HIGH ALERT

Hallowing Our Ground: Z'Isle Imagines Post-Apocalyptic Montreal

Leah — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 20:33:06 +0000

Zombies and zombie-fighters are called to face off, dance off, and party at Ô Patro Vys this Friday, October 30. The Z'Isle team launches the 4th issue of their serial comic, which takes place seven years after an apocalypse, in Montreal, affectionately known as Z'Isle. It features what's left of local architecture, innovative social organization, and maybe your friends. With local and federal politics on my mind, I asked co-writer and illustrator Lateef Martin to tell us more about this possible (zombie-filled) future because I still love this comic:

Leah Garfield-Wright: In this apocalypse, how do you picture the candidates for PM of Canada faring? Who is most likely to show up?

Lateef Martin: Thomas Mulcair seems like an gruff dude. I think he'd survive, but as a loner in Outremont. He'd have an intricate network of traps and would have a good base of operations. Elizabeth May would shack up with anarchist greenroofers in the Plateau. Stephen Harper would have figured out how to blend in with the undead, to the point of eating people. He ends up eating everyone he knows. It's clear that at some point he lost sight of reality and just got stuck in character. Justin Trudeau would be the leader of a cult that idolizes him. It's full of people from all walks of life and skill, but as much as they try to stay positive and inclusive, there are deeper problems within this cult that they ignore. One day it may implode.

Trust, trade, hope. That's all Montrealers have left.

LGW: Will the tanneries of Saint Henri ever come alive again?

LM: Most definitely. All sorts of furry animals are game now. The distinction between house pet and wild animal no longer exists as food is harder to come by. Everything is used.

LGW: We're not sure yet if the Saint Lawrence will be flooded with untreated sewage...yuck. How will the Z'Islanders handle this?

LM: They build their own water filters since everything has been either shut down, destroyed beyond repair or too complex for anyone alive to figure it out.

LGW: What's the second best Halloween Party (on the 31st)?

LM: The Rocky Horror Picture Show Halloween Ball! I was part of the cast for over seven years, They're a fantastic crew and always bring it up another level every year. The only reason I can't join in the debaucherous fun is because I'm working on Z'Isle.

There will be a video game demo, door prizes, costume contests, and other surprises. Costumes are not mandatory, and it's free. 10 pm at Ô Patro Vys (365 Mont Royal Avenue East). Check out the facebook event page.

Tags:

apocalypse

montreal

zombie

zisle

McGill Explorations Round 6: the MacDonald Engineering Building

Alex — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 19:47:58 +0000

So a bunch of us who work-study-hang-out at McGill University have decided to snoop around some of the buildings as a means of learning more about this awesome and contentious and sprawling place.

After the holidays we had a hankering to go exploring. So one Friday, Vijay, Alissa and I decided to do some walking around. Vjay and I met at the Roddick Gates and we were supposed to meet Alissa at the Milton Gates and then head up the hill but when we all got there, we were tired and a bit grumpy and figured, well, there's plenty of fine buildings right here in lower campus so let's just explore one nearby and the closest one was probably... The MacDonald Engineering Building! So that's where we went.

The McGill website tells us that this iteration of the building was built after the gods of fire destroyed the first one back in 1907. And apparently, there's a phoenix carved into the south wall - to commemorate the rebirth-from-the-ashes nature of the new structure. Epic.

It was lightly snowing outside. I know it looks like we're in a storm, but we're not. Still, it's Montreal winter so you gotta bundle up. Also, I don't really know yet how to use my phone camera but man are the shots blurry this time around. Please bear with me.

So as soon as you get inside, you can either go up a flight of stairs or hang a left through a door. So that's what we did, because there's always time for stairs later on.

Pretty much right there, we saw a display board with advertisements of things to come and guess what? They had pinned flyers for the program I run. Except guess what? The flyers they had were from 2 years ago! I haven't used that slim flyer format in 2 years! Alissa wanted to take them down, but I opted to leave them up because who knows maybe at some point an engineering student will give us a call about a workshop we're no longer offering but they'll be so keen and will want to bring friends, so we'll put it back on the docket and it'll be ar resounding success!

Then we headed down another few steps and through a door that took us into a massive huge workshop area. It was brightly lit but no one was around to stop us from exploring. So that's what we did. We explored the machinery and we explored the nooks and crannies. They had these things that looked like giant metal presses. We were surely impressed (ha!) but didn't touch anything, of course.

Look at them pistons! They're not messing around them pistons.

I'm just seeing now this ladder that went up somewhere. I don't know how we missed that one. In hindsight, might have been fun to climb it. Maybe there was just too much in that garage and we got generally overwhelmed by all the bright colours and machines and stuff to see it.

And this little storage unit! How cute! And how can they remember what's in one little cubby than what's in the other little cubby?

Right there, where the door is, we saw a hatch in the floor which you can't see and it went down into the dark and we figured hells yeah, we've found some steam tunnel entrance! So I went down there using my phone flashlight thing but though it looked promising, it only led to a small chamber about the size of a kid's bedroom. My sense though is engineering students head down there once in awhile to party illicitly after having used the awesome tools, because there were beer cans all over the place. Engineering students!

Moar pistons and girders.

Alissa and Vijay next to barrels and scafolding. This is still in the large garage area. We hung out there for a good while and nobody around.

But eventually, we made our way back up, tracked back to the entrance and up the flight of stairs we'd initially disregarded. And because it's McGill, there's the obligatory painting of some dude. This is probs the original MacDonald. Not McDonald, MacDonald. Golden gilded frame and all.

In the Engineering building they have these awesome wooden old timey desks. I know they look uncomfortable as all hell but guess what, they date back to probs the 1920s or some such when they knew all about ergonomics so they are actually ok to sit on - if a bit hard.

Again, sorry for the blurry - but look at the ornate metalworking on those suckers.

All the desks had been ornately decorated by drawings and carvings of various scenes and inspiring words. Like a note about this guy who apparently "sucks".

Or that apparently "Jesus masturbated". Well played, DM... Well played indeed.

And this wonderful piece of a hamster in some sort of space suit.

At the door of the classroom there was this passive aggressive missive written in ALL CAPS!!

After checking out some more classrooms and thoroughly surveying the desk graffiti we headed up. Check out these wooden double doors. What is this, a magikal dungeon or the Engineering building?

After the dungeon stairs, we found ourselves in more hallways, some apparently by student clubs. We ended up in this neat little room. Look at the cool wall art of a city scape. And what's the deal with the sideways tiger banner above it? Is that a purple onion next to it? Are there flames coming out of its paws? Is that people on its back? Crazy!

And another one of those weird little cubby holders where engineers probably store things like: keys, markers, condoms and paper clips. That is also one cool crafty bridge above it.

In another room, we found a ping pong and a fooz ball table. So Vijay and I played a game of ping pong while Alissa looked on and kept score and encouraged us. I think I won!

What's the deal with this hallway? Not too sure why I took this photo. Was it the ornate arch work? The fleur-de-lys motifs? The red-and-green tile flooring? OR a combination of ALL OF THE ABOVE???

Up in the hallway they had 8 or 10 of these beautiful decorations - representing various engineering achievements. This one's too blury to make out but I think it was supposed to be a steam-powered contraption.

If I was an engineering student at McGill and I wanted to get a commemorative tattoo, I would get one of a winged-bell, spewing forth lightning with the word ELECTRICITY underneath it.

Who's this dude and why does he warrant a relief face plate in the hallway? I don't know. Maybe you do?

HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO COME BACK FOR TEA TIME IF WE HAVE TO KEEP THIS DOOR CLOSED AT ALL TIMES???

At one point we found the thing that we never ever usually find - an open door that leads to a service walk on the outside of the building. So out we went! It was cold and snowy but not that cold but well lit and fun to be out. Alissa stayed behind at first, then Vijay did to hold up the door that wouldn't have opened up if we'd closed it and then tried to go back in.

But lookit - this was our view of the nearby buildings. I so so wish that one day we find out how to get onto that roof through the ladder on the side. Then we can have a rooftop picnic. But alas, so far, most of those fun doors that lead outside have eluded us.

And checkout this view. When modern McGill builders find an old chimney, do they tear it down? No way man, they build around it and it looks great!

In we went and up more stairs to moar doars. This one was a metal bunker door.

After the bunker door, we ended up in stretches of empty office corridors. Like this one!

In the empty corridors, we came across photos of previous graduating classes and we marvelled at the so many many mustachio'd white males that have been McGill engineers. The cool thing is that some of the profs currently in Engineering have been around for decades and so you can see how they changed either go forward or backwards through time by looking at the changes in the photos. Like a time machine!

We kid you not. This was the sign on the women's washroom in the reminiscing photos corridor.

McGill Explorations Round 5: the Royal Victoria Hospital

Alex — Sun, 18 Jan 2015 21:30:09 +0000

So a bunch of us who work-study-hang-out at McGill University have decided to snoop around some of the buildings as a means of learning more about this awesome and contentious and sprawling place.

Sometime ago, we decided to go exploring! It was a last minute thing but the stars were aligned and Vijay and his mate Chris were into it an so were Alissa and Andrea and, I was into it too!

So after work, we met at the Roddick Gates, as we are wont to do. I had texted Andrea to specifically request that she not try to sneak up on me and scare me because she did it this one time and man, did I jump. So Andrea came and met up and we chit-chatted about what to check out and then decided, hey, let's go check out the Royal Vic - given that it's about to get torn down and replaced by gawd knows what.

So we texted Alissa and she was in and we decided to meet halfway up University.

On the way, we started to talk about how Andrea was just coming from a work pizza party and how there was still pizza there and we could stop and get some. But for some reason we got our wires crossed and Andrea thought we meant let's go later on and we thought we were heading over now, and by the time we straightened it out, we were on University, on our way to meet Alissa and we had no pizza. Such is life.

We kept walking up as a posse and got the the hospital but then Alissa had to bail because her back was hurting. So we picked a random side door and went inside.

All the doors a the Royal Vic are maroon. Is it because: McGill? This is where we could go in. Apparently bone metabolism science isn't too in demand on a Friday eve at 6pm because no-one was around.

Dutifully, we disinfected our hands before proceeding.

We explored randomly, going around corridors and it was all a bit oh-hum but then we went through an exit and found this kinda awesome zone of metal. So. Much. Metal. An open elevator shaft made of metal. Empty shelves made of metal. A staircase going up to other floors, encased in metal meshing.

And oposite the metal stuff there was a small bench with a blanket that somehow looked to us like a baby. But it really wasn't.

We went up a flight of stairs and there were moar hallways. Cept this time, there was art in the hallways. Like this little pastel number!

This is an example of the hallways we were in. Some nice arches, and powder-blue. It was about that time that we decided that we would limit our explorations to non-patient areas.

Apparently, there are some folks at the hospital that are totally not down with austerity budgeting. Right on, Royal Vic folks!

This was an info desk. And again, totes empty. Go figure.

We went back down after a while and found an other area dedicated to the Royal Vic Hospital Foundation. And as you know, where there's foundations, there's philanthropic cocktail benefits. So we went looking for the cocktails.

And found this instead! A to-scale (we assume) map of the hospital!

And also a painting of this handsome Captain of Industry.

We took the elevator up and found the biggest coffee mess that no-one had bothered to clean up after they spilled their own coffee. For shame.

We kept going up, because that's the most important thing, and at the top of the stairs, we found an interesting door, which was... locked.

So down we went again, finding ourselves in a lab-ish area.

As we have seen in the past, lab areas are kinda interesting. They're always filled with refrigerators filled with this kind of stuff. Test tubes! Little boxes! Undoubtedly all part of medical experiments which we left alone.

And also gaz canisters secured in place by the flimsiest chain in the history of chains.

Some random office. And for what it's worth, if you're getting the impression that this wasn't the most exciting of McGill Explorations, well you're right. We were kinda feeling it. There was a sense of slight alarm as we pointed stuff that was relatively humdrum.

Another insanely cold refrigerating unit! What COULD be in there? Who knows?

VIjay and Andrea found a weird DNA poster. It's friends hanging out and from them, there is a DNA helix comprised of all of the animals in the world!

Coming out of the research area, we found this incredibly dirty windown. If only it had been clean, we would have had a great view of downtown Montreal.

And a no-smoking sign! Are there still people who think it's ok to smoke in hospitals? And why did someone apparently try and pull it off?

We found the hospital kitchen. It looked like no-one was there, so we figured, let's have a look and we ignored the sign telling us not to look. Vijay and I went in and walked around cautiously. It was huge and spotless clean and there was an interesting section that looked like a large open shower area. But then a staff person saw us and was very helpful and asked what we wanted and we fibbed a bit about being lost looking for the washroom. So we went back the way we'd come.

We found a wing called the Maude Unit which is the McGill Adult Unit for Congenital Heart Disease Excellence - which really spells MAUCHDE. But tha's not as catchy as MAUDE, is it?

And then Chris spotted the Royal Vic chapel! This was definitely the highlight of the exploration.

Such a small, serene beautiful chapel! with stained glass and wooden pews.

Wooden paneling covered the windows. In between the two, someone had left a carton of milk and a bunched up sweather which Andrea thought looked like a sleeping cat.

We left the chapel and headed down this other hallway towards the Royal Vic library where the entryway looks like a castle!

And about then, the whole look of the place started to shift and it became less hospital-ish and more McGill-ish, with wooden doors, and adorned ceiling borders.

We went down a flight of stairs, past a holiday party of celebrating nursing staff and found ourselves in an area filled with boxes. We were saying that our cats would have a field day here, but then noticed that there were alarming signs on the doors, indicating that maybe we were in the animal testing unit of the Royal Vic. That really depressed us - given that some research since, shows the extent to which animal research is still going on at McGill.

So we left and found ourselves in the back of the building. We tracked around and the four of us hiked the mountains towards respective parties.

Not the greatest McGill exploration, but then again, they can't all be winners, can they?

McGill Explorations Round 4: Strathcona Anatomy and Dentistry Building

Alex — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 15:39:17 +0000

So a bunch of us who work-study-hang-out at McGill University have decided to snoop around some of the buildings as a means of learning more about this awesome and contentious and sprawling place.

Some weeks ago, Andrea, Vijay and I met up and decided to do some exploring. Initially, Andrea was telling us about this awesome place in the medical building where there is apparently a wall of hearts in phormaldehyde so we were in. We started to walk up the hill but then as we are wont to do, we changed our minds and decided to explore the mighty Strathcona Anatomy and Dentistry building. And mighty it is. Mighty indeed.

According to the McGill site, the Strathcona building "was built in 1909 following a fire that gutted the Old Medical Building, this building was designed to mirror the main entrance and wings of the Royal Victoria Hospital. Its features include an ornate reading room and a stained-glass window commemorating members of the Medical Faculty who fought or died in World War I". Intereshting! But it includes so much more. Curious? How about a gazillion skeletons, chemicals, a very cold fridge and quite a few passive-agressive notes! Read on, fellow traveler.

Vijay and Andrea in front of the steps. As many buildings on McGill campus, Strathcona is full-on Hogwart, with its stoney, stately entrance. We were excited to meet some sorcerers!

So in we went, and as per the uje, we mainly went down before we went back up. Such is the way.

Security-wise, Strathcona was about a 70% in the sense that most areas where they probably didn't want us to be, were under lock and key. And so when we're looking at an intentionally covered glass door with stained wood frame, labelled "Anatomical Preparation Rooms", we can only salivate (gross) at what potential adventures lie within. Schuks.

One thing is clear in Strathcona: You are NOT allowed to drink a milkshake and eat a sandwich if you're going to be playing around with the liquid nitrogen. Again, a locked door though this time, thankfully, we were able to marvel at the sheer size of the canisters. My bet is that there's cryogenically frozen peeps in there.

Check out the attention to details! Polished white stone walls, archways and fanciful wall adornments!

In the basement, there's the inevitable THIS. Essentially a chaotic amalgamation of pipes that have fused together over the years. And a bag of trash left behind. Why was it left behind? Why was it not dumped in a proper receptacle? Whose trash was it? What happens if someone needs to turn the handle? Those are the answers we were left pondering.

And then, we saw this... Some bust of some dude put away somewhere in a basement.

It was a bust of Cameron! Why was the bust of Cameron down here? When I googled "Cameron" and "McGill", I found out about Donald Ewen Cameron, a Scottish-born psychiatrist involved with MK-ULTRA, the infamous CIA-led mind-control experiments. But that Cameron unlike the Cameron on this bust, didn't look like Errol Flynn and besides, the MK-Ultra mind-fuckery, (which under Donald Cameron played heavily with psychedelics and severely damaged several people) were carried out at the Allan Memorial Institute - NOT at the Strathcona building. So your guess is as good as mine as to who this Cameron is whose bust now sits dejectedly in the Strathcona basement.

I'd heard before about Vinh's Cafe - located in the Genome building, but I hadn't been yet. However, seeing this menu tacked up somewhere in the Strathcona basement by some Hungry Hank certainly contributed to my heading up sometime the following week. The banh-mi sandwiches are awesome!

I haven't seen too many buildings at McGill where former students (?), profs (?), buddies (?) get their own intricately ornate special plaque put up on one of the building walls and where your name is hand-painted in red. Not. Too. Many. Of. Those. Buildings. So right on to you, Stephen C. Sewell, gentleman of physiology. Right on to you. These are all over the walls, btw.

Check out the hallway. You could sock-glide down on of those mothers like nobody's business. But we didn't try. I love the slight arching at the top.

The first of the passive aggressive notes. Who goes around slamming doors? Are they really slamming them? Like all the way? To the extent that it makes the tiny instruments shake and the measurements are then all screwed up? Maybe!

At one point, our walking around in basement hallways got us into an opened-silo-like area. We were at the bottom, in a circular space where we could look up and see several floors above. And so we're looking around and we're all like - so what about this fridge, hey? And what's the thing in the lower left corner? That looks like a tiny scale or some such. Does that need to be in there?

Sometimes when you see an office door, you have to peek in and see what's up. This was such a case. Check out the microscopes!

-81 degrees! Celsius? Fahrenheit? I saw a busy-looking lady in a labcoat come out of the office with the microscopes (see photo above). She seemed busy-ish and also slightly concerned at our presence. I find that the best way to engage the locals is to be direct and friendly, so I turned to her and said hello with my best smile and she stopped to look at me and said hello but you could tell that hadn't totally worked. So I asked, "What are they storing in here that needs to be at -81 degrees?" She looks at me and says "Things that need to be stored at -81 degrees." Which is the terse scientific way of saying "fuck you", I guess. But at least she was cool-ish (ha!) about us being there, so up we went into the upper floors of the silo.

This is the first of THREE skeletons we encountered in Strathcona. Not a whole lot of info on who this is. Also, they don't have a skull cap. Also, they're in a weird closet.

Directly opposite the first skeleton, we saw the Maude Abbott Medical Museum. According to the Internet, Maude Abbott "was a Canadian physician, among Canada's earliest female medical graduates, and a world-famous expert on congenital heart disease. She was one of the first women to obtain a BA from McGill University". Her museum was locked tight, since this was Friday after hours, but thankfully, it's all glass walls so we could peak in!

One of the things they have in the Maude Abbott museum is actual preserved tumors with descriptive text on what they are and where (who!) they came from. There were like six of them, and this was the most gruesome one. When I die, I will donate my tumors to the Maude Abbott museum.

When we looked down from the balcony into the silo below, Vijay and Andrea spotted this awesome painting just hanging out there. Andrea pointed out that it is clearly a uterus battling aliens! Go uterus!

MOAR CHEMICALS! DONT FAWK WITH DEH CHEMICALS!

So one level up in the silo, we found an open, totally accessible area in a clear state of disrepair. But whatev, the door was open so we went in to check it out!

There was a creepy refrigerator unit.

And also creepy exposed flooring.

And a creepy busted up experiment station.

And these creepy exit signs. Vijay was riffing off of the different words you could spell with the letters in EXIT and SORTIE. Guess what, "sex" is one!

After awhile, we started to check out the classrooms in Strathcona. That was fun! Check out the multicolored chairs!

Andrea is a Goodwill Hunting kind of genius and she was able to radically expand/mind-fuck on scientific paradigms!

So this is the second skeleton we saw - advertising the Friday social. We went and had a look and peeked in through the window but it looked like a modest social affair with a dozen or so undergrads, so we chickened out of going in though in hindsight, if we had, I'm sure we would have partied all night long with some rad science folks.

Informative! This is what the inside of a body looks like!

This is another passive aggressive note. I guess people are doing their gross dishes in the water fountain and it makes a huge disgusting mess which probably totally warrants a note with some ALL CAPS and declarative statements!

At one point, we found a display case with photographs and news clipping AS WELL AS The McGill University BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE! What I wouldn't give to explore it...

On our way back to the silo, Andrea spotted this tiny crib. Why is there a tiny wooden crib in Strathcona?

You know what totally sucks about McGill? What totally sucks about McGill is that whenever you make your way up an awesome flight of stairs and end up at the roof level and you're stoked because you're thinking you'll get to go on the roof - well whenever that happens, the door's inevitably locked, and you can't go on the roof. That's what sucks. So you just look out the window instead.

Did you know that singer-songwrinter extraordinaire Paul Simon was also a total ace in Electron Microscopy? Well, now you do!

We couldn't go in to check out the polypetide lab. Locked. Darn. What's a polypedtide? According to the WWW, polypeptides are naturally occurring biological molecules!

Another one of those beautiful amalgamations of valves and pipes which Andrea describes as "engineering chandeliers"!

We found this table left alone in a hallway and had a big discussion about why there was a chunk missing from it. My guess was that it's so that you can surround yourself 180 degrees with delicious food.

Next to the clever table, we found this clever chair. So many McGill butts have sat in the chair that it now has a permanent butt indentation, rendering it the most comfortable chair we'd ever sat in, so perfectly it molded itself to our butts!

Check out Vijay's expression of pure delight as the clever chair molds his butt! Comfortable!

Andrea and Vijay hacking a formula and unknowingly discovering the key to a new universe.

This is skeleton #3! My camera did this thing where it took a fancy photo. I don't know how it did it or how to do it again though.

In the room with skeleton #3, Vijay and I decided to race wheeled chairs down the ails. It was way more slope-y than it looks on here. Guess who won? I did!

Afterwards, we heard doors opening outside our classroom and we got mildly freaked out so we quickly high-tailed it.

I saw this cute sign which I had never seen ever before. It is of a stick figure with a book lecturing three little stick figures wearing graduation hats! Congratulations graduating class of stick-figures! You've done it!

A BBQ tucked away under a flight of stairs! Awesome except that it doesn't have a canister, so good luck making those burgers.

On our way out of Strathcona, we noticed this weird window. Again, questions: Why is there a turnable valve and where's the business end of it? Why is there a weird wooden slot that looks just like a box of tissues? My guess was that this was so that you could fit a box of tissue on the other side of the slot allowing McGillians access to some soft tissues when it's winter time and they're outside having a smoke. Strathcona - so thoughtful of you!

So that was it with Strathcona. Afterwards, we were hungry so Andrea showed us the diner place where they make some good French fries. Then Vijay headed north and Andrea headed south and I booted over to the Yellow Door where we were doing some singing with mah band Best Friends.

Playing D&D with kids

Alex — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 18:32:25 +0000

Over the past year or so, I've gotten the chance to spend an increasing amount of time with my girfriend's two boys (age 6 and 10). It's been a great way to reconnect to things that had fallen the wayside in my life - hanging out in parks, playing with figurines, watching cartoons. There's a freedom and spontaneity in childhood that, despite my commitment to keeping it fun in my adult life, I realize that I hadn't quite managed to hang on to.

It's been especially rewarding to discover stuff with the kids - to get into choice cartoons while watching them together (Adventure Time, Amazing World of Gumball, Regular Show), to get into cardboard crafting or drawing elaborate labyrinths together, or turn the kids on to stuff that I'm into - like stopping by Maker Faire and watching the oldest learn how to solder, teaching him how to ride a bike... It's in those moments, when they're essentially so ready to sponge-up whatever is going on around them, that kids are so rewarding to be around.

Last weekend, we decided to go camping with another couple and their three kids. We drove down to northern Vermont with the intention to go and check out Bread & Puppet. And I figured I'd bring Dungeons & Dragons along for the ride.

Over the course of the prior few months, we'd had some talks about Dungeons & Dragons - mainly with my friend's oldest (11 years old). They'd tried to get into it in the past but it hadn't quite worked out though the kid was still into it. I brought up the idea to my friends' kids in passing and briefly described what it was like. Same with my girlfriend's oldest - though it seemed a bit abstract when I mentioned it and he quickly moved the conversation away towards video games with similar themes (ex: Minecraft).

In preparation for the trip, I had ordered some classic D&D 1st edition books - the Player's Guide, Dungeon Master's Guide and Gary Gygax' eponymous 1st ed adventure: the Temple of Elemental Evil. I also generated 7 characters with various racial-class combinations. All first level.

In the car ride over, my friend and I were driving one car with two of the boys. They were playing around with Pokeymon cards in the back seat. At one point, we stopped over to get a coffee and I took out the character sheets and asked if they wanted to look through the characters and to pick one for themselves.They were intrigued and inquisitive, looking at them very closely and asking questions about the stats, the equipment, the capacities of their characters. We had a great animated conversation for a good while and I got the sense that the oldest (my friend's 11 year old) was especially curious. After about a half hour, we put the character sheets away and kept on driving.

Once we got to the campground, my friend's son immediately asked if we could play D&D. After running some errands into town and setting up the tents, we pulled out the characters and adventure. We asked the other kids if they wanted to play and they gathered around to pick a character, with my adult friend picking one up as well.I first attempted to set the scene by having them all be the foster kids of a wise old sage who then tasked them to investigate the goings on in the village of Hommlett.

Those first few moments were the most difficult. My friend's boy, especially, was excited but was also not taking it very seriously, making wize-cracks about the game, the adventure, the names... I had to pause a few times to address what he was saying and eventually we were able to start the adventure and I moved us fairly quickly to a first encounter on the road with some half-orc bandits. Quickly, arrows flew through the air and I asked them to roll some dice. Which the kids loved. They immediately got the concept that they only controlled their own actions and that the dice determined the outcome while I determined the story.

That first encounter clinched it - They were able to 'see' the action and to have immediate effect on the game. Right away, the kids came up with some very creative solutions to the game - "I throw my lit lamp in the forest" to draw out the brigand, "I set a rope trap while we camp for the night". After the brigand's defeats, I made sure to use strong descriptions for the throw-away loot they found: a wickedly-curved horn bow, a sharp bone dagger with a small skull in the hilt, a rough-stone circle pendant around a leather cord. The pendant, especially, began hugely significant to our group and I rolled with it for the rest of the scenario. It wasn't a magical item, but I made sure to feed off of their excitement by having an NPC later mention that it looked like it was orcish worksmanship...

Over the course of our weekend camping, we played about 5 or so of these 30-45 minute scenarios. They were a great way to keep the kids occupied in the morning when other campers were still asleep, as a post-dinner activity before it got dark enough to light a fire. Outside of the scenarios, the kids would often talk amongst themselves about the items they'd found, the NPCs they'd encountered. They created amongst themselves a "D&D club".

Into our second or third scenario, I again had created a situation initially meant as a throw-away device which ended up taking unexpected significance to the kids. I'd given one of the players a horse, so of course, during the journey, as a a result of an argument, she and one of the boys decided to speed ahead to Hommlett ahead of the others. As an attempt to get them all back together without needing to run two games in parallel with kids getting impatient for their turn, I introduced the players who got to the village first, on the horse, to "Barnaby", an old farmer with a limp who needed help with his fields. My partner's son was very curious about Barnaby from the get-go and it was great to see his relationship to this spontaneous NPC evolve. At first, he was mainly interested in "how much" XP he'd get for helping Barnaby, or if Barnaby could pay him to do the work he was asking help with. I addressed this in character and it was great to see the boy begin to respond to the increased characterization, eventually a sense of responsibility over Barnaby. During the rest of the game, Barnaby kept coming back up. Could he accompany them on their adventure? How much money would they give to Barnaby, etc... What was Barnaby's life like, what did money represent to him, what would it be like if he were given a platinum piece, since he only makes a few coper pieces per day. Fascinating questions with undertones of ethics and wealth distribution...

The question of ethics in the game was a thorny one at times. On a few occasions, some of the kids were surprisingly self-interested (by loot, mainly) and very quick to move to a place where they'd potentially betray each other for the items they'd acquired. In that sense, my friend's son had chosen a halfling thief and totally got in character. This led to some conflicts amongst the kids outside of game time and some of them would sometimes get upset. A few times, I had to remind them to "play their alignment" (they were all assigned good-aligned characters) in order to diffuse the out-of-game tension that was sometimes brewing. A few times, I felt I had to mention that I was mainly interested in running a "good" campaign and that if people wanted to steal from each other that I wouldn't really be into DMing the game. In the end though, NPC characters like Barnaby, and the players' increasing investment in his well being, did a lot more to improve the heroics of the game than anything else.

After the first scenario which ended with the party defeating the brigands, the kids had a lot of questions for me about the kinds of items they were likely to find, what they could do... A lot of their framing of the game was initially informed by the computer games they'd played: "what bosses would they encounter", could they "craft" items out of the things they'd found: ie: a sword out of two daggers. Could they do certain things. It was great to explain the workings of the game and let them in on the infinite possibilities of a game that isn't bound by the choices of a computer-game experience.

Our last night at the campground, we played a quick scenario (again, about 40 minutes), that had them rooting through an old keep and eventually stumbling on a bunch of bandits. There was an epic battle and the party came out on top - despite some close calls. During it all, the kids were jumping around excitedly, looking at the outcome of every die roll - groaning and acclaiming the various results with just as much investment as veteran gamers!

Since then, my partner's oldest has asked if we'll play again and based on how it went, I certainly want to keep it up! What with the release of the D&D 5th edition, I've wondered if pen-and-paper RPGs have what it takes to capture the interest of kids who've cut their teeth on visually impressive computer gaming. From the attention and involvement this group of players demonstrated over the weekend, I daresay yes!

Cops in Montreal no longer give a shit about their image: now beating up school janitors and teachers

Alex — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 14:55:24 +0000

The SPVM has stopped giving a shit and are now beating up school janitors and 40 year-old-mother-of-four teachers in front of kids.

They've evidently chosen to base their whole public relations strategy on the Harvey Keitel Bad Lieutenant film.

I think we're supposed to just roll with it.

Oh Ghomeshi... facepalm #1: A cultural gathering rivaled only by... the United Nations. But bigger. More relevant.

Alex — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 14:01:46 +0000

Oh Ghomeshi... *facepalm* is a series of posts which documents and celebrates Jian Ghomeshi’s public moments of incredible, wonderful hubris where he just totally goes for it and our collective response is to go, “Oh.. Jian…”, and then it kinda feel weird and wrong inside of us.

Jian Ghomeshi is a Canadian broadcaster, producer, writer and musician who hosts the radio program Q which broadcasts daily on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio One. Prior to Q, Ghomeshi hosted other arts-focused programs, including CBC’s >play and on the Toronto edition of Canada Now. During the 1990s, Ghomeshi was a member of satirical folk-pop band Moxy Früvous. Via his production company, Jian Ghomeshi Productions Inc, Ghomeshi manage(d) various artists including, formerly, Martina Sobrana and Juno Award winners Lights. Ghomeshi’s literary debut is the autobiographical 1982, about that year of his life.

Yesterday (Thursday June 12) was the first day of the World Cup, so Jian’s opening monolog was about that and was pretty much a “why can’t we just get along” response to the rampant corruption, human rights abuse, displacement and murders currently taking place in Brazil (Amongst many, many others, see this Guardian article and this one over at VICE for some of the background). To Ghomeshi:

“Amidst all the legitimate concerns over overdone budgets, corruption, misdirected funds, and all the fears that are circulated about logistics and labor, and all the protests and the scourge of poverty. Amidst all these things that are real and not to be ignored. Amidst all that, can we simply say, it is time. Time to come together for some football.”

The total best part though is at 1:40 where Jian just lays right into it.

“And so begins a month of the game at its very best. Its most inclusive. Every continent inhabited by humans is being represented. A cultural gathering rivaled only by the Olympics. Or maybe the United Nations. But bigger. More relevant. More exciting… There is nothing that compares to it.”

And that’s the moment. That gold moment of pure Ghomeshi where he’s gone over the edge. Because screw the United Nations, this is the World Cup! And of course, he kinda realizes, on some level, that he's gone over the edge, so at the end of his editorial, he pulls back and adds the caveat that:

“With any luck, nobody gets hurt… And yes, we do need to be mindful of the various social questions raised by a massive sporting event like the world cup.”

But then he kinda figures, fuck it because according to Jian, “there is surely some good that comes out of this passion that comes out of this attention it brings to sport and engagement and to global unity. World Cup 2014. Time to begin. I’m Jian Ghomeshi.”

And that’s his lead into the first part of his show. He then interviews David Goldblatt, author of Futebol Nation and the two have a nice back-and-forth about the game, and rather than talk about the significantly oppressive context to the World Cup in Brazil and the emergence of a social movement which is again being extensively documented elsewhere and so I'm assuming they know about it? But instead, they mostly talk about this “beautiful game” that they love, and what it represents to Brazilian culture and identity. Goldblatt does acknowledge at the 14.10 mark that there’s a good reason why soccer’s being backed by the Brazilian government as a “bread and circus” approach to social control, but they gloss over it mostly, and again, there’s that takeaway that they hope nobody “gets hurt”.

And the whole thing just leaves you with a WTF moment, because again, these are smart people who probaby (hopefully) do research before they go on air and should therefore know that a "let's hope nobody gets hurt'" doesn't really work given that many, many people have been hurt so far. And from his weird intro, Jian’s seemingly aware of the context but kinda decides to screw it and instead go his first hunch about the awesomeness of the whole thing.

So yeah, Jian Ghomeshi!

Killer garage sale finds

Andrew — Sun, 25 May 2014 10:06:59 +0000

I managed to hit five separate garage sales as my family and I made our way from one end of the island to the other yesterday. Some great finds all around, but pictured here are two of my favourites:

A Starship Titanic First Class Cruise Kit: This is essentially a deluxe edition of Douglas Adams's 1998 Startship Titanic video game which includes among other things an audio book version of Monty Python alumni Terry Jones's Starship Titanic novelization, a copy of the game itself, a copy of the Starship Titanic in-flight magazine as conceived by Douglas Adams, the game's official strategy guide and a sleek pair of 3-D glasses.
Timothy McSweeny's Quarterly Concern #19: Issue 19 of McSweeny's is a weathered looking cigar box filled with interesting ephemera that includes among other things a letter from Donald Rumsfeld, two intriguing black and whit photographs, guides to fallout protection air raid safety, the dental records of George W. Bush and seven works of fiction.

With the 2014 garage sale season just barely begun, I can only conclude that I'm off to a solid start.

Tags:

garage sales

Kit Williams is the bad-assed king of puzzle books

Andrew — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 00:43:03 +0000

It was the early eighties. In a shady and disreputable bookstore in the even shadier and more disreputable city of Calgary I found myself drawn in by the sinister cover of a mysterious book: Kit William's 'Masquerade'.

The dust jacket said it all:

Somewhere in Britain Jack Hare lost the Moon's gift, the golden hare shown above, adorned with precious stones and faience, a rare compound used by the ancient Egyptians to grace the Pharaohs. This extraordinary jewel, made by Kit Williams out of 18-carat gold, lies buried in a ceramic container bearing the following inscription: " I am the Keeper of the Jewel of MASQUERADE which lies waiting safe inside me for you or Eternity." The precise location of the jewel is told in Masquerade by means of clues both visual and verbal. The jewel will belong to whoever discovers its hiding place. No knowledge of British geography is required. Kit Williams has said that the riddle could be solved by a child of ten as easily as by a college graduate.

I was hooked and my birthday money was soon spent and the book was in my hands. I spent a significant part of that Summer pouring over Mr. William's book studying it from various angles, endeavoring to find a solution. I did not succeed.

Thirty-odd Summers have passed since then and the book has sat all this time neglected and forgotten on my shelves. This Summer, I'm dusting it off and going in for round two.

Tags:

puzzle books

codes

Kit Williams

So many choices!

Andrew — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 00:15:48 +0000

I didn't think it could happen. I didn't believe that I was even remotely susceptible to charms and wiles of reality television. Those smarmy bastards at Reality TV Co. Inc. have at long last found my weakness and Harlan Ellison's "Glass Teat" calls out to me with a siren song of taxidermic offerings.

Some of you may know that I spent the better part of a decade professionally impersonating a Taxidermist. At first this was a done as a lark--an ironic tribute to the quirky backwoods hill folk that added so much color to my childhood years in rural British Columbia. Eventually, as I endeavored to shore my impersonation skills and provide convincing dialog and action for newspaper photo shoots and the like I developed a genuine interest in the art of taxidermy.

And so this is my dilemma: we live in a world where at least three reality television shows have been devoted to the art of taxidermy:

AMC's Immortalized: a competition occurs each week between two taxidermists to create an artistic masterpiece that aligns to set theme. Judges range from a bearded comedian to the head taxidermist at the Smithsonian.
Animal Planet's American Stuffers: a nuts and bolts, molds and wires romp that follows Arkansa's 'Xtreme Taxidermy' through a unique project in every episode.
History channel's Mounted in Alaska: follows a similar pattern to American Stuffers but focuses on Knight's Taxidermy Inc. of Anchorage Alaska. This one appears to have been canceled after the first season, but it's still out there for your viewing pleasure.

Given my penchant for cryptozoology-inspired taxidermic experimentation and Frankensteinesque animal hybrids I'm pretty sure 'Immortalized' is the show for me.

Tags:

taxidermy

reality television

HIGH ALERT

Hallowing Our Ground: Z'Isle Imagines Post-Apocalyptic Montreal

McGill Explorations Round 6: the MacDonald Engineering Building

McGill Explorations Round 5: the Royal Victoria Hospital

McGill Explorations Round 4: Strathcona Anatomy and Dentistry Building

Playing D&D with kids

Cops in Montreal no longer give a shit about their image: now beating up school janitors and teachers

Oh Ghomeshi... *facepalm* #1: A cultural gathering rivaled only by... the United Nations. But bigger. More relevant.

Killer garage sale finds

Kit Williams is the bad-assed king of puzzle books

So many choices!

Oh Ghomeshi... facepalm #1: A cultural gathering rivaled only by... the United Nations. But bigger. More relevant.