Drew, the comic artist behind Toothpaste for Dinner, held a contest asking readers to send in photos of them with their Toothpaste for Dinner T-shirts. He got over 300 entries, and the grand prize winner features an accordion:
Nice accordion! Click the picture to see it at full size.
It’s the first of June, and as Ethan Henry has reminded me via email it’s National Accordion Awareness Month!
Here’s an photo perfect for kicking off this special month…
“Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta…”
The scene: The Bishop and the Belcher, a pub on Queen Street West, Accordion City. I’m there attending a farewell party for popular Toronto blogger Christie St. Martin, who’s moving to Brooklyn. I have my accordion, which I’m wearing in “backpack mode”.
Two young women dressed in punk-goth style walk past me while I’m near the bar, talking to Eva.
Woman 1 (to me): Hey, an accordion! Oh, it’s you, Accordion Guy!
Woman 2: Accordion Guy? He’s real?
(This sort of thing has happened before.)
Patrick Lee pointed me to this Nerve story (some of the ads on the page might not be safe for work): Sex Advice from Accordion Players!
My only complaint about the article is that they didn’t invite me to contribute!
Tonight at Lee’s Palace, for a mere 8 bucks, The Old Soul (featuring Luca Maolini on accordion), with Ratsicule (the funniest, sassiest singing duo ever) opening.
This week’s issue of local alt-weekly eye. Click to read the article on The Old Soul.
I’m planning on going. If you’re in Accordion City and looking for
something to do, drop me a line in the comments if you’re interested in
coming along.
With the increasingly warm temperatures, sunnier skies and the
certainty that Mother Nature isn’t going to fake us out this time, I’m
looking forward to being able to hit the streets and bang out some
new tunes on the ol’ squeezebox. It’s been far too long since I’ve
played and longer still since I’ve posted a good accordion-related
entry. I’ll have to fix that.
Hopefully the local buskers won’t raise the bar on busking outfits like the artist shown below:
Okay, now we’re taking this “tree-hugger” thing a bit too far. Click the photo to see a larger version.
(Apparently this person is a big indie rock star, but damned if I know who he is.)
Starting tomorrow evening, I’ll be at Penguicon, a convention for both Linux and science fiction enthusiasts…
AT Penguicon, I will be a “Nifty Guest” as well as a speaker, where I will be presenting the following talk:
Interactive Fiction: Down and Out in the Grue Kingdom
Sun 2:00 to 3:00 pm
Kensington
Interactive Fiction, also known as “IF” and formerly known as “text
adventure games”, has a history spanning over 30 years and thrives even
in this day of console games. If you are (or hope to be) a game
developer, an author, or both, join us as we show you how to develop IF
using the Inform programming language. We’ll implement a game/interactive story based on a scene from Cory Doctorow’s “Down and
Out in the Magic Kingdom”.
Yeah,
I’m shamelessly borrowing some of Cory’s mojo to get people to come to
my talk. You gotta understand — I’m scheduled at the same time as the Tron Guy.
In addition to making the presentation and quite probably playing the
accordion, I have secured a small number of Tucows T-shirts and the
coveted SquishyCows™ (a herd of which you can see here). I’ll give ’em away at the presentation.
P.S. I’m driving from Toronto to Novi, which is just outside Detroit. Anyone who wants a lift, let me know…