The Incident at the Ball Diamond

Yesterday afternoon there were Canada Day celebrations in Victoria Park, and Oliver and I went along, primarily so that Oliver could grill the new host of Compass, Louise Martin, on fake news, real news, and the role of social media.

Once those duties were despatched, we ordered up a couple of Saj from a kiosk, and retired to the relative calm of the ball diamond to enjoy them.

Shortly after we sat down, a reckless dog owner looking for fun arrived at the diamond, let their dog of its leash, and started throwing the ball for it. This drove Ethan the service dog crazy, and, as I didn’t have complete hold on to him, he managed to dart off into the bushes, with me in hot pursuit. I cornered him in the lead up to the Fanningbank fence, and relative calm returned.

We finished up our Saj and left the park, chastened by the experience.

Our next stop was The Guild, where we found Evin Collis, from the Winnipeg Art Gallery, animating a go-ahead-make-art workshop.

So we decided to turn our recent pain into art, and made a stop-motion animation about The Incident at the Ball Diamond.

Oliver, of course, is a stop-motion veteran–his Frosty the Snowman animation sports more than 32,000 views on YouTube–and so I was in good hands.

Here’s the movie that resulted:

Evin, by the way, was a model facilitator: he told us what we needed to know, made it clear we could ask questions, and then got out of the way.