up some 800 meters through the light forest and alpine meadows to gain a view of a massive glacial tongue, overlooking a broad glacial plain

The trail wound up through meadows and brush (an Icelandic notion of a forest differs greatly from a Canadian's I'll tell you that much) where Collette found these pretty little flowers, common to the south of Iceland

On our way up we passed by, guess what .. a waterfall. Everywhere you go in Iceland you pass by a waterfall. This one poured down over cliffs of basalt that time and the glacier had formed into impressive geometric patterns

We continued up, leaving the forest behind, giving way to glacier-carved vallies where giant moraines of rubble dotted the horizon

As we climbed the air became clearer, a bit thinner, it was another beautiful sunny day and we began to see the tongues of the great glacier dominating the skyline

Anna brought us to a place where we were surrounded by the glacier and far below us was vast plain with perfect circular lakes and long sinuous rivers created by the passage of the glacier thousands of years before

At the visitor centre of the national park we learned about the negative side of this incredible and beautiful natural wonder, that severe flooding from the glacier created a disaster that took many lives and changed the face of Iceland forever, diverting rivers and causing bridges to be rebuilt

Iceland is a remarkable country where its unique and powerful geography is both blessing and curse. This is a tough country; without real forests, early settlers relied upon driftwood from Siberia to build their boats and houses. Fish is abundant here but it was settlers from other regions who had to bring in boats big enough for true commercial fishing. There are many rivers rich with salmon but those rivers try to kill you. The volcanic soil is equally rich but those volcanoes regularly try to kill you.

We drove south through Eldhraun where two lava fields combine to create a space of about 560 square kilometers. This lava resulted from a year long eruption that was one of the most poisonous in history; about 80% of the animal population and over 20% of the human population was killed

But Iceland overall is not a bleak and lunar landscape. It is this country of clamorous waterfalls and rich green vallies where it's volcanic heretidge can suddenly appear in the most surprising and spectacular way

A beautiful landscaped occasionally used photo staging areas by ernest yet goofy tourists

We drove south, along the coast and as we did in the west, ran into more typical Icelandic coastal weather. The rain was coming in sheets off the Atlantic and it gave an eerie feeling to stone spires that we could see in the distance as we entered the area of Vik, the wool capital of Iceland

Vik is the southernmost village in Iceland and is known for its long black sand beach, caves that were once used by pirates, and cliffs that host nesting puffins, birds that generally spend most of their lives at sea

And of course, in southern Iceland, Collette and I managed to find a border collie. OK, he wasn't a collie but he was a herding dog from a nearby sheep farm who came down to the beach to mug for the tourists and to herd the ATVs

The rainy cool weather followed us as we made our way to Seljalandsfoss, a large waterfall that you could actually walk behind

It was a crazy kind of day. We started off climbing through alpine pastures to look at a glacier. In the sunshine. We ended by walking a black sand beach and strolling behind a waterfall. In the rain.

That's Iceland. Here's the video

ICELAND EDITED: DAY SIX

2011-12-16T03:55:00.001-05:00

Day Six began with another unscheduled stop. Hengifoss, the Hanging Waterfall, is one of the tallest in Iceland, falling some 120 meters

Anna wanted to take us up to see Hengifoss and another waterfall even further up. The day before had been hours of hiking through lava fields and we still had a full day ahead of us; I knew that if I made this hike my ankle would be pretty pissed off for the rest of the day so Collette and I and one of our Belgian friends from the tour hung out at the bottom of the waterfall with a few other newfound friends

I would be remiss to post blogs about Iceland without talking about sheep. Sheep, both in wool and meat, is the number one export of Iceland. Like Icelandic horses, the sheep are a breed unique to the island and they are handled in a unique way. All Icelandic sheep are "free range". During summer farmers let their sheep out and they roam wherever they please. The sheep are marked to each farm but they know no boundries. The only bounds they have is that northern sheep are not permitted in the south, southern sheep not permitted in the north, if so they are killed, to keep blood lines pure and to prevent any possible cross contamination. Of course, I doubt many sheep could make it over the pretty much impassable, uninhabited middle of the country

Hengifoss overlooks Hallormsstaoarskogur (it's a language that rolls off the tongue isn't) which is something rare in Iceland; a forest. For two people from Ontario when you say forest it conjures up images of tall trees, leaves, undergrowth ... in Iceland, forest usually means what we call underbrush and even so, that is rare. There is a lot of green in the country, lots of grass but really no forests as we would consider them; hence all the happy sheeps and horses

After our fellow travellers raced up the steep trail as quickly as possible for no reason I could actually understand, we were back on the bus and travelling into the eastern part of the country, passing more unamed (at least to us) waterfalls and more spectacular Iceland landscapes

After travelling a bit, we made a stop for lunch in the fishing village of Djupivogur.

Collette and I had come up with a plan. At an earlier stop at a highway grocery store we had purchased some bread, cheese, cold cuts, fruit, juice etc that would could use to throw together a lunch on the bus, so while the others went to a local cafe we set out to explore the shores of this pretty village where fjord meets ocean meets mountains

On our way out of town Anna had us stop to look at some "dragon eggs". Dragon, perhaps not, but certainly eggs of Iceland, from deep inside the island's womb

Back on the bus and travelling east, passing by Alftafjordur, the swan fjord, named for pretty obvious reasons. There are several swan fjords in Iceland, the most famous is actually in the Western Fjords but this one was pretty impressive too and we were able to see hundreds of swans settled here as part of their annual migration

We continued southeast, into the territory dominated by the Vatnajokull ice cap, the largest glacier in Europe. We could see it dominating the skyline and would occasionally pass by enormous glacial tongues that poured down the sides of the massive cap

We would be going up on to the glacier proper another day but this day our destination was a glacial lagoon, where chunks off ice break off from the ice cap, bob into the lagoon as ice bergs then float their way out to sea

We boarded an amphibious craft that took us right out on to the lake, cruising around the bergs that offered an amazing variety, some as tall as three story buildings, some the size of a couch, all shapes and sizes and colours, some mostly snow, some lace like ice, many of them striped by the as from the recent volcanic activity

We were having another truly glorious day, the sun was shining, it was quite mild, the lake was very calm and although the boat's motor was a bit rumbly, it was a perfect situation in which to watch the ice bergs float by on their way to the sea

Here is a remarkable shot that Collette got looking across the ice bergs up the glacial tongue with the glacier looming in the distance

The day was almost over but we were in Siggi's part of the country and he knew that several us showed an interest in old cemeteries. He took us to one of the most unique ones in Iceland, located behind this preserved church with an old style sold roof

This was a Catholic church, who Anna liked to tell us the Icelanders "kicked" out of the country about 1,000 years ago but there was still a remnant of a stoup that once contained holy water

As you'll see in the video the graves are all above ground, the only place in the country where this is so. Anna was not sure why they did this but being Iceland, I suspect it has something to do with geology

ICELAND EDITED: DAY FIVE

2011-12-11T23:17:00.001-05:00

Day Five began where Day Four ended, on the shore of Lake Mytatn. Although our trip was a guided tour one of the great things about was that Anna our guide and Sigi our driver really worked hard to give us the best experience that they could. Because we were experiencing such great weather we make an unscheduled trek to Yrrifloi bay, a shallow bay that was home to many kinds of ducks and old lava rock well covered in vegatation

From this tranquil lake setting we travelled into some truly dramatic Icelandic landscapes. Hverfell is a black cinder cone formed by a massive volcanic explosion some 2500 years ago. There was melt water in the middle of it and some fringes of snow. The snow appears dirty, that's from the ash of recent volcanic activity.

Our next stop was Leirhnjukur, a long valley in the Krafla volcano, essentially a volcanic cone that collapsed in on itself thousands of years ago. This was where they brought the Apollo astronauts to train for the Moon

It is a spectacular landscape with black lava verging on golden sand overseen by a high hard blue sky. There are wooden boardwalks that snail through the area and it's advised that you stick them, in some areas if you stepped off, you could actually burn your feet from the geothermal activity

Next we were on to Namafjall Hverir (rolls right off the tongue doesn't it) an area with some incredible boiling mud pots and natural rock cones where steam hissed out of in long streams

There is sulphur wafting out of these pots, so the entire place was filled with that rotten egg smell. It's a smell you get used to in Iceland though our guide told us that this spot was so potent even Icelanders found it difficult to take

After we got a good glimpse, and a good whiff, of one of Iceland's versions of Hel, we made our way to Vatnajokull National Park. The glacier for which the park is named is the largest ice cap in Europe and covers more than 8% of Iceland. We would go up the glacier on a later trip but today we had another objective in mind.

We got to experience one of the great thrills of Iceland, a variety of geographical features so rich that they can combine in sometimes shocking fashion. Siggi drove us to this amazing canyon area, bleak basalt and other volcanic rocks really did seem like it could belong on the Moon

As we made our way through this bleak landscape the last thing we expected to come across was not one, but three major waterfalls

The waterfall that we visited was Dettifoss, the most powerful waterfall in Europe. More water pours across these falls than any other in Europe, at high flow about 500 cubic meters of water per second that smashed down into a miniature Grand Canyon

Awesome is a word I overuse when describing Iceland but this place was more than worthy of it. To just stand there and watch that incredible volume of water flowing over this 50 meter tall drop was pretty astounding. The sound was huge and the mist that if flung into the narrow canyon towered higher than the falls themselves

The colour of the water was almost a dun grey, shaded by the vast amount of silt resulting from a volcano eruption just a couple of weeks before we arrived. With my luck, how that eruption didn't happen while we there, I'll never understand

Iceland is a country of contrasts. Giant volcanic calderas that exist beside long deep fjords fringed by the greenest vallies you've ever seen that in turn border arid rocky canyons that lead to tonnes of pouring water.

In Iceland though, that no matter where you go will find two things: Waterfalls ..

... and churches

Note about the video: Normally I post the videos in HD but this was a big day for us and by the time I finished the edit, the size of the video file was more than twice what Vimeo can handle, so I'm posting the SD version instead

ICELAND EDITED: DAY FOUR

2011-12-09T01:32:00.000-05:00

We began the third day of our guided tour through Iceland with a great deal of anticipation. This would be the day we would go whale watching. We would do this from the pretty fishing village of Husavik

The first day of our Country Life tour (second day in Iceland) we had experienced the kind of weather which we had come to expect: Cool and rainy and windy. But as we made our up along the northern coast, the weather greatly improved. As you'll see in the video, this day was quite beautiful; sunny with temps in the high teens, low 20's Celcius. Still, we would be going out on the ocean and the weather would be unpredictable so our crew suggested safety outfits; yes ladies and gentlemen, my dream career of a male stripper is still ongoing

Iceland is home to many species of whale but there is, of course, no guarantee that you will ever see one. Off we went and we caught our first glimpse of an indigenous species we wanted to observe, the puffin

Iceland is home to all kinds of species of whales but the one most prevalent at this time of year, in this location. A baleen whale, minke's are relatively small, going to around 24 feet in length and about 14 tons. Minke whales are legally hunted in Iceland, you can see them on the menu in Reykjavik but our captain assured us that the locals really don't eat it, so if you don't like whales being hunted, don't order it. We didn't order any.

We not only lucked out with the weather on our trip but we did indeed see minke whales. The captain followed a flock of circling gulls and found us a pair of feeding whales, finding a pair such as this, we were told, is rare

The whales came to the surface to breathe before going down to the bottom to feed. They would break surface once, twice, then a third time to long a deep breath, this third one would be the longest time and you could often catch a glimpse of the head, then the whale would be down and moving as it scooped food from the bottom of the sea

We chased the whales around for an hour or so and got some pretty good shots of them as you'll see in the video.

Back on shore and continuing north to Lake Myvatn, or "midge" lake. Iceland has no stinging or biting insects but this shallow lake is home in the summer to these little flies, also home to a large selection of water fowl and ducks

The lake is also home to pseudocraters, large vents created by steam that was superheated as molten lava poured into the lake some 2 thousand years before

A short jaunt up the road and we came to the kind of area that brought us to Iceland in the first place: The cliffs of Dimmuborgir are acres of lava formations that give you the impression that you are more on the surface of the moon than on Earth. In fact, not far from here, Neal Armstrong was brought to do some training before his trip up there.

Earlier, in the southwest, we had seen fields of low lava covered in moss. Now we walked amongst formations largely bare and sometimes towering, forming shapes and pinnacles of virtually every size. Iceland is a country fond of its churches so it's not surprising that the lava would form its own: This is the formation called The Church

We ended the day driving across a plain where steam vented up between massive cinder cones from volcanic activity as recent as the mid 80's.

I was somehow convinced to schlep my sorry old butt up one of these cones just so I could stare down into it. And yes it was worth the climb

Here's the video

ICELAND EDITED: DAY THREE

2011-12-03T01:43:00.000-05:00

Our third day in Iceland, our second day of our bus tour, found us start off the day in Reykholt.

This little town was the home of Snorri Sturluson a poet and politician in Iceland's middle ages and considered one of their most important historical figures. There is a school there now and of course a church but also Snorri's bath, considered to be one of the first natural hot spring baths formalized in Iceland

We may call this a sauna or spa but contemporary Icelanders call it a hot pot and it is an important part of their cultural mosaic, a place to meet and socialize, taking advantage of their country's amazing geographical riches.

A short drive up the road is Deildatunguhver, another thermal spring but there is not hot pot here. This is the hottest spring in Iceland and the temperature of the water exceeds 100 F or 97 C. That ain't a hot pot Jim, that's a cooking pot

The water literally boils up through the rock and the entire area is wreathed with steam

Gorillas in the mist indeed

Back on the bus and we drive to the canyon waterfall called Kolugljúfur, named for a pair of troll sisters from Icelandic mythology.

These falls reminded me of the lava waterfalls to some degree but the relatively narrow canyon through which they pass makes them even more powerful, the white water thundering as you'll hear on the video.

We travelled north now and passed through Akureyri, called the capitol of the north. It's an extremely beautiful town, with snow dappled mountains visible across a fjord deep enough in which big cruise ships to anchor.

On to our next waterfall. When we were researching Iceland, we read a great deal about the hot springs and the geysers and the glaciers and the lava ... but in reality this is the land of water falls, one more spectacular than the last.

This is Godafoss, the waterfall of the gods. I think that pretty much sums it up nicely

Time for the video

THE FIRST, THE LAST AND WHITE ON BLACK AND WHITE

2011-11-30T13:59:00.000-05:00

Today is the last day of the month. As is my habit, I flipped the calendars in my office over to the next month. Tomorrow will be December 1st, the first day of the last month of the year

Today in Toronto we got our first snow fall of the year. So this is the first day that my black & white dog becomes a black & white and white dog. It is easier to illustrate than it is to explain

Yeh, someone has to be happy about the snow. That may be beyond happy

December is a funny month. I think of it as the beginning of winter, if you will, the first month of winter, but it is the last month of the calendar year. The beginning of the season, the end of the year. The season we can feel, it's cooler, my dog is coated with snow, it's obvious that something has changed. The year is a bit more esoteric; we count the days on the calendar and name the months but in the long run, they are only words.

I turn the pages of the calendar and watch the numbers change. I watch Terra jump after the snow flakes.

It's beginning.

ICELAND EDITED: DAY TWO

2011-11-28T22:39:00.000-05:00

Day two of our Iceland vacation was day one of our guided bus tour, Country Life. We met our fellow tourists, an american or two, a pair of Brits, a couple of Australians and a few Belgians who would become our favorite travelling companions We were all the ones sitting at the back of the bus drinking cans of Viking Beer. We also met Anna Laura, our tour guide, a mountain rescue guide and climber, about 95 pounds of dynamite, wit and opinion. Her partner was Sigi, our bus driver, who wants to visit us in Canada so we can take him to Burger King

From Reykjavik we made our way north up to the Western Fjords. We passed small fishing villages and took a long tunnel under a fjord that was contested during World War II due to its depths, the Allies sunk massive fuel dumps in it to service submarines and fighting ships. We got our first taste of Icelandic Coastal weather and were very happy for bringing the really good rain gear.

We got off the bus at Arnarstapi, a little fishing village that featured a giant Viking made out of basalt and some pretty spectacular coastal features, where surf had pounded its way into and through the volcanic rock

Anna took us along the coast and guided us through this narrow draw, with the rain stinging out faces, to an inlet where the surf pounds in so hard, it smashed to pieces a steel Russian fishing trawler; all that is left of the vessel now is just some random junk.

We had an opportunity to wring the salt water out of cameras on our way to our next location: A museum that was actually just the house of a fisherman, a shark fisherman. This is an example of Iceland resourcefulness. Isolated as they are, you find many farms with their own museums and their own churches as well. This old fellow made his living from fishing Greenland sharks. He puetrified them then served it us .. and yes, it pretty much tasted the way it sounds

After lunch (ahem) we made our way to Hraunfossar. We came to know Iceland as the land of waterfalls but even in this country the ones here are special; a waterfall that burst out of the Hallmundarhraun lava plain

Just up the road is Barnafoss, the Children's Waterfall, another example of the power of water, erupting out of the lava field

And of course, I had to perch on top of it to get some shots

And here is what I saw

SHE IS BLUE

2011-11-27T14:17:00.000-05:00

She wants her man to come back ...

She wants her man to come to the bedroom ...

She wants her man to respect her ...

She wants that man's girl friend to come to the bedroom ...

She wants young women to start wearing pants ...

She stands at a keyboard in a pretty blue dress, she prowls the stage like a black limbed lioness, she cradles a wooden slide guitar in her lap, she pumps an electric guitar Jimi Hendrix style, she holds the mic in her hands with her eyes closed and her emotion pouring out of her throat.

She is 22 and plays like 40, she is 85 and giggles like 15; she is a woman from the prarie whose life was changed by a ancient blues record; she is a woman of the black urban world who hangs on to her roots in a white suburban setting; she interprets the emotional tones of another woman's words; she turns inside herself to find her own music.

She sings alone, just her voice and her instrument. She connects with other women and rocks as unit.

She is Ma Rainey. She is Lady Day.

She is Suzie Vinnik, Aida Lee, Donna Gratis ...

She is the Women's Blues Review 2011.

I'M WOOFING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS

2011-11-23T02:03:00.000-05:00

OK, let's play a new game shall we? The name of this game is: Only in Toronto ...

Only in Toronto would you have an event for dogs, in which you are encouraged to bring your dogs, that is entirely inside.

Only in Toronto would you have an event that featured a dog talent show where one of the humans declared his pet's trick was doing "whatever he wants to do" The dog laid down by the way. Gave me goose bumps

Only in Toronto would you have a gigantic state of the art convention centre transformed into a dog kennel and said convention centre's "state of the art" being an area filled with wood chips, just perfect for pooping

Only in Toronto would you have not only have vendors selling "gourmet" dog food but selling "gourmet holistic whole free range raw diet" dog food .. and no, I didn't make that up (OK I made some of it up, stop being so observant)

So what we have here is the winter version of Woofstock. And no, I don't suppose all those things are exclusive to Toronto but it is probably an urban conceit to host an event where hundreds of dogs are attending, all inside.

No I did not take Terra. When you own a border collie, you learn to avoid any situations that may lead to them mocking you, as in "Seriously, you brought me to play with all these dogs .. in a building .. with fake grass ... seriously?"

Anyway, here's the video. I'm hearing derisive canine snickering from the other room

ICELAND EDITED: DAY ONE

2011-11-19T01:31:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy time since Collette and I had our tour of Iceland in July. In that time I have managed to edit all the video and Collette has been working on her photo's. With the year starting to wind down, I thought it was due time I began posting the final results.

Uploading videos takes time and there is the issue of file limits etc so I'm not sure how frequently I'll be able to load the videos and post the blogs, it probably may not be consecutive, so please bear with me and check back for new Iceland posts.

Day one was pretty simple. We flew from Toronto to Iceland, on our way catching a few intriguing glimpses of Greeland, which we see better on our trip back home.

We landed at Keflavik Airport early morning Icleand, but late night Toronto time. On our way to Reykjavik we caught our first glimpses of Iceland's famous lava fields, one of the few places on earth where the climate allows lichens and moss to form on the hardened lava. You'll see a couple of shots int this video, and much more in later scenes.

Our first night in Iceland was spent at the Grand Hotel, a really lovely place, very modern, I'm told the largest hotel in Iceland but a bit of a walk to the downtown of the city

Reykjavik is a lovely harbour town. Most of Icleand's population live in this area, like over two thirds of the people but it still maintains a quaint charm . . .

. . . while still looking to the future

Walking around the harbour, we came upon this little locomotive. There are no railroads in Iceland, none. This was one of only two trains that ever operated here; they were used to shuttle rock down to the harbour that was used in creating the breakwall

Reykjavik is a pretty town but jet lag began to kick our butts pretty badly; we weren't able to check into our hotel till 4 pm which was something like 2:30 am our time. We knew we would come back here, after our bus tour of the country, so we grabbed something to eat, loaded up on some Viking Beer, grabbed some quick shots and lurched around like Canadian zombies

More to come

NARES INLET THANKSGIVING

2011-10-12T01:30:00.000-04:00

It's that time of year again. Dogs are chasing frisbees on the beach, boats are riding swells in to the open bay, sun is glinting off water, people are getting sunburns ... and oh yeh, someone's making a turkey. Sunny days aside, it's Thanksgiving in Nares Inlet.

We followed Dennis and Kay's tradition of going out into the inlet and finding some sunny Georgian Bay rocks (which means rocks you could build a shopping centre on) to enjoy an afternoon of snacks and games. Dennis's big work boat was out of commission so we gathered together a few boats, which I labelled the Nares Inlet Navy

We all enjoyed the extraordinary weather, which was different things for different people. Some enjoyed a little exploration of the island ...

... some decided to try to launch some air support for the Nares Inlet navy ...

... some slept like babies (literally) ....

... some picked wild cranberries ...

... and we all played a game that involves, cards and lucks and theivery. Perfect for families

A fun time was had by all but really, how could you not enjoy a sunny warm day on the Georgian Bay

Back on shore, Terra was having a terrific time but perhaps a bit glum that she missed the boat trip. With her love of water, I'm surprised she didn't swim out to meet us

So another Nares Inlet Thanksgiving draws to a close, vanishing like the evening mist across the still cold water.

Here's the video

NUIT BLANCHE TORONTO 2011

2011-10-04T21:20:00.000-04:00

Ah, autumn. Time for raking leaves, shopping for Halloween costumes, harvesting pumpkins ... and having furry robotic eyes chase you around a stage as they try to turn your face into music ...

Yes, Nuit Blanche time in Toronto once again.

This installation at Dundas Square was one of two that featured robots obsessed with copying our images. This one took pictures of your face then transformed the pixels into audio tracks. Across the street at the Eaton Centre more robots chased folks around, desperate to take pics of them and to determine how famous they may, or may not, be.

There was a theme running through some of the installations this year, that of being observed, of being listed, of being analyzed and categorized and fit into boundries. Can anyone say G20 summit?

This is actually a kind of art that I like, using ulitarian objects for a purpose of expression. OK, this particular installation may not have been subtle, but it made its point, especially staged on a barricaded Younge Street in front of an incredibly annoying glaring light

Another theme that we noticed throughout the night was transformation The eyebots in Dundas Square transformed your face into audio. As we wandered around in search of art and french fries we had one of those lovely Nuit Blanche experiences, quite by accident seeing a light down this narrow alley and following it into this little courtyard I never knew was there ... and found this lovely installation of cardboard tubes where tiny dots of light responded to hand claps.

There was more commercialism evident at this years Blanche; we found this interesting installation that featured a drummer swallowed up by an automobile ... an event sponsored by Ford and that lead you to a little exhibit that was essentially a car dealership

Over at City Hall, art was taking flight ... ok I really should be ashamed of that one. You see, they had erected towers and strung cables across Nathan Phillips Square, put people into giant bird suits and flew them around ... so art took flight. Yes, I should be ashamed of that one. But of course, I'm not

We ended up the night with the almost obligatory fire show. In a parking lot beside the bus station, three giant fire cannon belched flame in time to music and from input from volunteers. There were wrecked cars, girls with flaming hula hoops, guys flinging balls of fire on the end of chains ... it was all very Mad Max.

The thing that attracts me to Nuit Blanche every year is the art, but not just the art on display. For me, there is art in the city being awake all night, of streets being closed, of groups of strangers wandering around together, united by our curiosity. That, for me, is art too.

And of course, here's the video

PRIVATE LIVES: PRIVATE YET RAUCOUS

2011-10-03T19:55:00.000-04:00

This a review of the current staging of Noel Coward's Private Lives from Mirvish Productions running at the Royal Alexandria Theatre here in Toronto.

Noel Coward was a play write and occasional movie actor who we now equate with sophistication and wit. And while he often wrote about the jet class of his day - this place takes place in France on both the Riviera and Paris - what makes Coward stand out is how he portrayed those sophisticates. On the outside it was all tuxedos and tiaras, inside it was all bitterness and invective, a perspective that makes for some very big laughs

What appealed to me about this production, when first I heard of it, was the cast. A very Canadian powerhouse cast. We have Kim Cattrall, best known for her role in Sex and the City but an actress with a long and interesting career. As the honeymooning Amanada, Cattrall certainly brings a lot of sophistication and glamour and here British accent is spot on

What she also brings is a great deal of fire (not so surprising) and a real gift for physical comedy. And trust me, for all Coward's rapier sharp dialogue, this production is very physical. These jet setters jab with more than just their tongues; records, pillows, picture frames and other props are all transformed into projectile weapons. Cattrall is not afraid to let herself go, to attack her part with bones and teeth and perfectly coiffed blonde hair all to hilarious results.

The other powerhouse Canadian star in this production is Paul Gross. Yes, Paul Gross the mountie from Due South but also the star/writer/director of Men With Brooms and Passchendale. His range has always impressed me as has his humour, it veers from the absurd to the ironic and is perfectly suited to Noel Coward. His accent is spot on and at the beginning of the play as he too is on his on his honeymoon, he comes across as a slightly more acidic Cary Grant. As he meets his recently divorced lover (Cattrall) his veneer quickly dissolves and the acid oozes forth; in the second act as all the characters are united and try to iron out the mess, we watch Gross trying to hold in the emotions and as he can't, as the acid bubbles out of him like emotional lava, he gives us one of the funniest performances I've seen on stage in a long long time.

It's a five person cast, and as the newly married soon to be discarded spouses, both Anna Madeley and Simon Paisley Day hold their own extremely well. You want to feel sorry for them but watching their pain at the hand of these two cads is really really funny. The fifth member of the cast is Caroline Lena Olsson as a French speaking maid whose Gallic reserve in the face of all the insanity hits all the right notes.

Private Lives starts out as a comedy of manners but quickly devolves into a madcap comedy, at least in this production but there is also a nice streak of social commentary, the whole idea of what is acceptable to define as love and what a couple makes. Thankfully this is addressed but not overstated: This is a comedy. A well written, superbly acted comedy and the director and cast are quite happy if they do nothing but make us laugh out loud.

Mission fulfilled.

FOREVER: ONE MINUTE FILM FESTIVAL ENTRY

2011-09-24T17:28:00.000-04:00

Here's a look at my first entry for the Lile One Minute Film Festival

For a few details on the creation of the video look here

Here's the video

SIREN

2011-09-16T08:50:00.000-04:00

So with the deadline Sunday I've finished Siren, the music video that is my entry into the Kmag Video Competition

If you're interested in reading details about the creation of the video check out Idiot With A Camera

I've embedded the video here but if you want the HD version, please check out this link

Enjoy

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION PART TWO

2011-09-15T10:15:00.000-04:00

A few months ago I decided to create a video for the Are We Connected film competition sponsored by Amplify Me in the US

It was one of my typical on the fly productions and I had fun making it

I was just informed that the video won third place in the festival. That finishes just outside the money but very exciting nonetheless. At this point I have no idea how many videos were entered in the competition, there could have been three for all I know.

I don't care. Don't mess with my bliss

My little video, or a segment from it, will be included as part of the film festival Amplify Me is hosting in Florida on Sept 22. So that's good news

Bad news is, this only encourages me to keep cranking out these videos. Speaking of which, I better get back to it

If you haven't seen Are You There, here is the low rez version, for the hi rez version, please click on this link

Are You There

FAREWELL MISS HAYLEY

2011-09-08T11:27:00.001-04:00

This will be a short post. More posts and more tributes will follow.

Suffice it to say today, at the age 13, our beloved Miss Hayley passed on. This has been a tough year for Hayley. Severe arthritis. Heart disease. But she fought through all of it. One of her vets called Hayley "the miracle dog" Another said "That's the toughest dog I've ever seen"

She was tough, in some ways she could seem timid or even skittish but have no doubt she was tough. She loved her life, she loved her family and she had that working dog spirit "No, I'm fine really, I can do my job, don't you worry about me"

But all fights come to an end and with her heart incredibly enlarged, there was no fight left in her. We had found Cytel M, a solution to her arthritis and the other meds she was on maintained her for a long time so I can honestly say that she has not been in pain.

But this morning her heart finally threw her more than her body could handle. She jumped in and out of the car and walked into the vet and after a quick exam they were amazed she could do even that. But that was it. She had no more to give. She gave us so much in those 13 years, more than I can properly express, I didn't want her to keep trying when that trying was just too fucking difficult.

On an objective level it may seem silly to thank a dog. After all, we give them the food and the shelter and the care. But what did she give us back .....

Everything.

Thank you Miss Hayley

C.N.E. AIR SHOW 2011

2011-09-07T15:32:00.001-04:00

Another year, another Air Show. Traditionally, the Canadian National Exhibition marks the end of summer here in Toronto so my question is ... where the hell did the summer go? Well, some of it went to Iceland and took us along for the ride.

This year we only had one day to go the Ex and of course we picked one of the days of the Air Show. Now that is a good four hours right there and it was the last day of the Ex with everything closing down at 9 pm; after the show we had time to play a couple of days (and win Terra a new toy) buy a John Wayne coffee mug and hit the Food Building. But of course the Air Show was the star of the day.

It was grey and quite cool down by the water but I had to say, it was one of the better shows we've seen in recent years. There was a good variety of aircraft including not seen before at the show. One of these was the Osprey, a US prop driven VTOL aircraft; a combination of plane and helicopter that can change its orientation on the fly ... so to speak.

It was quite impressive to watch the engines literally change their position while the machine was in flight.

Mostly the Air Show is about airplanes but sometimes it's about what falls out of airplanes ... in this case a group of lady skyjumpers from the U.S. called the Misty Blues

Skydivers as a rule are pretty brave people. These women were brave to the point of being heroic: they voluntarily landed in Lake Ontario. Yes, you know I'm going to say it, they made quite a splash.

There were of course several aerobatic flyers, zipping around the sky in their custom made propellor planes, doing their best to stop our hearts with stunts like flying with their wing tips just over the lake or stalling their planes and letting them tumble down the sky just before kicking their power back in.

I do love watching these little prop planes flip and spin and dive, their powerful engines screaming, their pilots working stick and rudder much like their barnstorming "forefathers" from decades ago.

The Air Show is always a combination of commercial and military planes, of props and jets and this year was no exception. The U.S. Marines brought the A-10, a war jet specializing in ground defence, not the most attractive plane one will ever see but a purpose built pugnacious aircraft that has a special place in my heart. After all, it's called the Wart Hog ..

Our own Canadian forces were not be outdone was they showed off their own CF-18 Hornet. I am not one of those guys who jump up and down and clench my fists and scream "Make it loud" at the prospect of a jet flying over but there is something to be said of the sound of the Hornet, a deep profound rumble that you can feel in your bones

Something new to the show this year was a recently formed "civilian" jet team called Heavy Metal. They flew four L-39 Albotroses and a vintage looking MiG 17 all painted in eye catching Arctic camo paint

Of course, it would not be an Air Show without the Snow Birds. As always, they closed out the show. Weather had been spotty for most of the show days and our day they ended the Snow Birds performance a bit early, citing low ceiling ... this could be true of course but the team was delayed by some kind of complication with a plane and I think this transmitted to the end of the show. Still, it's the Snow Bird folks and you have to love them.

No, really you have to love them ... or CISIS will come looking for you ... of course what are the chances they'll actually find you.

So those are Collette's pics from the Air Show, my video is below. Still can't seem to embed a Hi Def video here so if you care to see the hi rez version please click here: CNE Air Show

TOUGH GUYS DO DANCE .... OR GET PAGE HITS

2011-09-04T14:13:00.000-04:00

One of the fun things about doing a blog is being able to track who visits it, from where and why. I have tools on the blog that allows me to see how people find their way here ... luckily I don't have to know that once here they run away screaming in terror, I just assume that they did.

These tools let me track which particular posts get the most hits and they let me see the search words people have used that brought them here .. poor unwitting suckers.

Besides people searching for hairy porn links ... really I don't judge but if you can't find porn on the internet you may have some issues .... some of the popular searches have been: Last Emperor of China, Vikings, air shows. But the two most popular search phrases, way above and beyond everything else have been Audie Murphy and Charles Bronson.

I have written a couple of posts about Audie (This one for example) and a couple of posts with Bronson's name in it. I've written about Death Wish a couple of times but it was this post that really got things going or more correctly brought people here who were already searching for Mr Bronson

Both Murphy and Bronson have been gone for some time; Audie was a moderate movie star in his day but more correctly remembered today, I think, for his extraordinary military adventures. Bronson was a huge star in his day, at one point the most popular movie actor in the world but I have often wondered what his legacy is today; he made so many bad movies I fear that some of his very fine performances have been overshadowed by his persona as an unblinking killing machine

I can tell if people are searching for Charles Bronson but I don't know why: Are they searching for his movies, are they looking for images of wrinkly faced guys holding guns, are they searching for a new baby daddy, do they need something with which to scare their children ...

But for whatever reason, there clearly remains a strong interest in Charles Bronson. I'm getting almost daily hits from that name, from all over the world.

So, contrary to the title of a novel, tough guys indeed do dance .... or beat guys up on the screen, and we want to see them.

JACK LAYTON: A LIFE WRITTEN IN CHALK

2011-09-01T14:15:00.000-04:00

By now most Canadians are aware of the passing of Jack Layton. Former Toronto City counsellor, head of the Federal NDP party, well known figure on our political scene. This is not going to be a post about Mr Layton; much has already been written, much is still be written, most of it by people far more qualified than I.

What this post is about is grief, and the public expression thereof. After Jack died something rather remarkable began to happen. A tribute was erected at Nathan Phillips Square, the public space right in front of City Hall. That is not unusual nor unexpected. Placing flowers for public figures who have passed has become so popular that it almost has transcended tribute to the point of ritual.

But something else happened. To my understanding someone put down a sheet of paper at the memorial so people could write a few words.

The paper quickly filled up but people still wanted to have their comments seen, so they took a piece of chalk and just wrote on the grey concrete that surrounds the memorial and of which the entire square is made. I don't think I've seen this before and although it quickly became a "media event" it really did strike me as something that a spontaneous or even an impulsive expression.

As I said, it soon became an "event" as people heard about what was happening and flocked down to the square, to add their comments. By the time I got there, the day of Layton's funeral the entire square was covered with writing and pictures in chock, thousands of them probably, everywhere you looked

A lot of the messages was simply Thank you or RIP, but the variety of sentiments was almost as dazzling as were the sheer number of messages. There were many depictions of Jack's famous mustache and of course, lots of bicycles.

There were messages in a wide variety of languages. Chinese characters were very prevelant and I'm sure many of those were speaking directly to Jack's widow, Olivia Chow. Many messages were directly to Olivia, a career politician in her own right, people saw them as a true partnership

I loved the idea of a public space basically being transformed into a ... literally .. open book. In our era of email and facebook and IM's and texting, people took this place, a place where Jack toiled for many years, and turned it into an open letter, communicating with a simple piece of chalk, bending down on knees, stretching up, finding a space, moving the chalk against the concrete, putting in a small effort of labour to express their remorse and their appreciation for a man who many had never met and yet who had had a profound impact on their lives.

Jack, champion of the bicycle, a man who remained grass roots even as the official opposition in the country, probably would have appreciated that.

Here is the video.

FAN EXPO 2011:

2011-08-29T14:23:00.000-04:00

You really have to give it the TTC. They keep raising the fares here in Toronto but I guess I shouldn't complain. Most subways take you across your city, ours takes you to another dimension: A strange land populated by game warrirors come to life

and kick ass schoolgirls

and monsters

and superheroes

... or it just takes you to downtown Toronto to this year's Fan Expo.

I do go to the fan expo to find some deals on books, comics, gams, movies etc but definitely a big part of the fun are the costumes. All the usual inspirations were in attendance, from anime

from TV

from movies

from comics

and from gaming

Last year Steam Punk was the "new thing" at the convention. A visual style influenced by writers like Bruce Stirling, it posits a technological society from a Victorian sensibility

This year the convention "offically" welcome loli, a street fashion originating in Japan (where else) where girls wear exaggerated frilly dresses, umbrellas and usually huge blond wigs. Now, there have always been loli girls (the term stems from lolita, and is often called Goth Loli though that variant of course focuses and darker clothes) but this year there were even more of them. What does one call a group of loli girls? Perhaps a parasol of lolis ...

Besides buying crap that I don't need and that I want (and let's face fact, when you're talking about a Japanese movie about the legendary blind swordsman Zatoichi done a musical, the line between need and want quickly blurs) and gawking at kids in costumes, what else does the Fan Expo have to offer?

One of my favorite areas at the convention is Artist Alley where you can actually converse with artists, look at their products, talking about past and future projects and sometimes land some good deals. This year I picked up a couple of prints from a young Japanese artist, barely two years out of art school and perhaps this could be one of those "I knew him when" moments ... or I'll promptly forget who the guy is. At any rate, I picked up some lovely art at a good price.

The gaming area was much better this year, there were more new games being demoed and you could go play some of them in a tournament style setting. No, I did not participate. It's tough enough when a computer keeps slaying me in a game, I can't bear the thought of a 12 yr kid kicking my ass as hundreds watched.

The other draw at the expo are the celebs who show up. I'm happy to saw that comic book and anime creators got as much if not more buzz than the Hollywood types. The year Stan Lee came the place went nuts but having said that, William Shatner was back this year and proved to be the most popular in terms of ticket sales for his autograph .... that being over 80 bucks. As much as I love Bill (and we all know that I do) the man is all over TV .. he don't need my money that badly.

I won't pay for anyone's autograph but the two people who I would have considered was Michael Biehn, who I missed and Eliza Dushku who I did see. Some may know this actress as Faith from the TV version of Buffy but for me, she is Rubi Malone, the foul mouth mercenary from the video game Wet. Seriously, she was too cute and too charming to be so rough and tumble.

Another relatively new event at the convention, or at least one I had not before seen, was the dancing .. there was dancing at the Let's Dance video game booth (no surprise there) and apparantly spontaneous dancing from the costumed kids that I believe is called J Pop. I'm not sure exactly what this is, but it was both funny and frightening .. check out the video to see why.

Obviously, there is a lot of commercialisim involved in a function such as this. People are there to sell you shit; fair enough, I'm there to sell shit. Problem is, I'm not sure exactly what people are trying to sell, as evidence by the next few pics ... I'm pretty sure as a happily enspoused man, I'm not allowed to buy whatever is being sold here.

So that was my Fan Expo experience this year. In the coming months I'll be reviewing some of my purchases. Enjoy the video below and here's just a few more pics to give you that warm fuzzy "oooh weirdo's in costume" feeling.

So stop your gawking, this isn't that kind of post .... here's the video

TORONTO BUSKERFEST 2011

2011-08-28T01:12:00.000-04:00

There have always been strange and unexplained events that happen on a regular basis: Swans returning to Capistrano, wildebeast migrations, Parliment sitting .. here in Toronto we have such a bizarre event: The streets of the St. Lawrence Market district are suddenly flooded with jugglers and clowns and fire twirlers ... oh my!

Yes, Buskerfest has returned to Toronto

With Collette still recovering for recent surgery we knew that we would not be able to stay as long as we normally do but who can resist the notion of wandering around amongst a bunch of face painted, spangly tighted, backflipping freaks .. and they aren't related to you?

Our first encounter was with a capoeira troup. We caught the tail end of their martial arts demo (as you'll see in the video) but we were able to see them demonstrate some impressive acrobatic skills, as in back flipping over human beings. I'm not sure I really want to contemplate the practical application of this skill.

Australia seems to be exporting fire acts at a fairly impressive rate. Two years ago we encountered Dream State Circus and this year we found another troupe, mostly Ozzies who performed a variety of stunts.

They had a pair of girls who performed together with hoops ...

... and of course did a fire act. Being broad daylight, they limited to what they would perform at night but it was still lovely, lyrical and delicate as opposed to "oooh ahhh" but still indicative of a great deal of skill.

You'll see their full act and highlights of the day in the video below

MORE CRAZY WEATHER

2011-08-25T02:45:00.001-04:00

The other day we felt an earthquake here. Tonight we had tornado warnings, thunder and what felt like hours of lighting. At one point we were getting strike after strike, huge ones that lit up the sky

Not too much to say about this video. I set up the tripod and used our little Panasonic point and shoot waterproof cam. Shot in HD then outputted to standard def. Pressed Rec and went back inside to have a beer.

Let's be honest, I'm a lazy bugger and I like any video I can shoot from my porch ... while drinking a beer ..

TORONTO BLUES SOCIETY TALENT SEARCH

2011-08-20T12:24:00.001-04:00

I'm still working on my Iceland videos and preparing them for publishing but in the meantime, life goes on. This past Thursday the Toronto Blues Society presented a free concert here in Nathan Phillips Square.

The show featured the six finalists in their new talent search which, I gather, has been going on for some time. I missed the first act but got to hear the rest of the entrants. Over all the quality was pretty good and ranged from delta style blues, to a jazzier feel to wannabe Steve Ray Vaughns. Mostly, it was the kind of stuff you'd hear in a decent bar, enjoy for the evening but not necessarily remember a week later. But there were a few standouts.

Nicole Richardson is a very rootsy artist, giving a personal spin to some very traditional woman-with-a-guitar blues, her voice echoing that of Sue Foley, not a bad thing at all

Ken Yoshioka is a Delta bluesman by way of Japan .... a very respectable slide guitar and harp style colored by and ESL take on the lyrics. The man can definitely play, his harp playing is respectable and his lyrical interpretation is ... interesting.

Distillery is a trio, guitar, harmonica and female singer. Their sound was jazzy inspired, the musicians were competent but overall they seem uninspired. The singer sometimes had difficulty finding her range.

The Fraser Melvin Blues Band was a full outfit and tried for a rocking blues style. One would think that if a band was named for one of its members, that individual would be the strongest player .. but he was not. Melvin's guitar playing was adequate, he clearly wants to be the next Stevie Ray but has a long way to go and his singing seemed very forced. The sax player, however, was quite good.

Although I enjoyed the first two individual acts I was finding no inspiration .. until a man with horn rimmed glasses, a pork pie hat and a bobble head Jesus hit the stage. Bradleyboy MacArthur is a one man band; guitar, high hat, harmonica and a suit case as a base drum. This was Tom Waits visiting swamp blues and from the first frayed chaotic riff, I was pretty much in love

While Bradleyboy may not have fit as neatly into a blues slot as some of the other players, this was something primal and raw and the only thing that made me feel like dancing. Not only did his voice resemble Mr Waits, he also had the sense of humour. One of his songs begins: "When I was born at the age of sixteen ..."

I wasn't the only one in love with this darkly comedic one man band; Bradleyboy won the competition. Which means he may be soon coming to your town. Go see him. But you may want to check your back seat on the way home.

If you'd like to see the HD version of this video, click the link below:

Blues Contest

ICELAND: THE TRAILER

2011-08-09T07:13:00.000-04:00

Well of course I was going to make a full trailer from my footage from Iceland, even after doing the Ten Days in Ten Shots vid

Going through more of the footage I just couldn't help myself. Although I of course intend to edit the footage into a series of detailed videos, I couldn't resist selecting a bunch of shots and editing them to music.

That's what a trailer usually is for me: A music video. Music is a vehicle that lets me select and manipulate the shots in a way to illicit a more emotional response. Yes, I did say manipulate. The idea of a trailer is to generate excitement and using a filter or two takes the video from documentary to expressive .. .hopefully

The song I chose is one of my "got to" pieces of music: Dreams by the Cranberries. I normally don't use this for trailers, at least the whole song due to it's length, but damn, I have a lot of footage.

So Blogger is still being a bit of a bitch in terms of allowing me to embed videos in their proper widescreen format. To that end I urge you follow the link below to view the trailer in all its dazzling glory ... ahem

Iceland: The Trailer

ICELAND: TEN DAYS IN TEN SHOTS

2011-08-03T15:35:00.006-04:00

No. Not gunshots. When I talk about "shots" I talk about something I've taken with my camera, not an Ak-47.

Get over yourself.

I've just finished uploading all my raw camera footage from the HDD I took to Iceland to the work computer. Once I unwrapped it from its compressed storage medium to full Pro Rez 422 I ended up with about 400 GB of video.

I did the math and that comes out as ... a fuck of a lot.

It will take a while to log all the footage and find a suitable program format etc. I will probably document that oh so fascinating process on my other blog, Idiot With a Camera

In the meantime I decided to make a little trailer, a tease if you will. Normally I would select a dynamic piece of music and cut to it, lots of fast cuts with some filters, titles etc. I still may do that but looking at this footage, shot in this incredible country, I found that it mostly speaks for itself. It did not really need "jazzed" up.

I realized I could best create a teaser of our Iceland trip just by presenting a few clips as they were captured, with the naturally occurring ambient audio. But how to package that? The solution seemed obvious: Our trip lasted 10 days, including our 6 day guided tour around the country. So what about picking one shot to represent each day of the trip: Ten days in ten shots

Simple yet difficult. Each day, especially during the tour, was jam packed with events and sights and sounds. We went a lot of places, we saw a lot of things ... in one day on the tour we could visit 3 or 4 locations. How do I pick just one locale? And from that, pick one shot.

The answer was to pick an event and/or place that had the greatest impact, that lingered in my mind: The beautiful church that is the focal point of the pretty capitol city of Reykjavik; a storm racked bit of coast line in Snaefelles; the bubbling and steam of the hottest spring in the country; the slick back of a minke whale breaking the surface; the thunder of the most proficient waterfall in Europe; an ice berg floating in a glacial bay; ice adorned mountains guarding a gigantic glacier; the explosion a huge geyser; gulls circling the City Pond back in Reykjavik; steam gilding bathers at the Blue Lagoon ...

I could easily re edit this piece, finding more and more compelling images. But the exercise was to just string together a string of impressions. For me, they are memories. I hope, for you, they are enticements to stay tuned ...

ICELAND: DAY NINE

2011-07-31T18:22:00.010-04:00

Our last full day in Iceland. Yes, you may sigh. I will even permit you a pout. Please do it now. You will not be allowed to do it later.

All done? Swell. Let's move on

Collette and I considered booking a day tour from here in Reykjavik, either another whale watching trip or a voyage to the Westman Islands, a place of which we have heard much but have never visited ... well that voyage is not available on a Sunday. We could have gone whale watching but let's be honest ... we're old and damnit, we're tired.

So instead we decided to stay here in Reykjavik and explore. Yes, we spent our first day here but, due to our exhausted state, that wasn't exploration, that was a zombie crawl.

At the end of the day we are very happy with our decision. Reykjavik is a pretty little port town with colourful houses in the Newfoundland tradition and lots of resturaunts, bars and of course tourit shops. And yes, we shopped. What the fuck, we are, after all, tourists

We got to see some of the city's historical landmarks, like the Parlmiment building (recognized early on by the stench ..no wait, that would be Ottawa) and a little area of buildings dated from the 1800's

We actually began the day by visiting a local flea market. This was about as untouristy as you can get. It actually reminded me of the Heights, back home. Those who don't know, will be saying "Oh, how quaint" Those who do know will be saying "Crap, really?"

For lunch we ducked into an English style pub. Yes, I went to an English pub in Iceland. Hell, I go to English pubs in Toronto, they probably are not authentic either. But I did have an Icelandic beer. OK, it was an India Pale Ale. But it tasted different from those I drink back home so perhaps it actually is authentic.

In all it was a very laid back day, just ambling around the town, no particular plans and avoiding steep hills and anything with too many stairs. Ah, perfect.

Tommorrow we visit the Blue Lagoon. This is an Icelandic spa that seems so posh I can't help but think I'll be tossed out ... If it's posh, why the fuck would they accept me?

Don't answer. That was a rhetorical question. Ahem

In all liklihood this will be my last post from Iceland. It's a sad thing to contemplate. It's not sad that I won't be communicating from here to all the people I pretend actually read this thing, but sad that we will be leaving.

We've seen a lot of this remarable country but I know there is so much more to experience. I suppose that a good trip is any that you are relunctant to end.

By that standard, this has been a very very good trip

ICELAND: DAY EIGHT

2011-07-30T17:50:00.015-04:00

I'm writing this at 10 pm from a hotel room in Reykjiavik. Our guided coach tour has ended, but we still have two more days here in the area of the city before we fly home. We are both tired and, as Leonard Cohen said "I ache in the places where I used to play" ... but also very happy

Collette and I are both very sad that our tour was over. It was indeed an incredible, eye opening experience, shared by some very likeable and interesting people from all over the world .. well an awful lot of folks from Belgium but as it turns out, that is not a bad thing at all

The day began with a visit to the Friheimer farm for an event that we both have been antcipating: A demonstration of the Iceland horse

As I stated in a previous post, the Icelandic horse is considered to be one of the purest strains in the world. Importing other breeds of horse is strictly forbidden here and this horse has remained true to itself for countless generations. Is the Icelandic horse a snob? Well if you were that pretty you would be as well, and who could argue with you

It was explained to us that another thing that makes this breed of horse unique is the fact that while most horses have two or three gaits, the Icelandic horse has five. The family that owns the farm demonstrated one of these special gaits by riding the horse around the ring while carring a mug of beer, without spilling very much. How cool is that? Oh, waitress ...

From one of the many animal wonders of Iceland (I was going to use the term "bestial" but as we all know, this isn't that kind of blog) we went on to check out one of the inumerable natural wonders. This time it was a geyser and, in the practical way of the Icelanders, it was called .... Geyser.

Gosh, didn't see that one coming did you.

From the geyser we went to visit the site of the original Icelandic parliment, established around 930 AC, making it one of the oldest parliments on the planet .. making it a Viking parliment, dude, so don't you mess with our democracy or we'll cut off your head and use it as a flag .. um ..er... well really, nothing like that. But a boy can dream can't he?

As always, I'm going to keep this short. We have a full day tomorrow in which we plan to visit more of Reykiavik (have I ever spelled that same way twice? If so, please ignore) hopefully to hit a couple of art galleries, do some shopping and visit a site where they've excavated the oldest building in the city... or we may just hang around the hotel room and drink Viking beer in our underwear.

ICELAND:CONTINUING

2011-07-29T17:43:00.003-04:00

Internet connections have been very spotty as we've moved around the country ... not to mention the fact by 10 pm, after copying over the day's video and photo's I'm just falling into bed with a can of Viking Beer

We're currently in the eastern part of the country and have just finished up the second last day of our guided tour, with another full day in Rejkivavik still to come

We've seen a lot in the last couple of days. We wandered through an incredible volcanic landscape with gigantic rock formations that resembled churches and were just as big. We watched geysers and bubbling pots of lava that had the consistency of my chili but smelled a lot different.... whether better or worse is not for me to say

We came through another volcanic landscape that reminded me of Utah only to come to a gigantic waterfall across which flows more water than any waterfall in Europe

Collette and I wandered around a quaint fishing village where a long deep fjord meets the ocean.

Later we boarded an amphibious craft and cruised across a glacial lagoon to watch ice bergs, made of ice thousands of years old, glisten in the sun

Today we hiked some 300 meters (or so) up steep, rubble strewn hill sides to gaze out at the tongue of Iceland's largest glacier, some 8,000 squared kilometers in size. We stood there and gazed out across a landscape that has been completely determined by this glacier, a vast plain guarded by giant moraines where huge cirques glistened in the morning sun

Later we travelled to see more waterfalls. Iceland, in my experience so far, is a land of sheep and horses and waterfalls. The latter are everwhere, from thin streams of water pouring down steep cliffs to massive deluges flying away from the glaciers

We learned about how this country has been created, and oft times destroyed, by these titantic forces: Earthquakes and floods and eruptions. Today we drove through lava fields some 60 km in length, stretching horizon to horizon that all resulted from a single eruption. More than once the entire population of the island has been on the verge of extinction due to its own nascent nature, and yet the island survives and its people have thrived

Although our last few days have been blessed by absolutely beautiful weather, today the rain returned to Iceland. We walked along a shoreline of black volcanic sand where the surf pounded against the shore and flung up white foam like giant skirts of Irish lace and where puffins nested on the cliff faces

And where Collette and I found a black farm dog with a white muzzle that, if not a border collie, had the heart of one. I gave the border collie whistle and he came right to me and accepted a scratch under the jaw before flying off to herd up some errant ATVs ...

Tomorrow will not be our last day in Iceland but the last day of our tour. We have seen a great deal of this remarkable, death defying little country ... and already, I am missing it

ICELAND: DAY FOUR

2011-07-26T18:01:00.009-04:00

Any day is a good day when it starts out with you watching whales. Any day is a good day that ends with you lolling about in a thermal heated spring water pool

Ah, another day in Iceland. Life is brutal, eh

Collette and I started out searching for whales. And we found them. Three Minke whales, two of them a pair, something I'm told is unusual. The Minke whale is the only whale hunted in Iceland yet they did not appear to run from our boat. Either these whales are stupid, or Icelanders are really just poor hunters.

Finding whales is far from a guaranteed activity but we had an exceptional day for it, sunny and calm and relatively warm. Spotting Minke whales is a bit of an art form; the surface to breathe of course but they came up in a long curve of dark flesh, a blow of air, then back down again. They will do this three times in a row then go down for a deeper dive to breathe.

Predicting where they will surface was not easy but still, Collette did manage to shoot them .. I mean get a few shots. With her camera that is. We haven't "gone native" enough to start hunting whales.

Being Collette, she was not merely satisfied to caputre pictures of whales. She had to go after what may be the world's most bizarre looking yet cutest bird, the puffin

After the whale watching, we went exploring some of Icleand's incredible volcanic character. From a midge lake with its psuedo craters created by explosions of steam, to an awesome area of gigantic lava formations called the "dark fortress" ...

... to climbing up what surely was a mile or two (or so my lungs tried to tell me) to peer in a giant crater so Lunar like, it was used to train the Apollo astrounauts.

What is the solution to straining your gimply ankle and straining your couch potato lungs? As mentioned, lolling about in some thermally heated water.

Yes, we really are roughing it.

ICELAND: DAYS TWO & THREE

2011-07-25T14:28:00.019-04:00

OK, a day without internet access has left me a day behind ... but still travelling through this incredible little country with my Alice (that would be Collette) by my side.

In the past two days we have covered an awful lot of ground. While we're travelling I'm going to keep the posts pretty short; I'm here to enjoy the trip, not to blog. Later, I'll post more detailed logs, including a lot more of Collette's pics and fully edited videos.

See, now you have something to look forward to. Please don't hold your breath waiting. You just look silly that way

Yesterday we went to the west fijords, along the penninsula of Snaefellsnes (yeh, don't try to pronounce any of these words, you'll look sillier than when you do holding your breath) Along the way we saw many of the Icelandic horse. This is a totally unique breed, much protected by the locals, it is absolutely forbidden to import any other horse, including the offspring of Icelandic horses that have gone abroad, so this is about as pure as pure can get. In a country of about 300,000 people, they host horse population of 90,000

Highlights of the day included visit to a shark museum where an old fisherman described his technique for catching, preserving and eating Greenland shark. Yes, we had a taste of it. It was not at all bad, rather tasteless with a chewy consistancy.

Iceland is a crazy country, formed by ocean and glaciers and volcanoes. We nwent on a hike, along a trail, that became a narrow canyon, that widened just a bit, filled with volcanic stones ... very smooth volcanic stones. And metal. Big pieces of twisted rusted metal. These were the remnants of a Russian fishing trawler, smashed and abandoned ... we walked a bit further and we saw why. The canyon became a beach. A beach of stones worn to smoothness by a surf so powerful it had shattered the giant volcanic stones and stranded that fishing boat there forever.

Water and volcanic rock often meet on this island and the union is often, as is the case with passonate lovers, a tad violent. As is this case with water that has smashed right through the stone to form waterfalls.

Today we witnessed another example of the forces that have created this country, that being of the geothermic variety. Iceland is famous for it's hotsprings and we visited the one deemed the hottest. Water coming out of the earth at well over a 100 C, boiling up and creating steam that drifts across the lands and shrouds the visitor in mist.

Gorillas in the mist indeed ...

Tomorrow, whale watching. Aye, Cap'n Ahab.

ICLEAND DAY ONE: REKJKAVIK

2011-07-23T17:50:00.016-04:00

I'm writing this post rom the lobby of the Grand Hotel in Reykjavik Iceland. It is around 10 pm local time So it's been a long day. A long long long day

We arrived here in Icleand around 2 am our time, around 6 am local time. Each of us managed a couple of hours sleep during the 5 hour flight and trust me, that turned out to less than sufficiant for the rest of the day.

From the airport at Keflavik to this hotel it was about a 30 minute bus ride, during which we got to experience a very Icelandic landscape: On one side, the ocean and on the other side, miles and miles of lava fields that had a ver Lunar feeling

That landscape petered out by the time we arrived in Reykjavik. It was a sunny day, temps in the low 20 C, with a brisk wind coming off the Atlantic. Reykjavik is a pretty little town, narrow sometimes cobbled streets running dow to the harbour. Away from the heart of the town which

has become the tourist haven, you could call the city quaint, with lots of unique architecture.

It is, of course, a harbour town, an ancient haunt of Vikings after all. And although the only Viking long ship we saw was this lovely metal sculpture ...

... it is still a very active working harbour town.

It is a pretty area, hosting 60% of Icleand's 300,000 residents but still small enough for a nice brisk walk. That is, if you haven't already been up for so many hours your brain can no long tabulate said hours

So we returned to the hotel around noon local time and around 7 am our next day ... and quickly fell into a heartfelt coma. Tomorrow we are off with the Great Canadian Tour company for 9 days of adventure all over the country. We will return to Reykjavik ... and hopefully be awake enough to appreciat it even more

HOW GEEKY IS THIS POST

2011-07-22T19:58:00.002-04:00

How geeky is it?

I'm sitting in the Icelandair departure lounge in Pearson Airport posting a blog ...

Why?

Mostly cuz I can. And because I'm a geek. An incredibly virile sexy geek ... ahem

Collette and I are here, waiting for our plane at 8 pm on a Friday that will wing us to Reyjkavik Iceland where we will time warp to 6 in the morning on Saturday.

The girls are safe and sound at home and will be for the 10 days we'll be in Iceland.

Yes, Iceland. It's about 30 C here in Toronto as I write this. It's about 15 C in Icleand .... mmmm

So shut up

Yes, more to come

IF IT'S SUNDAY, THIS MUST BE SNAEFELLSNES

2011-07-13T00:03:00.006-04:00

Today we received the full itinerary for our Iceland trip and it's helping to put more of it into focus.

We fly out of Pearson at 9:15 pm our time and will arrive in Reykjavik Iceland at 6:25 am ... while actually only eating up about 5 hours time. Thank you very much time zones.

We'll spend that first day in Reykjavik. I considered looking up a local surgeon who could rewire my jaw so I could pronounce these Icelandic words but Collette suggested perhaps checking out the sights and sampling local cuisine. What a spoil sport eh.

Reykjavik sounds like a pretty cool town, with a population of around 200,000. That's less than the number of people in Yorkdale Mall on a saturday afternoon. I know that for a fact. I once counted them all. The magistrate suggested that it may be inappropriate to be touching that many strangers. Duly noted. But who knew?

Speaking of "cool" we knew that summer in Iceland would not be exactly balmy. As I right this post, the average temps for the country (and of course there will be a variety) are in the mid teens. We've been told that the climate should be very similar to New York City in the spring but without the smog .. and the crack ho's ...

Day three we're off to the Snaefellsnes Peninsula with glaciers, fishing villages and lava fields. The entire country of Iceland is roughly the size of Kentucky so our travel time will not be too long for most trips but I expect to see some great scenery during the voyages anyway.

I'll be spending my birthday in the north part of the island, visiting Hraunfossar where water comes running from the under the lava into a river, one of the biggest hot springs in Europe and a visit to Gooafoss, the Waterfall of the Gods.

The next day begins with a fairly normal breakfast experience; you know, some coffee, a croissant, some whale watching .. nothing special. In that area we'll also see puffins .. dude, puffins .. which I once associated with a British publishing company. Apparantly Icelandic people eat puffins. Sitting down to a holiday meal of a dozen roasted puffins .. yummy (I made that last part up, duh)

Another feature I'm looking forward to is visiting Vatnajokull .. no, not a villain from a Robert E Howard novel but the largest glacier in Europe. Cool ... like, for real

Iceland is one of the newest places on the planet so there will be volcanoes and geysers and lave fields .. oh my! Not to mention some huge waterfalls mountains and ... unexpectantly .. a sandy desert.

Day 9 we'll get introduced to the Icelandic horse, a unique breed and visit the Viking Parliment of bingveilir .. a Viking Parliment. Hold on, I may need a moment ...

We'll end up back at Reykjavik for a day. We can decide to explore more of the city or choose to take one of many day trips, we'll have to see how tired we are at the time

Our travel agent arranged our last day for us. While our baggage will be sent off to the airport, we'll take our bathing suits to the Blue Lagoon ... um, no not that blue lagoon, stop thinking dirty. It is the most famous geo thermal spa in Iceland, a country that is replete with such features and actually uses geo thermal energy to warm their house etc.

We'll loll around in the waters, get in some serious relaxation, then go to the airport for the flight home.

Yeh. That's living rough for you

EYJAFJALLAJOKULL HERE WE COME

2011-07-04T01:40:00.008-04:00

In a goofy little post from last year, I paid unlikely tribute to an Icelandic volcano that was giving the world a bit of a fit.

Well I guess irony rules.

On the 22nd of this month, Collette and I will be leaving for an 11 day tour of the country of Iceland. They wanted to give us a three hour tour and I said no way, I remember what happened to Gilligan ..

Anyway, yes we're going to be off to Iceland. We've booked a trip that will take us around the Ring Road where we'll get to see a good chunk of the country. Ice bergs, glaciers, volcaones, hot springs, whale watching, Icelandic ponies, some Viking stuff .. may I have a hoo-rah?

Thank you

If anyone who stumbles across this blog (and I apologize up front) who has been to Iceland, I would love to hear from you, any tips or suggestions warnings etc

So we are well into our preparations, which for Collette and I means, firstly, getting our electronics gear together. This past Christmas Collette bought new lenses and I bought my little Sony HD Handycam. We have also bought a new laptop, a 13 inch screen, flatter and lighter than our 15 incher. We will not be camping or doing vigorous hiking but we will be travelling from lodge to lodge and walking a fair bit so something small will be essential. Something that we can store and edit images and from which, perhaps, I will blog.

My original intent was to bring not only the Sony but my beloved Canon XL1 3-chip mini DV cam. I love this camera. It has a real SLR style film lens and many manual options. The image quality is excellent and the amount of control it gives me quite versatile. But it's a big old beast, cumbersome and not at all indiscreet.

I've been quite pleased with the image quality of the Sony, especially when recording in HD. It does not have the lens of the Canon nor the amount of manual control but the images are quite good and it fits in the palm of my hand. So the X will be left behind for this trip.

The other concern we've had is making sure that the girls are going to be taken care of while we're away. Hayley is not feeling terribly well and I really was kind of dreading boarding her. Luckily, Theresa, Jeff's girlfriend, has agreed to look after the dogs right here at the house. She is very knowledgeable about dogs and particularly border collies. Being able to have the girls here is a definite plus and gives us some peace of mind.

We bought other kinds of gear as well, good walking shoes and a rain shell for me, hiking boots and shoes for Collette. I have good boots now but not a real good pair of shoes and with my wonky ankle, it will be worthwhile. Not to mention, as I've tested them out already, they are kick as ball kicking shoes ...

So, unless my buddy Eyjafjallajokull decides to kick our ass .. Iceland here we come

ARE YOU THERE

2011-06-24T12:09:00.000-04:00

So I've finished the video for the Amplify Me film fest as I've been discussing on Idiot With A Camera

I think it's done at any rate

Still a few days to mull it over, feedback appreciated

Are You There

K.D. LANG AT LUMINATO: LET'S GET OUR COWPUNK ON

2011-06-23T01:11:00.006-04:00

Last week saw the return of Luminato to Toronto. It is billed as an arts festival and features works of theatre, photography and music, some free and some not so free.

It's not a festival I really heavily attend but they were featuring a series of outdoor concerts downtown. Much of the acts held little interest to me but they closed off the week with K.D. Lang .. for free, on a warm summer evening? Yes sir, count me in.

K.D. is one of your artists that if you asked me who my fave singers are, she would not make the list. Yet I like most of the music I've ever heard from her and have kind of been tracking her career from her early "cowpunk" days to Canadian diva.

She is a singer who moves through styles and not all of those styles but there is one concrete truth: The woman can sing. Her voice is deep and skilled and emotive and that's what I desire from a singer.

Collette and I have never seen her, I know K.D. is reputed as an entertaining performer so we jumped at the opportunity.

She brought with her an opening act, The Belle Brigade out of L.A. A brother and sister act, they have a style that flirts with bluegrass without surrendering to the twang and high, clear voices that created really lovely harmonies. We thought they both looked like boys and sang like girls

Ms Lang did not disapoint. Her new band, The Siss Boom Bang is very skilled and capable of moving from one musical genre to the other. They allowed KD to do her goofy cowpunk dance moves, something that is wonderful and giddy to behold.

She displayed her remarkable range throughout her set, from jazz standards, to pop, to old school Canadian (Helpless) to a heart stopping heart breaking rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah and of course, her signature song, Constant Craving.

She told the story of how at one show a woman requested K.D. sing that song "Instant Gravy" to which Ms Lang mused "and it's turned out to be just that"

Here's some video hightlights.

Blogger still seems to be messing with the video aspect ratio so you could follow this link to the video's original source

HERE WE GO AGAIN

2011-06-16T08:15:00.002-04:00

Another month, another film festival looking for submissions on a tight deadline.

I'll be chronicling this new debacle on Idiot With A Camera for anyone interested

WOOFSTOCK TORONTO 2011: ONCE AGAIN THIS BLOG GOES TO THE DOGS

2011-06-13T10:02:00.009-04:00

When does caring for your dog become over indulgence? Sometimes that determination is subjective; some people allow their pets on the furniture, we do. Some will tell you that permitting the dog on the couch puts you at their level instead of clearly demarking the ling between human and dog. Valid argument but I feel I do enough in that area to establish my dominance so to speak. Mostly, though, people just can't deal with the idea of sitting on dog hair. I'm used to sitting on hair, usually my own, it's not a problem.

This brings us to Woofstock. No, that is not the remembrance of the Woodstock Music Festival by an old hippie who's brain has been addled by overindulging in the smoking of red oger dogwood (it doesn't work .. or so I've heard)

Woofstock is a celebration of all things canine, held in several cities around the world and bi-annually here in Toronto. It has been running for several years and is quite popular be we've never before attended.

We did not take the girls. Held in the homey St Lawrence Market district, I knew that the festival would attract tens of thousands of people on a sunny Sunday (sunny Sunday, don't you love when that works out that way) in an area of closed off streets where they would have to be on leash ... not really an enjoyable past time for a pair of border collies who would much rather be off leash and running someplace, any place, fast.

But I had heard that were many vendors there, all in one location, selling their wares cheap and it was a nice day to and mingle with some dogs

There is a stage at Woofstock where people perform goofy dog tricks and display canine fashion. Now goofy dog tricks I can dig. I think all dog tricks are or should be goofy. That's what a trick is, just something silly, like a high five or playing dead or catching treats off their own nose. Tricks are different from discipline. Tricks are just for fun and to help develop a bond between you and your dog. Anytime I spend with the girls, giving them attention, is good for all of us

Doggie fashion is something else. I don't include warm jackets and boots in this; we live in Canada and some short haired breeds need a little help to enjoy the climate. Fashion is different. Fashion is putting angel wings on your dog, or dressing them in costumes.

I mentioned over indulgence. There you go.

Mostly we wandered around, picking up the doggie essentials; chuckit balls, poop bags, treats, some homeopathic meds for Hayley's arthritis and just having fun meeting the mutts and watching them play and interact.

I've gone to the dogs. How happy am I now.

NOTE: There is a video that goes with this blog but Blogger seems to be having a problem with my embed code and is garbling the video. Until I get things worked out follow this link to the video

MOTHER NATURE PUTS ON HER DOMINATRIX BOOTS

2011-06-09T12:42:00.013-04:00

It is not a fetish of mine, but some people do enjoy being dominated. You know, Yes Mistress, no Mistress, may I have another spanking Mistress ..

To each their own

But it seems more and more we're all being dominated by the biggest oldest most hardcore Mistress of them all ... Mother Nature. Or perhaps Mistress Nature

We are definitely getting our asses spanked

The midwest US has been very cruelly dominated lately, that's a fact. Here in southern Ontario, we're getting more mildly schooled but schooled nonetheless. Sudden lightning and thunder storms that come out of nowhere, tornado style winds that slice through the city very quickly, leaving felled trees and blown Hydro transformers in their wake

And sudden hail storms that left me staring out the window and yelling "No! Not the new car!" Luckily, she suffered no damage.

Weather is weather. It is a thing that affects our life on a daily basis .. What do I wear, what routes are clear, is that tree really going to fall on the Subaru ...

We can't control it. The Chinese and the Russians seed clouds to make it not rain on the Olympics and Red Square respectively, but in the long run, Mother Nature is the one wearing the black leather knee high dominatrix boots

And gosh, those spike heels hurt

Here's some video evidence.

SOMETIMES IT'S TOO EASY PART THREE

2011-06-07T13:13:00.005-04:00

So, a guy named Wiener, who is a US politician and therefore had some degree of relative fame became even more famous by going online and exposing his package. It now seems likely that he did, indeed, show his wiener.

It's just too easy. If I made this stuff up you'd all do that eye rolling thing and mutter about what a terrible pun .. I know that look and sound very well. Trust me.

So was this guy doomed from the outset? Did his surname dictate that someday he would gain infamy for exposing himself online? Was he taunted as a kid: Hey Wiener! Show us your wiener! Or perhaps he thought: If you're named it, flaunt it ...

And while I'm on the topic, why is it the guys named Wayne were called wiener? It doesn't even rhyme. Is it a deliniation of Wayner? I once knew a Wayne-o but I've never known a Wayner. I suppose the answer is, little boys will use any excuse to say the word wiener in public. Hell yeh, we're the masters of the universe ...

Now let's digress a tad (wow, like I wasn't already). What on earth would compel a grown man, an apparently educated man, in a position of responsibility, to post pictures of his package online. He must be excessively proud of it. I'm guessing this was his way of flirting. It's like that Sienfeld gag about why guys, when they are driving and see a pretty girl on the sidewalk, honk their horn ... they simply can't think of anything else to do. Honk, honk .. look at me. Hey, here's a shot of my crotch in my underpants ... what's your name?

Hell yeh. Masters of the freaking universe.

STYLE KILLS SUBSTANCE WITH A BIG ASS SWORD: WET THE VIDEO GAME

2011-05-31T16:02:00.022-04:00

Tron Evolution, The Matrix, Avatar, Blade Runner ... these are movies that are known for very distinct "looks" Looks achieved through special effects, CGI, cinematography or usual a combination of both. I think they are all successful movies, I think they are movies with stories far deeper than their glossy (or gritty) surfaces and yet it is those very surfaces, that distinct look, that helps to tell the story.

All these movies have style. They also have, in my opinion, as substance but it's a substance that you can't truly appreciate without that style.

These considerations can be applied to another visual medium: video games. One of my favorite video games was Max Payne (and its sequel) never to be confused with the so called movie of the same time. Max was drenched in style, from the world weary Noir narration, to the comic book like panels to the distressed colour panel. It was one of the first games that I played that struck me as being truly cinematic. And it had a story, a fairly good mystery story with some compassion. So style, with substance.

Which brings us to the latest game I'm playing. Like all the games I prefer, it is a first person shooter, an action game with an intriguing protagonist. It is so drenched it style it may leave a stain. But substance ...?

I give you Wet, the video game.

Look at the cover, say the word Wet again ... OK enough of that, don't be crude. No on second thought it's OK to be a little crude but it isn't that kind of game. Well, not exactly.

Wet is an action game. It features Rubi Malone, a modern day gun .. and sword ... for hire. The game is all about Rubi. It is a third person shooter and you control Rubi as she moves through a sleazy crime world on some kind of path of mayhem.

Rubi is a lot of fun. She is an over the top female bad ass. Living in some kind of run down plane graveyard in Texas called the Boneyard, Rubi is deadly with her twin pistols and her sword and she is all kick ass and rough edges. Think of her as Kill Bill's the Bride's redneck cousin. There is, in fact, a lot of Tarantino influence in this game. It is presented as a grindhouse movie, complete with cheesy drive in style intermissions, a scratchy old film filter and when Rubi dies (and in my control Rubi dies a lot) we get melted film frames.

I like this game because it does not shy away from its less the B Movie aspirations. In most games of this sort, you must control your character's health. They get shot up and their health falters. Usually you refresh their health by find a med pack, or taking pills ... Rubi drinks a bottle of whiskey then tosses it into the air and shoots the crap out of it. Yeh, she's a real debutant. Wet likes to play with video game conventions. In most games you can gain points or unlock features by collecting objects throughout the world. In Wet, Rubi collects little cymbal banging monkies. I don't know why. I'm not sure I want to know

A common trait for most shooters is, of course, weapons. Rubi starts out with her sword and twin revolvers. You can unlock more weapons as you progress through the game. But Wet is not a game that hinges its playing experience on logic. It any other game I've played, ammo or the lack of it becomes an issue. Not here. If you stick to Rubi's six guns you never have to reload and you never run out of ammo. Hell, why let reality intrude with the girl's bad assery.

Rubi can not only shoot and slay multiple enemies with one swipe of her sword, she can move. Like another one of my favorite games, Mirrors Edge, you can make Rubi jump, slide, wall run, flip, vault, swing and all other manners of acrobatic moves ... and she can still shoot while doing all of them. I enjoyed the character of Faith in Mirrors Edge, she was skilled and brave. But I fear Rubi would be a bad influence on her. Or maybe keep her tied up at the Boneyard for god knows what kind of shenanigans.

Rubi is beyond your usual chick bad assery. Rubi may be a little bit insane. At certain moments in the game, Rubi will shoot someone point black and get blood blow back on her face .... when this happens, she goes into Rage Mode. The graphics change into red and white line drawings, blood becomes black and oh my goodness there is a lot of black. None of it makes sense. But oh my goodness, it sure is fun

Wet has Rubi's blade slicing through bad guy torso's and its tongue firmly implanted in its cheek. There are a lot of little bits of just pure goofiness. There are moments in the game where Rubi has to ride in elevators. We observe her through security cams. Most of the time she taps her foot and impatiently jabs the button; no waiting for our girl, there is whiskey to drink and bad guys to explode. Fair enough. But then there is the scene in an elevator where Rubi suddenly produces a harmonica and begins playing ... It is a truly special "what the fuck" moment

Another fun thing about Wet, and one of its strongest components is the music. This game has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard. Dozens of bands provide songs that are definitely out of the Tarantion-Rodriqez camp; hard fast jangly punky twangy southwestern drum driven darkly comic gems. The first time Rubi goes into Rage Mode the lyrics are something like "my girl friend is insane, 4 out of 4 doctors agree she's a menace to society" Seriously, how fucking cool is that.

So Wet has style .. 60's era matte black huge finned Cadillac sized style. But does it have substance. Well the story well, really isn't. I haven't finished the game but I can see that clearly story isn't an issue here. This isn't about story. This is about putting Rubi through her paces, giving her dozens and dozens of bad guys to spatter, giving her the opportunity to slide upside down, down a ladder with her legs while she unloads with her twin pistols ..

It's about fun, story be damned. Elements are thrown in here simply for the sake of making you laugh and say "holy shit, that's cool" I can sometimes accept that in movies and I'm even more willing to do so in a video game. Yes, I've played games with very compelling stories but in the long run, I just want to waste a little time, enter a entertaining world or meet and fun character.

And Rubi Malone is fun. Just don't tell her I said so. I'm not sure she has a sense of humour. And trust me, I don't want to piss her off

SEVEN SAMURAI ... TO INFINITY

2011-05-25T18:36:00.043-04:00

Seven is the number. Seven samurai. Seven cowboys. Seven space wanderers. Seven women. Seven other samurais, well six, plus a robot ...

Many stories, several genres, even different media but all one inspiration. The inspiration being The Seven Samurai, the 1952 movie by Akira Kurosawa that deserves the status of classic as much if not more than most movies.

Iconic is certainly the word you can use to describe this movie. A movie that at first glance is very Japanese; set in that country's feudal history it is a story of honour, of devotion and of a way of life that that for all that honour could not possibly sustain itself.

Yet there is a universal aspect to the story, or fighting men with nothing left to fight except for the very honour of fighting itself. For men who in their honest moments of reflection could find little honour in their past so decide that perhaps, at the end, they would find honour in folly ... of seven warrirors, pitting themselves against impossible odds, defending a village against bandits, all for a handful or rice.

It is why the story has been adapted, or translated you could say, by so many other story tellers all over the world. The most famous example of this resulted in another iconic movie: The Magnficent Seven, the classic western by John Sturges. Another one of my favorite movies of all time, the Seven spawned serveral sequels that were although entertaining, never achieved the glory of the original

The plot of this movie follows the originally fairly faithfully in most regards; poor villagers, beset by bandits, inlisting the fighting skill of a group of men for little pay. In this case it is gunfighters instead of samurai but the spirit is the same. Samurai is more atmospheric, Kurosawa is never afraid to take his time building his stories; Magnificent Seven is more stream lined but both films get the most out of their characters. Toshiro Mifune's peasant-turned-warrior from Samurai finds an unlikely home in Horst Buckholtz the German actor playing Mexican .. but it still works.

From the iconic past of Japan and the United States, Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars takes the seven into the future and into space.

After the success of the original Star Wars movie, a lot of B grade space operas came oozing onto movie screens and direct to VHS (if you don't remember VHS you may have no point reading this blog but of course there is no point to this blog) but this one stands out. Mostly for its sense of humour and its unrelenting allegience to the conept of the Seven, right to the inclusion of actor Robert Vaughn, who was among the cast of the original Magnificent Seven. The movie is a lark and if you take it as such, it's a lot of fun. It is not however the only sci fi interpretation of the Seven but I'm getting ahead of myself.

From feudal Japan to the American old West to goofy outer space our next tale of the Seven takes us back to feudal Japan but with a couple of differences. The most significant difference is that in this story, Obakemono, is that the seven are all women. The other difference is that it is not a movie at all, it's a graphic novel.

Written by Finona Avery and illustrated by Billy Tan, this is a standalone story associated with Top Cow Comic's long running Witchblade universe of stories. It is the Seven, featuring magic with an all female cast. I really enjoyed the feminine take on the story. In Kurosawa's Seven women were not ignored but they played a very traditional role, a supporting role. As they do in the western version as well. I've always thought that an all female Seven was overdo and it is handled very well in this story.

There have been many many variants on the Seven story but I'm not going to list them all here. That isn't the point of this post ... yes yes yes there is no point this blog really but you can't blame a fella for trying.

What inspired this post was a particular take on the Seven story which I recently encountered. Like Battle Beyond the Stars, it takes the seven into the future and like Obakemono it takes them in a new medium, this time, Japanese anime. I give you Samurai 7.

This was a series that originally ran in Japan in 2004, produced by Gonzo Studios. I recently bought all 27 half hour episodes as a deluxe box set. This interested me because this is a new Japanese interpretation of a Japanese classic. So these are samurai, not cowboys, they are all male, they have Japanese names, they use swords and once again are being paid in rice. And rice features prominantly in this story as it could not in most other cultural renditions.

This is Japan, feudal Japan, but it is a future feudal Japan. It features such anime favorites as gigantic flying robots, slightly smaller ambulatory robots, swords with even more abilities than usual, cybernetics etc. But this future is still a feudal system, with an emperor, lords, merchants and a samurai class.

The story is set after a long penultimate war that has seen the era of samurai replaced by the era of merchants. Commerce has replaced the katanna as the weapon of choice. The war is thought to be the war to end all wars (gee where have we heard that before) and at the end of it, there no longer seems a need for the samurai. Most become ronin while others, still hungry for war, transform themselves into the aforementioned giant flying robots.

Said robots become bandits, terrorizing villages, robbing them of their hard won rice. And guess what ... one village decides to take a stands and goes out to hire themselves some ronin.

Most of the story is very much a remake of the Seven Samurai, the story is even credited to Akira Kurosawa. Some scenes gave me a little chill of prescience, I knew what was coming because some of the shots mirrored those of the original. There are some differences, a love interest is changed and about half of the episodes pick up after where Seven Samurai left off but the feel is pretty much spot on.

There is honour won and lost, there is fealty, heroic battles, betrayal, misunderstandings, and standing tough for the sake of standing tough. It all fits well with the futuristic setting. I've always been fond of the romantic notion of swords being wielded on flying ships, it's very Edgar Rice Burroughs. The futuristic setting also makes possible the transformation of Toshiro Mifune's rambunctious farmer-turned-fighter character into a huge "robot samurai" This interpretation actually works better than that of Buckholtz in Magnificent Seven. The robot is good for laughs but also capable of some touching moments.

The animation in the series is a bit uneven; the flying robot bandits and certain backdrops are rendered in an almost 3 dimensional detail where other backgrounds and some characters are barely above Saturday morning cartoon levels. The story starts out slow, with a bit of uneven pacing, and some of the secondary characters, like a young girl who ends up tagging along, are just downright annoying. Other characters new to the story, like a new evil emperor work extremely well.

All of this proves how timeless Kurosawa's original story really is. And while I enjoy Samurai 7 because it is another Japanese interpretation, Kurosawa was influenced by many other story telling cultures; in fact, he was a big fan of Western movies which lends a lovely irony to the creation of the Magnificent Seven.

The story of a small group of people, strangers thrown together by circumstance, going to their deaths for a handfull of rice and a shot at redemption certainly has a lot of appeal. Additional to that there is this sense of a passing time, a passing era, and those left behind, be they samurai or cowboys. Samurai 7 hits this point particularly well and for being an anime series it is not afraid to dive into the bittersweet essence of the thing.

There were Seven. There are Seven now. There will be Seven in the future. Count on it.

THE RAILWAY CHILDREN: THEATRE REVIEW

2011-05-14T19:40:00.009-04:00

This weekend Collette and I attended the first play in our season of Mirvish Production shows. The play is The Railway Children. Apparantly based on a famous novel that has had TV and movie versions, none of which I have seen so I went into it "blind" one could say.
I knew a couple of things about this production. They built a 1,000 seat theatre especially for this play. The Roundhouse Theatre is just south of the Rogers Centre, by the Steamwhistle Brewery in what was, appropriately, a former train yard. And I knew that it featured a full size steam train nick named Vicky.

The staging was very impressive. The audience is seated on each side of a pair of train platforms that the run the length of the theatre. In the middle of the two platforms are the "tracks" represented by a deep gutter. Not only does the train run in this alley but so do pieces of stage, representing various locations in the show; a living room, a kitchen, the railway office etc. At one end of the tracks is a set of stairs leading to a kid of bridge, actors pass over this bridge as well as on the platforms, the moving stages and in the gutter itself.

Watching the cast run up and down the long platforms and up over this bridge, jumping from moving stage to the platform I concluded that the actors must be in some terrific shape to achieve all this.

The big steam locomotive only makes a couple of appearances. Other times the trains are represented by sound effects and flashing lights. At one point the main characters enter a railway tunnel; as they drop down on to the tracks, a pair of sheer black curtains are pulled the length of the stage, giving us a sense of darkness and constriction.

The staging was very imaginative but unfortunately it may have been the best thing about the show. The acting was solid enough, especially from the three actors who portray the titular children recounting a story from their youth.

What disapointed me was the story itself. It is based in Edwardian England and tells the story of three children and their mother who's middle class London life is torn asunder as their father is sent to prison, unjustly accused of espionage. The family moves to the rural Three Chimneys to begin a new life in poverty, where the trains present the kids with their escape from a drab reality.
Again, I no nothing about the source material. There seems to be something there. There is the father's situation, which is never fully explored in the play. There is the character of a Russian, fleeing the czar for his radical writing and again, never fully explored. There is the mother, a woman in this era who supports the family by her writing .. again, never fully explored.

There is poverty and a train collision and politics but every time the story seems ready to delved into some sort of dramatic depth, we are pulled away from it. There is no conflict in this story and very little tension. We are given a very bland and generic story of three children and their very luke warm adventures. It seems to me that this story has been very gentrified, made a family friendly as possible, and in so doing is about exciting as white bread soaked in milk.

The problem is, I don't know how much this will appeal to children. Yes there are kids in it and there is the train but I think a lot of kids will find this boring. I know I did .. we'll leave my child like or childish status out of this

The Roundhouse theatre is lovely, very intimate, though the acoustics were not great. For such a small space I had to struggle sometimes to hear the dialogue. The staging was imaginative but the star of the show shouldn't really be a giant train.

But it was.

THE HELLO FUTURE COMPETITION: A SHARED DISSONANCE - THE HAIRY VERSION

2011-05-09T12:38:00.003-04:00

The following is a verbatim post from my other blog, Idiot With A Camera. That blog was created specifically to track my progress creating a video for the Vimeo, Hello Future competition but as I have now submitted the video, the two blogs are merging.

I've been enjoying going through the other videos submitted to the Saatchi and Saatchi Hello Future video competition As of this posting there are over 200 videos posted. The deadline is today so I'm not sure how many more will be submitted but they do seem to be coming pretty fast and furiously.

It is utterly fascinating to me to see what different people do with the same inspiration. I've looked at most of the videos but of course I'm particularly interested in those that used After, the same song as I. That is still the least popular choice but it's interesting that those videos seem to be the ones now coming in right at deadline. Could be because it's such a damn long ass song. It is, in fact, the longest song by a good two minutes or so.

A few things came to mind as I watch all these videos. Firstly that for these skilled and dedicated amateur film makers, the overwhelmingly most popular weapon of choice is the digital SLR, primarily some version of a Canon SLR that records HD video.

I can see why these cameras are popular. The image quality is outstanding due to a combination of huge image sensors and superb optics. Using a DSLR gives you access to a large range of lenses and it gives you the advantages; focus control, depth of field, exposure, etc. It is also a relatively light piece of gear. Also most of the have the option to record video at 24 fps (frames per second) which mimics the "film look" so often sought

That film look is not something I actively seek. I love the look of video. For most of the projects I work on, I don't need them to look as though they've been shot on film. I am not a movie maker, I'm a video maker. Even if I make a fictional video expressing abstract ideas I like the look of video and it's possibilities

I still love the look I achieve with my Canon XL1. It is a standard def mini DV camera but it has a superior lens and 3 good sized image sensors. It is definitely old school, all the buttons I need to operate on it are within the reach of my fingers as I hold it, no annoying menu's to scroll through as I have on my Sony

Now, I am very impressed with my Sony. I bought it to replace my old Samsung standard def tape based handycam; its image quality was fairly low but it was small and portable and I liked to carry it in my pocket and mostly used it to take video of the girls and when Collette and I are out and about. These videos end up on this blog and I wasn't terribly concerned with the quality.

When I went looking at a replacement cam I would have been happy with another mini DV cam but those simply are no longer made. And I admit to the advantages of a cam that records on to a hard drive; you eliminate some of the physical issues you encounter with tape and if your hard drive is large enough, you can record a lot of footage. I liked the Sony because its small and I can record about 60 hrs of high quality footage on to its hard drive. The fact that it records in HD was not immediately important to me but I have to say, I'm very impressed with the quality of the footage. It doesn't record to 24 fps but the optics are pretty impressive.

Still, most of the videos for the Hello Future competition wanted that "film" look and most of them got that, with a deeper contrast ration than 30 fps and greater control over the colour temperature.

Let's leave the technical aside. I want to concentrate on the creative aspect. This competition featured video makers from all over the world, at all different quality levels. The film school kids were out in force and a lot of their work was quite impressive. The little film production companies are well represented and not surprisingly a lot of that work is of really high quality. And the artists ... the computer artists, the digital artists, the photographers even the musical artists all came to play and I really enjoyed watching their videos. They offered perspectives that never would have occurred to me.

What surprised me was how many common elements we chose to include in these videos. Mysubmission features speed altered images of traffic, subway trains, the city at night. Turns out a lot of other people felt that same inspiration not just with my song but with the others as well.

I made a video that tried to portray emptiness and lonliness surrounded by millions of people. I knew that this was not the most original of concepts and a lot of others shared this idea.

The overall theme of the competition was Hello Future. Some folks tackled this in a very literal fashion: Robots, post apocalypse, cyborgs, plague, evolution .. all on display. I think my take was a bit less literal but fairly obvious and I'm in good company. Some approached the theme of the future on a very personal level, illustrating it through the degradation of personal relationships for instance.

Some chose to ignore the theme or perhaps tackled in a way that just escaped me. Power to them. My original concept for my video had nothing to do with Hello Future. When I reread the brief and understood that this theme needed to be an element in the video I at first thought "I don't really care, I'm making the video I want" But as I thought about it and began to figure out how I could introduce the future into my video it actually helped solidify my theme. And it gave me a clearly defined ending which had eluded me up to that point.

Vimeo is a website that is intended and designed to be a community for video makers. Mostly I use it as by far the best option to host videos, videos I generally create to show on The Hairy Edge but it is kind of nice to dog paddle in the shallow end of the movie making pool

My other blog is often about inspiration. This competition was all about inspiration, for myself and hundreds of others. As disparate as our videos may be, we all shared that same inspiration.

SELF PROMOTION WITHOUT REMORSE

2011-05-08T15:17:00.003-04:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was inspired by the Hello Future video competition hosted by Saatchi & Saatchi and Bug Video and Vimeo, featuring the music of Moby, to try to create an entry.

Well, with the entry deadline on Monday I have indeed submitted a video

To watch my take on the Moby song After, please take a look here If moved to do so, please feel free to comment on that page

To take a gander at all the submissions (and you should) find them here

If you're interested, I detailed my silly little adventure in the creation of this video on my other blog The Idiot With A Camera

Judging starts soon, with the top 10 semi finalists being announced around June 10 and the winner being crowned June 24

I entered this competition because I love Moby's music, I find it very cinematic and fun to imagine movies to and it was great he was making these songs public domain to allow Idiots With Cameras the legal ability to do so. I haven't made a "movie" or any kind of creative video since I was in college (we didn't have cameras then, we just drew stuff really really fast) and I have some time on my hands, and new little HD cam .. and the entries had to be in HD

I honestly didn't enter the competition to win, I'm the kind of person who find inspiration from outside sources and I always do best when someone else sets the deadline. Looking at the other entries, there are some talented serious movie makers out there. I'm a commercial editor and writer and my camera is usually focussed on the dogs or some adventure I'm sharing with Collette.

It was fun to dive into a pool where I haven't swam in a couple of decades. I really enjoyed creating the video and I love seeing what other people did with the same inspiration.

UFC 129: HANGING OUT WITH A FEW OF OUR FRIENDS

2011-05-01T17:22:00.018-04:00

OK now that I've posted my rant about the uber corporate greed of the UFC, it's time to talk about the events of the weekend. I attended a little free "fan festival" at Dundas Square on Thursday, then Collette and I went to the big even, UFC 129 on Saturday night.

The fan fest was a free event, held on a cool drizzly day which wasn't a bad thing, as it kept down the ravenous crowds that went to the fight and to the pay-to-enter Fan Fest also held this week.

There were a few tents on the square, one of them holding various pieces of UFC memorabilia.

Among other things in the truck was the only authentic touring UFC belt ... not exactly sure why I should be excited about this, but here it is
A few fighters showed up to sign autographs, including perennial lightweight contender John Fitch ..

... self-styled mma badboy Josh Koshcek ...
Koshcheck and Fitch remained on stages but light heavyweight Ryan Bader walk around the square, letting anyone pose with him for a picture and even allowing a rather dubious young man demonstrate his "kung fu" moves. Security wanted to move in my Bader waved him off; the person in question probably weighed about 145 pound while Bader could rent out his back as a highway billboard.
But this soggy little "festival" was merely a precursor for the real deal: UFC 129 at the Rogers Centre (that's the Skydome for us old farts)
Collette and I (and 55,000 of our closest friends) entered our corporate coliseum to watch our heavily tattooed and endorsement bedecked gladiators do battle. We got there in time to watch the first fight at 6 pm and stayed till the very end, some 12 fights later.

The UFC promised us spectacle and that, overall, is what they delivered. Hundreds of computer controlled lights, dozens of video screens, some 80 feet wide (and from our seats in the 200 level, we needed those) and a sound system powerful enough to be used by police to disperse crowds.

Beyond spectacle, the greedimaniacs at the UFC knew what we wanted ... the fight card was stacked with Canadian fighters, most from Montreal and a few from Toronto, such as lightweight Mark Bocek. Eight Canadians in all including the main draw of the fight, welterweight George St-Pierre who defended his title against American Jake Shields. The Canadians did well, winning most of their bouts. Local boy Mark Hominick lost his quest for the featherweight belt against Jose Aldo, but showed a lot of grit, including fighting through a goose egg on his head the size of a Gemini space capsule, and taking the champ to the mat in the final round and pounding the tar out of him .. too little too late perhaps, but the crowd reacted with a roof raising roar.

The two loudest roars of the night came at the entrance of two particular fighters. No surprise that Canadian champ St-Pierre got a crushing ovation but so did an American: UFC hall of famer Randy Coture, fighting in the last bout of his long career. Now, Randy has said this before, but he is 47 and I don't see another comeback, even for Captain America.

Overall we got what we came for: Lots of actions, knock outs, many fights not needing to go to the judges score card. George won, which is what we wanted, even if it was not the most thrilling fight of the night.

There is an adage that in the right circumstance, a crowd can become its own character, that it can be a factor in a sporting event. Local fighter Claude Patrick has said that the first time he slammed Daniel Roberts to the mat he could feel the crowd respond .. so he kept slamming the man and won the match.

I've been to the Rogers Centre many times but I have never seen as it was Saturday night; absolutely filled to capacity. Literally, every seat in the stadium was occupied. And although there were more than a few young men intoxicated before the first leg kick was thrown, most were there for the same experience and the tens of thousands of us were united for a common purpose: To see these highly skilled and strongly motivated athletes kick some ass

Records were set. The largest crowd ever for a mixed martial arts event. Tickets sold to patrons in just about every country on the planet. And of course, more money stuffed into the UFC's pockets than ever before.

The greed of the UFC still leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth but I have to say, as a fan, I left the dome very satisfied. We saw some great fights, many times I was driven to my feet and I bounded with some of the fans around me.

But I'm not taking any of them home.

Here's a video with highlights from the fan fest and from the fight itself. The fight footage was recorded on Collette's new Panasonic DMC-TS3 waterproof pocket camera.

UFC 129 from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

FIGHT FANS FIGHT TO BE FANS

2011-04-29T15:43:00.007-04:00

It's coming. It's happening. It's finally here. Yippee. What has me so elated? The first big UFC mixed martial arts fighting event is coming to Toronto this Saturday. So not just yippee. Yippee motherfucker.
Collette and I are very excited, we've been waiting for this for a long time. But my excitement is tempered by a fair amount of disgust as well. And no, not disgust at the notion of two adult men hammering the bejeesus out of each other, that's the exciting part.

I enjoy this sport, as does Collette and I can appreciate for the fighter's skill, their conviction, their determination and the sheer competition of it all. But from the entire ticket buying process up to today, I am building a fairly acidic level of disgust for the organization that owns the fights, the UFC

Myself and many others had issues with how the tickets were sold. I acknowledge that this was a much anticipated event and I knew what it was going to sell out. This knowledge drove me join the UFC Fight Club for the opportunity to pre-purchase tickets, before the general public. We all know what happened. Something like 44,000 tickets sold out in minutes. When they opened up the rest of the Rogers Centre seatings opened up for sail, those went just as fast

Now let's reflect upon the fact that being a Fight Club member is not any kind of honorary talent. You pay for that privilege. All things said and done I paid over 100 bucks. Just for the opportunity to purchase seats far from where I would have wanted, in about 5 seconds after they went on sale. I still don't know where all those tickets to went so fast.

Today there was another incident that had me wondering. Today were the official weigh in's for the fight tomorrow. This is something that has evolved from some half naked guys standing on scales so that their official weight can be recorded to a full bore media event with the anticipation of said half naked guys trading punches ..

Well, it was free, so I decided to go. And with my oh so expensive Fight Club membership, I would get in earlier than the regular public. Now let's talk about "free" for a moment. When I go to Ricoh stadium it was clear from the already huge lineup that pretty much all the seats, certainly all the good seats would be going to the Fight Club members. People who paid to attend this free event.

Just like the fight itself

Of course I brought cameras. I brought Collette's Nikon and I brought my handycam. Now I know for the fight no audio-video recording devices will be allowed, fair enough but nowhere on my Weigh In "free" ticket that I had printed out beforehand did it make mention of this. Nor did it mention something about the lens on the Nikon being "too big"

I was told I could check my cameras. At a stadium filled with thousands of people and cared for by teenagers who's lack of energy only matched their lack of experience. Are you fucking kidding me? That is thousands of dollars worth of gear. That little piece of paper you give me in return is just not going to cover a mistake is it. "It's a professional camera" they told me. Well it could be used by a pro but it's not a Hasselblad, it's not even the highest end Nikon DSLR by a long shot .. you can't just automatically call it a pro camera

And sorry, I am not checking it. So I went home. Was I a spoiled brat? That's Collette's baby. Sorry, I'll stomp my feet, cross my arms and hold my breath before I turn it over to strangers

I am curious to find out how many members of the public got in to this event This free event. Where first seating went to people who paid a hundered bucks

I am looking forward to the fights tomorrow, I want to concentrate on that action but I am getting a very bad taste in my mouth about the UFC.

I'm a fan not a fighter. But I'll fight for my right to be that fan

WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING NOW

2011-04-19T15:41:00.004-04:00

Sometimes I am not the world's smartest guy

But I usually think that I am

I often bite off more than I can chew. But it falls into my beard and I enjoy it later. Ewww.

I'm embarking on a new little adventure and me being me, I thought that warranted creating a new blog.

I will still be on this blog, pleasing my millions of adoring fans all over the world .. whoa, what kind of mushrooms did I use in that stir fry ...

Anyway here it is You've been warned

SOMETIMES IT'S TOO EASY PART TWO

2011-04-19T13:29:00.003-04:00

Just watching the news crawl on TV and I saw this headline under the General News banner:

BASEBALL PLAYER CAUGHT STEALING

Well that was a dumb ass move on the player in question but seriously, this makes the news? I mean, it wasn't on the Sports section ...

Oh wait, not that kind of stealing .. he was shoplifting ...

Irony is our friend, kids

Easy, easy

THE POINT (BLANK) OF GOING "FASTER"

2011-04-16T20:21:00.023-04:00

This weekend we watched the movie Faster on DVD. It is ostensibly an action movie, directed by George Tillman, scripted by Tony & Joe Gaton and starring Dwayne Johnson, the former professional wrestler formerly known as The Rock
I expected a typical Dwayne Johnson low budget action movie but what I got was something different; something lean, stripped down, focussed and a bit old school. Faster is a vengeance story and the opening sequences come at you hard and unadorned and makes no mistake that you are in for a ride with the gigantic Rock and his vintage American muscle car
Most action movies today become totally involved with huge set pieces driven by CGI effects where men can dance on moving helicopter rotors and cars fly through the air with balletic artistry. Faster is helped by its low budget and its director's vision; this is a very low tech movie and it is very stripped down. It reminded me of the action movies of the seventies and my first thought was that Charles Bronson in his prime could very well have played Johnson's nameless character.
But that fact that we never learn the name of Johnson's character got me to thinking. As did the intensity of his vengeance drive and his almost worldless interaction with his victims. Not Charles Bronson, but Lee Marvin in John Boorman's masterpiece Point Blank.
Point Blank was originally released in 1967 and I don't think that it was an instant success but over the years it has achieved a cult like status. It is, indeed, a very good movie. Like Faster it's a story of vengeance, it features Lee Marvin tearing around and through Los Angeles in his single minded quest, much like The Rock in Faster.

SPOILER ALERT: I want to compare the two movies and in order to do so I'll be mentioning plot points from both so now you have been warned .. stop whining.

No, really, stop whining. You're staining your shirt.

Both movies feature a lead character who has come back from the dead to avenge a wrong done to him and a family member. Both films revolve around a job, a heist pulled by a pair of brothers and the scum bags who double cross them. Marvin and his brother are betrayed by a corporation-like criminal syndicate; Johnson and his brother are double crossed by a gang led by a crooked cop. In both movies, the brother's wife plays a role. In both movies the brother is killed and our hero is almost killed, his enemies believe he is dead but oh shit, here he comes back from the dead, more sullen and more deadly than ever.

Both Johnson and Marvin go about their solemn task of taking names and kicking ass with the aid of a huge Magnum revolver. In the 1967 film a Magnum six shooter was something not often seen; in the 2010 movie it gives the film an almost nostalgic feel. This seems to be entirely deliberate; all the other characters in the movie are armed to the teeth with semi and fully automatic weapons, The Rock is the only one who uses the old school revolver. And while another major character transports himself in sleek, futuristic foreign sports car, our nameless hero roars around in his 1970 SS Chevelle.

But Faster is not a remake of Point Blank. Boorman's movie was almost an exercise in nihilism. The Lost Angeles that Marvin inhabits is stark and clean and lifeless, his hot blooded reborn-thru-vengeance character shoves his way through featureless office buildings and the villains are all white guys in suits.
Johnson's world is more mutlticultural and it's grimier, the bad guys sweat, they plead, they have weaknesses. Johnson's character eventually comes to display emotion whereas I never remember Marvin actually doing. In Point Blank, Marvin is pursued by a hit man, a minor character who is smugly professional. Johnson, too, is pursued by a hit man but this character is more integral to the story.

In general, the characters in Faster are more fleshed out than in Point Blank. Some of the villains are propelled by motivations that actually have us question The Rock's diesel engine of mass destruction. That never happens in Point Blank. Marvin moves through a souless world, it's villains are driven by profit and nothing else, his rage and his violence stand out so starkly we also question the validity of his quest. In Point Blank there is no hope for redemption. Faster delves as much into guilt as it does vengeance, it as much about human connections as it is destruction.

In Point Blank, Marvin is all about forward momentum, he never rolls over everyone in his path and never slows enough to understand the consequences thereof. In Faster, Johnson does take his foot off the gas and as he begins to coast, he may eventually park his blood spattered muscle car in Redemption.

HANNA: THE FAMILY THAT SLAYS TOGETHER ...

2011-04-10T00:26:00.018-04:00

Hanna is a movie currently playing theatres, directed by Joe Wright and starring Saorise Ronan, Eric Bana and Cate Blancett. Perhaps you have read about it or seen the trailers. Hanna is an action movie concerning a teenager (Ronan) trained by her father (Bana) to battle a powerful and corrupt CIA agent (Blancet)
It is, indeed, that, but it is much more. Joe Wright is not an action movie director. His previous films include Pride & Prejudice, Atonement and The Soloist. So he brings some "art house" chops to the mix. Yet on paper, Hanna follows many conventions of action movies; chases, fight scenes, gun play, knife play .. and it dabbles in conventions we've seen before: A child raised in isolation to be a killing machine/survivalist by a covert government organization. As such, it reminds me of last year's Salt, starring Angelina Jolie
Salt was indeed a kick ass action movie but although we are informed of the main character's upbringing and shown flashbacks, most of the movie involves the adult Salt. Hanna focuses on the sixteen year old girl and that difference is significant, or more importantly, it is significant in the way that is handled by director Wright
Sometimes a movie is judged by its originality. Sometimes it is judged by the way it handles pre established concepts. I've seen the story of the child raised in isolation and then unleashed on the world .. but Wright is not afraid to give that idea strength here but concentrating as much on Hanna's journey of self discovery as he does on her quest for justice.
Sometimes Wright gets a bit lost in his own art house sensibilities but what pulls him out of his hand held camera mire is the remarkable performance by Ronan. As an actor, she can do as much with a drawn mouth and a languid stare as with a contrived monologue. She is the centre of the movie and she holds it extremely well; you believe her when she smiles with a delight at her discovery of music and you believe her when she is kicking ass

It is not surprising that Wright can handle these scenes of Hanna's self discovery but the man also brings a lot to the action movie plate as well. If the plot devices of Hanna are a bit cliche, so are some of the action scenes but this is where Wright's hand held, documentary style asthetic serves him well. I have seen many fight/chase scenes among shipping containers before (The Transporter comes to mind) but Wright makes his exciting and suspenseful and fresh. Rapid MTV style editing has become a staple of action movies but Wright uses one masterful long hand held shot to turn a fight in an underground location, between Eric Bana and multiple assailants, into something fairly breath taking
Bana is pretty much dead centre perfect in this movie. He's displayed his acting chops before but with this film he proves that he is more than capable of carrying an action movie on his own, especially since he obviously does many of his own fighting stunts. More importantly he is able to establish his relationship with Ronan with a minimum of dialouge and with almost no obvious emoting.
Hanna is not at all dialogue heavy. Much of the movie depends upon camerwork, editing, the strength of silent acting and an absolutely powerful score by the Chemical Brothers. Some of the scenes have an almost idyllic tone, occasionally this verges on directorial self indulgence but just when I was sure Hanna was about to sing We Are The World, some bad guy would come along and she would have to help him have a very very bad day
Another area where Hanna threatens to tumble into the dark hole of movie cliche is Cate Blancet's character. It gives nothing away to say that is the bad guy. And boy, is she. I was never really a big fan of this actor until the recent Robin Hood where she became one of my favorite Maid Marion's. She is good here but her character is not quite as well fleshed out as everyone else and although she occasionally conveys a chilling methodical coldness, she can come close to munching on the scenery
Hanna may be an action movie for those not normally a fan of action movies. Or more correctly, it may be an action movies for those, like myself, who are weary of over the top CGI enpowered, absolutely unbelievable and illogical action set pieces where cars fly through the air like Chinese acrobats, missiles slice easily through entire apartment buildings and heroes can leap off 4,000 foot waterfalls while making a thermonuclear device out of a tin of tuna fish and a bendy straw. That is not the case here, the stunts are performed by real people, think Ronin or the Bourne movies. There is a bit of a seventies feel to this movie, from the hand held camera work to the European locations to the lighting direction. Hanna can get your pulse racing. But every now and then it can also engage your emotions.
At the heart of Hanna is a contemplation of the concept of a family. Wright is not afraid to delve into this idea and this is one of the thing, along with Ronan's remarkable performance, that gives the ass kickery as much emotional as it does physical impact

VIKING THE LONG COLD FIRE: BOOK REVIEW

2011-04-07T22:28:00.012-04:00

So, Vikings. Me like Vikings. Or at least the cinematic/fiction versions of Vikings. I don't why that inspired me to sound like a cave man but I never question these inspirations, I just ignore them.

Vikings The Long Cold Fire is a graphic novel. More correctly, the hardcover trade edition that compiles the first "season" of these comics, published last year.

Vikings are popular subject matter for graphic novels. I am a huge fan of the Northlander series of books written by Brian Vaughn and illustrated by a variety of artists. I discovered these books a couple of years ago; the Viking theme was immediately attractive to me and I was impressed how Vaughn used that archetype to tell tales of revenge, redemption and quests that were inner as much as they were exterior.
Vikings share similar themes but is more visceral, more immediate and more .. well .. graphic
Written by Ivan Brandon and illustrated my Nic Klein, Vikings tells the story of two brothers, Finn and Egil, two young men who take "viking" that is the art of pillaging and looting, very seriously. As the story opens they are not good men. They are violent, arrogant, they revel in the power they possess, that power being a lack of morality that permits them to go to any means .. usually violent means .. to achieve their ends.
Their own father cautions them that their recklessness can only lead to tragedy. And of course it does. Personal tragedy for the brothers, and tragedy for those they encounter, including a beautiful and strong young woman, the daughter or a king who in his youth was perhaps as reckless and violent as the brothers.
This is heady stuff. Much like Northlanders, this is a story of redemption but is it a redemption that has come too late. There is a lot going on here, there are layers of story and back stories for each character but it all happens as if in a blood tinged rush, barreling at you, almost overwhelming.
This is, of course, a graphic novel and the writer and artist use that medium to their great advantage. The story is told entirely through the art and through dialogue; there is no narration, no third or even first person exposition boxes, there are only word balloons and images.
What this means is that we are never formally introduced to the characters, they are just there and we have to figure out who they are. It is a bit off putting but it serves the story well, you feel as if you have just been dropped into the story and being a story filled with violence and rage, it keeps you on your toes.
Nic Klein's art work is spectacular. The trade edition of the collection is a huge hardcover and it does the work justice. Klein mixes a variety of styles and techniques, not only from page to page but sometimes from panel to panel. From almost impressionist oil paintings to line art to a contemporary graphic style, you are once again kept a bit off kilter which gives reading this book an almost physical feel. One of the things I love about graphic novels is that they have a cinematic quality and Vikings has that, often using nothing but panels to advance the story, like the frames of a film. But this book, through Klein's art work and the very structure of it, really gives you a sense of action or more properly that you are in the action
The story does not end with this collection. Because this was just the first season of the comic, we are left with a cliff hanger. But what makes me want to read more is just not some plot hook but because the artists have done an impressive job of creating and developing characters that I am interested in following. I am fond of stories of redemption, of growth and I have a feeling that that growth will be hard earned in this Viking world .. but I hope the brothers make it.

SOURCE CODE & THE ESCAPIST: TWO MOVIES, MULTIPLE REALITIES, NO WAITING

2011-04-03T12:24:00.013-04:00

This post was to be a review of the movie Source Code, currently in theatres, perhaps you have seen the ads on TV or read about it. Source Code is a science fiction popcorn movie, heavy on concept, but starring Jake Gyllenhal, an actor know for more "serious" work so I was intrigued.

But a funny happened on my way to the movie review.

Well, it was more like a movie happened on my way to the movie review. That movie was The Escapist, a decidely non science fiction British film starring Brian Cox and available on DVD.

On the surface, these are two very different movies. As stated, Source Code is a popcorn movie and a pretty good one, a high concept science fiction movie in the guise of an action thriller. There are many explosions (or one explosion repeated over and over) fist fights, chases etc. There is terrorist to catch, time running out and thousands of lives on the line.

The Escapist is a jail break movie. A very good jail break movie. It is a film filled with tension and action but it is not an action movie. It is a movie about desperate men doing desperate things, it is a movie about redemption hand difficult to achieve that that may be.

What these two disparate movies have in common are structure and pacing.

Source Code is very much about structure, to the point that it plays a huge role in the plot. It is a movie who's premise is that when a person dies, they maintain 8 minutes of awareness even after death; a super secret military project has learned how to exploit that 8 minutes, by inserting the hero (who's name is Colter Stevens, which couldn't be more "comic book") into a dead person's source code so he can catch a terrorist who has planted a bomb on a commuter train. The train has already blown up, but they need to find the bad guy before he plants another bomb, a dirty bomb. Colter has that 8 minutes to do the job but here's the catch: If superhero Colter doesn't find the bomb before it explodes again, no worries .. they will just restart the source code and he goes back to the beginning of the 8 minutes to try again. Thusly he relives that time frame over and over again, he can fail, because he will never actually die.

It's like the movie Groundhog Day ... but with explosions.

The story of Source Code is inherantly non linear. The story of The Escapist is quite linear. Man is in prison for a long time. He has a daughter on the outside who he has not seen since she was a little girl. Now she is an adult and a junkie and her health is in peril. Man decides he needs to escape to rescue his little girl. Man recruits fellow prisoners and hatches a plot.

But this story is told in anything but a linear fashion. There is ample use of flashbacks, or perhaps flash forwards, oblique cuts etc. We are experiencing the escape at the same time we are experiencing the events leading up to it

It's all about structure. Director Rupert Wyatt uses story structure to tell the story as much as he uses script. Source Code's story is all about temporal structure; our characters live their life in an 8 minute loop while they also live a life outside that loop .. or do they. We are told that the source code creates an alternate reality and in Phillip K Dick fashion we begin to question which reality is which. Source Code does this in a sci fi premise but The Escapist uses editing to create a sense of variable realities. There is no dubious science behind it, we are just given the opportunity to question what we are seeing.

This is even more Phillip K Dick

In the end, it comes down to two films, in albeit very different ways, that want us to question the reality of what we are seeing. Source Code is no Inception, it is clearly more intended to be popcorn fare but good acting and tight editing help us leap over some of the obvious plot faults to be able to appreciate the original premise

The Escapist is something different. There are things here to think about; men in custody create alternate realities as a way of staying sane and it redemption possible for someone, just because they really really want it ..

There have been quite a few movies recently that challenge our concept reality. Of course, the viewing of a film in itself is an exercise in an alternate reality. There is no bomb on the train, there is no train, there are no men wandering the sewers of London trying to escaped their own personal Hell.

Yet, if it's all done properly, for a couple of hours, we think that indeed there is.

SOMETIMES ....

2011-03-27T17:36:00.003-04:00

Sometimes you call your dogs girls, who more specifically, The Girls

Sometimes, when it's almost April and you get fresh snow, girls like to go out to play

Yes, sometimes girls want to have fun

And sometimes you need really don't need to have a real reason to create a video or post it online

Sometimes I just want to have fun, watching my girls have fun

Snow Dogs 2 from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

THEATRE REVIEW: MORE FINE GIRLS

2011-03-22T10:41:00.001-04:00

This weekend Collette and I attended a performance of the play More Fine Girls at the Tarragon Theatre.

The play was written by Jennifer Brewin, Leah Cherniak, Alisa Palmer, Martha Ross and Ann-Marie MacDonald, with the latter two also appearing on stage. This play is a sequel of sorts to the play The Attic, The Pearls & Three Fine Girls first performed some 20 years ago. We've never seen the earlier show but I don't think that was totally necessary.
The story follows the Fine girls, three sisters, two of whom are approaching middle age and their much younger sister. It is a comedy, with one liners flying fast and furious, a story that is rather Guingol in its grandest, veering towards absurdity and poking fun at everything from sex to art to professions.

There are secrets, there are half truths, there is a character who may or may not be off her rocker, there is an analysis of art, there is the question of what binds what person to another .. in other words, its a story about family. Now, we all know how funny and absurd that is

While the play happily, you could say giddily, bandies about some very huge concepts, it is a small play, with a small intimate staging, which is something you get at Tarragon. It is very classic theatre, with the words and the actors relying upon themselves to convey location and time and concepts.

The acting overall was excellent. This is a comedy and none of the performers was afraid to go big or go home as it were. Ms MacDonald, a highly celebrated author, who's book Fall Down On Your Knees I admired very much, displayed a penchant for physical comedy that took me totally by surprise. She plays the eldest of the three sisters and has an encounter with an excercise ball that pretty much brought tears to my eyes

Martha Ross was equally hilarious. As middle sister Jojo, she used her facial expressions to great affect; Tarragon's main space is so intimate we were able to observe every exaggerated grimace and wink.

Severn Thompson played Jelly, the much much younger sister, an artist, who's upcoming show and daughter's birthday provides the play with its central plot pivot. Her performance was a bit more subdued than the other two actors but she was able to hilariously portray the "spacey" (in a sometimes literal sense) artist without ever losing the core of her character, and that character's importance in the family
I'm not going on a great deal about the actual story mostly because the way it unfolds and the surprises that it hold and how they are conveyed are very much a part of the play's charms. The story has a great many twists and turns and the subject matter covered is incredibly varied: Universtity tenure, lesbianism, motherhood, art, theatre, menopause, what sort of wine to order at a lunch for three sisters who have not met for two years ...

As I said, the play is about family. Buckle your seat belts. Anything can happen. It always does

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER 100 PEOPLE WITH RAY GUNS

2011-03-21T11:36:00.022-04:00

This weekend I went back through the rabbit hole to attend a comic convention here in Toronto. This was the Wizard World Comic Convention, my first time at this particular con, normally I attend the Fan Expo which occurs in August.

This is a smaller convention, which has advantages and disadvantages. There were not as many people, which meant few cute girls in costumes but I was not entirely disapointed

This particular con seemed to have a rather military feel to it, costume wise, expressed in ways one could only find at a comic convention. Look at these costumes, should I be nervous?

But there were advantages to attending a smaller con. You could actually talk to people for one thing. I go to buy as much as I go to oggle ... er I mean appreciate the costumes ... and while this convention had the usual large booksellers it also had people who were passionate about their particular fantasy and were selling books that actually interested them. It was nice to chat with them and get their opinion on certain titles and to listen to their reccomendations knowing they were not just trying to make a sale, they were trying to share.

I always enjoying wandering around Artist Alley, where the actual creators of the work you see are sitting right there; at this convention, I was actually able to converse with them. That led to my favorite encounter of the convention.

The above illustration is an example of the work of an artist named Da Xiong. He hails from China but now lives in New York City. His reason for emigating to the US was not purely commercial, he was forced to leave his homeland. Western governments seemed enarmoured of the idea of China and its potential of 1 billion consumers; they sometimes forget that it is a country where people live with the threat of being imprisoned for simply believing idealologies in opposition of the government.

All that aside I enjoyed Xiong's artwork and decided to purchase one of his books. When he asked if I would like it to be signed I was just expecting his signature. But that is the wonderful thing about true artists. They constantly surprise you. Instead of a mere signature in my book, I got this ...
For those readers fortunate enough not to recognize that sketch, well it has a resemblance to a certain erstwhile video and comic obsessed blogger. I mean, how cool is that? That is what I call a personalized book

I made my usual checklist of purchases including books, video games and DVDs, the latter being Samurai 7, an anime series based on Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, only this time in a futurized Japan. There are so many versions of future Japan out there I wonder if they get to pick and choose which one will come true.

It was a small yet very enjoyable con so I will make this a small post .. whether or not it's enjoyable is your call. Just keep it to yourself. I put it out there, I don't care if it comes back. So, before the obligatory video, here are a few final images from the convention

Actually I do need to comment on this final pic. Most of the people attending the convention were in their happy space but arguments do occur and sometimes they get violent; after all, when someone suggests that Green Arrow was only existing in Green Lantern's shadow, what else can one do but go medieval on their ass ...

So here's the video

Toronto Comic Con from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.