Posted by 2017 marked the 150th anniversary of the establishment of my home country, Canada (née the Dominion of Canada) and living as I do in the nation’s capital city of Ottawa (née Bytowne) I had prime seats for any number of sesquicentennial events that were scheduled over the course of the year, of which there were legion.
Red Bull Crashed Ice, the NHL winter classic, boat races, marathons, concerts, and of course probably the most epic Canada Day of all time…oh, there was just so much going on. And one of the most highly anticipated events (and not just by me): a city-wide invasion of giant battling monster-robots from France called La Machine. If the description isn’t enough to grab you, well, you gotta see some pictures of these things. Enormous quagmires of pistons, gears, and metal plates, Ottawa was slated to welcome a two-storey robotic arachnid named Kumo and a sleek, fire-breathing mechanical dragon named Long Ma, and both critters were going to storm through our downtown streets in a series of coordinated interactions and yes, fight scenes.
Oh boy, was I excited.
And then, finally, on July 27th, 2017 the opening salvo was upon us. I first rode my bike down to City Hall where Long Ma sat sleeping, which was pretty uneventful but at least it afforded me an opportunity to see the critter up close, which was actually pretty cool. Turns out the dragon’s ‘skin’ was actually made out of finely carved wooden panels. The sleeping beast was a beauty to behold.
Then I headed downtown where Kumo the spider was balanced high above the ground, hanging between the two spires of the old cathedral directly across the street from the National Gallery. When I got there the area was absolutely cram-packed with people; it looked like I wasn’t the only person that was excited for La Machine. As a matter of fact, it ended up being the most popular of all of the Canada 150 events, bringing in twice as many curious onlookers as they were expecting and eclipsing literally every other event that hit the city that year.
Anyway, there we all were, each of us craning our necks up to the huge spider which sat unflinching on it’s perch. Looking around it was clear to me what was going to transpire, and it was going to be awesome. Obviously the spider was going to descend from between the steeples and walk itself across the street to the gallery where it would interact with one of Ottawa’s greatest pieces of public art, Maman, a sinewy, stationary metal spider that was almost exactly the same size as Kumo.
Clearly this is why Kumo had been brought to the Cathedral; there could be no other outcome. Truly, it was a stroke of genius and holy moley, this was going to be great!
And so I (and thousands of others) craned our necks and waited with great anticipation. And waited, and craned, and waited some more. Finally – after perhaps a half an hour or more of sustained and continued nothingness – finally there was some movement, but the activity came with no excitement attached at all, as the big robotic spider was slowly (ever so slowly) lowered to the ground by a common winch. And when it touched down…
…the show was over. Wow. Unbelievable. Unconscionable. Just as things looked to be gearing up it was done, with no fanfare whatsoever; nada, none. Thousands of us looked at each other with a collective shrug that said “Are you kidding me?” and we all left in a huff. After so much bated-breath and anticipation I really couldn’t believe how remarkably and unflinchingly lame La Machine was shaping up to be. For the whole ride home I was so downtrodden and flustrated that I couldn’t form sentences, and when I eventually could they were sentences explaining to anyone who would listen that that was it, I was done with La Machine, the spectacle was a complete and utter failure, lie, and disappointment, and how there was no darn way I was going to expose myself to any more of such a pathetic display. Especially one that was charged with so much amazing opportunity.
Ugh!
(Luckily I changed my mind and gave La Machine a second chance, because once things got started in earnest the La Machine thing turned out to be pretty astoundingly awesome after all. But that’s another story.)
Todd Man Out 