July and August recap! cap cap!

September 2, 2010 by Kayla Hillier

I know what you’re thinkin’ right- HOLY SHIT YOU D-BAG YOU HAVEN’T POSTED IN ALMOST TWO MONTHS!… or is that just me? I am thinking that. Most definitely.

I’m gonna try and fill ya in on what’s been goin’ on, but truth be told I may not say too much. I’m just going to bombard you with photos instead and then hope that I acquire a camera some time in the near future which will curb my neglect. I think- that’s the plan. I’ve been relying on Adam and his iPhone for all photo goodies as of late and it’s a bit of a pickle seeing as, … well, it is his phone. Thus, my urgent need for photographic evidence and for the ‘documenting of things’ has had to take the back seat.

So first up- was a birthday party where I met a bunch of Adam’s friends and acquaintances.

This photo was taken and later tagged on Facebook- I like candid:

Then mid July Adam and I worked with We Are Words + Pictures on a children’s comic event at Legoland in Windsor with the lovely Mike Leader.

We were lucky enough to meet Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba on this excursion in London- who were in town for a Brazil fest- they also painted the mural (seen below) on the South Bank of the Thames by the BFI building. Tres jolie!

We had a pretty fantastic time in Windsor as well- getting to know Mike and his weird fascination with mailboxes. “IT’S VICTORIAN!”
Taking photos of old crooked houses in the smallest street in England…
And being late on our first day due to a parade…
We lucked out with a sunny weekend :D
Here’s the tent, pirate themed of course.
On day 2 of the event we met at Paddington station and found that silly bear.
The inside of the tent:
Telling kids to make comics because they’re awesome.
No one is sure what this is about-
You can read an actual proper, well executed, article about this event over at the We Are Words + Pictures website here. This of course was written by Mike.
Then at some point in early August Adam’s sister Jolene came to visit- so this is on the day we met, going out for a fancy dinner by the new flat. Note: the canal, the very tall Hilton and how cute we are.
Early August also marked the birthday of Casta La Vista- which is my favorite podcast and should be yours too.
So Adam and I saddled up to lend our uh… support to the boys on their special day.
Your handsome hosts:
Ex-roommate love *tear*
Then of course there was Scott Pilgrim.
My cousin made a comic which you might have heard of, maybe.
It was a bit of a shenanigan getting there, having tickets then not having tickets, then actually getting tickets to the premiere via a friend of Adam’s- then being told I was being looked after but then further confusion baaahhhhhh
The most important bit of info is that although the day was slightly exhausting and full on confusion/ frustration- we did end up going by some fluke.
Red carpet- Michael Cera is to the left in red.
Adam on the red carpet- you can see Mr. Cera a bit clearer here.
Can’t really explain my sweet pose here, looks like I’m pickin’ a wedgie so let’s call it “the wedgie-picker”

Me and Mr. John Allison who was Mr. O’Malley’s date for the evening.

Once in the theater we watched the cast doing interviews outside  on the big screen: Edgar Wright (for another post related to Edgar Wright via yours truly go here.
Mr. Bryan Lee O’Malley admiring the crowd
Micheal Cera:
Mary Elizabeth Winstead:
Simon Pegg:
Who I luckily ran into on the way to the loo after the film and managed to geek out and get an autograph (bottom leftish):
He is just as hip in person- truuuuue story.
Brandon Routh:
Wooooo!
Waiting for movie magic!
They got the whole cast up on stage- really, really fun to see this whole thing happen- from the comics to this … justs :O
I believe I’m also able to add now that I was an extra on the set of Mr. Scott Pilgrim for about three weeks. I can be seen briefly and blurrily in the background at The Clash At Demonhead concert and throughout the Roxie fight scene.
Now for some ha-ha! Only in London would you find a poster like this:
Adam has started showing me the sights in Manchester. This is the Vimto statue.
And yes, like a parent he likes to get me to stand beside the things we see ;)
Then I made a delicious potato salad! DELICIOUS!
Our apartment is almost there- and by ‘almost there’ I mean almost at the point where we’ll take an metric poop ton of photos of all the rooms and post them somewhere for people to ooooo and ahhhh.

Adam has managed to put up pretty much all of our framed artwork. Here’s a bit of a preview.

This is what you see when you first walk through our door:
Glancin’ down the hallway:
Then last weekend we had the fantastic company of three lovely ladies at our humble abode as they went on a Liverpool excursion and then went to the Manchester Drink’N'Draw. These ladies were of course Lizz Lunney, Philippa Rice and Anne Holiday.
Before gettin’ into the booze + drawin’ equation we went and checked out the John Rylands Library. Manchester is the right place for bibliophiles. Remember this?
And this is what happens when I try to take pictures of Adam and I in the library.
Drink’N'Draw was fantastic. For a full write up you can see Adam’s post over here.
And this is Gary made my the very talented Philippa. We’re lovers. I love him. Love.
Unnnnntil next time!
K

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Posted in Comic, Daily Rambles, Neat stuff, Travel | 2 Comments »

Long overdo update & Glastonbury 2010 in Photos

July 12, 2010 by Kayla Hillier

Hey there,

It’s been a while I know, I know- but I’ve been busy busy busy.

I left for Manchester June 22nd so I had a few weeks before that where I worked at The Beguiling cleaning up the warehouse and eating my way through Sky Blue Sky’s sandwich menu. (Please go there and have a ‘Dreamer In My Dreams’ for me- god I miss that place!)

So here’s just a few photos from early to mid June- it was stressful as I packed and tried to get rid of pretty much 80% of the stuff I owned while working 10 hour days.

Hair before I chop chopped it

The tall piles of VHS that I got rid of

One of my favorite streets in Toronto- Palmerston. Made sure to take some time to walk down it one more time before I scooched.

Hair after I chopped it

I had a goodbye party before I left but of course my camera broke as I was going to take my first photo at the event. *sob* So I will hopefully be acquiring a new one soon if you have any good camera suggestions please feel free to drop me a line. I’d ideally like to avoid batteries, I don’t want anything too fancy or big- just something that takes good photos. Oh, the digital age- (Previous camera was a Sony Cyber-Shot so I was pondering just getting a newer make of the same thing)

I know that other people did make a point in taking photos because I failed miserably in that department so as I get a hold of some of those I’ll make sure to make another post.

The flight went well and everything was cool- but I have to admit I was pretty jumbled by that point. Maybe even an emotional wreck- but I kept it all internal for the most part. I’d just sold everything I owned and given what little was left to my folks- I was unemployed, moving to a new city in a new country- just felt a little drained. On top of everything I was trying to keep everyone else’s emotional states in mind and not hurt anyone’s feelings- see as many people as I could before I left, make sure my mum, dad and sister were okay- make sure I remembered how to do the girlfriend thing… bah. I think just at the end I wanted to push everyone away and have some solo time to digest but instead I hopped on a bus with Adam and made my way to Glastonbury. Not something I regret for sure but it probably wasn’t my wisest decision.

I am happy to report that now I’m doing way better, adjusting to my surroundings, rekindling friendships with many of the lovely people I haven’t seen since March- I even found a book club! *swoon*
Got a fantastic new apartment for August 1st with Adam and I’m working on getting employment at the moment which will give me the ability to get a bank account and a proper phone & plan.

But talk about an experience… geeezus. If you want to force yourself into thinking entirely different about things- try to get rid of all your material possessions. Try to push through an epic pile of change and give a brave face to everyone when you really just wish someone would pull you aside and tell you it’ll be okay. *phew*

But I made it. Just reeling a bit looking back. Makes one wanna shout “HOLY SHIT!”

Entirely. Worth. It.

/emo

But onto Glastonbury!

I saw the following bands-
Friday:
-The Magic Numbers
-Peggy Sue
-Lissie
-a bit of Miike Snow
-TEGAN AND SARA woo!
-Phoenix
-La Roux
-Vampire Weekend
-Florence and the Machine
-Hot Chip
-THE FLAMING LIPS!
(this was clearly the most epic day- where I actually had a lot of conflicting gigs- faaaannntastic)

Saturday:
-The Phenomenal HandClap Band (who to be honest, weren’t so phenomenal :( sorry!)
-tried to see The Wurzels and failed because it was way way too crowded
-Imogen Heap
-Kate Nash
-The National
-a bit of Marina and the Diamonds
-Foals
-listened to the Scissors Sisters while getting changed heh
-THE XX again WOO!
-Muse (I heard the Pet Shop Boys were AMAZING so a part of me wishes I would have seen some of their set)

Sunday:
-Frightened Rabbit
-The Bees
-listened to quite a bit of Tunng from a distance
-then we watched England lose during the World Cup BOO- I should have gone to see Holy Fuck instead but I talked myself out of it thinking “the World Cup only comes around every four years and I’ll surely see Holy Fuck some time in the next four years”.
-The Drums
-We Are Scientists
-MGMT (probably should have opted for Broken Social Scene)
-Stevie Wonder

I could ramble on about how awesome this fest is- how it’s been around for 40 years, it’s the largest in the world and that over 200,000 people attend blah blah blah- but you can use Wikipedia for that surely.

Here’s a bunch of photos taken on Adam’s iPhone you can see the full set on his flickr here.

Woo! first Kayla at Glasto pic

Pretty flags!

Adam enjoying a Vimto pop!

The trees have eyes! …quite a few of them did actually…

I had a bit of a moment here I’m not going to lie- I have been in love with Tegan and Sara for ages. AGES. I had never seen them live. Quite literally I was out of the country or unable to attend their concerts for legit reasons every time they came to Toronto- so I’d waited over a decade for this to actually come together- to actually be in the crowd at a Tegan and Sara performance. HOLY MOLY.

*SWOOOON*

I was front row too, to the right of the stage singing every song very loudly and probably quite annoyingly just like I used to do at work when I played their CDs over and over and over to the point where co-workers complained and banned me from playing certain discs. :D

*SWOON* I love you Tegan *tears up*

Moving along…

La Roux

Crowd at La Roux- very different from my Toronto concert experience

Me watching Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend

Florence and the Machine

The Flaming Lips- which were easily the best damned thing I saw (after Tegan and Sara of course)- they put on an epic show with incredible treats for the audience. I even teared up near the end.
Hamster Ballin’

Confetti- so much ‘fetti

Green lazers- impressive

The next day Adam and I ran into He-Man and She-Ra

The next bunch are from many art installments and whatnot around Glastonbury- really neat stuff

Muse

Adam outside our cow tent, with my Kate Nash flag on the last night- heading over to see Stevie Wondah!

Sunset over the tents

The view from our campsite of all of Glatonbury- I recommend clickin’ on this sucker to get a better view, entirely worth it

Path up to our tent

Me with my pork pie hat – at least that’s what Adam was calling it. Actually it was a gift from Adam.

Adam and Me

This photo really doesn’t do it justice, but this was the crowd for Stevie Wonder, actually- just part of the crowd. There were SO many people there. I have never seen, or participated in such a huge crowd in my entire life.

More of the Stevie crowd

Our crew, Beth, Kristian, Paul and Adam (Ruth is missing sadly- she had to head home early)

So there you have it- a recap.
Any other comment I need to make is this: After going to Glastonbury and seeing how lax the security was, how they allowed people campfires, to play with flares, to light Chinese lanterns and throw them into the sky in the middle of the hugest crowds in life- how people could drink openly and freely etc etc etc I have renewed faith in humanity as there were no accidents or fatalities (at least that I’m aware of)- people were respectful of one another and they did so on their own accord without a metric shit ton of police officers and security telling them to do so. It was nice. It freaked me out at first because I’m used to things being so … just intense. I’m used to getting searched all the time and watching out for other people to make a mess of things. It was nice to just relax and trust the people around me to be respectful.

That is all. It was fantastic.

/ramble

Hopefully, more soon-

K

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Posted in Daily Rambles, Music, Travel | 1 Comment »

Anime North in Photos

June 13, 2010 by Kayla Hillier

For the past four years I’ve decided it’s a wise idea for me to work the Anime North weekend for the The Beguiling.

(Somehow I never managed to take any photos until this year.)

If you’re not familiar with Anime North- it’s a crazy, crazy experience- especially to work it. It’s not just the costumes and the heavy overflowing boxes of manga and other goodies- it’s three days of madness. A lot of these kids have saved their money all year just to come and buy stacks of books- it’s incredibly busy and very fast paced. I worked 16 hours on the Friday and then 12 on Saturday and Sunday but it all goes by so quickly. It all blends together, you don’t even realize how long you’ve been on your feet until Monday morning hits you in the face.

Here’s some photos of the manga section and our hard workers- the show as always was epic- the most rewarding part is when you can visibly see via empty boxes how much you’ve sold and how little you have to carry back to the store.

Then throughout the three days I tried my best to snap a few shots of some fantastic costumes:

These guys did a wrestling show scenario I just got so used to seeing way too much teen parts via their holy moly inappropriate costumes that it was a jolt to see man-ness.

I appreciated her puppet- it moved and everything!

Soul Calibur anyone? (Only the best game EVER)

I want this car real bad. REAL BAD. Small cars ftw!

I spotted this couple on the lawn as we were driving away on the final day and they made me swoon a bit. Not only is the dude wearing the cutest bear suit in life- but he’s actually havin’ a thumb war with his lady. ADORABLE!

Victory! Christopher and Jamie-

I was lucky enough to run into my friend Hilary from University at the after party who is now in the band The Skirt Chasers- who just happened to be playing that night.

It was a good time and as always it does take about a year to forget how exhausting it is etc. But if I were still in Toronto- I’d probably dive into this event again for 2011.

K

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Posted in Comic, Daily Rambles | 2 Comments »

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