Silver Elvis, that is…

The expert designing the masks for our school show is none other than Peter Jarvis. You may know him as the silver Elvis statue entertaining kids of all ages outside The Toronto Eaton Centre. You might also recognize him as ringleader of The Subtonic Monks.

Either way he’s a true Renaissance Man, and provides a shining example for 40 year-old artists everywhere… Literally!

Thursday – Call for Volunteers – Free Computer!

In the very near future, Toronto Free-Net will be making available very low cost computers packaged with TFN Internet connections and pre-configured for dial-up with a commercial version of Xandros.com Linux.

We have a lot of computers!

We need some volunteers to help to prepare to move about 20 heavy skids of computers, currently stored near Laird and Eglinton (central northeast Toronto.) If you are interested, we will need you from 9:30 am to 2pm on Thursday, Oct 19th. Lunch and transit tickets will be supplied.

Once we have these computers refurbished, each volunteer will receive one.

To volunteer, please apply by emailing execdir@torfree.net using the same subject as this message, stating any relevant experience.

Ken McCracken

Executive Director

Toronto Free-Net

(Disclaimer: The material that follows is bit more personal than my usual dreck, but that’s really why you’re here isn’t it? Anyway, rest assured I am most certainly not curled up in a fetal position in a corner somewhere… I’m fine, really, and thanks for asking!)

Way back in high school I read a fantastic novel called Sister Carrie, and was a bit surprised to hear in a classmate’s book report that its author had led a pretty miserable existence.

Now me, I’ve had a pretty damn good run, both personally and professionally. And yet it seems that personal drama has repeatedly reared its ugly head along with milestones in my career.

Consider that I apparently did my best, Dora-nominated work at The Second City while recovering from a bit of a broken heart. And just today I’ve been offered the director’s chair of their National Touring Company in the midst of my girlfriend of three years walking out on me.

Like I said, I’m not looking for pity here. Rather, I look to the long, not-so-proud lineage of brilliant comedians—and artists for that matter—who’ve ended up dead of a drug overdose in their underwear on some hotel bathroom floor. Not to suggest, of course, that I think of myself as the former or will end up like the latter!

Yet I wonder… Is there some inverse and perverse ratio between personal happiness and artistic success? Or am I just making a big deal out of a coincidence? Come on you showbiz-types, here’s your chance to dish!

This is one of those times, witness if you will, the wrath of Mrs. Tim Tomecko: Click right here, then scroll down below my original post to see her comment. I promise you won’t be disappointed!

Let’s face it, you’re going to be innundated by all things 9/11 today, so I’m only going to second Ed Miller‘s recommendation of United 93, now available on DVD.

Despite some ongoing complaints about the characterization of a German passenger on board the flight, the film managed to do what World Trade Center and Flight 93 couldn’t—not suck.

For the last act of the film I actually felt like I was on board that fateful flight.

Wow.