This is part two of my Nuit Blanche 2007 write-up, be sure to see Act One. Also, be sure to check out my travelogue on Google Maps, and perhaps add the KML to your Google Earth.
After an uneventful Streetcar ride along King, I marched past the new Umbra store up to OCAD, while Wishing You Were Here.
While I waited for ghoti to show up, I took in some really dark, freaky animated shorts… very strange. While dodging Jack Layton and his wife, we drove up to up to Queens Park where we absorbed some caffeine and calories. Satiated, we head over to the Zone B hub / ROM, all the while I’m SMSing math with no effective communication happening:
Math: Diamonds in sky, behind rom. To rom next then church
Myke: Hub cat is at hub.
Math: Zone b hub? We to rom
Myke: Where? [given we’re right BESIDE the ROM and there’s only a few thousand people clustered around]
Math: Dude i can learn u TO via sms… Rom = museum
Myke: Which SIDE? Or Entrance???
Eventually we meet up, but not before ghoti makes a cop guarding a barrier along Avenue/University Aves think he’s the biggest idiot on earth… I find math committing a non-illegal act in defiance of the DMCA:
math, Syncros, ghoti, Tallo & S.O., JOSH!, and ` were taking in the excitement at the rave out front of the ROM…
Of course, since we all managed to get together, we promptly got separated within minutes. I picked up a Nuit Blanche T-shirt, waltzed thru the Zone A hub again, and then met Soj and Emily while in line for free
Once we regrouped (sans Syncros and his friend), we checked out the Electric Forest and continued on to String of Diamonds where I experienced an early, reverse Halloween:
Afterwards, we walked across Queen’s Park to Crowd, where we were the exhibit.
Church street was all party… “Nightless City” supposed to be a red-light district, but it was mostly males who (appeared to be) were batting for the same time. A nearby deli adverstized “Pride Sausage”s in it’s window.
It was actually somewhat underwhelming, so we made our way south along Church to Dundas, along the way seeing some weird multimedia stuff at Ryerson… and some public toilets:
Ironically, a block away, in Yonge@Dundas Square – a Public Bidet.
Stepping inside the Sears North entrance at the Eaton Centre, It’s a Cloud was well attended. Syncros got much better photos than I did – check them out here.
We were feeling peckish (it was 2AM!) but the only place we could find that was open was Frans… and they had a ninety-minute wait. What the hell?
Someone in the group suggested Chinese, so back through the Eaton Center where Balloonscape was… just… being… weird. Listen to Paul’s comment at the beginning of the video:
Stepping outside we came up on Church of Confessions… I think. I couldn’t quite find it in the program guide, but it was basically an old church where people could write messages on queue cards and put them up on the walls. I didn’t really get it at first, but now that I’ve thought about it, it really seemed a lot like Post Secret – then you realize that people are baring their souls – and it’s fresh. So honest.
Unsurprisingly, it was difficult to find somewhere to eat that was a) open and b) wasn’t completely packed full of people. One hungry but memorable moment was when some idiot in a Civic made a left turn onto a blocked side street at about 80KMphs, squeeling tires and all – right in front of a Police car… whom we encouraged to have a word with the driver of the Civic – Mr. Policeman then did exactly that. Yay TPS Report 😉
Passed by Everybody Loves You 2 for the second time,
Watcher was eerie. Paul took off for home.
Finding a restaurant that’s open after 3AM and isn’t packed to the roof – even on Spadina – is not easy. (Though I saw another iPhone)
Eventually we found a place that’s open to 4 and had some excellent fried noodles and other weird stuff. The girls at the table next to us were sharing too.
Since Ken and Justing hadn’t seen any of zone C, we hopped a cab and head to Trinity Bellwoods Park (… second time for me)
Unfortunately, it was a tad underwhelming, there was some people making weird music in a tent, there was a mobile rave which was cool. I was actually impressed by a couple of guys sitting at a picnic table, playing dominoes and free-form rapping to a beat from a totally old-school ghetto-blaster – on cassette!
Saw the Florescent Globe again, bumped into Candy girl again, hopped into a cab and went back downtown.