hel_ana | (no subject)

1. What do you miss about Canada, then? I mean, specific places, shops, museums, people, etc.

I miss Toronto, terribly. I miss the subway and the streetcars. I miss the incredible variety of people there. I miss Peter's Chung King, the Balwdin Bakery, Rol San, the Friendly Thai. I miss Joel and the gang and the get togethers we'd have at various spots around the city. I miss walking in a city with seasons. I miss the movie scene there. Little India and Chinatown.

I miss Waterloo, too. I miss the university, I miss my house on Park St. (which, leaving aside the other occupant, was a lovely place to live). I miss the Princess Cinema. I miss Waterloo Park.

I also miss Fergus; the little park behind the library, and my parents house.

I miss my Grandmother.

2. I've always been curious, but why Tudor-era costumes?

Because it's

beautiful
a challenge to my skills as a sewer
intellectually interesting to me in terms of the research

There's also the corset factor; one of the things that you discover about wearing garments like corsets and hoop skirts is that they change your awareness of your body, and how it's moving. And I enjoy watching what's happening in my head while that's happening.

I started to be interested in it about 10 years ago, mostly for reason number one and the corset factor (I'd made 17thC era corseted stuff for LARP), but it intimidated the hell out of me. And then the opportunity came up to take the class with Tangwystle, and I jumped.

And now, of course, there's a bit of the "wow" factor -- it's kind of cool to have people look at something you've made from scratch and say "damn, that's cool".

3. Nothing about you screams "Bollywood," so what got you into it?

It was the saris, really. Living in Toronto, you see them reasonably regularly. And I've always been a fabric junkie, and a colour junkie (when I worked at Lens Mill Store in Cambridge, my favourite task, bar none, was to organize the broadcloth. All that colour. It was gorgeous.) And then I watched a film called Bollywood/Hollywood, and I was hooked. I love the dancing.

But it comes back to the saris. I got my first two in 2001. One was green and fuchia, the other copper. Both gorgeous. And saris (for a Western woman) also fall under the corset factor.

4. So you're going to your favorite restaurant. Where is it, and what do you get?

Peter's Chung King, College St at Spadina.

dumplings, szechuan shredded beef, singapore noodles, some type of vegetable.

5. Were you ever involved in sports, like your brother with his hockey?

Nope. I'm a classically trained pianist, and that took most of the time that wasn't spent reading (between the ages of about 7 and 17, I read on average 12 books a week).