fortune cookie: now is the time to try something new
We ushered in the Year of the Dragon with homemade bao and other Chinese food, mini-dragons, and setting money on fire. A typical Saturday night at Marin’s
Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace failure, must be persistent but not stubborn, and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them.
– Michael Michalko
maintenance building - Central Park, NYC (Pentax K-1000 film scan)
I watch more movies on airplanes than I do all year on the ground, and on this last trip to England I watched at least six, when I probably should’ve been sleeping.
The main reason why I prefer to fly Air Canada* is their on-board entertainment system — specifically, their movie selection. I’m pretty selective when it comes to movies, but there are always plenty for me to see, especially from the World, Canadian, Avant-Garde, Contemporary, and Franco Cinema sections. They also have Canadian short films, which I watch in-between or when I don’t have enough time to watch a feature film.
One movie that deserves a mention before I get back to editing is this Argentinian film called “Un Cuento Chino” (“A Chinese Tale” or “Chinese Takeaway” — I’ve seen both), which I enjoyed more than the film “The Help”, which I saw enroute to England.
Check out this homemade trailer (turn on the captioning for the English subtitles, bearing in mind this is not the official, politically-correct translation!) and then see the whole film. Stick around for the credits, where you’ll see the Russian news clip of the real-life event which inspired this film. It was so funny I watched it three times just to see the reporter say, “This is the weirdest news I’ve ever reported.”
* The general public love to drub Air Canada, but since I started flying with them in 2002, when all my British Airways mileage was transferred to Air Canada after they took over Canadian Airlines (remember them?), I’ve actually had more good customer service stories than bad… like the time I was half asleep at the check-in kiosk and launched my bag down the chute WITHOUT the tags. 10,000 bags down there and they found my plain black generic-looking one and got it to the right destination.
Behold the fabulousness that is my friend Jan Keck’s Movember video of his personal challenge. The video alone deserves a donation, don’t you think? I do! So I donated, and I hope you do, too…
I am participating in two more charity events this week, one as a photographer on Wednesday at my second round of Fight For Independence, in its eighth year of fundraising for Sick Kids Foundation (benefiting Sick Kids Hospital) and Nazareth House, a non-profit home for at risk women and infants in Toronto.
I’m also doing the CIBC Run For The Cure (5kms) on Sunday morning, October 2. I’m meeting the other volunteers from The Brides’ Project at 9:45, which doesn’t sound early at all except I’m shooting a wedding the day before. Ouch.
And right after the Run For Cure, I’m driving to a farm an hour away to do an apple-picking engagement shoot! Fun! But I know I’ll pass out on Sunday night as soon as I arrive home at the end of this weekend marathon of activity.
In other fundraising news, I am ECSTATIC to report that my Terry Fox Run fundraising total was given a SUPER-GENEROUS BOOST on Friday and Saturday by two more people at The Firm to bring my latest (and final?) number to $5,000! This is incredible!
On a final note, while I am very pleased to have reached the magical number of $5,000, it is nothing compared to the story of a woman around my age in Vancouver who has a 10-year goal of raising $1,000,000 (that’s right, a million dollars) for “charities focused on education, youth and empowerment, through the power behind sport.” Sarah M. Jamieson has already reached $771,000 and has three years left to reach her goal. I find this absolutely amazing and I wish her all the best in reaching the million dollar mark in 2014! Check out her website here.
Early this morning, Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party and the Official Opposition in Canada, died of cancer. Whatever your politics, there is no denying Jack Layton loved Canada and worked tirelessly to make it a better place. On August 20, less than two days before his death, he addressed a letter to the whole country, including others with cancer.
I took a bit of a detour this evening after work, to Chinatown to meet up with a lion.
Queen Street near Spadina Ave
A lion? Yes, we were meeting at my favourite Vietnamese restaurant, Xe Lua, on Spadina Avenue. After dinner, I brought him to Dundas Square.
Dundas Street near Yonge
Yonge-Dundas Square:
There were lots of people at Yonge-Dundas Square, and to my surprise they kept the fountains running.
Yonge-Dundas Square
Yonge-Dundas Square
In the end, I never did get a photo of the lion — dang! His name is Maurice, he’s even got a web page. He’s a stuffed lion puppet who travels with a human named Bret Amazzeing. They travelled from the New York area together to visit Toronto for a week.
with Bret Amazzeing at Yonge-Dundas Square
Bret got in touch with me nearly a year ago, but his original trip to Toronto fell through and since that time he and his sidekick Maurice toured India, Australia, Hong Kong, and a few other places, entertaining children and racking up the air mileage. With WeShareSmiles.com, he’s also toured Sierra Leone, Jamaica, Poland, and Mexico, taking his unique combination of puppetry and magic beyond the English-speaking world.
Fast forward to Thursday evening, trying pho for the first time and a grass jelly drink as I introduce him to Vietnamese food in Toronto, his first time here. We swapped a lot of stories, not just of travel but life in general. Bret’s a decade younger than me, but he’s an entrepreneur with a few companies under his belt, a magician, puppeteer, photographer, videographer, and all-around entertainer. He’s full of stories, and full of verve. People talk to him wherever he goes. It made for an entertaining Thursday evening!
I first wrote about Amy Winehouse back in May 2007 after I heard her on CBC. I bought “Back To Black” and listened to it countless times on road trips that summer. This song is from her first album, “Frank”, when she was younger and her voice sounds quite different.
This song, “Stronger Than Me”, is from when Amy Winehouse was around 19. No beehive hairdo, not a tattoo in sight. She looks healthy. Parts of the video are amusing to me, probably because it reminds me of when I was 18-22: liberal amounts of youthful stupidity. It’s a lifestyle far, far removed from the here-and-now but I still remember it well.
During this time I lived briefly with drug addicts — in Australia, and in Scotland. It’s because of these experiences that I can never chime in with the internet chorus that’s always ready to condemn and send these people off to their graves. There is no compassion from the smug who can never imagine what it’s like to be addicted, until one day when someone they know — maybe even a relative or a friend — becomes “one of those people”.
This is not about just another celebrity unable to handle fame, it’s about a young human being losing control but who wasn’t strong enough to get it back. Mocking the weak does nothing for society, it just makes us look like jackals.
I don’t know how Amy Winehouse died (and might I remind the internet that nobody else knows for sure, either), but people have already assumed it was a drug overdose. Maybe it was suicide. Maybe her heart just stopped.
The only thing I do know is that there won’t be any more music from her, and that’s everyone’s loss.
Not all addicts have Amy’s incredible talent. Or Kurt’s or Jimi’s or Janis’s, some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill. We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care.
Just booked a floatplane joyride tomorrow morning (10:00), departing Billy Bishop Airport. You still have time to get in on the flight! #fb10 hours ago
Calling all #aviation buffs! Booking scenic ride in floatplane tomorrow am out of YTZ, takes up to 3 pax & need 2. DM me if interested! #fb13 hours ago
