after last year's experience of traipsing through the rainy streets to see sights like an eerie pit of fog on u of t's philosophers walk, a girl in a glass coffin on queen, and a pretty decent light installation in trinity bellwoods, i had some high hopes for this year's nuit blanche. i set off on my bike around 7:30 feeling like it was christmas eve and excited for the exhibits i'd read about.
i was really interested in the recreation of the cold war bomb shelter in the architecture building at u of t... but it didn't really hold up. also excited for event horizon, which was pretty amusing, but a bit too precious. deeparture was promising in my mind, as well, but all i took away from it were the idiotic and LOUD comments of the people in the theatre, who didn't even bother to sit, but just stood in the aisles, saying things like "wolves hunt in packs" (thanks, genius), and "this isn't even a movie! its just filming animals!" (die). i really would have loved to see the ghost station, as it promised the creepiness i was seeking, but when we got there, the line was over an hour long, and the idea of sharing the space with suburban yuppies and their off-spring kind of killed the beauty in it, for me.
trinity bellwoods made me feel like i was wandering through a mall, with scotia bank tents everywhere. the aquarium window at queen and dovercourt was pretty, and the giant locust at lamport stadium provided us with some delirious 3am laughs, watching people hurl their bodies into it, thinking that it would support their weight. no!
i couldn't help but compare the entire experience to a night earlier in the summer, when there was the most beautiful performance art undertaken in the abandoned monastery on major street. i still think about how great and inspiring that night was. i'll go out for nuit blanche next year to give it another chance, but the crowds and lack of inspiration in the work this year, kind of made me long for the time when art was an inaccessible pastime for the elite. sigh.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007
there is no, this is no
Harold is coming by later. Two days ago, when I was sitting on the fire escape, I saw something fall through one of the cracks in the metal slats that make up the floor of the thing. I had no idea what it was, only that it was small, metallic, and not my phone, which I'm supremely paranoid about accidentally tossing over the edge.
I had completely forgotten about whatever it was that had fallen, until I passed Harold in the stairway today. He was talking with the superintendent about some repairs he wanted done in his apartment (my sink has no hot water tap and parts of my refrigerator are held together with duct tape).
Harold speaks with his chin tucked into his chest and jerks his head upwards at every pause. I think about pigeons ever time we talk. Now the pigeon is behind me on the stairs, cooing my name. I don't hear him until I'm in the courtyard and I turn and see him coming, doing an awkward half-run-shuffle towards me and the dog. He moves like he's performing some kind of reverse puppetry. Like all of his appendages are attached to strings, only he's the one pulling, against some motionless puppeteer.
He found the thing I forgot I had lost: Ela's dog tags. They are in his apartment and he will bring them over later.
I entertain myself by imagining that I'm dead and this building is some kind of purgatory that I share with Harold. I never see anyone else here. Its Harold coming home with groceries as I'm going out for the evening. Harold is holding the door as I'm coming home from work. Harold finds Ela's tags. Harold is dropping off his rent cheque at the same time I am, two days late.
I guess there are some others, but there are so few that its kind of eerie. Patrick lives down the hall and doesn't like it when I let Ela pee on the lawn. Alfredo has two or maybe three scruffy looking children and a wife who only speaks Yugoslavian. I hear a lot of rap music coming from 201, and there used to be an old man on the first floor, but I saw his kids cleaning out the apartment a few weeks ago. Thats it.
So purgatory is a spacious apartment building in Parkdale, with a view of the lake. I think that it could be worse.
I had completely forgotten about whatever it was that had fallen, until I passed Harold in the stairway today. He was talking with the superintendent about some repairs he wanted done in his apartment (my sink has no hot water tap and parts of my refrigerator are held together with duct tape).
Harold speaks with his chin tucked into his chest and jerks his head upwards at every pause. I think about pigeons ever time we talk. Now the pigeon is behind me on the stairs, cooing my name. I don't hear him until I'm in the courtyard and I turn and see him coming, doing an awkward half-run-shuffle towards me and the dog. He moves like he's performing some kind of reverse puppetry. Like all of his appendages are attached to strings, only he's the one pulling, against some motionless puppeteer.
He found the thing I forgot I had lost: Ela's dog tags. They are in his apartment and he will bring them over later.
I entertain myself by imagining that I'm dead and this building is some kind of purgatory that I share with Harold. I never see anyone else here. Its Harold coming home with groceries as I'm going out for the evening. Harold is holding the door as I'm coming home from work. Harold finds Ela's tags. Harold is dropping off his rent cheque at the same time I am, two days late.
I guess there are some others, but there are so few that its kind of eerie. Patrick lives down the hall and doesn't like it when I let Ela pee on the lawn. Alfredo has two or maybe three scruffy looking children and a wife who only speaks Yugoslavian. I hear a lot of rap music coming from 201, and there used to be an old man on the first floor, but I saw his kids cleaning out the apartment a few weeks ago. Thats it.
So purgatory is a spacious apartment building in Parkdale, with a view of the lake. I think that it could be worse.
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