One Light. One Camera. No Action.

It was inevitable -- I've started livecasting.

Not a "see Denton in his most intimate moments" deal, or anything. Mercy, no. But I will be broadcasting live footage of myself whenever I'm sitting at my computer desk this month. And, considering that this is National Novel Writing Month, I'll be sitting at my computer desk a great deal. I've even been playing with the camera software so that I'll sometimes broadcast what I'm typing, as I type it, with myself set up in the corner frame.

But even so, that's not particularly engaging, I admit. So, one other feature: Every night in November, from 21h30 to 22h30, I'll be "hosting" a "show". I'll talk about my novel, and the things I plan to do with it, and I'll also talk with anyone in the chat room during that time. (When you log in to UStream.tv, you get the chance to sign into a chat room which the show operator - that's me - can moderate.)

So, there you go. Say hi, or just make yourself at home and fix dinner while I work. Either way, here's the URL:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/late-write-featuring-aquadeo

I hope this works, and that people get some entertainment value out of this. Wish me luck!

Lights! Camera! Popcorn!

It's time to raise the curtain,
It's time to light the lights,
It's time to get things started,
It's the Monarch's Opening Night!

It's been a busy couple of weeks, and during that time, I had the distinct privilege of picking gum off of 410 theatre seats. (Some committee members bring organization, networking, fundraising opportunities, and business savvy to the board; I bring other skills.) But at long last, the ceilings were painted, the bathroom sinks renovated, and the bare minimum of food safety requirements met.

Everything was as ready as it could be, there was nothing left to do but open the doors and see who would walk in. It was a gala event in the finest, with all the good members of the populace decked out in their formal apparel. I must admit, when it comes to black-tie crowds, I've never been much of a schmoozer. But this time, I tried to make an effort. And so, when one lady in a sparking blue gown came up to me, I straightened my hat and put on my best smile.

Ten seconds later, while gesturing to indicate the scope of the renovations, I clotheslined a concession clerk carrying a tray of popcorn. Kernels went everywhere, almost reaching the press photographers standing nearby. Fortunately, they were paying keen attention, and didn't let the mess obscure any of their pictures.

The lady in the blue evening gown wandered off immediately, but by the end of the evening, I'd volunteered to help sweep up another two (unrelated) popcorn spills, and I was good friends with most of the staff.

Like I said, I'm not a black-tie schmoozer, but I've got my strengths.

I must admit, I'm not really sure if that was the hard part or the easy part. Sure, we had to overcome insurmountable odds in order to get the place open, but now we've got any number of day-to-day crises on our hands.

Whatever it is, though, it's going to be fun.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a late showing of "Vertigo" to attend.

Red Light District

With the roar of the interstate drowning out my headphones, I clambered over the safety barrier, to retreat to the ditch while I walked.  In the dark, I stumbled over rough, unfinished drainage canals, and the wet undergrowth slapped at my legs.  I trudged on for a while before realizing I was never going to get any closer to my destination, and that walking across an interstate is a much stupider prospect than walking across a highway.  Defeated, I re-oriented myself for the return trip. There, beyond some trees, I saw the white lights of a parking lot. From there, I could just cut along the back of the commercial district.  Simple. 

To reach the trees, I traversed a broad plain, clear-cut in order to put up the massive power lines now hanging over my head.  Then, I had to fight my way through the brush. Branches tripped me, thorns tore at me, and dead wood sprang at me like a lash. Finally, I saw the parking lot. On the other side of a ten-foot chain link and barbed wire fence.

It was at this point that GWAR started playing on my headphones, as I fought my way back through the thorns and tripwires. Then, under the power lines, I stepped knee-deep into a... well, honestly, I don't even have finish the sentence. "Knee deep" very rarely carries a positive connotation, after all. Nobody ever steps knee-deep into strawberry shortcake.

Anyway, I try again at another point along the interstate, and this time I manage to climb a hill so steep that no one worried about putting up a ten-foot fence. Here, five feet was sufficient. I managed to vault that, and dragged myself to the hotel about half an hour later, utterly defeated by the suburbs of Baltimore.

The next day, I got in the rental car and drove to my intended destination - a strip mall which I had seen from my hotel window, half a mile away. 

America doesn't have a love affair with the car - it has a domination fetish. 
 

Nothing to declare.

An airport at 12AM is a different sort of place. Everything seems less important - which is to say, about as important as an airport should be. The loudest sound you hear is the electric whirr of the carts, driven by custodians going a bit faster than usual, putting just a touch more swing into their turns. They're smiling. A group of flight attendants go down the hall, and one of them hip-checks their friend into the moving walkway. They're smiling, too. A child is crying, but only because it's past her bedtime. Her mother isn't frantic, and quietly and lovingly comforts her uncomfortable child. They're not smiling, but nobody's scowling, either.

In the dead quiet of the boarding gate, a man has an argument with a WestJet employee. He wants to yell, but the calmness muffles him. He only had three drinks, he says. Three drinks which WestJet sold him, he points out. All he did was say something that he didn't even mean, and now he's kicked off his flight home. The WestJet clerk shakes her head sadly and says that she can't overrule the flight attendant's decision. But he only had three drinks, he points out. Another two employees appear behind the counter as she repeats her position. Robbed of rage's righteousness, the man slinks off. Perhaps he'll need to stop at the bar before he works up the strength to phone his wife and explain what happened. In the dead of night, the whole scene plays out with sadness, but here too, as with everything else, all remains in the warm, familiar domain of humanity.

The best flights are always those you don't have to take. The real trick comes in remembering that there are never any flights you have to take.

Stop and smoke the roses.

It was a frenetic trip to Vancouver last week; two days and one wedding doesn't leave a lot of free time. But Vancouver was a jewel of a city, as always, and I'll never complain about the chance to record a few more hours there in my logbook. That's actually relevant to something I noticed on that trip, too.

While being hustled from hotel to harbour, we hurried past a hookah. A whole store of them, in fact. And as odd as it may seem, perhaps they were actually being sold for their cultural purpose, rather than thinly-disguised drug paraphernalia. Or maybe both. It is Vancouver, after all. Nonetheless, the concept of a hookah has always been interesting to me - specifically, the social meetings it creates.

I've never been good at self-moderation. If there is a pie on the table, I will eat the pie. I've always even been slightly envious of those with better self-control: the ability to sip some whisky, appraise it for its collection of merits, and then return to the conversation, or the dinner, or the car chase. Likewise with wine, or food, or games, or even walks. Is there anything I appreciate in small bites?

Yes: Cities. Give me ten blocks in San Francisco, and I'll have an itinerary. It'll mostly consist of wandering, but it'll be well-spent in my book, and I won't feel compelled to photograph myself in front of every landmark within driving distance. One might wager that the Boston Pizza project killed that urge quite handily.

And so, it wasn't really a trip to Vancouver after all. It was a trip to Lonsdale Drive, complete with crepes, sushi, horror movies, comic books, helicopters, bubble tea, fresh fruit, salmon, and that wonderful misty morning air. A small sample of all that the city has to offer, and it was more than enough.

Perhaps I'll try a different street next time. But for now, I have to get back to this car chase.

An avalanche of popular support.

I did eventually arrive in Whistler, though. It wasn't quite what I expected. Driving down the highway, the intersections themselves are almost completely devoid of features. All you can see are trees, and a sign telling which part of Whistler lies beyond the grove. It's like driving through an apartment hallway, trying to find the door that leads to a gas station, rather than the door that leads to a restaurant. But, after a little bit of trial and error, I eventually found a cheap hotel. And when I found out that the cheapest hotel in Whistler was $199 a night in the off-season... well, that's where my other opinions on Whistler started to solidify.

Whistler is not a town, nor is it a village. It is a "Resort Municipality." What does that mean? It means that when a collection of ski chalets gets too big, they're obligated to set up a few schools for the employee's children. And then after that, a few people might want to build their houses there, but if they don't look like miniature chalets unto themselves, it's not going to happen. The residential areas of Whistler are street after street of beautiful homes with wooden balconies and trim and support beams. As the son of a woodworker, it's how all houses are supposed to look, and if there were fewer than 3,000 of them, I would have been tempted to admire each one individually. But en masse, it becomes a bit wearying. (And besides, it gets hard to navigate those residential areas, seeing as how Whistlerians seem to own approx. 5.7 vehicles per driveway.)

By this point, when I found "Whistler Village", I was already a bit cynical of the whole place. Sure enough, the Village (the collection of shops and hotels near the ski lifts) was like the West Edmonton Mall crossed with a spruce tree. Souvenirs and baubles, sweets and boutiques, all designed to look like the Wildcat Café back in Yellowknife, but with a few extra million dollars. And once again, it was pervasive.

But - and I stress this - that doesn't mean it wasn't pretty. And as I wandered through their "reading garden", winding along a pavestone path while breathing in that B.C. forest air, I realised that this Village, and the whole resort municipality, was like a palace court.

A palace court has multiple purposes:

-It impresses the visitors, and shows off the strengths of the country.
-It's where the monarch's decrees are sorted out to reach his people.
-It's where the people assemble to reach the monarch.
-It's where the servants live.

A palace court's architecture is designed to reflect the will of the king and/or queen. It's designed to convey the message that their will shapes the land, theirs is the face that speaks for the land, and the destiny chosen for them is the one chosen for the land, as well.

Now, with all due respect to Queen Elizabeth II, I'm also a fan of democracy, so these ideas seem kind of stifling and elitist to me. Much like Whistler itself. But then, I realised who the King of this Palace really is:



The mountain itself.

And you know, just like that, Whistler became a pretty awesome place. I can't wait to go back!

Option #3 at the Happiness Hotel.

If I wanted to grit my teeth, turn up the music, and slap myself awake once or twice, I could have made it to Vancouver without any problems. But it was getting to dark to take notes, so a few exits after the town of Hope, I decided to pull into the nex stop that advertised an open campground.

The campground in question was the "Whistlestop RV park". Like I said, it was already pretty late, so they just hung a sign in the office inviting latecomers to register their site the next morning.

It was indeed an RV park - I was the only person in the tenting area. I found a nice spot to pitch a tent, but it was dark, and it was in the mountains, which meant that the only light I had was any bio-luminesence the moss was kind enough to provide. So, I improvised.

I strung the tarp between the trunk of my Accent and the picnic table, where it was held down by... actually it was held down by my tent. I rolled out the mattress and the sleeping bag underneath, and it was Good Enough. I crawled under and went to sleep.

Now, since this was the first campground I found off of the Trans-Canada Highway, it's reasonable to assume that the #1 was close nearby. Indeed, the constant rumbling of trucks would be my lullabye. I could live with that. But then, after about twenty minutes, an ear-splitting roar of engine and axles and horns sounded out, so loud that I thought some trucker was warning people that he'd veered right into the campsite. And it kept on roaring, like it was always approaching but never getting closer.

After a momentary stupor, I realised... this campsite was called the "Whistlestop" RV Park. Yes, as close as it was to the Trans-Canada, the CPR was even closer. And so, for the rest of the evening, another locomotive would blast by. Every hour, on the hour-thirty-four. I got some sleep in between, but I counted every single one of them.

Finally, at six thirty-four, I figured that the road was calling. I took a shower, then rolled the tarp and mattress back into the trunk, and I was ready to go. You might be wondering if I was going to complain about the train at the office. I was not, seeing as how a) they probably knew already, and b) the shower was probably worth just as much to me as the sleep was. However, it was a moot point, as the office hadn't yet opened for the day. Shrugging, I drove away. I've never dined and dashed before... but now I can say I've slept and dashed. That counts, right?

Of course, I had only heard the engine - and sometimes, due to either some lucky echo or different weights of cars, it had seemed like I could hear several of them at once - but I hadn't seen it. So, when the forest around the highway cleared a few kilometers later, I looked to my side and saw... nothing but lake and mist.



Ghost train.