Even more odd, though, was that it looked like the convenience store was an entirely pre-fab unit. All one piece. well, the front and one side, anyway. Sort of an 'L' Shape, but with full window frames with glass, and a dorr already on its hinges, all fully assembled. You could just drop it into place, and Voila! New Store. it even came with pre-aged paint and dirty rain stains and a shop sign written in Chinese. (And Massey Hall is nowhere near Chinatown.)

Of course I realised, it must have been a theatrical set piece of some sort. But why were they building it right there on the sidewalk? - Didn't they have space indoors to build stage props? Were they spray painting or something? And how were they planning to get it back inside? It was easily three times the size of the front entrance. And anyway, it really did look as though they were planning to affix the thing to the exterior of their building. It was basically a false front designed to fit onto the corner of a structure and look real.

That was my first thirty seconds. When peculiar information hits your senses, you jump from conclusion to conclusion, trying on possible explainations like pairs of shoes for something that fits. - My next thought suggested that maybe this was an elaborate promotional piece designed to sit in front of the theater and attract public attention to their production of 'Corner Store -y', or whatever. -Exceptthat Massey Hall is more a musical venue for one and two night acts. Not long running stage productions. The only shoes I could get to fit simply said, 'Weird'. So I stay confused and kept walking.

Over the next few days, construction progressed. The little convenience store was soon fully installed and looking as though it had been selling cigarettes and dried shrimp for decades. There were even baskets of fruit and vegetables sitting out int front. A few days later, when the moblie living quarters and camera rigs and expensive cars belonging to film producers filled the street sides, it became obvious what was going on. The fact that it had been built onto the side of Massey Hall was merely coincidence. -Somebody was building an outdoor set in the adjoining alleyway in order to shoot a movie. All was clear.

Anyway, the production company needed the kind of China town scenery which evidently could not be found in a real live Chinatown. Indeed, the finished set ended up being much more than a simple corner store; they had dressed up the entire length of the alleyway, turning it into a half lane street filled with many artificial store fronts and tall neon signs. And if you looked down the alley, (protected now, with bright orange pylons and 'caution' tape), you could see it open onto another alley-come-movie-street at the other end where there was a picture perfect car parked beside a picture perfect trash can; the epitome of every parked car and trash can ever to grace a street. Somebody had done a good job. It looked fantastic.

The day was bright and fresh, and because it was morning, there was a natural mist in the air which glowed and lent magic to the place, the way the mist often does. ( I wondered if they'd think to add mist when they shot their scene.) But beyond that, the whole thing was super-real. There was more archetypal Asian culture crammed into that too-thin artificial street than there could ever have been in real life. If you took what people think of when asked to imagine 'Chinatown', and forced that image into reality, then you'd get exactly what I was standing in front of; the very essence of the human subconscious. Until that exact moment , I'd never quite understood what Hollywood writers meant when they talked about films being the stuff of dreams. I'd always assumed they meant something more straight forward. More crude. But I think now it was something more.

I deal with the same currancy of imaginary places and people every time I put pencil to paper, (and in comic book form, it arguably cuts even closerto the pure essence of original ideas, with images flowing almost directly from a writer's mind to paper), but after seeing the illusion set builders could create in real, physical space when they have the cash, the time and inspiration...-Watching an actual movie in a movie theater virtually nullifies the effect. you barely notice great backdrops after the first five minutes. when there's nothing to compare it to, movie reality becomes normal. - But actually standing there on the cusp of two worlds with only a yellow strip of caution tapeto keep you from slipping in...I could suddnly imagine staff writers of the black& white era who wrote scripts right there on the big studio lots, walking around the sets. I could imagine how it must have made them feel...

Dreams made solid...How curious! Wonder if there's bugs in them fruit... 

Ciao. See you all in #23. (T&K is getting close to one quarter done! Yikes! This is going by fast!)