Film Folks and Underground Art Folks

Friday April 21, was busy as bees staring down a bear at the Charlotte Street Art Center. First off, The NB Film Co-op had a wine, dine, meet and greet in their new digs in the Art Center. For anyone who’s worked on films with them in the past at their old York Street quarters, you’ll appreciate the new fixings, like big beautiful windows that open, ceilings that don’t scrape your nose off when you look up, and a great location with lots of artsy vibes charging the air.

Executive Director, Tony Merzetti and Member Services Guru Kathy LeBlanc were there to steer folks to the food and drink and give live demonstrations of windows that open.

Gia and Crystal were there to watch me knock down a poster, fall backwards while putting the poster back up, get my foot trapped in a folding theater seat and knock the poster down again … all while I was trying take their picture. Notice how they’ve gathered protectively around the marquee. Notice the pleasant smile as Gia says: “Biff, go near the marquee and we’re going to chop your feet off.”

Notice the lack of ceiling .5 inches above everybody’s head. Notice the photographer with the glasses and black jacket. I was in a helicopter over a nuclear power plant under construction many years ago. He was leaning out the window taking pictures of the plant and yelling to the pilot to bank the chopper further to the side so he could get a good shot. I watched the horizon spin sideways and was amazed that Glen was still with us hundreds of feet in the air snapping pictures with one hand and holding on nonchalantly to the door frame with the other. It was about the forth time he yelled, “More!” that I figured it would be a good idea for him to fall out so that we could get the horizon back to normal. And no, in spite of what he says, I didn’t throw. Close. But I didn’t.

That’s Tony on the right. The other two are anonymous IT workers who will be submitting horror stories for my book NotAPixelOfSanity about the absurdity of the IT industry. Once I have their stories, I’ll publish their names.

Not really.

Right after the Film Co-op spectacular, the action moved downstairs to the Underground Coffee Shop and Bookstore for the multimedia-packed arts feast Criptych featuring members of the city’s artistic collective Emerge.

The poster shows your brains on art.

This is part of the crowd. These particular people were working out an insidious plan for world domination. Later on, they rose as one and took over the evening. At daybreak, they let it fly away. I hear they’re planning their next world domination in your neighborhood.

Joss had some of his work on display. Mike didn’t. His girlfriend didn’t either. I think they were part of the world domination plot.

I don’t know who this woman is. But she has a great smile. Later, she took a picture of me taking a picture of her.

Joss admires art as his wife keeps an eye on the groups planning world domination. She was going to stop them until she realized that we’d all probably be in better hands. And then she joined them.