What’s a Random Thing You Know a Lot About?
iPhoto caption: A scene from Love and Information. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
Love and Information is about knowledge shared and withheld, the cost of secrets, and the limits of communication. The show’s cast and crew told us about the subjects they have a surprising amount of information on.
Question: What is a random thing you know a lot about?
Laura Baxter, Stage Manager
One of my favourite topics is baseball, more specifically the Blue Jays. You could say I was born into a love of baseball; my entire family are Jays fans. I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but I love the game. It’s both simple and complex, and there is always more to learn. It’s a game of poetry and possibility. My dad used to keep score in a little notebook, and a couple years ago I taught myself how to keep score as well. I learned so much, and it deepened my appreciation of the game. Now my happy place is watching the game with my scorecard.
A love of our Blue Jays connects my whole family across the globe, from my sisters in New Zealand and London, to my aunt on Vancouver Island. We get to feel like we are together when we sit down to watch the game; it’s a real gift to share it with the people I love most. Watching baseball is when I feel the most connected to the people I’ve lost; I feel them with me, and I get to share their love of the game as my own love of baseball deepens.
Ngozi Paul, Actor
Quantum mechanics. I think the topic fascinates me more than I actually know about it, but since it’s an uncommon fascination I might know more than most.
As I understand it, quantum mechanics is the study of the universe at the smallest or most fundamental level. The subatomic level. The stuff that makes up the stuff that makes up the stuff. At a quantum level, the rules in the physical world, like gravity and time, fluctuate. It’s a phenomenon that is called quantum foam. It suggests that if measured at a small enough distance, space-time is more wobbly than structured. It’s a cool way to look at reality. As an actor and storyteller, my job is to bend reality, so I love finding new perspectives, and the quantum world is infinite.
Fun fact: at a quantum level, teleportation is already possible… Just saying, beam me up!
Alistair Newton, Co-Director
It won’t surprise anyone who has ever been to my apartment (which, incidentally, lacks a kitchen but contains a library of 1100 books… because priorities), but I’ll readily admit to a healthy obsession with the so-called “New Romantic” British club scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s. I first became aware of the New Romantics during research for my play Of a Monstrous Child: a gaga musical, and I’ve been besotted ever since. Centred around a Bowie night at a tiny club called Billy’s and later relocating to a Second World War–themed wine bar (the Blitz) in Covent Garden, the New Romantics created a phantasmagoric aesthetic that mixed 1920s Berlin cabaret (another personal obsession) with Victorian dandyism (ditto) and gobs of stylized makeup (also guilty). The Blitz Kids influenced pop music, photography, and fashion, and their legacy of experimentation and transgressive approach to design continues to impact my visual sensibility as a director from time to time. At the dawn of Thatcherism, a coterie of sexually liberated exhibitionists transformed punk into glorious camp decadence (and I’m sad I missed out); as former Blitz Kid Princess Julia once quipped: dress fancy, not fancy dress.
Peter Fernandes, Actor
Over the past few years I’ve grown to love cooking. I used to watch a lot of Food Network when I was younger, and now I love hosting and cooking meals for guests, or reading through cookbooks and learning new methods in the kitchen. My parents were also a big influence on my love of food. I’m a subscriber to a whole whack of food podcasts and YouTube channels and make it a point to try everything from Michelin-star restaurants to street food when I travel. I’m a huge fan of Anthony Bourdain and his shows, including his PBS special The Mind of a Chef. David Chang, founder of Momofuku, who was featured in the first season, inspired me to travel to Japan and explore the cuisine there, which I was lucky enough to do last year. Chang’s new documentary series on Netflix, Ugly Delicious, is genius and delves into the politics of food and food culture—I can’t recommend it enough!
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