The Sleepless Night

Hey, you all might like to know about this ultra cool yearly event in Toronto. www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca It's called the Nuit Blanche, which means sleepless night. It started in Paris in '02 and has passed on to other cities. Toronto is the only North American city to offer it. For 12 hours, from sundown to sunrise, the city becomes one big art exhibit. There are three zones, each with a different theme, where participants encounter strange, fantastical, and sometimes provocative surprises.

This year, 2009, there was a gigantic L.E.D. light sign suspended above city hall chambers that flashes four letter words (clean kind), codes, and DNA sequences determined by human operators, themselves controlled by computers.

Jeff Koons' giant Rabbit baloon hung menacingly in the atrium of the Toronto Eaton Centre.

Monopoly with Real Money was just what it says. Actors portayed bankers in a "real stakes" game of high finance.

Gone Indian was about a roving truck in pow wow trappings and a First Nation drummer doing his thing at uncertain moments.

Dance of the Cranes was a worked out by a choreographer and crane cab operator (There's a match made in Heaven). Two construction cranes were rigged with eerie blue lights. They circled around to music in the moonligt. Who would have known cranes could be so beautiful.

Cubemmunity was a large cube covered with four screens on which images footage from the neighborhood were projected. As the creator hit particular keys on the keyboard, they threw certain images on the cube. People could dance and interact with the cube.

And Ghost Stories was too bizarre for me to explain. You would have to be there.

Check out the website, and consider going next year. It puts a whole new face on Toronto.