The Foul Mouthed Character

 Continuing where I left off yesterday, here's cinema's most foul-mouthed character, R2-D2, whose vocabulary is so obscene that his words are all bleeped out.

More cosplayers to be found.

I liked these tea towels.

There is a vendor I will always buy from, a local vendor, who does pop culture designs onto t-shirts. I have several of their work. This year I picked up a Predator shirt, and one with aliens abducting a cow.

Another vendor I went to is Thor's Trinkets, which uses a pop culture theme on glasses.

These cosplayers caught my eye.

And this was a costume set up in the hallway.

Among my purchases this year were items from two Canadian editorial cartoonists, who were sitting side by side. Michael De Adder and Aislin (Terry Mosher) are among the best there are in this line of work, and Michael recognized me from this blog. I have bought books before from both of them. I picked up two of his prints. A few days prior, he had put this one up online, commemorating the late Dolly Parton.

My other choice was also musical, but very Canadian. De Adder did this one after the death of Gord Downie, the lead singer of the Tragically Hip, who died in 2017 of a brain tumour. He created a Canadian flag consisting of lyrics from the band.

Terry Mosher goes by the nom de guerre Aislin in the Montreal Gazette, and I saw this in his social media feed some days before. There was no way the paper would publish this one given the language, but it sums up the feelings of many Canadians these days.

I also bought a book by Aislin on his memories of the 1976 Olympics.

Not Wise To Upset A Wookie

 In the first half of September, Ottawa Comiccon happened. I've been going for years, to pick up merchandise and to photograph. It takes place in a convention centre near the airport over three days. I came on the Sunday, and it was busy.

These swords are impressive.

These masks caught my eye.

Plenty of cosplayers are to be found, including this fellow from Star Wars.

There's a local Star Wars cosplay group that always participates in this event, and can be found in community events around the region on a regular basis. This was the most impressive Chewbacca costume I've seen.

I carried on.

More swords and axes. I was tempted, but where would you put them?

These were my favourite cosplayers of the event, a couple who came as Rogue and Gambit of the X-Men.

I'll leave off here, and pick up again tomorrow. 

Ghosts, Goblins, And Hallowe'en Night

 It is Hallowe'en today, and so time for the proverbial things that go bump in the night. I tend to spend a lot of time in and around the Glebe neighbourhood, and homes and businesses do a lot of decorating for the occasion. This is the front window display of a pet grooming business.

Homes have a lot of creative ideas in the neighbourhood in how they decorate.

On Wednesday night, I went to the National Arts Centre for a Hallowe'en theme concert, with classical music and film score selections appropriate to the occasion. One of the large spaces in the building was decorated for photo ops.

Lots of guests were wearing costumes for this, the first night of a three night run of the concert, and most of the orchestra were in costume as well. It was a fun concert, and well worth attending. From the classical side of things, there were pieces like Ride of the Valkyries, The Hall of the Mountain King, Witches' Ride from Hansel and Gretel, and the Danse Macabre by Saint-Saens.

Film score selections included music from Psycho, Joker, The Witches Of Eastwick, Aliens, Signs, Jaws, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the Harry Potter films. The conductor was a delight, remarking on how her father had taken the family to see Aliens when she was six, and of course it terrified her. She also remarked on how the music for that film is beautiful, thrilling, and even violent, and the suite they played definitely reflected that. It is an odd thing to both have music make you smile, and unnerve you, best reflected in the opening notes of the Jaws theme. And closing a concert like this with music from Harry Potter? Just perfect.

The Time That Is Given To Us

 One of the vendors I bought some goods from was this one, whose primary specialty was cutting boards and coasters in wood, with a pop culture theme.

The map of Middle Earth on this cutting board was particularly appreciated. If I had a larger kitchen- or to be more precise did any cooking- I would have picked it up.

Thor's Trinkets is the name of an eastern Ontario artisan who does pop culture on beer mugs and other glassware as the bulk of her work. I have a good number of beer mugs and other glasses from her, and picked up a couple of glass coffee mugs this time out. Note the various genres represented here.

Another place I stopped by sells these t-shirts. They are pop culture icons largely done as silhouette, and most of them brown on a black t-shirt, but not all as you can see. I have several of them already, including the Batman one at top left, and bought two more this time out- a Star Wars one and a Godzilla one.

These cosplayers caught my eye- Wolverine, Juggernaut, and Mystique, all of the X-Men corner of Marvel.

The woman's Mystique make up was particularly effective- the character is a shape changer, and this woman decided to depict Mystique mid-transformation from her usual blue skinned self into whoever she's impersonating.

I chatted with a longtime Marvel artist who always turns up at these things, and bought some graphic novels from him to add to the others I had bought from other dealers. And I bought a few more things, shown here at home. While walking through, I had noticed several dinosaurs like this from one vendor; I returned and bought a triceratops. It now sits on top of my desk.

One of my favourite quotes from the Lord of the Rings; this sign came home with me.

My two new mugs. The one at left is definitely me, while the one at the right shows my LOTR fandom.

And I got four coasters- three of which were Star Wars related, and another featuring Groot from Marvel comics- and a bottle opener from the Harry Potter side of things.