I am currently working as an IT recruiter, a difficult and low paying job, where success is few and far between. Still, I get to help some people some of the time. Oddly, I find this one of the benefits of the job. I can also shed light on some of the quirkiness of the job search that others might not tell a candidate.

Hiring Freezes Are A Reality: The reality is that Canada’s economy, and I can only personally talk about Toronto, is not robust. I believe we are still in a recession. In this economic slump companies are simply not hiring. A company will hire when current infrastructure cannot keep up with demand. In this case the demand is not there. Millennial, you might have done everything in your power, but you live in the larger society, and can only prosper when society prospers. Timing and luck play a large role in everyone’s future, and you, like myself are unlucky. This is no lecture, Millennial, there are many other people such as myself that are also suffering with unemployment or underemployment. Still, Millennial, this is not your fault.

Job Description not Accurate: Jobs that are posted on job boards rarely contain the necessary information about the position. I am unsure about why this is, but from experience dealing with actual hiring managers, their needs and wants are above and beyond the written description. Talking to the hiring manager is so critical that to submit candidates with the EXACT requirements for the job is an educated gamble. While you might think you have all the requirements, in reality you may be way off the mark. This is also true for recruiters. A second way we get information about a position is to submit candidates for a job and see if they stick. This trial and error methodology is more prevalent than you think. Even better if the candidate gets a phone interview. We can then pick his brain for information that will help us further focus our search. The bottom line is that candidates really are not at fault when their resume does not line up with the job description, because the job description is not reflective of the job. Millennial, this is not your fault.

Job Not Really AvailableVery often a job will be posted but there is really no job available. There are many reasons for this. A consulting companies will bid on a job, and then will start a job search in expectation that they will land the contract. Usually there is a lot of negotiation and waiting between the consulting company and their customer. In the end if the consulting company does not land the contract, their posted jobs simply vanish. Other companies might post a job position in expectation of getting funding. The long wait you might experience is the wait, often times futile, for funding to arrive. Millennial, you do not have control over these processes, but they do occur and are not to your benefit. Millennial, this is not your fault.

The Futility of Job Boards and working with Recruiters: I too, have applied to so many job on Workopolis and Monster, and have experienced the futility of this effort. Yes, I am sure there are some people that find work by applying for positions, but I am not one of them. Still, it is important for you to post up your resume. As a recruiter I use these job boards to find candidates and help them navigate the rough waters to find work. Unfortunately, Millennial, recruiters need to be paid for their efforts. This money is paid not by the candidate but by the hiring company. Only jobs that are difficult to fill are handed to recruiters like myself. Without exception the jobs require at least 4 years of experience. Sorry, Millennial, recruiters will not help you. Good recruiters, ones that care about people, can give you advice about your resume, interviewing tips and the overall job search. Your typical recruiter will not give a crap. I have had most of my experience with the bad ones. The reality, Millennial, is that a recruiter will not help you. Millennial, this is not your fault.

Phone Interviews are the Norm: Critical, are today’s phone interviews. Phone interviews saves the company time and effort as a screening process. To do well you need ensure you do a couple of important things. Firstly, ensure that you have a reliable and static-free phone. I have had numerous candidates get cut simply because they refused to use a better phone. Employers that cannot hear you clearly have no choice but to think badly of your communications skills.

Stuck in Life: Without gainful employment, you are treading water. This is true and not just for Millennials but also for myself. We have house repairs and expenses that need to be paid, kids to feed, educate and entertain. Our lives that we thought were going fine now it a large block of concrete and top us cold. Like you, we can only tread water and try to cope. Some of us, Millennial, do understand because we are in the same position as you, and when this economic situation turns around we will be there to support you. Right now, we are down and out. Millennial, you are not alone, and this is not your fault.

Really, What is the secret to Getting a Good Job: There is no secret elixer to this problem. We as a society in Canada, specifically in Toronto, are in a tight bind, and while you feel its direct sting and wrath, so do many other people, including myself. Personally I have become more philosophical. Firstly, even though times are tough, there is no need to do anything illegal or that you are uncomfortable. Keep your integrity intact, because it is better to hold your head high and be poor than to have a little cash in your pocket but be ashamed to tell your Mom how you earned it. Secondly, lower your financial expectations. I am sure you have done this already, out of necessity, as I have. Become low maintenance and ensure you can live on as little as possible. This is a tough pill to swallow, and an even tougher pill for me to tell my kids. They are too young to fully understand this. Thirdly, find ways to enjoy yourself and to enjoy life. This is very tough for me because I support my family. Recessions such as these can rip families apart. Find ways to be happy. Finding out what makes you happy is difficult but a very worthwhile endeavour.

Millennial, your life is on hold, your self-confidence is shot and you have been screwed by society, all not your fault. But this is how life unfolds, and you are not alone. Work hard, find opportunities, be open minded, take chances and be thankful for what you have. When you have more money, maybe in the near future, you will be more grateful for the accomplishments you have in your life. We, all, shall overcome.

Hi Rob,

I thought I’d thank you for digging into the issues facing Millennials (a term I abhor, but anyhow) as they finish school and enter the workforce. Perhaps that should read “enter the ranks of the unemployed,” but for some incomprehensible reason, I’m still hopeful. Don’t worry though, it’s fading fast!

My story’s about the same as most, but I’m hoping that it might shed some light on some other issues that we face in working with what we’ve been dealt. I finished up at university at about the same time that Lehman Bros. went under, after having seen the very obvious warning signs at Bear Stearns et al. Admittedly, this wasn’t great timing, but I thought that with a lot of hard work, sacrifice, and a bit of luck, things would work out alright. What I got instead was this:

- Short-term contract position after short-term contract position.

- Wages that weren’t at all related to the realities of short-term contract positions, ie: way too low to make up for the short-term, no-benefits nature of the work.

- Experience that was almost completely unrelated to anything I was interested in, career-wise.

- Hiring freezes at a ludicrous number of places.

- A complete inability to “grow up,” so to speak

At the age of 29, I’ve likely forever lost the following opportunities due to cost and probable inability to make up for lost wages and career potential:

- Getting married.

- Having children.

- Owning a home that’s bigger than 500 square feet. (hint: that’s not big.)

- Studying any more, whether that means grad school, law school, or even just night classes at a random community college.

- Retirement. Sure, I’d love to be investing for it. But with what money?

Am I bitter about all of this? Not entirely, because it all just sort of works itself out. If I can’t get married (dating is tough when you’re broke) and have kids, I don’t need a home bigger than 500 square feet, nor is more study to obtain employment that I’m not only happier with and better at than what I already do but also more lucrative really necessary, since I’ll only be supporting myself. As for the issues revolving around savings, investments, and retirement, you may be surprised to find out how much happier one can be if you simply accept that you’ll be working until very close to your death. Why? Assuming I do end up doing this, I’ll have a consistent income coming in until death, which should make up for lack of retirement funds.

What makes me extremely bitter is how poorly people of my age and younger have been treated by potential employers. You specialize in economics, personal finance, and business, but not what some call “Human Resources.” Yes, the economy, inflation, etc etc etc, all make up part of the problem, but one of the biggest and most overlooked reasons for the issues surrounding people my age is the HR department. How so? Let me walk you through the steps involved in applying to an “entry-level” position these days.

- Troll career websites, Craigslist, university career centres, and professional associations for potential job opportunities, networking events, or possibilities to reach out for an informational interview.

- Line up 100+ legitimate job opportunities that you are actually interested in and qualified for (that’s important), complete with job descriptions and a contact person if you can find one, which you usually can’t no matter how much research you do. Why 100+? You’ll see…

- Perform in-depth research on the 100 or so different companies you’re applying to, including history, financials if they’re publicly traded, growth plan, and what you can tell of their corporate strategy from public sources. Then scour the web for any press coverage of said 100+ companies, because the more you know the better off you are.

- While you’re at it, be sure to reach out for 12 or so informational interviews. They’re a great way to get more info on your potential career paths and gain contacts.

- Also, attend a few networking events, which will inevitably end up costing you a significant amount of money. Console yourself with the knowledge that your $45 event ticket (you scammed the student rate, after all) “entitles” you to a “free” drink. You’ll have plenty of time to sip on it too because pretty much no one will be interested in talking to you, possible exception being other newly finished students doing exactly what you’re doing.

- Prepare your cover letters. This means 100+ completely custom, tailored, impeccably written letters that will likely end up being addressed to something along the lines of “Dear Hiring Manager.”

- Email, mail, courrier, or otherwise deliver your 100+ application packages.

- Wait. While waiting, do whatever you can to find 100+ more job opportunities that fit your skills, education, experience, and interests.

- Repeat steps 3, 4, 5, and 6.

- Give yourself a break. You’ve earned a beer, though you can’t actually afford one. Call home, maybe mom and dad will sense that desperation in your voice that stems from only having had one meal per day for a week, take pity on you, and send you a bit of cash. Then go buy that $3 tall can of cheap beer from the liquor store. Oh, you thought I meant a bar? Silly you, that’s far too expensive! Be sure to feel so guilty about that beer that you end up not drinking it and leaving it hidden at the back of your fridge. This will help you cope with the feelings of shame that come with having dared spend $3 on a beer when tap water is so much cheaper.

- After a minimum of a week, but more likely a month, you’ll have anywhere between one to eight responses from HR departments, depending on whether you sent 100+ or 200+ application packages. These responses will excite you. That’s a mistake, because a half to two-thirds of them will be generic, computer generated “thank you for applying” emails that will be utterly meaningless and contain no usable, actionable information. Out of whatever’s left, consider yourself lucky if you get a single interview, which will likely be done over the phone. In person?!? Lucky. Very, very lucky.

- Have your interview. You’ll be one of 12 or so being interviewed, so good luck.

- Send thank-you emails to interviewers.

- Find 100 more job opportunities, repeat steps 3 through 6 with them while waiting for word from and following up with HR at the company you interviewed with.

- After about 3 weeks, get an email response from the HR people at the company you interviewed with. Wait an hour or two to open it, because you’re nervous, excited, and generally hopeful. Open it and feel the crushing disappointment of being told you won’t be making the second round of interviews.

- Repeat steps 1 through 14. Ad nauseam.

Those 14 steps assume everything goes well and roughly according to plan. They don’t, and I’ve got a couple of recent examples for you. I’ve recently interviewed with 2 companies, for jobs I’m very much qualified for. I’ve made it through 2 rounds of phone interviews for one job (it’s a province away, otherwise I’d have interviewed in person the second time), and 1 phone interview, an in-person interview, and a reference check for the other job. The interview processes for both positions started at roughly the same time, about a month ago. I last talked to each company about 2 weeks ago. Despite diligent but not annoying follow-up, I’ve gotten exactly zero information as to the state of my application with both companies. Until today. One emailed me a meaningless “We’re in the final stages of the process” email, which I should have expected. The other I managed to get on the phone. The conversation on her end consisted of random combinations of the words “um, yeah, see, like, I don’t have, any info, but, if, when, there, you, will be contacted.” What do I expect to come of all of this? About a month from now, I’ll likely randomly get an email from an HR person at one of the two (but not from both) companies, telling me that while they really liked me, I wasn’t the right person for the role and they hired someone else. That’s it. The kicker? They likely didn’t hire anyone at all and wasted everyone’s time.

At this point, you’re probably wondering why I’m not looking at retail, restaurant, or coffee shop jobs. The truth is that I am, but due to my resume, experience, and other such things, these places assume I’ll leave as soon as something “corporate” pops up. Fair enough, and if I’m honest I probably would, but this all leaves me rather short of options. Also, due to job-hunt and financial issues, my age group finds it extremely hard to go out and be in social settings, so the usual networking and schmoozing that previous generations indulged in isn’t nearly as possible for us, nor can we be as good at it when we have the chance to. Lack of practice has that effect. I should also tell you that not everyone I know has suffered the same fate as I have. A select few of my friends made it out of school and got decent jobs. Most still aren’t making enough to save, invest, or buy a place. Many barely get by, doing low-level work they don’t really believe in with little job security. Exactly one of my friends has “made it,” so to speak. He’s on partner-track at one of the big accounting firms. Sounds good, right? It is, except for a few minor issues. First, the likelihood of ever reaching partner is so slim that it’s essentially non-existent. Second, the hours have nearly killed him. His average workweek is 65-70 hours. Average. It’s higher some weeks, topping off at nearly 90 hours/week. Yes you did read that right. He and his wife did at one point own a rather nice place. His wife still does, but with the guy she’s with now that her lawyers are finally done raping my friend through the divorce process. Happily, his firm offered him legal assistance. Why? Doing so made it a lot easier for him to continue working an average of 65-70 hours/week. How kind of them…

There’s a glimmer of hope in all of this, and it’s the one I’m still reaching for. Seeing as how a job that provides a decent income, some job stability, home ownership, savings, investing, and retirement are all but out of reach for me, I’ve discovered a way to make life bearable. I call it the “lifestyle job,” and it consists of working at companies that are involved in non-work things, say sports or hobbies, that you absolutely love. In my case these include skiing, cycling, the outdoors in general. Yes, the salaries and benefits are generally terrible, but these companies make it bearable. They provide access to activities you love at a significantly discounted rate, cheap or free gear, and time to play. Making $36 000/ year is a lot more bearable when you start with 3 weeks/year, the office has a bouldering room and a bar, you can bring your dog to work (just kidding! You can’t afford a dog), you get gear you need to do what you love for next to nothing, and you’ve got time to go out and enjoy the sports you love. I’ll never own a condo in a ski town, but at least I’ll be able to make day trips, right?

It’s far from what I wanted. I wanted 65 hour weeks in a high pressure corporate environment. I wanted the tailored suits, the chance at a high income, the BMW, the prestige, the respect, and the power. I wanted to be someone. I wanted to be able to afford to donate to charities that are important to me. I was considering children, marriage, the house, all of it. It’s not happening.

Rob, we’re not no-future losers. You know those high-school kids who study hard, get great grades, have part-time jobs, and manage to excel at athletics all at the same time? That was us. The university students who go to class, make the dean’s list, run extra-curricular clubs, and still make it out to the bar once in a while? We were those guys. We’ve got nothing against hard work and earning our way. I’d argue that we’re even rather good at it. You know who gets jobs today? The CEO’s kid. The CFO’s niece. The VP of Marketing’s next door neighbour’s kid. Nepotism and cronyism are what it takes, and even that isn’t always enough.

Being willing to work is absolutely USELESS if you can’t get a foot in the door. The economy is only part of the problem.

All the best, and thank you again for writing what you wrote. It’s about time someone said it.

It is never easy to admit fault, but only through acknowledgment of an error can said error be corrected. In Toronto’s G20 summit in 2010 Toronto and other police and RCMP beat up and violated the rights of over 1,500 Canadian citizens. The police became the criminal element. It is only the passing of almost 2 years of time that this wrong is beginning to turn. Maybe.

There is no question that police beat up and arrested innocent Canadian civilians at Toronto’s G20 summit in 2010. Over 1,100 people were arrested, only 30 or so were ever charged, and only a handful were ever convicted of anything. All the rest, were just used as punching bags for the police and politicians. I know not if this was malicious or just benign neglect, but I do know that it was unequivocally illegal and should not have happened in the first place. Blame systemic problems with the chain of command within the political and police system,

More time will need to pass before the acknowledgment of illegality occurs. This one by the Office of the Independent Police Review (OIPRD), as well as the numerous Ontario Ombudsman’s reports is a good first step in the right direction, but Canada has a much farther path to follow. No government, Federal, Provincial nor municipal, has acknowledged that mistakes were made at the Toronto G20 Summit 2010. I hope this acknowledgment will occur in the future, in order to shore up the confidence of the Canadian legal system.

“What occurred over the course of the weekend resulted in the largest mass arrests in Canadian history. These disturbances had a profound impact not only on the citizens of Toronto and Canada generally, but on public confidence in the police as well,” writes Gerry McNeilly, head of the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), a citizen agency that today tabled the 300- page systemic review report.

source

More significantly, very few people have been charged with beating up Toronto citizens. I believe that only two officers have been charged to date. All the rest, as well as their superiors that gave them orders, and the politicians that gave the police superiors their orders, have not been charged, and may never be charged. The bigger the crime, the increased prevalence that no one will be held accountable. This seems to be how life rolls, and what I believe will eventually happen.

The wheels of justice may move ever so slowly, but does not touch all Canadian citizens the same. Some are immune to prosecution, and this includes the politicians and the police. Please prove me wrong.

Map of Toronto by Violent Crime, shootings and Homicides. Layered with details from Google Maps.

The original map had very little detail in terms of street names, which made it difficult to find your exact house location. I have added a layer of Google map underneath so you have more landmarks to guide you. Landmarks such as the TTC subway, major streets such as Yonge Street and highways such as the 404 and the Gardner, parks and waterways were all missing, making the map more difficult to use than it should have been. Because the map is so large already I could not clearly include street names. Toronto is quite large.

Field Information Report (FIR) cards are filled out by police on people they randomly stop. Police use this as intelligence gathering.

Officers stop and question people and document who they are with on Field Information Report cards. Personal details, including physical descriptions, are then entered into a huge database, which officers can search later in the aftermath of crimes. More than a million individuals have been documented in the past three years; the number of cards filled out jumped 18 per cent between 2008 and 2011.

Large map, 2.8MB, is large but the detail is required.

>Map of Toronto by Violent Crime, shootings and Homicides. Layered with details from Google Maps.

The Toronto Star also published an interesting map of Total Criminal Charges mapped by patrol zone, but put no street names or landmarks on the map. It was difficult for me to find my neighbourhood without street names. This map displayed criminal charges from 2009 and 2010.

Again I have superimosed a Google map of Toronto on top of the Toronto Star map, making it much easier to find your neighbourhood.

Toronto, Canada, Criminal Charges by area made by police, 2009-2010, TorStar

Large Map, Criminal Charges by Toronto Police, 2009-2010, 2MB. Map is hard to read because it is large and Toronto is large in population.

>Toronto, Canada, Criminal Charges by area made by police, 2009-2010, TorStar

The Criminal Charges map should, in general, correlate with the violent crime map. Where there is higher crime there should be higher criminal charges. A lower violent crime area with higher criminal charges might mean police are overzealous in their efforts, but who can definitively say.

Teller touches on the subject with the Smithsonian, and does it again.

1. Exploit pattern recognition. I magically produce four silver dollars, one at a time, with the back of my hand toward you. Then I allow you to see the palm of my hand empty before a fifth coin appears. As Homo sapiens, you grasp the pattern, and take away the impression that I produced all five coins from a hand whose palm was empty.
2. Make the secret a lot more trouble than the trick seems worth. You will be fooled by a trick if it involves more time, money and practice than you (or any other sane onlooker) would be willing to invest. My partner, Penn, and I once produced 500 live cockroaches from a top hat on the desk of talk-show host David Letterman. To prepare this took weeks. We hired an entomologist who provided slow-moving, camera-friendly cockroaches (the kind from under your stove don’t hang around for close-ups) and taught us to pick the bugs up without screaming like preadolescent girls. Then we built a secret compartment out of foam-core (one of the few materials cockroaches can’t cling to) and worked out a devious routine for sneaking the compartment into the hat. More trouble than the trick was worth? To you, probably. But not to magicians.
3. It’s hard to think critically if you’re laughing. We often follow a secret move immediately with a joke. A viewer has only so much attention to give, and if he’s laughing, his mind is too busy with the joke to backtrack rationally.
4. Keep the trickery outside the frame. I take off my jacket and toss it aside. Then I reach into your pocket and pull out a tarantula. Getting rid of the jacket was just for my comfort, right? Not exactly. As I doffed the jacket, I copped the spider.
5. To fool the mind, combine at least two tricks. Every night in Las Vegas, I make a children’s ball come to life like a trained dog. My method—the thing that fools your eye—is to puppeteer the ball with a thread too fine to be seen from the audience. But during the routine, the ball jumps through a wooden hoop several times, and that seems to rule out the possibility of a thread. The hoop is what magicians call misdirection, a second trick that “proves” the first. The hoop is genuine, but the deceptive choreography I use took 18 months to develop (see No. 2—More trouble than it’s worth).
6. Nothing fools you better than the lie you tell yourself. David P. Abbott was an Omaha magician who invented the basis of my ball trick back in 1907. He used to make a golden ball float around his parlor. After the show, Abbott would absent-mindedly leave the ball on a bookshelf while he went to the kitchen for refreshments. Guests would sneak over, heft the ball and find it was much heavier than a thread could support. So they were mystified. But the ball the audience had seen floating weighed only five ounces. The one on the bookshelf was a heavy duplicate, left out to entice the curious. When a magician lets you notice something on your own, his lie becomes impenetrable.
7. If you are given a choice, you believe you have acted freely. This is one of the darkest of all psychological secrets. I’ll explain it by incorporating it (and the other six secrets you’ve just learned) into a card trick worthy of the most annoying uncle.

As is the German carnival tradition, individual Schwellkoppe (“swollen heads”) or larger-than-life-heads made from papier-mache march with bands in between the floats.

These clowns all look pretty creepy. Who do they mock? Local politicians and businessmen? The three in the front all have the same metal emblem around their necks. What is this?

A case in point the question above: What is the next in the sequence SSS SCC C SC? This IT interview question is said to be from Google Corp. You can google for the answer, as I did. I found the solution here.

The answer is neither logical, binary nor very clever. “SSS” stands for 3 straight lines, with which you can print the letter “A”. “SCC” stands for one straight line and two curved lines, which makes for the spine of the “B”, as well as the chest and belly. “C” simply stands for itself. The “S” of “SC” stands for the spine of “D”, and the “C” is the belly. Logically the next in the sequence is “SSSS”, four straight lines which can then create “E”. Write code like this and the support programmer after you will curse you and your ancestors for 1,000 years, and rightly so.

As a backlash against these corporate interview questions, the Career Cup has created a database of interview questions, sorted by job type, company and question type. This is a logical step in this interview arms race, and I applaud their efforts. Still I wonder if the effort put into remembering the solutions to these obscure questions is really wasted effort. They add nothing to the candidate’s technical or interpersonal skills, nor do they add to the candidate’s general knowledge of the world. While learning useless facts and figures may be acceptable for those who wish to learn such, I am sure this is not the case for the vast majority of candidates.

And what about those who’s first language is not English? Do these interview questions help find the best candidates, or simply eliminate qualified and talented individuals?

I wonder aloud if these questions by interviewers are meant to satisfy some perverse need to psychologically torture candidates? Are interviewers simply spicing up their daily grind of a job by having fun at the expense of interviewing candidates? I am unsure. While these questions are not technically illegal they do cast the interviewing company in a very bad light.

As an interviewer we all have personal choices. Asking questions that have seemingly no bearing on the candidate’s background, experience, education and applicability to the job position seems like an abuse of your authority over a candidate.

More bluntly, if you are an interviewer, don’t be a jerk.

No one notices, and really, no one need notice. To those who have thrown up hands in frustration, I see your point. To those that have done something radical as a result, I also see your point, though we tell ourselves we will get through it.

At times it seems unbearable, but we trudge on. Oh, to Transform myself into a rock.

I am amazed at the amount of talent that Canadian society wastes. Those that attend university, only to scowl at themselves in the mirror after graduation, staring at the face of unemployment. Those that migrate here from other countries, lured by the possibility of a better life, only to be sorely disappointed. Canadian business is extremely conservative and will not take a chance on these people. They are invisible here in Canada. A pox on those who accuse them of laziness. The privileged condemn the unlucky.

On to Transform into a rock.

What is their message and why did they choose to dress as clowns? Kids would easily identify them as clowns.

Arriving at about 11:00 am, we first saw Fireguy. He did juggling and fire eating. Interestingly he sat atop a cube, put down 4 large cups and proceeded to put a flat sakeboard on top. Atop this he added his 5″ rola and then bola. Getting on was a little tricky. He acually told us about a missed mount, where he cut up his right forearm. Today he did it right. Up he went, and then juggled 3 torches. Fireguy was interesting.

Billy Kidd was a female performer from Edmonton, Alberta. She looked part or all Asian, but also spoke with an interesting British-ish accent. Definitely representing the female viewpoint, her male volunteers were the target of some of her jokes. Card magic tricks are difficult to see from afar. The Little Weed got bored and we left early.

We have seen the Ben Show before. Ben Burland had visited when I was part of the Toronto Unicyclists, so he was a familiar face for me. Highlights included a three-wheeled unicycle giraffe, with all the hype of the mount. Balancing the giraffe on his chin at the end was fun to see. A bonus of the 3 wheeled giraffe is that there is no chain to worry about and adjust. New to his act was the sword swallowing, which turned out great when he showed us that his blade curled up into a roll of aluminium. There was certainly genuine concern in the audience. His tiny bicycle was interesting to see him ride.

Bendy Em from Australia fits herself into a 16 in square box. With an additional small basketball.

Bendy Em, a contortionist from Australia was so sweet to the audience. There was not a bad bone in her from the start. Happy, polite, in excellent physical shape and very strong, she bested her two male volunteers, whom she called her “boys”. She took great pride in taking their shirts off, and then apologizing to their wives! A class act. Unfortunately she was on an elevated stage, which did not allow the Little Weed to get a good view. Her contortions were not visible from my view. I had to hoist the Little Weed up for him to see anything, and then my arms and shoulder became sore. She had a 16″ square box on a 5′ high platform of the same dimensions, so at least we cold see her from afar. Not only did she contort herself into the 16″ square box, with the lid shut, but she also stuffed in a small basketball in the middle. First a shoulder and head, then pelvis. The ball was then repeatedly hit with her left arm until it thunked into her stomach, with a secure thrump. It was as if it had to get by a cork before getting to the inside. Finally the left leg and left arm was in the box. While still talking the box then started to fog up! After a minute or so she started to wiggle her way out. Bendy Em was a class act, but I could not see much of her performance because of the stage.

Chalky was an artist doing a 3D chalk drawing of Mona Lisa on the street. His drawing looked so real.

Close Acts, XL-Insects were from the Netherlands. They roamed around in large insect costumes on stilts. Their master walked behind them with a large stick, glowering at passers by. It was certainly an odd site. Their stilts were mere 2 x 2 round legs. The performer’s actual heads could see through the insect’s upper torso, so you could imagine just how large these insects stood.

Gazzo, from the UK, produces a huge melon from his hat, and oranges from his cups.

Gazzo from the UK is a magician with lots of wit. There were instances that were on the edge though. There were references to him not legally able to get close to children, which was funny in a creepy kind of way. These are issues that are difficult to poke fun at in this day and age. He called to a girl by the title “Virgin”, but when she stood up he asked her who she was fooling and called up this young guy. She was very embarrassed. Maybe it was British wit, but he also insulted the audience for not getting all his jokes. Frankly I did not get some of his jokes, and others that I did get were simply not funny. Still, his performance was quite good. For magic he had three large cups and proceeded to extract large oranges from them. Some of the oranges were so large that he had to tap the cups on his table to get them out. After putting his hat on the table, he exposed a large cantaloupe underneath. How he did this I do not know. Aggressive comedy club humour was his style. Thankfully the kids in the audience did not understand him much.

Leapin’ Louie Litchenstein, from Oregon had a cowboy theme going. This was a little odd because I did not remember many cowboys from Oregon. He did a giraffe unicycle thing and a cowboy lasso trick, where he idled and his lasso encircled himself. There were interesting bullwhip tricks as well. We did not catch all of his show.

We briefly passed Liam McGlashon from Hamilton, playing Maritime fiddle tunes. I actually did not know who he was, but the tunes were catchy.

Pancho Libre, Mexico, hulas a 49kg hula hoop.

Pancho Libre from Mexico was a really good act. Though his English was not great he was able to communicate and humour the audience. He had this 49kg hula hoop, which was difficult to start and maintain. Once going he was able to hula it around his midrift and even his neck. He was also able to brace his body inside the hoop and roll around, all without squishing his fingers or falling out. Being Latin he often flirted with the female audience members. His apparatus was very unique, borrowing from Chinese wushu. He was physically very strong, able to put his body horizontal while grabbing onto a vertical pole. Most impressive.

All throughout the event we saw some pretty cool mostly Asian yoyo guys. They were very well skilled. Most had black gloves on their left hands, I guess to prevent friction burns.

Overall this year’s lineup featured more magic and less overall juggling, and very little unicycling and rola bola. It was still enjoyable to attend. I had problems finding a washroom as there were no porta potties around. If you sell food and beverage on the street you should also provide washroom facilities. The performers were very good and we had a good time.