September 8th, and a surplus shows up in Toronto of:
- people wearing badges on lariats around their necks (fucking seriously, if you’re not standing in a line-up *right now*, take it the fuck off)
- men wearing blazers and jeans
- men wearing blazers and jeans and loafers
- men wearing blazers and jeans and loafers and sunglasses that cost as much as a small car, carrying weird attache cases and talking on their cellphones
- women wearing there’s-no-such-thing-as-too-much quantities of makeup and jewelery
- women wearing skinny belts worn over their shirts, very high up their torso, approximately 3 inches south of their boobs
- people staring at other people trying to decide if the other people are important people
- overheard conversations that revolve around when Vince Vaughn is arriving in town
- random lineups in places that aren’t big enough to accommodate them
- white tents
- black velvet rope
- red carpets
And speaking of the last item – I got ”hey!”’d today for walking over a red carpet (I’m fairly certain). I got off the streetcar, and was walking down the sidewalk. Sidewalk which was covered in a length of red carpet from a front door down to the curb. I am *NOT* walking on the street to avoid stepping on your swatch of red carpet, so you can fuck right off for thinking it. I actually saw one of the little red carpet setting up weenies hop onto the streetcar while the doors were still open to talk to the driver. I can only presume what it was about – but I have a sneaking terrible suspicion that it was to ask him to drop passengers off on the other side of the red carpet.
*Oh yes, and the fuckhead who lives downstairs has extra chairs on his balcony, and has cleared the shoes off the top level of his shoe rack in the hallway. The little wanker is expecting visitors. This cannot end well for our hero…
Update: Looking for solidarity in my hate of the TIFF, I googled ”I hate the Toronto International Film Festival”.
Which yielded two articles, one of which contained the following quote. All I can say is ‘amen’.
“As I see it, it’s 33 per cent about the movies, 33 per cent about the stars, and 33 per cent about making Toronto feel like Hollywood for a week – complete with stretch hummers, red carpets, and plenty of superficial movie types.
So, while I do really love 33 per cent of it, I still hate well over half of it.”