gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

Sold

The CBC Design Department is done. Sold out. Sold off. Sold to Tony, whoever that is.

They didn't advertise it, but now that the employees have been shown the door, there's a sale going on down there. All the leftover props that nobody claimed are being sold off, flea-market style.

Not that there's a lot left. First dibs went to in-house productions (Air Farce, Mercer, Kids), and rumour had it that a movie company called Shaftesbury Productions (Robber Bride, ReGenesis) picked it over too. Then the jetsam went to auction - the good stuff has yellow tags of "Hold" or "Sold" (many say "Gross", which I assume is a buyer or TV production - Paul, maybe? - rather than a sign of someone's disgust.) Some of it is tagged for individual purchasers, like Tony's angel, above. As Ouimet said, it's going to be one hell of a garage sale.

The sale started Monday, so don't count on finding any great treasures by now. But there's lots of interesting junk left over, from 70s chairs and old typewriters to portraits and vases and lamps.

For a while, I foolishly held out hope that the government, a museum, benefactor or big movie company would buy the whole collection and keep it together. Wishful thinking. And that's just the stuff... if only the talented people could have been kept together somehow.

Alas. As the dust settles, here's what's left of the country's greatest collection of TV production and design materials: