9:35: Leave the house late due to an assertive, clinging hangover and a slow evening of hot tea, cigarettes and The Goonies. Walk to the subway station past a few tired-looking families heading home, and wonder if they caught any of the early Nuit Blanche action. Immediately bummered on the fact that when you are a proper adult, all-night art festivals become basically impossible. Life is hard.
10:06: Emerge from Dufferin Station with my friend Alexis. A guy carrying a bongo drum waits at the bus stop, a prelude to the darker side of city-sanctioned cultural events. Otherwise, note the number of hopeful faces and amount of fast-paced texting. Note distinct lack of drunk jerks. Happy.
10:23: Arrive at the Gladstone Hotel. Not totally sure that the art here is part of Nuit Blanche at all. It’s a smooshy clusterfuck, for sure, but the Babe Factor is out of control! What’s up, Gladstone? I like the Tomori Nagamoto stuff the best, until I check out Francois Morelli’s installation, consisting mostly of splayed plates on the floor and kitchen-y motifs on the wall. Morelli (I think) is laughing and chatting, excitedly talking about how the installation takes on new forms each time he shows it. I love it, but then again, I miss my mom.
10:33: Step into a room, also on the second floor of the hotel, draped in burlap with quiet drone playing in the background. People seem enthused to be here, to be out. It’s cold, we’re in coats, and brushing past each other makes comforting wool-swish sounds. Fall is sexy.
10:40: Some dude wanders by with an ice cream cone. Despite the fact that Alexis and I had a teen-throwback slumber party with our lady-girls the night before that involved 18,000 kilos of sugared junk, we’re jealous. Ice creams?!
10:43: Cruise the “Eyes on Toronto” marathon in the ballroom. Not into it. Time to go. There’s a lineup out the door, headed up by a couple in regular clothes and an abundance of sparkle makeup. Dark side, continued.
10:44: Pass my friend Isis in the middle of the road at Dufferin and Queen while I am replying to her text. Weird. Make plans for the indeterminable, ephemeral “later” that characterizes a night like this, or New Year’s, or whatever. A few hours earlier, I’d read Blake Bailey recall Walker Percy’s notion of the “gaiety of disaster” in a review of Julia Reed’s book on New Orleans. While disaster this is not, the fizzy element of urgency and purpose is rarely found in adult friendships outside of wedding days or serious birthdays. Running into a first-string friend out in the world is lightly surreal and exciting anytime, but I nearly pee when I spy Isis. Art! Life!
10:45: Under the Dufferin bridge, Alexis and I watch her boyfriend/my friend Marco participate in an extended drone jam, scheduled to continue until 4am. As I photograph Marco squatting on the sidewalk between two other players, he points up. On the ledge above him by the train tracks, a few other guys are stationed with their instruments. I dig this.
10:50: Walking up Dufferin towards King Street, we follow an excitable group of teens singing loudly and only sort-of in unison. Annoying.
10:54: Alexis and I stop at the “McDonald’s installation” and congratulate each other on our art world hilariousness. An apathetic counter girl verily throws my four pennies of change at me and gets my order wrong. I just go with it — unusual — because I’m scared of her wrath. The guy behind me orders a water with his combo. What? I hide behind Alexis while she orders, and listen to another girl, a definite Nuit Blanche person, order two combos with waters. What? Apocalypse? Water at McDonald’s?
11:09: Alexis gets a text from Marco that a street cleaner came by and sprayed road dust at him and his drone friends. We laugh and laugh. I leave a flyer for the "Explicit Fantastic" exhibit at the Keep Six gallery on the table as we leave, because it looks rad and sexified, and because Zoe Whittall and Tamara Faith Berger are involved, and because this Parkdale McDonald’s is the saddest joint ever and the flier is beautiful. With this, I consider myself a contributor to Nuit Blanche.
11:25: In Liberty Village, check out the large scale “Euphemisms for the Intimate Enemy” installation. It’s great. The Nuit Blanche handbook says “[The artist] isolates ‘abject words’, puzzling statements, euphemisms and aphorisms whose meanings are unclear or uncertain. Transcribed as sound and form, the abject text is transformed, animated, and offers itself in an experimental relationship between (non)sense and poetry, creating a new space for cross-cultural engagement.” I like this better than the art, and my nerd-boner swells. Alexis is bored and we walk vaguely towards firework sounds.
11:27: I try to take photographs of Brendan Fernandes’ “Future (…---…) Perfect” installation (which I like because I read it as a comment on the chaotic upheaval of season two of The Wire), but dumb jerks keep walking in front of me. I’ve recently taken to tapping out rudimentary morse code into the phone speaker when leaving voicemails, which none of my friends seem to like very much, so I’m pretty psyched about this thing. The thrust of it aside, though, it’s become markedly cold, so we forge onward.
11:32: Thinking we are heading underground toward the Ex (no real handle of city geography is had by myself or my friend), we accidentally see a stilted video installation inside some kind of garage-y storage locker instead, called “Untitled, 2004-2005.” Alexis: “The smell of horse manure is stronger than the inspiration for the piece.” Zing!
11:40: Acting on a bad tip, Alexis decides we are going to the “BMO stadium.” I blindly follow her until we’re deep in the CNE grounds, blinking at the Muzik nightclub wondering what Zone we’re in. My friends Matt and Nicole call from the Lamport Stadium, and Nicole laughs heartily when she hears where we are. Also, my pen has died. A tantrum is threatening. We escape, northward.
12:00: Midnight. Emerging from the wilds, we see the Yoko Ono thing but bypass it to bum a pen off a kind merch dude. Fuck “collective secular prayer,” for now.
12:05: Alexis and I were psyched for Jon Sasaki’s performance piece called “I Promise It Will Always Be This Way,” wherein team mascots do their thing for the “fans” and then slowly lose steam in “a celebration of futility and pathos.” On the way in, we encounter former EYE WEEKLY intern Chris Randle. The three of us last under a minute in the stadium, which is loud as fuck and barred by security personnel with a lot of rules about where you can and cannot walk. The washrooms are soap-free and intolerable. I have a bad attitude. We leave.
12:20: Alexis and I head east on King St. to Shaw, then up toward Queen, stopping at the gas station for pens and possible coffee. No pens, no coffee. A drunk blonde slouching on the ATM slurs “How’s your night going, honey?” at me. If I were less of a squirrely awkward I could have swung a quick party friendship and maybe bummed a cigarette, but instead I go “Finethankyou” like I’m 12 and take off. It’s confusing to me that drunk-men-public-approaches are so easily, readily and blithely handled, but a woman does it and I’m so completely thrown.
12:25: Our friend Dylan texts me: “ART.” He’s far away. My friend Lina, at Union Station, wants to hook up. Sigh.
12:35: Trinity Bellwoods SUCKS. Historically, the park has provided not only my favourite installation ever (incredible mini-village of lit-up tents in the dog pit), but also a fun Pillow Fight League demonstration, long-lost friend sightings, a clever pool party, and a solid congregation point. Now, it’s overfull of douchebags playing with balloons. I feel like this is what a cuddle puddle would be like. The highlight of Trin-Bell this year is a great pug with a fat bum. Alexis and I debate the ethics of photographing dogs without asking their owners. Is it creepy? It would be creepy if it were their kids, right? I just don’t know. Great dog.
12:53: Bail on the park and head to 7-11 for more pens. By now my hands are covered in blue slashes, like when I started out writing reviews in dark clubs. Then, I would often tape a mini-flashlight to a Pilot and get to it. Sometimes, I feel like giving up your dorkier urges as an adult does you a serious and permanent disservice. I mean, sweatpants are comfortable. A very hot rockabilly girl in line behind me at the Sev asks the guy if there are any “tubes” with just cheese in them, referring to one of the chain’s questionable hot food products. The entire lineup laughs. I am restored on this entire endeavour.
1:01: Constant, unwaveringly loud bro-noise spews from what seems to be the Starbucks up the road. An installation? Confusion. We determine that it’s coming from a group of beefy windbreaker guys, who I’ll put forth are adventurous 905ers let off the suburban leash for a night of wild downtown freedom. I don’t really blame them for abusing it and alienating most everyone around them. Imagine what your life would be like? Your Sundays? Jesus Christ.
1:06: Bad hip-hop approaches as we wait for the streetcar. We guess Protegee, but it’s a tricked-out white Eclipse. “Ew, Mitsubishi!” says Alexis. “Not enough room in the back for two honeys.”
1:22: Still waiting. We share my iPod headphones and listen to some Biggie. I’m getting texts from friends around the city, weighing in on their favourite exhibits. Dylan loves “Business Class” in a parking lot in Zone B. Heidi suggests “Horroridor,” which admittedly looks super cool, but I’m too pussy for anything like that. (Like, Buffy was too scary.) I ask Alexis if she wants to see it, deciding that I’ll repay her incredible, patient friendship by submitting to some horror movie imagery, but she’s not into going to Union. Score.
1:23: A rig drives down Queen Street. Two people sort of writhe awkwardly on top, while a few more semi-goths hang out down below. Alexis calls it “Savage Garden on wheels.” Fail.
1:35: On Queen Street, skateboarders confirm my idea that this is the superior method of travel. Bike locking seems like a tremendous drama in this situation, walking is slow, the TTC is unreasonably packed.
1:40: Two streetcars pass Alexis and I before we agree to split a cab. Our driver is listening to a radio show about astronomy, and we settle in and quietly watch the street-level action, which includes a cop tossing some teenage guy up against the HMV. Youth! (Art?). Our backseat placidity is destroyed shortly before Bay when the driver nearly collides with a Mercury and then honks with such aggression that I wonder briefly if we’re in a performance piece of some stripe. I drop my notebook on the floor and am so desperate to de-cab that it takes me a full minute to locate and pick it up. Stress.
1:55. First wave of tiredness hits. I should have had a disco nap instead of battling my hangover by washing the floor and running errands. Stupid!
1:56: It’s fucking cold.
1:57: Who cares? Dylan is right. “Business Class” totally rules.
2:06: Stop for coffee at Tim Hortons. I deke into the bathroom for a handwash. Since I’m growing out my bangs I’ve been into pinning the rogue length to the side of my head. I also wore pearls today. I look like Little House on the Prairie. Feel profoundly old, although I am not. Being (sober) in a coffee shop in the city late at night reminds me of high school, probably the last time I was (sober) in a coffee shop in the city late at night. Florescent lights unapologetically reveal baby-fine late-twenties crow’s feet and dense undereye circles. There will be more, soon enough. In three years I’ll be 30, and then I’ll die. I check my voicemail, and a 22-year-old I recently went out with wants to meet up. I flee the damning bathroom, the “This Is Your Life” installation. Alexis and I make fun of the zitty teenage nu-ravers in the coffee line and get the fuck out of there.
2:26: Approach Commerce Court for the eponymous video installation by Noam Gonick. It’s incredible. Alexis takes photos of my hands, still covered in pen, and I stall her, wanting to be inside of this (film projected hugely on huge buildings, executive rantings looming large above us plebians) forever and ever. At the moment, it’s sparsely attended, quiet. Suddenly and ferociously, I want to play Manhunt with all the friends I had in 2005, even though I feel silly and unwieldy running in public. I never want to work again. Instead of crying in profound frustration I click to the photos of the pug from Trinity Bellwoods and think about how if Vin Diesel were a dog, this would be it. We laugh and laugh.
2:45: In another cab, we speed by the “Four Sisters” video installation on Bay Street. Looks dumb.
2:55: Walking west on Bloor, I spot a drawing of a penis on the window of Hermes and lose my shit. Best! I will be checking the dick’s status on Monday.
2:59: Watch the Blue Line bus fill up with eastbounders. Overhear some analysis of the evening while waiting for the light, in particular that of one couple apparently on a first date. Alexis and I debate the merits of Nuit Blanche as a get-to-know-you. She’s opposed: too much room for failure, irritability, boredom. I’m in favour: Much like traveling with someone you just met, you sort out if you’re into it right-quick. If it’s not on, you’ll know. I wonder if this influences Alexis’ proclamation immediately following that she definitively hates Nuit Blanche.
3:00: We head into the ROM. Hearing the very familiar sounds of Final Fantasy, writ large, we wonder if we’ve happily wandered into an Owen Pallett show? But, no. It’s a DJ, playing some kind of FF-remix in time with a prismy wall projection. That’s it. Thanks, the ROM. For nothing. Several couples take the crowded-museum opportunity to make out. Bnarf. Alexis and I check out what’s available to see, but mostly look at this one girl’s amazing D&G heels.
3:13: Walking home, west on Bloor Street. Enjoy the post-bar sidewalk traffic more than usual. Hum a little.