Pleasant Artistic Experience

Weirdest adver­tise­ment at the fes­ti­val: Telefilm Canada: “Just watch it.” (You know, like Nike, except Nike dropped that line years ago.) 

Best exam­ple of east­ern European humour in an east­ern European film: A char­ac­ter from Slepé Lásky (directed by Juraj Lehotský): “We wish you a pleas­ant artis­tic experience.” 

Best blog­ging line, by the nar­ra­tor of the film RIP: A Remix Manifesto, directed by Brett Gaylor, about the mash-up artist Girl Talk: “He dropped AC/DC in the mid­dle of Black-Eyed Peas. People were blog­ging about it for weeks.”

Best syn­op­sis and review of Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan (the film did not play at the fes­ti­val), heard in a bar in Whitehorse: “So this kid wins a hun­dred mil­lion rub­bles or what­ever. The movie’s based on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?—you know that one? You know it’s funny to hear it in East Indian. But I got to tell you, it was time well spent.”

Most pal­pa­ble expisode of drunk­en­ness on the streets of Whitehorse:
Man walk­ing ten feet behind woman: “Hey, hey!”
Woman: “If you’re gonna act like a drunk, I’m gonna treat you like a drunk.”
Man: “Hey, hey!”

Worst eval­u­a­tion of Whitehorse, ­uttered by a woman at the screen­ing of RIP: A Remix Manifesto: “I just pre­tend I’m some­where else. You know, we’re in Whitehorse, you do what you have to, to survive.”

Second-worst eval­u­a­tion of Whitehorse, uttered by a store clerk dur­ing the pur­chase of a let­ter opener made of moose antler: “So, it’s a let­ter opener or a weapon of self-defence.” (ner­vous laugh­ter) “So if you get mugged, you know what to do.” (stab­bing motion) “It’s the Yukon, you never know what can happen.”

The three weird­est events at the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous Festival, run­ning at the same time as the film fes­ti­val: axe toss, wife-carrying con­test, and hairi­est legs com­pe­ti­tion (women only).

Best solo played by the gui­tarist in the mil­i­tary band near the bag­gage carousel at the Whitehorse air­port: “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. 

Dumbest thing said by a guy with big mus­cles on flight 525 from Whitehorse to Vancouver, refer­ring to the exotic dancers fly­ing home from the Sourdough Rendezvous: “Jesus Christ. Look at that.”

Read more at Michal’s blog, Yukon Diary.