I went to see Cirque du Soleil last night. It was pretty entertaining. Some of the acts were really fun, but then there were others that were sort of uninteresting to watch. Spoilers after the jump.

The show started out with the second largest giant egg I’ve seen in the middle of the stage. Ovo it seems is an egg (the third largest egg I’ve ever seen) and is the focus of the entire story. A lanky and typically French comedic style character gets his egg stolen by bugs. Then falls in love with a bulbous ladybug and gets tips from some head honcho bug. Anyways, now to the circus performances:

I may not remember them all and the order may be a bit messed up, but here it goes:

The first act was a variation of a standing perch pole where the performer did a number of perches on top of a metal pole with a metal spiral attached. I feel like the audience wasn’t really aware of how impressive this act was. This was the only act where the audience needed to be cued to clap; The performer used spirit fingers interestingly enough to cue the audience to clap.

Then came 6 couch jugglers who juggled large cylinders painted like Kiwis and some other cylindrical objects painted like corn cobs. I feel like the ‘showmanship’ of this group was the best. I’m always a fan for couch juggling for some reason and this was no exception.

Now my memory is sort of lacking here but I believe it was an aerial silk act that came next. Although impressive, they quickly moved onto a two person corde lisse which I guess was the main part of the performance act. The best part was when they tied a bowline and made a swing out of the rope.

Then I think it was a dual cradle act with a standing platform in the middle. This was the act with the most mistakes. 3 of the artists fell into the net below. I believe twice it was because the man on the cradle launched the jumper too far and the catchers on the central platform were unable to catch her. At least that’s what it looked like. Impressive nonetheless. I think I was more scared that the jumpers would jump into the wires holding the platform than of them falling.

This act was followed by a 30 minute intermission. Note to self: Don’t buy drinks at Cirque du Soleil. 2 juices for $8.

The next act was 3 contortionists dressed up as spiders. I think contortionists are the creepiest acts in any circus. It’s just gross I think to see people bending themselves in ways you hope never to see somebody bend themself.

Then was a chinese yo-yo act. There was some juggling involved too and at the end the yo-yo artist had 4 chinese yo-yo’s in the air at the same time. I think the best part was when he was juggling them behind his back.

Then came the 5 woman adagio act. Very impressive. I remember the first time I was really impressed with an adagio act, it was 2 men completely painted in gold. This one was impressive as well, but they didn’t really hold the poses for too long.

Then there was a slacklining act. I feel that, after hearing a lot of people talking later on in the evening at the bus stop, that most people thought this was the best act of the night. The artist balanced using a crutch like object and later on, balanced on the slackline on top of a modified unicycle controlled by his hands (yes hes was upside down).

There was also a clown act where the ringmaster went around pulling people from their chairs and got them to do embarassing things in front of the crowd. I think this part also involved a lot of popcorn throwing.

Then there was the final act of the evening which was the trampoline/wall climb act. There’s always a wall climb act or something to do with the back wall it seems. Anyways, it was a lot of jumping and spinning and falling from high heights onto trampolines and walking up walls. It was very upbeat and a good way to end the night.

All in all I think it was enjoyable. I was especially pleased with the seats as I realized that if you were to see it from the side, a lot of the performances would be obscured. I was just off center midway up the rows. The way to go watch Cirque du Soleil is definately by bike. Just seeing all the cars trying to get out of the parking lots after the show was disgusting. Taking the TTC is good too, but the abundance of cars creates a traffic jam that traps the TTC bus as well. Oh well, at least you don’t have to pay the extortionist prices for parking.

This post came as a result of being inspired by this article on slashdot: “Cursive Writing Is a Fading Skill – Does It Matter?“. At first I was thinking that it was a shame that people aren’t writing in cursive anymore and that it will be a forgotten skill, replaced by touch typing which, sadly, isn’t even that popular a skill these days either. I imagined a world where grown adults were unable to even understand excerpts of text written in cursive and there was a need for ‘experts’ in the field of deciphering the archives of masterfully written literature encoded in this alien cursive handwriting.

It was at this point that I questioned my own ability to write in cursive so I decided on trying to write something. Then came the first humbling experience of the night: I didn’t even have any paper handy to write on, and I had to spend a few minutes looking for a pencil. After fumbling around some boxes to find the last 2 remaining sheets of lined paper I own and digging through a pencil case full of dried up pens and lead-less mechanical pencils to find a writing instrument, I sat down and started to write. It then dawned on me that I didn’t even remember how to write some of the letters. Luckily for me, Wikipedia has a very well written entry on Cursive to refresh my memory and I began to write.

So does it matter if we can’t write cursive? It’s a useful skill, but so is knowing how to start a fire using only wood but I would dare say that most people can’t do that these days. Leonardo Da Vinci wrote in mirror image cursive, another skill that hardly anybody uses. I guess my personal example aligns me with the group of people that doesn’t need cursive anymore. I don’t even use a paper or pencil these days. I keep my grocery list on my phone, and the only time I ever use a pen is to sign receipts or checks. Maybe the paperless office is promoting the cursive-less handwriting.

All the pictures can be found in the Gallery.

* 2009/09/15 Update: Added pictures from the Albacore Harbour Master Series album and Jeff & Ada’s wedding to the gallery.

Grace Samantha Tong at Jeff and Ada’s wedding.

Crazy flooding on this past summer during heavy rain.

Every Sunday in Winnipeg, people go to Portage Ave and set up lawn chairs etc and just sit there watching cars go by for hours. Had to take a picture or nobody would believe me.