I was turning on to my street today after work when I saw a flashing fire engine driving through the gatehouse to my development. Great, I thought, I really hope it's not another false alarm in my building. Or, worse yet, an actual alarm. I turned to enter the gatehouse and saw that the fire engine had stopped in front of one of the newer buildings, where construction was in its final stages. There, right in front of the building, was a dumpster with flames shooting out of the top. Wow, I thought, it's a REAL fire. Of course, this meant that everyone was slowing to gawk at it, blocking all incoming and outgoing traffic. I made sure the car in front of me was really going to stop and watch, then cut around him, drove through the roundabout the wrong way (the fire truck prevented me from going around correctly), steered around the pedestrian onlookers, and went to my garage. After picking up my mail from the lobby, I became curious and went outside to look. The firefighters had promptly extinguished the fire, but it was still smoking, and there was a distinct smell in the air, so I went back into my building and up to my unit.
I took a quick look from my balcony a little while later. It was a little hard to see everything from my altitude, but I could see that there firefighters inside the dumpster, shovelling through the charred debris, probably looking for the cause of the fire. They had cordoned off half of the roundabout with caution tape. I guess I came home just in time to see the exciting part and avoid the inconvenient part.
A week ago, a story in the news caught my eye. An earthquake had hit northern Italy. Upon closer inspection, I found out that the epicenter was just 40 km north of Bologna. It was a magnitude 6.0 quake, strong enough to be felt as far away as Venice and Milan. My first thought was of the people I had met when I was there a year and a half ago. The photos of the collapsed buildings were in smaller towns to the north, so I figured that the ones in Bologna were probably okay. It was still sad to see centuries-old building reduced to rubble so quickly. The one of the clock tower with only half a clock still standing affected me the most.
I woke this morning to hear on the radio that another earthquake of similar strength had hit the same area again yesterday. This time, more buildings collapsed, likely because the first one weakened their structures, and more people died, sadly because they had chosen that exact moment to enter damaged buildings to retrieve belongings or to assess the damage. When I saw that schools in Bologna had to be evacuated for safety, I decided I had to check and see if the people from our equipment vendor were okay. After all, their facility is up in the hills. I sent an e-mail to a couple of them to ask how they were doing. I received a reply pretty quickly from one of them, saying that they were all pretty scared but everyone was okay. That was reassuring to hear. They're the nicest people, and I came to feel at home in Bologna when I was there. I'm hoping that none of the amazing architecture was affected by the quakes. But something tells me this isn't the end of it.
The part that hurts the most...the earthquakes have affected the parmigiano reggiano industry. Time to stock up.
"This fire is out of control, I'm going to burn this city"
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Small Thrills
As my regular blog readers will know, I've had my fair share of celebrity encounters during the film festival in the fall. My brushes with fame have been told and retold a number of times. At the children and youth film festival that occurs in the spring, there are considerably fewer opportunities for thrilling encounters. Except this year. Well, let's call them small thrills.
There was a very specific demographic of the volunteers who even knew who the Polkaroo was. Most of the older folks had no idea, other than the fact that he was on a TVO program. But even I was kind of surprised how many times I had to explain who he was. I thought for sure their children or grandchildren watched "Polka Dot Door". I was even more surprised of how I felt when I saw him. I was a kid again. It was nice that the children were excited to see him too.
The new youth film festival that was spun off from the children's festival started this year and, in my opinion, was not quite as popular. To say that the audience traffic was slow is somewhat of an overstatement. It was almost non-existent. Unfortunately, that makes the hours seem a lot longer. But on the other hand, that may have been the reason why I noticed Matthew Lillard when he entered the building. He was with another guy and the two of them took a look around and went into the gift shop and browsed for a bit. He was wearing a baseball hat and glasses and looked very much like any other person. He had directed "Fat Kid Rules the World", which was the closing night film for the festival, and which had won the audience award at SXSW this year. My guess was that he was scoping out the place and killing time before the screening later in the evening, where he was scheduled to do the Q&A. My other guess was that the guy he was with was probably the star of the film, not because of his size (okay...maybe because of his size) but also because I knew the star was supposed to be at the screening as well. He walked right past me on his way out but didn't look at me. I have to say, he looks a lot thinner than he did in "The Descendants".
"All the, small things, true care, truth brings"
There was a very specific demographic of the volunteers who even knew who the Polkaroo was. Most of the older folks had no idea, other than the fact that he was on a TVO program. But even I was kind of surprised how many times I had to explain who he was. I thought for sure their children or grandchildren watched "Polka Dot Door". I was even more surprised of how I felt when I saw him. I was a kid again. It was nice that the children were excited to see him too.
The new youth film festival that was spun off from the children's festival started this year and, in my opinion, was not quite as popular. To say that the audience traffic was slow is somewhat of an overstatement. It was almost non-existent. Unfortunately, that makes the hours seem a lot longer. But on the other hand, that may have been the reason why I noticed Matthew Lillard when he entered the building. He was with another guy and the two of them took a look around and went into the gift shop and browsed for a bit. He was wearing a baseball hat and glasses and looked very much like any other person. He had directed "Fat Kid Rules the World", which was the closing night film for the festival, and which had won the audience award at SXSW this year. My guess was that he was scoping out the place and killing time before the screening later in the evening, where he was scheduled to do the Q&A. My other guess was that the guy he was with was probably the star of the film, not because of his size (okay...maybe because of his size) but also because I knew the star was supposed to be at the screening as well. He walked right past me on his way out but didn't look at me. I have to say, he looks a lot thinner than he did in "The Descendants".
"All the, small things, true care, truth brings"
Monday, May 07, 2012
'Cause You Can't, You Won't, And You Don't Stop
I'm really not sure why I'm having such a reaction to the death of Adam Yauch. I don't think it's related to the recent experiences I've had. And I'm fairly sure that I'm not the biggest Beastie Boys fan in the world. But something about this tragedy has really struck me.
My first and most vivid memory of being influenced by the Beastie Boys happened in Grade 6. Of course, by this time they were well known and well established. "Licensed to Ill" had been released for four years already. We were sitting in the classroom, working away (thankfully not in silence), when suddenly and out of nowhere, I started singing the chorus to "Fight For Your Right (To Party)". I honestly to this day have no idea where this came from. The classmate sitting in front of me turned around slowly and gave me the strangest look. At that point I had realized what I was doing, apologized, and went back to work. It wasn't until she looked at me that I even knew that I had done it.
I guess that was when I figured out that music was influencing me without me even being aware of it. From that moment on, I started having a more expanded taste in music. I, of all people, became a grunge girl, wearing flannel and listening to Nirvana and Soundgarden. But that didn't stop me from occasionally singing along to the Backstreet Boys or the Spice Girls either. Sarah McLachlan became one of my musical icons, along with other future Lilith Fair acts, like Tori Amos and Jewel. I still had classical roots from my piano upbringing, and I was at least aware of the east coast-west coast hip-hop rivalry.
So, maybe it was the Beasties that started me on my musical journey. Because it's hard to remember what I was listening to before that day in the classroom.
RIP MCA.
"I can't stand it, I know you planned it"
My first and most vivid memory of being influenced by the Beastie Boys happened in Grade 6. Of course, by this time they were well known and well established. "Licensed to Ill" had been released for four years already. We were sitting in the classroom, working away (thankfully not in silence), when suddenly and out of nowhere, I started singing the chorus to "Fight For Your Right (To Party)". I honestly to this day have no idea where this came from. The classmate sitting in front of me turned around slowly and gave me the strangest look. At that point I had realized what I was doing, apologized, and went back to work. It wasn't until she looked at me that I even knew that I had done it.
I guess that was when I figured out that music was influencing me without me even being aware of it. From that moment on, I started having a more expanded taste in music. I, of all people, became a grunge girl, wearing flannel and listening to Nirvana and Soundgarden. But that didn't stop me from occasionally singing along to the Backstreet Boys or the Spice Girls either. Sarah McLachlan became one of my musical icons, along with other future Lilith Fair acts, like Tori Amos and Jewel. I still had classical roots from my piano upbringing, and I was at least aware of the east coast-west coast hip-hop rivalry.
So, maybe it was the Beasties that started me on my musical journey. Because it's hard to remember what I was listening to before that day in the classroom.
RIP MCA.
"I can't stand it, I know you planned it"