critical mass

For the film buffs, there are two separate bike movie nights happening this week here in Toronto. Both events are free! Bring a date!

Thursday November 29th (Tonight!):
At 6:30pm Bike Chain at the University of Toronto is presenting:

• Ayamye (Documentary about sending bicycles to Ghana)
• The Winking Circle (Eccentric self-expression. Art Bikes. Mutant Bikes. Tall Bikes. Art Cars. Visionary Environments. Sasquatch Sanctuary.)

(NOTE: They were unable to get "Still We Ride" in time for tonight's showing, so it was replaced with "The Winking Circle". Thanks to Alex for the update in the comments).

Bike Chain is located at: Cumberland Room, International Student Centre, 33 St. George (just north of College).
More details here.

Friday November 30th (Tomorrow!):
The Community Bicycle Network is providing free hot chocolate courtesy of Chocosol and bike films after Critical Mass. The event starts at 8:00pm, and they will be presenting:

• Premiere of Critical Mass in Toronto documentary
• Short Bike Films, by Martin Reis
• You Never Bike Alone (Vancouver Critical Mass documentary)

CBN is located at 761 Queen Street W (just west of Bathurst). More details here.

A new book on Critical Mass in Toronto is available! I got to see a preview of this great new book by Darren Stehr. It looks like he's finally got the publishers to become un-confused, including mixing up his book with a book on canaries! (Not that I'm against various mega-fauna participating in critical mass. It was canaries, wasn't it?)

As Darren says:

It is finally available! 10 years of photos of Toronto’s Critical Mass in a book. That is how long I have been photographing CM and you while riding my bike. I have taken those photos, just over 200 of them in colour and b&w, and put them into a 9″ x 7″ softcover book of 224 pages. Follow this link to purchase yours today, http://www.lulu.com/content/1528476 If you place your order before December 4th you should have it by December 24th.

I assume he doesn't mean that he's photographing other people riding his bike. His bike is likely too big for most people. Anyway, here are the credits:

Foreword by Derek Chadbourne. Edited by Rick Conroy. Contributions by (in no particular order) Martin Reis, Tammy Thorne, Roger Moore, Henry Martinuk, Tanya Quinn, Chris Carlsson, Jim Swanson, Leanne Eisen, Margaret Hastings-James, Tooker Gomberg, Paul White aka Steeker, Herb Vanden Dool, Jacob Allderdice, Brandon Zagorski

Candy Bike: Rachel of flickrThis Friday is Critical Mass Halloween. It is a most special time of year when all the ghouls and zombies get on their bikes all throughout the world's cities. We want to help celebrate this special time by getting on our bikes too. One easy way you can celebrate is to bring lots of candy to throw to the kids. Another is to buy lots of cheap flashy lights from dollar stores and wear them on your clothes and bikes. Not only are they stylish and remind us of the great moving Bike Light art exhibit at Nuit Blanche, but they are safety devices.

Not to belabour the point, but I'll be buying lights and candy - so should you. And you can store them in the cargo bike I'll be riding.