Guest Post: Andrea Peneycad’s Magico Magico

I tried to trick Peneycad into starting a blog by being all tricky, like “hey that thing that happened to you is funny, you should type it” and she did and then I was all tricky again, like “oh hey great story, why not start a blog and put that story on it” and she was like “no”. So basically she’s the one who tricked me, because look, I’m posting it here.

I was on the subway on Saturday night. It was around 10:30 – kind of a lull time, just before the going-out crowd, um, goes out. I was coming back from a baroque- concert-slash-gay-marriage-fashion-show that I saw with my aunt and my 91-year-old grandmother. But that is entirely another story.

At maybe St. George station, this guy about my age got on the subway. He was incredibly nonremarkable in every aspect except for that he had kind of searching eyes, which are entirely unusual (and entirely undesirable) eyes to see on the subway. The rest of us were playing our required roles of Weary Torontonians On The Subway Who Don’t Notice Anyone Around Them.

I half watched him choose a seat not too far away from me, next to some other guy I dutifully hadn’t noticed either. He then sat down with an exaggerated ‘aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,’ a sound which I can compare only to letting the air out of a bicycle tire. This guy was happy to be taking a load off and wanted us to know about it.

In that exact moment, the man who had been sitting on my same bank of 3 seats got off the subway, and our deflated bicycle tire gave us all a look like ‘golly, isn’t that just Murphy’s law that a better seat opens up right when I sit down, well, gee, I’ll just snag it, it seems like the only thing to do, wouldn’t you agree?’ We wouldn’t agree (or disagree), we were Not Playing. He got up and crossed to sit down next to me, leaving a seat between us.

I focussed on my subway activity of choice, which is to send text messages to my friends, which eventually send themselves when I get to ground level, but once again, ‘aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.’ This sealed the deal for me. I had to keep my eyes to myself; this guy was looking for some sort of conversation opener, and it wasn’t going to take much.

The next time I looked up, he was sort of clumsily shuffling through a deck of cards. Not in a ‘wow, I’d really better get these cards mixed up; look, all the jacks are together’ kind of way, but more of a ‘if I do this for long enough, someone will ask me if I do magic’ vibe. We’d just passed Christie station, which meant I was getting off in 4 stops.

It sort of flashed through my mind that I could make this guy’s night by asking him if he did magic. He was basically wearing a sign that said ‘Ask Me If I Do Magic (Hint: The Answer Is YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)’ but then I thought better of it, and right in the middle of deciding not to, I heard myself say resignedly ‘so. do you play poker, or do you do magic.’

Him: ‘Why, I do magic!’
(I swear, he threw in the ‘why’ at the beginning of the sentence.)

Me: ‘Ok. I’m getting off at Dundas West.’

Him: ‘I’m getting off at Lansdowne! What you see here is a completely normal deck of cards.’

He lifted his deck of cards up, which he was awkwardly holding, as if to prove that there WAS something fishy up with these cards. He kind of clumsily half- fanned through them, so I could vaguely see some writing on at least one corner of the cards. ‘What I plan to do, right before your very eyes, is erase these cards. So, first thing we nee–
FFOOOOOOOMMM

He threw an ENORMOUS fireball into the air, then did some sort of awkward sleight-of- hand and, yup, he’d turned all the cards white. But who cares. I was still back at ‘WHOA. You just threw fire on the subway. Did you really just throw fire on the subway?’ Also, I was thinking how READY this guy actually was for me (and by ‘me’ I mean ‘anyone in the entire world’) to ask him about doing magic.

The other riders on the subway, god love ‘em, they were all playing their ‘I’m in Toronto, nothing’s gonna surprise me’ roles all the way to Oscar nominations. Not a blink or a raised eyebrow anywhere. Inspiring stuff.

With one stop till he needed to get off, I kind of expected that we were just gonna have the ‘thanks, that was neat’ ‘oh really? You really think so? Thanks a lot I have been working on it I am really into magic it’s not that easy you know thanks a lot’ conversation that happens after someone almost singes off your eyebrows, but he stuffed his hand into his pocket and pulled out 3 pieces of trick rope. Kleenex, receipts and instructions for other tricks came tumbling out too, but this guy didn’t care. He was on a mission.

‘I have in my hand 3 ropes. I’m the kind of guy who carries rope in his pocket, crazy eh?’

‘You certainly are prepared,’ I managed.

‘As you can see they’re all of differing lengths. I will now transform them to be the same length.’

He started doing some clumsy movements in his palm. ‘Next stop, Lansdowne Station’ came the recorded voice. He sped it up, and I kind of glanced away so he could hurry up with whatever secret moves he needed to do.

The subway rolled into the station, and he kind of threw the rope out of his hands ‘ and now you see they’re all the same length um bye!’ he grabbed his bag, stood up, and started scooping the receipts, tissue and the instruction card back into his pockets, sliding out the doors just as they were closing.

I laughed and laughed to myself. I tried to catch the eyes of the other passengers, but they weren’t having any of it.

Understandable, really.

- Andrea Peneycad doesn’t have her own blog.
(yet)

PS, Here is an unrelated link.

Bravo, Peneycad

Hi everybunny! It’s me, Stamp. Remember meee? I’m baaack after a whirlwind of fun at Tiff followed by a disgusting cold that I no doubt caught off a dodgeball.

Thanks youse times ones millions to my homie, the amazing guest blogger
Andrea Peneycad for holding down the fort while I was off gallivanting-and-blowing-my-nose.

Fig. 1: Artistic rendering of Andrea Peneycad waving byebyebye for now to readers of this blog.

She did a kickass job of writing thoughtful and funny introductions to all the well-curated links she found and posted here during the month of September. I’m doing my best to convince her to start her own blog (this involves me doing a lot of loud whining of words like PLEEEEEEASE, and her saying MAYBE ONE DAY) so stay tuned for that, because you know I’ll feature it here when she does. Thanks, Andrea!

Twiddling their thumbs

Check out this great video by Up & Over It. They’re dancers Suzanne Cleary and Peter Harding, and they’re making Irish Dancing awesome. So fun, such great music, so cute, etc. They’re so amazing they don’t even need their feet to dance:

You can see more of their videos on their youtube channel here, or look at very cute pictures of them on their website here.

Thanks Marissa for the tip!

Sweet bike o’ mine.

And now, from the department of “Things That Seem Totally Awesome In Theory But in Practice Would Be Completely Awful,” we bring you this amazing design of a musical bike path from the Seoul Cycle Design Competition.

Okay, the idea seems INCREDIBLE and combines lots of things I superlike. Biking along the path, you ride over these sections that activate hammers that hit xylophone-type bars, and as you ride, you create a melody.  So fun, right? Whee! A little bike ride, a little tune, a little more love for Seoul and humankind in general.

More amazing graphics that have a slightly textbook, retro feel and are totally worth a look, here.

This is an awesome idea and reminds me a lot of this video that has been making the rounds, where people chose climbing stairs over riding an escalator after the stairs were transformed into a music making machine:

Okay, so let’s fast-forward to a time and place where this bike path construction has actually taken place. The bike path exists, it’s right on your way to work, you use the path for your round trips, five days a week.

11 months a year.

For the rest of your working life.

As a test to see if this would be a good idea, please repeatedly listen to this xylophone cover of the Super Mario Brothers song:

Could you listen to this backwards and forwards, every day for the rest of your life? eep.

I actually DID find an example of a song that could maybe work though: this badass xylophone cover of Sweet Child Of Mine, by Guns and Roses. amirite?

3D mega super HD IMAX explosion

Tonight I saw the Hubble 3D IMAX film (narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, thank you very much).  We arrived about 5 minutes late to the movie, and I was bummed about that, because my favourite thing about 3D movies is always putting on the glasses early and taking pictures of how freaking awesome we look. But despite this setback, the film was pretty great, I thought, if totally predictable. It’s space, it’s 3D IMAX, they’re going to try to blow your brain right open with 3D IMAX ULTRA SOUND SUPER HIGH DEF pictures of space, ya know? And, they do. Unfortunately, along the way, they create all these ridiculous false suspense moments: “From the beginning of the journey, the crew ran into some trouble with a stuck bolt. Will it come off, or will this jeopardize the entire mission?” SPOILER ALERT: it comes right off after a few tries. <insert collective sigh of relief here>.

I have a really hard time “getting” space, though. I mean, I’m not a total idiot, but I just can’t keep track of the billions of galaxies with billions of stars in each one. Also, some of the images were seriously mindblowing. Like: “you’re looking at a galaxy that is 10 billion light years away.” How can you start to contemplate that? All the vastness and infinite possibility and worlds out there stuff makes me feel insignificant. There’s all this stuff whirring above our heads 80 bagajillion light years away and I’m all worried about which shoes to wear with my dress (Answer: the ones I didn’t wear. Sorry about that, blistered feet).

But I should have saved my 3D glasses at the end and smuggled them out, instead of neatly stacking them into the tray, as I did.

And that sentence shall serve as a segue into my next hhhhhaaaamaaazink tidbit.

I should have saved those glasses because, get ready for this, CBC is airing a 3D TELEVISION SHOW entitled… please wait for it… Queen Elizabeth in 3D. I looked for a link to an official page, but a Google search that lasted my entire attention span of 15 seconds only pulled up page after page of people asking “wait, really?”

Apparently, Canadians can get their free amber-blue 3D glasses at Canada Post, snuggle up on the couch with some popcorn, and watch highlights of the Queen’s recent trip to Halifax. We were all kicking ourselves to have missed it the first time, that’s for sure.

According to the Gazette, Queen Elizabeth in 3-D airs Monday, Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. on CBC Television, and at 10 p.m. Sept. 20 and 25 on CBC News Network. I know I will be watching: are you kidding me? This is amazing. It’s a Television Event. And when life hands us Television Events, we accept the free 3D glasses and we put them on early, taking pictures of how freaking awesome we look.

For example, I give you Exhibit A.

They want it.

This video is why Toronto is awesome and I love it. There’s an awful lot of hating on Toronto that happens on the Internet (and I imagine also probably off it, or what the kids are calling ‘In Real Life,’) so, don’t worry, you don’t have to go to the trouble of disagreeing with me in the comments about the fact that Toronto Is Super Awesome. I feel like the war is won here: you can’t argue with a city that makes these kinds of ads. Nor should you. (Argue, that is. Nor should you argue with a city that makes these kinds of ads. We’re clear?)

Protip: The City of Toronto official version of this same video left out the ‘pretty blonde lady’ comment. Which is too bad, I think, but also so conscientious that it’s adorable. Oh Toronto, I could just pinch your cheeks.

[thedailywh.at]

When I was your age, carrots were bigger, and better behaved.

So, um, yeah. I don’t really know what to say about this. This is really a thing.

I watched the video and I had to check the link to make sure it wasn’t a SNL fake ad, but, nope.

I mean, I can get really, truly, excessively, excited about people eating vegetables. Some of my best friends eat vegetables. I was even into it back in university. But is this the best way to promote veggies? Shopping-cart-cliff-jumping through machine gun fire? Explosions?

Extreme Pterodactyl?

Does this really make you want a carrot?

Oh, sorry, marketing execs and focus groups, you were saying— it does? Okay, carrots, you win. I’m just gonna go over into this corner and shrivel up and rock for awhile. Pay me no mind.

[devour].

An octopus’ garden in the shade.

It’s raining out, and my adorable Québecoise 6 year-old neighbour (all kids are cuter in French) wanted to make ‘une cabane’ outside, with umbrellas. She had a few umbrellas out on the deck, blowing this way and that, and she was getting wet, and she was trying to huddle under them. it was cute but a bit sad, because she was missing a key element: science!

See, with just a little bit of science, and, um, a lake, these dudes created their own magical underwater fort. (this is where the excessive punctuation would surely fit in, if I wasn’t trying to hold myself back). sure, they get at least as wet as my petite neighbour, but their fort is way cooler. And plus: breathing air underwater! wowee!

I got all anxious about them using up all the air under there, and it turns out that that is really a possibility. On the (fairly in-depth) FAQ of their website, they explain how when the air gets thin, they need to empty the old air, and add new air. ALSO, some other possible disaster I never considered: because they’re so deep underwater (33 feet here), if they took a deep breath of air before swimming up to the surface, they could EXPLODE THEIR LUNGS (density of air changing bla bla bla check their site for a better explanation). These guys are professionals, so they don’t go around exploding their lungs, don’t worry.

Anyways, amazing. And if you have a pool, invite me over, kay, because it looks like they’re trying to build them for your own personal use! And you don’t have to worry about hypoxia, cause there’ll be fresh air always filtered in, or exploding lungs, because, how deep is your pool?

Thank you, I’ll be here all week.

Well thanks, Stamp. That packet of lies that served as an introduction is a lot to live up to, but I promise to do my best to keep the exciting content to a maximum, and the excessive punctuation to a minimum (though I hope you’ll all admit that there are some moments that call for seventeen exclamation marks, AMIRITE???? GUYS???).

While Nicole is away, I’ll be holding down the role of Gleaner of Internet Genius, bringing you the best from the elaborate series of tubes we call home. I’m slightly nervous, though, because–at the risk of screwing it all up right from the start–I’m not much of a Cat Person. I just hope that you, members of this community of aFfectionate aFeline aFficionados can be patient and wait for Nicole’s return, because there’s really not going to be any cat content for the next two weeks.

Well, okay, but just that one image.

Let’s start things off right with a bit of culture, shall we?

Probably you have seen this video of a three year-old reciting poetry. (No? I really think you ought to. Go ahead. Don’t worry, we’ll wait.) The poem was written by Billy Collins, 44th Poet Laureate of the USA. He’s a great poet, a fantastic speaker, and he and his youtube videos can help you get rid of that evening you weren’t using anyways.

Someone has helpfully animated many of his poems for your delight and amazement. The animations are beautiful, but I can admit that I’m not totally sure how I feel about watching images while listening to poetry. It sometimes feels like too much information and my brain shuts down. But, gorgeous!

To start you off, here’s one called Forgetfulness.

There are a bajillion more out there. Please enjoy.

Finally, this (unanimated) poem here, called The Lanyard, made it rain a bit on my face, so use caution.

Introducing Peneycad

For the next 2 weeks, I’m gonna be putting in crazy hours at the Toronto International Film Festival, and I won’t have much time to read the whole entire internet and post tidbits of it on here. So I’m trying out something new: a guest blogger! Internet, meet my good pal Andrea Peneycad:

She’s an internet-reading superhero who constantly lets me know about cool things for this blog (and sometimes things that are not cool, at all).

She lives in Montreal, where her typical day involves studying human anatomy, building a massage table out of tree bark, sewing a frilly June Cleaver apron, canning homemade jam, running up Mont Royal, reading one meellion websites, learning a new folk song on guitar, then donning a miniskirt to kill it on the dance floor. It’s a bit ridiculous how well-rounded she is, and I’m pretty stoked to have her posting on here this week. I’ll be back before the end of the month… in the meantime, enjoy!