Assembly, Video Hymn, Infest Wisely - Montreal Premieres!

Well, we forewarned you about the Assembly screening and how we’d be with the terrifically cool Jim Munroe who made Infest Wisely, and the now-dear-to-me Rickie Lea from Video Hymn. And you’ve heard from Lise a bit about how my “we heart public art” slogan umm caught on. So now let me quickly share with you some of the photos from the actual screening. Please be forewarned - these were taken by Tessa and myself, not the usual witchy camera pros we get to work with. Nevertheless if you look closely you can discern human forms and so I think that’s a good thing.

The Dare Dare space in the unnamed park by the overpass was a perfect odd awesome venue for us, and working with them was delicious. They kept coming out of the trailer with popcorn. This gleefully painted truck trailer moves to a different space every 2 years according to their mandate as mobile artist run center. Dare Dare bought new speakers for our event so there were a few new technical issues but also really good sound (something to worry about with lo-fi films, a highway overhead and streets all round.) When they kicked off the night with friendly hello and intro to some other cool art events going on nearby they also let us know that the city wants to make the sweet, unnamed but no less theatrical, space into a parking lot.

Here is the Montreal City Council office if you want to complain.

The highlights for me were getting yelled at to speak French while speaking French (one heckler, 100 nice guests, not a bad ratio) … and (actual highlight) introducing Dave Cool from What is Indie? to Jim from No Media Kings. They had both heard of each other’s work but hadn’t realized how deeply connected their messages were, I guess because one speaks to musicians and the other to authors (mostly). The greatest pleasure for me with Indyish is in making these kinds of connections, and hanging out with these inspiring types of people.

I spent some of yesterday meandering between coffee shops and checking out the location for the new Drawn and Quarterly storefront on Bernard with Jim and his hilarious rock star wife Susan who plays bass in Tom Boyfriend and made the zine Lady Scientist. I learned a lot from these fine people and laughed more, then we parted ways. They headed toward a wedding and I hustled off to an “all girls old time blue grass jam,” which was sweet: the back porch rang with banjo, accordion and fiddle and we drank Serbian plum moonshine and were merry. How was your Saturday? Here’s hopin it was grand!