The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

The Toronto International Film Festival 2008, which takes place here in Accordion City and runs from September 4th through 13th, has released their full schedule of films. Over its 10 days, they will show 312 films on 36 screens throughout the city; the films will hail from 64 countries (this is fewer films than last year, but more screens).

If you want to see the full schedule, it’s here.

The Festival’s New Home: Yonge-Dundas Square

I’ve got to hand it to Sam Javanrouh, who took this picture. He pulled off a minor miracle, making Yonge-Dundas Square look like some place you might actually want to visit.
Click the photo to see the original.

The new hub of the festival will be Yonge-Dundas Square, which should prove to be an interesting change. The old location, Yorkville, was a pretty nice strolling neighbourhood, while Yonge-Dundas square is closer in spirit to crass main drags like Times Square, after which it seems to have been modelled. This is smack dab in the seething pit of Yonge Street, is dominated by cheap-bordering-on-disposable club clothes, grey market electronics, porn shops and peeler bars, pizza, pizza, pizza.

It seems to be a bit short on Festival-grade restaurants, with plebian chain establishments like The Pickle Barrel, Baton Rouge and the Hard Rock Cafe being the most visible choices. There are some bright spots, though: the Senator and Salad King are nearby, and if you feel like paying top dollar to feed your socially acceptable eating disorders (vegetarianism and veganism), there’s Le Commensal. Maybe the fancy-pants crowd will head for Lai Wah Heen in the Metropolitan Hotel or Barberian’s for steak.

The bar pickings in the neighbourhood, if I recall correctly, are even slimmer. The last time I drank in this neighbourhood, I was underage. Are there any watering holes in the area worth a visit? Let me know in the comments.

Map from the New York Times.

It’s not to late to get a better understanding of the conflict between Russia and Georgia. If you read only one article to get that understanding, I strongly recommend the New York Times article Taunting the Bear.

If you decide to read only two articles about the Russia/Georgia conflict, perhaps the second one should be this now-infamous question posed on Yahoo! Answers, in which a concerned writer from the state of Georgia — as in Jimmy Carter’s home state, Atlanta, Coca-Cola and peaches — asked why she didn’t see any sign of the Russkies:

Whether the question was posed by someone who is genuinely clueless or by a prankster, it’s pretty funny. I wouldn’t rule out the former, though.

Inspired by my earlier post titled The Way Movies Were in the Seventies, I present to you this image showing the way computers were in the seventies:

Until I saw this picture, I thought I had completely banished the wrestling term “oil check” [text only, but might not be safe for work] from my mind:

“You think you’ve got me? I can break this hold wi — Mooooooon Riverrrrrrr…“
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele and mrneutron.

Earlier this year, the Ginger Ninja and I went to the tenth anniversary of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, where we hung out with a number of people we haven’t seen in a while, including John Palfrey:

John Palfrey leading the final session at the Berkman@10 conference.

Another person we saw: Doc Searls, who says he somehow keeps running into me every time he passes through Accordion City. I’d seen him only a couple of weeks before then, when he was passing by the b5media offices (he’s on the advisory board).

There aren’t enough photos of Doc in formal wear online. Let’s see if I can fix that:

Doc Searls and me at the Berkman@10 gala.

I don’t know if he knows it, but John Perry Barlow and I have a little ritual. Every time I see him, he looks at me and says “Play the accordion, go to jail!” It’s been that way since we were first formally introduced to each other by computer book publisher and conference organizer Tim O’Reilly at his Peer-to-Peer software conference in 2001 (I met him back in 1995, but I doubt he remembers that — it’s a good story, though).

John Perry Barlow and me.

We had a good chat about all sorts of topics: pain, sleep lab sessions (his were far more interesting than mine), Mormon philosophy and musical instruments. His recent trips to “N’awlins” have piqued his interest in jazz, prompting him to consider jazz tuba.