The rest of the summer flew by quickly. I had less and less time to take photographs as more and more of it was consumed by, you know… I don't remember. But in any event, I was so busy I barely had time to sit down and edit photographs.

Plus, I started to feel more and more guilty about not writing. You know that feeling, where you haven't done something for so long that you put it off because you're too embarrassed to just pick it up again? Yeah, I knew you'd understand.

Facepainting
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

I stayed in Ottawa for the Canada Day long weekend. After lounging around the city, trying to avoid the crazed tourist mobs, I ended up on Parliament Hill with ostraya and her friends. We blew bubbles and painted people's faces, as we waited for the fireworks.

Spotlights
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Through the grapevine, we heard that the organizers might cancel due to the weather, but in the end they launched them. Jas, who had tagged along, eloquently described the spectacle as “fucking awesome”.

Cappuccino
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

When I returned to Montréal, I discovered that the office had acquired one of those fancy Italian coffee machines. I tried my hand at grinding, tamping, and pulling a shot.

Not bad for an amateur, eh?

Pool
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

The bosses had been talking about the July offsite meeting for some time and I was beginning to dread it. For some inexplicable reason, I thought of suffering in a lousy hotel at the corner of Nowhere and Nothing.

Instead, we drove to a lovely cottage retreat, had a local restaurant provide us with gorgeous meals, and lounged around in a hot-tub every evening. I love working here!

Colgate
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

I soon discovered that my favourite abadoned store, Gillman's, was closing.

Binky Holleran, a local restaurateur, bought it. With the excess unsold inventory in hand, she asked various artists to make something out of it. Their exhibit was a fabulous tribute!

Counterclock
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

In my quest to make computer conferences more interesting, I did a cool tutorial at DemoCamp Montréal 3.

Instead of the overdone topic of “How to build a flashy, interactive ‘Web 2.0’ site that only geeks will use”, I opted for teaching people how to build a counterclock.

A counterclock, of course, runs counterclockwise. I ripped apart a clock I bought merely hours before, flipped its motion around, and got it working before the end of the conference. It went over pretty well.

Natasha Duchene
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

tashamonster and rubythirtythree held a little concert at Buddhi Lounge. That's a pretty nifty place that looks like a converted basement apartment. That's too depressing to actually live in, but makes a fun space for a club.

Whoever did their interior decoration is a genius! Colanders for lampshades and a bathtub-mounted television playing Disney movies complete the quirky atmosphere.

Peter Zion
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Because Peter threw a party for his triumphant return to Montréal, we met our really cool neighbour Jen. Apparently, madamewoo and I made such a good impression on her that she invited us to a picnic in the park.

Or perhaps it's just because we live so gosh-darned close? In any event, whipping up a little spaghetti puttanesca never hurts for a picnic that's right outside my front door. And neither does a little bit of photography.

Christine and baby
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Oooh, my friend Christine is having a baby. Doesn't she look beautiful? I got invited to their baby shower where I got to see kids running around like mad, a really happy dog, and three sane men stomping on a wasps' nest.

Dear Lazyweb,

I'm working on the logos for DemoCamp Montréal and I want to be able to make them open content. Unfortunately, the original logos were done in Adobe Illustrator CS2 and I don't have a copy of that.

Would someone with a copy be able to take those files and export them as SVG? If so, I'd be most grateful.

Many thanks!
Simon

Météo Montréal
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

I'm having a vernissage this Sunday, showcasing a few of the photographs I've taken about the city of Montreal.

Sadly, I'm often caught in horrible weather with my camera. Happily, you get to see through my eyes without getting rained upon.

( Upcoming.org | Google Maps )

If you can't make it, stop by cafebluemonday before 14 April 2007 to have a look. Thanks!

I was hoping for a small reprieve in December, but I should have known better. Through 2006, things had been progressively getting busier and busier until I felt I was about to burst.

It is now 2007 and I can look back happily at the previous year. Whew. So what was last month like?

Cute pottery
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

First I had to see rubythirtythree at the Salon des métiers d'art. I did a bit of shopping there, which turned out to be a good idea.

Angie Johnson
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Then a vernissage at Headquarters Galerie et Boutique. I met Angie and Tyson, who run the store, and they are awfully nice. They run an exhibition every month or so which I'm going try to see.

On stage
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Followed by seeing a drag show with ispyagirl and Mike, an old classmate from Earl Haig. We went to Cabaret Mado, which had lots of people that looked like they were having fun! It was just too outrageous for anything less.

Two chairs
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

I took some photos at jbailey's new place. The entire house was bare, so I got to roam around and take pictures of uncluttered rooms.

Skylight
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Lunch with baprime at Café Santropol. It was the first time she'd ever been there, which is quite a treat. We ate sandwiches and drank milkshakes—they were delicious.

Neat dweeb
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

More shopping at the Souk@SAT. This time, I went with angorian and Damian. I showed them fun things and delicious things and they managed to get a ton of their gift shopping done.

Lesbian haircuts
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Then we made the wonderful discovery of cheap Lesbian haircuts on Amherst. I am tempted to go there and check out their bikes.

Tower
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

I had a lazy Sunday brunch with le_maistre_e. We ate at John's, which is a little diner that serves a great meal at 1980s prices. I'm definitely going back! I also discovered that the Lachine canal is a gem, if you look hard enough.

Marble cheesecake
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Dinner with vierge_en_trop, completed by puddings at Café l'Etranger.

Crème brulée
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Followed by dinner at mricon's. He made an excellent borscht.

Dinner
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Leading into the Canonical holiday dinner at Los Tios.

Mark Côté
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Ironically placed next to the Goodbye NITI Montreal dinner.

Samba Elegua
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

I needed some exercise after all this eating, so I saw jedward play with Samba Elegua. He stayed with me, while his band did their gig for Noël dans le parc.

Gladstone & Ste-Catherine
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Then it was more dinner at superfink's, with a nightcap of The muppet Christmas carol.

Felix
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Followed by another dinner at tygrbabe's.

Dinner on the train
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

After that, I got on the train to Toronto, where I spent a lot of time not behind the camera. Although digital cameras are now prevalent, I seemed to avoid getting myself not in front of them.

November was just a whirlwind of activity. I was so busy that I barely had enough time to sleep, much less sort through photographs and write in my journal.

So here's an executive summary, brought to you by my photographic memory. That is to say, my photo albums.

Manhole cover
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

I started the month by flying to Sunnydale, California. I spent a week at the Googleplex working on Ubuntu during the day.

Drinking
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

My nights were filled with activity as well. I saw old friends, like Peter, and made new ones too.

Donations
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

The next week was spent in San Francisco. maradydd took me to a Dorkbot. Fun!

Mark Shuttleworth
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Again, the days were filled with work for Canonical. (I took many wonderfully embarassing photographs of my co-workers.)

Mini camera
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

And again, my evenings were also very adventurous.

Skating
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

I managed to meet lovely people like Rachel, and Sorrel, and Erica, and Sophy. It's strange, but not that strange, how they all are connected to ioerror somehow.

Laughing squid
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

I finally got introduced to Scott Beale at the Laughing Squid party. I managed to convince Marc and Etienne to come along, and I think they liked it. But really, how could they not? There was a steam car, the Photoboof, kettle corn, robots, dancing girls, columns of fire, strange bicycles, art cars, and LEGO.

Decorations
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

I returned to Canada where I attempted to collapse, but failed. gorbash_dragon reminded me just how festive this time of year really is.

Pouring
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

This began a whole lot of socializing with my long lost friends. So I went to a diluvienne's tea party.

Len
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

And callmepavlov's Munchkin party.

5th anniversary party
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Expozine, which isn't a party at all. But they threw one afterwards.

Eric Dorland
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

And ze_dinosaur's farewell party.

Two-dalla party
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

My final event of the month was a blast. denkizero invited me to a launch party, where everything was two dollars, although bad puns cost extra. There was a fashion show, a marching band, an iPod battle (with real iPods), some television interviews, some drinking, some socializing, and a few time-outs.

Whew.

Day against DRM
Originally uploaded by Naufragio.

Today is the day against DRM.

Thousands of people around the world are spreading the word about Digital Restriction Management technologies. The interesting thing about the people building DRM systems is that they're doing evil. They may not think they're doing evil, after all they're generally good people, doing their jobs, feeding their families, and protecting their interests. It's not a big evil, but it is a subtle one. And that's why you shouldn't support them.

For decades, the music industry has been making money by selling records and tapes. This was a good business, because it was difficult to produce records, and it was difficult to get tapes into the hands of consumers. They made quite a tidy sum over production and distribution of art, which is a pretty decent living. But then came the Internet. And the Internet got big. Big enough that you're reading what I'm writing, even though we come from completely different backgrounds and are probably miles apart. The interesting thing about the Internet is that copying a song and sending it to someone else costs almost nothing. Zip, zero, zilch.

Now traditional media distribution houses are upset. The service they performed was valuable and the goods they sold were scarce. Nowadays, neither of those are true. People can record music in their garages, edit it on their computers, and publish it online. The digital medium has turned art from a scarce resource into an abundance.

So what do these companies do? They feel that they have to protect their existing business models so they try to push through laws that would make it illegal to provide abundance. That's like arresting farmers for planting seeds they've harvested from their own wheat. But this is wrong. People are now using the Internet to make and distribute art like we've never seen before. The proliferation of new songs, new pictures, new videos is just enormous. The creative community has exploded through sharing, some of it illegal, and we can all see what a vibe this has caused.

DRM is meant to put a stop to that. It's designed to have two components: one is the technology that monitors and restricts what you can do with the art that you've bought, the second is the legislation that makes it illegal to circumvent this technology. So only criminals will be able to give music to their friends. But criminals will do that anyway, laws won't prevent DVD duplication in Asia. They will, however, stop you from listening to music in ways some corporation doesn't want you to.

What can you do about it? Make it known that you're against DRM. Make it known that you're against proprietary systems that stifle the creative spirit. And only purchase open systems. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but also because they won't hold you hostage.

I have been thinking about art.

It started when I moved into this neighbourhood. Plateau Mont-Royal used to be a haven for starving artists. The rents were low, you could walk to what you needed, and the streets were vibrant. Unfortunately, they made the neighbourhood so awesome that rich yuppies wanted to live there. Instead of creating art themselves, these young professionals do Real Work, and can therefore afford to pay the rent. Rents go up, artists move out, and the neighbourhood becomes dull and dreary.

This, my friends, is gentrification in a nutshell.

I pondered about what I could do to slow this down, and realised that my only choice was to become a patron of the arts. I've started commissioning things from people in the neighbourhood. I'm not ridiculously rich, but I manage to pay for a couple things, here and there.

This has brought me closer to artists. I've never been really artistic, I myself am a technical person. But Artists are not so much different than us Craftsmen. We both pursue Quality. We just go about it differently.

Artists make things for the sake of art. There's a creative process where you doodle or jam or play around until some pleasing pattern emerges. Then you chase that pattern, that thread, until you're taken to a place you want to be. You're pursuing beauty! And it may take you years and years before you churn out your first masterpiece, but when you do, you know it. It will be beautiful, with an emergent form and structure.

Craftsmen make things for the sake of function. When you design something, there are rules and forms that must be obeyed. You search for something that fits your needs within the constraints that you have. You build a prototype and then you tweak and twiddling. You shave off the unnecessary thunks, the gratuitious waste. And it may take you years and years before you know what needs to be there and what's superfluous. But when you've got the right design, you know it. It will be elegant, with an emergent grace and beauty.

So why is there all this terrible stuff surrounding us? If artists don't create it and craftsmen don't build it, why are we buried in mediocrity? It's because we've got to eat, and since people don't pay for high Quality things, we become manufacturers. People churn out dull landscape paintings of boats, or lousy software, or mindless pop music.

Mediocrity means that more people are willing to pay for it, because fewer people are offended by it. Even though it isn't as good.

Sad, isn't it?

I saw Next: a primer on urban painting at Cinema du Parc. It opens to a spray-paint factory and moves from city to city. Montréal, New York, Osaka, London, Madrid, Paris, Sao Paulo. Along the way, the filmmaker illustrates the style of graffiti in each city, but also lets the artists talk about their work.

Many of them talked about their own personal lives. How they wandered the streets and were inspired by the things they saw. Their own personal needs to make a mark. They name-dropped who they worked with and what they did together. We were shown to art galleries where they painted the walls, we were taken outside where they painted the asphalt.

There was an art collector who had graffiti in his home. That was pretty cool, this old fellow in a suit talking about kids painting New York subway trains. And we also get to see some suits in London commenting on a political message, stenciled on a wall. One of them said that he wouldn't like it on his wall, but that the composition was good. Another said that there was artistic merit, but that it should hang in a gallery. A third said that it resembled him.

Business people are odd.

What struck me most were the women who painted or wrote graffiti, because they always came at it from a different angle. They weren't just leaving a personal mark, they were about taking back public spaces and contributing to their communities. A girl from a Berlin artists collective was talking about the political messages they were painting. Another waxed philosophical about graffiti giving people permission to enjoy and use a public space.

It got me thinking about the parallels between graffiti and other forms of art. Here, public surfaces are the common spaces that people want to fence off and keep private. So what do painters do? They trespass. And they build a culture out of painting where they shouldn't. Their artwork is not meant to be timeless, it fades and changes and gets covered up or altered. But the excellent art doesn't get vandalised by other painters, there's a culture of respect.

There are a few parallels we can draw between the graffiti culture and the more respectable Creative Commons movement, I think.

Café
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

When I awoke in the morning, I noticed two things. The first was that the bed I was sleeping in was absolutely ginormous. It had six pillows upon it and was as wide as it was long—which was very. You could comfortably fit a family of four in it. The second thing I noticed was that the light switches were about 10cm below where I expected them to be.

You may ask why I couldn't locate them the night before. You see, I have discovered that the W Seattle not only has an annoying Flash website, but also caters to a very specific demographic. Namely twenty-something men who have too much money and too few morals. And to accomodate this, the hallways were very poorly lit so that girls coming up from the bar downstairs wouldn't be recognised. In the room, there was plenty of alcohol, the furnishings oozed luxury, and everything cost boatloads of money. A morning glass of orange juice would set you back $5 USD.

I went with spider88 to a supermarket, called QFC. Which stands for Quality Food Centers. So I may not be a marketting genius, but that's a really dumb name. We walked through this store, with the biggest frozen food section I have ever seen, to pick up some things. As we were about to walk out, I noted that they were running a sale on artesian water. If you thought the spring water fad was yuppie, this is even worse. When I got back to my hotel room, I discovered a small bottle of the stuff costs $8.

Mountains and clouds
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

I walked about Seattle with only a T-shirt underneath my coat. It was wonderfully warm and the sky even humoured me with a couple of sunny breaks. A man driving a van labelled "Seattle Express" kept on accosting me, probably because I looked like a tourist.
        "You need a taxi? Where are you going?"
        "Twelve dollars!"
        "I swear to my god, it is twelve dollars!"
        "Ten dollars! Ten dollars, sir."
I decided to walk.

That night, stolen_tea came by my room with a pair of movies in hand. Both Spider and Stolen had planned to inflict these movies upon each other, and I was merely providing the appropriate venue for this perversion. What could be better than a swanky hotel room to screen movies about piercings, rape, drugs, and violence? We had a ball.

Spider and I went on an exciting roadtrip on Saturday. It rained and we were stuck in traffic. As we were locating the Portland Art Museum, we managed to see the best clothing sale ever! We figured that if you got a new coat, the protesters would spraypaint you as you walked out.

Estate sale
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

The art museum was great. There was a brass sculpture that looked like a girl's back. I saw Hessian silverware that I would die to serve dinner upon. I marvelled at an armoire made in the early 1900s that looked like IKEA designed it. And I read a sign, in orange neon, that proclaimed FIVE WORDS IN ORANGE NEON. I wanted to take a photograph of it, but a security guard stopped me.

We all went to dinner at a fancy Thai restaurant called Typhoon! I started with ส้มตำ, a green papaya salad, which was absolutely fabulous. Then I got to indulge in a big bowl of duck curry with pineapple and cherry tomatoes and grapes. It was less savoury and more sweet, which was a pleasantly sticky surprise. A little more tart and a little less coconut cream and it would have been perfect!

I hung out with wealhtheow at a record store that was going out of business. Wealhþeow's theory is that their vinyl cost too much. But everything was on sale so I picked up two CDs, while she picked up one. Then we crossed the street to Powells, where I was doomed to buy too many books. I sat in the travel section for a while, when a couple came and asked to get to books on Canada. They pulled out a map and told me they were going to Victoria.
        "It's on an island," he said.
        "I know," I replied, "I'm Canadian."
They're going to get married there. I warned them about the rain.

Cruller chandelier of Life
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

For dessert, we headed over to Voodoo Doughnut which was nestled in a nook between two clubs. I tried to get someone to marry me there, but nobody accepted my proposals. However, the night was enlivened by some grunge punks who came in from a show to buy some snacks. There was a brash lass who proudly displayed her cock and balls. I got her e-mail address.

Spider and I went to Wealhþeow's place, where we were supposed to watch I ♥ Huckabees. Instead, the two girls posted to LiveJournal. After they had their fix, we shared music with each other and I was the lucky recipient of a copy of How We Quit the Forest.

On the way back to Seattle, we stopped to have a cheap, tasty hamburger. Spider stopped at a real American diner by the side of the road, where we got out and each ordered deluxe burgers. They're deluxe because they have lettuce and tomato. I also got to say "small chocolate malt" which I haven't done in years. It came in a large cup.

Sunset
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

I got back in the air on Monday morning, where I was seated beside a husband and wife. This was vaguely unpleasant, as the wife was sitting in third-class when normally she flew first. Her husband seemed very nice and apologied for her brattiness. I expressed concern with my thirty-minute layover in Chicago, but he assured me that it was possible to run from one end of O'Hare to the other in six minutes. Then his wife mocked him.

I managed to run to my seat and sat beside a grandmother who seemed quite out of breath. It seems like she also ran to make her connecting flight from Denver. She flew a lot, so I asked her to help me clear customs, which she did. You know what the best thing about coming in Canada is? Seeing welcome signs that read "Arrivées/Arrivals".

It's nice to be home.

The weekend was super busy.

On Saturday, I showed up to a wicked party at l'Utopik where I met tons of wonderful people. Sadly, this party was held to wish Athena goodbye and good luck. I only met her recently, but I'm already sad to see her go.

helf showed up directly from California to see her off. No, literally. He even had his luggage with the baggage tags and everything. Isn't that wonderful?

Medley
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

On Sunday, I went to stocking stuffer fest, which was organised by emjayne. I dragged Jeff along, because I thought he'd be happy to get out of the house and browse around for gifts and such. He had never been down to Place Jacques-Cartier, where all the buskers are in the summer, so I took him down that way. Overlooking the courtyard was the loft that this sale was being held.

I don't think Jeff bought anything, but I ended up with a bowl that Freida had fired in her time at Waterloo. It's now sitting prettily on my sideboard. I'm still wondering what I should put into it? Cookies or candles?

I'm surprised by the number of people that I knew there. It seems like a good chunk of a social circle appeared and it amassed a large conversation in the centre of the room. I walked around from stall to stall looking at the things for sale and listening to the live music. I also saw a unique computer keyboard and was offered a chaotic child to take home. I politely declined.

Joyous dishware
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Then on Monday, I went with Damian and angorian to the Salon des métiers d'art for the Encore! arts and crafts show. This was a huge show compared to the one on Sunday, where lots of people looked quite serious about (a) shopping and (b) selling. We walked about together for a while, but Damian and Angorian eventually went off to look at shiny jewelery. Which left me to walk around looking for housewares.

I eventually bumped into Wai-Yant whom I've also met at a party. She had told me about her pottery work and so I was excited to see it. Look at that plate and bowl. See the smiley faces? Doesn't that make you want to smile? After talking with her and her classmate for a while, I promised to get in touch with her to order some custom dishware.

I walked around some more to find Angorian and Damian, but they were nowhere to be found. This was basically when they announced that the show was closing, so I put on my coat and left, tired but enthused.

I was beating my head against the wall, trying to revise Linux 2.4.21 such that GCC 4 likes what it sees. This, my friend, is not an exercise I'd recommend for fun and games.

That was about the time that Julie called. She had arrived in town and was calling to let me know. As well, she had been visiting S. W. Welch, a used bookstore down St-Laurent, right near my place. This is important, you see, because she stumbled upon Les Diners De Gala, a cookbook illustrated by Salvador Dali.

Wow, oh wow. I went down there, found a whole bunch of other used books, and picked up this cookbook of awesome. It's absolutely gorgeous.

From Artifacts in My Mouth,
by Diane Borsato

What an awesome geek girl!

Actually, I just posted this entry because of the horrible pun. But to make this worthwhile to read, the Hour has an article about Diane Borsato's work.

This is all part of Le Mois de la Photo which is taking place all this month in Montréal. I'm going to go about all the galleries and see what I like.

Does anyone else want to join me?

I'm sitting in the lobby of Carver 4, waiting for someone to wake up and open the door for me. So I thought it would be a fairly good idea to write some more of my weblog. I think I left out bits about Friday morning, so I'll write about that.

Let's see… I got up very early on Friday morning and started hacking on work. Did a little stuff with WvStreams as the OpenSSL people have released another API-breaking version. But I'm not one to complain, since WvStreams does that on every major release as well.

At around 10:00, I started heading towards the train station. Which is just as well, since I was very unlucky in making my connexions. I got there just in time to board the train. Once aboard, I feel asleep as I am accustomed to do.

I was woken up during the trip to get lunch. They served tournados rossini, which was happily co-incidental, since the television show we watched on Thursday showcased it. Sadly, the train's very did not look half as scrumptous as the televised version. And frankly, I doubt that the caterers got a Michelin-star chef to prepare my meal.

Once in Toronto, I walked up Bay Street to the Coach Terminal. Along the way, at Nathan Philips Square, I noticed a huge collection of people. There was some sort of outdoor event going on. I wandered about and deduced that it was the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. There were paintings, drawings, photographs, pottery, and jewellery on display. I noticed that although colour was rampant everywhere, the photographers as a whole seemed to avoid it. I wonder why?

The most amusing booth there were by some people who make cloth puppets. They've got strings like marionettes, but they're made out of cloth. They had a whole bunch of them hanging from hooks. Actually, there were quite a few stuffed-items, but these were hanging from nooses and had blood dripping down their faces. Behind the rack of puppets sat two very serious looking goths in their black clothing. I wanted to take a photograph of them with their work, but I couldn't find a decent composition.

Fortunately, my ability to buy anything from the exhibitors was greatly tempered by the high cost of original art and my inability to carry anything fragile in a backpack. Otherwise, I might have picked up some serving plates, as I still lack them. And maybe a painting or two. Still, I almost bought some very attractive cuff-links before I realised that I had no need for any.

After spending several hours looking at the art, I continued walking north and purchased my bus tickets. Then I walked west to get to the University of Toronto campus. I made my way to the playhouse and bought myself a ticket. Outside the door, I saw serendipity_wpg talking to some people and said hello. We chatted for a while and then Jason showed up, and they both ducked inside to set up the stage.

It was about then that I got a Jem Rolls' flyer stuck in my hand. If I ever needed a Public Relations manager, the woman who gave me this flyer would be it. She's the most sincere, yet cheerful, person I've seen at any Fringe festival. She shows up everywhere publicising Jem's show: outside other shows, at restaurants, walking down the street, and from what I can tell she does a really good job at filling seats. She never flags, never fails, always smiles: this woman is undefatigable!

I have a hairdresser named Francis-James Hawkins. He was named second best hairstylist in the Mirror. He likes to chat while you're in the chair, so he told me about this art exhibition that he was doing.

I showed up today at Sky Pub, a bar on Ste-Catherine that has a lot of space. There was Francis doing a little painting in the corner while others milled about him and took photographs. They took photographs of him, they took photographs of the art, they took photographs of the patrons, they even took photographs of each other. Truly, it looked like this crowd knew itself very well.

Walking around the walls and looking at the artwork, I realised that his paintings really didn't connect very well with me. I very much enjoy renaissance and impressionist paintings, and his were very far from that. Not abstract art, per se, but they had a very simplistic and even childish feel to them. The colours were very flat and the lines tried hard to be even. I watched him paint and had to keep from wincing as he went over his strokes again and again, mashing his brush into the canvas. There was no fluidness to his brushwork; I couldn't sense authority in his hand.

I sat down at a table and wrote in my notebook for a while, before heading out the door and back to the office. I had hoped to find something more beautiful than this.