The Drag Races went on as scheduled, the usual crowd (though I didn't stick around to watch). People arriving early to get seats, and strollers starting to appear when I went off, some people think it's wholesome family goodness.
The big news is the former venue manager did break the gender barrier, running the race as a man, and shock of shocks, she won. Our team wins, though now I'm confused, was it a win for men or women?
As a prize, I gave her the copy of that Berenstein Bears "No Girls Allowed" taht I bought some years back and featured in the Diary a few years back. She liked that, she said she liked the Berenstein Bears. She would have gotten it anway, for merely running the race.
In retrospect, I now see one reason why the boys/girls didn't want the girls/boys to participate. Running in flat shoes is so much easier than running in high heels, our boy likely won on that basis alone. So maybe the next time a Drag King participates, there will have to be some handicapping.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Who is Aristippus?
I saw this on the Final Saturday, and it was alost sold out, and had the most audience in a show I've seen this Fringe. Though, it seemed to be family and friends night.
The Steampunk angle, I guess one could define Steampunk as imagining the past to have more advanced technology than it did, is what drew me in. They do play that out in the costumes, and the quest of the main character.
But the blurb also says this is Commedia Dell'arte which I still don't completely know the meaning of, but now have a better idea of. The San Francisco Mime Troupe is said to have originally been based on Commedia Dell'arte, and I've seen them twice. Once in a park in San Francisco in 1980, then here in Montreal when they performed in November of 1982 (and I finally after some years of wondering where it is, found my San Francisco Mime Troupe tshirt, though it's too small now). I can see the similarity in form between those shows and "Who is..."A level of comedy, and the actors at times address the audience.
Anyway, it's fairly old form of theatre, so this show is somewhat different (not unique, the form has appeared at the Fringe at least once, likely more times), but souped up with the notion of Steampunk. There was some talk of rivalry between this and another show earlier in the week, but really, there's no comparison. "How We Went to mars" isn't exotic theatre, but the science fiction angle is important. Here, the Steampunk is just a way to dress up the actors, the type of story is quite old, as is the form of performance. This one does come across as theatre types wanting to try out a different form, rather than science fiction types wanting to put on a show.
The Steampunk angle, I guess one could define Steampunk as imagining the past to have more advanced technology than it did, is what drew me in. They do play that out in the costumes, and the quest of the main character.
But the blurb also says this is Commedia Dell'arte which I still don't completely know the meaning of, but now have a better idea of. The San Francisco Mime Troupe is said to have originally been based on Commedia Dell'arte, and I've seen them twice. Once in a park in San Francisco in 1980, then here in Montreal when they performed in November of 1982 (and I finally after some years of wondering where it is, found my San Francisco Mime Troupe tshirt, though it's too small now). I can see the similarity in form between those shows and "Who is..."A level of comedy, and the actors at times address the audience.
Anyway, it's fairly old form of theatre, so this show is somewhat different (not unique, the form has appeared at the Fringe at least once, likely more times), but souped up with the notion of Steampunk. There was some talk of rivalry between this and another show earlier in the week, but really, there's no comparison. "How We Went to mars" isn't exotic theatre, but the science fiction angle is important. Here, the Steampunk is just a way to dress up the actors, the type of story is quite old, as is the form of performance. This one does come across as theatre types wanting to try out a different form, rather than science fiction types wanting to put on a show.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Buzz
The days of the paper buzz seem in the past. Very few has been put up, and there doesn't seem to be much lost somewhere, unlike some years. The paper program doesn't even address buzz, though it has space for all the branded spaces on the internet. The process has faded as new peole come in and don't remember the origins. I've seen acts hand out the paper forms, only for it to be useless when turned in, since people are rating the show "three stars" rather than commenting, or they don't bother to put the title on the paper.
In its place, the Fringe is printing electronic buzz and putting that up. Some of it, maybe from teh Fringe website, is badly done. Why do I care about "This show is Awesome!!!", rather than the title so I can look for comments about a show I'm curious about? Yet the form gives larger fonts to that initial comment rather than the title, of the show, which is pretty tiny. I also don't think it wo5rks as well when spread across a page, the paper buzz was small but it didn't require reading across a full page length. Print the buzz in small columns.
In its place, the Fringe is printing electronic buzz and putting that up. Some of it, maybe from teh Fringe website, is badly done. Why do I care about "This show is Awesome!!!", rather than the title so I can look for comments about a show I'm curious about? Yet the form gives larger fonts to that initial comment rather than the title, of the show, which is pretty tiny. I also don't think it wo5rks as well when spread across a page, the paper buzz was small but it didn't require reading across a full page length. Print the buzz in small columns.
Sponsors and Fundraisers are people too
The teenagers from LOVE (Leave Out Violence Everyone) were at the Beer Tent on Friday soliciting donations. Some of last year's group returned, like a little reunion. I'd wanted to show them a book, but guessed wrong about what day they'd appear, and of course, they miss the Drag Race, that they seemed to enjoy last year, when I said unlike the other groups, they seemed to get something from their visit to the Fringe.
Actually, the groups have seemed more into it this year. There was one woman from the Native women's shelter who was surprised and pleased by t e offer of the cookies, and then I had a plastic bag for the woman who seemed to be the organizer when she was packing up. I said "We want your visit to the Fringe to be good". One of the women from Ami-Quebec gave a big smile when she rode off on her bicycle. I realized we should have given each four Fringe Bucks so they could get into a show (or just some outright single show pass). They sit at the table, surrounded by the Fringe, and we should give them a chance to see what it's really like. I'd give them my own Fringe Bucks, but I haven't gotten any in five years, so I no longer have a stash to hand out.
But this is one thing wrong with the Fringe. They have sponsors, but don't really tell us about them. We hear about the groups coming to collect donations, but there is no intimicy shown. It's hard to tell if the Fringe really likes these groups, or if it's mercenary, figuring people may be more likely to donate for these other causes than the Fringe (and sometimes it's hard to tell whether the Fringe needs money or not, it's not like they ever tell us anything).
I wrote about the teens from LOVE last year, because they were animated, becoming part of the Fringe. I pointed to a piece about Peter McAuslan last year, because I think he deserves more notice. I gave cookies to Debora who sat at the Beer Tent one year for Maisoneuve Magazine, and over a decade ago to the woman working at the little Nantha's tent, just because they were there and they should be considered part of it all. Last week when the Beer Rep appeared carrying one of the coolers for the beer, I rushed over to help her. Not because we should be good to the Beer Company, but because it seemed a polite thing to do. I helped blow up those purple feet from the wine company when the woman seemed to be struggling (the pump was overkill for the task, and required a lot of push for a small amount of air, Santropol Roulant had a much easier to use pump when they were tuning up bikes on Wednesday).
But the Fringe just points to them, "these are the sponsors". If I was running things, I'd be writing something about them, defining the relationship, because it's the thing to do. Otherwise, they are just blank objects, they are merely sponsors that some others can dismiss as controlling the festival. The Fringe has always been an intimate place, all those acts trying to get you to their show by interacting with you, seeing the staff and volunteers around so you feel like volunteering, and at least can respect the producer because they aren't just bossing people around. We are a different festival, not by defining but by action, and one way is to offer up more detail. Gossip is a connecting thing, and I'm not talking about malicious gossip. It brings people in.
For a couple of years, Ile sans Fils was listed as a sponsor (as I said at the time, kind of illusionary since the group is more an organizer, talking commercial entities like Mainline into sharing their wideband connection). Yet the most important thing to reveal was that there'd be wifi access at the Beer Tent, information rather than promotion. Yes, they helped, but that's far less important than how they helped. Indeed, the group is nothing if people aren't actually using the unified log-in that they are offering. The Fringe seemed to assume everyone would know why they were a sponsor, or maybe didn't care, they just felt an obligation to list them as a sponsor.
Even circa 1997, when maybe I said something somewhere that got CAM to be a sponsor (they even had a venue named after them at least one year), we could have leveraged that and had a terminal on site. But since the only information the Fringe wanted us to know was that they were a sponsor, the information didn't arrive until it was too late to organize something.
Indyish came for a few years, the Fringe didn't tell us really about them, though Indyish blew its horn. Some of that could have been far better handled by the Fringe telling us about them, rather than something new to live with.
There's a whole trail of things that have been part of the Fringe, yet they just often seem inflicted on us, the Fringe doesn't tell us "we like what they are doing, we asked them to come, and here are the reasons". We are not merely consumers of the art that appears at the Fringe, we are a key component of the Fringe.
One year, 1998, the Fringe did send out a sort of "newspaper" letting us knmow of the plans for that year, but it was more humorous than detail. But for a decade they'd send out email, likely still do, but they never really told us anything. Theatre St. Catherine suddenly opens up, the Fringe says out announcements of what was happenning there, but no mention of who was running it (I had to read that somewhere else). Initially, I thought the Fringe was running it. Then the Fringe did get its own venue, and some made up story about a poker game rather than truth, and they'd lready done the rennovations by the time we heard.
No, the Fringe can't put detail in the paper program, not without making it a whole lot larger. But that's what the internet is for, easy distribution, cheap printing cost. Indeed, it is the very existence of the webpage that begs the Fringe to say more. In the early days, there would be an ntroduction in the program that tried to drag us in, that's faded, as if we are just consumers of culture, to see the shows, to buy the beer, to be passive. The Fringe needs to change this, because either sponsors are obnoxious or they actually mean something to us.
I can remember saying to Patrick "you should work the crowd", but that meant being more visible during the year, being out there when it came time to bring in volunteers or have troupes apply for a slot in the Festival. The sad thing is, once they started doing that, they were acting, often putting on a role to work the crowd, rather than being honest.
Actually, the groups have seemed more into it this year. There was one woman from the Native women's shelter who was surprised and pleased by t e offer of the cookies, and then I had a plastic bag for the woman who seemed to be the organizer when she was packing up. I said "We want your visit to the Fringe to be good". One of the women from Ami-Quebec gave a big smile when she rode off on her bicycle. I realized we should have given each four Fringe Bucks so they could get into a show (or just some outright single show pass). They sit at the table, surrounded by the Fringe, and we should give them a chance to see what it's really like. I'd give them my own Fringe Bucks, but I haven't gotten any in five years, so I no longer have a stash to hand out.
But this is one thing wrong with the Fringe. They have sponsors, but don't really tell us about them. We hear about the groups coming to collect donations, but there is no intimicy shown. It's hard to tell if the Fringe really likes these groups, or if it's mercenary, figuring people may be more likely to donate for these other causes than the Fringe (and sometimes it's hard to tell whether the Fringe needs money or not, it's not like they ever tell us anything).
I wrote about the teens from LOVE last year, because they were animated, becoming part of the Fringe. I pointed to a piece about Peter McAuslan last year, because I think he deserves more notice. I gave cookies to Debora who sat at the Beer Tent one year for Maisoneuve Magazine, and over a decade ago to the woman working at the little Nantha's tent, just because they were there and they should be considered part of it all. Last week when the Beer Rep appeared carrying one of the coolers for the beer, I rushed over to help her. Not because we should be good to the Beer Company, but because it seemed a polite thing to do. I helped blow up those purple feet from the wine company when the woman seemed to be struggling (the pump was overkill for the task, and required a lot of push for a small amount of air, Santropol Roulant had a much easier to use pump when they were tuning up bikes on Wednesday).
But the Fringe just points to them, "these are the sponsors". If I was running things, I'd be writing something about them, defining the relationship, because it's the thing to do. Otherwise, they are just blank objects, they are merely sponsors that some others can dismiss as controlling the festival. The Fringe has always been an intimate place, all those acts trying to get you to their show by interacting with you, seeing the staff and volunteers around so you feel like volunteering, and at least can respect the producer because they aren't just bossing people around. We are a different festival, not by defining but by action, and one way is to offer up more detail. Gossip is a connecting thing, and I'm not talking about malicious gossip. It brings people in.
For a couple of years, Ile sans Fils was listed as a sponsor (as I said at the time, kind of illusionary since the group is more an organizer, talking commercial entities like Mainline into sharing their wideband connection). Yet the most important thing to reveal was that there'd be wifi access at the Beer Tent, information rather than promotion. Yes, they helped, but that's far less important than how they helped. Indeed, the group is nothing if people aren't actually using the unified log-in that they are offering. The Fringe seemed to assume everyone would know why they were a sponsor, or maybe didn't care, they just felt an obligation to list them as a sponsor.
Even circa 1997, when maybe I said something somewhere that got CAM to be a sponsor (they even had a venue named after them at least one year), we could have leveraged that and had a terminal on site. But since the only information the Fringe wanted us to know was that they were a sponsor, the information didn't arrive until it was too late to organize something.
Indyish came for a few years, the Fringe didn't tell us really about them, though Indyish blew its horn. Some of that could have been far better handled by the Fringe telling us about them, rather than something new to live with.
There's a whole trail of things that have been part of the Fringe, yet they just often seem inflicted on us, the Fringe doesn't tell us "we like what they are doing, we asked them to come, and here are the reasons". We are not merely consumers of the art that appears at the Fringe, we are a key component of the Fringe.
One year, 1998, the Fringe did send out a sort of "newspaper" letting us knmow of the plans for that year, but it was more humorous than detail. But for a decade they'd send out email, likely still do, but they never really told us anything. Theatre St. Catherine suddenly opens up, the Fringe says out announcements of what was happenning there, but no mention of who was running it (I had to read that somewhere else). Initially, I thought the Fringe was running it. Then the Fringe did get its own venue, and some made up story about a poker game rather than truth, and they'd lready done the rennovations by the time we heard.
No, the Fringe can't put detail in the paper program, not without making it a whole lot larger. But that's what the internet is for, easy distribution, cheap printing cost. Indeed, it is the very existence of the webpage that begs the Fringe to say more. In the early days, there would be an ntroduction in the program that tried to drag us in, that's faded, as if we are just consumers of culture, to see the shows, to buy the beer, to be passive. The Fringe needs to change this, because either sponsors are obnoxious or they actually mean something to us.
I can remember saying to Patrick "you should work the crowd", but that meant being more visible during the year, being out there when it came time to bring in volunteers or have troupes apply for a slot in the Festival. The sad thing is, once they started doing that, they were acting, often putting on a role to work the crowd, rather than being honest.
Justice for Some
Political art should not hit you on the head, Carmen Ruiz said that in Hour last year before her show at the MAI. Oops, I said that in 2007, about one dance show that tried hard to be political. (The concept is actually a variation on politics in general, you want to change people to your point, not hit them until they convert).
So do I give inFluxdance a pass here? I loved their first two shows years back, the complicated patterns, the fun, the vegetables and the keys. There's no humor here, but I did have mild tears in my eyes towards the end. I can't figure out if they've just things that would trigger that in me, or if the show does work properly, affect people without hitting them over the head. Yet I know I would react badly if they were hitting us on the head with it, that's my makeup, so I think I'm not overlooking it because they are inFluxdance. They are actually dancing to say something, unlike that show four years ago where the dance seemed so separate from the political quotes being played through the sound system. Once again, they have a fair number of dancers for a Fringe show, I think I counted six, which of course gives the show a different tone from one that is a solo or duet. I think they captured a crowd well at one point.
Sometimes the Fringe has shoehorned dance into too small a venue especially when lots of dancers appear), though I once saw Jane Gabriels recite poetry in the late Bistro 4 while dancers squeezed beteen tables. But, while Tangente has the space I find it less appealing. The MAI seems better for dance, even La Chapelle, they have big enough stages, but not that depth that sometimes the dancers seem lost in. I like the years when it's grouped together, since some shows seem to get lost when off somewhere else, but this show fit okay in Club Espanol.
So do I give inFluxdance a pass here? I loved their first two shows years back, the complicated patterns, the fun, the vegetables and the keys. There's no humor here, but I did have mild tears in my eyes towards the end. I can't figure out if they've just things that would trigger that in me, or if the show does work properly, affect people without hitting them over the head. Yet I know I would react badly if they were hitting us on the head with it, that's my makeup, so I think I'm not overlooking it because they are inFluxdance. They are actually dancing to say something, unlike that show four years ago where the dance seemed so separate from the political quotes being played through the sound system. Once again, they have a fair number of dancers for a Fringe show, I think I counted six, which of course gives the show a different tone from one that is a solo or duet. I think they captured a crowd well at one point.
Sometimes the Fringe has shoehorned dance into too small a venue especially when lots of dancers appear), though I once saw Jane Gabriels recite poetry in the late Bistro 4 while dancers squeezed beteen tables. But, while Tangente has the space I find it less appealing. The MAI seems better for dance, even La Chapelle, they have big enough stages, but not that depth that sometimes the dancers seem lost in. I like the years when it's grouped together, since some shows seem to get lost when off somewhere else, but this show fit okay in Club Espanol.
Siblings
This is only a 15minute/$4 show (well $6 with the service charge, why are the shows with a lower price penalized by the Fringe more than the full limit ticket price shows?). I'd like to hear the story of why it's an excerpt, it can't be a test run since Lynsey Billing is not new to the Fringe.
I saw it at 23:45 on Friday night, one show I was willing to go to that late (even though I spent about 90 minutes waiting for it to happen). It seemed to bring out her friends, not a particularly large audience, but at least we all sat in the same section so it was concentrated.
Maybe it was the smaller venue, somehow more inviting than the depth of Tangente, but it felt like they are doing something different with dance. Like when she did "Barbie World" in 2008, the ballet influence is noticed. It thus becomes interesting because the vocabulary of the dance is somewhat different from the rest of the shows, that are generally using the vocabulary of modern dance (except for the breakdancing shows)
Lynsey Billing teaches dance, but it seems away from the usual places. Three years ago, I expected the Barbie piece to be more commercial or more entertainment dance, but it wasn't, and it was only one of a few pieces in the show. And maybe the distance from the status quo enables her to do something different, which may somehow be folded into the local status quo.
On the other hand, one of the musicians listed in the program is Becky Fooms (I think I spelled that wrong) who I've seen accompany someone at Studio 303, maybe Allison.
I saw it at 23:45 on Friday night, one show I was willing to go to that late (even though I spent about 90 minutes waiting for it to happen). It seemed to bring out her friends, not a particularly large audience, but at least we all sat in the same section so it was concentrated.
Maybe it was the smaller venue, somehow more inviting than the depth of Tangente, but it felt like they are doing something different with dance. Like when she did "Barbie World" in 2008, the ballet influence is noticed. It thus becomes interesting because the vocabulary of the dance is somewhat different from the rest of the shows, that are generally using the vocabulary of modern dance (except for the breakdancing shows)
Lynsey Billing teaches dance, but it seems away from the usual places. Three years ago, I expected the Barbie piece to be more commercial or more entertainment dance, but it wasn't, and it was only one of a few pieces in the show. And maybe the distance from the status quo enables her to do something different, which may somehow be folded into the local status quo.
On the other hand, one of the musicians listed in the program is Becky Fooms (I think I spelled that wrong) who I've seen accompany someone at Studio 303, maybe Allison.
Raven Causes Mischief
I mentioned native storytelling last year because I was trying to suggest things that don't appear at the Fringe which would broaden it. There is a lot out there where the people doing it might not define themselves as artists, so they may overlook the Fringe, yet still be good at doing what they do.
And then wham, here's a native storyteller, even from the Pacific Northwest. And we get to contrast her style with the storytelling that usually happens at the Fringe. This is creation storytelling, not "Joe went out on the ocean and a funny thing happened to him..." And there's a style to it different from what we normally see, though there is movement that makes for good spoken word. She even used a microphone, which maybe should be announced, I don't like the acoustics in that venue and haven't been in there for years, though suddenly I've been in twice, two shows I couldn't ignore. The microphone helped.
This is different performance art, which helps to make the Fringe diverse. But, of course it also brings a different voice to the Fringe (I like the two years when the Kanawake Theatre Company did shows at the Fringe, but at least one of those shows was fairly mainstream, about safe sex).
Coincidentally, the 40th anniversary issue of "This Magazine" (it started out life as "This Magazine is About Schools", complete with at least one piece by Bill Ayers) has a bit about "Native Earth Performing Arts" in Toronto. "so few places exist where any of us can hear Aboriginal voices live and unmediated", which is true.
During "The Oka Crisis", CJAD had regular reports from the Kanawake radio station, about the Crisis, yet once it was all over, that disappeared. Most of the time, the only stories we hear from there are about cigarettes or other squabbles, not about the library, or that they want to build a new sports complex.
Most don't get to stay the night at Kanawake and hear the clump, clump, clump of someone in boots walking around all night, he staying up to keep the woodstove going so we'd be warm, or know the woman who loved cashews, or the guy from AIM who said, after two concentric rainbows appeared on the plains of South Dakota, "that's nothing, I once saw three rainbows at a time". Or meet Floyd Westerman before he became a movie star, or have that guy carrying the medecine bundle come over and say something when he knew I was feeling a bit off. I was once in a crowd of 500,000 people in New York City and suddenly there was someone from Kanawake who remembered me. Most people don't get that, just regular people.
I'd like to think I did cause this show to appear, someone reading what I posted last year and thinking "I can do that". But I fear it was more sculpting by the Fringe, someone perhaps whispering in the right place so they'd know about our Fringe. Fine if it's Joe Nobody doing the whispering, kind of tampering if it's the Fringe.
And then wham, here's a native storyteller, even from the Pacific Northwest. And we get to contrast her style with the storytelling that usually happens at the Fringe. This is creation storytelling, not "Joe went out on the ocean and a funny thing happened to him..." And there's a style to it different from what we normally see, though there is movement that makes for good spoken word. She even used a microphone, which maybe should be announced, I don't like the acoustics in that venue and haven't been in there for years, though suddenly I've been in twice, two shows I couldn't ignore. The microphone helped.
This is different performance art, which helps to make the Fringe diverse. But, of course it also brings a different voice to the Fringe (I like the two years when the Kanawake Theatre Company did shows at the Fringe, but at least one of those shows was fairly mainstream, about safe sex).
Coincidentally, the 40th anniversary issue of "This Magazine" (it started out life as "This Magazine is About Schools", complete with at least one piece by Bill Ayers) has a bit about "Native Earth Performing Arts" in Toronto. "so few places exist where any of us can hear Aboriginal voices live and unmediated", which is true.
During "The Oka Crisis", CJAD had regular reports from the Kanawake radio station, about the Crisis, yet once it was all over, that disappeared. Most of the time, the only stories we hear from there are about cigarettes or other squabbles, not about the library, or that they want to build a new sports complex.
Most don't get to stay the night at Kanawake and hear the clump, clump, clump of someone in boots walking around all night, he staying up to keep the woodstove going so we'd be warm, or know the woman who loved cashews, or the guy from AIM who said, after two concentric rainbows appeared on the plains of South Dakota, "that's nothing, I once saw three rainbows at a time". Or meet Floyd Westerman before he became a movie star, or have that guy carrying the medecine bundle come over and say something when he knew I was feeling a bit off. I was once in a crowd of 500,000 people in New York City and suddenly there was someone from Kanawake who remembered me. Most people don't get that, just regular people.
I'd like to think I did cause this show to appear, someone reading what I posted last year and thinking "I can do that". But I fear it was more sculpting by the Fringe, someone perhaps whispering in the right place so they'd know about our Fringe. Fine if it's Joe Nobody doing the whispering, kind of tampering if it's the Fringe.
Gender Barrier to be Broken at Drag Races!
Word from a reliable source is that at the Drag Races on Saturday, there will be at least one Drag King participating.
This has been an ongoing story since one venue manager told me some years back that she wanted to be in the Drag Races, but they told her "only if you come as a woman". But she is already, what's the point of that? There was hurt in her heart.
But dreams do come true. Apparently she will be allowed to participate this year, indeed she has been allowed for the past two years, but was unable to do so for other reasons. Nobody told me, though it would seem that I was the one making the issue louder. I wouldn't have repeated myself if somebody had told me the change had happened.
The "reliable source" is the woman who wanted to participate, so I have no reason to believe she is making this up.
I wonder if the "10 year old boy" from "Beethoven Lives Upstairs" will participate too?
This has been an ongoing story since one venue manager told me some years back that she wanted to be in the Drag Races, but they told her "only if you come as a woman". But she is already, what's the point of that? There was hurt in her heart.
But dreams do come true. Apparently she will be allowed to participate this year, indeed she has been allowed for the past two years, but was unable to do so for other reasons. Nobody told me, though it would seem that I was the one making the issue louder. I wouldn't have repeated myself if somebody had told me the change had happened.
The "reliable source" is the woman who wanted to participate, so I have no reason to believe she is making this up.
I wonder if the "10 year old boy" from "Beethoven Lives Upstairs" will participate too?
Friday, June 17, 2011
Arthur C. Clarke's How We Went to mars
I took all this time to write about the show, even though I saw it the first night, because I wanted to write something deep about it.
There has been science fiction at the Fringe before. In 1998, Anthony DP Mann did a show based on Dr. Who, but it was low budget and campy. It was fun, but it was not that different from most Fringe shows. (DP Mann was interesting, he sounded and looked old, but was only 21 that year. About a month after the Fringe, I saw some dinner theatre put on by him at a church hall, spaghetti while an original story based on Sherlock Holmes was performed.) In 2004, ASM did "The Martian Chronicles" and it was slick, but didn't really feel like anything.
Last year Black Box theatre did "Shades of Grey". About three old time type science fiction short stories presented in the form that was seen on "The Twilight Zone". You could feel those old stories, you could feel the connection to science fiction before it came to mean movies. But they were limited by the form.
This year they are back with "Arthur C. Clarke's How We Went to Mars" and I think they've done an even better job. They aren't stuck with a predefined form. It is a lecture (and no, I didn't talk to Liz last year about how lectures could be a form for Fringe shows) and while going to Mars is the theme, the lecturer has a distinct style that is entertaining. You need a dynamic artist to show off the static slides.
Science fiction is "fringe". It's over there somewhere. People do things because it interests them, the true definition of "amateur". Yet bring it to the Fringe, and suddenly that gets to show off. Someone who would spend so much time building a model, because he likes to build models, now gets to show it off, as part of the background to the lecture. The care put into the detail may be much finer than many Fringe shows, because putting on a show isn't the key component. The Fringe becomes a vehicle to put on the show, and like all kinds of art that is out there but which might not consider performing at the Fringe,
it may be better than some of the self defined artists who then lack experience or life to say something important.
Sorry Liz. in trying to do so much thise week, I don't convey this properly.
There has been science fiction at the Fringe before. In 1998, Anthony DP Mann did a show based on Dr. Who, but it was low budget and campy. It was fun, but it was not that different from most Fringe shows. (DP Mann was interesting, he sounded and looked old, but was only 21 that year. About a month after the Fringe, I saw some dinner theatre put on by him at a church hall, spaghetti while an original story based on Sherlock Holmes was performed.) In 2004, ASM did "The Martian Chronicles" and it was slick, but didn't really feel like anything.
Last year Black Box theatre did "Shades of Grey". About three old time type science fiction short stories presented in the form that was seen on "The Twilight Zone". You could feel those old stories, you could feel the connection to science fiction before it came to mean movies. But they were limited by the form.
This year they are back with "Arthur C. Clarke's How We Went to Mars" and I think they've done an even better job. They aren't stuck with a predefined form. It is a lecture (and no, I didn't talk to Liz last year about how lectures could be a form for Fringe shows) and while going to Mars is the theme, the lecturer has a distinct style that is entertaining. You need a dynamic artist to show off the static slides.
Science fiction is "fringe". It's over there somewhere. People do things because it interests them, the true definition of "amateur". Yet bring it to the Fringe, and suddenly that gets to show off. Someone who would spend so much time building a model, because he likes to build models, now gets to show it off, as part of the background to the lecture. The care put into the detail may be much finer than many Fringe shows, because putting on a show isn't the key component. The Fringe becomes a vehicle to put on the show, and like all kinds of art that is out there but which might not consider performing at the Fringe,
it may be better than some of the self defined artists who then lack experience or life to say something important.
Sorry Liz. in trying to do so much thise week, I don't convey this properly.
Lectures as Performance
One show I never got around to writing about last year was "A Trip to Coney Island with Uncle Zeroboy", seeing it late afternoon on the final Sunday. It intrigued me since it was listed as "multimedia" and I expected it to be a movie, but it was really a sort of tour of the place by acting out some of the people you'd meet at the park.
It reminded me of when lectures were big entertainment. Before tv, before radio, the lecture circuit was big, and people went not just to keep track of what was going on, but it was seen as entertainment. You wanted to catch Stanley after he'd found Livingston in Africa, not only for the story told, but because he'd been in the news. And without tv, movies or radio, the only live way to see such speakers was for him to tour about and come to your town.
When Ernest Shackleton got stuck in the Antarctic ice back in 1914, when they abandoned ship and then struggled across the ice and across dangerous open water, they get photographic plates because without them, the lecture would not be so interesting, and without the lecture tour, they'd never make the money needed to pay back the investors for the trip to the Antarctic.
Lectures make an interesting variation for a Fringe show. We've seen them, "The Bisexual Alphabet" that Shakti brought one year was really a lot less about entertainment than lecture. I guess all the "Teaching...." shows by Keir Cutler have lecture as a theme. Even MacHomer has an element of lecture, since it would be nothing without the drawings of the Simpsons characters.
But it becomes a dynamic way to show off something that would otherwise be static. If you have some drawing skill, you could get a Fringe slot and use it to display that art, but I can't see it working too well, the Fringe really is a performing arts festival and the art would be too static. But, turn it into a lecture, "I just got back from Alpha Centauri and here are some of the creatures I came upon...", it can become a vehicle to show off the art. Make the lecture entertaining, but the slides or whatever would be the key part. You can do things with a lecture that would be fairly impossible doing as performance. Too costly
to create costumes or sets, but if they exist only on a projection screen, they become doable. Yet the storytelling benefits from the visual element.
It reminded me of when lectures were big entertainment. Before tv, before radio, the lecture circuit was big, and people went not just to keep track of what was going on, but it was seen as entertainment. You wanted to catch Stanley after he'd found Livingston in Africa, not only for the story told, but because he'd been in the news. And without tv, movies or radio, the only live way to see such speakers was for him to tour about and come to your town.
When Ernest Shackleton got stuck in the Antarctic ice back in 1914, when they abandoned ship and then struggled across the ice and across dangerous open water, they get photographic plates because without them, the lecture would not be so interesting, and without the lecture tour, they'd never make the money needed to pay back the investors for the trip to the Antarctic.
Lectures make an interesting variation for a Fringe show. We've seen them, "The Bisexual Alphabet" that Shakti brought one year was really a lot less about entertainment than lecture. I guess all the "Teaching...." shows by Keir Cutler have lecture as a theme. Even MacHomer has an element of lecture, since it would be nothing without the drawings of the Simpsons characters.
But it becomes a dynamic way to show off something that would otherwise be static. If you have some drawing skill, you could get a Fringe slot and use it to display that art, but I can't see it working too well, the Fringe really is a performing arts festival and the art would be too static. But, turn it into a lecture, "I just got back from Alpha Centauri and here are some of the creatures I came upon...", it can become a vehicle to show off the art. Make the lecture entertaining, but the slides or whatever would be the key part. You can do things with a lecture that would be fairly impossible doing as performance. Too costly
to create costumes or sets, but if they exist only on a projection screen, they become doable. Yet the storytelling benefits from the visual element.
EcoCarnival at the Fringe
I was going to post that picture on Wednesday of me with a Zodiac in a Greenpeace Toronto action, since it was "Eco Day" at the Fringe, but I suddenly can't find it. (We got stopped by the OPP as we were going into the construction site of the Darlington nuclear power plant back in 1980, but unlike the other Zodiac, we did not get a ticket. Though when we were stopped, water starts coming in, someone didn't put the plug in the bottom of the Zodiac when we put it together, and the cop says "Oh, you're taking
on water". Well only when we were stopped.)
There was the advertised bike tuneup clinic, some seemed familiar faces so i think Santropol Roulant sent some of their people over (it was the group's day to fundraise too, they brought cupcakes). A couple of tables of what seemed like used clothing. Someone was planting something, I didn't stay that long.
But, this seemed another case of creating an event rather than showing reality. The Fringe hasn't been so great about recycling, it's often been a last minute thing, and the result of some volunteer taking it into their hands. It's never worked out so well, the bins were never clearly for recycling so the garbage goes in (and recyclables go into the garbage). The best recycling has always seemed to be by the scavengers coming by to dig the cans out of the garbage. Yet, just because of the makeup of the Fringe, it likely is more careful about such things, and we should be pointing that out, rather than adding a manufactured event.
There was a blog posting from someone a bit before the Fringe where someone related helping deliver Fringe programs. She pointed out that nobody at the Fringe had a driver's license or a car (and she revealed, she had to rent one for the task). That seems the norm. Maybe nobody has the money for gas or a car, maybe they aren't sprawled out in the surburbs which tends to require a car, maybe they make a deliberate decision. But the reasoning is less important than that it is the reality. It looks odd when an audience member pulls up at the Beer Tent in a taxi, something that is foreign to me (and that time, it turns out she needed to go further, to the actual venue).
Likewise, we've covered the hole in the park numerous times with scrap we've pulled from garbage. That we now have a sort of permanent cover does not negate the fact that someone pulled it from a pile of discards. When I was returning the Fringe for All flyers to Fringe HQ the week before the Fringe, I spotted some scrap wood and dragged it along, in case the commercial cable bridge didn't appear as promised, I was going to make one this year finally. For a decade I've saved the flyers after the Fringe for All, no big deal, I just can't bear to see it go to garbage. Not only a waste, but the artists have paid good money to have them printed. The Fringe even had garage sale one early year.
Since Fringe is "doing on the cheap", likely many of the troupes are using used, borrowed or recycled material for their shows. It's no big deal, it's just something that happens.
It's not uncommon in conversation with volunteers to find people who will pull things from the garbage. I picked up a halogen lamp when I was on the On the Spot historical walking tour, the lamp was just lying on the sidewalk (and it worked, bulb and all). One year, a woman was a venue manager after just moving to Montreal ("it seemed like a good way to meet people") and I mentioned something about July 1st being a good day for interesting things being tossed out, and she admitted she might be out looking for furniture for her new place. I didn't think she was cheap, I didn't think she was poor, I didn't even think she did it for ecological reasons, it was just something people do. I was so pleased to see her last week.
And maybe that's the best thing. The worst driver I've known couldn't get my point about her driving, yet she'd say "I should give it up for the pollution it causes". Decisons shouldn't be made because of some Grand Cause. I'll pull something from the garbage because I see it, and maybe it does mean I have money for something else that I know I can't find. But I'll buy at garage sales, and I did buy that LCD tv set a month ago (but I bought it on sale). Big Causes tell you to live completely free, when really it's likely a novelty for the promoter. Or tell you to Buy Nothing on the day after US Thanksgiving, yet it ignores the fact that the frugal will always try to buy things when on sale, freeing money for something else.
Or take bikes. It was a few months after Earth Day in 1970 when bike paths hit the island of Montreal. Yet it wasn't for some grand ecological reason, it was to assert the cyclist's right to space on the road. I suspect most people who bicycle are doing it for a variety of reasons, people who change "because it's the right thing" often don't change that much, and resent the change. Hence it's silly to promote the right of the cyclist to the road along ecological reasons, the right is there and has always been there. Demand that right, don't water it down by propping it up for some good cause. Ride your bike because you like to do it, because it's cheaper than buying a car or gas, because it's convenient, and revel in the fact that incidentally you are helping the world.
on water". Well only when we were stopped.)
There was the advertised bike tuneup clinic, some seemed familiar faces so i think Santropol Roulant sent some of their people over (it was the group's day to fundraise too, they brought cupcakes). A couple of tables of what seemed like used clothing. Someone was planting something, I didn't stay that long.
But, this seemed another case of creating an event rather than showing reality. The Fringe hasn't been so great about recycling, it's often been a last minute thing, and the result of some volunteer taking it into their hands. It's never worked out so well, the bins were never clearly for recycling so the garbage goes in (and recyclables go into the garbage). The best recycling has always seemed to be by the scavengers coming by to dig the cans out of the garbage. Yet, just because of the makeup of the Fringe, it likely is more careful about such things, and we should be pointing that out, rather than adding a manufactured event.
There was a blog posting from someone a bit before the Fringe where someone related helping deliver Fringe programs. She pointed out that nobody at the Fringe had a driver's license or a car (and she revealed, she had to rent one for the task). That seems the norm. Maybe nobody has the money for gas or a car, maybe they aren't sprawled out in the surburbs which tends to require a car, maybe they make a deliberate decision. But the reasoning is less important than that it is the reality. It looks odd when an audience member pulls up at the Beer Tent in a taxi, something that is foreign to me (and that time, it turns out she needed to go further, to the actual venue).
Likewise, we've covered the hole in the park numerous times with scrap we've pulled from garbage. That we now have a sort of permanent cover does not negate the fact that someone pulled it from a pile of discards. When I was returning the Fringe for All flyers to Fringe HQ the week before the Fringe, I spotted some scrap wood and dragged it along, in case the commercial cable bridge didn't appear as promised, I was going to make one this year finally. For a decade I've saved the flyers after the Fringe for All, no big deal, I just can't bear to see it go to garbage. Not only a waste, but the artists have paid good money to have them printed. The Fringe even had garage sale one early year.
Since Fringe is "doing on the cheap", likely many of the troupes are using used, borrowed or recycled material for their shows. It's no big deal, it's just something that happens.
It's not uncommon in conversation with volunteers to find people who will pull things from the garbage. I picked up a halogen lamp when I was on the On the Spot historical walking tour, the lamp was just lying on the sidewalk (and it worked, bulb and all). One year, a woman was a venue manager after just moving to Montreal ("it seemed like a good way to meet people") and I mentioned something about July 1st being a good day for interesting things being tossed out, and she admitted she might be out looking for furniture for her new place. I didn't think she was cheap, I didn't think she was poor, I didn't even think she did it for ecological reasons, it was just something people do. I was so pleased to see her last week.
And maybe that's the best thing. The worst driver I've known couldn't get my point about her driving, yet she'd say "I should give it up for the pollution it causes". Decisons shouldn't be made because of some Grand Cause. I'll pull something from the garbage because I see it, and maybe it does mean I have money for something else that I know I can't find. But I'll buy at garage sales, and I did buy that LCD tv set a month ago (but I bought it on sale). Big Causes tell you to live completely free, when really it's likely a novelty for the promoter. Or tell you to Buy Nothing on the day after US Thanksgiving, yet it ignores the fact that the frugal will always try to buy things when on sale, freeing money for something else.
Or take bikes. It was a few months after Earth Day in 1970 when bike paths hit the island of Montreal. Yet it wasn't for some grand ecological reason, it was to assert the cyclist's right to space on the road. I suspect most people who bicycle are doing it for a variety of reasons, people who change "because it's the right thing" often don't change that much, and resent the change. Hence it's silly to promote the right of the cyclist to the road along ecological reasons, the right is there and has always been there. Demand that right, don't water it down by propping it up for some good cause. Ride your bike because you like to do it, because it's cheaper than buying a car or gas, because it's convenient, and revel in the fact that incidentally you are helping the world.
Lydia Lockett ...Jazz Poetry of the New Beat Generation
I like the form of poetry to jazz music, and I like the fact that Lydia Lockett has tried something somewhat different at the Fringe, taking a risk. But while I can't quite quantify it, I kept thinking "this form could be better".
One immediate thought is that the music was too lout. It sounded to me like it was at the same level as her voice, when I'd say the form has the music more like background (though that may not work so well if you've got a live jazz band performing). The music was also generic (and in some cases, not all that jazzy), which suggests it was chosen to show off the form, rather than have the poetry a reaction to the jazz.
But maybe I've mythologized the form too much. The music becomes a catalyst for the poetry, maybe even the poetry is improvization as a reaction to the music. Here, the music seemed like a novelty, to play the Beat Poet so the music is neither Hot (or Cool), it's just there. I think in listening to John Coltrane in recent years, I can hear the rhythm of On The Road or The Dharma Bums, the go, go, go. I didn't hear that here, though she does fold the poetry into the music. (And how is poetry recited to music different from singing along? Well, with poetry, it really is just spoken word, you are pacing the poetry to match the music, but you aren't changing the tone of the voice.)
I thought I was the only one going in, and I offered her the chance to cancel the show if I was the only one. She said, "wait a few minutes, in case some more people come in" and there were six of us in the audience.
She did get her obligatory Westmount Examiner plug this week, I knew there was another act hailing from Westmount.
One reviewer wondered what the New Beat Generation was. About 20 years ago, there was a pseudo-beat revival, "The Washington Squares" being a visible component. They were neo-folk, but they dressed like the stereotypical beatniks, and they had the right sound. I have the fist album, I actually like it. Jake brought one of the members to one of the Yawps! in the mid-nineties.
One immediate thought is that the music was too lout. It sounded to me like it was at the same level as her voice, when I'd say the form has the music more like background (though that may not work so well if you've got a live jazz band performing). The music was also generic (and in some cases, not all that jazzy), which suggests it was chosen to show off the form, rather than have the poetry a reaction to the jazz.
But maybe I've mythologized the form too much. The music becomes a catalyst for the poetry, maybe even the poetry is improvization as a reaction to the music. Here, the music seemed like a novelty, to play the Beat Poet so the music is neither Hot (or Cool), it's just there. I think in listening to John Coltrane in recent years, I can hear the rhythm of On The Road or The Dharma Bums, the go, go, go. I didn't hear that here, though she does fold the poetry into the music. (And how is poetry recited to music different from singing along? Well, with poetry, it really is just spoken word, you are pacing the poetry to match the music, but you aren't changing the tone of the voice.)
I thought I was the only one going in, and I offered her the chance to cancel the show if I was the only one. She said, "wait a few minutes, in case some more people come in" and there were six of us in the audience.
She did get her obligatory Westmount Examiner plug this week, I knew there was another act hailing from Westmount.
One reviewer wondered what the New Beat Generation was. About 20 years ago, there was a pseudo-beat revival, "The Washington Squares" being a visible component. They were neo-folk, but they dressed like the stereotypical beatniks, and they had the right sound. I have the fist album, I actually like it. Jake brought one of the members to one of the Yawps! in the mid-nineties.
Frankie Nominations announced?
Up at the Beer Tent last night, the Frankie Nominations were up. So is the press release up at the Fringe website? If not, then fifteen years of internet strategy hasn't gone anywhere. Internet doctrine since 1996 is that press releases should be released to all, it's an easy way of providing informationg (since it's already done) and you don't know what someone might do with it.
The list is odd, since it was up at the Beer Tent while the first Piss in the Pool show was going on, yet the show was on the list, twice. How can you nominate something before you've seen it? Also, the 303 prize has tended to be about a specific piece rather than show, so listing Wants & Needs is premature.
Tantalizing too is that suddenly out of town shows are on the 303 prize list. The specifics have always been vague, but in the past it's been about local shows, so if that's changed, we should see details (or someone like me questioning the change). It was also oddly about "up and coming" (I forget the exact wording); "oddly" because so many of the dance shows have either been at Studio 303 or come through there in some way, so the prize is a return rather than a step up. How can an out of town act justify coming back to do a show at Studio 303, where fewer people will see it than at the Fringe? Tangente isn't that much bigger.
One year, when Studio 303 was having some problems, Tangente stepped in, and that too was a vague prize. It seemed to be about all the dance acts, or maybe even just the out of town acts, and then when the winner was announced, the prize had morphed and the winners (there was a runner up) were local acts. That likely had to do with logistics/cost, getting someone here, the cost of travel and even getting together the participants, is likely too high for many.
Another thing to consider. Once upon a time, the Fringe did issue a list of the Top Ten shows that were selling well. I even copied the list once or twice and posted it to the internet. The Fringe was all set to put the list on their webpage about 2000, but never did. CAM was acting up that week, so I think the list got lost to flakey access. And then the Top Ten list disappeared.
Do we want a return to those days? Showing the nominees, especially this early, is tantamount to saying "go see these shows, the others aren't worth it". "Festival of Discovery", like "community", is not a cute marketing phrase, it's an action. What's to discover when the various juries for the prizes have now announced what they consider the important shows?
At least the Top Ten list had the value of showing what shows might be sold out, so if you wanted to see them, you'd need to get to the venue early.
The list is odd, since it was up at the Beer Tent while the first Piss in the Pool show was going on, yet the show was on the list, twice. How can you nominate something before you've seen it? Also, the 303 prize has tended to be about a specific piece rather than show, so listing Wants & Needs is premature.
Tantalizing too is that suddenly out of town shows are on the 303 prize list. The specifics have always been vague, but in the past it's been about local shows, so if that's changed, we should see details (or someone like me questioning the change). It was also oddly about "up and coming" (I forget the exact wording); "oddly" because so many of the dance shows have either been at Studio 303 or come through there in some way, so the prize is a return rather than a step up. How can an out of town act justify coming back to do a show at Studio 303, where fewer people will see it than at the Fringe? Tangente isn't that much bigger.
One year, when Studio 303 was having some problems, Tangente stepped in, and that too was a vague prize. It seemed to be about all the dance acts, or maybe even just the out of town acts, and then when the winner was announced, the prize had morphed and the winners (there was a runner up) were local acts. That likely had to do with logistics/cost, getting someone here, the cost of travel and even getting together the participants, is likely too high for many.
Another thing to consider. Once upon a time, the Fringe did issue a list of the Top Ten shows that were selling well. I even copied the list once or twice and posted it to the internet. The Fringe was all set to put the list on their webpage about 2000, but never did. CAM was acting up that week, so I think the list got lost to flakey access. And then the Top Ten list disappeared.
Do we want a return to those days? Showing the nominees, especially this early, is tantamount to saying "go see these shows, the others aren't worth it". "Festival of Discovery", like "community", is not a cute marketing phrase, it's an action. What's to discover when the various juries for the prizes have now announced what they consider the important shows?
At least the Top Ten list had the value of showing what shows might be sold out, so if you wanted to see them, you'd need to get to the venue early.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Tidbits for a hot summer Bloomsday
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.
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.
The Naledi Project
I was intrigued by this one, since it breaks another Fringe wall, someone getting a Fringe slot and simply performing music. We have seen it before, the two years someone did Flamenco guitar and then three years ago there was the mysterious "Mayan Time Reversal" that turned out to be improvisational music. But this show is less out of the ordinary.
There is a difference between someone getting slot in the Fringe and music at the Beer Tent. The former has spent the money to subcontract the space and services from the Fringe, and is on a level playing field with the other acts like that, completely dependent on promotion in order to get a paying audience to recoup the expenses of putting on the show.
But I fear this one may fail. 10pm on Wednesday, it didn't look like there'd be an audience. I had gone over there instead of seeing more dance, but I didn't want to inflict myself on the performer if I was the only audience. Then suddenly 2 people showed up just before 10pm, so in I went. But three people isn't a good audience, and while I've not checked, I suspect it's not drawing an audience. The two other eople seemed to know the performer.
I can't judge it. It was less exotic than the flyer might suggest, yet it was music that seemed fine to me. A woman with an acoustic guitar,with a regular drumset and electric base to back her up. Lots of people like that, but she dared to show it off by getting space in the Fringe. For a while I went to the Yellow Door on a regular basis, just taking in whatever came along, music doesn't have to be famous in order to be good.
The last song, she really seemed to put more into it, I wonder if she felt the lack of the audience.
I thought it was different, like the Mayan Time Reversal it was nice to just sit for a while listening to music, which maybe takes less of the audience than a play or dance. I fear it's not different enough during such a busy week to draw an audience, which is a shame since it seems like she's more capable than some of the shows that draw tiny audiences.
An empty theatre can be so daunting to a performer, is it them or is it promotion? You can't know unless there is an audience, and then when they all hate it, at least you know where the problem is. Little or no audience is too ambiguous.
There is a difference between someone getting slot in the Fringe and music at the Beer Tent. The former has spent the money to subcontract the space and services from the Fringe, and is on a level playing field with the other acts like that, completely dependent on promotion in order to get a paying audience to recoup the expenses of putting on the show.
But I fear this one may fail. 10pm on Wednesday, it didn't look like there'd be an audience. I had gone over there instead of seeing more dance, but I didn't want to inflict myself on the performer if I was the only audience. Then suddenly 2 people showed up just before 10pm, so in I went. But three people isn't a good audience, and while I've not checked, I suspect it's not drawing an audience. The two other eople seemed to know the performer.
I can't judge it. It was less exotic than the flyer might suggest, yet it was music that seemed fine to me. A woman with an acoustic guitar,with a regular drumset and electric base to back her up. Lots of people like that, but she dared to show it off by getting space in the Fringe. For a while I went to the Yellow Door on a regular basis, just taking in whatever came along, music doesn't have to be famous in order to be good.
The last song, she really seemed to put more into it, I wonder if she felt the lack of the audience.
I thought it was different, like the Mayan Time Reversal it was nice to just sit for a while listening to music, which maybe takes less of the audience than a play or dance. I fear it's not different enough during such a busy week to draw an audience, which is a shame since it seems like she's more capable than some of the shows that draw tiny audiences.
An empty theatre can be so daunting to a performer, is it them or is it promotion? You can't know unless there is an audience, and then when they all hate it, at least you know where the problem is. Little or no audience is too ambiguous.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
June 15 halfway through the Fringe Tidbits
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.
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.
Zoofest ios not Festival of Discovery, copy versus derived
I mentioned it to Vinnie, and he repeated back the line that everything is derived from other things. Yes, maybe, but this isn't so much derived as simply taken. I called the Fringe a Festival of Discovery back in 2003 because I wanted it viewed a different way. I didn't like the snear that some reviewers gave the Fringe, I didn't like the notion that we should all wait for some reviewer to tell us which shows to go to. The Fringe used it, but since they don't talk to me, I have no idea if they really understand what I was saying, or if they thought it was a good slogan. The Zoofest is removed a second time, I'm certain they simply thought it was a good marketing phrase.
Yes, everything is created out of what came before. But there is a difference between merely repeating something, and taking it in, processing it and and then spitting it out in a modified form.
The difference might be portrayed by the first Indiana Jones film. Steven Spielberg was influenced by others, he never denied that it was a look back at the serials of the old days. But, it was distanced by time, and at the very least he put something out there that hadn't been done for a while. But once Raiders of the Lost Ark was out, various movies and tv shows came along to go after that market. They didn't do the work to lookback to the old serials, figure out what was good about them, and then create a new character, they had to wait till Raiders of the Lost Ark came out.
I knew what I'd do with the internet long before I had access, before I knew about Arpanet. It was very much based on science fiction fanzines, and that famous Gestetner machine in San Francisco in 1967. But it was 20 years of waiting, and all kinds of other things mixed in with it. It's not the same thing as aiting fifteen years with internet access and then saying "Oh look, facebook is popular, let's use that". I sure didn't think in 1996 "Hey, the internet is the latest thing, we must jump on it", I was trying to deal with traditional problems of getting the word out.
Every bit of creativity is based on something, it needs stimulous to happen. But that can come from taking in a lot and processing it, or it can come from observation. You can look at a circuit and say "wait a minute, change this and you can do this...", but it requires an understanding of the circuit before you can make that leap. I once saw a whole different path for something simply because I read a newspaper article about the trespassing law in Ontario changing; others were unable to make that leap. But creativity doesn't come from "others" it comes from everyone. I can think of Great Thoughts I had when I was sixteen and they are not unique, in fact they were verified by the fact that I'd later read similar yhings elsewhere, but they were based on my own observation. I'd forgotten some of those early observations, yet the reality is they are what colors my view of the world.
I invented bike paths when I was ten, in 1970. "Invented" because at the time I was unaware that such things existed elsewhere. I can run down exactly what caused that reaction. But I can also tell about being 25 and realizing the error, that segregation doesn't fix things. Bike paths were a way for people to get tangible recognition, they are a way for municipalities to say "see, we do see bicyclists", yet they don't change things. I can point to where bike paths were first debated on the island of Montreal, all the points taken up back then. Yet for anyone who came later, Le Monde a Bicyclette came five years after, it is a different thing. They aren't reacting to something and coming up with a solution, good or bad, they are reacting by pulling an existing solution off the shelf. They don't know a world without bike paths, so they continue to demand them, even taking painted stripes on roads for the acknowledgement. The only public argument today about bike paths is cyclists versus car drivers, one wanting them, the other hating them. Very little is argued about whether they are the proper solution to the problem, that is lost in history.
Is creativity easy or hard? I have no idea. I am inclined to believe it's less about some ability than it is about external force that enables or disables creativity. But I suspect many people don't realize their dependence on creativity, the masses thinking copyright is outdated, not thinking about where they'd be if others weren't creating.
I want people to speak their own words, because that's the only way I can tell if they understand something or not. If you just repeat back what was said in that magazine article, you aren't telling me anything new. I am reminded of grade 7 or 8 science, where the teacher who otherwise taught English read through a book about how to fly a plane. Not only was it more about the mechanics of flying than how a plane flies, but did she understand any of it when she was reading straight out of the book?
Art at the very least is about speaking your own words. Yes, there can be horrible copies of things, but even then artists are forced to create using their own words, and hopefully they get better at it. If you don't start, you can never move from mere copying to deriving.
As soon as he landed in prison during WWII, he started a strike to desegregate the prison dining hall. He opposed war because war is wrong, not because he thought Hitler was swell.
The reality is, the civil rights movement was built on those WWII riff-raff jailbird pacifists.
After the war, Bayard Rustin (he did 28 months for opposing war in WWII) organized the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947, the first of the freedom rides, to desegregate interstate busing. The list of riders includes a good number of WWII pacifists. Not much happened, a few got arrested.
Jim Peck was a crewmember of The Golden Rule in 1958 (yes 13 years before Greenpeace, and it was the inspiration for Greenpeace) that tried to sail into a nuclear test site (when they were still testing above ground). The ship was captained by Albert Bigelow, who had served in WWII but then turned against war.In early May of 1961, The Freedom Rides happened. James l. Farmer organized it that time, another CO from WWII. There was nothing illegal that time, they were testing rulings that had disallowed desegregation on interstate busing. Albert Bigelow and John Lewis ere attacked, Jim Peck was nearly beaten to death, one bus was burned. The civil rights hierarchy didn't like the Freedom Ride, the people in the south didn't like them, the US presidency didn't like them. But just like Rosa Parks showing others to act by her deed, Diane Nash (who had been part of the lunch counter sit ins the year before) knew it was important and made sure the Freedom Rides continued. And with hundreds of jailbirds that summer, desegregated busing in the US stopped.
They had power that most of us can't grasp. To stand up to bullies, and segregation and all that kept it in place was at its core bullies, to stand up to their violence.
Both sets of freedom rides counted on those WWII pacifists as participants or organizers (and sometimes both, since pacifist George Houser, I think he did time in WWII despite being a theology student (and thus exempt) rode in 1947, then helped to organize in 1961).
Bayard Rustin was a major reason for the non-violence of the civil rights movement. It wasn't some tactic, it was a deep seated realization that violence is wrong. Non-violence came roaring out of the CO camps and the prisons of WWII to change the world.
In 1982 I was I was in the War Resisters Office buying some books, and someone served me who seemed familiar and was older. I assumed he was one of those WWII pacifists, though I'm no longer sure which one. They have aged too, most have passed away already, without a lot of fuss from mainstream press. Though, there was George Houser at about 91 on Oprah on May 4th/ Sadly nobody really said anything about him, or to him, and not a word was said about the WWII pacifists that were key players in the beginning.
Someon'e slooking for a Fringe date, or is it just advertising?
According to this post, Let's Just Fringe Together. All Night - m4w someone is looking for a date for the Fringe. Or maybe not, there are enough telltales in there to suggest it is advertising,
Once again, in 1998 the Montreal Fringe was on the Mirror's Best of Montreal in the category of Best Pickup Spot. I have no knowledge of some organized attempt to get it there, I know I voted it deliberately.
In that context, you're better off going to the Fringe and enjoying it, and hope to meet someone.
As I've stated before, if you spend enough time at the Fringe, it is an out of the ordinary experience. I thought I said it was like summer camp back during the McGill years, but I just found something from about a decade ago where I quote volunteer Sara, who went on to form Pony Up! as saying it's like summer camp The boundaries are different, so it is okay to go up and start talking to someone when in "ordinary" circumstances you wouldn't. That doesn't make it a good pickup spot, it does make it a great flirting spot and without flirting, nothing else can happen.
Once again, in 1998 the Montreal Fringe was on the Mirror's Best of Montreal in the category of Best Pickup Spot. I have no knowledge of some organized attempt to get it there, I know I voted it deliberately.
In that context, you're better off going to the Fringe and enjoying it, and hope to meet someone.
As I've stated before, if you spend enough time at the Fringe, it is an out of the ordinary experience. I thought I said it was like summer camp back during the McGill years, but I just found something from about a decade ago where I quote volunteer Sara, who went on to form Pony Up! as saying it's like summer camp The boundaries are different, so it is okay to go up and start talking to someone when in "ordinary" circumstances you wouldn't. That doesn't make it a good pickup spot, it does make it a great flirting spot and without flirting, nothing else can happen.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Children's Shows, but there aren't any
I'm really glad that Venezuela is being promoted as a children's show by having a $2.00 ticket price for those under ten. There are a few other shows that aren't children's shows but are suitable, which is nice too. But the days of having outright children's shows seem long in the past. The days when nobody knew what the Fringe was so people were willing to try variety have been pushed out. Though maybe that will change as the youngest Fringe Oldtimers start having children.
In 1994 or 95, one family from the West Island did a Dr. Seuss show, I really wanted to see it, but they finished early and it slipped by. I remember 1996 and realizing the Fringe was right in that period at the end of the school year when nothing much is happening but you still have to attend. I thought how MacHomer could be a great field trip in those last days of school before summer. It helped that the Fringe ran from noon to midnight back then, so shows were happening during school hours.
Then in 1997, Rick Miller and Stephanie Baptist (did I get that right? They later formed a legal partnership and produced a child or maybe more) did Babaloo & Ganoosh which was intended for children. Stephanie showed up at the Fringe For All in costume, wearing shoes shaped like hot dogs in buns. "Are those dogs tired?", I asked. I saw it, memory reminds me that someone small did watch it, interested in the toys on stage before the show started. And Rick tossed a beret into the crowd, coming close to Bill Brownstein is what I remember. (They did get a decent review, though.) But I don't think it did that well, certainly not drawing children.
Then in 1999, Marc Boiteux and Lazareth did Once Upon A..., Lazareth being a dummy. They had been doing comedy clubs around then, but this was intended for children. I don't think many attended. When I saw it, I remember one maybe ten year old girl attending, and she had a good time. Then she dutifully went right over to the Beer Tent to fill out buzz. Marc said he didn't get the audience he'd hoped, the typecasting of the Fringe already being strong. But he was back the next year, with "Balloon Factory"., helped along by the Great Zamboni, who was a man, not machine. That time he made the effort to promote away from the Fringe, pulling kids in from elsewhere and I thought he did well. I think that was the year I saw him handing out flyers at the Fraser Hickson Library street festival, one couple glad to know that the Fringe was coming since they were uncertain of the dates. He came back again with the same show in French the next year, and then I guess that was it. He had a sandwich board chained to the short black fence at the Beer Tent, two months after the Fringe one year I was passing by and noticed the sign was still there.
The addendum to this is that about a week before the Fringe, I was watching the news and they had a story about Sun Youth's annual bike giveaway. A familiar face appears, and then yes, it is Marc Boiteux, of course looking older. Apparently he'd had some diabetic issue, and his son had done the right thing, which is why his son got the bike.
I can't remember any children's shows since then. Though of course plenty that might have some appeal to them. And we must never forget that dance has potential to lure a young audience, so much of the movement is similar to what small children are doing anyway. And better to drag them to a cheap and short show at the Fringe, complete with the informality, than spending big money to take them to Place des Arts.
Oddly in 1999, there was "Kid's Day at the Fringe", right there at the Beer Tent in the parking lot of the restaurant. But I must have gotten there after it was over, since I have no memory of it. It was sort of incongruous, and seemed more a nod to someone who was on staff that year than part of some Big Plan for expansion.
Children's shows are often fringe, somewhere over there. If anyone set out to do a specifically children's show now, they'd have to work hard away from the Fringe to bring in an audience. I don't think we even do enough to promote that the Fringe can be a family event, Cabaret L'Amour Fou from the west coast 2 years ago certainly should have brought children in. Instead of a fringe, we've set up a monolith of "young hipster" that can be as alienating as any clique.
In 1994 or 95, one family from the West Island did a Dr. Seuss show, I really wanted to see it, but they finished early and it slipped by. I remember 1996 and realizing the Fringe was right in that period at the end of the school year when nothing much is happening but you still have to attend. I thought how MacHomer could be a great field trip in those last days of school before summer. It helped that the Fringe ran from noon to midnight back then, so shows were happening during school hours.
Then in 1997, Rick Miller and Stephanie Baptist (did I get that right? They later formed a legal partnership and produced a child or maybe more) did Babaloo & Ganoosh which was intended for children. Stephanie showed up at the Fringe For All in costume, wearing shoes shaped like hot dogs in buns. "Are those dogs tired?", I asked. I saw it, memory reminds me that someone small did watch it, interested in the toys on stage before the show started. And Rick tossed a beret into the crowd, coming close to Bill Brownstein is what I remember. (They did get a decent review, though.) But I don't think it did that well, certainly not drawing children.
Then in 1999, Marc Boiteux and Lazareth did Once Upon A..., Lazareth being a dummy. They had been doing comedy clubs around then, but this was intended for children. I don't think many attended. When I saw it, I remember one maybe ten year old girl attending, and she had a good time. Then she dutifully went right over to the Beer Tent to fill out buzz. Marc said he didn't get the audience he'd hoped, the typecasting of the Fringe already being strong. But he was back the next year, with "Balloon Factory"., helped along by the Great Zamboni, who was a man, not machine. That time he made the effort to promote away from the Fringe, pulling kids in from elsewhere and I thought he did well. I think that was the year I saw him handing out flyers at the Fraser Hickson Library street festival, one couple glad to know that the Fringe was coming since they were uncertain of the dates. He came back again with the same show in French the next year, and then I guess that was it. He had a sandwich board chained to the short black fence at the Beer Tent, two months after the Fringe one year I was passing by and noticed the sign was still there.
The addendum to this is that about a week before the Fringe, I was watching the news and they had a story about Sun Youth's annual bike giveaway. A familiar face appears, and then yes, it is Marc Boiteux, of course looking older. Apparently he'd had some diabetic issue, and his son had done the right thing, which is why his son got the bike.
I can't remember any children's shows since then. Though of course plenty that might have some appeal to them. And we must never forget that dance has potential to lure a young audience, so much of the movement is similar to what small children are doing anyway. And better to drag them to a cheap and short show at the Fringe, complete with the informality, than spending big money to take them to Place des Arts.
Oddly in 1999, there was "Kid's Day at the Fringe", right there at the Beer Tent in the parking lot of the restaurant. But I must have gotten there after it was over, since I have no memory of it. It was sort of incongruous, and seemed more a nod to someone who was on staff that year than part of some Big Plan for expansion.
Children's shows are often fringe, somewhere over there. If anyone set out to do a specifically children's show now, they'd have to work hard away from the Fringe to bring in an audience. I don't think we even do enough to promote that the Fringe can be a family event, Cabaret L'Amour Fou from the west coast 2 years ago certainly should have brought children in. Instead of a fringe, we've set up a monolith of "young hipster" that can be as alienating as any clique.
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