Malvika's Ramblings

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A Bad Day For Limousines

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Nuit Blanche - White Night is an annual art and design festival in Toronto and it was held on the streets of downtown T last night. Roads were cleared of traffic and it was OUT there. SO many people were out on the roads, a novelty for Canadians and commonplace for an Indian!

(Photo by WordFreak on www.Flickr.com . You can see Ricky and me talking to the corseted girl)

Here are some of the things I did -

Walking in a Red Light Area that had been created by some artists. The entry was very morbid as my friend Ricky and I saw a girl walking around in a bridal dress with a goat's carcass. The carcass was complete with head and hooves and tail. It was skinned. She was holding it in her arms and caressing it, then raising it over her head as the internal organs of the goat threatened to collapse over her head. Next we saw she was playing with its intestines.

( Photo of Jesika Joy as a bride pulling at a carcass. Photo by WordFreak on www.Flickr.com)

I whipped Ricky as he wore a dog collar and I wore a blue wig. We got a photograph taken. Oh by the way, this was a public performance. It started when we saw a shop window where you could go in and participate. Many people were looking but very few were jumping in. I asked a girl, who was wearing a corset that started just under her bust and showed off pierced nipples “What’s happening here?”. She said we could live our fantasies in there and have our photos taken. So we said, OK! And you dont want to guess.. who was Bad Boy and who was Pussy in Boots....

There was an iron fence along the road. It had paper tags all over it. You were supposed to write a secret or wish on the tag. The interesting part was reading the secrets and wishes of anonymous people who belonged to the crowd that was milling around.

Photo by Qehven from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

A shadow dance was going on in a red window.

Later that night we banged into a friend who was with her friends, one of which ran into her boyfriend who was with his friends. So it was Ricky, Jordanna, Elana, Hailley, Kelly, Daniel, Graham and I. We visited the String of Diamonds. It was night and strings of diamonds floated in the atmosphere above the lawns of the University of Toronto. Actually, they were helium balloons with small LED lights all along the string and as the balloons floated high up, the lights swayed in the air. From far it was just lights in the air. After dancing a few balloon dances and making a balloon centipede that ran all over the park like a Chinese dragon, we left the park to look for a chocolate deer that was being sacrificed somewhere.

On our way, We overheard that a haunted party was going on in the subway, but the line for it was endless.

(Lots of crowd on the Philosopher's Walk. Photo by mtnbiker404 from www.flickr.com)

I went home while some of my friends proceeded to Eaton centre to make their own clouds and set them free. Daniel said “Can I make a cloud in the shape of Daniel?.. Because that would be the coolest cloud ever...!”

Trying Spandrea – spiked fruit punch at the Red Room was a good introduction to the good things of Toronto! Friends, a warm pub, wet glass rings on a wooden table. It was very nice and mellow.

And did I mention the UFO wreck? An area, in the open, was blocked by police tape. There were firemen and police all around. In the middle was a wreck from which smoke emanated. A few aliens had supposedly, just escaped and were roaming the earth.

(Alien crash site by Eyeline-Imagery from www.Flickr.com)

In the Ryerson University area, they had put toilet pots all over the pond. Nice

While walking all over the streets we came across the Royal Ontario Museum. It is such a daring and fantastic work of architecture! The new is literally breaking through the old. It is brazen, beautiful, rebellious and inspiring.

(The Royal Ontario Museum by gbalogh from www.flickr.com)

We also visited a dumpster (that smelt like one) that had been converted to a hotel. You could check in, enjoy a sauna, and look at the lovely interiors - soft bed et al - of the dumpster. Ricky wanted to be slid under the dumpster for getting his face steamed but the hotel was mobile and packed up to move to another street.

(Dumpster Hotel. Photo by Tabibito79 from www.flickr.com)

The best part was that we were literally out on the streets looking for fun and action. The festival was being held in different parts. So we were forever popping into weirdness and then into normal life. One moment we would be at a UFO wreck, the other we would be passing staid people in fine dining restaurants. We were looking for thrills and we stumbled upon them every now and then in downtown Toronto!

I didn’t expect to be walking so much last night. Wore the most stupid and quite fashionable boots ever. My feet were killing me. Soon I was walking barefoot all over Toronto. While walking back to my hotel, a cute guy and I got talking. But I was too tired, just got back to my room and slept like a million hibernating squirrels.