FP and FF

I don't know how much proofreaders for the Winnipeg Free Press are paid, but whatever it is, it's too much. From an article on scooters in Wednesday's City & Business section, page B1:

Palmquist said he was stopped at the corner of Fort and Broadway when a women walked passed him and stopped her cellphone conversation to say she liked his Vespa.

And later, from the same article (page B2): "It's a good view form the Vespa". It looks like a couple of mistakes that are easy to spot, but your typical shift-F7 spell-checker won't find.

In less uninteresting news, I saw the Final Fantasy show last night at the West End. Openers Magali (from the Phonemes) and Bob Wiseman had their moments, and some of Bob's films that he showed were entertaining, but they're not the reason I went to the show.

I was there for the one-man symphony that is Owen Pallett, Final Fantasy. Compared to the last time I saw him, opening for the Arcade Fire in Amsterdam in May '05, this was a more impressive show. Maybe in order to fill in the more orchestral sounds of his recent He Poos Clouds, the performance this time around was boosted by a keyboard and some new looping pedal tricks, including the rather cool octaval displacement (my terminology), allowing the violin to sound like a cello or double bass. Also new this time around was a somewhat perplexing, yet well done, overhead projector show centred around the 8 schools of magic (from Dungeons and Dragons, I think).

Yesterday's show did nothing to change my opinion that the guy is a genius. He has mad violin skills and writes good tunes to boot. Overall, it was a bowstring-breakin', foot-pedallin', Mariah-Carey-coverin' (something like this) good time.

18.9.2006.update: This fiddler is now richer. He's probably the one I would have picked out of the Polaris prize candidates, but I didn't expect Final Fantasy to win.