Happy New Year from the Schmidt Kids

Watch the magic as I, once again, trick my sister into thinking we're taking a photo - in video mode. I've watched it almost 100 times I think.
May the new year bring happiness and success to you all.
Cheers!

"commanding presence"

This post concerns itself with one building: the Aura Condominium currently being built in College Park, downtown Toronto. This building boasts itself for being the largest residential condominium in the country. Seeing as I lived in that neighborhood for three consecutive years, with some affection I might add, I feel somewhat responsible for voicing some concerns about this massive undertaking.

First, I will list my credentials. I lived in The Liberties, Tower III for three years. I know every inside and out to that neighborhood; from the secret passages underneath the Delta Chelsea, to the rooftop access to the LuCliffe building, many of the local business owners and government workers by name, the wind speeds of Bay street, the angle the sun passes during the winter months, the ridiculous service charge at the ATM machine in the convenience store, the timing of the advanced green lights on Gerard street, and that weird little shack covered in pigeon shit that houses a zamboni. I know it all. I have an affinity for College Park in general, and although the two parking lots that once occupied the corner of Yonge and Gerard may not have been the best use of space, building a 75 storey tower certainly isn't any better.

When discussing the problems with the Aura tower, it is important to mention where and what surrounds the building.

Yonge Street, located just immediately East of the building is notorious, among many things, for being the longest street in the world. Littered along this street in this neighbouhood is a surplus of adult movie stores, chinese restaurants, low-end retail outfits and strip clubs for several blocks until you hit the tourist-eyesore that is Dundas Square. At the corner of Gerard, Yonge is four lanes wide, consistently halved by turning cars in either lane and congested by massive amounts of commuters and tourists.

Gerard Street, located just South, is the site of the main entrance/exit to the Aura tower. Conversely to Yonge, Gerard is only two lanes wide with sidewalks on either side (one belonging mainly to the Delta Chelsea's main street entrance, which also includes an airport shuttle that arrives every 30 minutes). Aside from condominiums, Gerard is currently occupied by cabs, drivers frustrated with one-way streets, and emergency vehicles.


My main concern is the utter congestion of College Park. The building is barely completed and the majority of the 75-story tower has been sold (which is standard for building practices). If you consider that the building will be almost completely filled by the time of completion, we're looking at at least two thousand people, if not more, additional occupants to the area. Although the building praises itself for being connected to the PATH system (you still have to take a $3 subway one stop to get there), it is only presumable that at least half of the towers occupants will have vehicles.
After seeing the day-to-day construction of Aura's parking facilities, which can be seen here, it is obvious that the parking accommodations are completely massive, appearing to exceed 7 storey's below ground.

Remember when I mention the two lane's of Gerard street? Now throw the extra cars into the equation.

Today, turning on to Gerard is an annoyance in itself. Confused travellers heading into the Delta are slow, cabs consistently pull over sporatically, people J-walk, and there are emergency vehicles constantly (Toronto General's ER is one block away). Did I forget to mention there are also two bike lanes? The utter mess that I can only forsee will be chatostrophic. The morning and evening rushes will be straight hell and will only create more problems for the emergency vehicles. The corner of Yonge and Gerard will be permanently jammed from all the "don't-give-a-shit-I'm-walking-here" locals. Bay street will be one permanent horn sound, and University will no doubt be congested by the turning South cars heading towards the QEW.

That's just cars.

Bringing those thousands of people back into the equation, let's talk about College Park the building. For those of us who've experienced the 180,000 square foot shopping centre more than once, it's easy to classify the centre as feverish. Seeing as the building houses a 24-hour Metro grocery store, as well as College subway station, the foot traffic alone is enough to peeve any pedestrian. Adding thousands to that equation brings Advil commercials to mind. For starters, the Metro is already insane. I honestly believe that not only will the store itself not be able to contain the demand of the customers, but will not be able to supply the amount of produce needed to feed that many urbanites. Shit, they already run out of red peppers as it is. The only real times to get any quality, uninterrupted shopping done is between the hours of 12a.m.-5a.m., and even then the place is not empty.
Upstairs, the Winners will flood and the Tim Hortons line will extend only further out the door, at all hours of the day. The College subway station will bottleneck, as it is one of the smallest stations situated in the downtown core, and one of the most utilized.

Although the building, once completed, will be an urban architectural marvel, I believe the ripple effect it will have on that neighborhood will be more detrimental than the planners originally foresaw in terms of transportation, supply and demand, and functionality. I didn't need to write this article, because the fact of the matter is I'll probably never live in that area again. But given my realtionship with the neighborhoud, as well as my close friends that still live and work there that will have their lifestyles ultimately altered (as well as their view), I felt it necessary to voice my detest for the entire project, which I have from day one.

For more information, you can visit the Aura website.

PORTPHOTIO pt. 1

As with any of my creative endeavors, I feel the need to further explain myself.
Recently I posted PORTPHOTIO; an online video rendition of my film-based photography portfolio. There are a few things I should mention before/after you watch this video.

For starters, there are two different photo projects within the video: "Mind Spaces" (0:25-1:45), "If The Ladies Ain't Happy, Nobody Is" (2:30-3:10), and "I Could Have Sworn They Were Just Here" (3:40-4:20), which only contains half of the finished series due to time restrictions.

The Mind Spaces series, which I have written about before on this site, illustrates how the basis of our knowledge can be defined by simple four-walled rooms, whether through means of education or life experience. If The Ladies Ain't Happy, Nobody Is is a series of cyanotypes that depicts a 5-minute incident that took place between a group of boys and a single girl in Positano, Italy. I Could Have Sworn They Were Just Here is a creative documentary project based off the idea of abandonment and traces of human presence.

Within the video there is also a large amount of travel photography. Seeing as I always bring film cameras with me when I travel (something I do to large scale at least once a year) it is only fitting that I incorporate that work into my portfolio. Within, countries such as Canada, the U.S., Cuba, Australia, Italy, Fiji, New Zealand, can be seen, whether through landscape or portraiture. This is by no means my entire travel catalog. In fact, I have another 15 rolls of used film sitting in my freezer awaiting processing - another reason why I included "pt. 1" in the films title - indicating that this will most likely be an ongoing process.

Thirdly, I should touch on the digital aspect of this project. Aside from a few select photo's that were printed either chromogenically or inkjet (which I can clarify if anyone was really curious), the bulk of the work was shot on film and printed within a darkroom. Considering that I have an equal (if not more) amount of digital photography, I deemed it necessary to leave that work aside for another video project, which could easily occupy a similar amount of time. Separating these two was critical in my mind.

The video format idea was simply an accessibility idea. Seeing as my artistic website is not complete, I felt a different means of showcasing the work was needed. Considering that we live in a media-friendly age, I thought it best that the viewer relax and enjoy having myself flip through the images for them. Oh, YouTube didn't pick up on it, but the song playing is Sentimental X's - Broken Social Scene. It was the least annoying and most time appropriate song on my computer.

Lastly, how has the pun "portphotio" not been used yet? Sure, if you look it up on Google you will see a slew of sites, but most of them direct you to unknown domains and leave you stranded on foreign territory. If you type in "portphotio" on YouTube, it's the only video by that name. To me, being the YouTube junky that I am, that is some sort of milestone. After searching just now, "Paintfolio" doesn't exist either. If anyone reading this steals this idea, you better lawyer up asshole, because I thought of both.

On a lighter note, I really hope you enjoy the film, because it was intended for you all to see. Keep in mind that this is by no means a completed project, but rather an ongoing one.

Andy Schmidt 2010.

ps. If the video does not fit due to its widescreen aspect ratio, view it here.

Mirrors Please

I need a hand.

Well, I actually need some mirrors.

As seen in the rough digital sketch above, I've been toying with the idea of photographing landscapes with large mirrors reflecting the image into several parts of the landscape (the semi-transparent represent the mirrors). However, I don't have many mirrors this size.
If any of you know where I could find some, somebody who has some to spare, or any other information I'd love to hear it. In honesty, the larger the better. If at all possible, some sort of stand as well that it can lean on. Otherwise, I may have to write a blog post directed towards my welder friends. Mirrors without borders are most preferred.
I'm writing this here because I know so many of you are great seekers, foragers, collectors, hustlers, pack rats and researchers.
I'm not asking that you break your day over this, but to just keep your eyes open. Chances are usually good that you'll find one on the sidewalk somewhere. If you snag any leads, let me know through email (andrew.allan.schmidt@gmail.com) asap and I'll reward you with a hug and some beers. You guys are the best. Thanks for looking.

Andy.

the machinists

Yeah it's been a while. For some reason I'll leave the house in the morning wanting to write something, then lose interest over the course of the day, for whatever reason. I could however, spout off on a certain diet that I've been on as of late.

My friend Aaron and I decided to depart on one of the more radical diets known within Hollywood (for film buff's, Christian Bale used this method to lose something like 60 pounds for his role in The Machinist). As I'm sure Aaron looked into the mirror with the same sort of discontent for his body as I did, we decided to hold hands and take the plunge together. That was eight days ago.

The diet consists of mainly apples (of any variety) and canned tuna, with a few personal exceptions (he eats carrots, I eat leafy greens), you know, just to spice things up. This diet/cleanse/whatever I assure you, is not as healthy as it sounds. Even with a daily dose of multivitamins, your body still requires much more than acidic fruit and fish. I realized this days into it. We loosely set personal goals for ourselves. Mine was to either last until this upcoming Friday (rounding off at about 12 days), or to lose ten pounds. I weighed myself on a friends scale across town on the first day, weighing in at 194. I haven't been back since, but I'll ball-park that I've lost about 8. I can see my ribs when I suck in for fuck sake's.

I was attracted to this diet for two main reasons. One, two lose a fare bit of weight. It's not that I'm wildly overweight, but I've just become pretty lacklusted about the way I see myself over the past few months. Not like "eating disorder" bummed, but I'm sure you know what I mean. The second was just the pure personal will to do it, as well as the deprivation of what I hold so dear: food.
I can make almost anything in my kitchen or yours. I love to cook, and I do it everyday. Yet this apple/tuna has got me really bummed because I can't even combine the two into something edible. Sure I can bake apples, but the taste remains.
One of the more challenging aspects of this hunger is just living where I do, and being surrounded by unbelievable cuisine. Little Italy, Little Portugal, Chinatown and everything ethnic in between. Although not so terrible now, the cravings were almost unbearable at times. I actually saw spit shoot out of my mouth once on the street, I kid you not. So in this respect, it is not the process of being hungry, but the reward that will come once it is all over - whenever that may be.

There have been some tough times I'll admit. I actually almost fainted in the computer lab at school last weekend before clinging to a vending machine with my head between my legs, punching in #143 to get some Crispers. All Dressed, of course. At that point, I knew these days were coming to an end. I can't say I was surprised though: apples aren't much aside from water, and tuna, by now, I've cut out of my diet completely and either eat salmon or cous cous. It's safe to say I ruined tuna for myself for a while, which sucks because I cringe at Gold Seal's promotional tuna posters spattered around the streets of Toronto.

I'll post a final weight loss figure on this site once I stop for good.

Oh and a big plus is that you get drunker WAY faster.

"i've had enough of you man, i'm 'bout to fuck up your plan"

Just when you thought everything was cool, Guru dies.

One of the best rap MC's of all time, and probably my absolute favorite, has passed away from a long time battle with cancer. His flow was so fuckin' cool and never needed to raise his voice above the smooth cadence heard in his delivery.

I used to skateboard in my garage to Gangstarr records for hours during my teenage years, with Above The Clouds usually playing on repeat on some of my very first burned cd's. So many memories attached to this group.

the winds of shit

It's Danny's birthday today. My main man is 24.

Tonight there will be a party of some proportion. I'm kind of scared.
It reminds me of the morning of St. Paddy's Day, where you know some shit is going to go down.

I can feel the shit pressure rising, and the shit barometer dropping.

i knew it sounded familiar

I saw Avatar for the second time last night. Now although the movie is literally a cinemagraphic milestone, the plot is absolutely nothing to write home about. Although at first I thought it was a direct copy of The Last Samurai, somebody else pinned the plot on the head.

basement edition

Urlesque just released their list of the 100 Most Iconic Internet Videos. Seeing as I'm a Youtube and viral video crackhead, I just spent the last two hours watching about 80 of them. A lot of them I've seen hundreds of times, and there were a few that were pretty hilarious/amazing/amusing as well. Although I believe there are some videos either missing or not worth including, it's definitely worth checking out I'd say.

In other video news, the latest (and I do emphasize late - the last Holiday episode was filmed over a year ago) edition of Talkin' ScHmIdT has been released. Although we had a tonne of fun filming and writing the segments over one night, I unfortunately had to shave off four minutes of footage because Youtube doesn't allow videos over 10 minutes to be uploaded. That was depressing. Some segments were removed entirely, including a gag reel that would have probably been the funniest part of the entire video. It was comparable to telling a songwriter to take out an entire verse of a song - it just hurt.

It flowed quite well I think. I'm not sure if it was the liquor or the experience, but we both have improved our delivery when working with such tirades. Even the editing and content is a lot cleaner from past episodes. Some of the segements could have been elaborated on a bit more, but like I said, it's ten minutes. One, in perticular, was my segment about ex-girlfriend/new boyfriend etiquiette - which I'll most likely elaborate on this here blog, because it's worth delving into.

Any agreements/disagreements on any of the issues? I'd love to hear some feedback, keeping in mind that everything was said in good fun.

The fact of the matter is, if every tirade Mike and I have gone on over the years was recorded, there would be a hell of a lot of 10 minute clips floating around.