Monday, April 27, 2020

The Amazing Ms. Yue



I am thrilled to be able to offer you a 10 minute break from the Coronavirus pandemic disaster.

I have been working on this video for longer than I should admit.

It started last summer when I found out that Stephanie Yue was coming to town. She was about to take her epic blue Vespa adventures to a new continent. She booked a flight for herself and her Vespa out of Toronto bound for Barcelona.

My friend Ed Thomas met Stephanie quite a while before I had the honour, likely in 2015 or perhaps even as early as 2014. Naturally Ed hosted a cozy Serenity kick-off brunch at his Leaside workshop and hideaway.

I set out to meet up with them planning to vlog the party.

At that point in the summer of 2019 my vlogging gear was already challenged and I was still reeling from the Great GoPro Audio Disaster. Undeterred, for this special occasion I fell back on my original vlogging setup involving a dedicated iPod and a Rode lavalier microphone. Unbeknownst to me, there was a break in the Rode microphone cable that was about to cause additional audio mayhem and much, much, much florid cursing.

All of which to say that almost all the audio tracks on the clips from Stephanie's send-off brunch were M.I.A. What to do with the defective footage, what to do???? Ed really was looking forward to the video and I had close to nothing.

I thought, and thought, and thought about it. Should I scrap the footage and write off the mess to experience?

Eventually it occurred to me that making videos is a form of artistic expression. If it was easy, everyone would do it. If the raw materials were defective, it just means that the artist needs to dig deeper and find a viable creative path that makes the best of a bad situation.

That is what I tried hard to do with this episode of the vlog.

You can follow Stephanie Yue's amazing adventures at 250superhero.com.

Stephanie's rider profile is among the other rider profiles on the blog.

Ed's vintage Puch “Twingle” motorcycle has a Wikipedia page here.

The Toronto Moto Scooter Club's meetup page is here.

The music for this episode of Life on two wheels in order of appearance is Gaiety in the Golden Age by Aaron Kenny, Bluebird, and Minor blues for Booker both by E's Jammy Jams, all made available courtesy of the YouTube Audio Library.

Stay safe all, the Coronavirus crisis will one day come to an end. Let's hope we're all here to celebrate when that day comes.
The copyright in all text and photographs, except as noted, belongs to David Masse.