Christmas morning

Great morning sitting around the tree, listening to music, eating candy, opening stuff. The gifts last night and today seem book, sock, and game themed. The biggest surprise probably came from Gerda who gave us the dvd of "Twin Peaks, Fire walk with Me" which we've been looking for since Saturday but have been frustrated at every turn. While I don't remember it being very good, I do feel strongly that William and I need to watch it together while the 29 episode series is still fresh in our memories. Mike and Paul were over in the afternoon. Paul brought William the tie fighter Lego set and Mike brought over "Exploding Cats" which we played a couple of rounds of.

Christmas Eve with photos

As per tradition, we spent Christmas Eve with Margaret's family. Goose was the entree. Greg was over from the across the street with his dog along as well. Lots of conversations revolving around pirates before supper. A central gift was a fantastic family photo album the girls assembled for their dad. He was quite moved.

Greg and dog

German children books teach you that heinous things happen when you misbehave

surprised by a gift

Connaught future

Walking back from a Caligari meeting, I stopped to study the sign picturing the new Connaught School. William suggests that the overly vibrant green of the grass is school board propaganda. I agree but remain optimistic anyway. The strange construction team seems to have put a large steel girder on top of the concrete posts they pored a few days ago on the school grounds.

Snow Queen at the Globe Theatre

Costumes and giant puppet were fantastic for Snow Queen. Margaret booked us front row tickets about three months ago (great view and lots of leg room). Tonight's performance was signed for the deaf for the first time ever. We talked with Loki and one of the snow trolls afterwards. Good time. 

Turkey Dinner!

We hosted a preemptive turkey dinner this week, four days before Christmas. This was of course accompanied by perogies and cranberry. Otherwise it was a bit minimal - a bit of salad and some cookies afterwards. I'm getting low on baking and will need to replenish before the real Christmas. 

Double lesson with Jonathan Dyck

To get some much needed practice time, Jon asked us to substitute one of his lessons for a double lesson this week. William and Jon worked their way through the Twin Peaks title theme for most of that time and made great progress. I wish we could book him for an hour ever week. I'm not sure if this would be the case with every teacher, but Jon seems to give very good one on one advice, working through things in a very direct manner.
Kiki and Kristin arrived today but we didn't see them. 

Party and John and Debra's

Another fun party with John and Debra. We aired our grievances and drank lots of rum. Gerard brought a magnum of Baby Duck so I had a small glass, probably the first time I've sampled it since the 70s. Wow, it is just like I remember it. Margaret missed it since she was texting in the kitchen. She needs to learn to socialize more.

Grades in, Twin Peaks concludes

After I finally submitted my grades for the term, William and I sat and binged watched the last bunch of episodes of Twin Peaks. Can't wait for the new season in 2017.
William and Paul made bread sticks when Paul was over for supper. William wants to make this a weekly thing.

 Trucks were on the Connaught school site and installed something mysterious.

Edie Marshall "Terrain" exhibition

This week Edie Marshall's visually uplifting "Terrain" exhibition opened at the Art Gallery of Regina. I don't use descriptors like that very often but, with the weather turning more bleak and my mood running quite contrary, this show felt warm and bright and made me feel good. She's painted over 1000 small paintings based upon digital photos from a trip and put them up in huge grids about 20 feet high. To illuminate it, the gallery has turned its lights on full blast. Great space, great show.
Speaking of the AGR, I also signed up for a woodworking course with Brian Gladwell for January at the Balkwill Centre. 

Jonathan Dyck recital

 Jonathan Dyck, who performed on my "25 Short Films in and about Saskatchewan" project back in 1999 and who is currently William's wonderful piano teacher, did his third year performance at the University main stage this week. He played for about 45 minutes, all from memory, and was quite amazing. I don't know the pieces he was doing and have no training myself so I don't know technically how well he played, but personally I was quite thrilled and moved. The small distrorted recording I have below does not do it justice - I was glued to my seat for the entire time. Bravo and congratulations.

Just trying to help

 Event one: after forgetting twice, I finally remembered to bring my drill and 16 gage wire (from fencing) to my meeting with An (last meeting of the year) to twist pieces of it for use inside animation puppets. We maintained control and no one lost an eye.

Event two: after some Christmas shopping with William, we went out to eat at Five Guys in the south end. We were waiting for our food for a long time. #15 was called but we were #15. Soon we saw them making Cajun fries so we figured we were next but then they called #19. When I allerted them to this, the assistent manager realized that our meal was either missed (unlikely) or taken by the #15 people so they began making us a fresh set of burgers. In the meantime, the table beside us became occupied by two guys, one of whom seemed to be sleeping while the older guy searched the sleeping guy's pockets. I leaned over and commented on how tired he must be and asked if he was okay. The older guy said his buddy was diabetic and just needed some food but they don't have any money. I gave the guy $10, more than enough for a burger, to get his friend some food. A few minutes later he was rattling a bag in front of his nose but the sleeper still didn't wake. Eventually the older guy went outside, presumably for a smoke, but after 5 minutes I suspected (rightfully) that he wasn't coming back. I then tried to wake this guy up to get him to eat (the smell of booze was now obvious) and the assistant manager also came to help. As she began phoning her manager for advice, I eventually (after literally 10 minutes of trying) got him to wake up. I suggested that he eat. The food bag now open, I found it to contain one small order of fries (cost: under $4). The sleeper said he wanted Chinese food but I pointed out they were in a burger joint. By the time we left, he was finished the small fries and was onto the fries from our order that I left him (the assistant manager had given us lots of extras due to the prior error). 

New Faculty, New Logo

... well it's not exactly a new faculty, but the news of this is public: UofR's Faculty of Fine Arts will become the Faculty of Media, Art and Performance as of January 1. We've had a new logo designed which was unveiled this week (but not publicly so I dare not try to post an image here yet). I'm generally not excitable when it comes to logo design but was pleasantly surprised when this came on the screen. It is balanced and geometric and pleasing. Okay, back to my lunch now? No, they went on to show the logo mocked up into a variety of contexts and in various colours. This looked very promising. Then they went on to show it jazzed up a bit with textures and stuff and it was getting really groovy. One thing that got a lot of pleased responses from the group was a display which showed this wall replaced by a three banner-style graphic, floor to ceiling, for the faculty. It will be very powerful (and about time that this thing was painted over).

Perogie day

I made about 9 dozen perogies today. William helped peel potatoes yesterday and learned to pinch them today. Mom came over for a couple of hours and the two of us made most of them. As usual, she thinks I make them too big. 

Christmas feels a bit closer

With a bit of snow on the ground, we felt a bit more in the season spirit. William took a break from our perogie filling making to take a walk around the block. I think he was trying to find Tiny Tim to command him to buy him the big goose. We decorated the tree with (oh, the humanity) an additional $100 worth of lights since the ones we owned were insufficient to light such a mighty object.

Too Much Tree!

William with uncle George Bessai and Christmas tree

Two fourteen year olds (one in body, one in spirit) talked me into this tree. We needed to cut six inches off the bottom, eight inches off the top, and carry it into the house already set into its new $60 stand. It needs to be tied with strong rope in three places to stop it from falling and killing the cats. Margaret says it was a nice gesture, but to return it. George drove away with the truck and we have no recourse but to try to live with it. I think it might be sentient.

City's Creativity Innovation and Excellence

First thing this morning we sat with Rania for a crit sessions (I'm told that the days of badgering the student until they have an emotional melt down are in the past), with Carmen, Rob, Sean, and Kathryn. It went very well except for the lateness of our start due to this being the first time Rania has ever driven on ice.
The rest of the day I spent at the RCMP where the City of Regina was hosting a session on creativity, innovation and excellence. This was fairly entertaining as they did a number of the more interesting team/relationship/trust building exercises which led up to the flip chart session which would contain the bits and pieces of wisdom we had to impart to them. Met a bunch of people and conversed with some old friends.
Slate Gallery had their Christmas opening, gathering together a few pieces from each of the artists they represent.

Paul was over for supper after being away in New York City. He brought us "Smarties" from his trip but we were not fooled by these rocket look-a-likes. 

Gerda Osteneck at University Club

Joanne McDonald, Gerda Osteneck, Margaret Bessai

 I had lunch with Gerda Osteneck along with Margaret and a number of mutual friends at the university club to see and celebrate Gerda's exhibition "Walkabout" which will be hanging there for the next couple of months. It's a great set of work, primarily collage but using a number of unexpected elements within each piece.

Congratulations Rob Hillstead MFA

Congratulations Rob Hillstead for defending his MFA thesis today, which included his film "Blossoms" and his paper which presents the irrational method as a production model for this film's creation. Solomon Nagler was the external over Skype. Things went well. I regret that we no longer have the budget to fly our externals to Regina for the process as that always creates a better environment for discussion and analysis and also has spill-over benefits including possible talks with other students, sharing and networking between colleagues, and a greater degree of unofficial critique. It's the times we live in.
Went out for a mead at Bushwakkers afterwards. It's the first time I've had their mead. It was okay but a bit beer-y. While there, I met Rob's co-writer Mandy Pavlovsky who is also working in immersive virtual reality production.
Rob is the eighth MFA student that I have supervised or co-supervised to graduate. I am going to try to put together a short bio or each one. I think I know what all of them are doing except Fazail, who I WAS on Facebook with but who does not seem to be on it anymore. Last I heard he was back in the Maldives. Here is my list: 

Brian's film "The Sabbatical"

William and I attended the late screening of The Sabbatical, Brian's new film, at the Imax theatre. It was very good. 

Clean up day at the university

Margaret is sick today. I spent the morning sweeping and tidying up the animation room and meeting with students. Re-read and re-watched Rob's work to prepare for his defense. The legislature building renovations are lit up well and in the early evening light, it seemed very mysterious. Perhaps it is jut the Twin Peaks talking. 

St. Nicholas Day

Woke up this morning to find our shoes full of candy and other surprises. Nice morning in bed with treats and cats. 

Twin Peaks and hot chocolate

William and I have been watching Twin Peaks. We took a break so that William could eat hot chocolate with a spoon on the chilly (but very warm for December) back deck.
Mike came over in the afternoon, in town for just the weekend, but I didn't take any pictures while he was here. Don't know why. We watched Metropolis because h'ed seen it during the Mathew Good concert recently. This evening we had a great time at Allan and Jana's Christmas party. 

Sarah Cummings Truszkowski at Artful Dodger

Sarah Cummings Truszkowski and Margaret Bessai

End of a long week. I took the grad class for lunch at the club where we had a great turkey buffet. Their presentations were excellent and informative. I'd like to work such a session into the course earlier next time, but it didn't feel right this semester with so many of them coming from outside the faculty.

Robert Truszkowski

Still full from lunch, we went out to the Artful Dodger and an exhibition of new painting by Sarah Cummings Truszkowski. We'd seen some of the earlier versions of these in her studio in August but these are even more stunning. As we were leaving, we noticed that Patrick Johnson was playing some piano. William joined him for a few minutes. We talked about the Rocky Horror Show which Patrick played piano in but who's spot on the stage was hidden from our view.

William Bessai-Saul and Patrick Johnson

Margaret's parents' "new" living room

The wall painting, trim, carpet cleaning, and new furniture delivery have finally all come together for George and Margaret to assemble their parent's living room into a new, exciting socializing space. In particular, George has committed vast amounts of his time to this, probably so he can finally begin to feel some degree of belonging within the house that he's been living in for the past few years. Great work guys.

Caligari pitch to City of Regina

As a group of us sat stoically in the gallery as professionals and supporters of the project, Chrystene Ells and Berny Hi made a precise, passionate (not to mention quick) five minute presentation to the city council for the Caligari Project 4 month arts and culture festival for next fall. As I'd hoped, but didn't dare dream, the proposal was accepted whole-heatedly and they've grated us the full sum we asked for. This will ensure we are able to have a paid organizer and some promotion for the events. Now the 'easy' part, we make some creative things happen. Great work everyone, and thank you City of Regina and Chrystene and Berny. Stay tuned. 

An An and her storyboards

The last week of classes is officially underway. An presented the storyboard for her entire film. It is at the point that she can do some concrete estimates of the pacing and can start creating/animating it. I'm feeling very confident in her, she's really put a lot of hard work into this.