20.05.12

It's an indignity no urban primate should have to endure. And yet, 11 years into a thankless sinecure, this 800-pound beast-clinging uncomplainingly to the side of a building, the recipient, no doubt, of constant gawks and, worse, indifference, from Calgarians for whom he has simply become part of the landscape-remains nameless.

Indeed, the Styrofoam giant does not even answer to the borrowed handle King Kong, says his owner, Sol Candel, proprietor of the city's iconic Movie Poster Shop. "We just call him 'the gorilla.' "

Really? The gorilla? That's the best they can come up with for a tireless mascot that cost Candel upwards of $10,000 to have custom made and fixed to the side of his building by a resourceful engineer?

Granted, the merchant has a lot of other things on his mind. A native Calgarian, Candel is asecond-generation seller of movie posters; his father bought the biz more than 30 years ago when it was housed in a warehouse "in the middle of nowhere" and largely served the movie industry itself. Since then, Candel Part II has been keeping Calgary basement-dwellers in Star Wars posters ($18), and moneyed collectors in rare finds such as the original Bullet,currently in stock ($1,000). The store has about 10,000 posters in stock, including several recent acquisitions from a collector of vintage Calgary Stampede posters ($150 each). (Candel's own living room is decorated with the sci-fi classics Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers and The Brain that Wouldn't Die.)

Source: Calgary Herald