All of us, but especially Victor, have been delighted to have Caper and his mom, Laura, visit us from Texas this week.


  posted by John : 4:55 PM

 
I thought Katrina sounded like a Ruskie name. A guy in Idaho is putting all the pieces together.

  posted by John : 8:23 AM

 
Rain or Shine


Festivals like the Austin City Limits music festival have very fragile economies, and can't afford to have a bad year much less a devastating one. And short-notice rescheduing of such a huge lists of acts would be impossible. But I can't imagine them not cancelling at least Saturday's events since a giant category 1 hurricane is due to come through in the evening (right around the time Widespread Panic is due to hit the stage). This Austin Statesman article says the decision of whether to cancel is being considered. No doubt the thousands fleeing the coast would be well served if they went ahead and cancelled now to free up some hotel rooms.

Closer to our own world - I really hope that huge tree in front of our house can stand the winds that will be coming through there.

  posted by John : 2:50 AM

 
A fun short story from Nick Hornby via realaudio on a This American Life episode from a few weeks back. From a collection of short stories for kids with a very long title. Starts around 32:00 min mark of the program. Much clearer to listen to the archives vs. live streaming. I've been going to sleep to episodes of this show lately. But I always fall asleep, then wake up in the morning and resume where I left off.

  posted by John : 7:54 AM

 
I saw a big guy today walking at Yonge & Dundas wearing the same T-shirt as this guy. Made me laugh. I haven't been laughing much here in Toronto lately, so it was refreshing.

  posted by John : 5:22 PM

 
After the flood
Last week's This American Life program featured in depth stories from New Orleans. They'll be airing another program this weekend, with the archive available next week.

  posted by John : 8:31 PM

 
Tonight I saw the first of the three non-documentary picks at the film fest: Sunflower, by Yang Zhang (China). The story of a father son relationship spanning 32 years. I saw the father character as symbolic of the Chinese communist party with his discipline and control over the son. Yet it also worked on a more universal level. This was a great one to see at the festival, because a) it was gorgeously filmed, and b) its doubtful that it would be released here

Sharon's gone back to TX for a little while, so I saw this one on my own. Which I really don't mind. Since it screened at the Art Gallery, I took a walk through chinatown afterwards, and filled up on a famous big-wonton soup at the recently renovated King's Noodle. I prefered the old tacky decor, but fortunately the food is the same.

  posted by John : 7:32 PM

 

For Dan: Memories of Tokyo.

  posted by John : 3:13 PM

 
Victor's last visit?


The way this legislation reads, Victor could be taken from us if we're stopped at the border into Ontario and somebody wants to make a case that he is a pit bull.

In offence proceedings, the amendments provide that the prosecution must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt and that, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, a veterinarian's certificate attesting that a dog is a pit bull is evidence of that fact.

That's too vague for me. Anyone could call him a pit-bull. Just as easily as someone could state that his appearance is not 'significantly' that of a pit bull. Just as Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant said in his press conference announcing the ban last fall (in case anybody forgot that government idiocy knows no borders):

if it looks like a pit bull and barks and wags its tail like a pit bull, it's a pit bull

Here's a very detailed and passionate retort to the AGs statements by Marjorie Darby, who set up the goodpooch.com site, apparently in protest of this law. Goodpooch also has a page with many letters reporting attacks toward pit bull owners - which I haven't personally experienced to any severe degree, but I'm expecting it. None of the many similar pleas for common sense on this issue were heeded, since bill 132 is now law. Actually its an ammendment to a law, and we're in a grace period now regarding enforcement until Oct 29th.

Sharon and I don't know what we'll do regarding travelling here with Victor next summer. Do we find someone to look after him and our house while we're away, rather than bring him along? Or do we just bring him anyway, and if successful in crossing the border with him then we pretend he lives here ... and then consider whether or not to fully comply and get him a muzzle? He'd hate that. And I really can't imagine border officials being willing to make decisions as to the breed of that dog in the back seat (of course we have papers from our vet that say he is a lab cross, but who knows how the rules will be applied).

Or maybe the law could be revoked by next year? I understand Clayton Ruby is on the case to challenge the constitutionality of this law (if you want to read this but don't want to subscribe to the Globe site, try the first entry returned by this Google search). It will be interesting to read/hear about cases of this law being enforced in November and afterwards.

  posted by John : 2:47 PM

 
Another day, more fine flicks... Four films made for the NFB and the CBC by Don Owen (including Ladies and Gentlmen, Leonard Cohen), when seen together really show how this filmmaker relies on chance in his projects. By bringing his crew to where the subject happens to be and trusting that chance will, hopefully, create something interesting or visually compelling in front of the camera. Showing Cohen rolling the dice and reading from the I-Ching or artist Michael Snow taking fairly random self-portraits from a gondola in Venice shows how his characters have come to rely on chance in creating their works as well.

Also yesterday was the best film we've seen so far - The Heart of the Game. A kind of Hoop Dreams for girls, with just as many twists, highs and lows as that influential film had. My only negative observation was the dirty lens while shooting an important game. But the story is told so excitingly that spots on the screen don't make any difference. No doubt this will get a theatrical run sometime in 2006. And maybe a video to film transfer and some cleanup can be done to make it really shine. The basketball coach, star player and her mom were in in attendance and stayed for Q&A along with the director. Which is what going to the trouble of seeing these films at a festival is all about, having that additional insight into projects that, as in this case, can take many many years of never knowing what the "story" is before it is finally revealed. We gave it a 5 out of 5 - but there were too few people in the audience to make voting for any award matter.

Today we're off to see a Leonard Cohen tribute/concert film with McGarrigle/Wainwright performances that I'm looking forward to. I'm almost getting inspired to get my own camera out and point it at things if I have more time off work -- we'll see.

  posted by John : 9:45 AM

 
The first two films we've seen have been top notch. I especially enjoyed Sketches of Frank Gehry. Shamus, I think you'd enjoy this one. About the Toronto-born architect who designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. A patient study of the man and his iterative design process in which, together with his many assistants, he sculpts his creations with paper and scotch tape. He also shares a bit about that amazing process of sleeping on it, where coming back to a piece after a nights sleep can affect the artist's perspective. I immediately saw the parallels to the approach of Federico Fellini in making films: non-technical, always striving to hold the vision of the work in his mind, rather than becoming distracted by two-dimensional representations. Fellini also was known for taking daily naps to have his dreams inspire the development of the film. This would have been an interesting line of inquiry for Gehry too, since his buildings are so dreamlike.

  posted by John : 7:52 AM

 
Fun with Google Earth
If you have Google Earth installed, you can then open a kmz link to view a saved map like these: Area 51, top 10 sites, or this one I saved of Fuego - an active volcano in Guatemala (from this one try tilting down until you see the horizon, then rotate the compass to WNW and fly straight ahead across a range of volcanoes to Lago de Atitlan).

Or you can go nuts and join the many other armchair earth tourists out there in the Google Earth Community.

  posted by John : 9:20 PM

 
Final, final film fest picks...

Friday September 9, 2005 Sisters In Law, Kim Longinotto, Florence Ayisi, 2005 PARAMOUNT 4 6:30 PM Saturday September 10, 2005 Sketches of Frank Gehry, Sydney Pollack, 2005 VISA SCREENING ROOM (ELGIN) 12:00 PM Sunday September 11, 2005 Into Great Silence, Philip Groening, 2005 ISABEL BADER THEATRE 12:30 PM The Well, Kristian Petri, 2005 VARSITY 3 8:15 PM Monday September 12, 2005 Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen, Don Owen, 1965 VARSITY 7 12:15 PM Snow in Venice, Don Owen, 1970 VARSITY 7 12:15 PM Richler of St. Urbain Street, Don Owen, 1971 VARSITY 7 12:15 PM Monique Leyrac in Concert, Don Owen, 1966 VARSITY 7 12:15 PM The Heart of the Game, Ward Serrill, 2005 ISABEL BADER THEARE 4:45 PM Tuesday September 13, 2005 Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man, Lian Lunson, 2005 VARSITY 8 3:15 PM Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and company, Allan King, 2005 CUMBERLAND 3 7:00 PM Friday September 16, 2005 Sunflower, Zhang Yang, 2005 JACKMAN HALL THEATRE - AGO 5:30 PM Saturday September 17, 2005 Pavee Lackeen, Perry Ogden, 2005 CUMBERLAND 1 11:30 AM L'Enfant, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, 2005 RYERSON 2:45 PM

  posted by John : 7:22 AM

 


  posted by John : 8:44 AM

 
News almost missed: Ben Kerr, Toronto's King of Cayenne has moved on to that great streetcorner in the sky. We used to see him play at an open mike at UofT in the 80s. He had the purest voice both when he spoke and when singing his many original songs, attributed in full to his daily doses of his cayenne pepper cocktail. I remember him asserting that the recipe for the tomatoey drink was a secret (never was quite sure why?). It may be lost along with his singing. One night Bob and I went to see him play his songs at some dungeon of a bar on Queen St. We were the only ones there for the first set, and I have to say that while Ben was an enjoyable character, a few of his songs went a long way. I was relieved when others showed up to allow us to make our halftime getaway. But I was very happy to spot him crooning with some young woman by his side on the corner of Yonge & Bloor more than a decade later.

  posted by John : 12:13 PM

 
 My plan for the day: Donate, turn off the TV and go have a nice long weekend.

  posted by John : 7:17 AM

 
Like everyone else, I've been asking myself why is it that here on the 3rd day of flooding in New Orleans there are still so many stranded, desparate, thirsty people waiting for help? For one thing, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco was too busy praying instead of actually doing something to solve the problem. George W. Bush is well known for using this same technique in times of disaster.



Uh, I guess we're just not praying hard enough?

addition...

If yesterday was about praying, today the Gov is taking action: She said of the soldiers: “They have M-16s and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot to kill . . . and I expect they will.’’


  posted by John : 1:27 PM