It was the day of days. We got to intern with the natural Resources Playwriting group at Factory Theatre. Like with real people who really write plays for reals and legit and a real dramaturge. Sometimes some people say that we don't do real theatre so we wanted to see what the real stuff was really like so came here. It was the 'write' things to do... get it. SO first we made them baked goods because that's what you do when you want to fit in to a crowd (make them love you with sweets). They totally loved the banana bread (which is from our cookbook - notice the product placement, that's what professionals do). Then Iris, the dramaturge (isn't it funny how the word 'dramaturge' is so close to the word 'dramaturd'?), made us do private writing in notebooks that she gave us. AND we had to sit in the corner, we didn't even get to sit around the table with the real writers. Jasp took forever to answer the questions that Iris gave her but Morro was finished early and started writing notes to Jasp in the top corner of her book. Jasp tried to ignore her but she secretly wanted to write back really badly.

Then all the writers went around and shared things that they wrote for the exercise which was about like what was your first job, and worst job, and how did you get it and stuff like that. And David Yee was like "Iris when are we going to do serious work" and Iris was like "we are doing serious work", or something to that effect. Most importantly Damien Atkins shared a story about how he once got a job by making the people hire him because he cried in the interview so they felt badly for him. AMAZING ADVICE!!!!! Oh and Marjory Chan had a job where she sat in an empty news paper box and read books or something like that - we are not sure how she got paid but there was a long discussion about the seating arrangement in the box and it sounds like a dream job (dream as in amazing, not as in asleep).

After all that was done the writers read some work that they had written for homework. They have homework and its not even school. Okay we always do homework but we give it to ourselves  - you know work that we do at home - but this was homework that someone else gave them. And they all did it. They read. And Iris said stuff like take that do-hickey and put it up there and rotate your ankle ninety-six degrees and you'll have a play.   

Then they made us do a pretend interview. Like as if we were interviewing to join them or something and so we took Damien's advice and tried to make them cry by telling them a sad story. Not sure if it worked yet, we'll wait to hear back. 

Then all of a sudden they just left. Like somehow they all knew what they needed to do for next time and somehow they all knew it was over and Morro stole a piece of a plant so she could grow it at home to always feel inspired and Jasp took a picture of a painting on the wall that she liked and Iris said now get out clowns because I have other clients coming.

So we left and we know no more now about what it means to be a writer than we did before.

Once upon a time there was a shoe shine. We cannot disclose where or when this shoe shine existed for the protection of the company and the employees so from now on in this entry we shall refer to the shoe shine as Hideout # 7 and to the employee who trained us as Agent Double O Awesome.

We arrived at Hideout # 7. Well, actually it wasn't all that easy. We got a bit lost and got locked in a stairwell for a little while until some friendly stranger heard us knocking and yelling and they let us out. But then once we got out of there and asked for directions we arrived at Hideout # 7. Well, actually we arrived but then Jasp decided she couldn't work without eating something because she didn't have time to get ready and eat before we left soooooo we had to go back out and find some food. But then we arrived at Hideout # 7. For realz.

From here we executed our training. Agent Double O Awesome demonstrated the patent shining technique which included a fancy blue sauce application and lots of putty... oh and some whipping around of a cloth. Then we got to shine. That's right ladies and gentlemen we got to shine some shoes. Okay we mostly just shined each other's shoes but we shined (shone?) nonetheless.  First the salt removal, then the toothbrushy soap (yes you actually use a toothbrush), then the zipa de do da, then the putty (some call it polish) and a shoe massage (weird right?), then you slap it a bit with the cloth (if you are really good you can snap the cloth... its pretty cool). It's actually pretty fancy if you can do it all properly and even a bit sexy. Also it's really fun to stick your hands right into the putty and smear it all over the show. Well, Morro thought it was fun anyway.

We got to shine a man's shoes under the careful supervision of Agent Double O Awesome. Then we got to watch another man drop off like one hundred pairs of shoes to be shined. He wasn't even wearing them but they all had fancy wooden shoe fillers inside to help keep them looking good. Then a small child wanted her rubber boots shined. She was pretty great. We shall call her Agent Double O Great. Then we got to listen while Agent Double O Awesome carried on conversations with costumers while shining. Multi-tasker extraordinaire.

When we left, Agent Double O Awesome was still shining those one hundred shoes. She might still be there now. Thank you Agent Double O Awesome. Hope to see you again soon at Hideout # 7. Mission complete.

Recently, we had the delightful pleasure of going to the All Green Sculpture Studio and meeting with Lindy Green to learn about what it means to be a curator and run a gallery. While the day was inspiring to the max Jasp is pretty sure she would get board doing this job after a while, because try as she might the sculptures are never going to speak back to her. Morro on the other hand, has had her inner artist awoken and has been in her room "making art" since we got home so that she can "be prepared" if an opportunity to show her work should arise. We shall see.

Here are some things we learned about curating art (in our own words mostly)...

Know the art - Pick themes and stuff and explore work that fits together like a puzzle with all kinds of strange wacky pieces. If you see everything you'll start to know what is good and what is just paper mache and full of hot air (that is happening in Morro's room right now...).

Know the artist - Don't pick a newbie (like Morro) to fill a whole show. Do your research and see the history of the person so you know if they can deliver the goods.

Layout is important - This does not mean that you get to pick your favourite piece and put it in your favourite place. It means that you have to think about lights and shadows and the spot in the room that everyone sees and the eye catcher of a sculpture , you know the one that has some va va voom so when people walk in they are like "wow, that hit me... you know, just hit me.. in a good way".

Also Lindy told us that the best part of her job is when its all empty and quiet and she gets to decide where the new pieces for a show are going to live. So basically that sounds like its own kind of art which is pretty cool.

By the way it's an awesome gallery if you want to check it out: thealgreengallery.com