moved (just like in real life).

Hello blogosphere. I've has some complaints about my lack of blogging. I know, I know, I am so lazy! Well, I've decided to change my ways. But I felt a fresh start was best. I can now be found here:

http://brittneyfg.wordpress.com/

Please update your readers and blogrolls and whatever else as you see fit!

Thanks for hanging in...

iPhone, a love story.

I confess: I have been a hold out on the smart phone pretty much since their inception.  I was really not sold on the idea of my entire life being contained in a single device. Especially since I am prone to dropping things. And/or misplacing them. This is not good when it comes to expensive devices inextricably linked to my survival as a human in modern society.

And then I met the iPhone.

It all started one charming August afternoon as I travelled by canoe to the Island with a group of fellow camp counsellor types.  We were enjoying the late afternoon paddle across the harbour, intent on arriving at our BBQ destination on Centre Island, when a few of the rather burly canoeing instructors decided to rock the boat. Both literally and figuratively. We were an outdoorsy bunch and really not afraid of a little water, but sadly the many expensive electronics onboard felt differently about the H2O situation, concerns that we kindly expressed on their behalf to the burly, boat-rocking gentlemen.  More than once, might I add. Sadly, the pleas of our poor electronics fell on deaf ears…

Have you ever had that experience where you can see something happening before it does?

I knew the canoe was going to tip.  Saw it coming a mile away.  I’ve spent a lot of my childhood in canoes, it’s sort of a rite of passage…so I know how to balance and counterbalance and well, not fall out.  But, alas, sometimes the plunge is inevitable.  Mercifully for my plain little phone, I had the presence of mind as we were going into the water (the icky, slimy, weed-filled water of the section behind Centre, the regatta course part) to grab my purse from the seat next to me and hold it over my head. 

And so my boring little $80 phone survived the great canoe dump of August ‘09.  Only to be killed when I dropped it in the toilet the next week. 

Twice.

I am seriously that awesome.

It suffered a slow death, one in which I could text and answer the phone, even though no one on the other end could hear me.  This is incredibly inconvenient when one is job hunting.  And as it passed slowly into oblivion, I had time to contemplate my phone future.  Would I continue on my road of barely just the basics plans with no contracts and a seemingly waterproof, drop-proof, not particularly exciting little phone?  Or would I go a different route?

It was around this time that my poor, sad six-year old green iPod mini caught my eye.  Here was an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone (or get two birds stoned at the same time, as the Trailer Park Boys and The Photographer say).  And I chose to embrace technology.  And Rogers.  Although that second part was far less exhilarating…

Reality: the world at large has jumped online.  And if you don’t get onboard, you’ll be left in the dust.  This includes the biz.  Casting notices, job opportunities, contacts, connections, they’re all on the web.  And most artists don’t have day jobs that allow us the luxury of checking our email (that is, if we have day jobs and steady incomes, but isn’t that another tale and less of a love story?) at regular intervals.  When I leave my house in the morning, which is a relative term, I’m gone.  I don’t generally make it back before the sun goes down.  Which means that I miss out on hours and hours of email communications, job board postings, opportunities, in short.

Plus, it’s shiny.

In the week or so since I jumped on the bandwagon, I’ve managed to secure an internship, a job, and a good interview largely as a result of my newfound ability to communicate quickly and efficiently.  And all that music I stole from my sister’s collection of burned CDs?  I now know the track titles and artists, thank you very much, Shazam.  I’m damn near unstoppable at Sudoku.  I have the Complete Works of Shakespeare at my fingertips.  I can make electronic fart noises.  And I can track the Leafs on their way to the playoffs (ok, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself).  In just a few days, I’ve spotted a trend…

With iPhone, the world is my frikkin’ oyster.  Which is exciting.  And I don’t even like oysters.  They remind me of snot.

Risk and Excitement: The best first day of work. EVER.

The fun continues at Harbourfront Centre!

After my wild and crazy summer working at HFC’s Theatre Camp, September has seen my return to the Centre as an Artist Educator in the School Visits programme.  I really enjoy the title of “Artist Educator,” in case you were curious, because it somehow manages not to take the emphasis off of being an artist.  Artist is still first.  Which I think is really valuable, particularly in this educational setting, because the kids coming to us already have teachers in the traditional sense and they don’t necessarily need another teacher in the same way.  I think what we have to offer as artists first is what makes the programme really unique and valuable.

In a nutshell, here is what happens at my awesome new day job (or one of them, anyway): Teachers contact Harbourfront to register their class for one or more of our programmes, of which there are an almost infinite number.  The head honcho, who is a fairly fabulous lady, gets a feel for what the teacher is after and passes the assignment on to one of us Artist Educators.  We then work with the teacher to meet the needs of his/her classroom, which could mean many, many things, but the general idea is that we teach things that would fall under the headings of history, social studies, urban studies, environmental studies, and social justice education through the lens of whatever our individual artistic strength is—visual arts, performance, dance, music, etc. 

Part of Harbourfront’s mission is to make the arts and culture accessible to everyone in Toronto.  I think this is in large part why so much (if not most) of their programming is free, especially the summer festivals and many of the exhibits.  The School Visits programme is aiming to take that to another level and to not only make it accessible (although there is a small cost) but also to make it relevant and engaging. 

And, of course, one of our goals is to get kids (and ourselves) past that little voice in their (our) heads that says, “I can’t.”

Enter Ramune Luminaire (which is such a rockstar name), our guest for day one of Artist Educator training, also known as Artistic Development (much like teachers have Professional Development).  She is a really cool visual artist who facilitates workshops for all kinds of people, inclusive of everyone from the artistically trained to those who cringe at the thought of picking up a paintbrush.

But, in an effort to remind us that anyone can do art and that this is a really important message to communicate to all of our classes, Ramune started the day by having us make marks on paper to music.  You could use any mark-making tool or substance available, and they were diverse and plentiful, and all you had to do was make some kind of mark on the paper.  It didn’t have to be a picture, it didn’t have to be pretty, it just had to be…

This went on for a while, which was fun…and then we all got an envelope containing something meant to inspire us—a word, a phrase, a picture, an object, etc.—and our assignment was to respond artistically to it somehow.  I thought this was a really fun way to get us creating—and oddly I found that most of the actors in the room felt this was easier than making marks to music.  For me, I liked it because it gave me somewhere to start and something to play with (my envelopes contained objects—a cotton ball and then a sequin, which sort of reflects my life and personality in a strange way…but nevermind that right now).

And it just snowballed from there…

We worked on making books that expressed who we were, our only rules were that we had to take risks and whatever we were doing had to excite us.  And I think those are good rules for art and life, having to take risks and having to be excited about what you’re doing.  Because if you aren’t taking risks then you probably aren’t growing, either personally or artistically, because comfort zones become stagnant spaces fairly quickly.  And because if you aren’t excited about what you’re doing then it probably isn’t meaningful to you and you probably aren’t doing it to the best of your abilities and beyond, and art doesn’t pay well enough for that and well, life is too short to do things that aren’t meaningful and exciting.

Later we were sent out to explore Harbourfront and its immediate neighbourhood, since much of what goes on there is site-specific.  And it was nice to sit there and sketch the Canada Malting Company building (an old warehouse, complete with silos), to people watch, to ponder the waves of the Harbour, and even to appreciate the plastic grass with faux rubber bits of dirt on the West Lawn.  Location has always been important to me, personally and artistically.  Knowing where you are and where you’ve been, these things are so important to figuring out where exactly you’re going.

Of course, the next step was to respond to this artistically…with the same rules as before, but more freedom in terms of the project, the medium, etc.  I had started embroidering paper earlier, which for whatever reason I found really satisfying and interesting artistically, so I decided to stick with it because it was exciting, though somewhat painstaking.  And for my risk, I chose to alter a book I found in the piles of things, a series of essays about the various ethnic groups of Toronto.  While this particular book didn’t necessarily mean anything to me, books have always been sort of sacred to me, and the idea of “defacing” one was a step outside my comfort zone…

This is my final project, unfinished. All the pencil lines still need to be embroidered—it’s time consuming.

At the end of the day, we had all created these wild, original, beautiful things.  And it was so thrilling to be in such a creative environment (and to be paid to be there!!) with so many brilliant and talented people.  It really got the ball rolling and inspired me…

The rest of the week was pretty amazing, too, and maybe I’ll write more about it at a later date, but this one day really drove home to me the value of having a job you love and an outlet for pent up creativity…

The Puppet.

Meet Puppet Tim.

This is probably the coolest thing I did all summer.  I mean, I also got teenagers to adapt Shakespeare. But no, this is way cooler.

After two months at Theatre Camp, I had to find another home for the final session (because Theatre Camp doesn’t run).  I landed at Creative Arts Camp and made maybe the most awesome sock puppet ever.  He was modeled after my co-counsellor Tim, down to the last detail (ok, except the teeth, I guess)…notice the walkie-talkie for quick communication, the checklist for making sure the campers are all there, the watch to keep it all on time, and, although the picture doesn’t show it, the First Aid kit for when I burn myself with the glue gun.

And the only thing more enjoyable than making the puppet was taking him to talk to the four year olds at the end of the day.  Kids are hilarious. 

But so are puppets.

Here we are on the last day of our very long summer camp season.

Love.

The End of Summer.

It is officially the first day of Fall. 

Which means that summer vacation is really over (and to those of you who say it ended on Labour Day, I say “Shhhhh”).  Now there’s no denying the chill in the air and the changing colours of the leaves.  The season has shifted and it’s time to get back to business.  Or at least blogging.  I mean, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

To be honest, I still don’t have my life totally together and organized, but if I don’t jump back on the blogging bandwagon now I’m a little worried that I never will.  Plus, I hate to see The Photographer looking all smug as he continues to post amazing pictures on the blog I made him start while I wander aimlessly around the web.  But life is super busy out in the real world and it’s been keeping me offline.

I had an awesome summer working at Theatre Camp down at Harbourfront Centre and am about to head back to HFC tomorrow to start my School Visits training.  Super exciting.  More details on both past and present HFC affiliations to come…

The other night I had a painting date with my Fringe friends at Praxis Theatre (repayment for free rehearsal space), and there are some fun and interesting things in the works over there.  Aside from Indie Caucus activism.  Which is also fun and interesting.  But no more about that right now, I can’t scoop them.

Hopefully I will have some new theatre friends to work with soon, my resume has certainly crossed a few inboxes in the last two weeks and I had an interview for a really cool project this morning.  So there’s more happening, but it’s too soon for details.

Also, The Photographer and I are moving.  As much fun as two people who are used to existing on separate continents living in one 200 square foot room is, we’ve decided we need more space.  And doors.  And maybe two or three rooms.  So we’re moving sometime in October.  After we finish some light renovations on our new condo—zero to hero.  Stay tuned for pictures.  I might even operate a hammer.

And in case you were wondering what else I did with my summer, I caught a fish.  Which was awesome.  Until I started worrying that maybe having a hook in your lip hurts.  And then fishing wasn’t as awesome. 

Well, good thing it’s fall.

What did you do for your summer vacation?

And the Worst Blogger Ever Award goes to…

Me.

Bad blogger.

I just wanted to take a timeout from the vicious war currently being waged against the fruit flies in my apartment (they’re winning) to apologize for being a bad blogger.  And not just because I haven’t been blogging, because I don’t flatter myself to think anyone has had a personal crisis due to my lack of posting, but because I haven’t been reading any of your blogs either…and I know how much work it takes to keep a blog up and how nice it feels to know someone is actually reading it.  So I just wanted to say sorry.

Oh, and I promise to change my ways.

Hopefully soon.  But realistically, it might be a few weeks.

Working at Harbourfront for the summer has me busier (and way more exhausted) than expected.  And I have lots of fun things to share with everyone, I just haven’t had time to do the blogging world justice.  Oh, and SummerWorks is coming up.  I don’t have a show, but there’s plenty to see.  Which also takes time.

So I hope you’re all having a fantastic summer thus far…if you’re in BC I hope you’re safe from the fires; if you’re in Ottawa I hope you’re dry; and if you’re in Toronto like me, you’re probably just thrilled that the sun is shining and the garbage is getting cleaned up.  And if you're elsewhere, I hope some combination of all of the above for you.

Keep it real. And, much like the Terminator turned Governator, I’ll be back.

Beer and Communists: Come See My Fringe Show!

Here are all the details for the Fringe Show I’m stage managing (more on that part later). Come see us! We’re playing at the TRANZAC, which is right next door to the Beer Tent. In fact, you can even bring your beer from the tent into our show and enjoy them together. If you need more reason than that to attend, keep reading. Because there are Communists, too. And singing. And an Austrian. If the beer is enough for you, scroll down for time and date info. And come say hello after the show!

Also, all the awesome photos are by Meredith Whitten.

In 1931, Tim Buck, leader of Canada’s Communist Party was jailed under Section 98, a controversial law that allowed the government to arbitrarily jail dissidents. A group of artists that opposed the erosion of civil rights by Bennett’s Conservative government in the face of a global economic crisis formed The Progressive Arts Club. Their production, Eight Men Speak, played to a sold out house of 1500 Torontonians before the government threatened to pull the license of any theatre that performed the play again. Soon after, The Conservative Government was defeated and Buck was released from the Kingston Penitentiary. His release inspired a sold-out Maple Leaf Gardens to welcome him home.

Tim Buck 2 looks at all these events as well as relevant contemporary issues in the style of a Living Newspaper, a common technique used by many progressive-minded theatre companies in the 1930s to bring fellow citizens information and analysis of current events.

Co-conspirators: Margaret Evans, Jody Hewston, Melissa Hood, Greta Papageorgiu, Ben Sanders, Andrew Zadel

Director: Michael Wheeler, Asst. Director: Laura Nordin, Stage Manager: Me!, Script Coordinator: Aislinn Rose, Sound and Light Design: Verne Good, Movement: Pam Johnson, Dramaturgy: Alex Fallis

Playing at The Fringe Club @ The Tranzac:  292 Brunswick Avenue (Just South of Bloor.)

Dates and Times:

Thu July, 2 6:15 PM

Sat July, 4 2:30 PM

Sun July, 5 7:45 PM

Wed July, 8 6:00 PM

Fri July, 10 4:15 PM

Sun July, 12 2:30 PM

Tickets Available:

By phone: 416-966-1062;

On line: www.fringetoronto.com

In Advance: Fringe Club 292 Brunswick;

At the door: 1 hour before each show.

Facebook Event Page

Praxis Website

Getting over myself: Lesson #672

The Fringe show I’m stage managing is a collective creation project. More on that to come. And while we don’t yet have a full show, we do have a clever little song. And our wonderful director has a vision about how that song should be performed. This vision includes a verse sung from the booth…and the person in the booth would be…me. Right.

Apparently I neglected to mention that singing in public is not in my contract (and I would sooner die).

The lovely assistant director came to my defence, to which the response was: “Oh please, she went to theatre school at NYU, I think she can handle it…”

Touché. Ok, Director, you win this round.

And really, it’s more talking than singing. I think I can handle it, too. But way to foil the plan, silly NYU theatre education, you have officially invalidated any excuse I will ever manage to come up with to not do anything for the rest of my theatrical career/life…geez.

Be gentle, it’s my first time.

The combination of alcohol and a hot tub can make doing just about anything seem like a good idea. No, not that, not what you’re thinking…get your mind out of the gutter! Seriously…So whilst I was relaxing in the wilds of Utah and enjoying a cocktail or two in the bubbles, I agreed to stage manage a Fringe show.

And I have no idea what I’m doing.

(Let’s just say “Spring Break” and leave it at that…)

But I was told that all I needed to do was keep them organized and bring a binder and some paper. I figured I could handle that.

Really, this all came about because I sent an apparently well-timed thank you email with an offer to help out in any way if it was needed. The response: “Straight up. We need a stage manager.” If you’re going to offer your help, you should probably be ready for anything.

And so far so good.

Although now that I’m back and actually doing things, I am a little curious as to what exactly I was thinking when I agreed to this gig (I blame the booze and the bubbles). I have a lot going on for the next few weeks and I’ve just had to accept that some things are falling by the wayside as a result (I’ll try not to let blogging become one of them, but I make no guarantees). Nothing majorly important has been sacrificed, just things I wanted to do and will now not be able to (like helping in the prep for the summer camp that used to be my June-August home). 

Of course, instead of doing those things, I am stage managing. And in addition to just showing up with my binder and paper (or computer, since I believe in technology), I’m getting to use my brain, which sadly does not happen as frequently as I would like.  I’m also getting to hang around with some incredibly intelligent, seriously hilarious, and very talented theatre people. And I get to be part of a very interesting creative process. So while I find this all kind of scary really intimidating, I think it’s also exactly what I need.  This is a fairly large step outside my comfort zone, but it doesn’t feel that uncomfortable. Although I may change my story when tech rolls around. In two weeks.

In short, I’m getting over myself.

Oh, and by the way, I’m also a Fringe virgin…

Flying: A Retrospective on my years of airline travel

Greetings from 30,000 feet. Well, sort of. Because I’m typing it up here but I’m not posting it from here. There will be no more forking over of my dollars for modern conveniences (like checking baggage and food…seriously) on this little aeroplane adventure.  Sigh, I remember the days when they actually fed you for free if you spent more than three hours in the air…even if it was crappy airplane food. Oh, nostalgia. Although, there is one redeeming factor of the long-haul (or long-ish haul) flight that has remained: the in-flight movie. That is, unless the in-flight movie is Race to Witch Mountain. I am all for the family friendly movie and whatnot, but I will not be supporting the film career of Mr. The Rock in any way, shape, or form.  Seriously, Disney, that will be enough. 

And it was Inkheart on the way here. Which I tolerated because I was flying First Class (The Photographer’s Dad is rich in frequent flyer points, thank you very much) and the costumes were pretty cool…Really, who is in charge of choosing these things? I think I need to write a letter.

So I’m on a plane full of crew members (as passengers…I’ve never seen this many of them before…I guess this means there are plenty of people aboard who could land this thing in the event of an emergency…) and Mormon missionaries (I know this because they’re wearing badges that tell me so) with nothing to do.  What an interesting life I lead…

I don’t remember the first time I was on a plane.  I was an infant and my parents took me to Puerto Rico.  Apparently I was well-behaved, but I’m not sure any baby, even a good one, is cute when you’re trapped in a pressurized sardine can with it for several hours.  I did a reasonable amount of travelling as a child, at least one trip a year. I’ve had a pretty privileged existence that way, I’m aware (and grateful).  And I got to see the pilots in the cockpit (clearly, this was all pre-9/11) and I remember Canadian Airlines used to give out colouring books.  In some ways, the getting on a plane part of travelling used to be my favourite. But times have changed.

This whole jet-setting thing is not as glamorous as it may seem.  It’s a lot of packing, waiting in lines, dealing with airport security (which pretty much has carte-blanche to do whatever they want these days, at least in the US…and whether this is to the benefit of our safety is up for debate) or, heaven forbid, Customs, being herded from lines to waiting areas to planes, stuffing bags into already stuffed overhead compartments, jostling for elbow/leg room, spending several hours in less than comfortable seats (and I’m not that big a person, I don’t know how some people manage it…even average sized humans), and finally arriving wherever you’re going basically exhausted.  The stories I could tell…I once flew out of what was basically a giant party tent by the side of a runway. The tickets were dirt cheap. Clearly, the sketch-factor of the experience was reflective of that. Anyway…

I used to fly back and forth fairly regularly between school in New York, my parents’ house in Michigan, The Photographer in Toronto/London, ON, and various other locations abroad.  I spent a large portion of my university life either in an airport or on a plane.  I was basically an expert on the art of air travel.  I had the time it took to get from my apartment in New York to LaGuardia, through security, and onto the plane without spending an extra minute waiting in what I would argue is one of the lousiest airports around down to a science.  And I’m not overly anxious in the air, but I was getting to the point where I just about needed meds to get on a plane.   Something about hurtling through the air in an over-glorified tin can just seems unnatural.So while I miss all the cool places I got to visit, I don’t miss the actual act of travelling.  This is where people get confused. Being somewhere new, interesting, amazing, that’s the glamorous part. Travelling, the getting there part, is not.  The fact that until this trip I hadn’t been on a plane in about a year is thrilling.  Because if you do something frequently enough, it kind of stops being fun.  It becomes a chore, an unpleasant necessity, and you take it for granted.

But I was thinking as we took off over the Great Salt Lake that flying has once again become kind of novel in my world, like it was when I was little, especially on a clear day with a window seat (although my camera is stuffed in the bin overhead, which is really too bad because it was beautiful).  I once again appreciate the wonder of going places.  I’m not so travelled-out as I once was.  And despite the lack of food, the fact that you now have to pay to check even one bag, the ban on doing pretty much anything other than sitting in your seat quietly, and the general lameness of the in-flight movie selections, it’s all kind of worth it to see the world from up here.

We weren’t really meant to fly, or so I gather by our lack of wings, but the view is pretty incredible.