The St. John’s International Film Festival is in the Air

It’s Saturday morning 9:45 AM and I am at Hava Java Coffee House and Espresso Bar downtown on Water Street awaiting Jenny Rocket who is late bringing in the morning’s supply of muffins.

Yeah I know - what?  Me up this early and out on the town? Get’s better. I’ve all ready been to the CBC building down near MUN campus where I did a live interview with Angela Antle on the CBC weekend morning radio show at 8:20AM, to talk about my film “This Hour Has Seven Decades” which will be screening at the Moving Stories Film Festival this Friday at the Majestic at 5pm. I’ve also all ready coffeed myself at Coffee and Company a few doors down but just moved to Hava’s because I couldn’t connect to the Internet there for some reason. I checked The Anchorage first but it wasn’t open yet.

All’s well though, because Hava Java’s staff have been super gracious helping me find an outlet for my laptop - I only get just over an hour of battery power due to my 17 inch screen and just general battery badness which I used up a quarter of at C&C trying to get connected to the wireless, and have allowed me to sit here in wait of the muffins with a glass of water. And the lighting and music is just right  for this morning.

I had planned to do bring my laptop with me last night knowing that I’d be up and about early, I figured it was a good time to indulge in another romantic writer’s fantasy of mine - the early morning cafe sip and write, where I leisurely reflect on the previous week’s events. ( I think  I may be too influenced by TV commercials with all these leisurely stress-free fantasies.)

But back to this week.  There’s a definite drop in temperature - and The St. John’s International Film Festival is definitely in the air. The festival’s posters and postcards are up all over town, the covers of this week’s arts weeklies, The Scope and The Current, are devoted to the festival, print ads are scattered throughout the pages of the newspapers and I heard an ad on the radio yesterday.

Oh geez. True story. The door just opened and in comes Ms. Kelly Davis, the Executive Director of the The St. John’s International Film Festival. She’s up and about with some special volunteers to go collect the vans that will be used to shuffle the crowds around. It’s a big weekend of setup for the crew.

Oh geez. Mark Bragg just walked in wearing his slippers. I was at his CD Release party last night for the soundtrack of Down To The Dirt - the latter film being screened Tuesday October 14 at the opening night gala for the Film Festival. And by the way, that was the first time I’ve ever seen him perform live and I was mesmerized. Bragg is a ridiculously terrific performer and it was a fun fun show.

Rachel Peters has not walked into the cafe. The Toronto based animator and my co-sufferer of PFD in the video is here in town holding animation workshops for kids as part of the festival. Hope to see her soon.

Egads. This hurts. Now I know why I am a night person, this early morning writing is killing me.

And the muffins didn’t come. I had a multigrain bagel instead.

Writing Outside At The Anchorage Cafe

You know how you have those romantic ideals about certain scenarios or adventures. Like a mini fantasy that has become stuck in your brain after seeing it on a TV ad, cheesy show, or reading about it in a book. Well, I have plenty of them.

I’ve got the one about horse-back riding  on a deserted Caribbean beach at sunset. Hunky soul mate optional.

The one where I am enjoying a glass of wine and reading a book for pleasure, leisurely, with nothing more important in the world that needs to be done, in a spotlessly clean and peaceful house.

And then there’s the writer one, where I am in a Parisian cafe, you know - one of the cafe’s that you are allowed to linger at your leisure over a strong and ridiculously overpriced cup and that attracted the likes of Sartre, Hemingway and other genius writers in the twenties and thirties. In my version I am writing a few well chosen “bon mots” in the late afternoon - genius always sleeps in you know - absentmindedly chewing on a biscuit, my concentration only broken to  give a polite nod to Gerard Depardieu, who is chainsmoking his way through a script in the corner, or to give a high five to Feist as she strolls in for a soup du jour.

Ok, so I am not in Paris, but I am in Newfoundland to write, so I finally decided to take the laptop out to a cafe here in St. John’s. You know, show it around.

After walking the downtown strip, I ended up at the new Anchorage cafe out on Water Street. I don’t know exactly why, but I think I am drawn to it because of its old house vibe, and nice natural lighting. I am nuts about the latter.

It’s not over remodelled, or too shiny, so the old house bones still show. It’s what I would call my fave kind of cozy. Not that it matters - I am sitting outside. Why? But it’s Sept 4th and the rain has stopped and I have this other thing where I have to stay outdoors as much as possible before winter - to get my fill before we get cooped up inside.

I am sitting outside on the sidewalk in a tiny aluminum bistro table, somewhat conspicuously typing on my 17 inch laptop. Tourists heading down from the Big Fairmont, Hometel and Battery hotels on the east side of the city pass me on the narrow sidewalk and stare - just a bit.

I don’t care. It’s nice outside. Which is another ideal of mine - to be able to sit outside in the afternoon, writing away on something of my own choice, rather than to sit in a downtown office under flourescent lights where the windows don’t open.

I can see the harbour water out of the corner of my left eye as I type which is too cute. The Anchorage has  wireless and so I can type directly to this blog.

i just had a pizza. Pretty cheap at $4.50. More like a toaster oven pizza where you melt the toppings over ready-made pizza crusts, so it was nothing special, but it was cheesy and crisp and and it hit the spot. The young man behind the counter laughed at the joke I made when I asked him about all the different coffees.

It was a perfect afternoon.

NB. The photo above is the from the upstairs at The Anchorage - not the outside patio where I was sitting.  I will be retreating there when the cold comes.

Yikes. I Should’ve Been Blogging

I should have been blogging, but I haven’t been blogging. My big beautiful blogging dream was to start this  months ago, during the prep time for my big move to Newfoundland from Toronto. I was going to talk about all the trials and craziness that happens when one packs up and goes. I was going to chronicle my drive out to the rock of an island in a Ford Escape rental that I won (and the drive back) and about my daily escapades in St. John’s as they happened.

That’s the problem with big idealistic dreams. They are really hard to fulfill.

I didn’t do that. In fact all I did was take pictures and videos of my drive and the last 2 weeks here. The pictures I have downloaded and backed up to disc, but the videos will probably stay on mini-dv for another few years.

Because it’s really hard to do all the things you want to do, when all that living stuff that you have to do gets in the way. I have often wished I had an extra day in the week that noone knew about. An eighth day that lives in a crazy dimension, that’s only accessible to me. Lately I wish I had 2 of these secret days.

So those stories I wanted to tell of worrying, packing, driving, and meeting will have to wait their day. The  pics of great meals and the videos of beautiful views, scenes, moose and jelly-fish will continue getting backlogged as I take more of St. John’s scenes and the people I meet and talk to.

But I am here. I am in St. John’s, Newfoundland. My cats survived the flight, and seem to have forgiven me. The relentless rain, cold, foggy misty weather that started since I got here finally let up yesterday and the city is embraced by a gorgeous warm wind.

Written while sitting in Coffee and Company on Water St, while checking out their free wireless, and sitting as close to the door as possible so I can get some of that summer breeze.