Edmonton 4: the two chinatowns
see eliciam for entries 2 and 3...
Edmonton has 2 chinatowns, sort of... one is a wing of the West Edmonton Mall, and is pretty sad and/or funny. Anchored by a big Asian grocery store, it has a big ornate arch and a fountain type thing with a dragon. The other stores in West Ed's chinatown are all completely un-ethnic--an optometrist, a travel shop, and a few others that are unmemorable.
We drove through the other Chinatown on the way back into town from the Mall. It was a few blocks large and didn't really seem like it's own distinct district, as in Portland or Seattle.
The mall was quite an experience... surprisingly dead for all the hoopla. The live dolphins that I had heard so much about were absent, after 2 of the three of them died. A huge pirate ship is in the water at one end (where I think the dolphins used to be) but you can't board it, sadly, and the giant waterpark within the mall is huge and cool and I wanted to go until one of the Edmontonians told me it's the only place in Edmonton that has cockroaches. Not that I'm bug-phobic, but somethings wrong if it's the ONLY place with cockroaches. A big gang of us from the festival bowled, and I lamented that I had not brought at least my own shoes.
In addition to being several variety of NERD simultaneously, I think I'm now a bowling nerd, too. I say that because (1) I considered travelling here with my own ball because I had heard rumor that we'd be bowling and (2) I'm capable of writing the following sentence - "I didn't do very well, under my average, because I couldn't find a house ball with enough grip as to what I'm used to, and consequently spend the first two games making adjustments to finally find the pocket on two inadequate lanes that hadn't properly been dressed." My best score was 169.
Speaking of nerds, there are a lot of the comic book / sci fi variety among the Edmonton and Atlanta improvisers. If you're into sports, you're in the minority. I saw one guy (who shall remain nameless) surreptitiously tuck some kind of glossy mag away into his bag... and as we made eye contact he seemed to blush and say "oh, this is my stupid nerd thing." "What is it?" I asked... "a Fantasy Football magazine." I said "cool," and gave the "we're-all-nerds-of-different-stripes-and-I-accept-you" nod. His secret is safe with me.
My hair is out of control, and I decided the other day to tell people that I'm growing my hair and beard out to be able to pull off a "Jedi look" by May 19 2005. eliciam asked me if I'm going to get jedi robes and now I'm considering it. I think I'd like to wear it to work once a week or so.
Shows have been good but I'm sick of TS matches. The non-TS shows have been of all different varieties... from our Disaster film ("constitutional angst" was another suggestion that we had that miss thing left out of her desc), to a fun, costumed murder mystery (Atlanta), Crumbs two-man + musician show (Winnipeg), a decent-except-the-lights-kept-editing-us Translation show hosted by Maja (Ljubljana, Slovenia), and the Albert which we workshopped and turned in a good show of (that was Vienna's night). The vibe of the fest is pretty cool... a lot of asking people from other groups to sit in with you on your TS team, or your non-TS show
I remembered that I had suggested an alternate name for Albert, which was not really the name for the form at first, but Ruth Zaporah's name for Harold, because she kept forgetting what it was called and we kept using Harold as a reference point (all the improvisers that year knew harold but Zaporah didn't). So when it came time to name the form, based off of the Rosenthal and Zaporah work, distilled into a performance form by Randy, I suggested "Magic Dragon," because that was a running joke between Henk and I, since that was the mall-grade chinese restaurant in Seattle Center that we ate at when we were workshopping there that year.
RANDOM STUFF:
- We're staying at a dorm at St. Josephs, a catholic college that is now part of University of Alberta. I feel like I should be studying, or pulling all nighters.
- I did laundry with the Fandango guy.
- Jeron, in addition to being a Belgian soap star, did voices for Triplettes of Belleville.
- Edmonton has the best gyros (donair) I've had in a long time.
- I won $16 playing poker at the edmonton mall.
- I got a backhanded compliment (from a guy who I've decided is an ass) that Seattle's improv is "more artsy, not as funny... like the wheat bread of improv, more nutrients, and sometimes you need wheat bread."
- If you forget someone's name from Atlanta, "Matt" is a good guess.
- If you forget someone's name from Edmonton, "Chris" is a good guess.
Edmonton has 2 chinatowns, sort of... one is a wing of the West Edmonton Mall, and is pretty sad and/or funny. Anchored by a big Asian grocery store, it has a big ornate arch and a fountain type thing with a dragon. The other stores in West Ed's chinatown are all completely un-ethnic--an optometrist, a travel shop, and a few others that are unmemorable.
We drove through the other Chinatown on the way back into town from the Mall. It was a few blocks large and didn't really seem like it's own distinct district, as in Portland or Seattle.
The mall was quite an experience... surprisingly dead for all the hoopla. The live dolphins that I had heard so much about were absent, after 2 of the three of them died. A huge pirate ship is in the water at one end (where I think the dolphins used to be) but you can't board it, sadly, and the giant waterpark within the mall is huge and cool and I wanted to go until one of the Edmontonians told me it's the only place in Edmonton that has cockroaches. Not that I'm bug-phobic, but somethings wrong if it's the ONLY place with cockroaches. A big gang of us from the festival bowled, and I lamented that I had not brought at least my own shoes.
In addition to being several variety of NERD simultaneously, I think I'm now a bowling nerd, too. I say that because (1) I considered travelling here with my own ball because I had heard rumor that we'd be bowling and (2) I'm capable of writing the following sentence - "I didn't do very well, under my average, because I couldn't find a house ball with enough grip as to what I'm used to, and consequently spend the first two games making adjustments to finally find the pocket on two inadequate lanes that hadn't properly been dressed." My best score was 169.
Speaking of nerds, there are a lot of the comic book / sci fi variety among the Edmonton and Atlanta improvisers. If you're into sports, you're in the minority. I saw one guy (who shall remain nameless) surreptitiously tuck some kind of glossy mag away into his bag... and as we made eye contact he seemed to blush and say "oh, this is my stupid nerd thing." "What is it?" I asked... "a Fantasy Football magazine." I said "cool," and gave the "we're-all-nerds-of-different-stripes-and-I-accept-you" nod. His secret is safe with me.
My hair is out of control, and I decided the other day to tell people that I'm growing my hair and beard out to be able to pull off a "Jedi look" by May 19 2005. eliciam asked me if I'm going to get jedi robes and now I'm considering it. I think I'd like to wear it to work once a week or so.
Shows have been good but I'm sick of TS matches. The non-TS shows have been of all different varieties... from our Disaster film ("constitutional angst" was another suggestion that we had that miss thing left out of her desc), to a fun, costumed murder mystery (Atlanta), Crumbs two-man + musician show (Winnipeg), a decent-except-the-lights-kept-editing-us Translation show hosted by Maja (Ljubljana, Slovenia), and the Albert which we workshopped and turned in a good show of (that was Vienna's night). The vibe of the fest is pretty cool... a lot of asking people from other groups to sit in with you on your TS team, or your non-TS show
I remembered that I had suggested an alternate name for Albert, which was not really the name for the form at first, but Ruth Zaporah's name for Harold, because she kept forgetting what it was called and we kept using Harold as a reference point (all the improvisers that year knew harold but Zaporah didn't). So when it came time to name the form, based off of the Rosenthal and Zaporah work, distilled into a performance form by Randy, I suggested "Magic Dragon," because that was a running joke between Henk and I, since that was the mall-grade chinese restaurant in Seattle Center that we ate at when we were workshopping there that year.
RANDOM STUFF:
- We're staying at a dorm at St. Josephs, a catholic college that is now part of University of Alberta. I feel like I should be studying, or pulling all nighters.
- I did laundry with the Fandango guy.
- Jeron, in addition to being a Belgian soap star, did voices for Triplettes of Belleville.
- Edmonton has the best gyros (donair) I've had in a long time.
- I won $16 playing poker at the edmonton mall.
- I got a backhanded compliment (from a guy who I've decided is an ass) that Seattle's improv is "more artsy, not as funny... like the wheat bread of improv, more nutrients, and sometimes you need wheat bread."
- If you forget someone's name from Atlanta, "Matt" is a good guess.
- If you forget someone's name from Edmonton, "Chris" is a good guess.