Well, I think this is my favourite audience photo ever... they are hilarious... Look at the variety of reactions in this photo... shock, horror, denial, total delight...wouldn't it be great, occasionally, in theatre to get this kind of reaction from an audience.... Although, when I think about it, a couple of nights ago I saw a piece by Ian Mozden at the Rhubarb theatre festival here that was about castration, that probably saw me making some of those gestures...
The people in this photo are actually watching a film during an amateur porn festival. Yeesh! One doesn't want to think about what they're seeing! The story, if you want to read the details, is here
copied from a very fine politics site http://talkingpointsmemo.com/
The Washington Post, has a story on today's front page under the concise headline, "The Anti-Lobbyist, Advised by Lobbyists"; about the undeniable conflict of McCain, the chest-beating reformer, being so undeniably close to lobbyists. The man who's absurdly proclaimed that "I’m the only one the special interests don’t give any money to" is surrounded by lobbyists.
And
The story involves quite a roll call:
-- "His campaign manager, Rick Davis, co-founded a lobbying firm whose clients have included Verizon and SBC Telecommunications."
-- "His chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of Washington's lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan and U.S. Airways."
-- "Senior advisers Steve Schmidt and Mark McKinnon work for firms that have lobbied for Land O' Lakes, UST Public Affairs, Dell and Fannie Mae."
-- "McCain recently hired Mark Buse to be his Senate chief of staff. Buse led the Commerce Committee staff in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and was until last fall a lobbyist for ML Strategies, representing eBay, Goldman Sachs Group, Cablevision, Tenneco and Novartis Pharmaceuticals."
-- "McCain's top fundraising official is former congressman Tom Loeffler (R-Tex.), who heads a lobbying law firm called the Loeffler Group. He has counseled the Saudis as well as Southwest Airlines, AT&T, Toyota and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America."
McCain, of course, insists that he's incorruptible. During yesterday's press conference, he proclaimed “I’ve never done any favors for anybody — lobbyist or special interest group — that’s a clear, 24-year record.” Maybe he just keeps all those lobbyists around to test his fortitude.
and here's a compilation of McCain's ideas about the war... and how its never ever ever going to end until we have the kind of Iraqi govt and country that we, since we know best, need to have there...
Ow... my fingers hurt... the tips of my left hand are turning into peeling calluses and the fingernails on my right are wearing away quicker than I can grow them. I'm back practicing for hours every day, and this little instrument is being mean to my hands. I haven't spent this much time on an instrument for years,probably since I left music school. Its kind of incredibly frustrating and kind of incredibly calming... - the hours go by, its just you against the music and trying to achieve the sound that you can hear in your head and that you can't quite arrive at yet. Very clear cut thing to be doing. And a beautiful thing it is .. Mahogany, rosewood, abalone, spruce, flamed american maple... such lovely woods that it takes to make a good guitar...
So... the snow didn't arrive, the temperature rose and now its raining and the sidewalks are little rivers of melting slush. Too bad for me... good for the Motorists. (as long as the watery roads and sidewalks don't freeze tonight... in which case we're all screwed...)
but, but
But!!!!
the city of Toronto, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to spend 21 million dollars in the next few days clearing the snow from the streets. Toronto Star story here..
21 million dollars!
Now I realize that all this snow piling up is an inconvenience... and probably an immense one for anyone elderly or handicapped and stuck at home. But the city isn't clearing the sidewalks ... they're clearing the roads, so people can park. When last I looked the streets were all relatively clear, and people were coping with a limited number of spots, or doing their own dirty work and clearing the road in front of their house.
If I can be selfish for a moment, think of what 20 million dollars would do if they could drop that into the arts funding for the city. It would totally transform the upcoming year for the arts in Toronto. Or daycare, or immigrant services, or name your target market for people who could use that money.
anyway... it pisses me off and I can't help wonder if its a lovely little cash grab by the city workers. Clear snow over 'family day' and get double time and a half. When I lived in Montreal the city would spend the winter clearing the streets with these huge convoys of trucks and flamethrowers. The snow would trail off, but in late march we'd get one more snowfall, usually of only a couple of inches - nothing when you'd spent five months living with several feet of snow. But the city would spring into action and every city worker would be on the job attacking those two inches. I found this totally confusing until it was explained to me that this was their last chance for overtime for the year, so whether the snow deserved it or not, it was going to get cleared....
For Drivers that is... personally I'm loving it. Toronto is experiencing the heaviest snowfall in years. The streets have about 4 feet of snow in huge piles between the sidewalk and streets. The temperatures are sitting around - 5 to - 12 so it's not going anywhere. And tonight there is another huge dump of snow promised with up to 20 centimeters coming down.
Now I'm sure Jane Jacobs is smiling from on high somewhere. I live in a neighbourhood where everything is within walking distance. Public transit gets me anywhere that I need to get to outside of the neighbourhood. I don't mean to be smug, but watching the news reports of the chaos every morning and night on the arterial Highway 401 as commuters and snow removal teams fight it out to beat the snow... well, sometimes you wonder what they were thinking as they hopped into the car and decided to drive to work...
Each Sunday we've been taking a day to explore. Odd thing about this city is how some people who live here don't have much excitement about it, and yet its filled with amazing neighbourhoods and history. I only really understand a city if I can walk around it (one of the reasons Tokyo was so hard to understand...) so each Sunday we point ourselves in a new direction... based on architecture, or food, or some literary or musical highpoint... Sunday we wandered over to the Danforth, which seemed like it might be a new and exotic territory, then the plan was to walk down to the Indian neighbourhood and then down through Leslieville to the Distillery District (an old brick distillery that's been preserved and is now home to Soulpepper Theatre Co.)
Well.... the Danforth wasn't quite as exotic neighbourhood as I'd thought... pleasant, lots of shops, Starbucks etc etc etc... and friggin' cold... soooooo friggin' cold... last week we had a foot of snow, then it got warm and it all started to melt, then it got reeeal cold, so it all froze back again.... so now the sidewalks are covered in an inch of ice... So we stumbled away from the dull Danforth a little soon down to Gerrard to search for Hot Curries and Chai, but we'd missed Little India and it was just too cold to search so we slipped our way down to Leslieville. And, happily, when we retreated into an 2nd hand store to escape the cold we found a very cool piece of furniture for our currently extraordinarily empty apartment....
Anyway...buoyed by that discovery we finally gave up on walking over the icefields (we felt morally justified...Lisa will spend the next two weeks in -30 C weather in a pair of snowboots) and sensibly hopped into a taxi and admired Queen St. East from the warm interior of an old cab and sped to the Distillery District, which was all they said... beautiful - reminded me of Scotland - and containing an Oyster bar...which we inhabited and warmed ourselves with BC Wine and East Coast Oysters...
I guess a good choice of footwear is really about the conditions at hand. Thank god for Canadian Tire Hardware Store... $35.00 and I'm outfitted with the right shoes for the slightly new conditions I'm facing - off of the hardwood floor of theatres across Japan and onto the foot of snow that we should be facing in the next few days.... I'm ready!!
One Immensely Long Post on Hong Kong… written mostly in the air between Vancouver and Calgary… trying to catch up with my life here…
Arrived in Hong Kong to a series of gorgeous days. What an amazing city.
We went between two hotels… one a total budget place run by the Sally Ann in the Kwonloon side of the city, and then splurged on two nights (Xmas eve and Xmas night) in a plush Marriot on the Hong Kong Island side. If we hadn’t gone for the budget hotel I’m not sure we would have spent as much time on the Kwonloon side and I’m so glad we did…. (Ayiee… slightly distracted here as I’m writing this in Vancouver airport and the nightmare screaming kid is sitting across the aisle… two young parents literally on their friggin knees begging and desperately negotiating with the totally confused little boy to persuade him to drink a warm milk from Starbucks… nothing like watching the modern dysfunctional family playing out its games right in front of you)
Anyway… Kwonloon is total beautiful madness and also a poorer part of the city (the higher you go, the more breeze, the less pollution, the richer the houses…)
We wandered the streets, visited the night market, ate fried oysters and green onions on the street, visited the fisherman’s temple with its hanging coils of incense, walked down towards the port and then suddenly and completely ran out of energy, overstimulated, confused and exhausted (kind of like the little boy across from me) in the huge lobby of the Hong Kong scouting association, bizarrely enough sitting under an immense picture of Baden-Powell…
The pollution is kind of terrifying – We got the ferry across the next day and the lovely blue mist obscuring most of the city is actually throat biting smog. Both of us had a scary coughs by the third day there. I don’t know if its heavy industry, or the cars, or the immense harbour or what… but it’s a huge physical aspect to the city… like the rain in Vancouver, or the cold in the Yukon… it feels like something you really have to learn to cope with. Though, everyone else seemed oblivious… so maybe you just learn to ignore it… maybe that would be the healthier option mentally… otherwise it would just scare the hell out of you…
I didn’t expect to feel so comfortable here. But maybe its simply leaving Japan and arriving in such a mixed up, multi-racial, changing city. Although Japan never ceased to amaze me, and the almost every single interaction I had with the Japanese left me delighted, still, I left with the feeling that it was a very alien culture: the streets full of drunken salary-men at 10pm, the red light districts squeezed in between the historic neighbourhoods, the lack of many nationalities (saw about 5 black people in 6 weeks there). Hong Kong, like NYC, has everyone in it and every language on the streets. And, also a bit like NYC, everyone there seems plainly dedicated to making money. So perhaps it all made a little more sense to me. And, ultimately, any city that builds 80 story buildings with Bamboo (bamboo!!!) scaffolding is mad enough for me….
On the 2nd day in Hong Kong we realized that there is really not much to ‘do’ in the city, but an incredible amount to see. So, I had the excellent idea of changing our tour schedule to focus not on sights and historic monuments, but on really great great great restaurants…. for the next three days we were guided by a couple of food guides to the city, and by our own noses, to series of amazing food temples…. Schezuan, Cantonese, Dim Sum, Congee, Noodles, Dumplings, Street Food, Classy Food, Fast Food… I think our best meal came in a tiny 3 table restaurant where there was zero English and my ordering technique consisted of a great deal of smiling and pointing at amazing looking things being delivered to tables around us…. Luckily that seemed to result in both amusing the waitress immensely, and having piles of food arrive from the tiny kitchen…
It was a great trip, the view from our last hotel was spectacular
and on one of the final nights we wandered around looking for some where to have a drink and stumbled into an Australian Bar (dedicated to the criminal Ned Kelly) and caught the last set of the South China Coast Jazzmen… looking mostly Indonesian, these guys were headed by the 80 year old trumpeter (and in this video dancer/percussionist/singer/rubber chicken player and all around party animal) Silverio Yaneza, who is dancing up a storm in the back row. They were pretty loose (but hey, it was the last set of the night and they’ve been playing there for 20 years) but still he rocked and gave us a great send off to an amazing trip…
the tour finished a week ago, but couldn't resist posting Lisa's picture of the final number from the show..just before the lights dim and the spots come up. Did two shows at the immense Tokyo Hall (where U2 performed) in Shinjuku.
I'll miss the sparkle and glitter of Broadway ... and look forward to starting work on a few of my own projects in Toronto...
Was lucky to be in the huge Buddhist temple, Chion-In, in Kyoto when one of the monks was chanting. Don't know enough about Buddhism to say if he was praying, or reciting, or asking for good fortune or what... but it was very very beautiful, so I clicked my camera to record and that's what on the backing track for this walk through of the temple. The centre was founded in the 1200's... the main building dates from the 1600's.. the formal garden from the same time... it's just amazing...
Walked a long way through the insane Electronics district Akhihabira. The shop fronts literally scream at you as you walk down the street with high pitched 'look at me', 'look at me' voices and sounds.
We were sort of vaguely looking for the prices of used laptops. But based upon some kind of attractive noise Lisa wandered into a store which turned out to be a holy mecca of geekdom. 7 floors of insane Manga figurines, statues, icons, do-it-yourself projects. Lisa bonded with the large Gerbera (star of many cheesy japanese 50's movies... he must have destroyed Tokyo many times over)
the strangest floor was the dolls... hundreds of obsessive perfect dolls of superheros, children, people, and naturally manga girls with massive breasts and outrageous weapons.
The boxed up ones were strange enough... but the hundreds of DIY packets lining the aisles were strange and somehow very sad, waiting in their little plastic packages to be given some kind of life.
Japan seems to encourage a lot of fetishistic behaviour... I won't begin to speculate much why... I'm sure there are a lot of post-grad thesis written about it... and the whole floor of dolls and fetish objects (some that come with a Birth Certificate!) seem to sum it all up... The store was filled with single lumpy, mostly male but not all, japanese geeks poring over their preferred obsessive object.
When I headed off to the Mori Museum of Contemporary art I didn't realize exactly where it was - I had the address but when they lead me into a hallway and opened an elevator door I didn't realize I was going to the 53 floor of the brand new skyscraper. Typical Tokyo... playing with your mind and your expectations at every possibility... It's an amazing building, made all the more amazing by a monumental sculpture by Louise Brooks that faces the entrance: it's called 'Maman'. Somehow oddly appropriate, to have this huge pregnant spider in front of a building that houses mostly international law and finance offices...
I saw an exhibition of new 'avant-garde' (whatever that means... surely they're basically the same thing now) Japanese art. Some absolutely extraordinary work. Perhaps its something to do with the Japanese character, but the work that most impressed me was the work that seemed very based on craft. A photographer had constructed the most beautiful tiny objects - a series of slides of related images that were placed one a top each other. They were lit from beneath and you would stare down into these tiny constructions of layers and layers of transparent photographs.... incredibly tiny, but a quality of depth and time that was remarkably beautiful, reminded me of the English landscape artist, Andy Goldworthy.
along with the entrance to the museum came a walk around the viewing platform on the floor below. Tokyo is an awe inspiring, and rather frightening sight... it just stretches out to infinity... oddly, and I'm not sure the video captures this, around the tower are several tiny graveyards wedged behind new buildings... Brian Eno seemed to be good choice for a soundtrack for the view
so now I'm sure these bastards are just playing with my mind....ya wander through Tokyo for hours and and there's nonsensical english everywhere and they lull you into the idea that nobody here really speaks the language much, and they throw it up right left and centre in these absurd ads... and then suddenly 'wham' they hit you with these....
this is the sign for a restaurant in Shibuya district,(click on the image to read the fine print) and the next is the name of a high end jewelry store...
and this sucker is tucked snugly into the immense Sonic City centre in Tokyo...
a great show... after weeks on tour finally nailed the damn tap number... smile fixed to my face, heads up to back row... clicking my little heels across the tap floor... didn't fall over not once... even at the new rather blistering tempo... t'was a good night...
