The Trent U Zine Fair Rocks.
Now Playing: cold rain, Ashley MacIsaac
Topic: craft and zine fairs
I love the Trent U zine fair.

We went down there last weekend - we only knew about it because my friend Steve Curtis is living in Peterborough and found out about it, and got us a table. So we rented a car, and the Zytvelds and I drove down to Peterborough Saturday morning, packing carrots and sandwiches and coffee and all the Dusty Owl books.

I don't know what it was, but this was the best fair we've been to all season. The Trent U OPIRG group helped to organize it, from what I understand, and it was held in Satleir House, which is a beautiful old house reclaimed by the Trent Student's Union. It was small - eight or nine tables, I'd say - but the energy was fantastic, and the traffic was surprisingly high. People seemed genuinely surprised that we'd come all the way down from Ottawa (and we really wouldn't have been there if it hadn't also meant getting to visit Steve, or Kuma, as we have somehow wound up calling him; Kuma is Japanese for 'bear.')

This is also the kind of crowd that runs a Free Market (a room in the basement that just has stuff - if you want to get rid of anything, give it to them, if you need something, come see if they have it, it's all free... what a brilliant idea! I walked away with a rice steamer...) and who provide pasta salad, drinks and desserts to all the vendors at the fair. My hat off and my undying devotion to them.

I'll have to get some pictures up when Cathy gets the film developed. High points were the visual artist kitty-corner from us; the strange post-verbal zine Cathy picked up; and the fact that the fair also included a performance by The Cheshire Smile, a band from Oshawa (I think) who were absolutely stunning. Good, strange, original, totally collective-weird, with a healthy dose of Broken Social Scene going on. And a painter (who was part of the act; he had a shaker, but mostly he was just up there to be working on a painting while they played...) I gave the lead singer my address, so hopefully they'll be sending me a copy of their CD. I really, really hope they do, they were great.

We also got to poke around Peterborough a little, as Kuma took us to Speak Volumes (a great indie bookstore, and I'm not just saying that because they carry our books) and to the record store next door, which was mindboggling, and the Spill, which was the sort of coffee shop we don't have anymore in Ottawa, not since Screaming Mimi's closed anyway. After the fair, we dropped in at the Only, too - the last bastion of smoking in bars, and absolutely wall-to-two-story-wall coated in old photos, beer ads, and paintings... very cool.

And we got to crash on Kuma's couch and head groggily back to Ottawa in the morning. Fun. Chaotic. I was actually glad to see the back of the rental car by the end of the weekend. But absolutely worth it. If they run another of these, we want to be there. The fair was small, but it was clearly full of talented, intelligent people, and the energy was way better than at any of the bigger fairs we've been to this year.