Yes, it isn't yet summer, but it is hot. Maybe even ice cream hot. But it is Bloomsday, June 16th the day on which all of James Joyce's "Ulysees" takes place, and some literary types celebrate it. I try to remember it, since it always falls during the Fringe, though at one point there were some local events to mark the day.
Someone tried to seduce me into "Shlong Form Improv", whispering in my ear the magic word. I assume they didn't have that much audience in the early evening of Wednesday. That can be hard, artists need an audience to perform at peak, things like comedy and improv count on audience. Though, I suspect just trying to lure in passersby on Prince Arthur isn't the way to go, either target the pool of fringe goers, or be more obvious away from the Fringe. It's not clear if anyone has had much success luring in people at random to a show.
There was a bigger audience for the On the Spot historical walking tour on Wednesday. I'm sure that works better for them, and of course a nice day is likely to draw an audience more than that after the rain day I went.
I wonder if John Sebastian will make a surprise visit to the Beer Tent later? He's here for the folk festival. The other main player of The Lovin' Spoonful was Zal Yanovsky. I remember Bill Brownstein doing a column about Nikki Yanofsky some time back, and I at first wondered if she was Zal's daughter, but then the difference in spelling of their last names became obvious. Zal was married to Jackie Burroughs for a bit, yes, "Aunt Hetty" from "Road to Avonlea". Of course, he had that problem with the law over drugs, which was more of a problem for him since he was Canadian in the US, and he ended up "squealing" and that caused a boycott of the band, though the story goes his naming names didn't cause any real problem to others. And that's when the US Beatles broke up, well Zall left and it was only a matter of time. Zal released an album or two, then moved to Kingston where he opened a restaurant, Chez Piggy, in the late seventies that he ran until he died a few years ago.
Speaking of Woodstock (well, John Sebastian was at Woodstock, painting rainbows all over your blues), according to one of the books published on the fortieth anniversary, P.J. Soles was there, going with then boyfriend Joshua White (of light show fame). P.J. Soles was one of the MPs in "Stripes" that interact with Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, though I'm not sure I've ever figured out which one is which. Anyway, she was backstage making and/or passing out cookies and sandwiches to the performers.
Passing out the large number of chocolate chip cookies she'd made, Jack Casady of the Jefferson Airplane took one and asks "Is there anything in them"? And PJ Soles says, "No. They're made with love. They're pure". (Reminds me of when someone asked a few years ago "are these brownies 'special'?" and I said "All brownies are special, but not the way you mean".) Anyway, Jack Casady ate a few, apparently she used organic ingredients. Then years later she met him again, asked him if he remembered her, and he said "Yes, those were the best chocolate chip cookies I've had in my life!"
I almost saw Jack Casady perform once. When Peter Gzowski briefly had a late nate tv show on the CBC in the late seventies, I ended up with a ticket to a local taping. And then it turned out that Hot Tuna (with Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen, who had also been part of Jefferson Airplane) were scheduled. I have no idea why they were in Montreal, or why they were booked for the show. This wasn't that long before they broke up for a while, selling the Tunamobile. But somehow I got lost finding my way to Cite Du Havre where the CBC had a studio for a while, and I turned around and came home, since I'd not get there in time. Then I dutifully watch the show that night, and no Hot Tuna. They'd run out of time and the band had been bumped.
Artists must never forget the importance of personally meeting the potential audience. Someone doing Reciprok was working at the info booth the other day, and she mentions her show, which caused me to look at the blurb and see that it was a show put on by recent ConU dance students there's a long tradition of people graduating from the program and putting on a Fringe show.) I'm not sure I'd have caught that without the interaction, their flyer is actually the flip side of Body Slam. For that matter, if I'd not met the woman doing The Naled Project postering at the Beer Tent last Wednesday, it's less clear if I'd have bothered to take in her show. Yes it's work, but it does provide results, maybe especially for those sort of borderline, aware of the show but not completely certain.
My rhythm is off this year, and some of it is trying out blogger. I've wasted so much time fighting it to put in links, it trying to be helpful and fixing what I'm trying to do. Though perhaps there is logic to it for someone coming from a different direction. Yes, when I did it by hand I'd forget the end tag to turn off italics or bold or something, but having to do all the work gave me better control.
It would seem the Gazette is doing a lot less reviewing this year. It does seem down, though it's hard to completely tell. No reviews of dance, I don't think that's going to happen. Oddly, there didn't even seem to be the annual "The Fringe is Coming" piece, that has often been a trigger for me to write the paper about the coverage (which have never been published, but seem to have influence). For a while they did review dance,sporadically, and even have a preview piece. The contempt the dance writer has for the Fringe seems pretty strong, at least some times in recent years the paper has had the former dance writer (now covering "festival and kid's beat") doing some preview and/or review of dance at the Fringe, but nothing this year.
I'm tired of the fight, especially when some of the fight was always with the Fringe.
Pat Donnelly isn't even blogging as much as last year I'm not sure I liked it that she was putting more content on the blog than the paper last year since the blog is a different medium and just because people read the paper doesn't mean they'll jump to the blog, but better blogging than nothing. Maybe she's twittering this year? (What's the point of doing that from the Fringe for All other than scooping the others? The notion of dynamic content at the Fringe website is to draw in people using the spontaneity of the Fringe, though that happens less these days. But while it's important to record the Fringe for All, I've even posted the list of who performed some years, how many are going to rush down to see it because Pat Donnelly is twitting about it right now?)
I checked ConU again, and still no "summer" issues of the student papers, so I guess that isn't happening this year. It always seemed a surprise to stumble on them, and then find Fringe articles in it, but I guess it's harder to justify a paper printing these days. They do have some Fringe content u on their websites, I can't remember if it was The Link or the Concordian, or both.
On the other hand, if you have a show in the Fringe and you are from Westmount, it's practically guaranteed that you'll get a mention in the Westmount Examiner, even as the paper slowly fades away. Last week Keir Cutler had his obligatory article. But the upstart (and now better paper), The Westmount Independent, briefly mentions Keir and Jessica Salomon (who apparently grew up in Westmount).
Repercussion is doing MacBeth this year (they should have brought back Rick Miller for a double bill, after all, he dreamed up MacHomer waiting backstage at Repercussion). But, apparently Lady MacBeth is played by Anana Rydvald, who performed way back in 1999 at the Fringe with "Mask On". The troupe was "Random Acts", but the next year they'd changed their company name to "Mask On!" and did "Tripping Through Oz". It's hard to believe it's been over a decade, I remember them so well.
The Fringe mugs are back, apparently packing more punch this year (something about saving some money on later purchases of beer). They didnt' seem too popular last year so I thought they were gone. This means I can buy another one, so I have one to use and one as a souvenir.
Just for Laughs made their annual visit to the Beer Tent on Wednesday, with flyers for their festival. The Zoofest is still not a Festival of Discoveries, even though they continue to call it that. Weren't The Pyjama Men at the Fringe a while back? Kahlil Ashanti certainly was twice at the Fringe, coming from LA, and he's doing Basic Training at the comedy festival. I seem to recall he won the comedy fest prize at teh Fringe one year.
Mike Paterson dropped by the Beer Tent, outgoing as ever. So did Robby Dillon, somehow thinking I'm some Fringe legend for sticking around all these years.
Speaking of which, there have been some odd occurrences of people I truly don't recognize saying things to me. Almost as if someone put a picture of me up somewhere again.
It's a shame I can't control the Fringe's website. They clearly haven't checked over the links to blogs. "Heart Strings" was a great show last year, but since they aren't in Montreal this year, they are hardly going to blog about the Fringe. Davyn at Dee Arr hasn't posted for a year, there's no sense in having the link up this year. Meanwhile, some are out there posting, though it seemed slow. Since I'm not showing up in a blog search (even using specific text from here as the searchwords), I can't help but think there may be some default setting that needs fixing, even though the setting seems to default to making the blogs searchable.
