Month: August 2005

Planet CBC

Partially in response to the CBC’s lockout of CMG members, I’ve started Planet CBC, a conglomeration of as many CBC weblog feeds as I’ve been able to find (mostly from Tod Maffin’s great CBCunplugged.com). Note that, like Tod’s list, it includes the weblogs of both management and locked-out employees. Note also that I specifically didn’t name it Planet CBC Lockout; it’s my hope that at least some of the bloggers will continue after the current situation is resolved.

For those who care, Planet CBC is generated using a locally-modified version of Planet. My changes were mainly to use a more recent version of the Universal Feed Parser, although I’ve also made a few other improvements.

CBC lockout

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation recently locked out members of the Canadian Media Guild. I sympathize with both sides and, if the various weblogs from CMG members (and one CBC manager) are any indication, they’d all like to be back working with each other too. A couple of station managers are keeping Radio One morning programming limping along with reruns and a lot of music, but I miss waking up to the southwestern Ontario edition of Ontario Morning, Anna-Maria Tremonti and The Voice on The Current, and (of course) Promo Girl.

It’s too late in the evening to continue cogently, so I’ll just point to Tod Maffin’s CBC Unplugged weblog. Tod’s blogroll links to just over thirty lockout-related blogs and sites, some of which have been set up just for the lockout and some of which have existed for a while (and I wish I knew before tonight that they did!).

My last thought before going to bed—and listening to not-CBC Overnight—is a plea to all those involved in the currently-stalled negotiations to get back to the table and settle this thing.

A modest proposal

The real problem with guns, violence itself perhaps, is that it’s cool. Same problem with cigarettes. Same problem, actually, with thong underwear. […] No one wants to look stupid. So how about we start spreading the message: using a gun makes you look like an idiot.

Release

Perhaps it’s crass, but I’ve been wondering: since I saw 30 plays using the festival’s Fringe Binge passes, would this experience be correctly termed a Fringe Purge?

OK, so it’s not nearly as funny as Andrew Zadel’s Compleat Wrks of the Lndn Frnge Festival (abridged) at last night’s Fringe Fried awards ceremony/massive party. If he can do that in just a few hours with as much back pain as reported, watch out when he’s fully healthy.

A soft bullet in my guts

I had the privilege to see Andrew Zadel’s play The Body, starring his sister Lydia, for a fourth and final time this afternoon, in the company of talented, beautiful, and (as of about two hours ago) multiple Fringe award-winning Amber. Lydia Zadel has been no less than marvelous in the one-woman show during the week, but today she was absolutely mesmerizing. As she said her final line I felt my eyes stinging, as they have each time, but it wasn’t until a shared glance where Amber and I saw each other’s eyes welling up that we were both finally done in.

(Dammit, I’m tearing up even as I type this six hours later.)

Look, I know I’m a softie. The end of The Natural gets me every time. I get it from my mom. But this was something entirely different, an overwhelming, cathartic reaction to Lydia’s performance and Andrew’s words. So we did the only thing we could: sit there in the front row, two friends trying to comfort and console each other, as the rest of the audience filed out behind us.

Thank you, Lydia and Andrew, for bringing your phenomenal production to the Fringe Festival, and for your friendship during the roller coaster that’s been the last ten days. And thank you, Amber, for sharing the experience and literally being a shoulder to cry on.

Fringe wrapup

Thirty-three ticketed performances later, my 2005 London Fringe Festival experience is over. In roughly chronological order, some memories, notes and impressions:

  • Meeting a couple of regular guys, Jorn-Bjorn Fuller-Gee and Iain Ormsby-Knox, at the Peanut Butter Picnic and learning they were staging a performance of The Strange History of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, before they became the stars of the festival.
  • Starting the festival by seeing You Kiss By the Book, and subsequently praising it to a woman who then informed me that she was the director.
  • Kathy Navackas, Alison Challis, the young woman originally from Winnipeg whose name I never did get Jacqui Vandale, Susan Smith-Goddard, and the rest of the Fringe troupers.
  • The Body.
  • Lydia Zadel, the gifted and gorgeous star of The Body.
  • Andrew Zadel, the masterful playwright of The Body.
  • Rosalind and Geneviève; Lil; Leah and Marcey; Jen; Heather, Jonathan, Diana and John; Anne and Peter; Tarah, Jason, Stefania and Caralin; Joshua, Amber and Jeff; Fenulla and Dawn; Colette.
  • Talking to Trevor Thompson, a nice guy from Ottawa whose first play is anything but disappointing.
  • The Body.
  • Being petrified by Tippi Seagram despite being in the very back row at The Arts Project.
  • The Body.
  • Aerial Angels’ Naughty No-No Show, late and way over time but impressively done; and coming to the realization that the seven pieces of clothing I was wearing weren’t nearly enough.
  • Quick-marching home and back between Saturday-evening shows to create and print my own promotional posters for The Body.
  • The Body with Amber.
  • Andrew’s parody at the Fringe Fried party.