west uptowner

eating bugs - veronika, originally uploaded by trevorsc.

This is Veronika Hurnik during a fundraiser for the AGO. She's an artist.

I opened a show a week and a half ago, and then spent all my time builing stuff for this event. It was gorgeous, but I'm sick of busting myself on this kind of thing. The evening was a great set of moments, played to a well-heeled crowd who use this place to store their priceless investments (80% of the AGO's holdings belong to private owners). It's a secure lockup for their art, and a good tax writeoff. I love the school, the access to art, and all that, but doing wacky / funky stuff for rich people who aren't really watching gets old sometimes.

# posted by trev @ 7:56 p.m. 1 comments

born ready sneak peek - rehearsal, originally uploaded by trevorsc.

Crushing days getting all these shows up. The idea of the fall season at Passe Muraille was to run a bunch of things in rep, bringing a variety of groups and their different audiences in to the theatre and take in more of the events here than they might otherwise. It's a very good idea. With funding getting tighter every year, nobody's budgets are getting any bigger -- so we group up and rely on people when we can't rely on money.

Some of us are getting a little burnt in the run of things, though.

Anyway, above is a rehearsal shot, but a pretty faithful one, of "Born Ready" by Jomo Pierre. I did the set and lights. The next show opens tomorrow (Thursday oct. 20, 2005) -- and it is a run to the finish line to get things together. The schedule didn't leave us with a solid day to do tech -- we've had nothing but 5-hour rehearsal days, and instead of getting stuff made and in with time to play it all into the mix, we are still struggling just to finish completing the set. I've done about $2000 worth of techie work (normally I'd do maybe $500 in the course of a show, as my part) in the last month and a half. Gotta bitch somewhere about this stuff, I guess.

BUT: the next show, "Frances, Mathilda, and Tea / Mysterious Shorts" is a hoot, and I think our opening will be a fabulous preview.

These are some of the things I write in the dark when I'm watching a run:

practice drops with hendrik

ev's miror light: focus onstage one down.

07-110 smooth it -- on scoop in.

?drop centre during first shadow dress

look at SS entrance for Q call - 131

hendrik don't play with the couch cover

# posted by trev @ 8:41 p.m. 3 comments

looking north up the don, originally uploaded by trevorsc.

This is a shot of the Lever soap factory -- the one near the south end of the Don Valley. We live on the oter side of it, a short ways off. Usually, I don't think of it -- it's out of the way, tucked behind a flashy BMW building.

Sometimes, on temperate days in the spring and fall, there's a light humidity and a bit of a breeze off the lake. It's then that you smell a bit of Lake Ontario's freshness -- when the wind is a bit more Southerly than usual, and it's not so warm that the suspended solids in the air drifting across from U.S. industry make it here in strength. And drifting in on the air is a tinge of soapiness from the soap factory upwind, which, if you're willing to deceive yourself just a bit, feels almost like the freshness of ocean air. If I close my eyes I can (almost) pretend I'm in the harbour in St.John's.

It's one of my favorite illusions about my neighbourhood.

Perhaps that's one of the things that makes this place distinct. ...I've been struggling lately to think of things that make Toronto unique. So much of it looks like "Anywhere, North America." It's got some lovely stuff, but I rarely get taken in by beauty in this city. Sure, there are the ravines, but...

When I go into places, it's a different story. A friend of mine once said that Toronto is about interior spaces. Guess I've got a new photographic mission, just in time for winter.

# posted by trev @ 9:32 a.m. 0 comments

speeddate me, originally uploaded by trevorsc.

This is a bike post outside one of my favorite coffe places. I don't know if this guy is advertising himself, or his friends are doing it to him. Check it out:
polaroid.
phone number.
rockin' chin spinach.
Who needs more? Those two fingers bring the world to his door.

...I have a lot of chase dreams. Sometimes they morph into other things. If they get too scary, I've developed ways of breaking out of them. Usually I can get away by getting ahead -- far enough to turn a corner or two and be out of sight for a few moments. Then I -- CONVINCE myself that I'm safe.

sometimes it works. Wish I had that strategy down when I was a kid sleeping in an unfinished basement.

# posted by trev @ 11:40 p.m. 0 comments