Kevin McKenzie exhibition

For reasons I am not aware of, nationally renowned Regina artist Kevin McKenzie is in the middle of finishing his BFA at the UofR after three decades away from it. This week he has an exhibition of new work at the student run gallery, the Fifth Parallel. We popped in near the beginning of the opening time and got to talk at great length about his work, the influence of pop art, and how he is making his own indigenous take on the pop movement. Afterwards we attended the Nouveau Gallery's winter show opening.

Art and more on 13th Avenue

The annual late night on 13th Avenue, which includes an increasing number of shops staying open very late and being very hospitable to the holiday customers, coincided with the opening of an exhibition of collaborative art works by Allen Dotson and Jana. The art was pastiche of their individual styles and addressed relational problems and differences but resisted linear explanations, even though the works had numbers instead of titles. The Paper Umbrella store has renovated and taken over the store next door and put in an incredible new (from Mysteria) counter. Great snacks and trickster conversations were to be had at Seed. 

35mm camera

After years of wanting a 35mm motion picture camera and a few months of humming and hawing over ebay ads, two weeks ago I ordered a World War II army surplus Eyemo Bell and Howell camera from a company in Florida. It arrived today. It includes an electric motor (but no battery, that is another story) and the motor is easily removable to allow one to wind up the camera with a key so it can run for about 30 seconds. It has a magazine which is also removable (cover plate is included). With everything in, the weight is large but if I pull the magazine and motor, it shouldn't be hard to shoot 100 foot rolls hand held.
 

St Nicholas day

William's shoes are getting quite big and St. Nicholas is having a harder and harder time filling them on the mornings of December 6. This year he brought William another set of story cubes. 

Comic reading with Allan

Allan was over for supper and we finally carried through on the idea suggested years ago of cracking open some of the old comic boxes and looking at some of my old stuff. I was shocked to discover that I have parts two and three of a Cabinet of Dr. Caligari comic adaptation! We got talking about how Thor became a frog somehow and then found the issues it happened. in

CTV is getting closer?

I was out at CTV on Monday morning. This tv station was always way out of town, until now. It appears that Costco and a movie theatre will be going up across the street! The city has developed all around it. It's just weird to me. 

William's "video game"

I helped build a project for William's grade 11 psych class. His experiment is about the affect of winning or losing on the enjoyment of a game. The "game" is really a dvd menu built to look like a game. However, each choice is not really a choice but two versions of the same result. Therefore, William would know before the game starts if the player will get them all right, all wrong, or a 50/50 split (there were only three versions). When you pick a loser, you face the roaring dragon but if you pick a winner, then "cha-ching", you get treasure.. Glitches in Adobe After Effects that I continuously encountered while creating the sequences led me to re-installing my whole O/S the other day but most of it is in place again.
 

Surrealism film festival in Moose Jaw

Gabriella Garcia-Luna invited us to a mini-film festival this weekend in Moose Jaw with a surrealism theme. It was more or less a test festival at a small venue and not open to the public. I had initially thought I'd just come up for one or two films but we ended up being there all day, seeing four features and eating two meals with the other participants. William was so engaged with film and conversation that we just couldn't leave. The event was held at the Grant Hotel which has a strange and beautiful 25 seat tiered theatre on the second floor with recliner seats. 

"Another Wolfcop" nails it

William Bessai-Saul and Lowell Dean

Lowell Dean's "Another Wolfcop", the first sequel in this series, was a highly enjoyable absurd comedy. The script was tight, wasting no time on exposition or unnecessary melodrama, as the story jumps quickly and fluidly from one odd occurrence to another. The low budget nature of the production was well navigated as Lowell shot the majority of the film in close ups to avoid the empty spaces and absence of crowds that haunt many Canadian films. Unlike the first Wolfcop film, this one solidly situates itself in Canada with the characters even making a short foray into Regina. The obsession with beer and the inclusion of 80s rocker Gowan evoked the Bob and Doug MacKenzie film "Strange Brew" which Lowell admitted to me was one of the inspirations for "Another Wolfcop". To his credit, Lowell succeeded where the SCTV masters failed; "Another Wolfcop" is the absurd Canadian parody we've always wanted.

UofR hub of filmmaking activity

I'd like to say every day at the university was like today and perhaps for some people it is. I sat down for a simple coffee with Layton Burton when Geremy Lague stopped by and joined our conversation (about grad school). The connection arose that Layton knows Geremy's brother James. Minutes later, low and behold, James walks by. In the middle of reminiscing with him, Lowell Dean walks in with a table full of "Another Wolfcop" stuff to promote (or anti-promote) the film by getting people to sign a petition complaining about it. Moments later Costa Maragos walks by, gets into a conversation with Layton (whom he knows from the old tv days) and Lowell, whom he writes an article on for the university an hour later, as soon as he returns to his office.
I suppose if every day was like this, I'd never get any (other) work done. 

Gingerbread competition

Some cool gingerbread houses were built for the fundraiser competition at the University this year. I particularly liked Jan Bell's dangling house and the King Kong one. 

Dinosaur talk

We went to the museum an interesting talk about paleontology by Dr.  Emily Bamforth where she discussed what is and isn't a dinosaur. We were worried that the talk might be aimed at kits but it was really very informative and sophisticated, even though she was mostly telling us stuff abut basic definitions and categories that are likely in a first year course. Allan came along. We enjoyed it.

William's rough day

The only reward at the end of William's day which contained a math test, a driving test, social studies homework, psychology homework, English homework, piano lessons, meat pick-up, and conscripted drawing sessions was to finally watch the season finale of "Stranger Things". I like the show but found this second season to be too formulaic and much of the dialog cliche. I guess Netflix hasn't found the way to avoid the second season slump. 

Art, Craft, Music

Started off with a lazy Saturday with William and I hanging around the house, but when Margaret returned home in mid-afternoon, we got kicked into gear and went to the tail end of the book launch at the Slate Gallery for Zachari Logan and Joe Fafard, followed by a massive craft sale at the German Club where the high point was waiting outside in a line for bratwurst while live music was performed from the balcony above. We explored a cake shop on 11th avenue (Treasure Cakes?) but were quite disappointed.

BINGO, puppets, and fashion

I was touring the Access Cable facilities with Dana and got talking about the Saturday live bingo game that runs for charity every Saturday. I'll need to play some time. That is pure live tv at it's most mundane; very old school with the ball machine and everything; got to love it.

This weekend is big for craft fairs. Friday evening included us going to one above Lemon Drop where William bought a puppet from Erika Folnovic. More importantly, we met with Holly at Lemon Drop about William making some videos for a fashion project. Thanks to Angie for that referral. 

David Cassidy RIP

David Cassidy died. Growing up on Partridge Family tricks one into believing the actor and the role are closely tied, but in fact he was very much a part of the hard partying rock generation than we knew at the time. Don't know what killed him, but decades of drinking certainly didn't help. I have two packs of Partridge Family trading cards. I am pretty sure I have at least one fan magazine from that time period on my office shelf. At one point, my niece discovered my sister's Cassidy records and became a fan so I sought out a magazine, scanned an image, and made her a poster for her door.

Ken on Maddin

Was great to see some Guy Maddin work in Ken's class this week. I recall that we videotaped the entire artist talk and Q&A with Guy and Decco in 1999 when they were in Regina talking about Heart of the World. I should probably find that tape and  transcribe it as it illuminates quite a few things about their process on that project. 

Evening with Allan

William, Allan and I went to the artist talks at Neutral Ground  this evening. Amber talked about her experiences at the Banff Centre where she developed the project in the gallery this month (Mountain Movers). She talked about how everyone who goes there creates some work based on the mountains. It reminded me of how everyone who goes to Phil Hoffman's film farm makes films involving grain, fence posts, barbed wire, and the goat. The exotic us so subjective.

We went to eat and played the dice story game but developed some fun variations on it by sharing the dice and the story.

William's version of "Inside Out"

Rooted in the idea of emotional islands, William created this poster for his grade 11 psychology class. He did well but had forgotten one acronym (O.C.E.A.N. - whatever that stands for) which dropped him from an A+ to an A-. 

Theremin is back

After having lent it out for the past year, my not-quite-working-correctly Theremin is back in my hands. I need to put it into test mode to make it work. I still don't know if this is because some circuit is burned out or soldered incorrectly or if I just am not doing it right. Anyway, it makes noise again. Here is the alligator clips that override the volume to put it into test mode: