hobos, piking, lazing & working

Not much new to report really - apparently life goes on all over the globe just the same. i've been to a couple of concerts so far: ...Trail of Dead - loud and crazy with guitar-smashing, drum-toppling, rock-action! Fantômas - scary, confusing and erratic - all your usual Mike Patton fare. Tomorrow night is The Shins - that should be loverly. So far my favourite moment in Montréal occured on the bus the other night. Standing at the bus stop I was approached by an "interesting" looking guy: bedraggled, mismatched clothes; various satchels and garbage bags; stickers on his coat and hat and a red clown nose on his face. He started talking at me in French but quickly switched to perfect English when I told him I didn't speak French ... my brain being too slow I realised a little too late that I probably should have pretended I didn't speak English either. He'd noticed my "Adelaide Festival" book bag and started telling me of how he once had tickets to Australia but never went because of a friend who was too lazy and then about New Zealand and Tasmania and all the wonderful stuff there that he'd never seen. I had to agree with him cos I'd never seen all that wonderful stuff either. I asked him about himself and about Montréal and he gave me the lowdown on lots of things - like where to buy a bike, where the best jazz club is, what he does for work, where the best Tibetan cuisine can be found, about the WWOOF program (go here: www.wwoof.ca it's pretty good actually). He kept pulling cards and scraps of paper from his bulging coat pockets and writing things on them for me. We chatted until his stop came and I gave him my email but haven't heard from him yet. I'm pretty sure everyone else on the bus wrote him of as a weirdo ... which I guess he was in a way... but it was great to launch into a conversation with a total stranger and forget about everything else for the duration of the bus ride. It beats listening to music and staring vacantly out the window all the time. His name is Jean. For the past two days I've reverted quite effortlessly back to "Adelaide Ben" - that is: waking late, going to bed late, snoozing most of the day, reading and being on the computer - totally boring and predictable - that's why I came up with my little video challenge for myself … but the truth is – I really can’t be bothered with it. The sticky, sweetness of sloth, like so much maple syrup, pulls me down to be preserved in its amber depths. mmmmm sloth. But anyway – a convenient distraction! I rang Loïc (Kino Kid) yesterday and asked if he had some monkey work I could do for nix. It turns out he has a bit and I’ll be making a nuisance of myself on a few projects with him and fortunately or unfortunately won’t have much time to be doing little films (as the production day goes from 6am – 7/8pm). So the film gauntlet thing is on the back-burner but hopefully I won’t forget about it (and yes Mia – I remember – ice-cream cake) Also I went to the first year Concordia screenings the other night. The quality of films was pretty impressive but most of it was your usual pretentious-arty-mystifying-gloomy-uni-crap. There was one film that I really liked about a guy who loses his pet mouse in a car accident but is then inspired by MacGyver to build a time-machine and travel back to save his friend. Watching the films made me want to study again – so now I’m doubly confused as to what I want to do! It’s only a month or so until I hear from Concordia about my acceptance/rejection … so I guess that’ll help me decide! The weather broke 20 this week and now it actually feels like spring! Everyone is going mad with the “Terrace Fever” and it’s fun to be out and about. So that’s what I’ll do now … bye!