June 18 Once again, things happened at the Fringe, and the awards took place. I'll post later, I'm tired and the Beer Tent is coming down on Monday. I missed a lot of the winners of the Frankies, between too fast a reading of the names and a crowd that started cheering before the title was really out. And really, it's the Fringe who should be putting up the winners as soon as announced, rather than relying on others to post or print them. I notice they finally updated the list of reviews on Sunday, with the last update being Tuesday. They sure aren't working in that area to the best benefit of the troupes, or even the public wanting to know something more about the shows.

June 17

Things did happen on Saturday, though nothing extraordinary, but I'm going to try to keep this short so I can get over there

The missing venue manager reappeared. Someone took more than their share of brownies. The Drag Races went on, I always skip it, but word has it there were still no Drag Kings participating. A lot of the volunteers looked hungover, and word is they party Friday night went on forever, apparently some kept it going outside after closing time. One went home at 4am, to Longueil, but when I expressed puzzlement over how he could get home at that time, he said he had a car. Another said she took the first bus home (an indication of how late things went).

I made a mistake earlier in the week. I declined one flyer, and because it had a similar style, I thought it was for a different show. But I've bumped into Neema (she appeared at one of Cat Lipscombe and Thea Patterson's Kick! shows last year) since then, and no, it was her flyer. Sorry.

Jeremy has generally been in a good mood, I don't know if it's because the Fringe is running smoothly (you used to be able to judge the way things were going by his mood), or just that his wife Jen and the new baby have had a smoothing effect. Jeremy's brother Ken appeared for the first time this Fringe (unless I simply wasn't around at the right time before) with his girlfriend (or maybe his wife by now??). I remember seeing them at used book sales in the early nineties, and even after I started going to the Fringe it took a few years before I realized he was Jeremy's brother. Anyway, the four of them went off somewhere, maybe to a show?

Doing some searching, I find this new website appears relatively high on google, which is a bit surprising given that it's only been around for since about June 8th. And usually when I do searches on "montreal fringe" there is so much clutter, of lists that keep track of Fringe Festivals and such, that have really no content.

That website that came by to promote themselves with the horn still have no comments about the shows, another example that space does not create comment. Oh, I suppose if I'd wanted to promote it, but I'm not. Now, I see someone, presumably a volunteer, at the Fringe (I may be somewhat obscure, you have to look to find my full name here but I can't even guess at who some posts are from) wants to have a "fringe community" over on that myspace thing. I certainly won't be present, and I figure it won't survive. If people can't build up a body of work before they create a space, then it's not likely to do one bit of good. There are a fair number of Fringe references this year, but they are passing remarks as in "I'm going to the Fringe later" rather than saying anything new or original.

From time to time this week, I've checked Wetlabel that tried to make such a splash at the Fringe last year, they did supply some reviews, and I sure don't see any Fringe related material over there. They say a business is most likely to fail in the first few months, because it can't be sustained while growth happens, but if a website is so interested in the Fringe that they want to pay money to be a sponsor, it makes little sense to disappear when things don't provide the results they were hoping for.

I seem to have the bad luck to be passing by when Tristan and volunteers are moving Beer Kegs or other heavy things. I was at Club Lamb and someone passed by with a gas cannister (I think it's CO2, the stuff that pumps the beer out of the kegs), so I took it from her. Then we arrived at The Academy and there were various things to bring up. That took at least an hour, shuffling things about, returning empties to the Beer Tent, and then moving ice (no frozen nipples this year) to The Academy. Friday night/Saturday morning, I ended up helping Tristan move things to The Academy, when their beer machine wasn't working, so we brought up the beer machine from the Tent. But I don't mind; indeed it is a gripe of mine that I'm not counted on for little things. One year, Jeremy was fussing over some cables at the Beer Tent while we were setting up, and Bill Brownstein of The Gazette was waiting to do an interview with him. Jeremy sometimes worries too much, but that time I was able to take over.

One thing I didn't catch until mid-week, it just never occurred to me, is that the Swinger's Club is right next to Club Lamb, and they have their good looking women out front soliciting, oops we can't use that word, just like we have at the Fringe. We could have used their club as a venue, that would make for some fun and games. And for the sidewalk sale, there is some monstrous thing parked in front of Club Lamb, apparently it's some sort of wave machine so you can try waveboarding. I'm not sure if it's for demonstration, or passersby can try it. But, they also put up a tent, so you can't watch the activities if you're sitting at the Fringe table in front of Club Lamb.

I finally saw Realm of the Senses, Shakti's show. Most of it was danced in front of a projection, with footage that matched the dance (or maybe the dance changed to match the background projection, I don't know which came first). This is Shakti's tenth year, she having missed 1998 when the Fringe was moved earlier to accommodate something we aren't supposed to talk about. With that exception, she's been here every year since 1996. I wish I'd gotten to her Dances of India, because while Indian Dance happens here from time to time, it's often in a very "fringe" location, like a school auditorium, and it's not treated as part of the dance continuum.

Maybe more later, but I need to rest because Monday is the strike, and I hear if you do ten of them in a row, you get a gold star. And I've done every one since 1997, so Monday will be my tenth.

June 16 I never got to the OFF dance show Le Sixieme s'est envole at the Black Theatre Workshop but it turns out some involved were in the Subamigo show last year, because someone was at the Beer Tent tonight (and she knows Amy Elizabeth Blackmore doing I Love New York, talk about an incestuous community) and she had posters and flyers for another Piss in the Pool show at the Bain St. Michel (details later). She asked if I'd been to the show, and I thought she was referring to the Pool show, oops. No, I never got there because the fixed times of the OFF shows seem to get in the way. It's bad enough that the regular Fringe shows are increasingly starting at about the same time, but the OFF shows knock into prime Fringe time. So no, there are no missing cookies. The Piss in the Pool show was last year, the weekend after the Fringe, and they shifted the audience around for each piece. I've lost the flyer for this year's show, I recall admission is only $5.00, and names were listed but the only one I remember is award winning (she won the 303 Prize last year) Dana Michel. This is a chance to see something cheap, and see something different, and of course, it isn't likely to get much coverage.

One show, Hourglass, has a $9 regular price and a $7 price if you bring a bag of cookies. I'd like to know the story about that, and if anyone actually took them up on it. Of course, $2 is a pretty low price for a bag of cookies, all that hard work and the cost of the ingredients. And cookies should not be a commodity to be sold, they should be freely offered (and I think maybe the woman involved got one of the cookies). Then I'd have to pay off Jeremy to waive the "service charge". But, Byron Toben is having a show at the Fraser Hickson Library (they are grumbling about funding again, sometimes it's hard to tell when a group is in real need, and when it simply wants to feed from the trough to ensure they will survive), as a fundraiser for breast cancer (or the cure), and he said to bring a bag of cookies and he'd sell them for a dollar a piece. For that, we can put a price on the cookies.

One thing I have done this week, and staying up when I should be asleep (but at some stage, one is tired enough that moving to bed is something to put off), is reading, and specifically the new biography about Woody Guthrie, Ramblin' Man by Ed Cray. I read Joe Klein's biography when it came out in paperback in 1982 (and I've read Woody's Bound For Glory and Seeds of Man, but this seems a far more in depth book. We see his second wife (and Arlo's mother) Marjorie in far more detail. I knew she'd been a Martha Graham dancer, but she apparently was someone who could teach the Graham techniques, and passed them on to people like Merce Cunningham. And there's plenty of references to the Spanish Civil War. I started reading it now because it's out in paperback, but it's timely given that I finally gave Suzanne Miller and Allan Paivio's one year old son a copy of Woody's Songs to Grow on (which may be his greatest seller). Little Julian's grandfather (and Allan's father) went to Spain to fight for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War 70 years ago. But Allan does music for Suzanne's choreography and so their relationship sort of mimics when Marjorie met Woody, since she and a friend had gone to see Woody to get him to do some folk music for a dance piece. Woody's story of trying to provide music to dancers who expected music to stay the same while he would vary a song every time he played it, is interesting. It would work for improv, but not for a straight dance piece.

John Dodge made an appearance at the Beer Tent, though at first I didn't recognize him. Most years, he does the sound at the Beer Tent, but this is one of his "sabbatical" years. I remembered to give him his Fringe Oldtimers Club card, his first year apparently being 1998 but I delayed the issuance fo the card because he missed a year.

Technician Josh showed up at The Academy. He's not doing the Fringe this year, but in recent months he's been doing the technical stuff at the Studio 303 shows, and he's handling the Endless Medication show that's appearing this weekend there as an OFF-Fringe show. He says there are two pieces (I'd caught that mid-week), so the 100 minute running time isn't as bad as it first appears, though it will take time away from the Fringe, and of course, there is the commute.

The most interesting part of the sidewalk sale, other than the crowds of people, is S. Welch Books (I can remember when they first opened, and it was in NDG). Every sidewalk sale, they have a bunch of tables with books selling for $1 (I always wonder where they get them, since it doesn't seem to be regular stock, I once got a pair of books about XINU (Xinue Is Not Unix) at the sale. I've bought about fifteen books, giving two away immediately at the Beer tent, since the sale began on Thursday. Anyway, they've been staying open quite late, at least till 12:30 am tonight (when I left), which is fun. You can stand there sort of looking over the books, but also watching the crowd, and rare can you do that sort of thing in the middle of the night. We don't really have much of a 24 hour culture here. And let's not forget that bookstores were one of the first to get the right to open on Sundays, sometime in the eighties. Paragraphe Books, which had previously been Mansfield Book Mart, originally opened a cafe to give them the legal right to open on Sundays. That was in the early eighties.

One of the Venue Managers seems to have disappeared. First, they were sick on the weekend, returning on Monday, and then not in attendance since then. Word is she won't be back. So there's been a stream of fill-ins, including "Artist Interfacer" Angela, who was down at The Nest yesterday selling the tickets. I guess it's fine for her, because if an artist needs help, they can just visit her at the remote office, as easily as going to HQ.

The Thirteenth Hour tonight had a Sweet Sixteen theme. I am out of the loop, becuase all I heard about it ahead of time was that there would be such a thing, not hearing it directly (we could be putting up a list of who's attending each night, if we were better networked), but apparently most people knew since quite a few people appeared in prom type outfits. Niles Seguin had a jacket that looked very realistic, and I found it hard to believe that he just happened to have it with him. But no, he'd bought it at a used clothe store. I decided to wait around for it, I tend to avoid it since it starts so late (and it is both an insular thing, too much about inter-Fringe performers, yet if the point is to promote shows then it's badly scheduled for the potential audience), but I stayed. I figured someone needed to be chaperone, and I had a whistle, a flashlight, and chances if I wasn't the oldest there, I was amongst the oldest. Nantha was there, and he might be a bit older, I can remember his son in daycare with The Might Mira. But I left at 2:30 (it started late, and obviously ran late), so I could get home before the sun came up (though I was awake to see that). Someone even had a strap-on dildo, though I don't know what they planned or hoped to do with it). The Beer was not flowing properly, though there was great demand for it, so I got roped into moving some stuff from the Beer Tent. I even earlier in the evening was trusted with money, taking it to HQ to get change.

There's Fringe stage set up on St. Lawrence Blvd, but I've yet to see any activity. Something was going on around it late at night, and I thought maybe that other festival was making use of it.

My entry about CAM internet closing reminds me of the time in early 1997 when I posted something about the Fringe Festival in a place where Julian Feldman, who was one of those who'd fought the battle to ensure the ISP was a proper non-profit company, would have seen it. That year, CAM was a sponsor of the Fringe, and I always assumed there was a connection. But, CAM missed a big chance, because that year the CAM venue was in the Shatner Building at McGill, and it would have been so easy to set up a public access terminal there, to show off CAM (and the internet), and to make use of the internet to get the word out. It was the year before that Inet 96 took place at the same time as the Fringe, at McGill, with people coming out of the student union building, glancing at the Beer Tent in the parking lot, and wondering what in the world was going on. It was Fringe Festival as fundraising model that I attribute to CAM being a sponsor, if I had any influence in the matter. Of course, there was a post just before the Fringe in 1997, Don't forget the Fringe Festival that says something about community and the Fringe (and community and the internet, for that matter). Had I known CAM was going to be a sponsor that year, I would have suggested a public access termianal so people could learn about CAM, and about the internet, and even use the internet to get the message out, but by the time the program came out, it was too late.

I write notes down, and then can't read them later.

I was talking with someone from Without Annette (by the way, "baby Vinnie" made an appearance), and she wondered if anyone made much use of the Fringe's website. But that is a chicken and an egg situation. If it's not useful, then the paper program is far better, since it's portable. But, unless effort is expended, then the site will never be useful. I've spent a lot of time promoting the Fringe site, including those year's when the Gazette kept a list of upcoming festivals, and I kept emailing them to remind them of the Fringe (the final year they ran the feature, it appeared without my help). I told the Fringe some years back, after some particularly bad case of judgement about the site, that one can look at logs to see how the website is used. I'd love to see those logs, because then I could see how much the site is used, and how useage spikes. The whole point is to lure an audience from home to the Fringe, and not enough effort is done to use the website for that. If they can't update the list of reviews after Tuesday, then something is wrong, in decision making and the process of keeping things updated. I've made all kinds of comments about this, and they are all based on the notion that if we make use of it, then that will help, while the Fringe seems to make decisions based on how much effort versus return.

June 15

That find of the Fringe reference on the porn/pseudo porn site prompted me to mention it to Allan, and that also reminded me of the story last year of someone being arrested in New York City for being in the escort business. She turned out to be from Montreal, and had moved there to be an actress. But, when I searched about her at the time, it turned out that she had been in a Fringe show, Leaf in the Mailbox, that played in 1999. Coincidentally, I got email from J. Kelly Nestruck that referenced that event and show, because Mailbox had also won a Centaur award when it was determined by audience vote. I remember people pondering how the show could win, when it didn't seem to be a standout show.

I finally saw Terrible Things. The thing that drew me was the Cass Elliott reference, but that wasn't that big a part of the show (and while they had some Mamas and Papas music running at the beginning and end of the show, I sure didn't hear "Make Your Own Kind of Music" which seemed such an obvious choice. I'd hemmed and hawed about seeing it, even though as I said they had helped put up the Beer Tent last week. I don't think the blurb was properly descriptive. Somehow I was thinking it was an actual play, and I often find real plays to be the weakest form at the Fringe. But the show turned out to be a one man show, and really could be categorized as story telling, but of course he moved around the stage and he had good presentation. It was funny, and I am glad I saw it (and I'm not just saying that). It's about being a gay teenager, but the reality is that much of it applies to being a teenager, period, at least if you didn't fit into the mainstream.

It was livelier at the Beer Tent/Beer Garden today. The nice weather meant people were hanging out, and actually buying beer, in the afternoon, and it kept up as the evening entertainment started up. Some music, a film about Indie Music (I didn't watch it), and what seems now to be a nightly event, the fire juggling. That is well worth seeing, though I don't know if it continues through the weekend. It is one way to get good at juggling, if you start with fire there's incentive to be good at it from the start. When the smell of whatever they burn wafted over the Tent, I thought tonight of how we could also toast marshmallows, though none were around.

I saw Backstage at Da Fonky B. It pays to read the blurbs. I rushed over there, getting there in time for a change, and once I had ticket in hand, asked how long it was. An hour and a half, which I think is too long for a Fringe show. I'd decided I wanted to see this because it came from New Orleans, and I thought that might be about some of the things we know that city for. But it was a play, with some singing and dancing, and I think it could have come from just about anywhere. It did feature the best performance in a bikini that I've ever seen at the Fringe. It had an intermission (and as someone said earlier in the week, it's not smart to have an intermission if the show needs work), and I decided that after about an hour I'd seen enough. Someone left at the half hour mark, making it safe for the rest of us to leave early. Had it not been nice out, I probably would have stayed the full length. Its run is over.

I can't remember where I read it, but apparently Rae Bowhay (I think I've spelled that wrong) is dancing in Flamenco con Fusion 2. I think she danced in the Fringe years ago, and without checking old programs, I think it was Ordered Me Poisoned in 1996. I think that's the show that Roberta Cooper (who also danced with the Joes two years ago in Europe when the company went bankrupt) was in, and I know I saw the two of them dance together a number of times, to the extent I wasn't sure which was which (since they aren't marked when dancing), though I now know which one is Roberta Cooper.

Last year, one of the Sketchersons had a great story of something that occurred while he was leafletting, which I wrote down afterwards but couldn't remember the details. We all agree it was a good story, but nobody can remember it completely this year, even the guy who the story belongs to. But sadly, the only interesting thing that's happened to him this year, at least when I asked about Wednesday, was that he got three parking tickets in one night. Not a nice way to greet out of town artists.

A blog search turns up this this page with 3 reviews/comments about La Grosse. I guess it should really go in the page about news, but I put it here because this is the show that was (the run is finished now) performed in someone's yard. And that yard, according to one of the entries, belongs to sculptor Armand Vaillancourt who's name I recognize for other things. Some months ago, The CBC had a piece on the nightly news about Suzanne of the famous Leonard Cohen song. And it mentioned that she was married to the sculptor at the time she met Leonard Cohen. A transcript of the piece is online.

Obviously, the sidewalk sale is on, till Sunday. A Big Event of the Summer, And a chance to leaflet a wider audience, for the bold performers, given that it attracts an awful lot of people.

CAM Internet is about to disappear, with a vote tomorrow to dissolve the company and hand the assets over to Cooptel. A letter I just wrote about this is here.

Andrea and Geordan in town doing From Under the Umbrella... rented bicycles to get around. I warned them last night to be careful, given the death the other day of the cyclist. But given the letter in The Gazette, I should point out that the first Saturday of June used to be (or still is) International Cycling Day and Le Monde a Bicyclette used to have a fairly radical ride on that day to work for bicycle rights. The Tour de l'Ile came along, usurping the day, and while it is a far bigger event, it's hardly revolutionary. It changes nothing, and all those plastic water bottles lying around afterwards says much about the mindset of the riders. Let's never forget that on June 7th, 1990, Cicely Yalden was killed at the corner of Rachel and Clark, right near the Beer Tent, with different reports saying either a car was parked in the bike path causing her to get off the path, or a car was parked too close to the intersection and blocked someone's view. Six weeks to the day before she was killed, I found a truck parked in the bike path at that very intersection, sticking out into traffic.

June 14 I spoke too soon, email comes from the Fringe, the first time since taking Patrick to task for spamming. They are looking for volunteers for shifts over the next few days. It may be busy, as audiences want to see those popular shows, but also, volunteers tend to be scarcer as they have collected Fringe Bucks by that time and want to see shows before the Fringe ends. The search for volunteers hasn't been very visible this year, I sure didn't have much interest in helping that search this year, and I can't help but think there is a correlation. I moved beer bottles in 1996, but didn't do anything "official" until the strike of 1997, and that's only because there was a sign behind the scenes asking for volunteers, and I happened to see it.

I couldn't decide whether or not to mention this, so I'll compromise by referencing it but not include the link because it is out of the ordinary. Doing a search, there's a reference to the Fringe on a site that features naked women. One entry has someone talking about them belonging to the Montreal Fringe till June 20th. I didn't recognize the picture. For the life of me, I can't decide whether the site is simply porn under an attempt to make it appear legitimate, or some attempt at creating "alternative porn".

I saw This Fairytale is Not Working Out again tonight, going to the 23:30 in case they needed an audience for the late show, and because it's the venue closest to home so it's far more tempting to see a late show at the MAI than any other venue. I'm still puzzling about why it seems so different than what I normally see, and I suspect it really is because there are so many dancers on stage. Rarely do such larger pieces appear at the Fringe, or Studio 303. But there also may be an issue of regionality, with local dance getting a greater influence from European dance (reminds me of the time someone from Sweden or Denmark was in town looking for people to do contact improvisation with, sort of a cross-pollination).

Tonight the piece seemed more playful than I recall from the first time, but maybe it's just I decided I should react to the bits that I liked. And seeing so many dancers on stage at the Fringe is a relatively uncommon experience, and if this show was elsewhere likely most of the audience would be much farther from the stage.

Which reminds me, when two of the Influxdance dancers were pouring beer the other night and Matt Goldberg appeared (as he invariably does), I suggested they have an improv battle, dancers versus comedy improv people. I'm not sure how you'd set that up, but later I realized I'd come up with the same line last year, but with a battle of the improv troupes, doing it right there on St. Lawrence Blvd, West Side Story style

I saw the Cheerleader show, Sum of All Fears. I somehow missed it in the past, wanting to see it because Rebecca Singh was an important part of it (but when I asked about her whereabouts, she's moved to Toronto), avoiding it because it was in OFF venues and maybe not sure about the cheerleader aspect. They do look great in those outfits, and they do stay in them through the show. But, they aren't cheering throughout the show, instead they are almost like superheros, keeping in uniform while doing various things (ie skits), and then every so often breaking into a cheer. It seemed like a good balance, not overkill with the cheers but enough to show their ability. Watch for Terry Fox's sock to disappear.

Did I ever say that Pat Donnelly helped the Fringe a lot, not just writing about it for The Gazette but she genuinely seemed interested in it? It's only with Gaetan Charlebois taking over Gazette coverage of the Fringe in recent years that coverage comes close to the way it was when Pat Donnelly was doing it. Plus, I run into her every so often, once at a used book sale at the Atwater Library after she was nearly lynched for running as city councillor in Westmount, and last year in a grocery store where she recognized me, but I didn't her until I had move a few aisles over.

It was Cindy Davis's birthday today, something I remembered earlier in the week but forgot today. Just the other day I asked Tristan if we'd see her this year. She was in a show a decade ago, and was a venue manager a number of years, but then simply comes as an audience member when she's not busy. There were a few other birthdays on the same day, at least one technician, Flora, long gone, and maybe it was Gaetan Charlebois's birthday? I know his is around the time of the Fringe.

Some more Buzz appeared at the Beer Tent, though it still seems slow. Finally there was an update of the Buzz on the website, though I'm sure I checked before I went over to the Fringe about 4pm and it was only updated by the time I got home late. And nobody seems to be checking, since one is clearly in the wrong place, indeed a duplicate, and there is repetitive Buzz which indicates to me that people sent the same Buzz when it didn't appear, and that should be caught before it goes up. Again, it doesn't matter how you think it will work, it matters how people expect it to work, and if there's nothing saying there'll be a delay, then people will click again. Memory says it was 3 days between updates, and that's a long time for a ten day festival, and only increases the likelihood that some will send the same Buzz. Though, they did fix the matter of selecting the show (now if you click the Buzz link on a show's blurb, that show is preselected in the Buzz form, and though they did not put in the missing anchors on the Buzz page, they have now put a show's Buzz on the page for that show (while also keeping the same comments on the Buzz page). [ACTUALLY, when I wake up at noon, having been up till 6am, the Buzz is back to where it had been after the first appeared, but I note that the more recent Buzz still exists, on the page set aside for each troupe.]

June 13 Wow. I got the first spam today to the new Pubnix account, that I've only had a month, and barely out in public view. I once got spam to my old CAM account that revealed the email addresses, so I saw that it carried my Libertel address too, years after that "Freenet" in Montreal had died.

But at least the spam from the Fringe has stopped. It is their loss. Small groups who can't be bothered using webpages, can't be bothered understanding the medium (if you want to pull people, you need to keep feeding them information/gossip) and can't be bothered working with others so we see clusters of information rather than an infinite number of websites trying to do the same thing, cannot afford to harvest email addresses if they depend on email to get their word out. Neither can they afford to send it out too frequently, or come across as advertising. It bugs people, and then they tune out, which then means they aren't around for important news. There is very little content in the email from the Fringe, and they put me on it back in 2000. Towards the end, I was pretty much not paying attention, but when I checked in retrospect, important things were not going out in that form.

This was all distilled in former volunteer coordinator's actions of last summer, when he sent out email for his Village Scene Productions/gay theatre festival. He was complaining that some groups asked to be taken off his list, he claimed he didn't spam (but he did, I had zero interest in his projects, but once emailed him to suggest some ways of making effective use of the internet), but he was so impotent in his internet useage that all he could think of was to send his gripe to the Quebec Drama Federation and everyone else on his email list. Once you get your email harvested, nothing else matters, that's the first issue.

But of course, we still aren't using the internet properly. There is an irony that the old days were a far better model of useage, but all the kids that come running in in recent years see the internet as advertising, or at least broadcast medium, and too often are sliding up to branded things on the internet rather than the cooperative and communal spaces of the old days. In essence, too many are simply talking to themselves, or at best a handful of people who are already their "readers

One of the volunteers working in the Box Office, Julie has a blog, traveljulie.blogspot.com where she's mentioned being busy with the Fringe a couple of times. But she was genuinely surprised that I'd found the blog, and left a comment. Because unlike a decade ago when virtually nobody was online but pretty much all Fringe talk was on The Mirror's computer BBS and we were talking to each other, and each post was content to keep people around and maybe add something, now pretty much everyone online has their own space. So they tell their friends, and a few people drift in through websearches. But the only way they are linked together is if one central body links them. It took five years from when I explicitly said the Fringe should have the troupe's links up early to the time it actually happened (2005 for the first time) and along the way the links weren't even all in the paper program, or in the online program, and I was fixing the pages myself, which was just ignored. I didn't bother this year, but for some years I'd search to find who was coming and who had websites (or even to find articles about coming troupes) to try and put it in one place for others to find it. Ironically, I never promoted this site much, thinking it more a proof of concept that would nag the Fringe along. But while there's been some growth, it isn't much. This "diary" may be pretty boring, in part because I am off by myself feeling a need to fill space, but my webpage has generally been a more connecting site than the Fringe site for years. And ironically, it was supposed to be only the first step, that once we had access to the artists early, we'd make use of that.

This is the notion of "open source". Release information just in case someone can make use of it. It didn't make sense in the old days, when distribution was so costly and slow, but with the internet once content is available, you might as well let it loose. I found the blog/website for the guy doing Pentacostal Wisconsin show, and he was grumbling about not getting help from the Fringe in his need for a projection screen. But if we were real community, there'd be space where everyone could find such queries, without having to search, and the community (be it the staff, the volunteers, the audience or just some guy with no real interest in the Fringe) could either find a screen or suggest where to borrow one. This doesn't undermine the Fringe Staff, it helps them, so they can work on the things that they can only do while the rest help the acts.

I can't be much help to Atlety doing The Forgotten Warrior (don't forget it) this week, when she desperately needs to get some publicity going, because I'm doing things. But a week or ten days before the Fringe, there was plenty of time to suggest where she could target her promotion (every show has an audience, but once it's less than mainstream, it becomes harder to find it, especially if you're from out of twon). I am quite glad to see that Amy doing I Love New York has her poster up on her website, even a page of flyers, and some words asking people to print some up and put them up. This is a decade old suggestion, and when I first came up with it, I pointed out that too often fancy posters are printed and they remain afterwards, because it's too much trouble for a lot of people to get to one central location to get them. That project lasted all of four months, failing from low visibility, and there were fancy posters we discovered after the fact, waiting.

But none of this works if we can't find each other to start with, and even then, it needs to be an interactive medium rather than all kinds of webpages/blogs standing alone. Playing tag in myspace doesn't count.

It was baby day at the Fringe. Jeremy, Jen and baby J.T (why does that sound like a character out of Degrassi?) all went in to Big Spender together. Then, baby Poe who's now 2.5 years old, made an appearance at the Beer Tent, though it's not the first time. And Lys, who was in Urban Body Parts in 2001, and Kevin appeared at the Beer Tent with just over a year old Vinnie. He made his first appearance last year, and hidden in his sling, virtually nobody noticed he was there. Vinnie from Without Annette didn't believe there was a real baby Vinnie, his baby only jokingly referred to by that name.

The Without Annette show apparently takes place in the dark, which as I pointed out, might be dangerous for the later shows. Have to wake all those people up afterwards. And what about those couples in the back making out in the dark?

It turns out the Fringe is at least one Venue Manager short. Each time I've gone by Venue 1/The Mai, there's been a different person in charge. After a few times, it was clear they were just using various people to sit in. I don't know if other venues suffer the same fate. And last night, they were scrambling to find some people to guard the Beer Tent overnight. Those who'd signed up cancelled. Part of me wanted to help, but not only am I tired, but a decade of putting so much into the Festival without much return in terms of change does not make me as eager as I once was. Though, had I gotten the word earlier, it might have changed things, giving me a chance to get home for a bit, but they started asking as the Beer Tent closed

Some of the acts are realizing that they need to be more out there, something I could have told them years ago. Solid State has glossy posters and flyers now, up from the black and white flyers of the Fringe For All. Though, they come with an existing audience, which is why the first year they were here, in 2002, they had good audiences from the start. And that always helps, since others take note of large audiences and assume the show must be good (which is in the case of Solid State. I've not seen it this year, but they have that whole breakdance as gang warfare down well, and the founders all came through the Con-U dance program, though Ame Henderson left before they hit the Fringe).

IfluxDance likewise has glossy posters now, which is a big step up from the obscure black print on red that they started with. I got one of those up at Studio 303 on Saturday, but it hardly stands out, and more important, says little. But the troupe has also been chalking, near the Box Office among other places

One thing that I don't see much of is posters up and down St. Lawrence Blvd. Maybe I've just missed them, but generally the area gets saturated. Maybe troupes are avoiding it out of fear of being ticketed for postering, which seems to be something the City is making a bigger thing of.

There's a big more Buzz up at the Beer Tent, though it's hardly flowing. It used to be that by now, we'd have initial Buzz and the response Buzz, from people who'd gone based on the Buzz from family and friends, and didn't like it nearly as much. The Buzz Box finally appeared at the Beer Tent, which should help. I can't help but wonder if it's getting mislaid along the way, with too much attempt at collecting Buzz at the venues, and then they sit around there rather than going to HQ. The Buzz from the first or second Better Parts appeared today, and that's a long time. And on the website, it sure looks like nothing new has appeared since the first Buzz was placed there.

This time when my friend Leslie came by the Beer Tent/Beer Garden, he had tickets for the Radio Centre-Ville raffle, that takes place about June 24th. I don't know if anyone else around the Fringe is selling them, and he isn't approaching strangers to sell the tickets. I've got mine, and maybe this year I'll win something (though the prizes this year are mostly travel, which doesn't appeal to me)

I'm sure there were some things to add, but I can't recall them now and it's getting late

June 12 There is more blog activity about the Fringe, but it amounts to little real content. One I found this morning said to see what everyone else is seeing (an echo of Keir Cutler in his Suburban piece) and go see those. But if nobody goes to see the shows in the first place, then who will be the ones to lead the others?

One problem that has happened is that as ticket prices rise, my take is there used to be a much wider spread but now many shows are at the $9 limit, and fewer odd categorizations for lower prices (like for men who wear a skirt to the Montreal All-Star Cheerleaders show), fewer are willing to take the risk. When there were plenty of $5, especially if it didn't run long, it was easy to try it out, and you didn't lose much. The higher the price (and $9 may be cheap in general but can add up if you see a number of shows in a week) the more likely you won't risk it. And yes, once a show goes beyond an hour, I know I think three times before going. The time may be fine for a show the rest of the year, but at a Fringe festival it uses up too much time, and suggests something too serious.

I was talking about the shorter hours spread over more venues, and someone pointed out that most people don't see many shows. But, if I'm a guarantee to go into shows, am I not more valuable than trying to lure 7 people to see 7 different shows? As it is, I'm finding it very difficult to see shows I want to see, the timing and the distance is really getting in the way. And I would have gone to 3 dance shows on Friday, get them out of the way and talk about them, but I didn't get my Superpass till the next day. (Likely the best way is to sit at a venue for the night, to avoid travel time, but I can't do that.) And it is the people who see more than a few shows that are the ones most likely to relay their experience for the rest, being those scouts who take the risk and then tell the others. The exploration is supposed to be as important as the entertainment.

I bumped into volunteer Robin at one venue, she was going into Waiting for Godo in Abu Ghraib and then I barely get up to the Beer Tent when I see her again. Turns out the show was about 20 minutes, and even better, $2 (plus the Fringe tax/service charge). That may be the cheapest Fringe show ever. You don't need someone to tell you whether or not such a show is good, you go because it costs so little in time or money to see it. Grab a $5.00 show like The Forgotten Warrior and likely you will learn something, either because it gives you something to think and talk about or because as part of a greater puzzle it will fill in some pieces. For ten years, I missed only a half dozen of the monthly dance shows at Studio 303, and I learned a lot in seeing the various pieces juxtaposed and different styles, and I'd never have the chance to see so much variety if I was I was paying twenty or thirty dollars per show. I don't remember all that many pieces (though obviously the memorable are very much memorable), but most pieces taught me something. If you want a passive experience, you can stay home and watch tv. If you want to learn, you need to get out of the box and take risks.

And it is significant that shows so often use the suggestion of nudity to lure an audience in, and often don't fulfill that promise, while there are shows where there is nudity and they don't use it to promote the show. The reality is that so many Fringe performers are timid in this area, so we'll see deep cleavage on the glossy photos (in 2002, The Condom, The Cucumber and The Girl From Ipanema had that, and the cleavage seemed to get deeper as the week progressed), and no actual nudity, but the timidity may be because their real purpose is to gain an audience. Of course, the idea is uncomfortable if there's no compelling reason for it.

But then every so often there is a piece where nudity is part of the show, that serves a purpose, and those artists are not interested in using it to lure the audience. And unfortunately, those shows are often ones that get lost, because they aren't out there doing the promotion thing, because people too often want to see what others are seeing. And that can be a shame, not because people will miss out on the nudity (they'd be disappointed if they only went because of it, just as there were all those single men, including I swear someone in a trench coat, the first year Shakti performed here who never returned), but because these artists are at least trying to do something.

It's actually weird, how I want to keep track of who is with which show, and then disappointed when I discover it's someone from one of the Big Shows. Someone was carrying packing tape and clearly was with a show today, so I asked what show, and I must have had a look of disappointment when the flyer was for The Girl Without Hands. It had nothing to do with the show, simply that I was expecting one of the lesser shows, wanting to find out about them, and it was one of the shows everyone knows about. My refusal to take a flyer is based on knowing about it already, not a rejection of the show. Though chances are good I won't go see it. I almost went to see Uncalled For the other day, I happened to be in the right place at the right time, but seeing the crowd I simply wasn't interested.

Two of the dancers from InFluxdance were helping out at the Beer Tent/Beer Garden tonight, complete with tutus. It wasn't very active for them, though the fire performers returned. It reminds me that last year I realized that while there is always a Spirit of the Fringe award, there never seems to be competition. It occurred to me that what really happens is that the Fringe tells one act "we like your show, we want you back, so here's what you do..." and that means helping out at the Beer Tent and info booth and such. In other words, they are going through motions to keep an illusion. That seems a stretch, but there is always one troupe who is very much active at the Beer Tent and no close second. Or maybe the troupes toss coins to decide who gets the Beer Tent.

There's a baby travelling with InFluxdance, just seven months old. Reminds me of 2003 when there were a number of troupes that came with babies or small children. I didn't recall that happening before.

I saw Shakti for the first time this Fringe. Usually, she puts in an appearance before this, though I guess the weather is a factor. She looks especially good this year. Coincidentally, I had a bag of cookies for her. One year, I kept missing her so I decided I'd just make a full batch for her venue, and left them with the venue manager. I did it today too, but when I learned she wasn't around much (she's keeping her performances, two shows, Empire of the Senses and Dances of India which is just her doing solo Indian dance, unlike what the Gazette suggested, to the weekends), I decided I'd not leave them. I then could release them to the rest of the Fringe. But there she was at HQ, so she got them. Shakti has been here every year starting in 1996, missing only 1998 when the Fringe moved its dates and caused a scheduling conflict.

Though, it seems like her idea of having a space and bringing in select artists, like she does at non-North American Fringes (where the venues are independent rather than controlled by the festivals) isn't working so well. Her lineup does not seem as strong this year, and unlike the first year where she had colorful and glossy flyers that showed all the acts, this year's flyers only have her and Joe listed, and the other acts promote themselves. It still seems to be the case of the acts applying to her (that was the case, I see no indication of a change) rather than the Fringe, but it almost seems like acts are not so interested in coming under the conditions. I know the people from Las Vegas who came last year to do Couture were disappointed.

For that matter, people have mentioned the lack of familiar faces, T.J. Dawe being an obvious example. One would hope it's just the chance of the lottery, but maybe they didn't bother entering. It's been said that Montreal is like a test run for the rest of the circuit, a chance to work out the bugs (of publicity and in the show), but isn't particularly good money wise. Those that tour seem to count on the Big Western Fringes to actually make money.

As I told Shakti, ticket sales have doubled since 1995, but so have the number of troupes, which means that there can't be a large growth in attendance per show, just twice as many people going to shows (which likely means better attendance at some shows, and the usual meager attendance for a lot of shows). Three audience members in a show is not good growth.

Meanwhile, I only saw one show tonight, between waiting a bit to see the performer afterwards and then not enough time to get to another venue, and then later, I was too tired. Forget ticket sales, since I have a Superpass, but something is wrong when I am there and I'm just not getting to shows to at least provide an audience.

Or is it that we long term Fringers have tired of it? Allan Brown volunteer since 1997 and venue manager most of those years, did his shift and then decided, like the night before, to go straight home. Of course, we are now ten years older, and those late shows are less attractive. I mentioned that to one of the writers, and she agreed, which surely could impact on reviews. But maybe something is missing, something very elementary, that made the Fringe so much fun in the old days and isn't there now.

On the other hand, a relatively new thing, The 13th Hour, is blossoming. Atley doing The Forgotten Warrior wanted to get on, and it turns out she has to reserve a spot ahead of time, preferably by email (but, if you're from out of town, that may not be so easy). They want small excerpts, and are worried about time. They do it most nights, it goes on for what seems like hours, and there's not enough time? It's way too late for me, and the one I got to last year was because I was passing by after a late show, and popped in. I would have left immediately, but Elison practiclaly dragged me in. So Atley was off searching for Anders and I played tour guide, which used up time but was actually fun.

June 11 There's actually Buzz up at the Beer Tent, though I still don't think they've got the plastic right to protect it. Not many, as yet. But there's also Buzz up at the Fringe website, as I mention on the main page. Not a lot, either. This is more fodder for my argument about layering information, once you put something three or four layers down, you really need to explicitly announce it on the front page when something changes (like cancelled shows, or that Buzz is finally up) because otherwise people find it by chance. I know I checked the Buzz page a few times over the weekend, without seeing anything, and if that happens long enough, people give up.

But they've also made a mistake, as pointed out by Vinnie but which didn't make sense until I checked out the Buzz. There's a reply form, but the links go to a general page so one has to select the show you want to post a comment about. I can foresee plenty of people not noticing, and the first named troupe getting plenty of buzz, but for other shows. It would be so easy to fix that so you enter that comment page with the show title already entered. I may not know how to do it (but could easily figure it out), but this too is a long-standing argument, that these little things are not given thought, and the Fringe really needs an intermediate, obviously me, to go between the end results and the guy who actually makes the webpage. Form Follows Function, but too often function is given little thought (and that applies to a lot of internet use, not just the Fringe). And the mechanism won't accept your Buzz unless you check off one of those silly icons to rate it, useless if you want to reply to a previous Buzz.

On the same topic, the paper Buzz form is new again this year, and they left out a place to put the title of the show. When Nicole Stamp, came out of Better Parts to pass out Buzz forms (and pens to fill them out, she's prepared), she got them back with just the show's name penned in, so clearly the concept is missed by some. It doesn't help that this year's carpetbagger is taking up space at the top of the form to announce their prize that is just a popularity contest, so it makes sense that people might think they were just voting for a show rather than making comment on it to help others decide what shows to see.

That Buzz I replied to was about the technician at the first Solid State performance turning off the lights before the show had ended. I suspect the show started late, or the show hasn't gotten out bugs so it's running late. But, a show has to end on time, so the troupe can get out of there and let the next troupe in to set up for their show. There isn't a lot of time. If everyone was sluggish, the Fringe would never be on time. Usually, shows end up being shorter than the time in the program, because it has to be printed early and the show is still evolving (though it would make sense to update the times at the website, I've skipped shows because I didn't think I could fit them in, only to discover a shorter running time that would have made things fit). ANd I've seen shows evolve through the week, as they try to tighten it up when in front of an audience (or as one act once thought, they could improve it to increase attendance, but that would only work if people were talking about the show in the first place). But the show has to end on time. The technicians live in those dark spaces all day, barely having a chance to get out, to make sure the shows run as they should, and I very much doubt the technician is at fault in this case, as the buzz suggested.

Having another prize that is based on audience voting reminds me of how it hasn't worked in the past. The first year, 1998, there was Centaur prize, the woman who won had been handing out forms after the show, something the other troupes were not all doing. I don't even recall anything to ensure that a voter had seen the show, but I can't remember. The next year, it went to a jury. Then there was the year (or was it years?) that a cosmetic company had a prize, for "Best Face", and I don't think anyone knew what they were voting for. The winners were relatively obscure (I'm not saying they didn't have good faces, just that their shows weren't the ones drawing the big audiences), the year I remember and maybe the only year, Mary Ann Lacey and a guy who's name I can't remember but is in I Love New York this year, won. They won some makeup, the guy never got it or never bothered to pick it up and Mary Ann said it was very basic material, no exotic colors. But the prize really meant nothing, except one could say they were award winning (and it does say that on the website for I Love New York.

Since I didn't do my usual deep searches this year, I didn't come to the Fringe with interesting background material. But today I checked on Nicole Stamp and she's been in Second City, and is quite active in Toronto, and has a kid's show on TV Ontario, which I've never seen but it's easy to picture her in that role, because she is a very friendly person. She even has an IMDB entry She is pleased that she has some reviews out, I suspect there is something very appealing about a half hour show so it gets early reviews.

As I got near the Mainline Theatre (am I the only one who remembers when it was the Dummies Theatre complete with Anna outside with a megaphone trying to lure in an audience? See a post I made about that back in 1996, here) it looked like quite a crowd. But it turned out to be soccer fans watching tv from outside a bar just a tad down from the theatre. The only time I'm aware of soccer is at this time, when everyone is out in the street cheering. A big crowd formed when the game was over, blocking the streets near the Beer Tent, and at one point the cops were going into their trunks for riot equipment, and I thought they were about to clear things, but they just stood ready, and eventually the crowd dissipated. Go Antarctica!!!

Speaking of cops, apparently one performer got stopped while leafletting the crowd. Word has it he was wearing handcuffs at the time, with the suggestion that that was why he was approached, though likely leafletting is illegal and simply overlooked a lot of the time (like the serious crimes such as cars going through read lights that don't get ticketed). Anyway, if I remember properly, it was the guy doing Word Infirmia, and the handcuffs seem to reference the show. Oddly, he came by to confirm that it was he, and he gave leaflets to the venue manager, Fringe Oldtimer Angela Murphy and her assistant (who could easily upgrade to venue manager) but ignored me. Sometimes it does seem like the purpose is to try to pick up women.

A whole family, two parents maybe older than me and two teenagers, went into the Never Surrender show. Made me think given their youngish age, that the troupe could have quite a following from their tv work. I was thinking of Mike Paterson's role on that CBC Kids show, Incredible Edibles, but when I related the story to him, he pointed out that Ryan Wilner had a show on YTV (which I've not seen in almost a decade, since I dropped cable). But I can just picture the kids at home, "Mom, mom, can't we go to the Fringe Festival to see that guy from Incredible Edibles? Please, please can we, can we?" Ask your father, and it repeats again. Worn down, the parents relent and the whole family goes to see the show, a nice wholesome family activity that one family value group wanted to keep government funding from in 2000. I wrote this about it at the time.

Speaking of Never Surrender, two of them performed a sort of acoustic set at the Beer Tent later in the day, to a relatively small audience.

Fringe Oldtimer Cindy Lopez (she started in 1998 as an assistant to the venue manager at the P-Scene, I remember the afternoon I went over there and they were suntanning, and has helped every year since, sometimes as a venue manager) is finally staff. Years ago, and I'd have to check the records, she took a lot of pictures and put together an album which Jeremy gushed over. But the next year, suddenly there was a new position, staff photographer, but it was taken by a newcomer, and when the role continued, someone else took over. It bugged me that someone who was already part of the Fringe, indeed the woman who seemed to show the usefulness of having a photographer, didn't get the upgrade, so I am really glad she finally gets the role. That's her running about with the camera bag and the camera with the big lense.

Speaking of photography, there was someone performing with fire at the Beer Tent tonight. Quite impressive, but I was distracted by taking pictures, because you get a different perspective on film (or memory in my case). I must pick out one and put it up. Not a large crowd, it was still too borderline for the Beer Tent to be very active. I'd much rather see fire juggling than another loud music band at the Beer Tent.

There's a campaign to rename the Beer Tent. Someone from Influxdance asked me where the Beer Garden is, and that's not the first time I've heard it called that (though I've never heard the term applied before this year). More upscaling of the festival, though I rather like trying to change the name through useage.

Jeremy was talking to someone and wanted a cookie. In my usual way, I asked if she was a someone (not that I really care, but once I start giving out the cookies to random audience members, they will get depleted rapidly), and it turned out to be someone from the Ottawa Fringe (which runs June 15th through 25th), looking things over. They are doing their tenth edition, which is interesting given that this is the tenth year the cookies have appeared at the Fringe. I wish I'd thought of asking for an Ottawa button, that has an X for tenth. On one hand, it's good to intermingle between Fringes, yet one also has to give consideration to how things differ from city to city. People come back from Fringes out west, and they are amazed by the size of it all, but they also say there isn't much going on the rest of the year, which would explain it all. That isn't the same thing as here, where all the arts are active throughout the year. If you have nothing to be a Fringe of, then your Fringe would tend to be more mainstream, while here we have everything, including festivals for most of the art forms featured at the Fringe. I can't help but think that too much modelling is taken from the west which don't apply here.

Anyway, half jokingly it came up that I should go to Ottawa and make cookies there. That's actually a tempting concept, to see a different Fringe (which always helps perspective). But unless it was serious, it's not going to happen, and the fact that it overlaps is a problem. I sure won't miss next weekend here, and I can hardly miss the strike on Monday.

Terrance Bowman had someone out leafletting for him. I can remember the time when the acts would do that themselves, except for Shakti (I've yet to see her this Fringe, she must be staying where it's dry) who sent out her assistant dancers, or as Suzanne Miller called them, Framers. I guess it's gone all so upscale, or maybe they just have dayjobs, that they can now afford paying people to do the work.

Julie Tamiko Manning made an appearance. She too is a Fringe Oldtimer, but I don't know if she served at least eight years. She was a "mere" volunteer a decade ago, and maybe she's the one who's come the furthest, because she was in some Fringe shows and now shows up in Geordie Productions shows and I think "regular" theatre. Too often, people just disappear after a few years, never to be seen again. (Though, Byron Toben says someone graduated to be part of the Conservative Party.) I said something, and she realized that it was I who had written what she had read about herself last year.

Some acts were still appearing at the Beer Tent/Garden to poster, it being too wet, so they said, to do it before. The advantage is that by now some of the previous postering has turned into a soggy mess, leaving room for the new, and of course if we're lucky the rain is over and late posters will stay intact. There's no sign of posters on the chairs, which has always happened before, leaving me suspecting a new rule against it is in place.

June 10 Don't forget that most or all weeks, there is mention of a Fringe volunteer at the end of Jonathan Goldstein's Wiretap on CBC Radio ("One" at 13:05 Sundays). I believe she's listed as providind production assistance

I did get my Superpass, though I had to pay for my first show of the day, not having time to get up to HQ and back down. And it had to be printed up, it wasn't waiting. On the other hand, nobody's going to be able to use it if they steal it, because there is a clue that connects it only to me. Quite a high number, again leaving me wondering if the numbering is based on status. I once found Jeremy's and it was either 001 or 000. I've never seen a pattern on the ones I've won, sometimes it's a low number, other times quite high.

No sign of comments at that new website I mentioned. But, I just checked wetlabel.com that had their brand on the bottom of the buzz forms last year, and did run a fair number of reviews. The layout has changed, I'd say for the worse, and no sign of Fringe articles. It looks like they may be more interested in music this year. Reminds me of when Andy Nullman and his son (who was involved in wetlabel) were on CJAD last August, and the father mentioned my comment about wetlabel. I'd said something about how the new site might be yet another internet carpetbagger. And of course, it looks almost true, since they sure didn't stick around long. See the email I sent off that night. I actually ended up on wetlabel's "media list", more harvesting, getting an invite to some launch party in the fall. I didn't go. But, when I heard a Fringe act on Peter Anthony Holder's show last week, I did wonder if that was caused by the bit about the companies dying to reach the potential audience before the show.

I didn't get to the Fringe till just in time to see a 16:45 show, having stayed up till 5 am, got up at noon, and then still had some things to do. I was lucky though, because I got there just at show time, but they started 5 minutes late and I could get in. Yes, that was Anders, of Uncalled For, taking tickets at the door. It was From Under the Umbrella... a fitting title considering the weather.

That was Andrea Spaziani's piece, she came last year to do the solo dance piece Jane and while it wasn't mentioned when the 303 Prize was given out, the August newsletter from Studio 303, after mentioning the winner, said "A special mention to Amelie Levesque-Demers and Andrea Spaziani whose work intrigued the five jurors who attended a dozen shows in less than a week."

But this year, she brought Geordan Coupland and they dance together in Andrea's piece, and then in a piece by Geordan. The first piece does indeed have an umbrella, but it's not Singing in the Rain style dancing. Mike Hughes of Uncalled For has an auxiliary role, but it's not a gimmick casting as I thought it might be (the dance shows need to be more "out there" in the promotion department), and while he doesn't quite dance, he's not just walking across the stage, there is some rhythm to it. There were humorous bits, which I kind of expected. Sadly, I am blank this morning about Geordan's piece, not because it was a lesser piece but I was trying to remember some points about the first piece and I forget to take mental notes.

But with all the talk of good and bad shows, I am often puzzled about what they mean. Because I often don't see a lack of skill, but a lack of something to say. I can see dance pieces, and they look fine to me, but I can't remember them because as perfect as the vocabulary, there doesn't seem to be something underlying it all. Dana Michel won the Studio 303 Prize last year, and the minute the dancer came on stage you could feel something. And as I watched the Umbrella show, that is what I was thinking about. Not only are they capable dancers, but they have something to say, to make that vocabulary useful.

Afterwards, we met Geordan's parents, who flew in all the way from Alberta to see the show. What lousy whether for them to get a look around Montreal. That is pretty neat. Though, it's not the first time I've been introduced to a performer's parents, and I'm sure one time I was surprised to learn that they had come from elsewhere.

The five minute late start was a good thing, because too often I rush over to the Fringe and miss the first show I intend to see that day. One technician was saying something about late starts, and how it was more important to have things end on time (because the troupe needs to clear out and make way for the next act), so perhaps there is a new policy. If there is extra time, some shows run shorter than the programmed time, it is better to wait a few minutes for those latecomers than to have them miss the show (or worse, come in and interrupt the show while they look for seats).

On Friday, there were some people on Prince Arthur handing something out, and I assumed they were a Fringe act. But no, it was Amnesty International. Today on the way to the Fringe, I saw Barney the purple dinosaur crossing the street, and while I knew he wasn't in the Fringe, I did wonder what he was up to.

The Beer Tent was dead. I don't think they even bothered opening, instead moving up to The Academy for inside activity. I bumped into Tristan at one point while he was on a Beer Run, so I got to move some beer bottles, something not done since 1996 (beer kegs having been the source of beer since then). Two forlorn volunteers were at the Beer Tent, basically there to tell people nothing was happening and to go to The Academy. They were wearing garbage bags to keep dry and warm. Luckily they were industrial strength, and they looked quite fashionable though it would be better in colorful colors rather than black. As they said, there's not really much worse than standing there doing nothing. It may be an important role, but if they were serving beer it would have been a more enjoyable shift. And of course, when it's raining, nobody comes by to joke with them, though they did keep me there for a while.

But getting their late, and the rain, meant I didn't get to many shows. And worse, Studio 303 had their June show, and while in recent years I've missed some over other issues, I've never missed a show because I wanted to see something else. It's just annoying that I have to leave the Fringe when they could have had the show last Saturday. By the time I got there, the rain had worsened and I was quite wet. But quite a large crowd too.

Miriam asked me if I'd be coming to the OFF show there next week. THis is Endless Medication which is a restaging from the Edgy Women Festival (I can remember when it was just a show, and the first year it was in late June) in March. Miriam said she wanted a chance to restage it, and that's why she's at the Fringe. This is Nathalie Claude, she's been an Edgy Women most of the ten year there's been such a show, though her background is theatre, and a woman from Brussels. The Fringe For All excerpt was not a good introduction, it almost seemed like dance, but Miriam says it's theatre, maybe more like street theatre of Paris. And no, this doesn't involve Nathalie Cluad putting on a crash helmet and careening around the stage as she did one year (it was terribly funny, and something that women often don't do), but Miriam says this show is funny. That's subjective, but she has no reason to hype it to me. It's at Studio 303 next weekend.

Then still wet, but dried a bit, I returned to the Fringe for the 23:30 This Fairytale is Not Working Out. It started late, I noted 23:34, and ended early, again I noted 00:22, though word has it they've fiddled with it a tad, so they may use the same slot. NEW I finally get back to this. They have what I counted as seven dancers, but am told it's actually nine; it's hard to count when they keep moving around. I think of things while the shows are going on, but then can't remember them. This piece reminds me of something, I want to say the sort of thing that would tour schools in the seventies, but I'm not saying it's intended for children (but like a lot of dance, they could enjoy it). Or maybe it's from seeing some Twyla Tharp choreography on screen. Then I realized, this may not be a throwback so much as regional differences. A certain style develops in the US, while it morphs in Europe, which seems to have more influence on dance here than the US. Or maybe it's simply that so many of the shows I see have a small number of performers, and rarely do I see pieces where there are so many dancers on stage and dancing with the same rhythm but different motions. Those are always fun.

June 9 A Superpass isn't too useful if it's not in your hand. It was the usual trouble trying to collect my Superpass, and I ended up not seeing some shows I'd intended to see (indeed had I had it earlier in the week, I might have gone to see Ben Hur when it opened on Wednesday, since I can't see myself going way down there during the actual Fringe). I ended up paying (well actually, Elaine paid for the ticket, it being a two for one show, rather than spend my valuable Fringe Bucks when I'd paid for the Superpass with Fringe Bucks at the volunteer party last year.

This seems a consistent thing. This is the fourth time I've had a Superpass, always coming my way by a winning bid and I don't know what it means that it works out to 1 out of every 4 that the Fringe has let loose this way (but since I didn't go to a volunteer party until 1997, it's really 4 out of 10 years), and I don't recall any year when it was easy thing to retrieve. I can set out to see a bunch of shows the first night, get them out of the way, but this isn't the first time that has fallen apart due to a missing Superpass.

The postering of the Beer Tent was supposed to happen at noon. I'd originally planned to go, because it is fun to hear the sound of ripping tape and the hustle and bustle of the artists putting up the posters. And, it's a real good time to connect the shows with the artists. Later, some may never be seen except on stage (or, they remain invisible except on stage). But, it wasn't so warm, it looked like rain, and there's nothing happening over there until the shows start, so I decided to skip it, still recovering from moving all that stuff yesterday. By the time I got there at about 5:30pm, a lot of posters were up, but maybe more space was available than in the past so many hours after the start. I suppose I wasn't the only one to skip it, and plus, the meet the audience thing is less likely to happen at that time.

Some artists were still trickling in to poster. One was Nicole Stamp who's doing Better Parts. The picture in the program is nice, but she looks even better in person. And yes, meeting the artists does help. We talked while she postered, (why do all the artists appear without knives to cut the tape, instead using their teeth?) and she immediately grasped my bit about how calling the Fringe ghettoizes the Festival, because of the dance and the shows that can't be categorized. I think she has one of those uncategorizable shows, because the blurb makes it sound like it's a fusion of stand up comedy and spoken word. Certainly she has a bass player, shades of Lenny Bruce. I didn't bother asking her what her shows about, I've done that in the past and usually get an answer to check the blurb or some incomprehensible explanation (if you can't explain it, then maybe the show isn't clear, and some of the time I've asked, I wanted to be persuaded to see it), but just by talking with her I had a good impression. As always, it may not mean a thing, but the blurb becomes clearer after talking to her.

The only show I saw then was I Love New York. I didn't realize it until the day before, but Amy was in Teenage Wasteland in 2001 and has been a sporadic volunteer over the years. IN some ways it's not a surprise that she'd return with her own show, there seemed to be something self assured about her even years back. But since so much of the time, we just give our first names (and the photo in the program was bad), I didn't realize until the other day that Amy Elizabeth Blackmore was the Amy we knew.

"Baby Jeremy" appeared at HQ today. Of course, his real name is James Tyberius" (how do you spell that one?) and I don't know whether his last name is straight Hechtman or includes his mother's last name. Very tiny, and asleep when we saw him, lying against his mother Jen's shoulder. I suppose babysitters will be paid in Fringe Bucks?

No programs in the Mirror When we were setting up the Beer Tent on Thursday, someone came by looking for a program (we did happen to have a few, and later I ran down to the office to get a stack) and mentiioned it wasn't in The Mirror. I kind of thought he simply got a copy without one, I've had that happen and it almost seemed like some areas didn't get the program included, but the issue I picked up yesterday did not have a copy. So perhaps this is the case. It's been years since this hasn't happened. On one hand it is wasteful, since many may not be interested but the program is in each copy, yet it loses the chance to draw people in.

Jody Burkholder has been Technical Director of the Fringe for years, actually the one to hold that title for the longest (and I'm too lazy to check which year he moved into that role). But he was a "mere" technician before that, which means his run in the technical realm may not be matched by anyone. Only John Dodge comes to mind, and even he takes a year off every so often. So I mentioned to Jody recently that he qualifed for the Fringe Oldtimer's Club, it being his eighth year. It is fairly exclusive to get to that point. And for some reason, he actually wanted his membership card, asking me for it today, and I had the blanks with me. Membership is free, but then there's no privilege except for boasting rights.

Fringe Oldtimer Allan finished his shift, I spent quite a bit of time at his venue given I had no Superpass to see shows, and we went up to the Beer Tent, about 21:15. I expected it to be dead, but it was quite noisy. People had brought drums, and it was as loud or maybe louder than some of the music performed there, and there was a small audience gathering. I don't know what it was about, early on it had been decided to move the planned show indoors to The Academy because of the rain. Was it the other festival, coming to cause trouble? A group that didn't like the notion that someone wanted some quiet? I don't know, but it just seemed like provocation, which does not seem a good thing at this point. One of the problems with this Beer Tent issue is the demonization of those who want the Beer Tent to be quiet. Somewhere there has to be middle ground, but to dismiss someone who lives nearby for an honest objection, if you lived next to something loud you'd likely not like it either, can't be good to remedy the situation. ANd if the drumming was deliberate, that won't help. On the other hand, except for drumming the Beer Tent is a dead issue, since so far the weather is bad and looks bad for a few more days. The neighbor likely is happy about that.

Around 6pm, two guys came by the Beer Tent blowing their horn. They did indeed have a bike horn to blow. But they were promoting some website, with the lure of how we can go there to post comments about the Fringe. You can only give away power if you've taken it in the first place. The Internet is about giving people the printing press, and even a decade ago most of the spaces were communal and/or cooperative. The internet's very growth was based on people inventing things, and then letting them loose, so others could use the things (and if it worked well, it spread well), or others could build on it. But in recent years, too often the spaces that get the notice are branded spaces, set up at least in part to make money rather than simply for the function they serve. There was an article last year in Technological Review, I think that was it, about "community" on the internet, but all the things mentioned were branded spaces. No mention of newsgroups, or personal webpages, or even that most ISPs include email as basic service. Instead, flickr and blogspot and google groups and hotmail and I can't remember the rest. So I take this new site with a grain of salt, and I'm deliberately not mentioning the URL (though, the flyer did include a pair of condoms), because it smacks too much of the internet carpetbagging we've seen over the years at the Fringe. One year, one website hosted that "murder mystery" thing that I think everyone pretty much ignored, I can't recall which site it was, and of course they let us post our comments there about Fringe shows. But my recollection was that nobody or virtually nobody posted. Form follows function, a space on the internet doesn't cause content, the space needs to be created to fill a need. I'm not really pleased about how so many acts have their "myspace" pages this year, as if it's now a game to be cool (and that includes you Patrick).

Via J. Kelly Nestruck, is news that Boygroove that was at the Fringe here last year (and won one of the coveted prizes) is up for some Dora awards for theatre in Toronto. Read the Playbill article. Of course, Ribbit Productions is back this year doing Real Time. Oddly, the blurb in the Fringe program hints at Lord of the Rings, the musical of which is also up for some Doras.

June 8 Never go into the Fringe lacking sleep. The missing hours will never be recovered, and the deficit will only get worse as the week progresses.

So I showed up at the Beer Tent at 10am to put it up (after staying up till 3am or so doing things). I've not done it as long as the strike, but it's definitely the fourth or fifth year running. Of course, if the Fringe just told me when it's going up, as Jeremy did last year, my attendance would be better. I was half an hour later than the start time, but nothing much was happening. Last year, I got there a bit late, and the fence was already off the truck and things were moving. The fence didn't arrive till later, though the trailer was installed already. Last year, the fence got in the way.

It's interesting that there isn't a lot of repeat volunteers doing the setup or the strike. Some is the natural turnover of volunteers (they have the time one year, but not the next, or they are young and their lives are changing fast), but I swear it stands out with the setup and strike, which is especially physical work. Even Jeremy wasn't there as much as other years, maybe because Tristan, who says he volunteered from Year One, and then has been Volunteer Coordinator and Fringe moviemaker in recent years, is Outdoor Site Coordinator. The job description includes setting up the Beer Tent, but I guess such an oldtimer made it easier for Jeremy to be off doing other things.

One woman did return, well dressed for the rain. The forecast made it seem like all would be rainy during the day, and that's a lousy situation. I can remember the Flood of '99 when we were putting the Fringe away, and we got record rain fall within a small amount of time, so we were soaking wet most of the day and slipping up ramps in the trucks and slipping to keep our hands on the heavey equipment. (That's another thing that's changed, as the Fringe can afford more and more technicians, there is less work for the volunteers when it comes to technical equipment.) I debated bringing a full set of extra clothes. But it turned out to be fine, with a bit of drizzle here and there but no saturation raining. It wasn't that nice, but it wasn't bad.

The fence seemed in bad shape, almost as if someone had told the fence company to give us a messy one. Nuts that weren't the right size (I'm the only one who shows up with the right size fixed wrench for the fence), even cement on some of the nuts, a general acidity to it all (I was covered with a white substance by the end of the day) and some sections were downright dirty.

Unlike other years, things seemed better staggered, so the fence was well up by the time the tents arrived (how many remember when the Beer Tent was one big tent?), and the beer didn't arrive till much later in the day, and the freezer arrived pretty much last. There was overlap, but enough of each was done before the next came along.

We did make extra work for ourselves, unloading all the folding chairs when some were going to one of the venues so we had to reload.

Compared to last year, it was relatively quiet (though there seemed to be more help than some years). Nobody from Red Bull came by to give us samples (or were those women flirting last year?). No acts came by to try to poster early, they did finally late in the day, or even to help. The usual number of people trying to get through the park after the fence was up, so we always have to warn them that their usual route is closed, and even some people coming by looking for a program and the box office (the box office wasn't working at the Beer Tent till Friday, a temporary arrangement was at Mainline Theatre), and even some people I think asking what was going on.

Wait, the guy doing Terrible Things, Joe Kolbow did help out. It's kind of amusing when I asked him if he was going to be doing anything further (some people just show up the first day to volunteer and we never see them again), and he said something about passing out flyers, and then I see that it's his show. Cass Elliot is apparently a key bit of the show; she died July 30th, 1974. Two weeks before that, I was walking along St. Catherine Street and I see flames jump into the air a couple of blocks away. I knew some construction was going on there, so I figured it was related. But as I pass by there, someone is lying on the ground burning while others are trying to put out the fire. My thought was that I should do something, but I didn't know if it would make things worse. I don't fear fire, but it's the one thing that I can feel when I read about someone getting burned. The news that night, or maybe the paper the next day, said the guy had set himself on fire, outside the Classic's Bookstore that used to be there for a long time (right next to Ogilvy's), something to do with the bookstore not carrying his book. I guess not many of us remember him, he died at the end of July. Memory says that when Cass Elliott died, Flip WIlson (but maybe it was someone else) was on TV, it had to be a rerun and just a coincidence, singing her most famous solo song "Make Your Own Kind of Music".

I was doing pretty well with the lifting of heavy things. SOme years, we get some really hefty guys helping (and sometimes women who don't look too hefty but do well carrying heavy items), and they usually put the rest of us to shame, making us feel we should be carrying fence sections by ourselves. But over the years, either I've gotten better, or maybe time just makes me feel more secure, because I can haul fence sections by myself. No keg races this year though (last year we suddenly did make a game of moving the beer kegs, to make fun something that in the end is just heavy work). But when the sound equipment for the Beer Tent arrived (Fringe Oldtimer John Dodge isn't doing sound at the Beer Tent this year, hopefully it's just one of his occasional sabbaticals, Danielle takes on the role this year), there was one thing that I went to lift onto the sidewalk and it turned out to be heavier than I expected, and right at that point, I suddenly started feeling sore. By the end of the day, I could barely move. But it's only once a year, and I'll be fully recovered by the time we take it all back down after the Fringe.

But of course, things aren't the same as usual. One thing I haven't missed in years (not since 1996, though even then I got there later) is the traditional postering of the Beer Tent. This is important, because you get to connect the shows with the performers, and sometimes we may never see them during the rest of the festival, some remaining almost invisible. And thee's always the lovely sound of ripping tape, and all those people using their teeth to cut it, rather than coming prepared with knives.

But that didn't happen. I guess because of the Tent Issue, we could put up the site today (though even then it's a day later than we usually do it) but nothing could go into operation. So no postering of the tent till Friday, at noon. A few acts came by hoping to do so, as they always do, but there seems to be a strict rule that it can't happen till the designated time. The claim is that it gets in the way of setting things up, but I'd like to hope it's also to keep things fair.

Towards the end of the day, I realized that if I went home I'd never come back. So I sort of hung out at the Beer Tent, sort of still doing things, after my usefulness had run out. It was simply a matter of waiting till 9pm when things were supposed to start at The Academy. About 8:15pm, I realize that the concert may start then, but things could be happening, so I abandon the Beer Tent.

Nothing much was happening there at that point. People slowly trickled in. There is none of the excess postering of the Beer Tent, where every naked surface gets covered. I think the acts had been in earlier. Because there were posters up but not yet a lot of acts on site. It didn't seem very lively. But I realized it's more like the old days, when opening night was the chance to meet the acts, and for them to promote their shows and poster, and to meet the people you haven't seen since the last Fringe. The Big Concert gets in the way, and even the relatively low key music got in the way of conversation. It is a nice space there, I think a more inviting space than The Bayou that had been used in recent years for a place to go when the Beer Tent closed. And of course, no smoking which may make the place far more inviting to me than I'd ever realized.

Since there wasn't much happening inside, I stood outside with Elison who was on a volunteer shift with a walkie talkie, though it's still not clear what she was supposed to be doing. Mainly to tell people that yes, this is where the Fringe party was, I suppose. But it was an ideal place to stand and see who was coming in. And slowly the acts arrived. Mike Patterson thanked me for saving the flyers after the Fringe For All, though he'd done that as I was gathering them too. Catherine Kidd put in an appearance, it seems the heralding makes her uncomfortable, though she did mention that she'll be appearing in Westmount later in the week (I must find the details). She says it's kind of an odd situation. This is a fundraiser for the Friends of the Westmount Library. I asked her, and either I didn't get an answer or I was distracted, but I wanted to know how she got involved in the event, since she's done it at least once before.

By the time I went back upstairs, Elison moving to behind the bar, things had picked up a bit. Troupes, some in costume, flowing through the crowd passing out flyers and trying to lure them to the shows, though it sure seemed like many a time, they were answered with a flyer, it being another performer they had hit up. The Cheerleaders were there, doing individual cheers and then passing the viewer a flyer as if that was a reward for watching the cheer. No sign of Rebecca Singh, though. It was often too hard to talk, my voice got sore from raising it above the noise. Andrea Spaziani who was here last year doing the solo dance piece Jane showed up with her duet partner for this year, Geordan Coupland who apparently is a good shoe salesperson. Don't forget, Mike Hughes of Uncalled For is going to be making an appearance in Andrea's show, though I don't know further details. The later it got, the more troupes that seemed to be in attendance, almost as if they figured since it went on to real late, they might as well come late. Ultimately, there were enough acts that put in an appearance that they can't all get mentioned. One or two from WIthout Annette showed up, I talked to Marc. I don't know whether they are stalking me, but a few weeks they put on their blog that I was "omnipotent and omnipresent", I have no idea where they get that. There are a lot of Michael Blacks around, and maybe that's fooled them into thinking I'm an opera fan, an actor, a movie producer and who knows what else. But the line was almost as good as the time I get suggestive buzz in 1999, I wonder where I filed that? Uncalled For were there, and Matt just got back into town apparently (though, he was at the Fringe For All, but backstage). I know there was something else important to mention, but I can't remember. No sign of Shakti, though.

But I'd been up late, got up early for me, and had shifted heavy things for most of the day. I knew I should leave early, and I was gone by midnight (though I started to leave at about 11pm). I get home, and it's time to make the cookies, and wash the clothes that had got messed by the messy fence, and sleep.

Goto Main Page