KC Roberts & the Live Revolution

I love that Matt Fullbrook, who plays bass, wears the original Blue Jays cap - even though I'm not a baseball fan.

N and I checked out the Beaches Jazz Festival at Woodbine Park this afternoon and this is where I heard the rockin' cool sounds of KC Roberts and his band, the Live Revolution. His funky beats and singing style reminded me a bit of Jamiroquai and the way he threw in rapping rhymes brought to mind Jason Mraz.

My favourite songs of the 75 minute set were Play My Life, which you can give a listen to here, City By The Lake which he introduced as his rap love song to Toronto, and Let's Get Outta Here - all of which I suspect will be on his upcoming release, Parkdale Funk.

They're performing again Thursday through Saturday in front of the LCBO as part of the Streetfest so if you're in town and are looking for some beats to shake your ass to, check them out.

For more tunes head on over to the MySpace page.

Langdon Hall

wL and I followed West Side Story with dinner at Langdon Hall. My initial plan was to dine at Bijou again but they were fully booked for the first sitting with people seeing evening performances at Stratford and there's not much to do in town to kill time before an 8pm reservation...so I decided to look either back in Toronto or something along the way....and that's when wL reminded me of Langdon Hall in Cambridge!

I've wanted to dine there for what seems like forever after seeing it land on Toronto Life's Best of List year after year and finally had my chance!

We settled into our table out on the terrace and decided on the 5-course tasting. I indulged with the matching wine pairings since I wasn't driving - as someone reminded me, you only live once, and who knows when we'll be out that way again?

Our meal began with an amuse of sweet pea jelly with trout, red peppers and cream.

Our first course was a citrus ceviche with a basil chip - I'll have to try serving my basil like that at some point. This was paired with the Gosset Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc blend from Clare Valley, Australia which was perfectly crisp and cool. Unfortunately, it's not available at the LCBO so if I want to taste it again, I may have to order it through the agent, and then, only by the case. sigh.

Our second course differed but we switched half way through so were able to try everything: I had the monkfish with garden beets and young asparagus,

and wL had the grilled octopus with compressed watermelon and pine nuts. The plating's rather disappointing but the contrast in taste and textures made up for it.

Our third course was rabbit with chanterelles, snail ragout and sweet peas, and this may just be my favourite of the meal.

For the fourth, wL had duck with a carrot-ginger puree (sooo yum! I will have to try this too!), asparagus and spinach,

and I had lamb tenderloin with a lamb shoulder cannelloni, artichoke hearts and an asparagus puree.

By the time our plates were cleared away, we'd been dining for 2.5 hours. The sun was setting and I was beginning to feel the itch of phantom bites, so we settled indoors by the fireplace in a couple of cozy wingback chairs for dessert:

Stawberry cromot(?) with coconut sponge cake and creme fraiche

Passionfruit chocolate mousse

All in all, it was a fantastic 4-hour dining experience. The staff was gracious with their impeccable service and we never felt rushed. We were there until 11pm and knowing that we had come in from Toronto, the maitre'd kindly informed us that a room was available should we not wish to make the long drive back. We declined, but one day, I think I will be back for a weekend stay...

West Side Story

I trekked out to the Stratford Festival for the first time in maybe 5 years to see their production of West Side Story. I've never seen the movie in its entirety and have seen bits and pieces here and there, most recently the number that was performed on the Tonys. I was surprised by how many of the songs I actually knew without knowing that they were from WSS.

As to the performance - it was amazing! I can see now why Richard Ouzounian, the Star's theatre critic gave it such a rave review, calling it the one show you had to watch in the Ontario theatre circuit this year.

Chilina Kennedy, the actress who plays Maria was absolutely stunning - she was innocence and love, passion and heart-wrenching despair - the girl can cry on stage like I've never seen anyone cry before!

I had to remind myself of the play's context at different moments because I found some of the scenes and racist slurs offensive - otherwise, it was fantastic. Go see it. I can't imagine that anyone in what seemed like a full-house audience left disappointed.

5 more sleeps...

I haven't written much about my trip to China but that's only because it seemed so far away. But now I'm only 5 sleeps away to spending 15+ hours on a direct flight to Hong Kong where my family and I will be starting our 11 day tour of some of China's greatest hits, including the Terracotta Warriors in Xian, the Great Wall and the palaces in Beijing.

I've spent all weekend sick at home with the flu or something which is crappy in the short term but good in the grand scheme of things because I'd rather get it out of my system now rather than be sick on the trip. The bummer is that I had to sleep through Nuit Blanche this weekend which I was rather looking forward to. Oh well.

Project Blinkenlights

I walked through Nathan Phillips Square on my way home from yoga last night and noticed that the windows were all lit up in seemingly random patterns....until the letters L, O, V, E lit up the glass. I guessed that it was some kind of dry run for Nuit Blanche and turns out I was right.

Stereoscope by the Berlin-based trio, Project Blinkenlights uses every single window of city hall and a grid-work of multiple light sources to create a unified light show that can be activated by smart phones and control mechanisms at the site itself.

The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World

After skipping out on my run yesterday because of the wet weather, I broke my fast and then met S&W in line to rush for the screening of Weijun Chen's The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World at TIFF. This documentary is about the Guiness-certified West Lake Restaurant in Changsha, Hunan, China - it seats five thousand and employs about 1000 people, including 300 chefs.

The excess struck me - I can't remember who it was in the film that said it - but the comment was about how in the 60s, 70s and 80s, there was no food - my Grandfather left China for South America to work so that he could send money back to feed his family - and now there's plenty and the Chinese love to show it.

Qin Linzi, the restaurant owner, also reminded me a bit of my mother for her strength and perserverance. She rose above a difficult childhood and divorce and worked to ensure that she could care for her family - my mother, newly-widowed, took over the running of the business she and my father started, led a team of almost 20 workers and rose me and my sisters on her own. I'd love to watch this with her to see what she thinks.

Nuit Blanche

I spent a few hours Saturday night wandering along Queen West, otherwise known as "Zone C" of Nuit Blanche - a free festival of independent art and performances that took over parts of the city. I had the run the next day so wasn't so ambitious as to think I could hit up all 3 zones like some people, but kudos to them for trying.

There was some good, some not so good, and some...interesting. Here's a bit of what I saw:

A collection of wings made out of onion skin - one of my favourites:

From the website:

From sunset at 7:03 pm on Saturday, September 29, to sunrise at 7:14 am on Sunday, September 30, 2007, Toronto will be bustling with activity as thousands experience a full night of contemporary art and performance in three zones across the city. After a stunning and triumphant launch in September 2006, the widespread appeal for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche to return in 2007 was overwhelming. On May 10, 2007, Toronto Mayor David Miller officially announced that Scotiabank Nuit Blanche had become an annual signature event for the City of Toronto, and he invited everyone to rediscover Toronto through this free, all-night celebration of contemporary art.

Play on!

It's been pretty busy at work lately with endless meetings and prep work in between. In fact, I've been so busy that I haven't had much time to keep up with the various blogs and other sites that I like to visit in my downtime. ;)

On one of my brief mental breaks this afternoon, I stopped by blogTO for a quick browse and happened upon this review of the Fringe Festival, which mentions the SummerWorks Theatre Festival that runs August 2 - 12. I don't think I've ever heard of this festival...but I'm intrigued. Given how much I enjoyed my solo Fringe experience, I might just go it alone again depending on the program...I should be able to pick up a program guide tomorrow before dinner so we shall see...

Fringe Theme of the Day: Modern Love

I cut out of mandarin class a bit early today so I could have a quick lunch at home before heading down by subway for fringe play #4, Bride of Sasquatch, a romantic comedy. From the program:

Cheryl is a compulsively single cryptozoologist/office temp with a Sasquatch fascination who is beginning to realize that Bigfoot may never come and sweep her off her feet. Daryl is a corporate climber who is looking for that special co-dependant tax write-off to one day divest his RRSPs with. As our two heroes pass through courtship and falling in love, and then turn to face the looming possibility of marriage, old truths begin to surface. Will the future Bride and Groom be able to navigate the pitfalls of a modern relationship, or will more primitive desires prevail? Bride of Sasquatch is a comedy that explores what it is we must give up, and what we must hold on to when we fight to survive in that dark, dangerous and foreboding wilderness called modern love.

Play #5 was supposed to have been An Inconvenient Musical, but I arrived to find that the tickets had sold out while I was waiting in the in between time at the Second Cup for the rain to stop so off to the ROM I went to while away the time before picking up tickets for Something Unexpected, "a Harlequin romance set in small town Ontario" according to the program.

I really enjoyed this afternoon's productions since they were not only well-written and well-acted, but they were also very relevant to me:

The Sasquatch in the former is obviously symbolic of the universal search for the perfect mate, but for me, I'd switch "mate" for "job" since dating and men are very much on the backburner while I figure out what I want career-wise.

There's a scene near the end, when Cheryl freaks out because she's not sure that she's ready to give up on her dream of finding the Sasquatch to sweep her off her feet so she tries to push Daryl away by picking a crazy fight but he's crazy in love with her, so they presumably live happily ever after. Yes, it's unfair to test the other's love like this, but I defy anyone who says that they've never done it because they'd be lying - this brings to mind the lyrics in Push by Sarah McLachlan, and these ones in particular:

I get mad so easy but you give me room to breathe

No matter what I say or do 'cause you're too good to fight about it

Even when I have to push just to see how far you'll go

You won't stoop down to battle but you never turn to go

In Something Unexpected, we find two very different sisters: Meredith who's married, white-collar-successful and perhaps a little smug about it; and Lily who's single on her 38th birthday, blue-collar-living-in-a-trailer and doing just fine on her own, thank you very much. As the play unfolds, Lily tells Meredith about how she met the guy she is dating at Walmart and when she's pressed to arrange a meeting with Harrison, the new man, it's revealed that the entire relationship was a figment of her imagination made up only to avoid her sister's constant pity and disappointment at her single status.

This made me think afterwards of my relationship with my mother, and to a much lesser extent, my interactions with my friends. They are all concerned about my single status - to varying degrees of course - my mother is worried that I'll never get married and she'll always have to worry about me. But she can't be more worried than I am about my singlehood.

I put up a pretty good front about being independent and fine on my own, but I am worried that I will never meet someone (again) who I'd be happy to spend my life with. And while I've never been the insecure type that seeks validation of my self-worth in a relationship* - I actually feel sorry for these people - I wonder if my expectations are too high.

So I decided this spring to take a page out of The Year of Yes and another from Around the World in 80 Dates and date guys that I would otherwise have said no to on the off chance that I'd been prematurely writing guys off because they didn't fit a particular ideal. But after going on a series of dates with a number of guys that turned out to be completely uninteresting to me, I've decided to remove myself from the dating pool for the time-being because it's rather demoralizing to meet guy after guy and be confronted with the fact that perhaps lowering my expectations wasn't the answer.

(Now that I think about it, there's really no point to this meandering, inconclusive examination of the dryspell that is my love life at the moment. I just needed to organize my thoughts...and clearly it's a work in progress...)

To sum up, this Fringe experience has been great. It was a tentative experiment on my part to see how I'd feel about doing something on my own. And I've come to the preliminary conclusion that it's very liberating since I didn't have to consult with anyone but myself or compromise on what plays I wanted to see, and I was able to wander about at my own pace in between shows, like at the ROM and through U of T. I'm so glad - and truth be told, a little proud - that I did this because I would have missed out on a lot of fun otherwise.

* Not to say that this is true of all people in relationships, but you know that these people exist - serial monogamists who are too afraid to be on their own and are in relationships for the sake of being in relationships. I have never been this type of person.

Fringe Fridays!

I switched my half-day Friday from next week to today so I could Fringe this afternoon as the festival ends this Sunday and I'd only made use of one of my 5 passes to date.

My original plan was to go to Nathan Phillips Square for lunch to check out the street food demonstration being staged by some of the city's best chef's today but I ended up making a last-minute lunch date with a friend downtown to talk about my career issues. We went to Thai Island in the TD Centre where I got the green curry chicken which I've soooo missed since moving midtown for work. We would have seen each other this Sunday anyway since I had gotten in touch with his wife about questions on a role I'm interested in at her company, but I wanted him as a sounding board as he's probably one of the most resourceful and savvy guys I know. And he did not disappoint. So, thanks again, G!!

After lunch, I made my way over to the Tarragon Theatre to catch Rumpleforeskin at 2:15pm. I wasn't at all interested in seeing it until I read the Fringe review in Eye Weekly on my subway ride down to lunch. As per the program, it's a "loving adaptation of an old fairy tale for the enjoyment of the young at heart." And I'm so glad I did because it was funny, witty and clever with references to Conrad Black's legendary verbosity, the Bloc Quebecois, Ontario and Saskatchewan among others that labelled it Made in Canada.

I stayed for Expiry Dating which followed it at 4pm. I had wanted to see this since it had gotten a lot of buzz as the winner of this year's Toronto Fringe New Play Contest. This was about a couple who meet and get married shortly after when they find out one of them only has 6 months to live. They played to a full house and it was good, although the acting was probably better in Rumpleforeskin.

I saw Wedding Belles last Friday and it was...lacking: the plot was sufficient but the acting was uneven, which I found rather distracting.

The plan is to see at least one more show tomorrow so that I hit breakeven on my pass...

Toronto Night Market

I just got back from a couple hours spent with my mother at the Toronto Night Market, a weekend-long event organized by Power Unit, a group of students and recent grads 17-26 years old with diverse backgrounds and interests. They're united in the belief that youth can leave an indelible mark upon society for the better. Since their inception in 2002, they've raised over $35,000 for Toronto charities. This year's beneficiary is the Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care.

While it's held only a short walk away from my house, this was my first time attending. The atmosphere reminded me of Temple Street Market at night in Hong Kong: crowded with people out for a late night stroll or shopping amongst little booths where vendors sold their wares.

There was an Iron Chef-esque competition going on when we were there and all I managed to catch while walking about the crowds was that one of the contestants was preparing a dish with round and plump deep-fried tofu.

A basketball and volleyball court were set up to the north of the market where I suspect some kind of tourney was going on. Just south of that was the goods market - where vendors sold costume jewellery, cellphone accessories, and DVDs.

The stage was set up in the middle and to the south of the that was the food market - and there was some yummy eats to be had, including:

BBQ lamb on a skewer - so juicy and tender!

Grilled pineapple sprinkled lightly with cinnamon sugar - I'm going to have to try this tomorrow for my BBQ!

And stinky tofu, which appeared to be really popular since they had about a dozen woks going and 3 different queues. I've never tried it, and it looks harmless enough, but if my mother, who eats foul-smelling durian, says it makes her want to gag, it's enough for me to know that my life is probably complete without having ever tried this. My love and enjoyment of chicken feet at dim sum will have to suffice as evidence of my Chinese-ness. ;)