Gentrification the Game

Big games in public spaces seems to be a new cool trend these days and yesterday I participated in an awesome one.

Yesterday I went to Kensington Market to play a game called Gentrification. The best way I can describe it is as a giant game of real life Monopoly with extra stuff. The object of the game is to improve a neighborhood. There's five rounds in the game. Each round your team gets assigned a random property (which is a real space in real life). You can also purchase two more properties per round by taking a picture in front of a property with a sign for that round before a next team does. Once you have properties you can start building on them. The more properties in a row you own the larger of a store/business you can build. As well, each round your team has to do a task to win over the neighborhood such as advertising (chalk art on the sidewalk), a PR campaign (giving out candy to strangers), beautification (picking up recycling) a parade (this one's for real. we had an impromptu parade) and other things. You win points for completing tasks, and more if you do them well.

All and all, the game was a ton of fun to play, but my team also made it more fun. I played with Lucia, who was our team captain and recruited us all. I knew her before, but the rest of my team I just met the night before. The rest of my team was Mike, Jon, Khaleed and Meghan, who were all awesome people and brought something to the team.

Check out some of the pics:

Of course, our team won!!

And then we got free hugs!

Thanks for the people at Atmosphere Industries for putting this on. I would totally play this or any other game they do again.

Sorry, but it just has to be played now:

Flaming Lips are Awesome!

Last week I went to go see Spoon and The Flaming Lips at the Molson Amphitheatre here in Toronto. While I always liked The Flaming Lips it was Spoon that really sold the show to me, so off I went.

Spoon went on around 8:30, which isn't too late for a show at the Amphitheatre since they have a curfew. The sun was still out and I was digging their set. Problem was, only 7 other people seemed to feel the same way. The crowd was kind of lame, but Spoon was stil amazing playing a setlist of mostly older stuff from Ga Ga Ga and Gimmie Fiction.

Sorry for the crappy looking pics, but I can't find my camera so I'm still confined to the iPhone for pics.

Anyways, The Flaming Lips were on next. Like I said, I liked them, but I was just at the show for the fun of it. I quickly changed my mind.

Right from the start, the Lips went hard. Coming out of giant vaginas. Walking on the crowd in a space ball. Giant confetti cannons. Giant bouncing balls been tossed around by the crowd. And that was just the first song!

They played amazingly and they put on one hell of a show. I didn't know what to expect, but that show is now somewhere in my top 10 shows list. Not sure where yet though.

I will 100% go see The Flaming Lips any and every time they come to Toronto again.

Here's some footage taken by people I don't know that were kind enough to upload to YouTube: