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june 10 2009

It’s called a ‘gate vault’:

Up you climb, fold yourself over the top of the “gate” and throw yourself down the other side using your arms as stabilizers.  Don’t be impressed, it’s very easy and just looks dramatic. It’s also easy on playground equipment like this because the top is smooth… different story when you’re going over a chainlink fence with those sticky-up pieces at that top you need to use pure arm strength to avoid.

What is impressive is this:

june 9 2009

That’s my friend vaulting the studio, and those are his handprints on the roof I should have washed off at the gas station this evening but didn’t because I think they’re funny.

Side note: I was gabbing on the phone while waiting for him in a parking lot.  I saw him in the distance, told my phone friend to hang on and then yelled to get his attention.  I put the phone back up to my ear and proudly exclaimed, “I can yell sooo loud!” and a lady, who had materialized behind me, heartily agreed.   

I’ve got some pals in the speaker business and one of these days we’re going to go do “Exploring Sound”, and I’m hoping they have a little decibel-tester machine we can use to see how loud I can actually be.

In no particular order:june 9 2009

1 – I have a hankering to go to Hamilton.  I did some looking into what’s there, and turns out there’s a lot, look:

– the first ever Tim Horton’s
– the Royal Botanical Gardens 
– over 100 waterfalls
– 60% of Canada’s steel is produced here
– the HMCS Haida has sunk more enemies than any other Canadian warship, and is the last Tribal-class destroyer in existence

2 – ET Canada started following me on Twitter today?  Odd.  It’s not like I’ve ever tweeted about celebrity gossip (even though I like it), and my last tweet before that happened was how I’d vacuumed my dishwasher (probably I use my appliances a bit differently than you) so that doesn’t make sense either.  Ah the mysteries of Twitter.

3 – I’ve lost my lucky coin.  Remember when I spent my two lucky nickels during the first, “Exploring the Petroglyphs“?  A friend felt bad, carefully chose a coin and gave it to me as a replacement.  I covered the thing with bright pink nail polish and have kept it in my wallet since (almost two years) but I think I accidently used it to pay for parking last week.  If you happen upon it, I need it back please.

june 9 2009

He’s been in my ‘Top 3 Favourite Authors’ since 1997 but might get kicked out because of this fiasco.  

It’s his latest in the Nick Stone series and 20 pages in it’s obvious it’s been ghost written.  I look forward each year to the latest installation and well, the disenchantment on my face runs deep.
 
You can just tell; the sentence structure, expressions, rhythm, he’s missing in all of it.  I’m maybe 100 pages in and already have found two chunks of text that’ve been copied and pasted from his other books.  I get that he’s busy and his brand is blowing up, that’s cool, but this is not.

A prediction: you might not yet know him but you will, because I predict his books will be turned into Hollywood movies and the Nick Stone franchise will become as big as the Bourne one.  And get this: he’s sold the movie rights three times to one of his books, brilliant.

Part of this year’s festival is the ‘Luminato Box’: a temporary white-walled structure built inside Brookfield Place (formerly BCE Place).  The artist may display their art provided it adheres to these rules of the box, and today I wandered in.

When I first passed through the curtain and looked around I didn’t get it (okay, I rarely get it) but then when you get closer to the canvas the light fades on, transforms everything, and then you’re the girl standing there going “holy crap”.  Look:

june 8 2009

“The Shadows of Burden (Doublespeak)” by Studio F-Minus, “is a series of interactive media pieces in which a seemingly random arrangement of wires is revealed to be a complicated sculpture casting the shadow of a tragic character in Greek mythology at the moment of his punishment”.

Then I met one half of the duo that is Studio F-Minus:

That’s Brad Hindson, architect and modest guy too, because it turns out his Nuit Blanche piece last year, A Dream of Pastures, was one of the whole festival’s highlights, but I only found that out by Googling the guy.  On the left there is a side-profile shot of the mess of wires, except it’s not a mess at all.

Me: This is too cool, how this comes out of your head.
Brad: We work closely together, Mitchell and I.
Me: There’s so much finicky work in here, eh?
Brad: Ya, it took months to make some of these. 
Me: Check and test.  Check and test. 

Brad knows patience and would probably relate to this.  Too bad for you though, because as I type this Brad is taking it all down since you only get to be in the Luminato Box for just one day.