The TCL Roadshow
They don't know me, and I don't know them, but I'm sending tonight's entry out to the three teenage girls who came trick or treating here tonight. They were the only people who came to the door all night, and when I offered them apples, they said "No thanks" and promptly left. At least they know what they want in life.
Life on the Hill has been busy these past few weeks, so your lowly urban adventurer hasn't been at his best. And I regret that just as I'm getting comfortable in Ottawa, I'm taking this show on the road (more on that later...).
I ventured out to the Glebe last Friday to take in a show at Irene's Pub (885 Bank St.). Vancouver's The Awkward Stage were in town for the night before heading off to New York for a set at this week's CMJ festival. Sadly, too few of us took in the show, and that's a shame because the record is sweet and catchy. It's called "Heaven is for Easy Girls" and I commend you to buy it and love it.
I also caught a screening of Running With Scissors, the Augusten Burroughs memoir that maybe, just maybe, will land Annette Bening the Oscar she's been waiting for all of these years. Me? I thought she might have had it with Bugsy, but my Academy ballot always seems to get lost in the mail, so what do I know?
Running With Scissors is at once very funny and very tragic. Funny as when the cast gather around a toilet bowl to inspect someone's bowel movement and decide that because part of it is sticking out of the water, his financial situation is going to turn around. Tragic as when Burroughs' mother, in a Valium-fuelled haze, signs away her barely-teenaged son to her psychiatrist (he of the "life's looking up" bowel movement), under whose care he is encouraged to have a relationship with a 35-year-old man with schizophrenia. Questionable, at best.
Sad as it is content-wise, Running With Scissors is pretty brilliant film-making. It mined a lot of misery, but didn't necessarily leave me feeling emotionally-berated. Despite the obstacles posed by a drunk and forgetting father and a seriously misguided and self-absorbed mother, Augusten retains a certain measure of wonder and optimism about the world. It's because of this he ultimately escapes to New York, and it's because of this that the films works so well.
Granted, he, too, eventually became a drunk, as documented in his book, Dry. But that's another story. And another movie.
In other news, I know you're dying to find out why TCL is hitting the road. Let's just say we'll be bringing some good energy to the by-election campaign in London North Centre. And because I lived in London for about four years about four years ago, it will be a bit of a homecoming (if you scroll down, you can read all about the real homecoming I went to in September). So, stay tuned... London, here I come!
Life on the Hill has been busy these past few weeks, so your lowly urban adventurer hasn't been at his best. And I regret that just as I'm getting comfortable in Ottawa, I'm taking this show on the road (more on that later...).
I ventured out to the Glebe last Friday to take in a show at Irene's Pub (885 Bank St.). Vancouver's The Awkward Stage were in town for the night before heading off to New York for a set at this week's CMJ festival. Sadly, too few of us took in the show, and that's a shame because the record is sweet and catchy. It's called "Heaven is for Easy Girls" and I commend you to buy it and love it.
I also caught a screening of Running With Scissors, the Augusten Burroughs memoir that maybe, just maybe, will land Annette Bening the Oscar she's been waiting for all of these years. Me? I thought she might have had it with Bugsy, but my Academy ballot always seems to get lost in the mail, so what do I know?
Running With Scissors is at once very funny and very tragic. Funny as when the cast gather around a toilet bowl to inspect someone's bowel movement and decide that because part of it is sticking out of the water, his financial situation is going to turn around. Tragic as when Burroughs' mother, in a Valium-fuelled haze, signs away her barely-teenaged son to her psychiatrist (he of the "life's looking up" bowel movement), under whose care he is encouraged to have a relationship with a 35-year-old man with schizophrenia. Questionable, at best.
Sad as it is content-wise, Running With Scissors is pretty brilliant film-making. It mined a lot of misery, but didn't necessarily leave me feeling emotionally-berated. Despite the obstacles posed by a drunk and forgetting father and a seriously misguided and self-absorbed mother, Augusten retains a certain measure of wonder and optimism about the world. It's because of this he ultimately escapes to New York, and it's because of this that the films works so well.
Granted, he, too, eventually became a drunk, as documented in his book, Dry. But that's another story. And another movie.
In other news, I know you're dying to find out why TCL is hitting the road. Let's just say we'll be bringing some good energy to the by-election campaign in London North Centre. And because I lived in London for about four years about four years ago, it will be a bit of a homecoming (if you scroll down, you can read all about the real homecoming I went to in September). So, stay tuned... London, here I come!
posted by Capital Letters at 9:28 PM
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