The relaxed nature of the voyage didn’t diminish in the slightest the sense of achievement that came from setting foot on the most remote and desolate of the seven continents, and swimming there. While the ship that took us down to the Antarctic wasn’t some five star luxury liner — it was an old converted car ferry, actually — it’s safe to say that the price of the expedition was the most uncomfortable aspect of it and even with that I lucked out and had a full double suite to myself. So by a loner’s measure of worth even the price, for what I had, wasn’t too bad. And the food? Many fellow expeditioneers boarded the ship with little expectation for the meal service, but everyone left surprised and pleased and stuffed. Even the late spring weather co-operated, bringing a lot of sunshine and (relatively) calm seas for the infamous Drake crossing. We had a BBQ on deck as we passed through the Lemaire Channel. In short: it was a comfortable trip.
The real highlight, of course, was the time spent off ship. The expedition, in very clear terms, didn’t promise or guarantee anything in regards to landfall as everything was dependent on weather and ice, but the conditions were so good for us we managed to make each and every one of our two daily attempted landings along the peninsula plus an extra one on Aitcho Island after the initial Drake Crossing. We were 13 out of 13. The expedition team made it a point to mention that only 10% of these trips make all landings and that, on the other end of the spectrum, 10% don’t make any at all. As with everything else on this trip fortune was smiling on me.
These landings, aboard durable Zodiacs, were two to three hour long excursions so we’d spend upwards of four to six hours a day trudging in knee deep snow and penguin shit. That was considerably more than than the quick, light outings on to shore and back that I expected. Those alone would have been worth the trip, but to be able to stake out a spot and sit down and watch a penguin colony alone for over an hour straight or to go for a long hike up a mountain was amazing. It really let you absorb the sounds and motions of that distant continent and sometimes in relative seclusion.
The fourteenth landing stood out above all. It was the least guaranteed and the most limited of all, restricted to those that booked months in advance and only the first twenty (out of the ship’s capacity of about 110.) I was one of the twenty. We waited, hopeful, for a green light from the crew on the 17th of December, the one and only time this was possible. The weather was good enough to warrant excitement but, still, none of the previous expeditions had managed to do it and conditions were always so variable down there. We hoped we’d be the first group of the season and, just before dinner’s dessert, the announcement came: everything was good and we had a few minutes to get ready, meet up in the mud room, and prepare to go ashore and spend the night on the Antarctic. We eagerly left the dining room past the jealous looks of the other passengers and, aboard two Zodiacs, we set off for Damoy Point. It was already late in the evening.
On the snow we were briefed, paired up, assigned a spot for our tents, and given a shovel. I hadn’t so much as touched a tent in eleven years and here I was about to set one up on the fucking Antarctic. It was surreal. The tents needed level ground and, more importantly, protection from any possible katabatic winds that might roll down the mountain over night so the first priority was to dig out, essentially, little forts in the snow for them. While it was calm and warm by Antarctic standards the last thing you want to experience on this continent is a cold, bitter wind. You have to prepare for all conditions and that includes the camp site. No one said that such a night would be easy, but lucky for us there were remnants of a previous campsite, with somewhat pre-dug holes, from a British maintenance crew’s past stay. They had been there to spruce up and clean up the nearby historic British refuge hut so their trace remnants made the digging light and all our tents were up and ready in little time. I had no desire to use mine.
Because of ever shifting work commitments and finances — the nature of being self-employed — I was unable to go on a hoped-for trip to the Yukon’s arctic circle for the summer solstice. Something about the idea of the midnight sun always fascinated me and when I was informed that Gap Adventures’ Antarctic expeditions were on sale that summer I knew this was my second-chance opportunity. I booked it for as close to the austral summer solstice as possible. I knew we’d be fairly south by that date and with my normal nocturnal tendencies I figured that I would stay up late, bundle up, and watch the midnight sun from the comforts of the ship’s deck. When the camping option was announced several months later I knew I had a chance to enjoy that night on land, away from the ship’s distracting lights. I pounced on the option in a heartbeat.
Back on Damoy Point at around midnight, with the low sun shining the most amazing orange light I’ve ever seen (and made all the more beautiful by the white canvas that was the local mountains), we were free to wander around and explore. To the south was a large hill from which you could get a good vantage point, to the east was the ice covered inlet where we landed, nearby were two refuge huts, and further north there were a few scattered and small Gentoo Penguin colonies. The closest refuge hut was an Argentinian shack, painted bright red, that stood out in the white landscape like a dream. It was locked and restricted. The second, a freshly painted green shack, was an accessible historic site with all sorts of interesting ephemera. There were bottles of liquor with written notices to replace anything sampled and requests to leave new bottles. A log book for all visitors to sign whose last entry was from a ship that had to be rescued and towed into Ushuaia’s harbour due to a really bad storm that barreled through the cape a couple days before we departed. Various rations and canned foods (labeled “MANFOOD”) and a hand-made Monopoly clone and maps and books, a large central table, and bare-bone bunk beds in the back room. It wasn’t the a four star hotel but if I were to be stranded on the Antarctic for weeks I wouldn’t have minded being protected from the elements in there.
Camp site takes form
Camp in the setting sun
Dusk on the bay
Illuminated Mountains
The two guides went to sleep early, one in an open ditch in the snow with a blanket and the other in a dug out cave in the pile of snow above the water and rocks of the landing site. That was too hardcore for the rest of us who, apart from a few sticking within their tents, were left to our own devices. I went to watch the penguins. There was a novelty to it at Damoy due to the late hour as the colonies were quieter places than on previous landings. The occasional penguin chirp would still ring out through the night, but most penguins were out of the water, resting or sleeping. Some slept on their bellies and some slept standing up with their heads tilted to the side. It was a sight you wouldn’t have been able to see during the avian hustle and bustle of the normal morning and afternoon excursions.
It started to get darker after one in the morning as the sun dipped to its lowest point below the horizon and some darker clouds rolled in. The winds remained light but the greyer skies and prolonged exposure started to make things feel a lot colder. I dug out, from one of my inside pockets, my cell phone and switched on the GPS sensor and started the runkeeper application so that I can at least have a record of the exact location and, more so, a really, really far-out place in my runkeeper activity log. I let it run for a half hour which covered nothing more than a short half kilometre walk, to the western overlook from which you could see the anchored ship and back. The activity is public.
A short while later I headed back towards the refuge hut after seeing, from the distance, one of the campers make some unusual gestures and a bunch of others amass there. After the trudge through the snow to the hut I entered to find half the group along the big wooden table with a bunch of cheap plastic cups about to open a bottle of wine. It was, by all intents and purposes, illicit wine: bringing food and drink onto the continent is forbidden for all excursions. That has its reasons and I don’t mean to belittle them but from the confines of that hut nothing was getting out to where a bird could reach and it was, above all else, a moment, a scene, and a location most deserving of a toast and I’m glad that someone had the foresight, and the gall, to smuggle a bottle of wine and a bunch of cups in their pack for that to happen.
These late hours are when the portable toilet–just as nothing is to be brought onto the continent, nothing is to be left there either–sitting out in the open, exposed to everything, was most used. The awkwardness of it being so exposed was secondary to the pains of getting through all the winter gear we were wearing. My snow pants were held up by suspenders which were run under the fleece that was under my winter jacket, and after that I still had my regular pants and thermals to contend with. I left this task to the latest possible hour when the fewest amount of people were around. Deep into the night, at well past 2am, the number of stragglers at Damoy could be counted on one hand. After doing my deed, I continued walking back and forth until I finally parked my ass down on the snow near the closest penguin colony across the bay from the camp site. From there I watched the remaining few penguins still in the water and the remaining people disappear into their tents. I was alone.
Skies beginning to clear as the sun returns in the middle of the night.
Perhaps it says a lot about me that my most cherished memory from a six week trip was the couple of hours I spent alone in the middle of night, in the middle of nowhere, a thousand kilometres from the nearest point of civilization. I took a rest along the north end of the site, with a view of the camp and the bay, and watched the water and the clouds and let the enormity of it all hit me. It was then that I noticed increased commotion from the penguins on the shore. There was a dark spot moving slowly through the water. I grabbed my camera bag and pulled out my zoom lens and took a closer look and it was clear why the penguins were more active: a leopard seal was in the vicinity. I watched the leopard seal calmly swim around the bay and saw all the penguins take notice and get the fuck out of the water and huddle on the rocks near the shore worried about this potential penguin eater. The seal, however, remained stoic. It circled around the bay, never engaging in any hunting behaviour, and swam off into the distance with an unwavering predatory swagger. This behaviour, I would later learn from the ship’s wildlife expert, is called patrolling. The seal was testing the waters looking for any easy prey but wasn’t in the mood, or need, to exert itself to find a meal. Then it was gone. That moment was was unique amongst all the shared experiences and sights of the continent. That stood, above all else, as the one memory that was solely mine and I shall cherish it for ages.
In those remaining grey hours, while shivering and trying my hardest not to doze off, I felt the majesty and scale of the continent. Nature was doing what it always did and I was a mere witness. On the Antarctic. Under the 3am sunlight. Alone. No matter how comfortable and easy to arrange that voyage was, it will never diminish the achievement that I feel for having done it. It will haunt my dreams for the rest of time.
I don’t play MMOs; the majority of my gaming time is consumed by single player titles. Though many such games involve you taking the role of a character, and sometimes you can even design them, without the social aspect it never really feels like the character you control is an avatar, a direct representation of you. Single player character-driven games, especially the more narrative focused ones, are nothing more than puppeteering. You can do what you want with the strings you’re given, but nothing more.
Avatars are about ownership and one does not own John Marston in Red Dead Redemption. You control him in between story segments, but he is exclusively his own person within the narrative. The set-ups, the order of events, the motivations of the characters exist strictly within Rockstar Games’ realm, but the how is what’s up to the player. If between moments of severe tension in the Mexican Revolution you decide to go back to the United States to go look for some treasure and pick some flowers, that experience remains yours. If you capture a bounty alive and during the trip back to the local jail you get randomly attacked by a cougar because you decided to take a short cut through a field and you curse at it for killing your horse and your bounty, you have a unique tale to tell.
John Marston’s story, however, belongs to Rockstar. Everyone that plays it, save those that quit part way through, will have the same narrative and the same outcome. Top down story-telling tends to separate a game’s character from the player. You control Marston at times, but you are not him. It’s a small but important difference because when it comes to solitary game experiences, an avatar, as a representation of the user, is solely the result of a player’s actions. You could switch out John Marston for any other character and it wouldn’t make a difference. It’s what you did to get there that counts.
When I came across Jennifer Jupiter Stratford’s portfolio, I was instantly smitten. A whole series following Leslie “Sweater Lady” Hall? A look into the forgotten visions of tomorrow gleaned from video game console? Another series about videogame cosplayers and the overall nerdy spectacle? This picture of a forlorn Tails? To say that this is relevant to my interests would be an understatement.
Add to that a series on inflatable mascots, giant speakers, and a collection with the hopes to understand mysticism and loneliness when faced with the grandness of nature and I am an instant fan. That’s not even mentioning the wonderfully bizarre videos.
I got off the Berlin bus in front of the Brandenburg Gates at half past six in the morning. This was my first time there since I was eleven, in 1991, when unification and the fall of the Berlin Wall was still fresh in the minds of the locals. The sun was just starting to rise and the whole place was deserted save for two lone photographers, probably two wayfarer visitors with no time for sleep, like me, wandering around the gate. When I made my way back to the Brandenburg Gates around the noon hour, after a circular walk around the city, the place was awash with tourists.
The crowds made taking a photo of the monument, on its own, an impossibility. Not even the likes of the Tourist Remover would help in this situation. But that’s a good thing. Unless you are taking generic photos for postcard use, the crowds are part of the experience. This is a tourist attraction and trying your hardest to hide that fact, especially during peak tourist hours, feels a little less than honest. Same goes for removing the mundane city realities of cars, traffic, commuting, and people doing their jobs. If you feel the need to use the Tourist Remover, I think you are missing the point of what you are doing (or are very impatient.) The practical solution is to photograph things that by their nature don’t attract crowds, or, if you’re feeling particularly travel wary, show up at six in the morning.
This is why I like Joel Micah Miller‘s “Monumental” series. His photographs revel in that tourist filled reality, showing how it really is to be at those monumental locations.
I also like it for the selfish reason that he photographed many of the same things I have photographed from the very same vantage point I photographed them. It gives my amateur self a good point of comparison for technique in contrast to that of a professional, award winning photographer.
One of the best weblogs to emerge this year was kokogiak‘s The Big Picture. I was pleased to see it get the go ahead from legal because it was a risky venture for a major publication (if you don’t believe me, risk your sanity venturing into the comments of any post.) The large scale photos brought a new perspective to world events and brightly highlighted others that were not always reported. Alan Taylor’s curatorial duties have been excellent and as impartial as possible (though douchebags in the comments always disagree.)
The appropriately named The Big Picture proved that we don’t always need to consider users with: VGA displays, 640×480 resolutions, web safe colours, and modems. This isn’t the 1990s anymore. You can now provide photos larger than thumbnails that make the most of today’s display technology (millions of colours! *gasp*) Bigger is better. So with that in mind, here’s my own personal year in review.
I bought a new camera in April, a few months after giving my old one to my sister for Christmas. I bought it, in part, because by then I had decided what I was going to do with the rest of the year and wanted something good to document it.
Driving down Ouellette Ave. you get the sense of being in a metropolis. Buildings tower higher and higher above the street the further north and the closer to the downtown you seem to get. Then Oulette opens up to Riverside and you realize that a wide river divides you from the rest of the skyline and that between where you stand and where the city continues is an international border. You see that where you are is all there is. A city stunted in its growth, infested by a rash of “for lease” and “for sale” signs. This is a city with a 13% vacancy rate. This is Windsor.
Looking back at the city you see decrepit apartment buildings, bland run down office buildings, and two clean and radiant towers rising from the east. The dissonance is striking. The two skyscrapers are modern, slick and bright white. Their blue tinted windows and unblemished pure exteriors shine in the late day sun. They are beacons of promise and prosperity amongst the grey and brown of the old city. They belong to the casino.
At night it’s even more dreary. The walk into downtown is described as a trek into Mordor. The towers rise above the dark wastelands, casting a blood red glow on everything. The powerful neon “Caesar’s” signs on top of the casino are so strong they illuminate buildings in another country, across the river. Waving at the sky are a half dozen spotlights, luring travelers into its trap. That’s all there is in Windsor: gambling and drinking. The city has a suicide rate well above the provincial average.
And for a moment I thought about living there. It would be cheap, I would be free of distractions, and I’d be a river-crossing away from a quality NHL team.
Those that only see this weblog through an RSS reader might not have noticed that I’ve made a few tweaks around here. The second column of links, imported from delicious, has been moved to the bottom of the page. Since there’s only the one core column now, I’ve merged the wordmark, which sat above the second column, with the header image and centered everything. I haven’t changed a single thing in the main body since I was happy with the readability, so that column retains its width and font size. It has more breathing room now.
In the footer, I’ve elaborated on my details and added an extra area of “recommended” links. It is, as they call it, a “blogroll.” I wanted to have something a little more permanent than my delicious bookmarks to point out some sites I’ve enjoyed recently. Those links will change, but not too frequently. All are highly, well, recommended but for entirely distinct and diverse reasons. It is an eclectic bunch.
Anyway, the main reason for these changes is that the single column allows for this:
Brighton sunset
Images float outside of the main column so the extra room allows for some extra large photos. I’m using the camera more often than I’m writing paragraphs, so I figured that I’d let the site reflect that.
As with most days here, this afternoon I headed for the Tube with the intention of going for a long, wandering trek around London. I wasn’t sure where I’d go; I figured I’d decide on the train. I walked down the road past the station to a little bakery around the corner and grabbed a croissant and stuffed it into my camera bag. The blue eyed blonde Polish girl wasn’t working today. I crossed back to the station, pulled out my Oyster card and set it against the sensor. The light went red, the gate didn’t open and “SEEK ASSISTANCE” lit up on the display.
Twenty four pounds (and twenty pence) later I had a renewed weekly travel pass. It’s essential to have this in London if you are aimlessly traveling because you can hop-on, hop-off anywhere without ever having to worry about the fares and how much money you have left on your card or in your pocket. Still, for my simple TTC inspired ways the price is a major sticker shock. Then again, the London Tube is refreshingly free of TTC Union assjacks and it’s worth paying more for that privilege.
On the Jubilee Line, somewhere near Baker Street, I decided that I would get off at London Bridge and venture eastward along the Thames. The farthest I had been along in this direction was the Design Museum a block east of Tower Bridge, where the throngs of tourists start to thin. Many people are quick to point out that galleries and museums in London have free admission but if you want to see anything remotely contemporary or non-institutional–and you’ve already been to the TATE Modern–then you have to pay. This is true for the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Hayward Gallery and the Embankment Gallery (in the Somerset House) and, of course, the Design Museum.
I’m unsure if this is true for the Whitechapel Gallery. I ventured out into urine-smelling Aldgate last weekend to see it only to discover that it’s undergoing renovations and won’t be fully open until 2009. The auditorium was open, showing a film shot in an abattoir, and there were a few scattered locations showing stuff around the neighbourhood but after going to one space on Bell Lane and seeing nothing but a cardboard box, I skipped most of them. Granted, it was a very large cardboard box and the lady there tried to tell me about the artist’s motivations and inspirations for the work but, still, it was a cardboard box. That trip was a complete bust.
The area east of the Design Museum, along the Thames Path, is quite nice and suitably quiet. After you pass the last tourist and the last riverside restaurant and pub you enter a meandering path of riverside walks and silent side streets that takes you through miles of wharf lands. Amongst many others, there’s the Chambers Wharf, the Hope Wharf, the Ivory Wharf, the Canada Wharf, the Lavender Wharf and so on. Some of them sit there, decaying. Most have been converted into residential spaces, studios, pubs or an mixture of all the above. On the other side of the narrow streets upon which they sit are row houses, apartments, manors and all sorts of quiet residences. The traffic here was non existent, the pedestrians few and, refreshingly, no tourists to be seen except yours truly. To experience a city you have to go through these kinds of areas.
After a while I sat down on a bench overlooking the Docklands, the steel and glass skyscraper new city development, across the river. I ate the croissant I bought earlier while I watched planes fly by towards one of the many London airports. The Docklands is the most un-London-like part of the city. It’s overly planned, commercial, full of chain restaurants and retailers and it all has little character because of it. It mostly reminds me of North American cities and makes me homesick, to a small degree, for the small town charms of Toronto.
Several side streets and pathways later I found myself near Surrey Docks and the Greenland Lock, where I was crossing the road as a blue car approached from my left. “Excuse me.” A grey haired woman was sticking her head out of the car’s window as it rolled to a stop in front of me. She spoke with that old English woman accent.
“Excuse me, do you know where I can find the Wibbly Wobbly?”
In a self-conscious-of-my-Canadian-accent manner, I replied that “I have no idea.” She smiled, said “alright” and drove off.
I finished crossing the street and was shortly riverside again. In the corner there, next to the lock, a shirtless fat man was fishing. I continued down the path and, once I was at a point where he was no longer visible, I sat down on a piece of marble street furniture. I stayed there for fifteen minutes, dumbfounded, wondering what the hell the “Wibbly Wobbly” could be. I am, truly, in Britain.
I have a penchant for overly expensive hobbies. When I’m not playing an over-priced game on an expensive console connected to an even more expensive HD television — like right now, with the XBox dead in the water — I like to go out and take pictures. Photography, even if you go digital and remove the film and processing costs, is not a cheap hobby if you want to pursue it seriously. It’s a relatively new interest for me but it is, yes, something I want to pursue seriously. Hence, I bought a new camera. It was an impulse purchase.
Those that are in the know would ask “but didn’t you buy a new camera less than a year ago?” Well, I did. It was the Pentax model previous to this one. It was a fine camera and was a very good introduction to the world of SLR and I took many photos with it, but I gave it to my sister for Christmas. She had more use for it than I did, being a third year photography student and all. After several months, however, I started to miss that camera. Lucky for me, a new model was just around the corner. No, I did not need all the new stuff — the K10D was perfectly good — but something about the new and top-of-the-line appealed to the technodork in me. When I found out that it was released, earlier than I anticipated it, I had to have it. I like being bleeding edge on the pro-sumer front.
There isn’t a whole lot of difference between the two cameras, especially to an amateur that’s still learning. The body is practically identical. The UI is practically identical. The features are mostly the same, except for some additions like better ISO, “Live View” and other more advanced features. I think the sensor is new too, but I’m not sure. Most notably the biggest change is numerical: the K20D has 14.6 Megapixels compared to the K10D’s 10.2.
That is a fucking lot of pixels. The uncompressed RAW files it generates are over 24MB each with a resolution of 4457×3104 at 240dpi. That is a fucking lot of pixels. To better visualize what that means, here is a picture at a 1:1 pixel ratio:
Now here is the picture it is taken from, scaled to fit:
It’s really quite striking. I can’t imagine taking too many photos at that full resolution, but it’s nice that it’s there. Of course, any photos I take as I learn and familiarize myself with the camera will be posted to my flickr feed so if you’re curious about what the camera can do check that out and also look at the fledgling K20D flickr group.
Oh. I should also mention one other reason why I purchased this camera: I quit my job, I am moving out of my apartment and moving to Europe. It’s a minor thing.
2007 was the most documented year in my life. The sheer number of photos taken this year is astounding. Various logs and notes have tallied where I ate my lunches, what games I purchased and what movies I watched. Actually, I tapered off with my OCD note taking half way through the year so the last few months are a void… but next year I’ll do better. Anyway, going through my photo library is very much like traveling through the year all over again, so I have compiled the best and most descriptive (and “only” for some slow months) photos of the year. Low bandwidth users beware!:
Sunday afternoon was the annual Toronto Zombie Walk. I didn’t partake but I was down to take a picture of the quite organized horde of zombies shuffling up Bathurst Street, sticking to the sidewalk and obeying all traffic signals. They might be undead but they aren’t barbarians!
Apart from one kid getting completely freaked out — his parents had to reassure him that it wasn’t real — the actual walk was kind of dull. The real amusement happened away from the main route with the straggler zombies. There’d be guys casually walking down a street talking on their cellphones with their shirts completely covered in blood and girls with putrid makeup on their faces and blood covered stockings boarding streetcars. The looks those people would get were worth the price of admission alone and because they weren’t part of a giant procession many onlookers had no basis to dismiss it as part of an event. I saw plenty of confused and scared people on the streets that day.
I went to see Eastern Promises a few evenings ago (it was good but A History of Violence was better) and the walk to the theatre took me right by the set for The Incredible Hulk. The stretch of Yonge Street between Gerrard and Dundas, a busy area, was closed for evenings and nights for a few days while the film’s final showdown was being filmed in faux-Harlem. You would think that in this day and age of CGI a blockbuster of this sort wouldn’t need to close down such a busy street to do its filming. But no, here they are inconveniencing everyone but the Teamsters, the extras and the cops getting paid extra to sit around doing nothing.
My camera, and its new lens, was with me so I pulled it out, took a few photos and quickly packed it away. I’ve always been a bit self-conscious with the camera — more so with the large and bulky SLR — which is why the photos I’ve taken have been predominantly landscapes or cityscapes that involve few, if any, people. Most were taken in isolation where there was no reason to be self-conscious. It feels different in the city.
Anyway, with it packed away I made my way to the movie just in time for the 9:30 showing. The movie started a little after 9:50. Twenty fucking minutes of trailers and commercials. I thought “oh yeah, this is why I don’t go to the theatre anymore!” The shock was even more pronounced after seeing 31 movies at the film festival where I never had to endure more than two minutes of pre-film bumpers. But twenty minutes? For a film that I paid more to see than at the film festival? I think I’ll save the “cinema experience” for the next film festival.
On the way back I stopped by the south side of the film shoot for a different perspective. After taking a photo or two a group (gaggle?) of women walked by pointing and saying “Paparazzi. Paparazzi.” One of them pulled out a cellphone camera. I looked at them and said that I’m not. “I’m just a guy with a big camera.” They didn’t believe, said “paparazzi” one more time and moved on. If random women are going to be conversing with me on the street then I’m not sure if I should remain self-conscious or if I should wield that camera exclusively.
Amongst the many recent and upcoming architectural works happening around Toronto as part of the “cultural renassiance” (I don’t know about that one), the Royal Ontario Museum’s crystal has remained my favourite. I liked it during the concept (even if it invoked a little bit of the Louvre deja vu), I liked it during construction once it started to jet out over Bloor St., looming behind all the generic high-end retailers of Yorkville, and now that I’ve seen it from the inside I like it more.
After a concert and gala celebration, today (from midnight until the evening) was the free “architectural opening” of the new addition. That is a fancy way of saying “you can come inside and look at the structure, but ignore the fact that none of the exhibits are set up since we’re months behind schedule.” And much like their scheduling, their planning for the day was atrocious. It was a ticketed free event, which meant that you can get in for free so long as you got yourself a ticket in advance. Many people lined up last night, during and after the concert, to get tickets that they would use in the morning.
I was not one of those. After watching game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals, I was in no mood to venture out into that sweltering June humidity. I figured that I’d just take a chance with the morning weather instead.
After breakfast and a rather brisk walk, I was at the back side of the ROM. A hand written sign informed me “TICKETS AT BLOOR ST ENTRANCE”, so I wandered towards Bloor St. only to be greeted by a giant line. I took a spot and asked the lady in front of me if that was the line to get tickets.
“No, this is the line for those that already have tickets.”
OK. I worked my way around the line to Bloor Street and saw that there wasn’t a secondary line. Maybe the tickets were all accounted for? I went back to the end of the line, which was now further down University Avenue. “Excuse me, where do you get ticket?”
“You have to go to the back, I think. This line is for those with tickets”.
I returned to the back of the ROM, past the “TICKETS AT BLOOR ST ENTRANCE” sign and into the rear security entrance. “Where exactly do you get tickets?”
“You have to line up on Bloor Street.”
“But I was just there and they told me that it’s for ticket-holders…”
“It’s the same line.”
Back to the line I went, now ending even further down University Ave, and ignored everything and anything that anyone not wearing a “ROM” shirt said. I put my headphones back on, put the volume up and hummed along to myself Automatic crystal remote control, we come to move your soul
By the time my point in line made it to the Bloor St. corner it was clear that the ROM officials totally underestimated the turnout and that the ticket-holders line was the same as the ticket-getters line, to the dismay of all those that lined up beforehand to get them. I was glad I didn’t bother the night before.
Once inside, the building feels a lot more welcoming than menacing. Some might decry the lack of curves or, even, the lack of 90 degree corners, but I welcome it. Walls and pillars jet out of the floors at odd angles and disappear into the ceiling, illuminated. There are windows and gaps all around through which you can see other levels and sections of the crystal, all full of activity. Once the exhibits are installed this will unify them together in the space. The light and the openness will complement them well. The current spaces in the old building feel too much like the tombs from which the pieces of its collections were taken.
Yet the crystal doesn’t forget about that old building. Inside the crystal there are signs of the old brick architecture, seemingly breaking through the white walls. Doorways and walkways seamlessly take you from one building to the other and in the central hallway it’s as if the crystal is hugging the old facade. It’s ying and yang, but as Andrew Blum writes, Like the city itself, they all connect—far more than they collide or coalesce. This building is a monument to that Toronto, and to its future.
Sure, it has its detractors, as expected, but the mood on the floor was positive. There was a lot of discovery and playfulness and when you consider that it’s going to be host to a large number of dinosaurs and, naturally, kids that’s a good sense to exude.
I’ll be posting more photos in my flickr ROM set over the next couple of days.
About
This is the weblog of Mike Nowak, a freelance web nerd and digital nomad. I write mostly about games, music, film and tv, the web, and anything else I find of interest. This weblog has existed in some form or another since 1999.
Camp site takes form
Camp in the setting sun
Dusk on the bay
Illuminated Mountains
Skies beginning to clear as the sun returns in the middle of the night.
Like a dream.
