Weekend Round-Up: Bloodshot Bill, Goodbye K.C. & Whisky

Friday: Due to a problem with the internet at work I got to take off early, which was awesome because it meant I could crack open a couple beers and continue my full frontal assault on my laundry which had been collecting on my floor for the better part of three weeks. Once things were approaching sanitary, I made my way down to the Esco for Bloodshot Bill, a one man rockabilly band.

The opening act was also super fun, they're called The Kid and had a sort of psychedelic 60's sound to them. Also, the lead singer was hilarious in his skinny pants and pointy white loafers. He even let me shake a maraca during Bloodshot Bill's set.

Thing I'm learning is that I need to start being careful going to rock shows by myself. While the attention is certainly flattering, it ends up being distracting to the show. I had no less than three suitors vying for my attention, but I just wanted to get my dance on, which I did.

Saturday: Feeling the effects of my over indulgence, Saturday was a decidedly slow moving affair. L came to pick up the cat around noon, but instead of starting the de-fur-afying of the apartment I went back to bed since my meeting had been pushed to Sunday. At some point I agreed to meet MJ to try to help her with her computer, but slept through the appointed meeting time and agreed that it would be better if I just stayed home.

Made a couple calls out West and then curled up in a blanket and set about catching up on the mound of films piled under my TV. First up was Little Miss Sunshine, which I really enjoyed, but probably not as much as most people. However, it was the perfect antidote to my foul mood, so there was that.

Next up was Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which while well acted and written, suffered from some technical flourishes that ended up being rather distracting. The nonlinear plotting was fine, but the forced strobing effects used to signal a change in time/perspective were pedantic and useless. Also, Ethan Hawke was so fucking twitchy I wanted to see him hurt, badly, which didn't really happen. At least not enough for my tastes.

Sunday: Another pretty lazy day. Went for my weekly bagel run. Finished off Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and made some calls out West. Tidied up the house a bit and then made my way to the office for my meeting with MJ and Taien. Since MJ is going to leaving for Korea for close to 6 months next week, we needed to have a sit down to discuss who would take care of what. Didn't take too long and afterwards we contemplated going for a drink together when Taien pulled out a bottle of whiskey, so we opted to do that. A few drinks later MJ and I stumbled over to Sago for some sushi and then I walked home. Made some more calls West and started watching the Darjeeling Limited, which I plan to finish tonight.

Long Weekend Round-Up: NYC, Canadian Thanksgiving & Fletcher Tattoos

Photos pending

Friday: Got up bright and early to catch the train to NYC to spend Canadian Thanksgiving with my Fletcher brethren, Rock, Slim and Linda. Packed entirely too much stuff to occupy myself on what ended up being another 12 and a half hour ride through purgatory (actually, Upstate New York) and ended up mostly listening to Broken Social Scene, knitting and reading The Atrocity Exhibition.

Got to Penn Station at 10 PM where I met up with Phil and Tina and jumped on the train to their place in Astoria. Got to meet their doggy, Trixie, drank wine and ate greasy food at Mike's, then passed out on the couch.

Saturday: After a suitably late start, Phil and I headed out to the East Village to price tattoo places on St. Marks Place. Met up with his friend Amber in the park and ate stupidly delicious hummus with sauteed mushrooms at a restaurant called, appropriately enough, Hummus Place. Hung out for a bit and then called my old UBC drinking buddy Andy to arrange a meeting place in Williamsburg.

Met up with Andy and got some cheap and delicious tacos and frozen margaritas, then headed out to Greenpoint to catch his buddy's show. I felt super bad because I ended up nodding off during the set, but it turned out my brief siesta was much needed because the evening ended up turning into quite the adventure.

After leaving the Red Star bar we went back to Manhattan for someone's birthday at the eleventh street bar. Unbeknownst to us it was actually a costume party, although only about half the bar seemed to be participating. Costume highlights include the woman dressed as Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction, complete with a stuffed rabbit in a pot, a guy dressed as Alex my droog from Clockwork Orange and no less than 3 Sarah Palins.

After several cocktails we moved on to someone's loft in the area, but while everyone else was at the convenience store buying more beer I opted for an extra large bottle of mineral water. Partied on the roof to a DJ spinning tunes and managed to sticker one of the Sarah Palins with an Obama/Biden sticker. At about 4 AM I was ready to pack 'er in, but Andy talked me into sticking around to enjoy potato latkes and perogies at some 24 hour dinner in the neighborhood.

Got back to Phil & Tina's at around 6 AM and promptly passed out on the couch.

Sunday: After waking briefly to grab some breakfast with P & T, I passed out again until 3 PM when Bess called to organize meeting up that evening. Ended up choosing to attend an evening of indie/experimental music at the Issue Project Room at the Spiegeltent on Pier 17, which was an eclectic mix to be sure. First up was a noise-rock band from Boston called Neptune who make all of their instruments out of scrap metal and other various things. Next was Tony Conrad, who worked with the Dream Syndicate and krautrock bank Faust, who basically played a modified violin with reverb for about 45 straight minutes. After that was 5 piece blues band.

Being that we were both starving, we ventured up to the lower East side to grab cheap and delicious Chinese food at the Congee Village, where I also enjoyed my first ever apple martini (I know). After catching up over congee and yummy tofu and veggies we both conceded defeat and went our separate ways to sleep.

Back in Astoria I opted to give Louie a call since his plane from Vancouver should have landed by then. Chatted briefly as he was in a cab back to his apartment and once he was settled he came by Phil and Tina's to hang out. Ended up at Mike's again and stayed up until about 1 AM talking.

Monday: Slept a decent amount for the first time my whole trip, then set about helping Phil with his preparations for Canadian Thanksgiving Dinner that evening. I was in charge of desert, so whipped up an old fashioned Quebecois sugar pie & a yummy & spicy sweet potato pie. Other yummy things we prepped included samosa stuffed twice baked potatoes, and a stuffed pumpkin.

At about 2:30 PM Louie came by and he and I made our way to St. Marks Place to arrange for our group tattoos. Luckily they were able to accommodate all four of us and the quote was slightly less than we had originally been told. While we were waiting for the artist to get ready, Louie went up to The Onion offices to grab a copy of the issue with the Sukiyaki Western Django review with my pull quote in it while I waited for Phil. Snuck into Search and Destroy to grab a thank you gift for MC for making sure my cat didn't starve.

Around 4:30 PM Tina showed up and the artist did up sketches of our tattoos. Mine was a little bigger than the others because I opted to get a banner under the house. They were very sweet at the tattoo shop, letting us all take a million photos like the bunch of nerds we are. Phil and Louie left after getting their tattoos to finish the preparations for dinner, so us girls had to tough it out on our own.

Once we were all down we headed back up to Astoria and went straight to Louie's place because we were starving. As soon as we got to the door I was accosted by Louie's friend Heidi, who I hadn't seen in years. Once inside, I proceeded to drink much wine and mingle. Before dinner I helped Louie and his friend Carson from Sarnia put together a YouTube playlist of Canadian Heritage Minutes and Hinterland Who's Whos.

After dinner I chatted outside with a French girl who commented on my Quebecois accent, probably the best compliment I've gotten since I moved out here. I didn't really think about my accent until she mentioned it, but as I was speaking to her I suddenly really noticed the difference between my lazy, low, Canadian French and her more lyric, refined, continental French.

Back inside, things had degenerated into a Rock Band Party, as do most parties I go to these days. Once that started to wind down and people started to go home, Louie got out his Uke for the traditional post dinner Ukulele concert, which went very well, right up until the guy from upstairs came down to ask us to keep it down.

I had started to nod off on the couch when Louie suggested we make a conference call to his parents to tell them about our tattoos, which was funny and lovely. Finally, at around 2 AM, Phil, Tina and I stumbled back to their apartment so I could crash on their couch one last time before scrambling to catch my train home.

Tuesday: Got up at 6 AM and scrambled out the door with my little suitcase in tow and set about getting the supplies I'd need to survive the trip home: food, water, etc. Got on the subway and suddenly realized I didn't have my cellphone. Got off the subway, went back to Phil and Tina's, woke them up, searched the couch cushions and then realized that the damn thing had been in my purse the whole time. Went back out on the street to hail a cab. Forty minutes and $40 later, turned up at Penn Station in time to realize that I'd missed the boarding call for my train by half an hour. After briefly waiting in the Amtrak customer service line, decided to play it safe and asked an elderly police officer where the nearest Greyhound station was. Walked the six blocks to the Greyhound station and bought a ticket for the next bus, which conveniently was leaving in two hours. Put myself directly in the line-up for the bus, since I would be damned if I missed that too, and accepted my bus going fate.

As it turns out, the bus was quite pleasant, and despite leaving two hours after the train, actually got me back to Montreal at the same time the train would have, if not sooner. I even enjoyed our rest stop in Albany. Fuck the train.

Weekend Round-Up: Shows, Shows & Soup!

Friday: Being that I was starting to get a little homesick because I realized I wouldn't be going home for Xmas, I made a date with myself to go see The Evaporators at the Mint Records showcase at Bar St-Laurent 2. Conveniently the bar is a ten minute walk from my house so I spent the evening tidying up and then trundled down just in time to catch Wax Mannequin, a one man prog-rock band, which is exactly as ridiculous and awesome as it sounds.

Next up was The Buttless Chaps, I'd been hearing about for ages but had never been to see. About half-way through their set I noticed someone in the corner who looked strangely familiar. I'd expected to run into some Vancouver ex-pats so I made a point of introducing myself. Turns out she used to work at my local comic book store on Main Street and had been living in Montreal for two years. Just before the second to last act we zipped up to St-Viateur for fresh hot bagels (nom, nom, nom), then nipped back in to finish the show, then exchanged numbers so we could go to movie together some time. Yeah! New friends in town!

Got back just in time to catch one of my new favourite bands (at least they are now, after seeing them live), The Pack A.D. Two women: one on guitar, one on drums, playing amazing striped down blues. Great energy, great sound. Totally check them out if you get the chance if you like that sort of thing.

As per usual I bounced around like an idiot to The Evaporators and I made a point of telling Nardwuar how happy I was that he was in Montreal as I was starting to get a little homesick.

Saturday: Got up hopelessly late and spent most of the day not doing very much. At about 1 PM I went on my weekly bagel run to St-Viateur bagels and stopped off briefly on the way home at the Puces POP craft fair. I had finally tried out Bagel Beaubien last week, which while closer, does not offer flax seed bagels and were kind of lackluster, comparatively. Also, I like people watching in Mile End.

Around 3 PM I finally worked up the will to run the rest of my many errands. First I headed up to Marche Jean-Talon, but got caught up talking to a co-worker and didn't notice that the market was actually closing until it was too late, so I didn't manage to actually buy anything. After that I headed down to IGA to do a quick grocery and almost left without paying. Finally, I went and cast my vote since I'd be on a train most of the 14th and wouldn't be back in Montreal until well after the polls had closed. At least I didn't screw up one task, sigh.

Heated up some leftovers and made my way out to the Drawn & Quarterly bookstore for a vernissage by Jack Dylan (he did a bunch of posters for POP Montreal this year, including an awesome Obey style series of portraits of the four major Canadian political leaders), but there was nobody there so I decided to start walking down to the Just for Laughs cabaret to meet Chris and Lee for the Black Kids show.

Being that I was super early I killed some time drinking a vanilla tea later on St-Laurent and did my best to kill time window shopping/people watching. Ended up being even earlier than I'd counted on by virtue of the fact that the opening act was no longer on the bill.

Didn't realize how hung over I actually was until I started drinking my beer and the fact that my back was killing me didn't help the fact that I felt very, very old as I looked around. I guess that's what happens when I go to see new bands in venues other than dive bars... Didn't really get into the first act, the Virgins, who, as I mentioned to Ali when she arrived, I liked better when they were called TheKillerstrokeferdinands. Opted to leave my perch for the Black Kids, and did have a good time bouncing to the lively, joyful sounds, despite being tired and decrepit.

After the show I went for a beer with Chris, Lee and Ali, despite being rather exhausted, then walked home up St-Laurent.

Sunday: Got up around 9 AM and set about being productive. Went up to Marche Jean Talon and bought a ridiculous amount of vegetables, including some weird broccoli like thing that looked like an angry coral that Chris had dared me to buy the night before. As no one had called me back about going to Puces POP I decided to focus on my culinary plans and set about making 2 kinds of soup and a giant batch of chili. My freezer is now fully stocked for at least two weeks worth of delicious and nutritious lunches (not to mention thrifty!)

Then, to close off my POP Montreal weekend, MC and I went to the Cartune Xprez show, a cartoon-music-performance from the minds of Hooliganship. Difficult to describe, but definitely entertaining. Also, the last part was in 3D, which was super fun. I opted to keep my glasses in anticipation of my Mike Relm DVD, courtesy of the best sister ever since he played in Vancouver but won't be coming to Mtl.

Weekend Round-Up: Vamps, shopping and CAKE!

Friday: A fairly mellow night, punctuated only by a trip to Cinema du Parc to meet up with Chris, Lee & Alex for Daughters of Darkness on the big screen. I was super stoked because star Danielle Ouimet (a.k.a. Valérie) was going to be in attendance. She looked lovely and elegant, radiating the same beauty she did even in her early ingenue roles. She told some very entertaining stories about her difficulties with director Harry Kümel (apparently at one point things devolved into an all-out physical brawl) and her affection for her co-stars, particularly Delphine Seyrig.

I had wanted to ask her for a photograph after the screening, but I totally chickened out. She did seem super nice though, so hopefully by the time I do have my shit together enough to interview her she will be cooperative.

After the movie I opted to walk home, then watched some crap on YouTube before calling it a night.

Saturday: Got up much later than I'd expected, but considering how tired I was from the week I opted not to feel too bad about it. Met up with Alain & MC to walk around and do a bit of shopping. Made the mistake of going to H&M (which, for the record, is the devil) and walked out with what is probably the shortest skirt I have ever owned. I blame the fact that I was having a "skinny" day and everything I tried on looked really good. Also, I deserve clothes that fit me. Yeah, that's it...

After Alain was all shopped out we stopped for Indian food as we all had a craving. I stuffed myself stupid on onion bhajis, extra potato-y saag and some kind of delicious fresh mushroom curry. After dinner more walking was in order, but I'd eaten so much I started to get stomach cramps and had to beg off to take the bus the rest of the way around Mount Royal. Tidied the house a bit, then read and went to bed.

Sunday: Another lazy morning. Finally got around to my bagel run around 1pm, then headed up to IGA for a grocery run. Did a bit of work before meeting up with Gloria from work to bake cakes for Margherita's birthday on Monday. Gloria made an almond chocolate mousse and I pulled out the good-ole Red Velvet Cake. Got home in time to call the 'rents and ice my monster cake before stumbling into bed.

Weekend Round Up: Meetings, JP & Markets

Sorry this is way later than usual, but working two jobs is really starting to kick my ass...

Friday:Since we had another colleague leaving our little translation family, another 5 a 7 was organized for our department. Lucky for me, everyone loved my suggestion of Vices & Versa for the last two 5 a 7s, so we opted to there this time too. However, even though I arranged everything, I had to leave early for a meeting with MJ. Got a little annoyed when she almost stood me up, but luckily we were able to connect and I was actually rather grateful for what ended up being an early, quiet night. Went home after my meeting and watched the penultimate episode of Season 4 of Weeds, which I had been saving for just such an occasion, then nearly pissed myself watching The Angry Video Game Nerd before falling into bed around midnight.

Saturday: In an effort to me more productive, I actually set my alarm for 8 AM, and managed to get-up before 9 AM. Gobbled some soy yogurt and walked down to St. Viateur for my weekly bagel run. I'm surprised they don't just hand me my half-dozen flax seed w/ smoked salmon spread when I arrive I go there so often. But I guess they get a lot of regular customers...

Since my back had been bothering me something fierce this week I forced myself to do some pilates, which actually seemed to do the trick. Then I finally got around to tidying my office and did a quick grocery trip. By about 3 PM I was finally ready to get down to business. Worked on the media package a bit before heading off to yet another meeting with MJ.

After my meeting I was able to hook-up with an old karaoke pal from Vancouver, JP, who was in town impromptu from Toronto. We got dinner in the Village and talked about lives on the Eastern side of the country. We both agreed that it was hard to compare our lives here to our lives there, but it was very nice for me to spend time with someone who'd known me in my former life. After dinner I went home, goofed on the internet a bit and called it a night.

Sunday: Another bright and bushy day, I managed to get showered and dressed in time to meet Rachael and Ben and their baby at the Jean-Talon Market. Got home in time to make up a big batch of potato leek soup with my freshly purchased veggies & finish off a bit of work before my previously scheduled dinner plans. Sadly, those were canceled at the last minute so I consoled myself with some instant ramen (chow mein style!) and Christian Bale & Alan Tudyk (3:10 to Yuma). Called a few peeps out West and tucked myself snugly into bed at a respectable 11 PM.

Weekend Round-Up: Garage Rock, Dinners and Smoochy

Friday: After a slightly more mellow week, had a quick sushi dinner with a friend after work and then hurried home to give mom a happy birthday phone call before zipping down to the Bistro de Paris for the B-Sides album launch party. After blowing $6 on a pint, realized that the half-pitchers were $7.50 and kissed my good intentions for the evening goodbye. Danced like a goof and put out my back and neck, but it was worth it. Good old fashioned, garage-y blues/rock-- my favourite dancing music.

After the show I introduced myself to a couple guys I recognized from Fantasia and followed them to some other garage bar on St. Denis for one last beer. Spent the evening talking to strangers and getting asked questions like, "what model are you?", the correct answer being "1979", which was followed by, "I'm old enough to be your dad". Awesome. Finished the night off with some greasy-ass french fries and a cab ride home.

Saturday: Woke up hungover with a mild case of whiplash. Realized that I am getting too old for this shit, but I doubt that's going to stop me. Spent most of the day in my pajamas watching Weeds, but I did manage to make a couple phone calls, but that's about it.

In the evening I met up with my friends Rachael and Ben from Vancouver and their new baby. They are recent transplants to Montreal and I've been dying for a chance to show them around. Had a nice pasta dinner on Mt-Royal and then called it an early night. Went home and watched the rest of Weeds, then crawled into bed.

Sunday: Got up late and wandered around in a lazy stupor until Alain called to invite me to meet him and MC at the Jean-Talon Market. Took the opportunity to pick-up some much need fruits and veggies & also remembered to grab cat food and litter for K.C. After the market we went back to Al and MC's place where they proceeded to make an excellent Pasta Puttanesca. Drank too much wine and some Turkish drink that tasted like anise & watch Death to Smoochy, which was much longer than we'd expected. Didn't end up watching Dirty Harry like we'd planned, but I guess there's always next time. Wobbled my way back to the Metro and called it a night after a quick call to Van.

Another Crazy Pull Quote!

So another review I wrote is being used in the advertising of a film. This time it's Montreal indie Who Is KK Downey, which opens this Friday at the AMC Forum. And you should totally go see it if you get the chance, it is hilarious!

Long Weekend Round-Up: Leatherface, Jazz & Work, Work, Work

Friday: After another psychotically busy week, I was rather relieved to have some time to chill out at home before going to see the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, on the big screen, at Cinema du Parc with Chris & Lee. It actually my first time seeing it (I know, I'm shocked too), and I'm very glad I waited until I had the chance to see it in 35mm. Despite some 70's fashion and dialogue, it stands up pretty well and while not nearly as graphic as it's reputation implies, I thought it was creepy as hell. Some of my viewing companions thought it was more funny than scary, but I know I'm not going to bother with the blasphemous remake. Also, Rob Zombie is a hack.

Afterwards we went to Benelux for some beers & Chris made the mistake of trying the homemade, non-alcoholic root-beer. I quite liked it, but I have something of a sweet tooth. However, it did have a rather too strong vanilla aftertaste that was a little off-putting.

Saturday: Decided to take a break from working and spent a leisurely day enjoying the warm summer weather that had suddenly decided to appear. Went for brunch near Parc Molson and spent the afternoon drinking red wine and eating sushi in a park. Watched a couple of squirrels fight/fuck, which was mesmerizing and inappropriate at the same time.

Later, a friend invited me to check out The Cinematic Orchestra at Club Soda, and although I am not a jazz fan I decided to be open minded and check it out. Turns out my instincts were correct, as even my friend was underwhelmed by the free-jazzy noodling, but I can't call the evening a total loss because the opening act was amazing. He's a singer-songwriter from Brooklyn named Grey Reverend and I totally recommend checking him out if you like that sort of thing. I think he's best live, where his fierce acoustic strumming carries the most weight, but his lyrics are poignant and clever and heartbreaking.

Sunday: After farting around a bit in the morning, finally got out to Mile End for my weekly bagel run. Managed to get some work done for my second job, but my meeting that morning got pushed to that evening and then to Monday. Thought about going to see Vengeance is Mine at the FFM, but opted instead to stay home and watch The Last Winter, eat baked potato chips and drink mineral water. I was impressed by what director Larry Fessenden was able to accomplish with what was obviously a minuscule budget, but an over abundance of wanky camera techniques took away somewhat from the creepy tone. Still, it was intelligent, well acted and socially relevant, three qualities sorely lacking in indie horror these days.

Monday: Had a meeting re: my second job where I discovered that I will have even less free time this coming week. Oh well, it's good experience with a (very) vague possibility of visits to film fests in the future. After my meeting I had my first bad experience with the Montreal Metro, but that was due in part to my poor listening skills. Finally made it home and cooked up a huge batch of Thai curry using my stash of homegrown basil, that I will be eating for the next two weeks. Made a quick call to my folks and then worked, worked, worked, until I found that crazy pull-quote I blogged about last night. Then worked, worked worked some more until I finally had to sleep.

Holy Crap - Insane Pull-Quote

Being essentially a freelance film critic (read: unpaid), I'm never really sure if anyone ever actually reads the reviews that I write and I don't really have any control over how those reviews are used.

So, when two people on Facebook got in touch with me recently to let me know they saw my review of Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django, I decided to look into it a little more. Apparently a pull-quote from my Film Threat review is being used in the American advertising campaign for the film, meaning my name is all over a bunch of NY papers right now.

Which is pretty crazy, to me.

Although, according to this website (about 3/4 of the way down) it sounds like I was kind of totally misquoted.

Investigating further, I found the American website for the film, including a larger pull-quote right on the friggin' home page! The only other people quoted on the site are Guillermo del Toro, Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino. Bizarre...

Not sure that this really actually means anything, but it is pretty cool to be associated with such a cool movie. And it makes me sound vastly more important than I actually am, which I suppose isn't really that bad.

Film Threat
Gelf Magazine
Sukiyaki Western Django Official Site

Weekend Round-Up: Takin' It Easy

After a hectic week that included attending two free shows at the Apple Store (Plants & Animals and Creature, if you're interested), a potential business meeting and another 5 à 7 with the translation department at Vices & Versa, I decided to play it a bit more casual this weekend.

Friday: After running some errands in Mile End, met up with a friend for dinner on the Plateau. Sadly I don't remember the name of the restaurant (damn aportez votre vin), but it was good, decently priced Italian at the corner of Duluth & St-Laurent. Afterward we stopped at Crèmerie Meu-Meu, an artisanal ice cream place that also does sorbettos and Soy Ice Cream! Can you imagine my joy? While my favourite so far is the fresh green tea sorbetto, I have to say the cinnamon soy ice cream I tried was quite something as well. Went home and listened to music, then called it a night around 12:30 AM because I am old.

Saturday: Feeling quite drained and fuzzy from the hectic week I slept in very late and generally bummed around. Did manage to get out of the house to do my weekly bagel run, but didn't end up doing much aside from that. Thought about going to Place des Arts for Cinema Under the Stars, the outdoor screening series that's part of the Montreal World Film Festival that kicked off on Thursday, but eventually decided I was too tired. Caught up a bit on season 3 of Weeds, called a few people in Vancouver, listened to lots of new music, cuddled with my much neglected cat...

Sunday: Another pretty mellow day. Managed to do some yoga, laundry and a quick grocery trip. Met up with a contact from Fantasia to discuss my possible involvement with her company. I won't say much about it as I'm afraid of jinxing things, but so far it sounds like a great opportunity and definitely more the direction I'd like to take my "career". Right now my duties would consist mostly of writing grant proposals, but it sounds like she also wants to move me into programming, which is just too exciting to contemplate. Then we drank beer and ate dried squid as is the custom in Korean. Got home and called some more people out West, then called it a night.

Ch-Ch-Changes: Part Deux

While this blog seems to be read fairly exclusively by people I already know, and I don't generally like talking too much about my personal life on the internets, I figured it was about time to address the recent change to my relationship status. I'm not even sure I have that much to say about it, but in some ways I guess it is the final step in my "Total Life Makeover" of the last year or so.

New city. New job. New relationship status.

And while I am sad that things with L didn't work out, I am also excited about the future in a way I haven't been in a while. I am listening to music and going to shows. I am getting comfortable in my own skin. I'm cooking again and I'm taking pride in my money management skills. I even decided to give up meat (although I still eat fish), but I don't know if this will be a permanent change or just a phase. I've also stopped using my prescription cortisone cream for my eczema, which despite doctors warnings about thinning my skin, I've been using nearly every day for close to 10 years.

I'm taking care of myself, both in the "get enough sleep and eat enough vegetables" way and the "taking out the garbage, taking the metro at night" sense. It was hard to admit that I was happier by myself, but that's the way I feel right now. And although I'm alone, I have yet to feel lonely. I guess that's part of growing up.

REPO! Review

My review of REPO! The Genetic Opera finally went up!

Link is here.

Fantasia Fallout

So, Fantasia officially wrapped up on Tuesday and I've only just managed to find time to write about it. Not much to say really. Things went out on kind of a whimper with closing film Dying Breed, a fairly standard inbred cannibals in the woods terrorize naive city folk flick that gets points only for properly taking advantage of their Tasmanian location.

Movies I did get to were kind of hit and miss. Sadly going to Vancouver in the middle of the fest really screwed with my momentum and I only got to 21 of the 25+ I was planning on seeing.

Really enjoyed Sukiyaki Western Django, [REC] and Ex Drummer. Didn't like Let the Right One In as much as I thought I would, probably because I was so fekkin' tired. Remind me to rewatch it after I get some sleep... I've already forgotten Truffe. Both docs I saw (Second Skin & I Think We're Alone Now) were surprisingly great, very eye opening. Who Is KK Downey? managed to live up to expectations. Le tueur & La creme were sort of disappointing despite having some really good performances. Sparrow was fun and light. Sasori was ridiculous, but fun. Timecrimes was fun and smart. Before the Fall was very disappointing. The Echo & Midnight Meat Train were underwhelming, but not terrible. REPO was fascinating, but not for the right reasons. I remember really liking What We Do is Secret, but I was still kinda drunk and ended up vomiting after the film... And the less we say about Mother of Tears the better.

I guess the biggest thing I'll take away this year is the people I met, being that it's the first year I've actually had the time to try to network. In some ways it was a great event for me to take part in being new to a city because I met a lot of like-minded people in a very short amount of time, and it was the sort of ego boost I needed to get back into the film writing thing.

Which reminds me. Film Threat finally got around to posting six more of my reviews, which I have linked to for you:

Who Is KK Downey
The Echo
Sparrow
La creme
I Think We're Alone Now
After the Fall

I've got three more I'm working on and two that are pending. I'll post links as soon as they go up.

A Tale of Two Musicals...

Or Why You Should Ignore REPO! and Watch Dr. Horrible Instead.

So, like I told you on Thursday, I got into a press screening of REPO! The Genetic Opera since a) the official Fantasia world premiere screening on Friday night was TOTALLY sold out and b) L and I went to George Michael on Friday.

When I first heard about the project I have to say I had my doubts, but coverage on io9 and in Rue Morgue had piqued my interest. Also, the wacky casting was intriguing and I love me some Anthony Stewart Head. Let's just say that I wasn't entirely surprised with what I saw, just a little disappointed. Which isn't to say it's terrible, it just isn't very good. You can read what I have to say in more detail on Film Threat whenever they post my review.

However, on Friday I also discovered that Joss Whedon's writer's strike project, Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, was in full swing with two of the three acts already available online (click the pic below to watch). Part three went up on Saturday and all three parts still seem to be available on iTunes and streaming on www.drhorrible.com.

I had some time to kill at work so I watched the first two parts and it was very interesting to compare the two projects. While REPO! is more of a full fledged opera, Dr. Horrible is definitely the stronger of the two lyrically and even possibly musically. And this despite Dr. Horrible being a comedy and REPO! aiming for tragedy. Of course it helps that I love all three of the leads (Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion & The Guild's Felicia Day) almost equally (although I think Neil Patrick Harris wins, but only because of that scene in Harold & Kumar where he does blow off a stripper's ass).

Or maybe I'm just more of a closet comic book nerd than I am a closet goth?
What do you think?

Back to the Grind

Okay, so I survived my visit to Vancouver and I'm back at work and reviewing for Fantasia (a.k.a. the film festival that never ends). Only made it to one film yesterday, a press screening of REPO! The Genetic Opera, before meeting L for dinner and almost passing out in my Pho. I'm pretty happy with the review for that one, so I'll be linking to it as soon as it goes up later this week.

Also, thanks to everybody who caught my first movie night column in three years (yikes). If you didn't see it I've linked to it here.

And because I mentioned it earlier, I did managed to record a commentary for Purple Rain with BJ and Damon (no Robin) during my marathon visit to VanCity. If and when it gets posted on the internet I will let you know.

Fantasia: Day 5

Reviewing and working a day job is definitely starting to take a toll on me. I've been averaging two movies a day, but I think I'm only going to make it to The Sparrow tonight, being that I still need to get a hold of people out West and pack for my trip on Wednesday.

Films so far have been more hit than miss, with the biggest miss of all being Mother of Tears on Saturday. Actually, it almost qualifies as so bad it's good, which I'm sure isn't much consolation to Argento fans. L remarked on the fact that everyone who was leaving the theater had the same stricken look like their dad had just died. It really is saying something that the best part of the film, and everyone seemed to agree with me on this one, is the monkey. If you have a chance to see this movie, do yourself a favour and skip it, lest you break your heart. Or at least make sure you've got one hell of a buzz going on.

The other miss was opening film Truffe, which despite some cool visuals and uniformly good performances wasn't quite weird enough for me to recommend. It's unusual for a Quebecois film, but the thin story probably would have worked better as a short.

Surprises so far were MMORPG documentary Second Skin and Miike Takashi's Sukiyaki Western Django, which is way more entertaining than it had any business being. Strange? You bet, but rather accessible by Miike standards. Still, I'd be damned if I could have understood the English dialogue without the English subtitles.

Three of the stronger films I've seen so far were all Spanish: indie horror [REC], which is far more effective than it could have been (I screamed out loud more than once), sci-fi who done it Timecrimes and apocalyptic crime thriller Before the Fall (3 Dias). Out of the three, Before the Fall was my least favourite, due largely to an over reliance on cliche and Hollywood style plotting and character development.

Also good were Who's that Knocking on My Door, a quiet revenge film from Korea and Germ's biopic What We Do is Secret, although I'm going to have to meditate a bit more on this last one. Parts of it reminded me of 24 Hour Party People it the way it captured the energy and excitement of a scene, but some parts were playing it a little safer than maybe they should have.

Another highlight was watching Gordon Liu tear up during the multiple standing ovations he received before and after the screening of Disciples of the 36th Chamber, an airy and infectiously fun Shaw bros kung-fu pic.

I've got to hang out with a bunch of cool people so far, including festival programmers Mitch, Simon, Mi-jeong and King-wei, Simon and Rick from The Naked Lunch radio show and Jason and Rob of Hobo with a Shotgun fame.

And for those who are interested, Film Threat has already posted some of my reviews:

Truffe
Sukiyaki Western Django
[REC]
Who's that Knocking at My Door

And Jeremy and I also collaborated on a pre-festival piece.

My new movie night column, Meeko's Movie Night Massacre will go online tomorrow.

Ooh, and if you wanna check out the Fantasia Trailers, go here. And there are video recaps of each day of the fest on YouTube.

Update

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. Things have been hella busy with Kat & Doug in town last week and my impending trip to Vancouver.

And Fantasia is in full swing and I'm going to be reviewing for two sites: Film Threat and Oddity Cinema.

Also, I started a new movie night column with Film Threat which should be posted to the site early next week.

Upcoming: Commentary for Purple Rain with BJ, Robin and Damon.

Stay tuned.

Recipe: Warm Potato Salad

I mostly came up with this one on my own. An excellent summer recipe, perfect for BBQs.

1/2 lb panchetta or bacon, sliced and cut into 1/2 inch chunks ( I used spicy panchetta)
1 - 2 lbs new potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled
1/4 cup parsley (flat leaf is best), finely chopped
2 green onions, sliced thinly or 1/3 cup finely chopped red onion
Cider or while wine vinegar (I used herb de provence flavoured cider vinegar)
Olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

Chop the onions and parsley, set aside.

In a big pot of boiling salted water, cook the potatoes until just tender, about 12 mins. Immediately drain the potatoes and rise under cold water until cool enough to handle. Roughly chop the potatoes into 1/2 cubes and throw them in a salad bowl. Add the onions and parsley, then drizzle everything with a tablespoon or two of vinegar and toss gently.

Meanwhile, fry the panchetta at medium high heat, stirring to break up the slices. Continue cooking until the panchetta is browned and slightly crispy. Immediately add to the potatoes, including any grease that collected in the pan. Add a tablespoon or two of olive oil to the potatoes, depending on how much panchetta grease there was. Add salt, pepper and any other seasoning you'd like to include. Toss gently and serve immediately.

Serves 4 - 6

Weekend Round Up: Stand-Up, Improv & Tea

Friday: Since L was working late with the art department, I decided to call up my new friend Brandon and his wife to see what they were up to. They are newly arrived from Texas and neither of them knows much French so I'd kind of taken it upon myself to help show them around town. Since Andrea was opening for Joey Elias at the Comedy Nest I suggested we do that since it also met the necessary criteria of being an Anglo activity.

After some not very helpful directions from me, they managed to find their way to the club just as Andrea was getting ready to go on. Her set was good and included some material I hadn't heard before, but for whatever reason the audience wasn't that into it.

Part of Joey Elias' thing is to just talk to people in the front row and riff on what they tell him, and oddly enough the couple he was picking on also happened to be from Texas, which we all thought was extra funny. His set was very long, but there was at least point where I had to wipe away tears and Brandon and his wife seemed rather impressed with their first Montreal comedy experience.

After the show I suggest we go for a drink, but then it came out that they'd never had poutine, so I took them straight to Belle Province to remedy that. We got a family style poutine, but between the three of us we only managed to finish about half of it. Then I looked at the time and realized L was probably freaking out so we opted to call it a night.

When I got home L was lying on his back on the sofa, barely conscious after a 14 hour day. I helped him into bed, despite his incoherent and half-hearted protests and tucked myself into bed.

Saturday: Being that L wanted to hit a public pool at some point in the weekend I insisted in doing a pilates workout at home before going out. While I was in the shower we got a call from Alain & MC who were apparently in our neighborhood at a Spring Tea Seminar and they wanted to know if we wanted to join them for a couple sessions on Sunday. We told them we'd join them for the Intro session and talked them into joining us for brunch at Coco Gallo.

After brunch we followed Alain and MC back up to the Jean-Talon Market and L and I got lost in the Marche des Saveurs du Quebec. We decided to stock up on local beers for when Kat and Doug are in town and I picked up some Caribou pate.

When we got home I realized I was exhausted so I opted to take a nap while L sat outside and called friends back west. When I awoke L let me know that he'd taken the liberty of making evening plans for us. We would be going to an improv show called Argument with a Dolphin that was a part of the Fringe Festival.

The show was very funny and successfully washed the disappointing taste out of my mouth from my last improv experience. The format was similar, a single story interupted periodically for the audience to vote on whether to continue the story. But this time, instead of starting a whole new story, there were merely interruptions, either shorter scenes or other games with provocative titles like "Argument With a Dolphin" or "The Slap". After each interruption we were then given the choice of whether to proceed to another interruption, or go back to the story and with one exception of two interruptions in a row, the evening followed a story, interruption, story, interruption, etc. format.

After the show, Mark, Andrea, MC, L and I decided to walk up to Sergeant Recruteur for a drink and Alain met us on the way. While we paused on Mont-Royal to wait for Alain I ran into my colleague Alexandre and convinced him and his date to join us for beer and pizza.

At the bar I opted to stick to the Frousse, and while I was concerned about my tummy and it's adverse reaction to my shish taouk dinner I was shocked to discover that the beer seemed to settle my tummy. I decided to take advantage of this gastral calm and ordered the Beer Mouse cake. While L admitted to becoming bored with the beers on offer, I have to say that the beer cake would certainly entice me back. Thin cake layers with delicate mouse with a faint beer aroma and a layer of dark beer jelly right in the center. Incredible.

By 11 PM it was down to me, L and Mark so we managed to coerce into coming back to our place to hang out. He and L had another beer and decided to finally check out our creepy basement. Turns out there's lots of room down there for storing beer once we start brewing, although that probably won't be until sometime in the fall.

Sunday: Despite our late night, L and I still managed to get up in time to attend our 11:00 AM intro to Spring Teas seminar. Luckily we got to taste the teas too, otherwise we might not have made it through the entire hour.

After our seminar we met up with L's cousin Annie for breakfast at Coco Gallo, and L started to have second thoughts about our planned afternoon excursion to the public pool at Parc Jean-Drapeau. I pointed out that if he wanted to go to the pool he'd need sandals, so Annie accompanied us to Plaza St-Hubert after breakfast so that we could find L some flip-flops and I managed to find some walking sandals.

However, by the time we'd finished our shopping there were some mighty angry clouds gathering so L chickened out for good and we called Alain and MC to see if we could still register for the afternoon session on Japanese tea since we weren't going swimming after all.

After the second session we stuck around the Market and picked up some boar and pork sausages, corn, and new potatoes for dinner. When we got home I opted to scrap my original plan for the potatoes, butter and chives, and skipped out to get some spicy panchetta, green onions and parsley to make a warm potato salad that L is still raving about. (I'll post the recipe tomorrow).

While I was cooking, at my urging, L called our landlord to inform him that the contractors he'd hired to sandblast our building had not only failed to shield our tiny vegetable garden from clay dust, but they had also repeated dragged their hose through it, effectively killing every last plant in it, effectively break L's heart. Later, L also discovered that they had taken our garbage out of our garbage can and left it instead filled it with murky grey water. L wisely decided to stay out of the house on Monday when the workers were due to return to finish the job as he was afraid of confronting them in a rage.

After dinner we tidied a bit in preparation for Kat and Doug's arrival next week, I called my dad to wish him a happy father's day and we watched as much of the second season of weeds as we could fit in before bedtime.

Weekend Round Up: Improv, Opera and Walking. Lots of Walking.

Friday: Got charmed into going to another All Stars! improv show with Alain and MC at Theatre St-Catherine, which was sadly rather disappointing. The crazy homeless man who kept interjecting/playing with crinkly plastic bags didn't help much, but luckily he left half-way through. It was an intriguing format, but like with most improv it really depends on the players and the night and it just kinda felt like things were a little "off". Also, I was exhausted and nodded off a couple of times. Never a good sign.

Yet, despite my weariness I was determined not to be a complete wimp and so we joined Alain and MC on a walk up St-Laurent to take in some of the F-1 street sale action. Had fun laughing at the Eurotrash and L coveted the twice baked potatoes. Ended up walking all the way home from St-Catherines street, which didn't quite take as long as you'd think, and passed out almost immediately.

Saturday: We were supposed to go L's friends cottage just outside of Ottawa so L could get some practice driving, but I was having a very bad day so we opted to stay home. Called Alain and MC to see what they were up to and after a quick breakfast at a cute little cafe in Mile End we walked down to Mont-Royal to meet them. Turns out Mont-Royal was also closed for street-sale action so I loaded up on cheap cotton undies, half-priced organic cosmetics, not to mention free yogurt (yum!).

After a couple of hours of that we went back to Alain and MC's place to have a sit and Alain whipped up some coffee smoothies for everybody, although I had to abstain for the good of my digestive system. While sitting on the patio L thought better of his baked potato for dinner plan and we opted to go to the awesome Mexican place Alain had mentioned the night before. I got a veggie burrito and horchata, which was a little grainier than I was used to, but still super yummy.

Post dinner we continued down St-Laurent towards St-Catherines so that we could take in a little Crescent St action before hitting Place-des-Arts for Madame Butterfly Under the Stars. However, once we got downtown we realized we didn't have as much time as we'd thought so we decided to just grab a beer at Benelux before the opera. I grabbed an apricot cream ale, while L was seduced by the gold medal winning rye beer.

Being that the boys were a)slow drinkers, b)trying to find reasons to procrastinate, MC and I headed off to PDA alone. It wasn't 'till we got there and saw the sea of lawn chairs that we realized how ill prepared we were. We had a mere 5 minutes to find a spot on the concrete by the far right side of the stage to park our bums. Luckily I had a sweater to sit on for a bit of tail bone cushioning, other were not as lucky.

Despite a restless first act, L did manage to get into it. I was impressed by the fact that they'd managed to find a Japanese soprano to play Cio-Cio San, not just the usual white chick with too much eye make-up. When it was all over I asked L what he thought of his first opera, and his response was, "they were all such jerks, except Mme. Butterfly," which, in my opinion sums things up quite nicely.

After the opera we wandered up towards Crescent, but things were starting to wind down and I was getting super tired so we walked to the Metro and called it a night.

Sunday: L had tried to find us a pool, being that it was yet again, crazy hot; but sadly was unsuccessful. We almost ended up at Parc Jean-Drapeau, but at the last minute I convinced him that we should to to the Tam-Tam. He called our friends Andrea and Mark and they agreed to meet us there. We opted to walk the 20 mins to Mont-Royal park through Mile End so we could grab some fancy groceries for a picnic, a concept L seemed to be having quite a bit of difficulty grasping as it had obviously been a while since he had just hung out in a park.

After our mini-feast of sparking blueberry lemonade, whole wheat baguette, guyere chese, summer sausage and hummus I took L on a tour of the sites. In addition to the drumming hippies and the guys (and girls this time) beating each other with swords there were circus arts and capoera and a girl swinging from a giant sheet tied to a tree. L. was also shocked at the number of people drinking in public, but as usual everyone was so chill about it it wasn't a big deal.

On our way home we got caught in a sudden deluge, and while it was still very warm I cannot say I was all that comfortable being that soggy. Luckily it let up enough for us to grab some Portuguese chicken in Mile End which we happily scarfed while watching yet another installment of Buffy. Since L had to be on set quite early the next day we called it an early night, but not before switching our duvet for our summer quilt.

Weekend Round Up: Birthday, Beerfest and Bad Movies

We were a man down at work this week and it was super busy, so I'm afraid I'm only posting this just as I am about to begin collecting adventures for my next installment... sigh.

Friday: It was my co-worker Gaëlle's B-day on Tuesday so she was hosting a little BBQ party at her place. Luckily she lives quite nearby so L and I were able to walk there, although we did get caught in the rain during the walk back at 1:30 AM. The party itself was quite lively, most of my coworkers showed and we even managed to make some new friends. We were planning on leaving much sooner than we did, but the appearance of SingStar 90's meant that I lost L for close to an hour. Needless to say, he was a hit.

Saturday: Didn't get up nearly as early as we would have liked due to the previous night's hijinks, but still managed to get down to Mile End for breakky before noon. Because they were also running behind we even had a little time to kill before meeting up with Alain & MC to go to the Puces Pop Printemps craft fair, so I decided we needed to get some bagels at St-Viateur Bagel and man am I glad we did. SO DELICIOUS! SO CRISPY... SO CHEWY... SO... drool...

At the craft fair I coveted many things and spent $15 on handmade soap. Rosemary and coffee?! Yum! MC got a super cool silver anatomical heart pendant and some hand cream. Alain and L managed not to whine too much.

Afterwards we rewarded the men for their patience and headed down to the Mondial de la bière (International Beer Festival). Being that they had an extra tasting mug, we stopped by Alain and MC's on our way down to pick them up and had an impromptu Apple Trailers party while drinking delicious roasted Japanese green tea. Then Alain introduced L to GTA and I thanked my lucky stars that we don't have a gaming system that would support such a game (for the record we have a Sega Genesis and an N64), otherwise I would probably also be a gaming widow.

While the threat of rain did seem to keep some people away, the beer fest was quite busy as it generally is on the Saturday.

As MC pointed out, the fest has a genius profit scheme: entrance is free, but tickets are $1 a piece. Each tasting is anywhere from 2 - 8 tickets (usually in the 3 - 5 range) and is equal to about half a pint. So you go in thinking you'll stay on a budget and only get $20 worth of tickets, but by the time you've ingested 20 tickets worth of beer you decided you need "lots more ticketsh!" and end up leaving with a pocketful to scrounge a poutine somewhere.

I started off with a trio of stouts, including one with hints of raspberry, then moved on to a lighter, super refreshing ginger beer. In addition to beer I also had delicious Belgian fries, wild deer sausage on a stick and I had a wild boar & field mushroom hot dog on ciabatta bun with homemade sauerkraut.

While in the men's room, L learned of a tent providing 16% golden ale for a mere 3 tickets so we all decided to make that our last stop (like there would have been a choice after 16% beers), since I'd already made reservations for us at the Comedy Nest to watch my friend Christophe headline his first stand-up gig.

By the time we showed up at the comedy club, we were admitted a little on the rowdy side so we were prompted seated right in the first row. I, in particular, heckled and was heckled by the host (all in a supportive, non show ruining way) and MC was the subject of Christophe's serenading, not once, but twice. All in all the show was quite successful, although I'm sure the fact that we were, in a word, loaded, that much funnier.

After some minor Metro mischief I managed to steer L home and we both passed right out.

Sunday: Being that we were in bed by 11:30 PM, neither L nor I were particularly hung-over, but that didn't stop us from being totally lazy house-bums. We watched some more Buffy the Vampire Slayer (finally on to Season 2!) and L decided to finish watching Dead Silence while I did sudoku and snarked at the badness of the movie. Make that deep and painful badness. I cannot express how bad this movie is. Do not bother, even out of curiosity. It is a train wreck and dumber than a tree stump. A retarded tree stump.

After dinner we popped on Valentine, and I'm still not sure why L rented it. I guess he was on a David Boreanaz kick. Also bad, but in a fun, sarcastic late 90's way. But mostly it is bad. And also REALLY stupid.

French Slang Saturdays: Poche

Poche [adj]: Something or someone that sucks. Can also be another term for "lame", but is stronger than plate. The word literally means "pocket", but I have no idea where the slang usage comes from.

Bouchard-Taylor: Everybody Just Calm the F*%$k Down

Being an outsider in a province with arguably one of the most distinct cultures in Canada does give me a unique perspective on the culture and politics out here, and I've been mulling over how to address the Bouchard-Taylor Commission on Reasonable Accommodation since it started. And now that it has finally release it's report last week, I figured it was finally time for me to comment on it, although I'm opening a can of worms that will take several posts to properly cover.

While the whole circus Reasonable Accommodation had created certainly got everybody's panties in a knot, the final recommendations in the report were unsurprising to anyone with half a brain in their head (or at the very least a passing knowledge of the pedigree of its authors). "The foundations of collective life in Quebec are not in a critical situation," the authors wrote, which makes you wonder why the whole rigmarole got started in the first place. And the reasons are simultaneously complicated and simple.

The simple answer is of course Hérouxville, the municipality of 1,300 that in February of 2007 drafted a code of conduct for it's citizens that included, among other things, a ban against stoning women and the covering of their faces. A reactionary gesture, sure, but a reaction to what exactly? It wasn't as if Hérouxville had been the site of a recent influx of lady murdering Islamic extremists. In fact, the town apparent has exactly one immigrant family living withing it's limits, although the Wikipdeia article for Hérouxville maintains that they have none. It wants more-- needs more, if it is going to survive as a community, they just wanted to make sure they got the "right kind". Which of course sounds like code for "French, Catholic and White", which it could be, even if they don't realize it. Political correctness hasn't taken hold in Quebec the same way it has in other parts of Canada, and I've witnessed surprising casual racism from people I consider educated and aware.

It would be easy to label the whole Hérouxville incident as the result of uneducated, small town, small minded thinking. Except that it hit a nerve. The media went crazy. And the politicians jumped on a bandwagon that seemed to be gathering steam. The right leaning nationalist party, the ADQ, won some startling victories in the March 2007 provincial election to become the official opposition, fueled by populist anger at what they saw as the PQ's failure to protect Quebecois values.

Then, in fall of 2007, in Parti Quebequois leader Pauline Marois finally threw her hat into the whole ugly mess, tabling an "identity" bill that would require new arrivals to the province to swear an oath of loyalty as well as pass French and citizenships tests. The joke of course is that this was the second attempt at a Quebequois constitution the PQ had tabled in less than 6 months. A desperate attempt to stay relevant after being lambasted for suggesting that sovereignty would be on the back burner of her party's agenda after being sworn in earlier that month? The likely answer is yes, especially considering that this is also when the Bouchard-Taylor commission really started to heat up.

See, despite two failed Sovereignty referendums, Sovereignty is still a hot-button issue in Quebec. My own neighborhood has dozens of apartments with Quebec flag placards in their front windows. But let's face it, whipping the people of Quebec into enough of a frenzy to risk winning another referendum would take some serious cash, cahones and charisma and there isn't a party in Quebec with enough of any of these to make a serious stab at it. And so Sovereignty gets traded in for its ugly cousin: Nationalism. And while Sovereignty and Nationalism can seem like the same thing (it's got the word "Nation" in it), Nationalism becomes dangerous because it hinges on that thorny idea of Identity. And Identity is what leads to "Us" versus "Them" and the blatant insecurity that leads to things like the Hérouxville code.

Weekend Round Up: Sudoku, Housewarming and Improv

This should catch me up on round ups, now to tackle vlogging...

Friday: One of the unfortunate side effects of my recent weight loss is that not one of my bras actually fits me, so I decided to stop putting it off and went downtown to rectify the situation. Luckily, LaSenza was having one of their 3 for whatever sales so I was able to get a variety of colours and styles, meaning that I shouldn't have to do this again for some time. Then I wandered into Simons because none of my spring clothes fit either, and low and behold they were having a sale, so yeah, I bought stuff.

By the time I got home it was close to 9 PM and being that I had managed to get L hooked earlier in the week we opted to stay in and finish off Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes, we are lame.

Saturday: Our friend Isabelle was having her pendasion de la crémaillère (literally: "hanging of the chimney hook"), or housewarming for all you Anglos, so we trekked all the way out to St-Eustache in 450 area code. The event was actually quite lovely and we took advantage of the sun by lounging in the back yard. L had fun tormenting Isabelle's cat who had a booboo on his head and had been fitted with a plastic cone to keep her from picking at it. I gorged myself on cheese and red wine and managed not to be sick. At about 10 o'clock the kids were all getting restless so we caught a ride home with Annie and Mel. I felt kind of bad because I got the feeling they wanted to go out in Montreal after getting back, but L and I were bushed and actually passed out shortly after arriving.

Sunday: Despite getting to bed at a reasonable hour we were still quite late getting up and I lounged around doing sudoku for most of the morning. We had been planning to take advantage of Free Day at the local museums, but being that it was approaching late afternoon and things were no doubt quite zoo-y, we opted instead to stay at home and watch Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. I started off loving the movie, but as most reviews I had read warned, by the time the third act rolled around all the cleverness and promise built up in the first half of the movie was replaced by the same tired horror movie cliches it had started off exploding. And they had the audacity to waste Robert Englund in a marvelous against type role as a Dr. Loomis type. However, compared to most contemporary American horror films it is still very smart and original enough in concept to totally recommend.

After wolfing down some homemade mini-pizzas for dinner we dashed down to the Theatre St-Catherine for Sunday Night Improv. I'd been meaning to check out the improv scene here for a while now and being that there were going to be special guests present as Sunday's show marked the end of the third annual Sketch fest, I figured now was our shot. It was an interesting format: competitive with coaches present and a real emphasis on scene building and character development. All of the performers were quite strong but the girl who ended up winning was definitely the strongest of the night. And a couple of the guys were promoting their Fringe show in a couple weeks which we will definitely try to check out.

Long Weekend Round Up: My Last Minute Trip to NYC, A.K.A. Trains, Metros and Subways or, Coney Island WTF

Yes, I am totally, woefully behind on my blogging and for that I apologize. With any luck I will be able to pump out Weekend Round ups for the last two weeks, a vlog or two and maybe even some political commentary before the next weekend shows up. We will see. In the meantime, here's the round up for May 16 - 19.

Friday: After bailing on a camping trip at the last minute, I suddenly got it into my thick little skull that I needed to go to NYC to hang with my Fletcher siblings*, Rock, Slim & Bunny. See, Rock lives in NY now and was getting ready to leave on a comedy tour of Canada and then he was off to camp for the remainder of the summer. Slim had been living in New Orleans with Linda, his wife, but she had recently gotten a job in NY and Slim was in town apartment hunting. Bunny still lives in Van, but was on vacation with friend in NY. And while I was making friends in Montreal, that house did a lot to shape me into the lovable neurotic mess I am today and the novelty of being able to just jump on a train to see everyone was something I could not pass up. So I purchased a ticket and spent Friday stealing myself up for the 10 hour (one way) trip.

Despite needing to pack and get organized, L and I still managed to fit in our traditional Friday night movie. This week it was Candyman, which I had actually avoided at a slumber party as a teenager, opting instead to play Ouija board with my friend's younger sister upstairs. I did not get into horror movies until much, much later and admittedly I still whine and scream and have to sleep with a light on after watching one to this day. In some ways I am glad I put off watching it until I was an adult because, hot damn, is it ever good. On so many levels. It's exactly the kind of heady, intellectual horror that I didn't think got made in America. But the fact that it was made by an Englishman and was based on a story by an Englishman lends credence to that theory. If you've never seen it, or even if it's been a while, I highly recommend checking it out. You'll be glad you did.

After the movie it was straight to bed since I had to be at the train station by at least 8:30 AM, which meant leaving the house at 7:30 AM.

Saturday: L walked me to the Metro in the morning as I started my epic journey on railed transport. The line was already quite long when I got to the station, but I managed to find a spot on the train next to a polite Brazilian woman. Being that this was my second time taking THE TRAIN TO HELL I made sure that I was properly prepared. Blanket to protect me from the freezing air conditioning? Check. Variety of foods and liquids to avoid having to buy a hotdog microwaved in plastic wrapping? Check. An assortment of books and magazines with which to occupy myself? Check. An MP3 player, DS or laptop with DVD player would have also been welcome accessories, but being that I own none of these, I got by alternating between reading and napping.

As I should have expected, the train was late, meaning that I had less than 5 minutes to make it to the theater for Rock's comedy show at 9 PM. Luckily, the train let off at Penn Station, a mere 4 blocks from the Magnet. I made it to the theater with two minutes to spare and entered the lobby to hugs from Slim and Bunny. The show seemed to go very well and afterwards we all went to a local bar called Walter's to hang out.

I met lots of nice people at the bar, including a friend of Slim's from DC who lives in NY now and her cousin from California who I got to talk hockey with (go figure, he's a Pittsburgh fan), as well as a nice lady who let me hold her autoharp. Afterwards we caught a cab to Rock's place in Queens and I pretended to strangle a 22 year old wrestling enthusiast with his seatbelt. He'd even shown me picture of him in spandex!


Sunday: Being that it is one of Rock's favourite places in the world and he had yet to make his annual pre-camp pilgrimage, it was decided that Sunday would involve a trip to Coney Island. On our way to the Subway we stopped at a bagel shop to get some nourishment and much to my astonishment I was able to get mine with tofu spread in lieu of cream cheese. My heart seldom knows such joy. While waiting in line a (very) New York cop tapped me on the shoulder to ask about my tattoo and was very disappointed when I told him I had gotten it done in Vancouver as he loved the work and was looking to add some more ink to his collection. I did my best not to squeal, but even Slim was impressed by the genuine coolness of this member of the NYPD.

After an hour and a half on the Subway (the length of the L line, in fact) we made it to Coney Island just in time for the rain to start. Joy. While waiting for Bunny and her friends, Rock, Slim and I rode the Cyclone twice, but opted to put off riding the Wonder Wheel until they arrived. We killed time in a pathetically ill-maintained spook house with a hilarious animatronic vomiting man out front, although I did feel a little bad that Slim had to ride in a car all by himself and thus didn't have anyone to turn to aghast as rubber Halloween decorations held together with duct tape wobbled feebly on their worn-out springs.

After having blown $5 on that mess we wandered up to Cha Cha's for a drink, but there was some sort of post-church luncheon going on so we had to find seats at the bar to watch the assembled five year olds crawl around on the stripped pole by the stage. Slim wisely ordered a White Russian which prompted the woman behind the bar to point at herself, because apparently she was a "White Russian". Rock and I tried to order pina coladas, but they were all out so we got strawberry daqueries and proceeded to get even colder than we already were. Eventually Rock was so chilled that he had leave to buy a hoodie from one of the local crap merchants.

Bunny and her friends finally arrived to join us for a drink and then we all opted to explore the boardwalk a little bit. Sadly, by this point Deno's was closed, meaning no Wonder Wheel, and Slim had left so we opted instead to ride the Cyclone a third time.

By this point it was pouring, so we found shelter in an arcade and played a bit of skee ball. Then we went back to the subway to pick-up Rock's friend Rosy who had just arrived. While on that side of the amusement area we stopped in at Nathan's for hot dogs and everybody else got ice cream at the candy place next door. Which is where I think I found the single grossest confection possible: candy glossed marshmallows. My fillings hurt just thinking about it.

After that the plan had been to hit the Freakshow, but it was also closed. So Rosy and Louie rode the carousel for what seemed like half-an hour while a small Latino child hollered his guts out before the guy selling tickets was able to yell at the guy operating the thing to shut it off. Then we decided to leave.

Back in Manhattan, Rock went back to the Magnet to prepare for his Buckshot and Benny show and I got some decent cheap Indian food across the street. The show was excellent as usual and afterwards we went for a drink with Kaitlin (a.k.a. the other half of BnB) and her boyfriend Alistair and I got to talk about how I hate smoked meat (sacrilege, I know).

After all that Rock and I took the subway back to Queens and I chatted with his roommate briefly about working in the video game industry. In yet another example of the world being too damn small, it turns out his roommate is head of development for a studio loosely affiliated with the company I work for and was on his way to Quebec City to lay down some smack. Being that I am very new to this industry it was really cool to be able to talk shop with someone who'd been immersed in it for some time and it was unfortunate that we both had to get up so damn early the next day for our respective trips as I would have really enjoyed getting more inside dirt. Next time, I supposed.

Monday: Got up before my alarm and wrote a nice note thanking Rock and his roommates for putting me up which I left next to the Caribou and Maple Syrup I'd brought down with me as peace offerings. Then it was on to the bagel shop to grab breakfast and lunch and a bunch of juice smoothies to replenish vitamins.

Back at Penn Station I was surprised at how comforting it was to hear people speaking French all around me in the line to get on the train. While the trip back home was supposed to be shorter than the trip there, we got held up at the border for what seemed like hours and it ended up taking even longer, meaning that in three days I had spent 23 hours on a train. L met me at the station and we had dinner at Nickel's before taking the Metro home.

*Background: Near the end of my last year of University I moved into a shared house in a residential neighborhood near school with a bunch of friends. We called ourselves the Fletcher family and we all had Fletcher names. Mine was Nancy.