Hold the sausage

Our neighbourhood is predominantly Polish, and by extension, Catholic. Within spitting disatnce are to be found three churches and a Catholic credit union. The latter is less than 100 feet away and boasts a bronze sculpture of John Paul II beneficently welcoming the savings of the faithful. It is standard practice for earnest old biddies, out on a shopping trip, to spare a moment to kneel at Johnny's feet and offer up a prayer for the propserity of their zlotys. In our first days as residents, T and I hatched a midnight plan to swathe the statue in a boa and strap a dildo to his loins - but we thought better of it. No messing with Johnny in these parts - he's like, well, like the pope to them.

We have been bracing ourselves all week for the advent of this weekend's annual Polish festival which we are only just discovering takes place literally on our doorstep. The street from end to end is being blocked off as we speak, and tents are going up in every direction, the majority of them no doubt to accommodate purveyors of pierogis and other cabbage-enhanced lard products. T and I took a stroll last night and happened across a poster advertising the coming festivities. No less than thirteen hours (13!) are devoted to today's bacchanale, stretching from 10 a.m. (moments away as I write) to 11 p.m. Tomorrow is a more modest, even sacred affair, spanning a mere nine hours. The poster continued to promise a glorious array of performance events: Polish klezmer bands, Polish clog-dancers, Polish whirling dervishes (I can't confirm the accuracy of this last item), and to top it all, Polish dancing under the stars. And where should all this raucous, brain-deafening Polish merrymaking be scheduled to take place? At the Catholic credit union stage! Even in death, JPII hounds us.

Hedwig!

Played hooky from work this afternoon to attend a panel discussion with John Cameron Mitchell and the cast of his new film, Shortbus, in the basement of a church, of all places. Wow. Tried mostly successfully to avoid throwing self prostrate at his feet. The audience was small and almost entirely queer, and JCM pretty much used it as an improvised standup set. Amazing to sit less than six feet away from this small, unassuming waif (looking, I must admit, rather more like a middle-aged lesbian than the fabulous castrated kraut) and to hear Hedwig's dry, hilarious voice coming out of him. I haven't seen the film yet, so seeing the cast didn't mean much to me, although I was excited to see the star, CBC presenter Sook-Yin Lee, who I recently learned was none other than the overzealous, slightly truculent Philipina in Hedwig's onetime backup band.

I have to say though, in criticism of the great one, he has gathered a rather white group of actors; and young; and pretty. JCM says he wanted people who were attractive, but not necessarily physically - more like attractive to themselves. He says he wanted to show real people having relationships, navigating sex and love and life. Obviously one can't represent everyone, but what about people of colour? Middle-aged people? People who don't find themselves attractive? As someone firmly in the first category, hurtling towards the second, and endlessly waltzing in and out of the third, I am interested to see if I relate personally to his film or not.

T asked a question; I did not. I feared a replay of the infamous "I-we-you-love" episode from my 1995 meeting with Emma Thompson. She still has me on restraining order.

Hollywood North

It's festival week in Toronto, and Torontonians are flushed with a sense of relevance. Brads and Angies and Judes and Toms have descended en masse. The Barenaked Ladies played outside the office window this morning. (My Executive Director was heard to express some surprise that they were men and not ladies.) Shop windows are festooned with film spools and director's chairs and any possible item that might inspire mortals to think the establishment is somehow connected to the proceedings. Lips and tits shine with the fresh squeaky gloss of collagen and silicone top-ups. Hummers and limos prowl the street like hungry prehistoric ghouls. I work in festival central, aka Yorkville, so it's barely a surprise that I'm having odd flashbacks to life in L.A., but even at home, in sleepy old Roncesvalles, often deemed too far from the downtown core for the hipsters to tarry, even there, lights and cameras stand poised to immortalize the frock-clad heft of John Travolta in Hairspray, the movie of the musical of the movie. My noblest posture, in the face of all this, is indignant irritation. "Who cares?" I ask of anyone who will/must listen. Movies are, in the vast majority, trash; their creators and purveyors for the most part overpaid hacks. "Restore my streetcar route! Give film back to the people!" I chant, pumping the air socialistically with fist. This, as I said, is my noblest posture. Careful observers will notice my least noble posture as I walk out at lunch to buy some food, my eyes swivelling greedily to catch one cherished glimpse of a famous face.