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I cheated a bit and went to bed at my usual time with the alarm set for 4:15 am, then headed downtown. I wanted to see handful_ofdust’s reading at 6 am, so I didn’t stop at Trinity Bell park where most of the information booths were. Saw a lot of projected video images from the window of the streetcar; one showed silhouettes of women chalked on the ground in a sort of chain, and the people across the aisle said “That’s awful. It’s about murder. That’s just awful.” This was a quibble I had with the show - I could see two types of people downtown, those who were there for the art and those who had to be up that late/early, and the art, what I saw of it, was not for the most part calculated to bridge the gap.
There wasn’t very muuch on Queen West that I could see, so I got off at McCall and walked up to the OCAD building, where I figured there would be something going on. Outside was one of the better ideas of the night: people were playing Twister, two others were engaged in a game of chess on a large-scale board, while people watched from cushions placed for the purpose. I took a seat for a while, as one player tried to decide whether to sacrifice his queen to take the white queen (he did). As I moved on, I almost stepped on some more students shooting marbles, a game I’ve never actually seen played in real life.
Inside was less interesting. A few videos were projecting, along with a slide show of paintings by alumni. Some of the students were asleep on crashmats wisely set up for the purpose. I kept on, to University avenue, where two women in black, feathered hats were wrapping something large and rectangular in saran wrap until it looked like an oversized, frosted coffin. “Do you have any questions?” said a young woman, presumably the artist, “It’s about gluttony and over-consumption. They were eating cake for ten hours. The orange balloons are meant to evoke fast food.”
“Oh, I thought it was a giant casket they were preparing, sort of a Hallowe’en, death-of-the-year thing. The saran wrap looks like ice.”
“That’s interesting, “ she said, perhaps just out of politeness, “the balloons do look like pumpkins.”
(I still think my interpretation was better. )
At 700 University, video images of a bat flying in slow motion were looping on a wall, either as a simple piece of night-time imagery or to suggest that Ontario Hydro are vampires, I’m not sure. Further up, recorded classical music was coming from Queen’s Park, but I don’t know if it was part of the event or something they do normally to dissuade loiterers (serve’em right if they get Droogs, I always say.)
Another of the better pieces of the evening was on Philosophers’ Walk - a fog machine had been set up in a dip in the ground, to evoke the now-buried Taddle Creek. Spotlights were trained on it, and silhouttes were visible as people stood in the fog, admiring it.
I missed the performance at the Anglican church on the corner of Bloor and Avenue road, but I liked the neon sign over the door that said, “HOLD THAT THOUGHT.”
handful_ofdust read from her work-in-progress, Strange Weight. Good, though I wondered if the excerpt would have made sense to anyone unfamiliar with her work (the storyline might be described by a Hollywood exec as “The Sopranos, only they’re fairies, and not the gay kind.”
Afterwards I had breakfast with handful_ofdust and Steve, who had Steves’s parents car for the day and drove me home. I kept a pillow as a souvenir.
There wasn’t very muuch on Queen West that I could see, so I got off at McCall and walked up to the OCAD building, where I figured there would be something going on. Outside was one of the better ideas of the night: people were playing Twister, two others were engaged in a game of chess on a large-scale board, while people watched from cushions placed for the purpose. I took a seat for a while, as one player tried to decide whether to sacrifice his queen to take the white queen (he did). As I moved on, I almost stepped on some more students shooting marbles, a game I’ve never actually seen played in real life.
Inside was less interesting. A few videos were projecting, along with a slide show of paintings by alumni. Some of the students were asleep on crashmats wisely set up for the purpose. I kept on, to University avenue, where two women in black, feathered hats were wrapping something large and rectangular in saran wrap until it looked like an oversized, frosted coffin. “Do you have any questions?” said a young woman, presumably the artist, “It’s about gluttony and over-consumption. They were eating cake for ten hours. The orange balloons are meant to evoke fast food.”
“Oh, I thought it was a giant casket they were preparing, sort of a Hallowe’en, death-of-the-year thing. The saran wrap looks like ice.”
“That’s interesting, “ she said, perhaps just out of politeness, “the balloons do look like pumpkins.”
(I still think my interpretation was better. )
At 700 University, video images of a bat flying in slow motion were looping on a wall, either as a simple piece of night-time imagery or to suggest that Ontario Hydro are vampires, I’m not sure. Further up, recorded classical music was coming from Queen’s Park, but I don’t know if it was part of the event or something they do normally to dissuade loiterers (serve’em right if they get Droogs, I always say.)
Another of the better pieces of the evening was on Philosophers’ Walk - a fog machine had been set up in a dip in the ground, to evoke the now-buried Taddle Creek. Spotlights were trained on it, and silhouttes were visible as people stood in the fog, admiring it.
I missed the performance at the Anglican church on the corner of Bloor and Avenue road, but I liked the neon sign over the door that said, “HOLD THAT THOUGHT.”
handful_ofdust read from her work-in-progress, Strange Weight. Good, though I wondered if the excerpt would have made sense to anyone unfamiliar with her work (the storyline might be described by a Hollywood exec as “The Sopranos, only they’re fairies, and not the gay kind.”
Afterwards I had breakfast with handful_ofdust and Steve, who had Steves’s parents car for the day and drove me home. I kept a pillow as a souvenir.
