This day is the same every year. The streets are dead and filled with slush, the stores all closed. No matter where I am, it seems people are looking for a channel on TV to watch a corporate-sponsored countdown, and I always feel alone even though I’m surrounded by friends.
If it’s the same every year, it’s strange that my memories of New Year’s Eve are so mixed. Jocks harassing me on the bus. Bundling up in big coats to share petit coronas outside. Panic attacks. Blonds and redheads. Rich foods and too much drink. And somehow the people I love and the people I hate end up at the same parties.
Sometimes it reminds me too much of my childhood. My family hosted the same countdown party every year that became the only real time we spent with other people, and the only time we ever caught up with our “friends”. Numbers would be shouted in unison, champagne would be toasted, nothing would change. An empty ritual for empty people. Maybe that’s why I never feel like I belong anywhere on this day. It’s like I’m waiting to feel what everyone else around me is feeling when the ball drops.
There were lots of fantastic little details, especially in the way people interact with their hands, but my favourite moment is when the pastor does a little tilt, mimicking the kiss between the new husband and wife.
I’m still catching my breath from the awesomeness that was the second House Show. So much planning, preparation, and practice went into one night that I felt like I’d given birth when it was over; I didn’t know how to feel, or what to think.
Darren came up the day before to hang out, and along with Shane, Blais (his son), and Chris, stayed until Sunday. After the show we stayed up talking, picking Shane’s brain about his composition process and influences. Everything went better than I could have planned, and I’m thankful that so many of my friends were there to share the experience with me.
Meet the cupcakes (from left to right):
Black and White (Belgian dark chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and chocolate sprinkles), strawberry (pure strawberry cake with sweet cream cheese frosting and red sugar flower on top), hazelnut chocolate (hazelnut-chocolate cake with Belgian dark chocolate frosting decorated with a toasted hazelnut on top), vanilla (vanilla cake and frosting, flavoured with Madagascar bourbon vanilla with sprinkles), and key lime pie (lime-infused cake and cream cheese frosting with lime zest).
It’s been a good weekend, full of resolution and epiphanies and hugs and delectable food and wonderful surprises.
I’m running on autopilot again. Sleeping well and feeling good. It still hasn’t sunk in that I’ll be in France in less than a month. There are so many projects I’ve put off until I get back.
Shot with a Canon 5D Mk II, mostly using my new 70–200mm f/2.8 ISII. Be sure to watch in high definition, and let the video load completely before playing because the pacing and momentum are crucial.
Editing took about 25 hours, and I’m super happy with the way it turned out. There were so many great moments, and the footage has a wonderfully visceral feel to it. The most challenging part of post-processing was colour balancing all the footage, which I had to do shot-by-shot. When you’re filming for an entire day, you tend to get a huge variety of light sources and temperatures.
A note about the tea ceremonies. The first one was the Chinese version, which allows relatives to hand red pockets or jewelery (usually gold and jade) to the new couple. The second one was Korean, named Paebaek, and is much more elaborate. Relatives line up for a formal bow, tea serving, then throw a handful of dates (representing girls) and chestnuts (representing boys) to be caught by the bride and groom with a blanket. The number of dates and chestnuts caught signifies how many children they’ll have. No surprise that grandpa only grabbed chestnuts.
Then the bride is given one of the dates they caught, and the groom has to take a bite out of it from her mouth. The person who ends up with the bigger piece is the one who will wear the pants (which is why you see the bride tenaciously trying to keep the bigger piece for herself). At the end, the groom has to carry his mother and mother-in-law around the ceremony table, then carry his new bride out of the hall.
Owing to the success of last year’s house show, I’ve invited both Shane Watt and Jesse Dangerously to come and perform again next month. Not only will there be awesome music and an assortment of mini-cupcakes hosted in my living room, it’ll also be Jesse’s birthday party.
This will be a collaboration across Eastern Canada, as Shane will be coming from Montreal (with a potential secret guest), and Rosie will be traveling from Halifax on mandolin to join Audra, Nic (also coming from Montreal, as Rockefort F. Loopfrog, the beatmaker), and I as part of the Dangerson Famile. However, I don’t think Dolly will be making an appearance because the sheer number of people in the house last time really freaked her out.
I had a lot of fun making this flyer, featuring Mr. Cupcake. The great thing about Avenir is that it supports so many variations of the typeface, which lets you make movie and concert posters in the classic style of a full-justified column of information.
No better place for a bachelor party than in the market, where people see you in a giant banana costume and assume you’re either getting married or lost a bet.
Before going out drinking, they went paintballing, though this still didn’t preclude the groom-to-be from having to wear the bright yellow costume in the field.
One of several bachelorette parties we ran into that night.
I’ve been itching to play around with some new footage lately cause I love editing and it’s been a while since I had a good story to tell, so when Tiana invited me to Bobby’s second birthday party, I couldn’t resist. I also recently purchased some new gear in preparation of a wedding I’ve been hired to film in the Fall (with a second one potentially lined up), and I’ve been looking for an opportunity to field-test a new bag, shoulder strap, and monopod.
I tend to get really shy at Tiana’s parties cause I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t know anyone else there, but she does a good job of making sure I’m never left alone for too long and included in most conversations. She’s also the only other person I know to actually design custom invitations. This time, however, she was sporting a perky new haircut, and no longer a vegetarian (for now). Such is the power of St. Hubert.
So out of the 26 people I invited to the third Cranium Party, 9 said they couldn’t make it, 13 said they’d come, and 4 didn’t RSVP at all.
Out of the 13 people who said they’d come, only 3 of them showed up, and one of those was Jessica, who was sort of co-hosting this one with me, so fuck yeah she was there1.
That means that including me, we had four people, which is the bare minimum to play Cranium.
To say I was disappointed is an understatement. I spent a great deal of time and energy making the invitations, and cleaning the house so my guests could be comfortable. Not to mention all the food I bought, most of which went bad because there weren’t enough people to eat it (and especially when the guests who do show up also bring plenty of snacks).
We did end up playing a good game, but it was entirely not worth all the preparation.
Jessica offered to host the next one at her place — very nice of her because that really means she’s offering to shoulder all the responsibilities — but I feel like Cranium parties are my thing. An invitation is not only an invitation to play, it’s an invitation into my social circle. The guest list is tightly controlled; anyone on it is either a very close friend, or someone I can tell has the potential to be. I want to have all the responsibility, because it’s one of the ways I can show these people they’re important to me.
At the same time, some people are already asking about the next one2, which I find strange because the impression I get is that it’s a low priority, never something people put in their schedule and plan around. I’m pretty sure most only go if nothing else comes up on that day.
That’s fine by me — not everyone loves doing bad impressions of Christopher Walken as much as I do — but when people say they’re going to be there and don’t show up, it’s a complete devaluation of my efforts. I’m seriously questioning if I’m going to host another Cranium party any time soon. If I do, the next invite list will undoubtedly be much shorter.
At the very least, the day was salvaged with some bubble tea, Chinese food, and quality time with Jessica.
She’s also the only person to make it to all Cranium parties up to now. [↑]
I purposely don’t make them a regular thing because I want them to be special. [↑]
For Audra’s birthday we headed to the Savana Cafe, with some chocolate ice cream cake at the William’s residence after leaving the very rude service we were given.
I also got to meet Jesse’s dad, Jim. He reminds me very much of his son in terms of their intellect and interests, and I found it quite novel to talk to an older version of Jesse with a soft voice and grey facial hair.
Across the table is Jesse, Caitlyn, Ariel, Ira, and Jairus. Jesse’s dad to my right.
The second Cranium Party went exceedingly well, even though not a single one of my core friends was there. In fact, aside from Jess, it was an entirely different group from last time, and none of the four groups of people knew each other, but that didn’t stop it from being an awesome party and everyone got along famously. Through the night, I heard people asking each other, “And how do you know Jeff?”
People brought all sorts of snacks, but more importantly, they also helped me eat them. Of note was Audra bringing a tub of green tea and honey vanilla Häagen-Dazs ice cream, which I had never even heard of before.
To make it interesting, I told everyone that the losing team would have to perform a talent. Some came prepared, others came with the attitude that they wouldn’t lose.
Audra’s talent is speech writing, but since she couldn’t perform that, she did a rendition of a song she wrote with Jesse three years ago about their cat Zoey. And the song wasn’t just a short jingle, it was a full piece with proper song structure and clever rhymes. If only I wasn’t laughing so hard that I kept shaking the camera.
Sergei didn’t have a talent prepared, but since I knew that he used to study martial arts, I asked him if he could demonstrate what he knew. He suggested that he could blow out a candle with a punch, and no one was left unmoved.
Shawn brought his beautifully carved didgeridoo to play as his talent. Even though he didn’t lose, people were still intrigued enough that they wanted to try it. And, of course, Jesse added his own flavour at the end.
I was invited to a night of black magic (as well as some tasty antipasto), and I didn’t know what to expect. Part of the instructions were to bring a large piece of construction paper, a white pencil crayon, and a piece of paper with something written on it that I want to be rid of in my life. Turns out the construction paper was to make our hats and chains, and the pencil crayon was to fashion said hats and chains with our power symbols (something with meaning to each person). I was also given a phrase to memorize and incant during the ceremony.
There were glow sticks, good food1, and great people. I won’t go into details about the ritual, for revealing too much, as I understand it, is akin to telling people your birthday wish. Needless to say, I hope to wake up to some growth down south (aka expansion to drilling operations in the wildlife preserve) one of these days, if you catch my drift.
I got to try some kind of homemade peach juice, which was a thick as glycerin, but very tasty. [↑]
I probably looked like this the whole weekend, cause it was non-stop awesomeness.
The Japanese Village
Last week, Aaron asked me if I wanted to go to The Japanese Village. I thought it was just to hang out, since we hadn’t had a guy’s night in a while, so I didn’t clue in that it was for my birthday until the day of. Aaron told me I could order anything I want, as it was his treat, but I ordered the only thing I ever get when I’m there; the filet mignon cooked medium rare, which I think is the best in the city. It was good to hang out with him and Trolley again.
And, of course, silliness is always present with these guys around.
John in town
John’s been working two straight months, without a weekend off. The last time was when he came to Ottawa to visit. Between all the activities, we only had enough time to watch one movie — American Graffiti — and between the two of us, we could sing every song that came from this film based in the 60s (me covering The Platters, him covering everything else).
I usually only get to see him once a year, so twice in two months was a special treat.
Cranium Party
I’d love to do games nights on a regular basis, but people aren’t available on the same days, so I used my birthday as an excuse to get as many people as possible together for a giant Cranium party. I told them that instead of giving me a present, they should just come to the party. It worked, and we had enough for four teams of three. Some people also brought snacks, like honey mustard pretzels, carrot cupcakes, and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.
It was the highlight of the weekend.
Dim sum with my dad
On Friday, my dad called me to wish me a happy birthday, and told me he was in town for 10 days. We made plans to have dim sum. John came too, which is always interesting to see his reactions to what food is as the token white guy. I had a phoenix talons for the first time1, because I was feeling adventurous, and I have to say that they weren’t bad, but I didn’t care for them either. They’re too hard to eat, and the sauce wasn’t to my taste. It was strange to see both John and my dad at the same place, and in Ottawa instead of Toronto.
I told my dad he could probably sit and observe one of my Tai Chi classes, so he could see what I do, but he wasn’t interested, and I’ll admit that the indifference hurt a bit. Afterward, I asked John what he thought as a 3rd party observer, and he told me I had a good relationship with my dad. I’ll take his word for it.
I needed this
I needed this weekend so much. To recharge. To stop thinking about things. To get completely wasted. It felt like it was my birthday the whole weekend, and I wondered what I did to deserve it all.
It wasn’t the taste, but the look that has always prevented me from trying them. [↑]
