
Una Furtiva Lagrima by Carlo Vogele
By Dan Sarto
For some reason, every time I attend the festival in Ottawa, something happens along the way to remind just how fun it can be to visit this last great bastion of politeness and public drunkenness. This trip was no exception. Against my better judgment, breaking a solemn vow I made back in 2002, I flew through Toronto. Back in 2002, the last year of my mullet phase, I was stopped by security at the airport in Toronto and held for close to an hour. Whether it was my sunny disposition or dreadful hairstyle that put me on someone’s watch list, I’ll never know. Some junior G-Man barely old enough to shave grilled me for 45 minutes, asking me the same set of questions over and over, as if I’d finally break down sobbing and divulge where Bruce Willis should go to find the nuclear device. I kept thinking that Chris Robinson was somehow behind the interrogation, because this agent kept going into another room and coming back with more ridiculous questions about animation. It made me chuckle, which made my inquisitor even more annoyed, which probably attributed to the length of the grilling. However, upon my release, I swore I’d never fly through Toronto again, a vow I upheld until Tuesday.