Important announcement

Slooporonto: Edition 2 was going to bring you news from the Julie Doiron concert tonight, but alas your intrepid reporter has fallen sick with cold. There is a faint chance I may still make it, but if I don't I will instead offer you the first edition of Slooperature, where I will discuss what I have been reading during my one day of convalescence.

Sloop-oronto: Edition 1

This begins my first edition of Sloop-oronto, a segment where I bring tales of my Toronto cultural experiences. Tonight: BASH'd at Passe Muraille.

SOME BACKGROUND INFO:

Theatre Passe Muraille pretty much wrote the book on alternative Canadian theatre. In the 1970's they were THE avant-garde Canadian theatre company, doing radical leftist, often site-specific theatre with the nationalist bent that would come to define the alternative Canadian theatre movement. For this, they will always be my heart. As is the case with most of the alternates though, over the years they institutionalized and mainstreamed (and acquired walls, despite their name). Some consider this heresy, others a natural and inevitable evolution. In recent years they have run into financial difficulty and now are trying to rediscover their place in the Toronto theatre community. They have opted for a 'midwife' role, working with and nurturing talented individuals and companies, and sharing with them the resources of Passe Muraille.

BASH'd

I am too lazy to reread my program, but BASH'd started in Alberta, I believe as a Fringe piece, and has since gone on to big things, including a successful off-Broadway run. The show, a 'hip-hopera' is essentially two white dudes rapping about being gay. And it is OFF THE HOOK. The energy pouring out of the two actors is full-force, non-stop gusto for the entirety of the 75-minute showtime. They pretty much never stop rapping.

The plot is as follows: gay boy from the country meets gay boys from the city, they fall in love, get married, country boy's parents accept his orientation, and everything is story-book happy. Then one of the characters gets viciously attacked in a hate crime. He survives, but he and his partner clash over how to go on in the aftermath. Retreat and lick your wounds, or match violence with violence?

I really loved how they made their reaction to the hate crime, and not the hate crime itself, the focal point of the play. It felt, in a lot of ways, like they were picking up where Laramie left off. It also kept that old tired victim/aggressor dichotomy at bay.

I could ramble on here about my issues with hypermasculinity and violence and how the play dealt with them but this ain't no essay and I did not mean to spend very long writing this.

Anyways. To conclude, I will say that the use of the hip-hop genre worked explosively well. For me, this play was an example of musical theatre at its finest. Others might dispute that this play fits into the musical theatre genre, but I will be happy to argue that point with them (and more than likely will have to soon with a certain musical theatre-hater I know). The rhythms of the rapping molded the emotional rhythms of the play like a heartbeat, to incredible dramatic effect.

Well, that's it for edition one. Here's what you can expect upcoming on Sloop-oronto.

Julie Doiron and Herman Dune in concert (okay, I might leave before Herman starts. We'll see)
Battle of the Blades Live: The Results Show (because fucking Ticketmaster bought out the performance night)
Elliott Brood in concert
John Ralston Saul at the AGO
Peter Mansbridge and Rex Murphy at the Appel Salon
The Nightingale at the COC

So stay tuned!

Thought of the day

That 'oh my god what the fuck are we going to do with our lives' angst that began in university did not end with graduation, but rather grew and continues to grow and it is not that we don't have the foggiest idea what we want to be, we have seven foggy ideas and not a clue how to attain any of them.

To paraphrase Caroline in the City, "your twenties are such a waste. If you don't drink, there's really no point."

Can I wake up and be thirty and settled now?

Phew

Good news guys, I did some research, and it turns out Quebec City survived the American siege and is now a thriving metropolis of 700 000. I know it was touch-and-go there for awhile and I think we can all safely breathe a sigh of relief.

The consequences of watching youtube clips of Canada: A People's History nonsequentially.

OH MY GOD BENEDICT ARNOLD IS MARCHING ON QUEBEC CITY! WE ARE ALL DOOMED!

The next clip is the Plains of Abraham and I am left totally hanging. WHAT HAPPENED TO ARNOLD AND QUEBEC?

This is what I get for not caring in grade 10 history. I really need to get up to snuff.

I will not know gravity

Some real bombshells have dropped the last few days, nothing that has to do with my life but much that has to do with my friends' lives. And although it does not change how much I love them, I am just all-around stunned, horrified, and my perspective has just taken an incredibly abrupt and much-needed turn.

At the same time, I have felt more at home in these past few days than I have in ages. There have been so many Virginia Woolfesque moments of the sublime recently. Being doubled over on Queen Street laughing at Zara's remarks about my pockets. Writing in a drafty Second Cup with Ian and Christine's faces visible behind my computer screen and Great Lake Swimmers in my ears. Eating a homemade dinner on my floor watching ridiculous TV with four friends sitting in chairs above me, bickering and mocking and giggling. After spending so long attempting to establish my geography and my history, I am in the here and now, in my time and place, and I am embracing it.

Love this town, birthday edition

Epic hashbrowns at Patterson's, epic cocktails at the new Olive Branch. Wandering and basking in all those well-worn places.

Mercilessly mocked for map of Canada and laughed harder than I have since I-don't-know-when. Ducky's to tent to Ducky's to tent to B.A. crowd surfing on an inner tube.

Reunions right left and centre. Familiar faces, both expected and unexpected.

I am so comfortably me here; I miss this.

I love this place like I love no other, but I don't want it to be that way. This can't sustain. I want to fall for another place. Maybe Tuesday will be the push I need.

Love this town

Actual timetable of today was significantly different, due to an I-might-not-graduate freakout. However I pulled through and redrafted and convinced my advisor not to fail me and now I can get back to the matter at hand: SAPPY. (or should I say Soppy?) (or should I say thinly veiled excuse just to be in Sackville?)

We were lame and abandoned halfway through Eric's Trip. But walking back to residence with friends in Sackville rain feels about as awesome as any rock show.

Tomorrow's timetable

Sometime between 8:30-9:30 - wake up, attempt to hash out lesson plan for day while half-awake

10:00 - attempt to do run-through with children, grow frustrated with their incompetence.

11:15 - give up on run-throughs, epic game of turtle tag

1:15 - Henry IV, presented by the intermediate class, performs for the parents. The children dress up funny, say words they do not entirely understand, clang swords together, and look cute. The parents clap.

2:00 - FREEDOM GOD LORD FREEDOM.

2:15 - Pack up, clean up, dance around house in excitement. Leave for bus station obscenely early, as the travelling Sloopies always do (what if I get waylaid by roaming youths?!?! I must factor that in!)

4:00 - leave on bus to Saint John, then Moncton. Attempt to MRP on bus.

8:00 - arrive in Moncton (god willing on time). Become overwhelmed by nostalgia brought on by Moncton bus station. Nevermind that the majority of my memories of the Moncton bus station involve sitting around for hours bored reading MacLeans.

8:15 - get on bus to Sackville (god willing on time). Ride wave of nostalgia all the way there. Mist up repeatedly.

9:00 - Arrival in Sackville (god willing on time). The trek with luggage to Campbell, combined with overwhelming anxiety to get to mainstage as fast as possible, will leave me sweaty and vibrating with excitement. Literally. Shaking. Vibrating.

9:45 - arrive at mainstage, still vibrating. Can I pick up my will-call tickets there? Nobody knows!

10:00 - in the mainstage engaging in joyful reunions and dancing. Alternately, skulking sadly outside mainstage having been unable to pick up will-call tickets, hoping to find friendly faces outside.

OH MY GOD SACKVILLE. I HAVE MISSED YOU SO.

Death by nostalgia

Halifax kills me. Kills me.

Still committed to moving to Toronto in September. Nevertheless. The Maritimes. They're like an old crush I can't get over.

Tick-tock of a Guelph summer day

7:35 - stumble out of bed
7:50: start making the 45-minute walk to campus to meet with advisor. I think the walk will wake me up. It doesn't, but Guelph morning is rather lovely.
8:35: meet with advisor. We agree on my paper outline, we hack out a timetable, he explains to me why the Toronto Island airport is unethical. Efficiency central.
9:00: Breakfast in the UC food court combined with catching up on some emails. Accidentally send an email meant for Zara to a charitable society resulting in some confusion and major embarrassment, but I am able to see the humour. Resubmit research ethics forms, get bus sticker, check some Barthes out of the empty, empty library. Bus home.
11:00: Arrive home. Drink tea and finish reading Josh MacDonald's Whereverville (a play about Newfoundland ten times better than those damn Mercer plays) on the porch.
12:00: Begin reading Josh MacDonald's Halo. Interrupted by arrival of roommates, and roomate's annoying girlfriend. Call Bell to activate our phone line while roommates loudly discuss stuff and holler things at me. An epic 45-minute phone odyssey of annoyance.
1:00: roommates clear out of house. Curb Your Enthusiasm and grilled cheese with bacon. Larry David buys a lot of sponge cakes.
2:00: leave for gym (now a half-hour bus ride from my new home, but I've got the time). Elliptical 30 minutes, treadmill 20 minutes. All while watching Desparate Housewives.
4:30: get home to roommate strumming on guitar with Flight of the Conchords in the background. Sit on couch and talk about how I should shower.
5:00: actually get up and shower.
5:45: leave for McCabe's. Leisurely dinner and drinks with roommates and Zara. Loud argument about the alleged necessity of actually buying drinks while in bars. Theme park analogies abound.
9:00: leave McCabe's for the Albion. A couple games of pool.
10:15: home. realize I am going to be in Halifax in a few days - maybe I should be getting my ducks in a row?
10:20: meh. That is tomorrow's challenge task.

Random

All of a sudden I really wish I was in Disneyland. No apparent reason. Just in the mood for some good old-fashioned American corporate-controlled family fun. And a Mickey-shaped ice cream bar.

Sometimes it takes the night to fall

Found a summer sublet and whole life outlook has improved immensely. It's got a total student vibe, which maybe I should have outgrown but after so many months living in a place with a retirement home vibe, I'm ready for more youthfulness. I'm going to be living with three of my classmates. Two of the guys are the official badasses of our program, sassy as hell but smart as hell too. We are all going to make an awesome posse. The place is close to downtown, on a shady tree-lined street. It has a back porch with a barbecue and three chickens who hang out in the yard. I am already in love with the idea of summer nights porching. We're making all sorts of grandiose plans, for house shows and guitar lessons and jam nights and movie nights and family dinners. Most of it will probably never happen, but it's so nice to have some sun on the horizon.

Serious case of the blahs going on one week. Watching a lot of 6th and 7th season West Wing, wishing I could either be CJ or marry CJ. Is that strange? Yes I think it is. Meanwhile, I am watching my deadlines as they whiz by. Motivation has gone down the tubes. Plus my roommate is having continual crying fits today and the walls are thin. There's really something to be said for pulling a Tobias Funke and crying in your nevernude shorts in the shower, with a facecloth in your mouth so nobody will hear you. Plus the conditioner will help your self-esteem.

I am actually a terrible person.

Nonetheless, the end is in sight. There is a summer sublet with potential. And Marley and Me was better than expected. So that's something.

So the spring has sprung, and with it my desire to go everywhere I ever have been in sunny times. I want to read Virginia Woolf on the beaches of St. Malo; meander along Dawson's boardwalks; ride Stanley Park's complimentary shuttle through all the greenery; play cards at Silver Lake and then make the long walk back downtown to collapse on B-Street's patio. Not gonna lie, mostly I just want to do the last one. Still, Guelph in the summer has potential. For now though, I've got a week to write a paper on CBC Radio3 and Canadian regionalism. Which also has potential. I suppose.

Below is an example of why I stopped blogging in the first place. Wayyyyyy too much angst. All went well, I feel supported. Not entirely convinced that anything worthwhile actually goes on at such conferences, but nevertheless. Soooo much free juice and cookies.

I can't. . . .I have to study

Tomorrow is the major colloquium for all of the masters students in the drama/English program. I also feel as though it's going to be the moment where I decide whether or not I'm going to continue past the masters level, with my one-foot-in-academia-and-the-other-in-the-theatre plan, or just go for the theatre whole hog. That in and of itself might not seem unusual. But what is unusual is that I'm not basing my decision on my performance in the colloquium. I'm basing my decision on whether or not the rest of my classmates show up. We've all been agonizing over this together, and we're all supposed to go to everyone else's panels, but I'm in the first panel of the day, and from the rumblings I'm hearing, it seems like everyone is planning to skip the morning panel to polish/finish their presentations. This kind of situation seems to be endemic to this program/Guelph/academia in general. Study before life. Study before fun. Study before supporting friends. Above all, study. I hate this mindset and think it's a stupid and unnecessary way to run your life. And if, tomorrow, I don't see some sort of glimmer of team spirit and solidarity, then I'm getting my degree and getting out, out, far out. Because the self-involvement of the most utterly spoiled actor ain't got nothing on the narcissism of academics.

Smoosh

Awkward turtles in class today. We start telling the prof there's no way we can get our papers done for next week, he says fine, he won't take off late marks, but then lays in with a massive guilt trip about how Good Graduate Students Obey Deadlines etc etc. Does not really bother me, but two of the girls in the class are in tears. One of them is sitting beside me, and even though she's a wonderful person and I feel bad that she's crying, I can't even bring myself to touch her on the knee or the shoulder or do anything comforting that would show that I cared. And walking home one of my other classmates starts talking about how she's at her breaking point and is just really really in need of a hug. And instead of responding with a hug I just make some joke, which I can't even remember now, so we can rest assured that it wasn't a good joke. Apparently physical affection is just not in me to give these days. Was it ever? I want to be warm to people, and treat them the way I would like to be treated if I was in their situation, but I freeze.

This blog is quickly degenerating into feelings. Comic relief comic relief!

http://failblog.org/2009/03/01/language-fail-3/

Failblog shall see me through.

Adventures in academic excess

Proposal for 8-page, 10-minute colloquium presentation=400 words. Rational.

Accompanying bibliography=38 sources. IRRATIONAL.

Some day I am going to have to learn how to focus my research. However, that day is obviously not today.

Also, at this point I'm not saying anything that hasn't already been said. Said by one of the profs in my department, to be exact. Dear me.

However I can take solace in the fact that the prof marking this ridiculousness specializes in Victorian Women's Lit. So I'm fairly confident in my ability to say anything about rural Canadian theatre and get away with it.

THIS JUST IN: Rural theatre in Canada started with a travelling troupe of NARWHALES under the direction LOUIS RIEL.

Yep. Academia and I are going to get along fine.

Back from Chicago after the perfect amount of time spent there. We still had some stuff left on the list but I was at my limit of pavement-pounding, museum-ogling, L-train riding urban American goodness. Highlights include: riding the flying raccoon (an airline Zara and I can agree on), various encounters with gruff Chicagoans (man are they gruff), cafe/bar-hopping through North Chicago whilst waiting for Second City to start, argument about Combos over delicious Cajun dinner, winding up in the middle of a kazillion little cheerleaders at Navy Pier (which really ignited my feminist ire). Etc etc.

Now I'm back and ready to work like a fiend for the rest of this break. Getting back to Toronto/Guelph I felt no sense of happiness/relief/home. I am trying to love this place but just can't make a connection to it. I feel the same way towards Vancouver. Maybe I'm just a very black-and-white person, I don't like something at all until I'm head-over-heels for it. Maybe I'm built for rural lands. Maybe living the grad-student life is not conducive to connecting to the community. Maybe maybe maybe. I will continue to ponder this.

For shame Ontario!

One of my profs today started describing a liberal arts college to us, stating, "these don't exist in Canada, only in America."

And I was all, like, "ummmmm, if they don't exist in Canada, then how did I go to one?"

This led to a rather long (and completely off-topic for the course) exchange where he explained to me what exactly a liberal arts college was, and I explained to him that yes, Mount A and St FX and Acadia were indeed that.

But seriously folks. I don't expect a layman off the streets of Ontario to know of these schools, but somebody in academia should know. There aren't that many Canadian universities to keep track of, dudes!

I'm also discovering that nobody in Ontario knows what an Acadian is. Seriously? I learned about them in high school and that was way the hell over in BC. A province as close to the Maritimes as Ontario should definitely be teaching this stuff to their youth.

Okay, enough bitterness. I think I am just run down today and when that happens, I take out my anger on the province. Like railing against whitey, it calms me down.

From Late Nights on Air:

"It was north of sixtieth parallel and shared in the romance of the North, emanating not mystery but uniqueness and not right away. It had no breathtaking scenery. No mountains, no glaciers, in the winter not even that much snow. But after a while it grew on them, on some of them at least, on the ones who would never forget, who would think back on their lives and say, My time there was the most vivid time of my life"

Lectured for the first time today. About 15 minutes short of material. How on earth do profs do it? I literally gave the ENTIRE history of theatre and labour (and inserted some jabs at Stephen Harper in the process). And still. 15 minutes short. Obviously the key to academic success lies in slow talking.

In my media studies seminar today the discussion of the intersection between class and race turned into a discussion of the Cosby Show. I think the prof brought it up as an alternative to using Obama as an example. At any rate, everybody was so damn knowledgeable about that show that it was quite amusing. Behold the power of (80's sitcom) television over our lives. . .

Tumblr posts

Recently got a tumblr blog, but have deemed it inadequate due to inability of fellow people to comment upon. Here at the entries I made in it though. A retrospective of sorts before we move on to better things. I will also try to import my sloopy sets sail blog.

Fri

Undergrad question of the day

(On a feminist theatre group offering day-care to audience members during the performance):

“If they’re so feminist, why do they encourage mothers to abandon their children in daycare?”

Understanding of feminism FAIL.

Jan
21st

Wed

Quote

“My interculturalism has brought me home” ~ Rustom Barucha

Thoughts on the inauguration:

The Americans want a (totally symbolic) monarchy so bad they can taste it. They might not be much for the bonds of British imperialism, but they love their pomp and ceremony so. hard.

Why do they even bother with the separation of church and state? Who do they think they’re fooling? More references to God than you can shake a stick at. The shout-out to the non-believers (and the Muslims!) was a nice touch though.

Seriously, I misted repeatedly throughout. But perhaps that’s just because America’s bright shiny new president makes Stephen Harper an even bitterer pill to swallow. We need to find that guy who pied Chretien and bring him back on the job.

I will leave you with this conversation, betwixt myself and one of my classmates (who shall remain nameless), which occurred on Monday.

Me: I’m so glad we don’t have classes tomorrow, so I can watch the inauguration.

Classmate: What? Who’s getting inaugurated?

Me: *stare of disbelief*

I thought it was a momentary memory lapse, but no. S/he honestly had no idea. I know we’re not polisci students but seriously? SERIOUSLY?

Jan
12th

Mon

Let's get this blog started

Major paper due today got its deadline pushed back a week. Prof decides that today, the day it is due, which is kind of strange but I haven’t finished yet so I win! Celebratory trip to the grocery store to follow. It’s time I reunited with the blue menu chicken strips.