Wednesday, May 27, 2009

ideal honky tonk, two shots of whisky

theres this amazing coffee shed in the kensington market called ideal coffee. i think it may be the best coffee ive ever tried.

checked out the contact photography festival, theres 220 venues and over 500 artists we say some of the ones that looked interesting to me. lynn cohen, edward burtynsky, stan douglas, geoffry pugen, and so many more.

im writting this one week into the trip and I can safely say Dave and I have had a burrito everyday. We had one the day this writing takes place too.

went to martins house which actually has a website. i think its called the delicious earth co-op. it is a completely green space. they run on renewable energy, eat local, organic. it seems like a business almost the way it is run with numerous amounts of charts, tables and talleys adding up who did the dishes, who bought toilet paper who owes money for a few kamut grains they ate. all in all for us to consume from the communal fridge amounts to 3 dollars a day, nothing compared to the wholesome food selection they have.

met martine at her friends house ci ci. who cooked tonnes of amazing food for us and supplied endless wine and a liquor cabinet. ci ci had an amazing record collection, 2 brand new record players and 2 cd players that can be scratched. a huge mixing board that can have crazy sound effects overtop. they took us to the dakota tavern where a local hillbilly/honky tonk band was playing. catl was the bands name and some other band was there i cannot recall the name. the bands played harmonicas, banjos, organs and a tattered suitcase was used as a drum.

got back to the mud house to find my bed taken again, slept outside on the roof.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

hostage situation over a peanut butter chocolate banana milkshake

j

allison and i went to the linnix cafe for breakfast when we heard from a girl who was falling out of her shirt that there is a hostage situation at a school down the street. She said swat teams, hundreds of police, dogs, helicoptors were everywhere, and all the roads in a four block radius were closed. She informed us that it was the principal that was being held in his office by four armed men. We decided to go and check it out and mock the police. It was a frenzy of news reporters, police, on-lookers, all squelching under the sun in the middle of an 8 lane road for a glimpse of some action of the school 2 blocks down.

we headed back to the house, which was full of people, some that no one knew making sandwiches and coffee. the radio was cranked full blast to the news which was talking about the situation. apparently it was all a huge miscommunication and the whole thing was a drill, that no one knew about. A student called on his phone to a friend and told him the whole principal hostage business to get things riled up. The police didn't tell anyone this the entire time. Someone from the house was held at gunpoint at a park and told to evacuate.

Headed over to a place called Sketch. Its a huge, free wharehouse space for artists. Silkscreening, music recording, cooking, its basically the Purple Thistle but with way more organization and funding.

Checked out Mocca, Museum of contemporary canadian art. Amazing! The galleries here are huge, and there are so many. There must be a larger funding for art than in vancouver. Went to Queen street west west and gallery 44 contemporary photography museum. Walked all around.

Grabbed a really amazing milkshake, peanut butter and banana chocolate.

Went back the mud house, saw a meal that was brewing on the stove for a few nights (they make soups out of leftover food from dumpsters, and parks that they find and throw it all together in a big salty slew). Didn't eat this but went to Big Fat burritos instead.

We were invited to a surprise birthday party from Martine. We didn't know anyone here, and it was especially wierd to get excited while surprising someone you don't know, and may never see again. Everyone was nice, very theatrical.
It seems people here in general are very theatrical, less bitter than they are in Vancouver. I like the bitterness.

Went for a long walk with Martine and borrowed bikes!