Monthly Archives: October 2012

Singhouse Studios — Sparkle

Singhouse Studios is a voice and per­for­mance school for peo­ple of all ages, and one night every year the stu­dents per­form in a big show. This year, the show — titled Sparkle — was celebri­ty-themed, com­plete with a melange of hits from the last five decades, a red car­pet run­way for all the stars, and even Ottawa’s local pop heart­throb, Alex Lacasse1.

Music by Five Stripe Studios. Adrian and I worked close­ly to make sure the music had the right kind of play­ful ener­gy to focus on the school’s main demo­graph­ic.

I was asked to cre­ate a pro­mo­tion­al video for the stu­dio, so I fol­lowed the per­form­ers to tell the sto­ry of their day, from the back­stage to the main stage. I felt it was as impor­tant to see all the prepa­ra­tion as much as the per­for­mances them­selves, which is why I includ­ed footage of warm-up rou­tines, prac­tice rit­u­als, and dress rehearsals. I love to see the focus so many of the young per­form­ers have, and much of that comes out before they even step into the spot­light.

  1. Who’s been a stu­dent at the stu­dio for years now. []

I'm taking back my weekends

The prob­lem with work­ing from home is that you’re nev­er real­ly off. There’s always some­thing you can be doing, so it’s hard to detach and just relax. The days of the week lose their mean­ing. I haven’t had a vaca­tion in about a year, and I’ve been at home almost that whole time. It’s left me feel­ing burned out. Lisa and I are both going through the same thing at this point in our lives, and we’re try­ing to fig­ure out how to pick our­selves up from prob­lems that seem insur­mount­able when we’re liv­ing them by our­selves.

But baby steps first, and today was back to a greasy break­fast. I watched The English Patient, cause I’ve been in the mood for epics late­ly, and I’d been deny­ing myself the plea­sure for too long. I dis­cov­ered the part I used to place my kiss­es is called the supraster­nal notch. Now I won­der if she ever sees the English Patient, whether she’ll think I just stole some idea from some movie, or whether she’ll remem­ber and gen­tly fin­ger the val­ley my lips claimed as their own.

At the end of these movies, I always feel a mix­ture of emo­tions, the same when step­ping out of the Shakespearean plays I saw in high school: deject­ed from all the tragedy, yet amazed by such pro­found per­for­mances and pro­duc­tions. It was the same after I fin­ished read­ing Doctor Zhivago. Maybe cause I iden­ti­fy with the poet-war­riors, the themes of their love, the depths of their emo­tions, and the trap­pings of their fate. No mat­ter what the emo­tion is though, it makes me sit in the dark and write about things the way I used to.

And that’s enough for now.

I'm happy to report that my blood does clot

The best time of the year to make the dri­ve to Darren’s house is in the Autumn. It’s about five hours door-to-door — bar­ring any traf­fic or con­struc­tion — so there’s a good chance I’ll catch a sun­rise or sun­set no mat­ter when I leave. It’s par­tic­u­lar­ly beau­ti­ful when the leaves are chang­ing and the colours are at their rich­est along the stretch­es of the 401.

Sometimes I’ll turn on a stand-up com­e­dy sta­tion instead of music, and it helps take my mind off the drea­ri­ness of the less scenic parts1. It’s like hav­ing anoth­er per­son to talk to, except the con­ver­sa­tion goes one way, and they tend to be fun­ny when not over­ly polit­i­cal2 or Andrew Dice Clay.

Chinese dishes

Zhaliang and clas­sic Cantonese noo­dles. #thingsIcouldeateveryday

I still think of mov­ing back to Toronto, where there’s every­thing that isn’t avail­able to me in Ottawa. But I hate all the things that come with such an unwieldy and poor­ly amal­ga­mat­ed city. At my age, I val­ue com­fort over excite­ment, and Toronto has become a city that’s bet­ter to vis­it than to stay.

After meet­ing Mike in London, I knew that’s where I was meant to live, with Bloc Party and Monty Python and The Underground and rainy weath­er and Portishead and a bil­lion accents and Only Fools and Horses and that sto­ic British men­tal­i­ty and Paris just a train ride away. But that was­n’t my fate, and the dirty streets of Toronto are the clos­est I’ll ever get to that.

Continue read­ing “I’m hap­py to report that my blood does clot”…

  1. Usually the small towns with no charm or per­son­al­i­ty. []
  2. Cause I nev­er get it. []