Morrissey in Toronto

My wife and I went to Toronto on a "mini-break" last weekend, to see Morrissey at the Hummingbird Centre. It turned out to be quite an adventure. After visiting her family, my wife and I took the commuter bus to Toronto on Tuesday morning and decided to try to drop our luggage at the hotel before wandering the city. As we stepped into the elevator after checking in, we were graced with the presence of none other than Julia Riley, the pseudo-celebrity to whom Morrissey speaks during concerts. She has reportedly been to all the shows on this tour, and most of the shows since 2002. Anyway, she was easy to recognize even from the few mysterious photos which have turned up on the Internet. While it was a pleasant surprise to have her in the same elevator as ourselves, we refrained from speaking to her.

On to the concert, our tickets were excellent, 11 rows from the front, with a patrolled aisle directly in front of us. Mozza was very clearly visible, although the sound was very muddy from where we were, and we have only begun to fully regain our hearing. Nevertheless, the show was a good one, and it was exciting to see the singer perform right there, mere feet in front of our humble selves. At the end of the concert, Morrissey threw his shirt into the crowd - much much too far forward for us to have any hope of catching - and it was inevitably ripped into many pieces. My wife and I decided to wait a few minutes after the show to relax a bit and take in the sights when I noticed a small group of people struggling to cut portions of the pink shirt, and so I thought I would take the opportunity to "help." I offered one of the girls my key in hopes that it would serve as an effective ripping tool, hoping perhaps to receive a small piece as a token of appreciation. My keys proved to be ultimately ineffective, but I decided to stick around with this group hoping to receive a few threads, at least.

The shirt was pink and the label was "Gucci," and, after the intervention of a very kind security guard (perhaps the head of Morrissey's security cohort), I walked away with a small swatch of material from said shirt. I brought it back to my wife and we giggled as we took in the heavenly scent of the perfume which permeated the fabric. The next day was spent with trying to identify the scent. I knew from Morrissey-solo.com that he wore Dolce & Gabbana, and thus this was the first counter that we went to at Sears in the Eaton Centre. We were able to conclude that the perfume was in fact "By Dolce & Gabbana" ('By" being the brand name of this particular eau de toilette). As for the shirt, we have since tried to price a Gucci shirt to see how much Morrissey must spend, throwing perhaps as many as 3 shirts into any one concert crowd. We could only assume that they would each cost in excess of $300 Canadian.

Needless to say, the fabric portion has been properly enshrined in a frame, along with a ticket so as to indicate the date on which it was thrown. It was quite an adventure.

Student Woes

As some of you may or may not know, I am a PhD student in the Communication Studies programme at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. I am currently working on my dissertation proposal, and I handed in a draft last week. Unfortunately, I need to do some revising of the draft (after all, it wouldn't be a draft if it didn't need revising). So, here I am reading Barthes, and Middleton's response to Barthes and other things, wondering how I'm going to put all of this stuff together.

If you were interested, my dissertation is tentatively titled: "I Want the One I Can't Have (And It's Driving Me Mad)": Celebrity, Gender, Desire and the World of Morrissey."