Maybe it is the later date, but this week has been wonderful. No cool days, and no rain since we put up the Beer Tent on June 12th, even though rain has been forecast most or many days. Many was worried last night about getting the astroturf up from the Electronic Picnic because he was worried about rain today, but it certainly doesn't look that way close to noon. I'm thinking it may be some of the best weather we've had, some years have been quite rainy, and some years have seemed quite cool.

But if it is the later date, it reminds me of the year when the Fringe did overlap with St. Jean Baptiste Day, 1999. That was the year the Beer Tent (the last year it was one big tent) was in the parking lot of the restaurant down the street. So you could have supper at the Beer Tent, and that ended up being a lot of lobster. A lot of horrible garbage, it would just leak out of the bags. The only good thing was that Rebecca Singh who was the Outdoor Site Co-ordinator that year (when it seemed to encompass a lot less, and resources more limited) would actually help with the garbage herself, not just telling people to get rid of the garbage. That was the year of "frozen nipples" as one volunteer called it, with no means of keeping ice, we seemed to be doing near continuous runs to the govery store (what's the name? The one where the Pharmaprix is now) to get ice, and the volunteer's comment was about holding the ice while carrying it.

I have wondered why the Fringe is this late this year, one of the few times it has overlapped the holiday. But I dont' see any sign of a restaurant appearing at the Beer Tent to offer holiday lobster.

Last year it seemed like the groups coming to solicit donations were a little more prominent than previous years. I said something about how I would have given them Fringe Bucks to sample the shows, to see what they were apart of. This year, the Fringe set up something like that, but the people sitting at the info-booth seem as distant as the years before last year. Odd. The Native Women's Shelter didn't bring along some of the older women, I never saw the kids from Love on Saturday (though I did get there quite late), I didn't see cupcakes when Santraopol Roulant visited. Odd.

This was a show I kind of lost track of. I'm not sure if I thought it wsa something else, or just forgot about it. They've had a show before, and like this year, the glossy flyer suggested breakdancing and while I've seen very interesting things done with it by modern dancers, straight out breakdancing isn't really my interest. But, I saw the program the other day and it said:

Thoughout the performance, you are allowed to
Smile, laugh, cry, scream, whisper, move in your seat, clap whenever you feel the desire to do it (even if you are the only one clapping), don't clap (even if everyone is clapping), comment aloud, jump on stage, leave the theatre, fully experience and express yourself.

That sounds very appealing, then I saw Ian Ferrier's name, big in spoken word in Montreal. So whatever it was, it was more than breakdancing.

And it was, and it was one of those shows I just lost till it was almost too late. This probably had the best jazz band in the history of Fringe shows (tempered by the fact that there hasn't ben that much live jazz in Fringe shows, but not completely). I've said that dance often is a parasite to music, if you like the music you may like the dance better. They had a good band, not playing anything familiar (though I thought at one point something reminded me of Miles Davis's "So What?") and it was a case of the dancers playing off the music, but I think also the musicians playing off the dancers. This wasn't "contact improvisation" often seen in modern dance circles, it was improvisation, dancers and musicians reacting to each other. Some spoken word, but it was mostly the music that set the tone. The dance did include breakdancing, but there seemed to be a bit that reminded me of "West Side Story" and much of it could be seen in modern dance shows.

At one point, some light tap dancing appeared, and I was thinking of the times in the mid-nineties when I'd miss the Fringe for an afternoon to go and see Ethel Bruneau's annual tap dance show. The Might Mira was in it. I thought about how many of the dancers put all their effort into getting it right, then Travis Knight appeared, some young kid, and you could see right away that he had such skill. It took him no effort to do the assigned dance, but then he took it further, adding layers because he was able to do more. That was just the first time I saw him, I think he was 12? There was someone else who had sort of similar skill, but she'd been taking tap dancing for a long time, Travis was just starting. It was later that he got the press, the appearnace with Gregory Hines and all that, but it was one time when I actually could see this big potential.

And then later when I opened the program to get that quote, and look over the performers, there's a Travis Knights who has to be the same one, me simply not remembering his last name properly. No wonder I thought of him last night, he was on stage when I thought of him. It must have been that big guy, how am I supposed to recognize him when he was 12 or so the last time I saw him perform?

In fact, I was thinking of him not just his skill in tap dancing, but as ametaphor for multi-layers of music and/or dance. John Coltrane took a simple song, "My Favorite Things", and added layers to it, Travis Knights did that with his tap dancing, but the whole show was like that, the music in the background, the dancers adding layers to that music.

The Gazette doesn't want to cover dance at the Fringe? Travis Knights is amazing. No, he didn't hog the show, I'm just writing about it because it is something that should be mentioned. All the dancers were good, in the same way. The show was well attended, I think the largest audience I've seen at a dance show all week. But him being in the show, as well as Ian Ferrier, is the sort of thing that would travel well, help to make the show visible. I am really sorry I didn't see the show earlier in the week.

This was an obscure show, I sure never saw a flyer, not sure I saw a poster, and didn't see any reviews. It seemed, from the blurb, to be a trio of women putting on music, a 30 minute show which can't hurt. Not something I really wanted to see, hence the late viewing, but something that was a curiosity, to take in to see what it was.

It was a power trio, really quite loud. They just used the venue to put on their music, no angle to make it more appealing. The very brief blurb mentioned "dancing", which could be interpreted as dancers, but it was really that a space on the floor had been made in case the audience wanted to dance. At one point one of the performers left the stage to "drag" someone into the empty area, but that audience went back to their seats when the performer got back on stage. At the end some did get up and dance. It seemed a decent audience, those two shows last year that I saw in the venue that were trying different things didn't really have as large an audience. Music plays hard at the Fringe, you have to compete with the free stuff at the beer tent.

Expect at the very least sleepy volunteers today, maybe still hungover volunteers. Nobody really told me, but apparently it was a Big Night at 13th Hour, some sort of costume party, presumably on par with the Prom Night and the mass wedding night. I asked someone if they were going to the party on Friday night (the post-Fringe volunteer party, sometimes people don't get the word, though others are too tired by then) and she said "tonight", some other party. The word is somehow passed around, but if your an insider like me who's also an outsider, the word doesnt' come early enough to plan ahead. Stick around till 1am, then have to get home, likely 90 minutes from Cabaret Mile End, then do things at home?

I was the responsible adult, and went home, Julia had her car so i actually got a ride home. That was weird, I haven't been in a car for maybe five years. And before that, the one time a year I was in a car was during the Fringe. So I got home promptly, internetted a bit (checking to see if anyone had said anything new) and then lay down "briefly". It was 3am when I got up, just to turn off the lights. Good thing I hadn't started baking cookies. I didn't even feel tired when I got home. The real contradiction here is that if I stop making the cookies, I'd have time to go to the parties, but there'd be no reason to. I never once was voted "best kook" in the Mirror's Best of Montreal poll, nobody remembers me in the off-season.

Some of the shows may have already finished their run, though since this year the Montreal and Ottawa Fringes run at the same time (usually Ottawa starts as ours is winding down), there wasn't a pack leaving town together before the final weekend. (On the other hand, one year the two did overlap, and something was arranged, so mid-week there was a swap, some of our shows disappearing, some new shows suddenly appearing). But, some venues will not be open on Sund, the dance venues, 11 and 12, and Venue 1, the Santa Cruz Mission. I suspect the dance venues close because it's a holiday, the Mission perhaps has other things booked. So the two main dance venues, if you don't go Saturday, you can't go on Sunday.

For that matter, Sunday is a mandatory holiday, so don't expect to shop at Provigo in between shows. Indeed, if you're coming in on Monday to help put away the Fringe, not only does the bus schedule change to the summer schedule, but it's the holiday schedule. Ever so often, that does happen, either you wonder why the bus isn't coming and then realize the schedule has changed, or you wonder why the bus is so slow, and realize it's less frequent because it's a holiday. I hope there are no problems, some years some things had to sit around until the next day because it was a holiday. Sunday is the holiday, but Monday is a holiday for some to give them an actual day off. Of course, rain is forecast, and I suspect it may be a long soaking, rather than a sudden flash rain that dries soon after.

It was the day for the Native Women's Shelter at the Fringe. This time they didn't bring the women who seemed so surprised by the offer of a chocolate chip cookie last year. But, for some reason the money did seem to come in. Most days when I've looked, the donation boxes are pretty empty, this time they seemed fuller. I slipped them a ten dollar bill, they put it in the box, but there was at least a twenty and another ten in there. Sara Timentwa would be so pleased.

On Wednesday, someone appeared at the Beer Tent to serve beer in a white shirt and tie, unusual Fringe attire. I said something about a dress code, and pointed to my tshirt. But, the next day, he was back (so I guess he had a good time), complete with the red tie, but the dress shirt is gone, just an undershirt. That works. Then on Friday, one woman working the Beer Tent had some fancy jewellry, not expensive (like that one time a volunteer was seen wearing pearls), just nice because it was coral and tourquoise and such.

I missed 4kg again, this time by five minutes. I thought I'd make it, but the bus was four minutes late, then traffic on Sherbrooke Street was slower than it's been previously this week, partly the construction around Greene Avenue (CJAD said it was another sinkhole, I'm not sure, one day it was fine, the next they were digging), but traffic seemed heavier. I might have broken my usual vow to not go to a show late, but I even missed the five minute mark for latecomers. Odd, I had a chance to see it at Studio 303 on June 2nd, and I never made it. I check, and see that the new pants I'd gotten, the zipper failed and I wasted too much time trying to get the zipper going, and thus ended up unable to get to the shwo in time. It's odd having shows there at 6pm (I assume so there's no need for a security guard, that has to eat into the budget).

it seems harder to keep track of the dance shows this year, in part since they are spread out, but maybe it's just the volume of the shows in general. On the other hand, the titles while being descriptive don't sound as inviting. Le Projet Migration fits that, yes if you read the blurb you get some picture, but looking at the schedule in the middle of the program, I kept dismissing it.

They are from California (the French title makes sense, dance has always been a category that isn't language-bound, but it suggests one of the many local shows). The door opens to let us in, and someone in what seems like a security guard uniform comes out, initially she belonged to the school. No, part of the show, we had to go through "immigration" to get in. The guy in front of me, somewhat older, had to put down his bag and stand in a specific spot, I was all prepared to refuse any of this, even walk out if necessary (or invoke my great, great, great grandmother who was born before there was a Canada or a US in the pacific northwest), but I went through without a problem, perhaps the "guard" realized I'd make a fuss.

So it was a few dance pieces held together with an immigration themed thread. The pieces would hold without the guard and all that, but either they were making a statement, or trying to work the crowd better. It was only 37 minutes long, shorter than the time specified in the program.

But the pieces used "dance words" that I don't really see, at least at Studio 303 and the Fringe. Again it makes me think that there is a regionalsim to dance, the pack going where the other locals are, the pieces are unique but there is a similarity to it, But that similarity is only seen when compared to dance from elsewhere. It's a theory, I know one time someone From I think Denmark got up after a Danse-Vernissage at Studio 303 and said he'd rented the studio for contact improvisation and wanted people to join him, let the vocabulary be exchanged in dance rather than by standing in front of the class lecturing.

So I did like this. It was an error that got me to it (though there is still a bit of time left to see the shows), I thought I was going up to the dance venue for 4pm and Sora, only to discover that I'd looked at the schedule wrong, and that show wasn't till 11pm. I've done that, so i decided I'd stay in the air conditioned venue for an hour until Projet Migration was on.

There have been some reviews that commented on the heat in Venue 4, the firehouse/art gallery near the Beer Tent. I'm not sure that's a new thing, but obviously the heat this week has been high (though, no rain yet, despite it being forecast, there hasn't been rain since we put the fence up on June 12th). One year, when the Fringe took over a whole empty building up St. Lawrence above the park, those venues in that building were really hot, and Jeremy's solution was a whole bunch of cheap battery operated fans, hand them to the audience going in, retrieve them coming out. I wonder where that box is? I never saw those fans again. Probably cheaper to buy new ones than replace the batteries, oddly things often do work that way.

Some people have brought their own fans. I never use it, but I have a folding fan from Japan that Mari Osanai gave me the last time she was here, I gave her a Grateful Dead CD (wait, and then I sent her a Jazz Festival CD, she always left town before the Jazz Fest began, even though every so often it did start a few days after our Fringe). I still have thefunniest.com fan from 2001, a souvenir of things probably best forgotten. That was a cold (and I think wet) year, we tossed so many fans after the Fringe. SHould have kept them, they'd come in use this week.

But the Fringe did implement a solution to the hot venue on Friday, They sent over a large bottle of water, immersed it in ice, and offered that in cups to the audience. Even at the Beer Tent, the water isn't cold this year (having done away with bottled water). They also had Pop Montreal fans, though they retrieved those from the audence after the show, rather than let them keep them as souvenirs. Not sure why, they are advertising, so you'd think they'd want the audience to use them elsewhere. They resemble in construction those thefunniest.com (that company went out of business after the Fringe, even though in 2001 they did get high billing) fans of 2001. Not a perfect solution, but every bit helps, and the fact that they got the water fold does make a difference in that heat.

They just said on CJAD that yesterday's edition of the Montreal Mirror will be the last, after publishing since 1985.

That's a drag, for lots of reasons, and I'll add to this later. But clearly with Hour out of the way, it closed down some months ago but of course really died over a year ago when they cut back drastically, there now seems no point to keep one good paper going. I saw no sign that the Mirror had been shrinking, it still seemed healthy with ads and contents. but then, it hasnt' been independent for a long time, so like so many decisions, it's one that takes in the whole picture. If it was still independent, it might not have the resources to fall back on, but on the other hand, it just had to be sustainable, rather than providing profit to some company further up. More Later.

Cameryn Moore wrote about billets, which reminded me of 1998 when a group from around Kitchener Waterloo did a show, Peel My Skin. They'd thought of taking the train, decided instead to rent a van so they had transport in the city, the cost about the same. But they slept in that van for half the Fringe, no billet for them. I was never sure if there was no billet, or the Fringe lost track of the fact a troupe needed a billet. One of them who i was friendly with said at one point that I acted like someone to vent to, away from her friends. She didn't dish dirt, but yes, I certainly was someone out of that group she could talk to for some variety.

That made me think about artists. if they come as a solo act, they have to make friends with others, if they want to talk to anyone during the Fringe. Of course, that doesn't always happen, the woman dooing Recess a few years back and then Jap-Jap seemed to be on the fringes of the Fringe, as if too shy to cross the barrier. The acts that are multiple people, they can hang together, indeed that does happen, they travel as a pack, maybe take in tourist sites together, they can rely on each other. I've even seen acts hang together so much that it seems to impede their ability to get an audience, not always but sometimes. I'm not sure which is a better thing, promotion wise.

The first time Mari Osani came to our Fringe, 1998, I made a point of saying hi before the first show, and each time she performed that year, I passed by to say hi either the before or after the show. it was easy then, the venues were close together, but I tried to keep that up for the almost decade she came, just to be a friendly face for someone coming from Japan alone.

But wait, Piss in the Pool is gone from the Fringe schedule. I suddenly realized I hadn't noticed it, and checking shows it's not there. Does that mean it's cancelled, or gone back to it's traditional time a week after the Fringe, independent of the Fringe? The first year it moved into the Fringe, after some years of being an independent event in late June, someone reliable told me they'd been "pressured" to move into the Fringe. So maybe the pressure is gone? Or does this mean the event will no longer happen?

Wait, a websearch says that Piss in the Pool is taking place this year at Bain Mathieu, 2915 Ontario East. June 20, 22, 24. That's not good, free of the Fringe, they put it on during the Fringe. It might as well be an Off show at the Fringe for the conflict with the Fringe shows. I might try to find Wants and Needs webpage, but they were horrible about using the internet years back, so I'm not going to bother, chances are good they don't have information up even if they still have a webpage. The internet is not trendy, it's information, and don't expect me to come to your show if you can't put up information about it (and don't expect me to come to your show if you schedule it during the Fringe).

On the other hand, if they performed in actual water, or the audience was in pool full of water while the performance was on the sides, this time of year it would get a great audience. I remember one year when the Dummies Theatre had a show in late June in what became Mainline Theatre and at the end the actors got into a wading pool of water. It was so hot, outside and worse inside, that at that point I think all of the audience wanted to get into that wading pool with Anna and the other two actors.

Pat Donnelly likes it. No wonder, at $4.00, $6.00 with the service charge, it's one of the cheapest shows at this Fringe. The service fee is dismissed as "tax", but I calculate 60cents of GST and PST on 4.00, which means a cheap show puts more money into the Fringe coffers than a 10.00 show (the tax on that is 1.50). Either it's for the tax or it's not, that really needs work. I remember the first year of advanced tickets, admission.com or one of those bit ticket places handled it, and I asked someone "won't the service charge add significantly to ticket prices?" and I was told they'd waved the service charge, I assume wanting to test something out or try to make more introads. Then the next year, there was the 2.00 Fringe button, you had to have one to buy a ticket, people would lose buttons on a continuous basis. The Fringe took over ticket sales, and initially there was a sliding service fee, nothing at a venue (which is the way it should be), a dollar or two at the box office, a higher price by phone. That made sense, but a year or two later it was gone, a 2.00 service charge across the board, penalizing shows with a low price (since it may only be 4.00 but it's really 6.00). It's a service charge, but it's for taxes? It really makes no sense,

Let's see someone challenge that. Pay the four dollars, and the 60cents, and see if they can get a ticket. I have no problem with some sort of service charge, but it would be nice to drop it at the venues, a return to the early days of the Fringe, and it certainly seems unfair that when a troupe offers a show for 4.00 or 3.00 the price goes up significantly by the service charge/taxes, The Fringe needs cheap shows, and they shouldn't be penalized more than the ten dollar shows.

So the Frankie Nominations were announced today, I refuse to link to it. Like I sad last year, making the nominees public is a mistake, it's like saying "the Fringe is not a festival of discovery, come and see these shows that have been certified to be good". We certainly didn't have the information before last year, it's not too late to change this back. The Frankies are really about putting the shows in another venue, not deciding what shows are worth going to>

But the announcement did tell me something I missed, Studio 303 is no longer offering a prize. But wait, they are listed in the program as a prize giver. Yet, in the announcement, the dance shows are up from an award for Bouge d'Ici which I thought is Amy's January or February dance festival, the one that doesn't get press. Did I do that? That wasn't the intent.

Why isn't the Fringe a time to talk about art in the greater world? Instead, all the press coverage is about reviewing shows, which really is mostly about free advertising for shows. Why aren't we talking about the importance of volunteers in arts groups? Why aren't we talking about how Studio 303 has moved on, no longer really a place to start out, leaving it to others to fight there way up to visibility? Why aren't we talking about festivals that grow for the sake of growth, leaving artists in the lurch? Like I said to Shakti about 2005, ticket sales had doubled in a decade, but the number of troupes had doubled too, and I'm not sure it's changed since then. If we keep adding acts, what really seems to happen is that a few are successfull, the rest have to fight for a mediocre audience. We haven't lifted the lesser shows, we've just made it easier for the "good shows" to do better. Why aren't we talking about dance in the greater world, why the Gazette has abdicated covering dance other than at the larger venues, forgetting that those venues need smaller venues for people to try out their art, to grow into those big venues? Why do groups think it's perfectly acceptable to have nothing more than Facebook page?

Okay, that "missed connection" was Fringe-related, because after this cryptic ad, IMAN, there was a later one, RE: IMAN which specifically mentions it's from the Fringe Festival. Apparently they did get some responses, but not from the object of their desire.

Then another "missed connection", YOU SAID YOUR NAME WAS TL where someone came to the eco-carnival and was smitten by someone, but didn't say much at the time. I wonder who the object of desire is?

I found another laser printer, the second of the week, coming down St. Lawrence Wednesday night, the block between the Beer Tent and Mainline. This time I decided I should bring it home, a combination of me on my way home (so I didn't have to lug it around all night) and the fact that it was the second one in a few days, telling me something. Again, no chance to try it this week, I suspect it needs a new toner cartridge, the cheap laser printers are now so cheap that people toss them when the cartridge runs out, just like ink-jet printers. Certainly if someone was moving (and there was an office chair and a few similar items in the pile), they dont' think twice about tossing a laser printer due to the original cost.

Julie Tamiko Manning made an appearance on Wednesday at the Beer Tent, on one of the juries yet again. She looked good, and there was her laugh, but then she represents the old Fringe. She volunteered in the early days, the first time I remember her was at the Tall Tales thing in the Beer Tent in 1996. Then later that Fringe, I distracted one of the venue managers, and when they couldn't contact her, sent Julie over to check, she being a rover that year. We'd already started making origami out of the expired flyers, and Julie takes the magnifying glass in my Swiss Army Knife and tries to start a fire on one of the origami cranes. I'm not sure she volunteered after that, but she was in some shows, including See Bob Run (the first production at our Fringe, in 1997) and Girls! Girls! GIrls! in 2000. I think she was in The Full Molly in 1998, but I may be mixing things up. I said "I'd forgotten you" which isn't right. I never forgot her, indeed she has made fairly regular visits to the Fringe, but after being a performer for a few years, her role was on the Centaur Jury. But her being a volunteer is long in the past. She keeps appearing in reviews for Geordie shows, so she seems to be doing okay, if low-key.

They roped in a former Box Office manager as a venue manager, his first time as an actual volunteer. For years he'd put in an annual appearance, as part of the Centaur Jury.

Speaking of oldtimers, I see from one review of Jocasta's Noose that Laura Mitchell is in it. She was in a couple of Titters shows relatively early on in the Fringe, with Janis Kirshner but that was back in 1997. I'm not sure she's been in something since, though she continues appearing in shows elsewhere.

Venue Manager Antoine appeared Wednesday night (and again tonight), he was at the Volunteer Party on May 5th and I thought he'd be volunteering again, but apparently he's too busy. At least he puts in an appearance, unlike some people.

On the other hand, no sign of Alouette Lark, I hope she just got tired of it all, rather than something serious.

In the old days, a venue manager would stick with a venue throughout the Fringe. When the festival ran from noon to midnight, the shift would change right at 6pm (unless something special came up). When more venues were added and the shows ere most days shuffled into the evening, it all seemed to fall apart. Initially, the changeover point was half-way through the "day", more or less, but that slowly disappeared. Then venue managers just kept shifting around, and now there's no real consistency. (Actually every time I've gone by venues 11 and 12, the same woman is doing venue 11.) In the old days, the venue managers acted as promoters for the shows at their venue, not as part of their job description but because they got to know the artists. The smart artists if they had tshirts would give one to the venue manager, as promotion. That's lost. I don't know what changed that in the old days, the Fringe could find enough venue managers to do six hours a day, and now they can't. Yes, there are more venues, but at best that would mean problems finding more venue managers. Now, they are often just regular volunteers, they take some shifts as venue manager. Their steady work in the old days meant they'd get a superpass (though accompanied by the problem of using it when working and then volunteering), now that only happens if you do enough hours.

That said, it also ends up with weird hours. One venue manager worked from 11:30am to 8pm on Sunday, which is really a long, long shift. She didn't even have an assistant.

A big event in my life happened forty years ago, I wasnt' sure of the exact date until I just pulled out the letter. It was on June 19th, the final week of grade six and elementary school, that I passed the test to get an amateur radio license. I'd tried in May, but failed the part about receiving morse code, so I had to take that part again in June.

Amateur radio is "fringe", it used to be fairly visible but in recent decades it's barely seen in the mainstream. Of course, it's not like when I was a kid, not only did I have to pass the morse code test, but a technical test, including a verbal portion where we had to describe how a sample transmtiter worked. I was probably the youngest ham at the time, previously you'd had to be 15 or over to get a license, when I got interested at 10 I expected to wait five years, but late in 1971, there was a tiny article in the Gazette saying the rules were changing. So suddenly it was real, not abstract. The new rules went into effect in April, I tried as early as possible. In recent decades, the entry requirements were simplified, a simpler test, then later no need for morse code.

It's the one radio service that is pretty wide open, amateur radio dates from the begining soon after Marconi spanned the Atlantic in December of 1901. Nobody knew what to do with radio out of the lab, amateur radio was like a test ground. It proved the value of shortwave, was the foundation of radio controlled models, put the first non-government satellite in space in December of 1961 (well, the satellite was built in a garage, but it hithhiked into space on an existing rocket, proving the value of multiple satellites on one rocket, nowadays it's hard to find space for a launch, everyone wants a ride into space.

I've never been a good ham, always interested in the technical aspects, never much of an operator. I did operate, not quite legally, druing Field Day (set up in a field running off emergency power, as a contest but to prepare for emergencies) on the weekend of June 24-25, a rainy weekend on St. Helen's island because it was the tail end of Hurricane Agnes. The first time I operated with my own callsign was the day after the Rolling Stone's equipment truck was blown up outside the Forum, mid-July 1972.

So I was a bad ham, but it was the most important thing in my life. Literally for some years, but I learned about learning, it gave me an adult perspective away from school as I entered high school.

There was a cryptic "missed connection" that may be from venue manager, it can certainly be interpreted that way. But the only one that was obvious was the one related to the Drag Races, which disappeared by morning (did that poster find the one they "missed"?). But generally, such a common space isn't being used much, even the post where the Fringe was looking for volunteers came after the volunteer party on May 5th.

But yesterday there was Come see the"ACT of ROD"show @ the Montreal fringe!! . A common space is only valuable so long as it's used, if it can't be a source of useful things, then people will go elsewhere. This sort of promotion isn't being used much. There have been some years where Fringe shows have gotten listed in The Surburban's list of events, which always struck me as a good thing.

I'd like to hope this is just good promotion, rather than desperation. it's hard to tell, since other groups aren't bothering. You should see the ads leading up to the Fringe, groups wanting actors or items for their show, but being cryptic about what their show is, when it can be advanced publicity for the show. Indeed, help or donated items are much more likely to happen when it's an identified artist (even an unknown one) than some anonymous artist. How can I tell how serious someone is if they can't reveal what they are working on?

Yes, the Fringe is more visible now, I heard it mentioned a bunch of times on CJAD before it started, likely a case of younger announcers growing up with the Fringe. But, if you open the Gazette, there isn't much coverage. In the old days there were reviews every day, and they'd send out people like Janet Coutts to review shows along with Pat Donnelly. Now, it's just the latter, and it seems like less space is allocated. It's not even that she is blogging instead of being in the paper, the reviews are what she's blogged. Like postering away from the beer tent, the reviews in the Gazette were a means of luring people in, the less there is there the less we pull in random people. We really have to do something about this, it's not fair to artists to come here and then get small audiences. The Fringe website, the twitter, the facebook, all of that only works when people cross a line, we need the work before that to amke them cross the line.

I had a shower, and then never really dried off, so much humidity. It didn't seem too bad walking over to the Fringe, even took a detour to find the weeklies (there actually is some Westmount related show, the driector of Hack got an article in The Westmount Independent. (If you live in Westmount, it almost seems obligatory to get a local article if you have a Fringe show, and that doesn't just mean Keir Cutler.) But walking up St. Lawrence Blvd almost killed me, I almost expired when I got to the Beer Tent. But maybe it was going into the air conditioned volunteer trailer, too much of a contrast. I had to sit for a bit to recover.

Rumor has it that one volunteer, guarding the rear entrance to the Beer Tent, dehydrated so much that he was just a pile of dust, but adding water made him whole again. That's a joke, I did not hear of any heat related injuries.

But then there was ice cream, a run down to Pharmaprix to get ice cream at 2.99, then up to Provigo to find plastic spoons. A tiny bit of ice cream for any of the volunteers in the vicinity of the Beer Tent, not much but better than nothing, and I wasn't taking everyone down to Ripples for a full cone. It seemed to go slowly, then suddenly the ice cream was all gone, not everyone getting some.

The venue managers up at the new venue, 4750 Henri-Julien have a sweet deal. I felt bad for them earlier in the week, having to sit inside all week, away from people except when the audience comes for the shows. But, going in today, I immediately notice how much cooler the whole building was, nice and cool on such a hot day. I don't even think Tangent was air conditioned, or at least, if it was, they didn't crank it up. So the venue managers were quite happy today. I found out where the second venue in the building was, right next to the one I'd been to before. What I thought was an assistant was actually a second venue manager, which explains why she had a walkie talkie. That's nice, if they'd had to sit by themselves they would be isolated, but at the same table they have ach other.

The rain never happened, for a bit it looked like it would rain, rain suddenly and hard, but for just a short time. Over at Santa Cruz, someone had expected rain (or was that the day before?), keeping the table inside. She was right, if it had rained, it might have happened so fast that she would get wet just getting the table in

Two years ago, when Megan Bradley first worked in the box office, as assistant, I wrote

I'm still not sure how they gave the job to the dim-witted Audrey from As You Like It. Well they didn't really, she just played that role in last year's Repercussion Theatre production,

Last year, she became Box Office Manager, initially sharing it with someone who then disappeardd part way through the Fringe. She has the same role this year.

But up at Cabaret Mile End to see Ethereal Tribal Saturday night, I found the latest QDF guide, and there'll be a production of MacBeth at the Monument National from August 9 to 25. It includes various people I don't recognize, Megan Bradley of the Box Office, some guy named Jeremy Hechtman, music by Mr. Security, and "an ensemble of 30" (that makes more sense, the first time I read it, I saw "300"). I mentioned it to her, she gave me a flyer. They were handing out flyers at the entry to the Beer Tent two days later, one of the "cast of 30" was there.

The Edinburgh Fringe is hardly the example of radical. Maybe when it started, yet the story I always heard was that there simply was no room for locals, not because their art was "too political". It's important to note that they wanted the audience that the big festival brought, wanting to be part of it, hardly contemptuous of it. But whatever happened in the beginning, you now pay a hefty fee to get in the program. That's all you get from the festival. You then have to go out and negotiate a venue, and since demand is high, prices are high. You are in competition with so many others, and so many of them are there for exposure. The Edinburgh Fringe, whatever it might have once been, is not an accessible festival today. Not necessarily bad, but don't use it as an example without full disclosure.

As for the issue of CAFF copyrighting "Fringe", I should point out the New York International Fringe Festival. You pay a hefty registration fee, but there's no lottery. Instead, it's a juried festival, it you don't meet the standards, you don't get in. If there's one thing common to "fringe" it's that it's non-juried, yet here is a festival that uses "Fringe" to portray itself in a certain way. I'm not sure how they get away with it, maybe when they started in 1997 it was before the copyright, but it's a clear reason for the copyright. Yes, it limits who can use it, but it ensures that someone dooesn't abuse it, like that New York festival. SOmething that must not be forgotten when claiming cooptation of a culture.

Look at how much Just for Laughs wants to pretend, with their Zoofest, The first year they acted like it was a standalone festival, that's been watered down in subsequent years. They implied it was more free for all than juried, we don't hear much about that. It's a "Festival of Discoveries", trying to be like the Fringe, yet how can it be when it's juried? If CAFF hadn't copyrighted, or is it trademarked?, "Fringe", then any group wanting to pretend could put on their own Fringe Festival, trying to be "trendy", a marketing tool, rather than an actual Fringe Festival. Note that there used to be Fringe Festival of Independent Dance in Toronto, mostly on the Fringe model, but then they upgraded the venues, had to raise ticket prices to pay for the upgrade, then decided juried would be the way to go because of the higher ticket prices (ie people would be less willing to pay for more expensive tickets if there was no guarantee that they were "getting good"). And then a year or two later, having changed the model and the name of the festival, it shut down. A sad thing, but if they couldn't stick to the Fringe, maybe that is saying something.

I should point out that "Linux" is trademarked. Initially it wasn't, but then eventually some did get a trademark, and then proceeded to pursue others using the name. It was a money making attempt, since nobody had trademarked the name, this guy could then shake down groups that were using it. Eventually, Linus Torvald did pursue this matter, properly claiming his right to the name, getting the previous trademark squashed and then indeed "Linux" was properly trademarked. It wans't planned, but once you have others exploting a name, you may not have much choice but to trademark or copyright something, having the control being a better thing than not have control.

So it's Eco-Carnival day at the Fringe today, I hope to get over there before things end.

I haven't had a chance to look over that DVD player I pulled from the garbage on the way to Re-Humanize Me on Monday, wasting precious time to retrieve it, but not spending time to look if the remote was in the rest of the garbage. I don't have much hope for it, despite an hdmi output, someone was clearly trying to clean the lense over the laser, and presumably gave up. Some DVD players use a standard interface, so you can just use a DVDROM drive from a computer (which are pretty plentiful these days), even if you can't fit the drive into the case. But this one doesn't use a standard drive, so unless I can find another DVD player with the same drive, it's not repairable. (On the other hand, that DVD player I found last summer worked, though I think a few functions are missing since the remote wasn't with it. That DVD recorder I found in a recycling bin in 2009 worked though later sort of failed. It still plays DVDs, the recording fails somehow, a new drive didn't fix that, so I'm thinking the power supply, which I've not gotten around to, ti's less useful these days without analog tv, though if I get it recording again, I can copy the home recorded stuff I have on VHS to DVD.)

The weekend before the Fringe, I hauled home two LCD monitors. The first one came from a garage sale, a sign saying "free, needs repair", a nice 19" and the screen can be changed from landscape to portrait. It didnt' even light up when I plugged it in, which is actually a good sign, likely the power supply and that's either easy to fix or replace outright. The other one came the Sunday before the Fringe, walking back from MEC I spy this monitor up above Jean Talon. The decision is often about whether it interferes with other things, whether it's something I really want/need. I decided the idea of having another LCD monitor was too tempting and thus I'd skip other things I'd intended to do on the way home. (Well I did take in Welch's 1.00 book sale, putting the monitor down on the sidewalk while I looked over the books). Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to take the stand off, so it was quite bulky to carry. It uses an external power supply (which may be a good sign too, if that got missing, that might explain the trip to the garbage). But I haven't had time to dig out a power supply and connector, so it sits waiting like the other LCD monitor till after the Fringe. As I mentioned previously, a few years ago I did find a 17" LCD monitor lying on the sidewalk waiting for the garbage when the McGill students moved out. Odd, I'm not seeing much in the way of computers lying on the sidewalk these days.

There was a laser printer lying on the sidewalk Monday night, halfway between Petit Campus and the MAI, but I didnt' need one and thus couldn't be bothered hauling it home, and Julia has a hand me down color laser printer, so she didn't need it.

The thing is, there is lots out there that works fine but gets tossed. People miss the point that not everyone has a car to easily drop something off at a collection point. Indeed, I'm suspicious about some of those places, are they skilled enough to know when good stuff appears? Or are they programmed to sort out the most recent stuff, the rest gets sent off for attempted gold reclaimation? Yes, if people toss it, it may land in the landfill, but I keep finding interesting things, and I'm not the only one.

When the McGill students move out, that's a great time, they just don't want to bother moving it. There's a smaller spike sometime in August, when the summer leases are up and they dump before the new kids appear for the fall semester. But of course, July 1st Moving Day is really important, people leaving things because they never had time to dispose of it, or suddenly there's no room. The weeks up to July 1st are often good times, but June 30th and July 1st are the key days. I found a jumpsuit a few years ago, too small for me, but $12.00 in the pocket. Another time, with that almost toy digital movie camera (it provided a nice SD card, even if I never take movies), I found about six dollars of Canadian Tire money. I find endless wifi routers, I found a classic 60gig iPod (the battery needs replacing, which explains the soldering iron next to it). It can be odd, people get excited about finding cans in piles of garbage, leaving much more valuable stuff, unable to know the value or process it.

Helen used to find food. I'm not sure if she explored or got word from others. She had one bakery that tossed endless items each night, more than she could use. A fruit place somewhere else, but too often it would go bad before she could eat it all. Oddly, Cameryn Moore hails from Jamaica Plains in the vicinity of Boston, we were there towards the end of April 1982 for a "Food Not Bombs" festival, not long after they started.

The thing is some things are very common. All those clothes, it's because fashion often leads people to toss prematurely. I've bought things I shouldn't have, but generally I just wear out clothes, not following fashion. I can put a lot of wear on a pair of shoes in two months. But if you follow fashion, or have a need for constant changes of clothing, then you're going to end up with all those clothes that sometimes later show up for others.

Of course artists make art out of "garbage". They see something and it inspires them. Or they have no money, so they use what they can find. But it's different from deliberately making art out of garbage, like political theatre, neither works unless you actually have art. You might as well just salvage things out of the garbage, like that laser printer, and spend the money you'd spend on it on other things that can't be found free. But it often requires skill to deal with some of the stuff, just as being frugal requires actually making decisions.

When I was about sixteen, I figured out that all things were related, the one Big Thought that I never wrote down. Some years later I realized that was what ecology was about. So if you want to save Fringe flyers, you need to deal with the point of those flyers, not just save them after the Fringe for All. "Do you really need those clothes" may be more important than "what can we do with these clothes we don't want anymore?". People can do things for a variety of reasons and yet still be doing good without intending to. To save money, because they hate to see waste, because they were looking for something and find it on the sidewalk so they don't have to go and buy it. I haven't eaten meat since 1979, 33 years ago, I was 19 back then, I'll never eat meat again in my life. I did it because I could barely tolerate eating meat, it's only incidental that vegetable growing is more efficient than raising cattle, that no animals are killed to feed me.

It's silly to have things like "freecycle" when really, it's like forsale ads where the price is free. Might as well have the ads among other ads, if I'm looking for something I might like it for free but if I need it, I'll pay money, for free is just a bonus. But also, clustered with real ads, it may change people's minds. Someone who would otherwise toss something might remember to put a note on it before putting it out, saying it's for free and/or that it works. In an isolated venue, all you have is people who want free things, it doesn't change others. And then people need things fast, so they don't wait till it appears used or free.

Are there more than two Shannon Webb's out there, or is the women writing for the Quill and Quire blog about books "our" Shannon Webb, former coproducer of the Fringe but before that other roles including volunteer coordinator one year if I remember properly? One can see her entries here, though it's been over a month since the last entry by her.

I stopped by The MAI to pass out cookies, and that's when I learned that Ethereal Tribal is a fusion of belly dance. The former venue manager whois performing in it seemed pleased when I said "it looks like you are all having fun". But in offering cookies, someone comes over and asks for some. I can't place her, she is older than most of the volunteers, I'm not sure if it's someone I should know, someone's mother, or just a stray audience member who someone pushed the line. That's happened, sometimes I have no idea if the person standing or sitting there is a volunteer or performer, or just an audience member, so they get a cookie too. Anyway, the woman put her hand in the bag and pulled out a big handful for her table.

It is getting confusing. More people are saying hi to me this year than I can place, either my memory is going bad, or there's some sort of campaign. I feel really bad about the woman who deliberately came over today, and I can't place her, she deserves more, since she seemed to be looking for me. I never said I was invisible because of the cookies, I said I was invisible because what I write is invisible, making me invisible, yet endless times my words appear somewhere and nobody has bothered even saying "we decided to use your words".

One good thing, the Canada Dance Festival, that occurs every two years, took place June 8 to 16 so not much overlap this year. I don't see much reviewing of dance from the Gazette. I did see Deena Davida at Re-Humanize Me but I didn't catch her attention.

Gadfly: The Sam Steiner Dodges the Draft has a new entry at their blog here. Like many artists, they started out with some entries upon arriving, then no updates for a while, the usual distractions get in the way. Anyway, at one performance they had some real draft dodgers attend, as a group. And then the cast got taken out to dinner. I think I know one of the people who visited, indeed, I think her son appeared when I saw it, someone called my name and I think it was him. One of those people who I knew when they were small.

Someone was haning out cards to a website that lists upcoming shows. I can't decide if I should include the link or not. Is it a startup, in which case I'm supposed to be part of promotion? Or has it already got a beachhead? I don't know. Just because people can set up a new webpage or forum doesn't mean we need another. It just balkanizes, I'm bugged that so much of the Fringe announcements are hidden away, when they should be in a common cluster where all can see. Pick something and use it, instead of creating a new space. I've seen endless posts on craig's list where osmeone is trying to set up something new, when craig's list might as well be reinforced by people using it.

It was a slow day at the Beer Tent, not really a surprise. It's a weekday, less is happening. Though, as someone pointed out and I had already thought, cheap beer seemed to be the reason people go to the beer tent, yet when not much is happening there it can actually be quite quiet.

This is the music/film piece, that only started on Monday and has only five performances total. I went because I wasn't sure what it was like. It wsa one of those hard to categorize shows, like The Mayan Time Reversal some years back, I had no real idea what it was until I went. I thought it might be more multi-media, but it was relatively somber video playing behind the cello player. I have no means of judging this, it seemed mostly classical music with some "new age" tossed in. It didn't need the film playing in the back, but that legitimizes the music in a festival that might otherwise pass over music in a venue. it was a nice show, music doesn't require the concentration that a lot of the talking shows require, it was like quiet time in ten days of very active shows. it seemed like a reasonable crowd, Pat Donnelly appeared, asking me why I chose the show. I like it when people try to do new forms of live performance. And the performer had CDs for sale after the show. If the Fringe should be a chance to talk about art in general (rather than just reviewing shows), this one shows a creative way to perform music when your instrument is a cello.

This is a complex mix, one minute physical comedy, then sort of circus, then really good juggling. The juggling is intricate, I wonder why we don't attract buskers to do things like that at the Fringe? (I remember one year, almost 20 years ago, there was a juggling convention or something here, endless jugglers publicly on display one night in a park, including fire juggling, which is one way to ensure you get good at juggling.) I ended up sitting next to two of the Japanese clowns, they weren't wearing costumes this time. They seemed to be studying the show carefully, I could see the gears going in their head. But they also realized the tone of the show, clapping often. It was that sort of show, not so much bursts of skill (though that juggling was) but they grasped as artists that if the weightlifter is making gestures to show off his muscles, the tone of the show requires that we clap. And in doing so, the made sure the rest of the audience followed. I didnt' have to initiate the clapping, they did. Then the performers were up at another venue in street clothes, going to a show, looking quite different from when they were on stage.

So Cameryn Moore of various shows was at the Beer Tent with her typewriter, doing her Abrupt Erotica. Too hot to flyer, she said, she wsa getting customers, had some teasers up on the fence behind her. She types up a page of erotica for a fee as you wait, I'm not sure how much say the patron has in the results. She'd done it before, but over somewhere else, and I didn't know about it until after the fact. Apparently kids want to know what that thing is, I certainly wondered, it doesn't plug into an AC outlet. On some level, it's a weird thing, running fingers over a keyboard to say things that might otherwise be said more directly (but without words) by running fingers over someone's back. I still say written erotica should be taught in schools, get the kids interested, to practice writing but also practice fantasy. The first iterations would be awful, copies of what they've read or seen, but then hopefully it would become their own, going for the detail (or just suggestion) that makes it good, that makes it their own. Take control, rather than follow someone else's script, but that only happens if you actually work on your own script.

After a false start on my part on Sunday night, I did see this tonight. Nearly continuous action, they dress like clowns, some of it seems like circus, but really it's in the domain of comedy. It's different from their previous shows, yet uses the same sort of humor. It's slapdash comedy, like Charlie Chaplin, or the Hem-Helmut Show back in 1998. Like Last Man on Earth it's a visual show, I don't know if in either case it's deliberate (why not widen your audience if you can?) or it's the form they wanted to use in the first place.

Again, I wonder if women are reluctant to do physical comedy, how is it that these Japanese women are doing it, when my impression of the culture would suggest it's not their place? Maybe I'm misreading, that it works there because it's different, or that they actually come over here because they can do it. Again, Japan is a country I'd very much like to visit, to really get an idea of what it's like. What we see over here isn't the same as what one might see over there, especially if one had a chance to live the culture rather than view it. I don't even know if that's possible. I once thought I'd go there to walk from Hiroshima to Nagasaki, but that seems long in the past. Of course, I could actually get a passport and go in 2015, 70 years after the bombing.

It seemed like half the audience were in other shows, not sure if this is true. The woman doing The Ukranian Dentist's Daughter was there, turned out to be someone who'd been volunteering at the beer tent, without handing out flyers, or wearing something to indicate her show. I just thought she was a new volunteer.

This is the "silent film" play. It reminds me sort of of Venezuela last year, in that both shows are silent, but this one is a deliberate attempt to be a silent movie. It has all the cliches, the live piano music, the characters and settings, though for some reason it was in color. They must have spent a lot of time studying silent movies, to get the essence, then build it out into the show. Since some of them have improv background, I can imagine they worked at this quite a bit. I think somewhere I read this is the second in the genre they've done, so it isn't jumping on the bandwagon of that silent film last year. it's something that children could enjoy, indeed, I like this sort of show (like On the Air a decade ago about putting on a radio show) where it's not just the material, it's the form that might appeal to children. They should be watching silent films, which helped to define movies later, I remember giving the might Mira a collection of short Charlie Chaplin films before she was ten. Here, they can see it live, but maybe it also shows insight into silent films. They seem full of improvisation, I suspect generally they weren't cut and edited like later movies.

The clowns from The Exploding Family came to this one, complete in costume (they were out of costume last week but seem to be trying to keep in costume since).

Their blurb seems a bit over the top, but I think they have something here. These are ConU dance students, putting on something political but I think without hitting people on the heads. I think they convey what they are trying to, in some ways they are shocking yet that's the point. We owe as much to the woman who wants to where a hijab or burqua as we do to those who don't want to. We failed those young women who wanted a different life but were killed by their family, and we fail other young women who choose to where a hijab when we tell them it doesn't fit our society. Last year when Ben & Jerry's was having their Free Cone Day, there was someone in front of me who I'd describe as "punk hijab", she had one but was wearing a worn jean jacket and iPod and all the rest. I almost spoke to her, to tell her about the Fringe. What initially seems like someone very conservative, deeply religious, they are just women, who can appreciate some help with a stroller trying to get down stairs. But they choose, and others choose otherwise, and that's important too.

And surprisingly, I actually got to the 6:15pm show. Virtually any time I plan, I always miss the first show I intend to go to, sometimes just by a few minutes. I really wondered if I should bother, thinking I might get up there too late. But the 24 is running fast these days (unlike last year when construction meant one Friday night it took 30 minutes from St. Lawrence to Atwater), though something happened near Greene today, not sure if it's expected construction or a sinkhole. And then the 80 came along right away and I got up there with 15 minutes to get over to the venue, and I did. Of course, it helps when I don't get distracted.

I'd seen a blog entry at Montreal Improv where Vinny says he'd be busy with the Fringe, but I haven't seen him until till today for some reason. When I went by the venue, he even had his head down, it wasn't until his head came up at my voice that I saw he was there. With all they hype about the Tin Tin Movie I think I figured out that the Venezuela guys may be the Thompson Twins from the stories. Certainly they dress alike. I meant to get that Thompson Twin notebook when it was being discounted at Indigo some months back. I've given them a few books for their Laugh Library, I figured that if they are teaching, they might like to have some books around on the history of Second City and the like. Of great importance, they have a four dollar show (six with service charge), The All-Star Improv Jam, given some comments from Vinny in the past, I think the low price is deliberate. After all, they made a point last year of trying to be welcoming to children with Venezueal. Power comes from having your own venue, and they seem to be using that power wisely.

Not really, Sara Timentwa Ross was born about 1798, but I did bring her picture. Some years back, in an attempt to attack the Fringe, one group claimed we didn't have enough Indians. I've known for 30 years that someone up the family tree was Okanpagan, but it wasn't until Moe Clarke showed up at the Fringe a few years ago, referring to herself as "Metis", that I actually started looking. 200 years ago, about the time my great, great, great grandfather named "Kamloops", they got together, when she was about 14. I figured her last name was something he'd given her, like he named her "Sara" and named Kamloops and other places in the Pacific Northwest, but a few months ago, I did a search on the last name, "Timentwa", and right there in Washington State, where I'd expect them to be, there is a cluster of Timentwas. Actually, some of them are right there on the Colville Reservation, my distant cousins. You could either become white or go to a reservation. I have Okanagan blood, I have no idea if that makes me a native or not. But the story is what happened, make the Indians white. My great, great grandmother Henrietta wasn't even born in the Pacific Northwest, that generation is a case study in the ambivalence of the half-breeds (well, those who weren't abandoned by their white fathers). "What if Mama is an Indian?"; The Cultural Ambivalence of the Alexander Ross Family", is a piece about that family history, when I ordered the book from Indigo, the invoice was magically right at that point in the book. Aunt Jemima was embarrassed by her native mother, and asked that question. James Ross answered, and then was chief justice of Louis Riel's provisional government (is that enough "resistance"?). Mary married a half-breed who was a missionary, and they went and did missionary work among the natives. Henrietta married white, sort of a scandal maybe at the time, so did James. William Ross, the last of the children born in the Pacific Northwest, (there were 12 in total, most born in the Red River Settlement), wrote his grandparents back in old Scotland about "indolent and lazy indians hanging around the settlement, who pilfer and cheat, and then get drunk". Such self-loathing. We did that, we suffer as a result.

My father never mentioned any of this history, though I can find a place where my great, grandfather is referred to as a "Metis lawyer". And yet, it was the sort of thing he was interested in, when we toured the US when I was 3 or 4, we took in Indians, the Pacific Northwest, Yellowstone, all part of family history. Maybe he was interested because he knew, yet for some reason never said anything. I remember one time after he'd gone up to the arctic to collect specimens, later an "eskimo" came to visit for supper, and I remember that as a big event. But then for a decade, I had a narwhal tusk in my room. (Maybe that's one of Jessica Salomon's unicorns.)

But it's history and it's real, seeing a PBS documentary about the Grand Coulee dam, and the effort to move a native burial ground, those could have been relatives left behind. The Colville Reservation is where Chief Joseph went after his "I will fight no more forever", some cousin is maried to someone from his band. My great, great, great grandmother may have gone with my great, great, great grandfather on first contact, there couldn't have been that much interaction between Europeans and natives in 1812, yet history also says that the tribes even in the isolated Pacific Northwest had already lost many to smallpox.

That's some of the problem with politics. People want to save Indians, but each time they ignore the fact that the Indians "need saving" because they don't have a voice. Art is about telling a story in your own words, and doing that is always more powerful than speaking someone else's words, which politics often is about. You can't tell me something if you are just reciting from a book, you can tell me lots if you speak your own words. I can't speak about being Indian, but if I had any claim to any of that, it's lost because of the process that so many others suffered.

I think on Thursday it's the day for the Native Women's Shelter to collet donations. I have no idea why the Fringe asked them, but one should donate because the women they help may be doubly lost. Like my great, great, great grandmother, people lost to the culture as Europeans spread. I can't claim the Pacific Northwest for myself since my great, great, grandfather decided otherwise; I am both oppressor and oppressed. But people who are homeless are lost in another sense, it's not just that they lack resources, the very act of coming back is very hard. And one tip from Helen, she said it was always hard to find shoes, since the wrong size, unlike clothes, can hurt your feet, and so either the shoes aren't the right size, or they are worn, and even I know that if you walk everywhere, shoes don't last long.

It can't be Fringe without Football. Someone won last Wednesday when we were preparing the Beer Tent, today another team, Portugal, seems to have wone (at least, the crowd seemed to be cheering for that country. Way too much noise, and blocking traffic, the next game will won't have the protection of the sidewalk sale. Odd, the Portuguese Association on St. Urbain is not a venue this year, the first time since it was first used. The Spanish CLub on St. Lawrence was used one year as a venue, then later the anarchists had some event there that broke into a brawl, and the venue vowed to not rent it out again, so there were a few years before it returned as a Fringe venue.

And with the sidewalk sale over, some of the fun of summer is over before it begins. I was saying to one of the venue managers, in some ways the Fringe is early, one minute it's winterish weather, then the Fringe, no time to anticipate it during warm weather, it's just here, and then the rest of the summer is an anti-climax.

Wednesday, someone who looked familiar said I looked familiar, I'm pretty sure it was Rachel Elie, who did seem familiar. She's doing Big Girls Don't Cry, but she had a show with that name back in 2009. The blurb says it's a new show, so perhaps she's trying to build up a brand. I thought she'd had a show before, indeed in 2002 she had Sticks and Bones which I think is what I'm thinking about, a very physical comedy show. Unless I'm confusing it with some other show, I noted back in 2002 that women tended to avoid physical comedy.

Speaking of Edgy Women, my letter to the Gazette about their coverage of that Festival, never published, is here.

The five year old (or whatever his age) was back, giving his mother yet another workout. Someone else brought their daughter, so it was like Fringe Pre-School. Who needs a playground when there's all kinds of things to explore at the Beer Tent? There are even pods growing in the grass, shades of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (actually, they are solor powered garden lights, in a cluster).

Someone's dating a balloon. Actually, someone from the cast of The Little Prince is going everywhere with a balloon in hand, even into shows (though he puts it away when the show starts).

It didn't seem that hot, but I wondered if there'd be a better day (likely there will be, but will it be on the weekend?), so ice cream bars appeared at the Beer Tent for the first time. They were in the flyer, 30 for 8.49, so I got those, not as messy as the traditional ice cream.

Last year I saw two shows at Petit Campus, and the chairs were arranged in rows. This year, or at least for The Exploding Family there are tables too, so it's not as easy to get a good seat.

I'm still getting sporadic wifi at the Beer Tent, not sure what's going on, and I still can't remember where I might have recorded the password to use the Bell free wifi (which is half hour a day).

I haven't seen the show, but in just doing a blog search I found his blog, tinfoildinosaur.wordpress.com and it's full of self-doubt, such as

* What if someone hates my show so much, they never watch another play ever again?
* What if no one comes except for a heckler?

and schemes for promotion such as

4. Sex? I've been sweating so much just walking around in this humidity, I'm too self-conscious to hug people, let alone try to have sex with them and then guilt them into coming to see my show.

The self-doubt is really quite funny (I'm sure deliberately so) and worth reading. It's the sort of intimacy that draws in a crowd, yet without a common space, ot may get lost in layers. Surely if he fears turning his audience into theatre-haters, the show has to have some value?

This is certainly inventive. In an attempt to improve recycling, these cup collectors are in a number of places in the beer tent, hoping to collect the cups as people leave. It is a great solution, it takes up virtually no space so it it can be where people need it. It forms a preformed stack, instead of someone having to dig through reycled material and stacking the cups. And hopefully the narrow and very obvious point of this collector will limit the amount of garbage that gets in there, an ongoing problem with recycling at the Fringe. And yes, in trying to not use up space, this is too small a photo.)

I didn't particularly want to be way up at Cabaret Mile End at 11pm, it takes too long to get back down afterwards, but it was their first show, I worried that they'd have a small audience, and one of the dancers is a former venue manager, who always says hi when I see her. I'm glad I went despite the late hour, and they had a decent audience there. (And then one of the other dancers recognized me.)

This is belly dancing. They had ten dancers, which is pretty large for a Fringe show. The only thing I know about belly dancing is what I've seen in movies, the shaking of the hips and sometimes breasts. There was a lot more to this, multiplie pieces in various forms, so I have no idea if this better represents belly dancing or if they are extending the form. It doesn't matter, they were good. Yes, they all looked good and in those skimpy outfits, but it really was significant dance. That's another thing the Fringe is good for, this would be over there somewhere, in a venue where we might feel out of place, while at the Fringe it becomes "mainstream", a chance to sample something different. With so many dancers, they were able to show off patterns that wouldn't have been there with fewer performers. There was belly dance at the Fringe a few years ago, but either it was fusion or more somber, I barely remember it. Here it was mostly lively dance, and they looked like they were having fun. But then, the audience becomes part of the show, their reaction likely helps the dancers. It is lighter dance, you watch it rather than think about it, but we need that too. It should attract a decent audience, though hopefully nobody in a trench coat (which I really thought had happened the first year Shakti performed at the Fringe).

Later:, I've been informed that some of it is fusion (which is also mentioned at the webpage, www.etherealtribal.com, which I didn't check when so many pages don't tell us anything more. Their's does. So it certainly explains why I wsa thinking of Indian dance at one point. It doesn't change the fact that it is a good show, just clarifies that what we see isn't a deeper form of bellydancing than we see in the movies.

So I did see a show up at the new venue at 4750 Henri Julien. Either I completely missed the signs the night before, or they've fixed that problem. A very noticeable Fringe sign is just inside the door, to the left, with an arrow pointing left, you follow that and find a couple of more arrows and up the stairs to the venue. Easy once it's done the first time, but when I went the first time it wasn't about getting lost, it was a feeling I wasn't supposed to be there. Of course, Liz had found the venue and said "up the stairs" so that helped too. It's a nice venue and maybe about ten minutes from the Beer Tent, I meant to time it and lost track.

The Drag Races took place, no rain like some years. The crowd was much smaller, usually the park is packed and people are peering in through the fence. Maybe the fact that it's on the first Saturday than the second Saturday made people miss it. There was the usual number of children brought to see the festivities, maybe more than usual. And people old enough to be grandparents (read: older than me), it's always odd the audience the event attracks. As usual, I didn't pay attention, went somewhere else.

When I finally got home, there was a "missed connection" related to the Drag Races, but the next day it's gone, so I can't help that connection come together.

But, the Barefoot WIne Fairy made a spectacular appearance at the Drag Races. She looked so good, complete with purple outfit and wings, I can't remember if she had a wand to turn water into wine. I meant to take a picture, got distracted and then she was gone. What a loss. It was the wine company's representative, I'm not sure if this was a corporate thing or she threw herself into the Fringe on her own initiative, but it was a neat thing. I kept thinking of Carol Kane's performance in "Scrooged". Reminds me that last year I told some of the volunteers that we were going to make wine in the beer tent, the volunteers taking off their shoes and squishing the grapes in the back, we'd also have some mechanism to turn their grape stomping into power to run the beer tent.

Afterwards, one five year old? had a wild time rushing about, chalking up the path through the park, causing his parents to follow. I think they were connected to Cobra: The Musical, the mother seemed familiar, but someone in their group had a Cobra tshirt. Meanwhile, every day is kids day at the Fringe, for the bigger kids.

In all this time, since 1994, there have only been a handful of shows on a topic that really interested me. Like that show about the Beats in 1995. This one too, again I can't help but wonder if I made it come here because I mentioned WWII war resisters last year.

I thought this show was going to actually have Sam Steiner, a one man show from someone who lived through it and decades later decides to put on a show. But that's not it, they have four or five cast members, all young and they tell the story properly. None of the cliches that might be invoked by people who only know the loudest of the history. They even got the fact that many women came to Canada during the period of the Viet Name war, one book suggested even more women than men came. They got nothing out of it, they weren't being drafted, yet they came in protest. Just like Judith Merrill (who spent some time at Rochdale College in Toronto), Julia Pohl-Miranda's grandmother.

Rather than give a discount, I actually was paying more attention. The show has plenty of scene changes, but they work that into the play, which strikes me as a good skill. I thought one character showed up too early, but then I grasped it was a metaphor, which worked really well. They reused the actors in various ways, and that worked well. A funny scene well done to represent a correspondence between Sam and the draft board. So besides being a topic that interested me, it struck me that they are good theatre wise. There was a decent audience for a first show, and I didn' even see them postering at the Beer Tent on Wednesday, (though I admit I was expecting an older solo artist and was looking for that).

The show did explain why a Mennonite draft dodged rather than use religious exemption. I've often thought I'd become a Quaker, if only they didn't have the religious stuff. There did seem to be a disconnect, Sam rejects religion, yet then picks up morals, but maybe that happens when you grow up in a religious family. There are plenty of people who have come out of religion and done important things because of that religion. When Philip Berrigan was here in the spring of 1983 (the night of the "MASH" finale), he seemed more concerned with my well-being than his own; he was facing a long sentence for smashing nose cones in The King of Prussia PA. Right away you could see how he was able to do that time without it bothering him. But maybe a lot of Quaker kids rebel too, rather than picking and choosing what they get from the religion.

So this one worked theme wise, and I thought art wise. In 2001, Celia Slattery did Moving Target which seemed to be mostly about giving her a chance to perform music from the sixties, but the blurb suggested she'd gone trashing with the Weathermen or something. Yet the music was too cliched, the most obvious rather than looking for something with more depth. Maybe I was wrong at the time, because one of the things that we have to be thinking about was that the sixties was about youth culture (though often led by at least somewhat older people), where things became cultural as much as political. You could dodge the draft because there was a large mass "giving permission", but that didn't mean you were a pacifist. You could go to those demonstrations because your friends were, or to meet women, the large mass just moved forward. But the story in Gadfly was about one guy, no real cliches. There are people right now who are in prison because they oppose war.

In James Joyce's Ulysees the whole large book takes place in one day, June 16th. So people took the idea and celebrate the date as Bloomsday. SOme years there have been events locally, other years nothing much. This year seems to be a good year for osme reason, sadly most of the events happened before June 16th. I had a list of local events bookmarked, then lost track of the time. So for the few events that take place today, see Bloomsday Montreal Schedule. And yes, one year one volunteer was reading James Joyce during the Fringe, but it was something like The Dubliners or Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.

So I got to the Fringe thinking I'd take in The Exploding Family, but instead of the 6:30 start, it was 6:15 and I was five minutes late. I don't go into a show late, don't want to wonder what I missed, don't want to disturb people. I can see it later, though missing it meant waiting around. In the early days when the shows were from noon to midnight, it seemed like the showtimes were more staggered, miss one and you could soon take in another, helped because the venues were close together. But the times are now close to standard, and even if there is a show over there in ten minutes, you can't get there in ten minutes. So I waste much of the evening. It would really help if I planned things better. Oddly, wandering around the beer tent, one of the women doing "The Exploding Family" leaned back to give me a flyer, I assume she remembered me since it seemed more deliberate than some flyering.

I did go up to the new venue at 4750 Henri Julien, for Re-Humanize Me (there first two shows are only five dollars, seven with service charge, then up to a higher price, a neat trick to get an audience in early, so they can talk about it). But, there was no indication of the Fringe. I walk all around the building, no Fringe banners. I actually go in, worried that I don't belong, see nothing. So I don't go to the show. Liz went to something later, and she said something about going upstairs, but how was I supposed to know that? I felt very intimidated being in a space where I felt I didn't belong, and wouldn't have gone all over the building trying to find something. Maybe the venue doesn't want markings, but this is a serious problem. And the show, a dance piece, sounds interesting

I went to this, Julia and John (missing from the list of volunteers) were going, then it turned out to be volunteer night. It's not my interest, but seeing a musical (this is a musical, right and not an opera?) reminds me that it isn't common at the Fringe, or anywhere else these days, and it sure seems to require a different calibre of performance. It just seems like more rehearsal is needed to get all the lyrics right (though offset by the music to help oine remember, I thin), and the sort of dance moves that happen every so often. It just screams "serious", though the piece wasn't serious. And that's another thing the Fringe is good for, you can sample things at a low price, maybe finding you like a musical or dance or whatever, and then can pursue it on some more expensive level. And yes, this is yet another show that involves Shayne.

After a few years of little no Fringe coverage in the Gazette by Victor Swoboda (the paper's dance critic), he had a piece in the paper on June 9th, supposedly a preview piece, yet it says nothing about the dance pieces at this year's Fringe. Read it, Mainstream dance offerings exist on Fringe's fringes It once again opens with a dismissive paragraph, and then quotes Amy about some of what's been there, and a lot about the venues. It's been years since I last wrote the Gazette about the Fringe, the theatre coverage has given up the sneer when other people took it back, and either there's been no dance coverage of the Fringe in recent years, or Kathryn Greenaway has had some articles.

So I did send off a letter about it. I'm no dance critic, really know nothing about the topic, but I can recite all kinds of things about dance at the Fringe, things that I remember because they made an impression on me. If you can't say something nice about dance at the Fringe, then likely you aren't actually watching. But then, Studio 303's Edgy Women Festival gets typecast as a dance festival, presumably simply because it comes from Studio 303. I may put up my letter about Edgy WOmen later. Anyway, this year's letter criticizing the Gazette's coverage of dance at the Fringe is here. Chances are good they won't publish, it's been about a decade since I last had one printed. But one might hope that we actually see reviews of dance this year in the Gazette, it has happened sporadically.

As an addition, my letter to the Gazette about dance in 2005 is here and my letter to them about dance in 2006 is here. I did't bother spending the time converting them to html. There were older letters, I'd have to dig those out. The point isn't just the sneer, it's a continuous set of errors when mentioning small venue dance, a sure sign that someone isn't paying attention.

After some years of talk, St. Lawrence Blvd is finally wired for wifi. It's Bell, you have to register and use a password each time, but it seems reliable. I fonly I could remember where I wrote down the password, having register in anticipation of the Fringe. Ile Sans Fil is still around, though maybe not as common as before on the street? One mystery is solved, I kept getting errors, it turns out you no longer need to log in, so the username and password that I had from 3 years ago is no longer needed. But it gave an error that was vague enough that I thought it was a wifi error. I'm not sure ISF coverage of the Beer Tent is so good, 3 years ago it seemed overloaded, this year I wonder if all the metal in the fencing is in the way. Or maybe the Blackberry Playbook, yes I got one at 199.99, justifying it because I was tempted by a 139.99 ebook reader, so might as well spend a bit more and get the full function of a tablet) doesn't do wifi as well. Yet, I can see plenty of routers in the park when I scan for them.

Last year, Jessica Solomon in Doing Good had some line about unicorns, something about bisexuals being as mystical as unicorns or something. I thought it was her own joke, I've never heard that reference elsewhere. But, on May 4th, one couple had a craig's list ad where they were looking for a unicorn:

Apparently we're looking for a 'unicorn' ... a bi or bi-curious lady who'd like to come an play with us ... but these animals are mythical and don't exist in reality, but maybe you can prove us wrong? Let's hope so...

So did someone see Doing Good and take up the line?

I stayed home today. Got up earlier than I'd hoped, then fell asleep in the afternoon. Put off doing things that should have been done early. There was little reason to go out, I'm not interested in the music at the Beer Tent, though i wonder if I missed the artists leafletting. I have no idea if they do that these days. The out of town Fringe for all is way up there and starts at 11pm, I didn't want to come back down so late, so even if I'd had an interest, I'd not have gone. And then I finally made the cookies starting about 11pm, and ended up staying up till 5am.

I never heard from Peter Yarrow, who opened the Folk Fest tonight. I'd hoped for a free ticket, since he did perform for us in NYC on June 7th. And it was the 30th anniversary of civil disobedience against nuclear weapons at the UN missions that owned nuclear weapons.

I think I've caught up, if things are missing, they'll come later. One mystery is Gadfly: Sam Steiner Dodges the Draft. It says he was raised as a Mennonite, but they are one of the traditional peace churches and thus exempt from the draft, so I don't know why he had to dodge the draft. In WWI, members of the peace churches were the only ones who got exemptions, other war resisters did hard time in military prisons. Jules Eischel got 20 years, his brother got 30. Eugene Debs got 10 years for speaking against war. Much of the IWW leadership did time, though they had toned down their anti-war stance. Emma Goldman did time, and then was deported. Most of the sentences were commuted when the war ended so they didn't do mcuh time in the end. It was the beginning of the ACLU, started as a committee to defend war resisters, and of course free speech. And it was such a horrible war that things like the Oxford Pledge came into being, and the War Resister's League started up. The Peace Churches campaigned and it became much easier to resist war in WWII. Most did only a couple of years, or you could go to the CO camps organized by the Peace Churches. However, some with religious exemption tossed out the exemption and went to prison. To balance that, the Quakers certainly had a fair number of members who joined the armed forces, the war too good to refuse. So by the Viet Nam era, things were a lot simpler, though that was helped because it became acceptable, and if you lived in the right location, the quota was easy to fill, so you coudl get out of the draft relativley easily. So I would hope the show would explain why a Nennonnite dodged the draft.

It's important to note that the "No Draft" button I put on the other day does not date from the Viet Nam era. The US has had draft registration since July of 1980. Early on there was much campaigning against it, and people were convicted of refusing to register, but I can't remember if anyone did time. Now, nobody gets in trouble directly for not registering, but they lose things like educational benefits and I'm not sure what else if they don't register. So draft registration resisters do lose something for their act.

So it was back to the Beer Tent to finish what was started. I got up early, but tried to do some things, and decided there should be more food, so I made a large batch of hummous from those cans that got rusty on the outside last week in the flood. I didn't get there till just before noon, most of the fun finished. The beer kegs had arrived, but these days the volunteers aren't doing that, the company sends more workers. Finicky little things to do, like covering the tables with plastic. This year a new twist, the trailers were covered in plastic, like giant condoms. No fussing on June 25th to get the posters cleared off, though maybe they used enough tape on the plastic so it will take time. It took two volunteers most of the afternoon to do that, I know they will be remembered on June 25th. Set up the lights and extension cords. Cover the hole in the ground. Move chairs, clear up the mess.

The first act appeared at about 15:50, I thought that was early, but last year I recorded the first act getting in line at 15:30. It was The Last Man on Earth from Toronto, a fair size cast, and apparently something like a silent movie done live. They dressed like in the thirties. They are practically like family. I looked int he program and the director and co-creator is Ginette Mohr who did Cali in 2002, where she pranced around at times, sometimes outside the venue, in a tiger costume. She got a review from Blork that seemed okay (at least she got a review) but when i showed it to her, she wondered if she should change the show. I said "but nobody has seen the review, you aren't attracting the audience, you need to do promotion, not change the show". That was the beginning of the notion of "is it me, or is it the promotion", if you aren't getting an audience, it may be the show, or it may be promotion. The next year she was back with Marcelle St. Pierre with PRND 21 about a road trip. And then never to return, except for this connection. They said she couldn't come, which is too bad, it would be nice to see someone from that long ago. The first year she came alone, she seemed vulnerable, but she was hardly the novice, having worked for Second City (maybe the road show?) and doing a lot of improv in Toronto.

Once the crush was finished The Last Man Standing set up outside the beer tent, and were handing out tiny pies, complete with whipped cream. They were in costume, and playing silent film types. Yes, that sort of promotion works. I can picture the tiny pie fight that goes with those pies.

It took almost an hour before the next act got in line, a pair of women promoting two different shows, Gaulier Made Me Cry and Tough. I didn't keep track of the acts after that, they slowly arrived until it was relatively close to 6pm, and then the rush showed up, the sound of tape tearing as people prepared their beachhead.

To avoid the wrong person letting people in, which happened last year, the front gate was actually locked shortly before 6pm. Kind of juvenile, just say something. At least someone was at the gate to welcome people this year, though 35 seconds late, and it was a real stampede this year, while I got chastized last year but the acts made a more sensible entry.

Last year it rained, but with the sun things seemed to slow down relativley soon. Once the posters were up, leaving few places uncovered, many dispapeared, the others setting down to talk and drink. I never saw some acts, I assume they will come later. The women doing Eeny Meeny Miny were there, they were the ConU dance students last year (not sure if they are still at ConU), I can't remember the title. Be careful, the show seems to involve red paint or dust, they had to clean up at the Beer Tent after doing a brief bit for the video camera. Ethereal Tribal ionvovles a former venue manager, that's the belly dancing show. I told her it's a show I'd go to ayway. A woman was walking around in a Mad Hatter type hat, but when asked, she said she wasn't in the Alice in Wonderland show. The history of Canada show were walking around with a wooden beaver (my great, great great grandfather was born in the parrish of Dyke in Scotland, then was into beavers in the pacific northwest) and also sort of Mad Hatter type hats, except these were made of Canadian flags. I can't remember what else, maybe later more will come to me.

I actually went to a show, leaving the Beer Tent about 8:30pm. Some of the OFF venues started shows tonight, indeed some OFF venues have finished their run. The program is better in that regard this year, but still not perfect. Of course, until I'd gotten my superpass (we have to sign for them now, not in the old days, but then in the old days there were no rules printed on the superpasses) I didnt' give much thought to the OFF shows.

I went to see Zombie Island down at Montreal Improv. Marc was working the table, at least for a bit. I saw no zombies appear for the show, but there was already a lineup waiting ont he ledge of the restaurant next to the venue. Liz was there, she says Montreal is bidding on the WorldCon for I thought she said 2017 but a websearch says 2019 unless there's been a change. Not long after the last time we had one here, in 2009 (there have only been six Worldcons in Canada since they started in 1939) but apparently things worked out quite well in 2009. The closeness means it can build on what already happened, and maybe if the bid is won, there will be more advanced stories about it in the local papers, giving peope a chance to work their way into it. I never went in 2009, I knew it was a rare chance but also I had never planned to go to one, not when I had to travel to do so. Having one happen so soon may keep me in the right mood

Zombie Island was I guess a comedy, with martial arts thrown in. The main character certainly is a capable woman, knowing just how to kill a zombie.

Many had asked at the Fringe for All if I was coming to set up the beer tent, not sure if it was patronizing or he actually wanted me there. I hummed a bit but said I'd be there. Then when I took the flyers from the Fringe for All back to Fringe HQ, Jeremy asked if I was going to help set up. I said yes. He actually said that since he was no longer doing it, I was no longer obligated to do it. An interesting way to say it, since I know one reason I kept doing it for a long time was because he did it, and then when he stopped, it was my place. I remember one time after most of the Fringe was put away, he said "one thing remains, go back to the park and clean up the paper scraps and such". An icky job after rain, I didn't feel like doing it alone. He said he'd do it, at which point I wasn't going to let him do it alone.

So people did tell me about the setup but only because I did appear. However, nobody told me a time. Usually it's 10am, and then some time later the work really begins. So I didn't worry about getting there about 10:40, especially not when I don't get anything for it, and I'm not obligated to be there. But half the fence was up, the chairs were about to unload. I felt bad, since I have the proper wrenches for the fence. It's been some years since I moved a fence section, and I'd gotten good at it, able to do it by myself. We had a lot of volunteers again. I'm not sure what changed. In the old days, we'd sometimes get double or triple Fringe bucks, and work sometimes two days each setting up and striking, lots of work to do since there weren't many helping, and a good reward. I usually got enough Fringe bucks that way. Now they only get the standard four Fringe bucks for four hours of volunteering, enough volunteers so there is no premium. But they work so hard.

A few people returned, about the normal number. The fence was up, the tents in place, the chairs unloaded, and then about 2pm it starts to rain. That really put a damper on things. Less interest in working, the shift changed and we didnt' seem to get many volunteers (but maybe that was planned?). The day dragged on, I left about 5pm when I have gone as late as 8pm. Much of the secondary work, like covering the tables, was postponed till the next day.

But the food was good. Cranberry muffins, blueberry muffins, chocolate muffins, the traditional Bisquick cheese biscuits, this time I added black olives. Those turned out really well. And as a nod to the press conference, chili that wasn't too spicy. The technicians even got into the food, which is nice.

but we were damp once the rain came, and that's no fun. It wasn't a fast and short rain, where we could dry out in the sun afterwards, it was a long but not so heavy rain. I was drenched, helped by the use of the older rain jacket, that has lost most of it's Goretex-like quality, but I wasn't going to wear the good one when hauling sharp fences.

We've seen better days for setting up.

June 12th was Anne Frank's birthday. She'd be old right now if she hadn't died in a concentration camp all those decades ago. If we remember her, we have to remember Miep Gies who played such an important role in hiding Anne and her family. She died just a few years ago, living to almost 101 years, a just reward. She stood up to the nazis when she helped hide the Franks. She had to do it secretly or else the Franks wouldn't have been hidden, but she stood up to the nazis even in secrecy, facing the full force of death or the camps if she had been discovered. I never quite understood how she wasn't punished when the Annex was discovered, though after D-Day there was more of a concern about the future.

June 12th was also the day in 1982 when the Big Rally for nuclear disarmament happene din New York City. Doctor Spock, the Children's Walk for Peace, then us, The World Peace March and then all the rest behind us. Somewhere up to a million people, it took hours for everyone to get to Central Park, and then there wasn't enough room. Odd, in all that crowd, someone from Kanawake noticed me, I bumped into Michelle who we'd met in New Haven, and I ran into a guy I'd met the year before in Washington. There were also plenty of people I knew who were there, but who I never saw, learning later that they'd been there.

Lured by the bit at the Fringe for All, I saw this, though wondered if I'd be satisfied or if the bit was just a teaser. Some shows are more equal than others, one actually had to pay for this, no Fringe bucks, no superpasses, and a higher price than real Fringe shows.

The band dressed up in tuxedoes and were behind St. Ambroise band stands, I expected Cab Calloway to come out at some point (yes, it looked like something out of "The Blues Brothers"). This was a mixed show. Much of the stripping seemed by rote, complete with the obligatory tassle twirl at the end. But, there was some hula hooping in there, and I liked that, and sort of a comedy bit with a yellow polka dot bikini which worked well, some circus antics, some belly dancing. Both the stripping and the belly dancing involved eye contact with the audience, reminding me of Indian dance, but also that so much modern dance seems isolated from the audience (except when trying deliberately to break the barrier. I fond myself smiling back, not in anticipation of near nakedness, but because of the contact, because the good dancers were good dancers. One woman came out in a cape and Darth Vader mask. Eventually the mask came off, but soon she put it back on, I yelled "take it off", referring to the mask, not the clothing. A woman's face is much more important than seeing her body, I certainly need the first for the second to matter much. It reminded me of those ads in the back of The Mirror, where in more recent times, the women's eyes have been blocked out, thus they lose their identity. It seems more dehumanizing than that the women are naked in the back of a newspaper.

The last piece probably was the best piece, and was the teaser from the Fringe for All. The band played Bo Didley's "Who Do You Love", and the stripper (oddly, none of them started with that much clothing) really seemed to get off on the music, and the music in turn seemed to get off on the stripping. It was good dance, though not particularly choreographed. it reminded me of a lot of things. She actually did strip, but that was pretty secondary to the fact that she was putting a lot into the dance. It was only 1964 that Carol Doda went topless in North Beach, and it was a time when up and coming bands would play strip clubs, taking over from a jazz type music. I seem to recall the Grateful Dead played a strip club early on, though maybe as The Warlocks. But the music meant something, not just routine to perform against. It reminde dme of Lydia Lockett's show last year, where she performed poetry to jazz music. I said at the time, I didn't like the music, but now I see that a big thing was that the music was recorded, so there was no band to interact with Lydia, and no way for her to really react back, which is what improvisation is about. But the strip piece here also reminded me that about a decade later, people like Fonda Peters (aka Linda Lee Tracey) would be still trying to put some "art" into the shows. At the time it seemed like burlesque was far in the past, but really not much more than a decade before. It actually went downhill further after that, no art, and recorded music, more about the reveal than the dancing, And neo-burlesque is trying to recover that, when it appeared at the Fringe some years back, I kind of thought of it as a retuen to a much older time, but it really disappeared in my life time. I can't find my copy, but apparently Tom Wolfe's "The Pump House Gang" has a piece on Carol Dada. But "Who Do You Love" is a good exmaple of when people wanted to dance, it could be extended forever just by improv (as Quicksilver Messenger Service did), improv was part of the San Francisco sound because people wanted to dance, and not be interrupted every three minutes for a new song. On some level women in cages seems silly now, but it was just a place to have dancers more visible to accompany the music. Even back then, there were endless arguments as the bands moved out of the Fillmore only to discover the venues wanted the audience to sit and passively listen, while the artists wanted the audience to get up and dance.

I do add (later) that it was a fairly mixed crowd, young people and familiar older faces. It was a full house, I was surprised since that night the students were doing it for free, one of those not quite nude demonstrations. Sara the assistant volunteer coordinator was off covering that demonstration for CJAD. It was also odd, many of the women in the audience actually dressed up for the event, something not often seen at the Fringe. But of course, this was a premium show, 15.00 with service charge. Though later, some of the very dressed women turned out to be performers in the show.

Nothing to do with the Fringe, but on June 7th, 1982, the World Peace March arrived at the UN. There was the leg from Los Angeles/San Francisco, started on October 24th, 1981, the leg from New Orleans, started on January 1st (someone kept a diary for that one, readable here: stepstowardpeace.wordpress.com, I don't know him and sadly he died some years back. His leg is both different and similar to ours), Bangor, Maine on April 1st, and Montreal on April 4th. Two months of walking from Montreal, we had it easy since the weather soon warmed up and it was a short leg through friendly territory, but it took it's time too. We were greeted at the UN by the assistant secretary general, who said they had to do their part at the UN Special Session for Disarmament II because we'd walked there, then we went across the street for a welcome rally. Lots of people, the only one I remember was Coretta Scott King. Peter Yarrow performed with his daughter and Lucy Simon, as did some other acts. I have picture book that includes some shots from that day, I still can't find myself in the photos, even though I recognize plenty of people. Invisible as always.

I guess I was feeling in a better mood, since I didn't hesitate. When I woke up, it was cold and wet, I figured I'd need not only a raion jacket, but a heavier layer underneath. Yet by the time I left, the sun ahd come out, and it was decently warm. But as I get to the Cafe Campus, I suddenly realize I made a mistake, I need an extra layer whether it's hot outside or not. The air conditioning in the place is way too cold. I've even written about it in past years, but somehow it slipped my mind. I regretted that later, I spent about the second half shivering, which is one reason I am less excited about the event. I did have the AC adapter for Pat Donnelly, for the clock she bought at the Rotary Club sale. It's the right voltage, and the connector seemed the right size, but I haven't heard yet whether it worked (or the clock for that matter, sometimes people donate things that don't work).

THere was a time when I'd know a good number of people in attendance, that seems less so these days. Or maybe I just never see them in the darkened crowd. Tim the technician said hi, but he's not doing the Fringe this year. I didn't see a couple of the press I expected to see there.

It just seemed the same as always. It starts earlier, but runs longer, so it drags on as much as always. There's less of a performance from the hosts, unlike some years, but I realize that while they are killing time while the acts are getting off the stage and the next setting up, the MCs seem to take away from the acts. It was a much quieter event in the early days, someone just reading the names, but the acts jumped out at us much more. There seems to be less attempt at getting our attention and more about trying to convey the show. I just find it a long blur, but then I hate that venue, too cold (physically and emotionally).

When I sat down, just behind the press section, the woman sitting next to me, who seemed to be press too since she had a list, says to me "you look familiar". And I pause extra long, how do I describe mysefl? The bad volunteer, the guy who makes the cookies, the one who's written about the Fringe online since 1995? And then she says "from the Fringe!" which was obvious from the outset, but I guess she thinks I have some official role. Then afterwards someone comes over and says hi and shakes my hand, heading off before I could place him. It was someone who went to a bunch of shows a few years ago and then in 2010 I bumped into him in NDG, "Remember me? from the Fringe". He actually looks like someone I used to know, though I know they aren't the same person. He'd said then he'd hoped to be at the Fringe, but didn't see him then or last year, I assume he'll be in attendance this year.

And once again, I saved the flyers form slaughter afterwards. Where was the Green Team? I've pretty much decided there's no sense in waiting to see if the public wants the flyers, so I start collecting pretty much when the Fringe For All ends, this year it was helped because you could see the audience get up en masse the minute things ended and mostly leave right away. It was a long show. I thought there had been fewer flyers in recent years, but this year they seemed way too plentiful. This is a waste. i don't care about flyers afterwards, but unless they do something for promotion, they have had no purpose to their life. The flyers have no information that isn't in the program, the people at the Fringe for All and at the actual Fringe have the program. The point of the flyers is so when you approach someone to lure them in, they have the flyer to identify your show. It's the giving of the flyer from a real live artist that counts, not the flyer in itself. Someone gave me a flyer, and I practically bowed afterwards, like the Japanese ritual of exchanging business cards. It was really that I was trying to connect her face to the name of the show. But that doesn't happen much in that venue, too dark, and too crowded for the acts to circulate. And they don't leaflet the people going into the show, for some reason. Where I was sitting, there was a pile of flyers on each chair, but the woman who sat down next to me on my other side just swept them to the floor, not even looking at them. That's a waste of paper, but it's a waste of artist's good money, that could be spent on something else. The acts need to work the crowd, and realize that even if I don't go to their show, if there's some connection I may mention it here, or do something in an attempt to promote their show. The Fringe has become too clean, the banner around the beer tent mentions "community" but when do the acts interact with the public? Not at the Fringe for All, not when postering the beer tent (the public is no longer invited), maybe at opening night, but there's a band making loud music then. The beer tent is so full of music much of the time, it's hard for interaction. It makes no sense to take the artist's money for the venue and services and then make it hard for them to interact with the public.

So there were a lot of flyers left afterwards. I didn't measure the weight, but it seemed record breaking. Even deducting those eight tiles used by Adopolis the weight was bad, I regretted not trying to leave them at Fringe HQ, so I dragged them home, sorted them out, and dragged them back to the Fringe 2 days later. I did get a bottle of the jam that Maluron Malurette was using for promotion. Odd as it may seem, I am actually not looking for freebies, but do want to know what act is handing out what. Seemed like less promotional material, no shot glasses like Jessica Solomon gave out last year with "Doing Good" printed on them.

I have to look through my collection, the one that does stand out was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, they stuck their flyer on playing cards. They aren't playing with a full deck, I did not recover enough cards to make a full set. Too bad, last year when McGill was moving out, I came upon a box of a lot of playing cards, I grabbed some full boxes, but checking later, some were missing cards. I put them in the recycling, had I known someone would need them for promotion, I'd have saved them. The full decks went to the volunteer coordinator last year, in case the overnighters wanted to play cards. Note, this isn't the first time there's been an Alice show. In 1998, Theatrezone from Boston did Alice Under Glass.

The sad part is that as many flyers I did save, there were still more. I decided long ago I wouldn't pick up flyers off the ground at the venue, who knows what else is on the floor. Not so much worried about touching it, but if a flyer is contaminated, it can spread to others. And there were a lot of flyers on the ground, people knocking them off chairs, others landing there when a troupe tossed them into the air. One act, I can't remember which, taped flyers to the backs of chairs, kind of interesting, but after saving some, i decided it took too long, and I abandoned it. Better to get the piles of flyers first.

And again, some acts went poking through the piles for their flyers, never grasping that if they helped a bit, it would go faster and save more flyers. Its much quicker to sweep them all into a bag and sort them out later, than go poking. I also have to wonder where the Green Team was. Surely this is their responsibility, but another case of new people coming in and not knowing the history.

How can we save flyers? First, if you aren't hadning them directly to someone, chances are good the flyer is wasted. What can we do with flyers? In the old days, we turned them into origami, I started making paper cranes in 1996 as the shows ended and the flyers became available. But, the flyers were mostly regular paper then. One could also use them as scratch paper for notes, since most of the time, the printing was on only one side. That no longer works, cardboard stock is too solid to fold easily, and most of the glossy flyers now have printing on both sides. There should still be flyers, but let the acts get out there and interact with the public, handing them flyers to identify themselves.

The Westmount Rotary Club had its first "garage sale" since 2008, they stopped it that fall when word first arose of a new hockey arena, and three Junes have come and gone and only now is the old being demolished. So they announced last fall that they'd have one again this year, when I thought they'd abandoned the idea. It was a much more limited event, no books, a lot less items, not much of interest. They did have movies and music, and despite an announcement that they didn't electronics, they had some, though not the neat stuff of years ago. I end up with what amounts to a desktop version of a laptop keyboard, complete with trackpad and the little pointing stick in between the keys. Works fine, not sure if I'll use it.

But I bump into Pat Donnelly, which happens every so often in Westmount. I ask if she knew Patrick had retired, she said no. Which prompted me to email her on the topic, but having mentioned that he's sortof disappeared, i realize the volunteers don't get much attention. I'd thought of it months before when Amy was mentioned in an article as "long time volunteer, now producer" as if being a volunteer is now important. Geoff Brown got a profile one year when he was super-rover, someone interviewd Summer one year, I can't remember if she was a volunteer then or had move to box office manager; concensus was the interview was more a pickup attempt. Amy Barratt when she was reviewing for the Mirror once mentioned helpful volunteers, and as an aside wondered why so many of them were women. Way back in 1995, a venue was named after Fraser Kyle who apparently was an important volunteer in the early days, and who died young of cancer. But for all the work the volunteers do, for all the face they put on the Fringe, they are pretty invisible when it comes to writing about the Fringe. One can read that email here, I've yet to get a reply or see some spread in the Gazette about the volunteers. A few things worth adding. Angela Potvin has been around since about 2000; I remember a couple of years in when she had a show and promoted herself as a "long term" volunteer and that wasn't true, but she certainly is at this point. The youngest venue manager was Nancy Brown (the year before she was venue manager in all but name, she said she wanted a job with a walkie talkie, the next year she got it and said "the problem is, I have to sit here"). But, she wasn't the youngest volunteer, not even the first year she and her family appeared. In 1997, one family volunteered at the Beer Tent, business was a lot slower back then, and their son, I guess about five years old, took the tickets. I know of very few injuries over all these years. One year a rover hurt his foot, but I was never sure if that was Fringe-related or not (he did miss the volunteer party, since he stayed home for the rest of the week and nobody told him). About a decade ago, someone got food poisoing, but it wasn't Fringe related, she'd gone out to a fancy restaurant with her parents, and had seafood.

The weird thing is that in feeling guilty about not wanting to sit at venues for hours, I've ended up at least meeting most of the volunteers since 1998. They come and help put things away, and they make a splash, or come and help put things up. They work hard and yet have fun, I forget them but look at old pictures and remember them fondly, even if I knew them only for a day. And with the cookies, I've had an excuse to make the rounds, coming in and volunteering for the first time can be daunting when it appears so many know each other, yet there I am making them part of the Fringe. Some only do a few hours, others come through the Fringe, a smaller set still comes back for a year or more, and some last a long time. They set up the atmosphere of the Fringe, they disappear and they aren't replaced, new people come in but they are their own people.

Nobody officially told me about the Press Conference, even earlier than last year (it used to be an hour before the Fringe For All, but with extra events added, I guess they want to get press early). Someone who was invited told me about it, urged me to attend. I did think about crashing it, but I was good. An odd situation when I seem to be writing so much of the Fringe. But it got worse when I read in the Gazette a day or two later that there had been a chili cook-off. Who's actually brought food and specifically chili to the Fringe? And who has joked about a bake-off in the past? Once again, I'm good enough for the volunteers, but not good enough for the public. Yes, it's a festival of discovery and now an artist with one Fringe gets to be spokesman, and how different is "chance" from "risk"?

Nobody invited me to this, and there was no notice out there, unlike last year (a call for volunteers did show up on Craig's list after the party, when last year it was there before). If I hadn't known about it, I wouldn't have been able to do a search to find out if and when it was happening. If we want volunteers, we have to be visible early and out there, they can only join up to an email list or whatever after they know that they are needed as volunteers. It was the usual thing, returning volunteers, even some who keep saying that they are retiring, new faces that are a blur, time determines whether they become less a blur. New staff busily working away in the other room even though the party started at 10pm, mostly people I don't recognize. It was way too hot, somehow the furnace was running full blast. The traditional Pinata was no longer so traditional, this year a giant bottle of St. Ambroise. I'm not sure if it was easier or harder to break open. It seemed to go on forever, I left about 1am. I can remember when they were quieter affairs, that started early and ended early. it was a good garage sale day, I got a decent trackball for 75cents.

It was a full moon that night, supposed to be especially big, not sure if I noticed or not. I took pictures, but they look just like any other moon.

It always happens, about mid-February I wake up one morning with a start and realize the Fringe isn't that far off, a time of a lot of excitement but also a negative experience. I've invested so much in the Fringe all these years, it's hard to let go, but the investment is invisible, while people with much less time at the Fringe get upgrades. It's not the Fringe of the old days.

Do people know that Patrick Goddard has retired from the Fringe? It just seemed to happen, with no public announcement. I heard about it last August from someone, then saw Jeremy who confirmed it. But when I mentioned it to Bill Brownstein last fall, he hadn't heard. And when I saw Pat Donnelly on June 2nd, she handn't heard either, though she did say it's hard to keep track, and just assumed he'd moved up to a higher position.

I remember the first time I met Patrick, it was 1998 and he was a venue manager. He had very red hair, which I thought was real (though maybe exaggerated), until about a decade later when he let the dye go. I offered him a cookie, he said "no thanks, I'm not on duty" which always seemed like a polite brush off. If you wait, they won't be there later. I have no idea how I knew who he was, one of those things from the hazy ancient history of the Fringe. I did know he'd done The Plateau of Deb Morgan in 1996 and The Baumgard Cuckoos in 1997 (my records don't go earlier to see if he had something else). Gaetan Charlebois had raved about the Cuckoo piece, I remember the flyer by itself in the window of The Word. I had to look it up, Patrick says 1993 was his first Fringe, as a volunteer and audience member.

After the 1995 Fringe ended, the founders retired to out west, leaving the festival to David Gobeil Taylor, who had been working his way up. So he was in charge in 1996, but somehow by 1997, he was gone, Jeremy being in charge. Given the grooming, it was a surprise that David only lasted one Fringe. I think Shannon Webb was co-producer in 1997, she was certainly around, and I know she was co-producer in 1998. Rumor has it the job didn't pay much, kind of split between two people, or a partial segment of the year, so Shannon left after '98, heading the Playwright's Workshop for some years, then eventually moving elsewhere (she never did give me the Fringe bucks she said she had around, there were others who said the same thing).

So 1999 was when Patrick came in, as General Manager, rather than co-producer. Not sure why that change happened, the title sounds secondary. In reality, he was co-producer. Just a few years back, I said something to Jeremy, and he said he'd have to check with Patrick.

People now often don't know what it was like back then. A really tiny office (and a bit of storage space in the basement, a dirt floor that I was thinking of during the recent heavy rain), and a small number of staff for a few months before the Fringe, the number growing as the Fringe got larger. Patrick did a lot of things himself, and as the staff grew larger, still oversaw that. When advanced ticket sales came along, he oversaw that, but either that year or the next, Summer became de facto box office manager, one burden off his shoulders.

Patrick and Jeremy were equal it seemed, but there was a clear line between their roles. Patrick was never invovled in the setup or strike, that was Jeremy's domain. The only time we'd see him in those periods when he had to come and check something with Jeremy.

One year, I'm sure it was 1999, one column, I think by Bill Brownstein, told us that Jeremy was talking of leaving, perhaps to run another Fringe (Orlando being specified). I have the article somewhere, but the filing system is lacking so I don't have it handy. It seemed serious, the next year I was surprised to find Jeremy still around. I would have assumed that if Jeremy had left then, Patrick would have become producer.

In 2002, Ira Dubinsky was assistant producer. A role that sounded big, but some described as more of a gopher job, not sure if that was true or not. Some years it seemed like a training program, bring in someone from another Fringe to learn, since for a while the job was imported. Rumor had it that in 2002, Ira was either being groomed to take over, or was pushing to take over, depending on the rumor. Rumor also says Ira was supposed to come back the next year as assistant producer, but shortly before that time was to happen, someone else got the job. Never heard the full story, I haven't seen Ira since 2001. He started out as a rover, then did the webpage (but only for one year) and in 1999 got a profile because he was doing the computers.

Then Patrick did leave, after Fringe 2004. Jeff Agombar took over, which in retrospect seemed a deliberate move, box office, communication then GM. I thought that was a permanent move, but Patrick was back the next year, 2005, as volunteer coordinator. So deliberate or not, it was a sabbatical, a year in Europe.

And then Patrick was back as GM in 2007, keeping that role until 2011 when he retired.

Patrick always seemed the more serious type. After he bacame GM he didn't have a show in the Fringe (unless I'm forgetting something), too busy but perhaps a conflict of interest. When Mainline Theatre became an entity, he was able to get back to making shows. He probably gets more independence now, able to speak up when he felt he'd better not before.

But how can someone who lasted that long disappear as if he didn't exist? Jeremy did a lot to save the Fringe years ago, and change it, but Patrick was always there too. I figured he helped to put a break on too much excess, though it's hard to tell. Jeremy always seemed the louder one, wanting bigger, Patrick thinking of the theatre side, probably a good balance. It's a different Fringe now, it really is out of its baby and teenager years, the hard work done by Jeremy and Patrick to get it to this point.

Jeremy would get a profile most years, usually Patrick got some words into preview articles, yet despite his role being equal to Jeremy, he never got the attention Jeremy did. Maybe it was deliberate, wanting to stay out of the limelight, I don't know. When I mentioned to Bill Brownstein that Patrick had left, he said he'd pass it on, as if Patrick wasn't loud enough to do a profile.

Patrick and I have had our "differences" as he said two years ago, but it's not fair for him to just disappear like this. Jeremy got a big sendoff, and of course is still running Mainline. I never said last year that Patrick should give up the role.

Of course, the program says Patrick is still on the board of directors. And I think he's on the board of QDF, maybe even Playwright's Workshop. He was at the volunteer party on May 5th, but that's his birthday too.

Goto Main Page