Pyrotechnics and plaidmobiles

Some of the most alluring stuff in the Just for Laughs festival takes place on the streets. And nobody knows streets better than buskers. Some pics from Buskers 2003:

Hot Nuts & Popcorn is a well-travelled pair, Eric and Derek, born of the hilarious Alberta improv comedy scene; Pyromancer is a Dutch-bred eater of fire; Lucky Diamond Rich is a busking legend and Guinness Book certified as the most tattooed man in the world to boot. He eats swords. They and a slew or other buskers perform on five stages around the JFL site.

On the visual tip, Art Cars sums itself up nicely. Twelve vehicles (three from Nuit Blanche sur Tableau Noir, nine from the States) have been turned into impressive modern works: a rolling red stiletto, a plaidmobile, a van coated with cameras and a one-man-band, multi-instrumented VW Bug are just some at the Urban Arts Stage (Sanguinet between de Maisonneuve and Ste-Catherine) from July 10–20.

For JFL’s Visual Arts Contest, artists have been invited to create work based on the theme of irony. Seven judges make their picks live at the exhibition site, the Charlot Club, on July 17, 2 p.m., www.hahaha.com for full schedule. » Matthew Woodley

Sonic benefit

A pleasant side-effect for L’Oie de Cravan publisher Benoît Chaput when he launched Mike Watt’s spiels d’un minutemen was getting to know Watt’s friends, Thurston Moore and Byron Coley. Much less pleasant was the news he got six months later. “I didn’t get grants this year,” Chaput explains. “They were cut from $15,000 to zero.” When Coley heard the bad news, he proposed that the Montreal leg of the “More hair, less Bush tour” be part of a three-day series of L’Oie de Cravan benefits.

The tour features the literary side of Sonic Youth guitarist Moore who, together with Coley, heads Glass Eye Books. They’re reading along with Charles Plymell (“the last of the second-wave beat poets”), and Montrealer Valerie Webber. “The theme of the tour is along the lines of celebrating freedom—in music, in words, in thought, in action,” says Coley. “And to be able to come to Montreal, and support the great L’Oie de Cravan in the process, what could be sweeter?” Music by Christina Carter’s blind date project with Thurston Moore; Dredd foole/Chris Corsano Aktion Unit; and the Mvee Medecine Show. At La Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent), July 16, 9 p.m., $10–$12. » Vincent Tinguely

Bottle boys

In 2001, plastic bottles washed up on shore in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli caught Jérôme Fortin’s attention. He collected the faded bottles, cut them up into strips and arranged them into flat circles. Marines, an exhibition of 30 of Fortin’s works is at the Maison de la culture Frontenac (2550 Ontario E., 872-7882).

The light that plays across the plastic mimics the visual effect of light on water. Surprisingly, Benoît Ouellet, an 80-year-old artist who has also been working with recycled bottles, is showing his work at Maison de la culture Rosemont-Petite-Patrie (6707 de Lorimier, 872-1730). His labour-intensive plastic butterflies give the impression of stained glass. Both exhibitions run until August 30. » Christine Redfern

Celebrating lawn
ornaments

This Other Eden—Canadian Folk Art Outdoors has enough whirligigs, animals and curiosities to awaken even the most latent of artistic impulses. Folk art made for outside the home is shown in semi-cheesy mise-en-scènes, complete with the sound of children playing or birds singing.

The work ranges from the classic weathervane to the downright quirky and slightly obsessive pieces we associate with the genre: a wooden cod for the front porch, a carved cowboy with lasso, cigarette and revolver to perch on the mailbox or a toy grader for the kids made from Labatt 50 bottle caps. The latter, made by Quebecer Raymond Beaudoin in the ’70s, is an example of one of the objects made from seven million beer caps that filled his front lawn and included his furniture, fence, and walkway (the really astounding part is he didn’t drink). Runs until Aug. 24 at the McCord Museum (690 Sherbrooke W.), 398-7100. » Christine Redfern

Is it Art?

OUTTA LEFT FIELD: How to get those 8–12 glasses of H20 per day in the face of crappy-tasting tapwater, expensive filters, rampant pollution and an impending global water crisis that could very well lead to World War III? Simple, according to Energynics: “Positive energy.” The Californian company has invented a glass, aptly named the Energy Cup, that harnesses the power of the “left electron spin” to purify water or any other bevvie you put in it. The left electron spin, see, “appears to harmonize with other left-spinning energies—for example the earth, solar system, and galaxy.” The glass has an outer layer of sealed-in water enriched according to the BOVIS scale (developed by French physicist Anton Bovis) that naturally applies the spin to the liquid inside in just five minutes. We’ll drink to that.

ArtsHole

TOURIST TRACES: See early 20th-century Montreal and Quebec through the eyes of tourists John Boyd and Clifford M. Johnston in Wish You Were Here, an exhibition of 58 photographs and a handful of souvenirs of the era at the Centre d’Histoire (335 Place d’Youville). • FINDING FOREST: If the thick crowds at the Jazz Fest impeded your view of Éric Sauvé’s translucent green glass wall at the Place des Arts esplanade, Vert forêt, don’t fret: it’s there until mid-September.

ARTISTAT: Maximum number of lines allowed in Pouèt-cafëe magazine’s Very Short Poem Contest—entry deadline Sept. 30, pouetcafee@hotmail.com: 5

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