Actually it's more than half way through. I realized yesterday that I'd been at the Fringe every day for a week, and decided the smartest thing was to stay home and rest up. You just can't catch up if you try to squeeze out sleep. I was tempted to go see Siblings since it's only a 15 minute show, but it would take me an hour, at least, to walk over there and then another hour to walk back.
We forgot Cindy/Lucinda Davis's birthday on Tuesday. It's been thirteen years since she was a in "Sexual Gore" in 1998, and also working as a venue manager. Weeks ago, I was watching the evening news and they had an entertainment segment, and there I thought I saw Cindy. But wait, it can't be. It's a ten year old boy in "Beethoven Lives Upstairs". No, it was Cindy. There was atime when she had a role in a movie and was excited since it wasn't another teenage role. If memory serves, they ended up not using her after all. Playing a ten year old boy in a children's play is not the same as getting typecast as a teenager.
A cat seems to have adopted the Fringe. One strolled through the Beer Tent on the weekend, but then on Monday it was there again, getting fed by one of the venue managers. The photo didn't turnout.
There's a punching bag in the workroom at Mainline. It wasn't there last year, so maybe Amy had it installed, to take out her frustrations.
I got to meet Amy's mother, though she seemed familiar so I guess she's volunteered in the past. It took some years before I realized that someone who always came to deliver soda before the Fringe opened was Jeremy's father.
It's the dormant year for the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa, but I've yet to see Deena Davida around, or anyone on the 303 Jury. For that matter, the Gazette hasn't run any article related to dance at the Fringe, though it does seem like they are reviewing less Fringe-wise this year. SOme years, maybe due to my prompting, they've had a preview of dance at the Fringe, but not for a while. Last year, they had one set of reviews of dance, on the Tuesday or Wednesday.
We lost the two Just for Laugh venues (I remember when the museum opened, I'm sure there was some derision about having a museum for comedy. As it was, it seemed like the two venues were always more important than the museum, originally I kept wondering how they could have events mingled in with an exhibit, it took some time before it was clear therer were specific venues in the building. memory says they opened on April 1st, and stayed open all night. I remember being tempted to go, yet I didn't so I'm thinking there may have been a snowstorm that night. Something made me decide not to go.
Anyway, it looks like we'll lose another venue. When the Tangente program came out back in the fall, it included a note saying this would be the last year at the current location. It was unclear then what would happen next, and I havent' seen anything since. Unless the Fringe works a deal with the university that owns the building, that venue is history after this Fringe. I recall the first year for Tangentye was 1999, complete with a cigarette sponsor, and David Bonk the venue manager outside making things out of popsicle sticks. But then it wnet away, only to return. (The MAI is like that, though when it was first a venue, it was under the guise of the Strathearn Centre.)
I still think we should organize a group tour of the Beer Factory. Find people who want to go, and then go together. It's something like $15 per person, but maybe a group deal can be worked out, or a discount for Fringe volu8nteers and acts.
Or we can organize a trip to the porn theatre on St. Lawrence, Monday and Tuesday couples get in for free. So everyone can get an assigned date, and not only would it be free, but it would be safe.
One volunteer was afraid of the cookies, she's allergic to nuts. I said "no nuts at the Fringe" and finally someone got the joke. But yes, I made a deliberate decision to not put nuts in things that go to the Fringe, even before someone said they were allergic. Maybe it was in anticipation, maybe I was just too cheap, I can't remember. Then another volunteer thought I was going to charge for the cookies, she made a gesture that turned out to be about empty pockets, I thought she was gesturing that she didn't want unsightly bulges to develop from eating cookies. You don't get a cookie shaped lump on your thigh each time you eat one.
There isn't a lot of blogging activity this year, so I assume, I hope wrongly, that everyone has gone behind the facebook wall. I don't like the rise of pseudo-professional blogs, things were better in the amateur days and the coming of a distinctive class disables the rest, making the internet a passive experience like old media. or maybe everyone is titting, I can't imagine having anything useful to say in 132 characters.
TJ Dawe has a wikipedia page, here. I have not spent time checking endless names to see if they are there, though perhaps that's something to do on the off season. Amy Hill was at our Fringe in 94 or 95 and somehow made an impact on me, even though I did not see her show. She already had success in mainstream, and is routinely on tv an din the movies when an asian character is needed.
Since I'm not keeping track of the news stories this year, I'd better point to
Amy Blackmore is mesmerized by tricks of the trade where Amy is interviewed by Bill Brownstein of The Gazette. I actually get a mention, though I did not say what was attributed to me. That is one thing that's missing, the volunteers never get interviewed (other than that time a decade or so ago when someone interviewed Summer, but the consensus was that he was trying to pick her up). Yet the volunteers are the ones the public are most likely to see, and in some cases, we have lasted longer than the staff. Even poor Patrick artist/volunteer/general manager/sabbatical/volunteer coordinator/general manager doesn't really get interviewed. As I mentioned two years ago in email to Bill Brownstein, when it was announced that Amy was taking over.
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