Across the street from my office is a gravel lot bordering the rail lines. As I've mentioned here and there, the lot is covered in summertime with clouds of locusts (I kid you not). And just to add to the apocalyptic feel, we've been staging reenactments of historical wintertime disasters there over the last month (I still kid you not) because the city uses the area as an interim snow dump. Yesterday we recreated an air disaster from 1978, throwing bits of fuselage and plaid upholstery around and lighting it on fire. The extras were dressed in the worst excesses of late 70s clothing, covered in soot and buried intermittently in snow. During breaks they crowded the lobby, sipping coffee, shivering in blankets and looking a little stunned about it all. It was like seeing the fallour from a bombed discotheque. The fire department drove by around noon and a Hercules rescue plane circled the site for a solid twenty minutes. Apparently it was difficult to make out the stepladders and extension cords from several hundred feet up.

In the afternoon three or four of the scheduled extras didn't show up for the shoot, so several staff members donned the wide lapels and patted on the charcoal for a couple of hours. By the way: the most efficient way to cover somebody with snow is to use a snowblower.

My favourite headline of the day, taken from a 1944 copy of the Toronto Telegram: "Watch That Coconut - It May be a Mine".

parode - exode