Nuit Blanche

In past 24ish hours my friend Emily and I have gotten up to some pretty crazy hi-jinx.


1) Second City Toronto's Facebook of Revelations

***.5/*****

Very very funny. Opens with a bang by previewing another Toronto area theatre production (from the producers that brought you Mama Mia, We Will Rock You and Dirty Dancing) "Safe Bet: The Musical". And is followed by Canada's finest sketch comedy. The energy stays consistent through the first half and most of the second half of the show and I had quite a few good healthy gut laughs.
While I don't recommend staying for the *cough* *ahem* "improv" the show itself is very enjoyable. You almost feel like SNL could still be saved.


2. The Royal Ontario Museum
****/*****

Apart from making a point not to visit the paper-weights exhibit we took in the vast majority of the ROM. I think I had forgotten just how much fun this place was:


The new "Crystal Age" entrance way and exhibit




The ceiling in the corridor of the "Staircase of Wonders". Yes, that's really what it's called.




I thouhgt this wall was pretty cool, but I think that the lack of flash did diminish it a touch



This next photo may be a little disturbing to some people, but it's too cool not to include. So, in an attempt not to expose anyone's fears on the world wide web, let me just say that Indiana Jones, Adam and Eve, Gryffindor House and anyone else who might have some a distaste for snakes should probably brace themselves.





OK, so you can kind of tell that it's fake. But it still looks pretty scary at first... er maybe just in person.


3. Eastern Promises at Rainbow Cinemas, Market Square
****/*****

Excellent movie, directed by David Cronenberg and starring Viggo Mortensen and Naiomi Watts. I was thoroughly impressed, and with the exception of a scene of graphic violence that actually moved me to laughter (because when it gets that disturbing what the hell else can you do?) the movie held together very strongly. It managed to create an very strong ambiance without sacrificing the pace, and there were a number of nice twists worked in to the plot to keep it exciting right to the end. Very highly recommended.


4. Nuit Blanche
*****/*****
After Emily borded her bus to return to KW, I headed back home, only to make the mistake/starting the exciting adventure of taking the streetcar down Queen St. Tonight is an event in Toronto called Nuit Blanche. Basically a whole bunch of art galleries and club are having all night events featuring art and music throughout the city. Queen is of course the craziest of it all, and it was literally bumper to bumper with people lining the streets. Naturally I got out to investigate, but found that there was just so much of being in a crowd that huge that I could take before I went nuts. I seriously think that the entire population of Toronto was in the streets tonight partying. There were drum circles, street dances, random video kareoke parties outside, performance art pieces on the sidewalk, illuminated art in the park. I think I had censory overload or else I would still be there right now.

Hmmm maybe I'll go back later...

Tedious Endless School and Learning

The most important thing I learned in class today: I'm not the only person who really isn't enjoying TESL.

You might think that a Theatre major would love to sit around in a class and talk about feelings and life experiences and debate whether or not the verb "to love" is an action verb on the basis of one's own comprehension of the word love. The truth is I do not. When it comes to school I enjoy concrete ideas, or at least discussions of abstract ideas within an academic context. Otherwise I'm left saying, as any English prof will... "SO WHAT?" So what's the point?

OK great, when you were growing up in another country and had to learn English you struggled with the grammar. That's a good experience to bring to the class, but now let's get critical about it. WHY? HOW did you learn it? WHAT would you do differently? Don't just tell me about your suffering, let's talk about it in a context that is applicable to the course. OK, so your niece said something cute the other day and that kind of loosely relates to First Language Aquisition theories... HOW? I am beginning to understand why a lot of companies will hire you on to go to Japan and give you crash courses in TEFL in two weeks.

Ricky Gervais has done it again

Okay, so I had seen a couple of clips from a strange show called "Extras" on youtube, and then last night I saw two episodes I'd seen get nominated for Emmys. I found myself cheering for a TV show I barely knew, and decided to get better acquainted with this wonderful program.

My favourite going in was this fantastic scene in which Sir Ian McKellan explains why he's such a good actor:




Also on youtube and highly recommended: Orlando Bloom makes his case for why he's obviously better looking and more popular than Johnny Depp, Daniel Radcliff makes it clear that he does not need glasses and is not still a virgin, Kate Winslet gives advice on how to conduct yourself during phone sex while wearing a nun's habit, and Patrick Stewart exclaims "You're not married, you don't have a girlfriend... and you don't watch Star Trek?"

Have I sold you yet? Go! Go!

High school is still weighing me down

I went to the website for the Royal Ontario Museum today to see if there was anything interesting on next week (as I may have my first visitor). Currently the ROM has an exhibit on Darfur, which while undoubtable depressing would also be extrememly informative and relavent. To my dismay, however, the exhibit closes on Monday. I checked to see what the next exhibit would be. It is a display of 19th and 20th Century Glass Paperweights. I couldn't have made that up.


Maybe I'm still just really bitter at glass paperweights because, unlike every other year in the history of Cayuga Secondary School, our graduating class received paperweights instead of proper plaques or trophies for graduation awards.

Think this:





With my name on it. Just incase I ever want to feel naustalgic and have my window open during a wind storm.

I follow him to, ahem "serve my turn upon him"

The rest is not yet silence...

I went to the official website for London's West End, as it is my hope to visit the UK at some point in the very near future. Thinking "Hey maybe I'll see Jude Law as Hamlet" I discover that alas no, it will not premier until 2009, and I'm not waiting that damned long.

But what should I discover opening in November... Othello with Ewan McGregor as Iago. Wow. I did NOT see that one coming. I think that I must see this. I am starting the "Liz needs to go to England fund". Anyone wishing to make donations please be certain that they are in GBP.


PS: This made me laugh. A lot.

From Overheard in New York

Are You Sure?

Child: Tia Jeanette, did you know that the tourist-ists brought down the twin towers?
Tia Jeanette: No, no, no, Anthony, it was the terror-ists.
Child: Ohhh...

"The whole world is just one big group work assigment. That's really God's cruelest joke. And what's worst? We're all getting an F"- loosely translated coversation with Bonnie Buchanan

That was simply brilliant Mom.

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So today I had a moral dilema. I went on the Toronto International Film Festival website, just to see if there were any rush tickets today for anything I wanted to see. There were... (deep breath) Cassandra's Dream. HOWEVER the tickets were for 11AM the same time as my class on Grammar and Linguistics. In retrospect "moral dilema" is pushing it. Prioritization malfunction might be a better sumation.

sigh

The phrase "Ewan McGregor is the sexiest man alive" has two nouns, a verb, an adjective, adverb and a preposition.

sob sob

I must focus on Friday. Because even if they try to schedule me for class on Friday I'M NOT THERE! :D

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In a final bit of news apparently Jude Law is going to play Hamlet at the Gielgud in London's West End AND he is going to be directed by nonother than.... (drum roll please)... Gilderoy Lockhart incarnate himself, Kenneth Branagh.
"Jude, the problem is that you aren't anywhere near loud enough. How are we supposed to know that Hamlet's upset if you aren't yelling?"

I don't feel that I can end on such a cruel and negative note. So ummmm.... the rest is silence.

(heh heh heh works everytime)

Literally

I found one of the greatest articles in the Toronto Star the other day, but it appears that I have put it in the recycler.
Some files were released by British Intelligence regarding spying activities in the 30s and 40s. The file of a prominent author who was being monitored, and under suspicion of communist ties during this era, due to the nature of his political writing was made public. That author was George Orwell.

That's positively... hmmm what's that word that's a literary reference to the government spying on people in order to control information... Or- something...

I mean I can see why this happened of course. Anyone who has read Animal Farm knows what a fondness Orwell had for Stalin and communism. And anyone who read that sentence and did not pick up on the thick sarcasm clearly has the mental capacity of a 1940s British Intelligence agent.

Apt

Bill Sanders once told me "I was born and grew up in Toronto, so I can only stand to be there for about 10 minutes". I replied "Bill I'm from Hamilton, try 5 minutes".

Hating Toronto. It's as much part of being born in Hamilton as childhood asthma, an inability to play football, and the desire for a hockey team we won't actually pay money to watch play. But I of course have a deep down envy of a city where if you miss one bus there is another one right around the corner and where a 24 hour business isn't limited to Walmart or a porno theatre. And of course a place which nourishes artists, musicians, actors and film-makers. Not to mention has concerts, festivals, museums, and live theatre to make any mildly cultured person just a little excited.

So here I am. A big city girl. I've been a city girl, a country girl, a northerner, and a Peterboroughian (which really has its own special classification), and now I am a Torontonian.

Ideal

Tonight I finally watched Bobby. Our generation needs a hero in a big way.

That is all I have to say tonight.



... except for this:

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope,and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Goodnight York, Goodnight Moon

Tomorrow I move to Toronto. But tonight I sleep in York.

Wheeee!

A new fascination has taken over my free time. It is: Nintendo Wii.

My family got one (of all people, my Mother was the one behind the aquisition) and I feel that it may be the world's greatest invention. Forget medical science and communications, I can swing a Baseball bat with my remote control!


Anyways, that is my excuse for taking so long to post photos from Stratford. Now it turns out that my computer is posting photos VERY VERY slowly. So without further adieu, I present you:

The Complete Stratford Trip (abridged)

"This is the short and long of it"



"And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind."




"How poor are they that have not patience!"





"When shall we three meet again, in thunder lightening or in rain?"



"If music be the food of love, play on!"



"Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used"
(Alright, admitedly I had to do a google of Othello quotes to find that one)



and finally...

"Exit, pursued by a bear"

The Quality of Mercy is Not Strained

This weekend I venture to Stratford Ontario to see The Merchant of Venice, To Kill A Mockingbird and Not I. With a weekend this theatrey life is good. Another thing that makes life good: being able to put videos on blogger with relative ease! I shall have to make some sort of film celebrating this on the weekend.

In the meantime:

Man and dog

"Hamilton to Sudbury One Final Time" A 3 Disc set

On my roadtrip to Sudbury I am taking with me (in a sort of particular order):

Elvis Presley
Phish
The Doors
The Who
CCR
The Beatles
The Clash
Jimi Hendrix
Janis Joplin
Joni Mitchell
Simon and Garfunkl
Don Maclean
Jefferson Airplane
The Velvet Underground
Nick Drake
The Ramones
Neil Young
Bob Dylan
Coldplay
The Eels
The Shins
The Flaming Lips
Greenday
Stars
Fiona Apple
Iron and Wine
The Dresden Dolls
Feist
Tegan and Sara
Metric
The Arcade Fire
Johnny Cash
June Carter
Wolf Parade
Dave Matthews
Tim Reynolds
The Dears
You Say Party We Say Die
The Dixie Chicks
the rest of The Dave Matthews Band
Ani DiFranco
The Decemberists
The White Stripes
Gnarls Barkley
Cat Power
Joanna Newsom
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Modest Mouse
They Might Be Giants

Mmmmmmm mix CDs.

See you on a Sudbury Saturday night!

I can still remember how that music used to make me smile

Ah the Festival of Friends; Hamilton's annual time travel to the 1960s/70s. This year my family made our annual trip, this time to see one concert in particular:



The small figure in the dark that you can't make out is Don Maclean. He's one of, what I call, the "Trip to Virginia Artists". Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Don Maclean make up an elite lot whose music I memorized on long car trips with my family. He played all of the songs I'm most fond of ("Castles Made of Sand", "Vincent" and his cover of Roy Orbison's "Crying") and some other big long song that I guess is sort of famous :P

I tried to add a sound clip, but as my luck would have it, it's not working. Blah. I will share it when I figure out how.

This one time at camp...

Famous Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Tim Horton once said "They pay me to practice. I play for free". I adapted this saying during my days at Lakewood to "They pay me for pre-camp. I'm a counselor for free". Well I finally followed through and volunteered at Woodeden Easter Seal Camp for the Teen Session. I can't think of a better way to have spent the past 12 days.

Camp regulations prevent me from posting a number of photographs, but since Elliot's no longer a camper...



I used to have to be the one that bent down to hug in our picutres! The fairy wings are a gift from him for my role as "Hang time floater fairy".

Best moments of the camp:

1) Camper Codey telling me in broken-up speech that he won't come back next summer if I don't.
2) Camper Harry and I protesting Verbal Communication with a silent sit-in. It might have been my idea, but I think Harry was all for it.
3) This one is for Mike and Elliot: "You may have won this round Cerebral Palsy, but next time you won't be so lucky, mwa ha ha ha!". Mike in the midst of a spasm cried out "Damn you CP" I consequently turned this into a daily ritual of trying to smite CP with various schemes but being thwarted time and time again with cries of "Damn you Cerebral Palsy!"
4) Having the campers in Cabin Orange set up a "Liz duty" to guard me from stealing the tidy cabin flag.
5) Being trapped half-way across the zip line on the ropes course (suspended 50ish feet in the air) with my campers laughing hysterically at me.

More stories to follow (brace yourselves).
Hope everyone had a good week and a bit. It feels like it's been longer. That's camp for you! "The bubble convinces us that there was nothing before and nothing after."



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OK, so uncamp-related. I had to add this. It's from a Facebook group called "The Mrs Weasley Appreciation Group". DO NOT join this group if you haven't finished reading book 7. It will spoil a big part of it for you. Just enjoy this picture, which can be appreciated by all:

Simspon's Trivia (Summer Blockbuster Special Edition)

Apparently the first version of this was too hard. Frankly I think that this version is plainly obvious to any football fan:
Two teams played for the Super Bowl in January 1992. If ______________ had won, Lisa would no longer have loved Homer.

BONUS: In the episode "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie", what does Homer consider to be "The 3 Rs"?

Post #300

Ladies and gentlemen: I have a plan.

I have just been informed THIS moment that I have been accepted into Humber College's Post Graduate certification program in Teaching English as a Foreign/Second Language. It is a one year program that involves a full-time course schedule and a placement. At the end of it I will be certified to teach English abroad and in EAP/ESL classrooms in Canada. This will go a long way to helping me achieve my long term plans (traveling and working in Theatre and with people doing Drama). One of our early placements is leading a workshop style course in Humber's EAP program doing an activity (such as Drama) to encourage conversational English use. I am very excited to have this opportunity, Humber's program appears to be an excellent one.
Also, being in Toronto will allow me to keep a foot or two in the Theatre world. I am hoping to take courses with Second City while there and stay involved with amateur Theatre in the city. Then in a year I will either be very well prepared to do some traveling as an English teacher and get some money together to take a studio acting program (Atlantic Theatre Co./CSSD in London) or to work as an ESL/EAP teacher on contract as a part time job while acting. Beats the hell out of retail.

That's all for now, I will keep everyone up to date though!

The Books of Liz

This has turned into a long unfocussed rant. Enjoy :)



I missed leisure reading in University. It is nice to have it back in my life. I think it might be making me sane again.

He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.

Last summer I read Catch 22 for the first time, though it had been sitting on my "to read" list for some time. Within a chapter I was wondering where it had been all my life. Questions of war, death and human sanity vs insanity treated with dark humour and irreverrance (without the preachy morality of M*A*S*H*... book, movie or TV show included), it's about the only way I can deal with those issues. Sometimes I think that's why the Daily Show is so popular. Sometimes all you can do with something that horrific is laugh at it.

Have you ever wondered how you would go about teaching an elephant yoga?

Last December I read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, by Christopher Moore. Of all the books I've read concerning religion and spirituality, curiously this strange fictional tale of a crude ultra-modern best friend to "Joshua" throughout his life's journey as the Messiah is the first one to make me actually want to be Christian. Not because I suddenly believe that there was a real "Biff" or that Jesus Christ learned Judo (seriously read the book), but because it's the essence of a story that penetrates the human consciousness, not its literal interpretation of what went on. Maybe Jesus wasn't a fun guy who got drunk off of the water he turned into wine and then declared that he loved bunnies (seriously read the book), but the idea of his kind heart and wisdom is what draws us to this story. His character is a hero, one who it doesn't do us any hurt to try to be like. I kind of wish we could just simply regard him as that, rather than fighting each other over whether believing every word he and the bible said is the only way to get into heaven.

There shall not be among you a witch

Which brings me very nicely to my most recent, ahem, literary endevour. Five years ago I picked up Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for one reason, and one reason alone: To piss of the neo-conservative Christians in my school. I worked with one who told me I was right on my way to hell for reading about evil Pagan witchcraft. I told him that if it weren't for the medieval Pagans we wouldn't have many of the celebrations and feasts in our Christian tradition, including Christmas. This did not go over well.
Harry Potter and Christ. Well that's an essay in and of itself isn't it ;)

As we approach, what will be for myself and many other geeks, a sleepless Saturday morning reading I will talk briefly about my newest venture in nerdom.
Harry Potter joins Star Wars and Final Fantasy VI in my long list of REALLY uncool things I have tendency to obsess over on and off. I've recently decided that this is healthy for me, as I quite need a strong fantasy world apart from reality to keep me sane. And who doesn't love a battle of good vs evil? What I love about my particular choices is that all three series have an important message about good and evil. We all have both parts in us. We all have the potential to be good and evil, and it is our choices that define us.
I feel like we live in a culture that is increasingly inclined to either strict Locke or Hobbes philosophy, with little thought given to personal choice and responsibility. John Locke says that we are born carte blanche, and that it is society that corrupts man and turns him evil. Hobbes on the other hand believes that man is born evil and society is necissary to keep man from devolving into "continual fear and danger of violent death and the life of man: solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short".

I believe that we are born with both parts in us, and that our personal choices and actions reflect the good or evil in our person. People are not altogether good or bad they're just people.
For too long I played the optimist believing that if people were just educated enough or saw the world through other's eyes or opened their hearts they would ultimately do the right thing. It was quite damaging in the wake of 9/11 to keep trying to convince myself of this spiritually or morally. I simply saw too much evidence to contradict it.
I have spent the last few years wallowing in "I hate humanity" land. It's an easy place to be. If you think people suck, they don't usually disappoint you. It's easier to be angry at someone for being a jerk and just write them off as idiotic, than to try to see the good inside of them. It's a lot easier to find the bad than it is the good.
Finally, though, I think that I am coming to understand that people have the capacity for both and that this is a good thing.

"It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so"

If there's one thing that I have never 'bought into' in Shakespeare's plays it's "Fate", the idea that some greater destiny is controlling the play and that people are absolved of their wrong doings because they were simply succumbing to their destinies (and all that we are evil in by a devine thrusting on :p).
The beautiful parallels that Rowling draws between Harry and Voldimorte to MacBeth are probably the strongest part of her writing (as far as an adult audience is concerned). If Voldimorte had not tried to kill Harry would the prophecy still have come true? Could MacBeth just have gone on home and ignored the witches and told his wife to take it easy? And when those events take place can the characters be held accountable for their actions, since it was indeed destiny? Well you know what I think by now :)


So do I think Harry willl die? Will he have to sacrifice himself to save the world from evil, as is told by the prophets... cies... ahem. Or does his Mother's death sheild him from harm as though he were not from woman born... cough ahem... don't mind that. Though I must ask... should we start calling Macbeth "He who shall not be named" in the theatre. :p

I'm done I promise.

I don't think he's a Horocrux, though I'm not quite sure about that scar itself.
If I'm worried about any characters dying it's Order of the Pheonix members (Lupin, Hagrid and the Weasleys especially). I see one of the Weasleys going, and Percy realizing that he's acting like a jerk, but being too late. If it's any of the kids, I worry about Luna, I quite like her, but I think it makes a lot of sense with her role in the series.
I feel that forgiveness will play a big role in the final battles. Both Snape, and even Voldimorte. Harry will have to play to his strengths, and Avada Kedaver isn't one of them.

So that said, I will not write about Deathly Hallows when I am done the book. Mostly because a number of you won't have even woken up to go down to the store and buy it by then. I promise I'll wait.

SO...

If anyone endured reading that, you probably know a little bit more about me than you may have, and hopefully appreciate that some of my geekdom is not simply for geekiness sake.

I leave you with a final thought that loosely ties it all together.

"Joe Bowers: There was a time when reading wasn't just for 'fags'. And neither was writing. People wrote books and movies. Movies with stories, that made you care about whose ass it was and why it was farting. And I believe that time can come again!" -Idiocracy

Brain Spotting

(Also known as "Brain Zaps" or my favourite: "Electric Brain Sensation", which let's face it would be an EXCELLENT band name.)


Lyrics from Legal Pharmaceutical Withdrawal land:

I wish that I was born a thousand years ago
I wish that I'd sailed the darkened seas
On a great big clipper ship
Going from this land here to that
On a sailor's suit and cap

Away from the big city
Where a man cannot be free
Of all the evils of this town
And of himself and those around
Oh, and I guess that I just don't know

I've tried to type a story to this like 8 times, but each one comes out sounding self pitying and/or needlessly angsty and bitter. Let me just explain that: No I am not recovering from a heroine addiction, but I think I might have some fraction of an idea what that's like at the present, as my brain seems to have formed a rather unhealthy chemical dependency on a particular drug that I no longer wish to take.

Yes, let's leave it at that until my head clears.





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Seriously, that was the least geeky looking picture I could find to do a rip-off. Ewan must think I'm so uncool.