Deirdre Hanna: "Tall Tales" Now Magazine. July 26 - August 1, 2001

Tall Tales

MITCH ROBERTSON at Pages (257 Queen St. West, Toronto)

Mitch Robertson asked 200-odd people if they'd had a brush with celebrity, and turned these "claims to fame" into art by distilling lengthy anecdotes into terse one-liners engraved on metal plaques.

Germaine Koh "found $67,000 U.S. and did not keep it"; in 1981 Michael Balser "peed next to Rock Hudson in NYC and saw the famous cock"; and on May 16, 1991, Joyce Kline "was on the cover of NOW magazine."

Unveiled in New Zealand last year, the Toronto-based Robertson's Stories For Grandchildren has been touring ever since, and he has just self-published these everyday takes on notions of celebrity as an art book. The book is brilliant, though the window display of plaques Pages has mounted in its honour is less than ideal.

-Deirdre Hanna