Inventory was a mistake

We're in the middle of a fabulously gorgeous autumn. Cold, yes, and a little rainy, but freaking beautiful. The view off my balcony is made up of all my favourite colours, and looks like it belongs in a magazine. Ironic, since the last time I went to buy my favourite magazine (a bead mag called Bead & Button), instead of a bright orange cover and projects that celebrated this very colourful time of year, it was all full of purple (meh) gold (ick) and crystal (ugh). I left it in the bookstore, and ended up buying Real Simple, which I've never read before, but the cover was very orange, so I decided to give it a shot.

And while I would be pretty disappointed that my newest bead-fix has been denied me, I'm not sweating it, cause the end of this month is the semi-annual Toronto Bead show (woot)! Not only is this an event I look forward to every day of the six months since the last show, but this time, I get to introduce a friend to the quietly wild bead show atmosphere. Victoria and I will grab brunch and then walk to the show from there.

In anticipation (and preparation) for the show, I decided to sort through my stores, take a note of what I have and what I'm lacking, and make up a shopping list. This, I believed, would solve two problems that I have run into before in my shopping: avoiding getting two or more of the same thing (what am I going to do with three vials of scarab-green beads, seriously?), and making sure that when I get home, I have everything I'll need (avoiding the I can't work on that project cause I'm out of freaking glue! moment).

This was a mistake. What started as a shopping list turned out to be surprisingly long, and evolved into something of a wish list as well. The result? Come next weekend, I'm likely to be broke.

Happy as a kitten in a yarn store, but broke.

Nuit Blanche - gone

This weekend was pretty good. I went to the market (it's well into autumn here, and the apples are amazing), then I went out to Nuit Blanche.

I ended up seeing five exhibits (I'd planned out a route that covered twelve, knowing fully that I wouldn't get to all of them), and only three of the five were actually on my list. I started at the Bata shoe museum, where they were taking pictures of people's shoes and doing an art-installation based on the photos. There was also supposed to be poetry, I thought, but maybe all the poets were on a break while I was there. Anyway, because there were no poets (just an empty microphone where the public were being encouraged to 'share their stories - and no one was), and because there wasn't a large group of people together (they were letting in small groups at a time, and there was no main large gathering place), the atmosphere was kind of hum-drum. Basically, what I had thought was an intriguing idea was executed disappointingly.

So after that, I figured I'd head straight downtown where more of the action would be. Lucky me, on the way back to the subway I passed by the ROM, and there was a street performer out front. He was great - nothing shockingly original performance-wise (a basic sword juggling routine, a really tall unicycle, and a bit of fire eating thrown in for flavour), but his showmanship was fabulous - he had the crowd laughing like crazy. He was good enough that I stayed until the end of his show, and I put money in the hat he held out.

Downtown I went to see a giant silver bunny balloon by Jeff Koons that was set up inside the Eaton Centre - very cool. On the way there I passed by this woman wearing a dress that was made out of an igloo-looking tent, doing a performance piece that seemed to be about waking up, though I didn't stay very long to see it.

Then I got in line for Massey Hall. There was a sound installation there called Space Becomes The Instrument by Gordon Monahan. I stood in line for 90 minutes- UGH. It was cold, we were standing on the sidewalk, which was decidedly uncomfortable, and there was nothing going on around us to take our minds off the wait. Clever me, I don't leave the house without a book in my purse, and it doesn't matter if it's 4am, in downtown Toronto, there's always enough light to read by, easily (for the record, I am against light pollution, but just this once it worked well in my favour). On the other hand, once I got in, it was pretty much worth it. The audience all sat in a group, on the stage. Just getting to see Massey Hall from that perspective, to be able to say "I've stood on that stage before" was neat. The performers were all in the orchestra and balconies. They had piano wires strung up, right to the ceiling and across the entire space from left to right, and there was a microphone attached to the point where all the wires crossed. Then one girl grabbed one wire, and dragged the mic along the wires, jiggling them and waving them and increasing and decreasing the tension on them, and the mic picked up all these weird tones and variations. That noise was combined with techno sounds and pumped into speakers all around us, with the sound moving from one to the next, so it seemed to come from different directions. It was very neat sounding, and kind of reminded me of the thunder storm we'd had earlier that day.

Then came the second part of the performance. Three people climbed up in the balconies, and held speakers that started emitting steady tones - each one different. Then they started swinging the speakers around their heads, at different (and changing) speeds. The sound was eerie, and it got more eerie when all the lights went out, and the three swinging speakers each lit up. The ceiling of Massey Hall is scalloped, and the lights made the shadows oscillate- it kind of looked like waves. The effect worked well, since the sounds made me think of Sirens (the mythic kind, not the ambulance kind). All of it was strange - I need a work halfway between music and noise, cause that's what this was. I liked it a lot.

By the time I got back outside, it was about 5am, and I decided that I was tired enough (and had enjoyed the sound installation enough) that I would end on a high note (no pun intended), and headed back home. I got in at about 530, took a little time to wind down (and eat something; by then my circadian rhythms were screwed up enough to leave me starving), and then I hit my pillow, hard. For about four hours, when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. I was just trying to decide if I wanted to attempt doing anything (no), when Kev called - he'd been at a house party the night before, and was about as beat as I was. We decided that the best thing to do was as close to nothing as possible. So today Kev and I ordered in Thai food and watched nine hours of Boy Meets World.

Awesome weekend. Awesome.

Nuit Blanche - going

Ever heard of Nuit Blanche? Its this all-night modern art thing that fills up Toronto streets once a year, and it's tonight. Its very strange to be getting ready to go out at midnight, but here I go. Check out the webpage for the basics, and I'll blog tomorrow (after sleeping in, of course) about all the things I see.

http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca