Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

The last  Basilian   Father This Paragraph a False Assumption?   Stephen Weir  Weir031, 4 th  year Creative Writing Assignment Assignment - write a paragraph based on my take on a Windsor University scene Submitted version The last  Basilian   Father This Paragraph A False Assumption?   An ancient priest in an over-starched cassock makes a special noise when he shuffles across Assumption Hall’s wooden floors.  I listen while I pick the basement door’s antique lock. Click. I am in.  Rotting hand-made wooden steps against the massive fieldstone wall.  Shaky. I make it safely onto the heavily pock-marked basement floor.  A string of Edison era light bulbs hangs above. Clothesline style. I am facing a moss-lined tunnel that slopes toward the Detroit River. An iron bar gate blocks the way. Sigh. Another lock to pick. I hear the priest. He is at the top of the stairs. Cough. Door slams. Lights off.   “I ...

  IT IS A DOG’S LIFE IN THE WORLD OF ANDRE ALEXIS Woof. Woof. Who let the dogs out? The Crow’s Nest Theatre in downtown Toronto is quick to answer that it is Caribbean Canadian author Andre Alexis who is to blame.   For almost two weeks the Carlaw Avenue theatre has been selling out each and every performance of their new play “Fifteen Dogs”.  The new work is based on the award winning novel  by Alexis which won the Giller Prize, the  Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and Canada Reads   back in 2015.    The book has been adapted for the stage by  Marie Farsi and has received funding in part from  The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation  and the Canadian Literature Adaptation Fund.    The play follows the book storyline which begins with two Greek Gods – Hermes and Apollo, drinking in a seedy Toronto tavern. They make a bet to what will happen when they grant 15 dogs human consciousness. They watch fro...

  Toronto dancer about to take to the big stage with Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre Not only is it the first weekend for Black History Month in Toronto, it will also be two days of first for dance fans.  On February 3 rd  and 4 th  “America ‘s Cultural Ambassador to the World” the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre will kick off its 2023 North American tour with a trio of performances at the downtown Meridian Hall (formerly the Sony Centre). The 32-member dance troop will be performing for the first time in Canada a new dance —  Are You in Your Feelings   — that acclaimed  choreographer Kyle Abraham describes as a “celebration of Black culture, Black music, and the youthful spirit that perseveres in us all.” Finally and probably most importantly dance lovers in the city are finally going to see  Hannah Alissa Richardson  perform live on stage with this famed Dance Theatre. This is the Toronto native’s inaugural season with the Company and the first time fo...

  Looking at our New Year’s incoming messages   By Stephen Weir The Premier probably used a speech writer. Some, from the looks of what they wrote, had help from bartenders and/or friends lying under the tables. Letters, oh yes we did get letters, emails, and texts, and videos and phone messages last Sunday night. In fact, readers are still sending me New Years’ Greetings, but now in 2023 most of what we see arrives from the Internet.  But no matter how the messages got on our computer screen, the thoughts and prayers continue to be the same year after year after year. Hope. Love. Peace. Oh yes and “Let’s Lose Weight” and “Exercise!”  And me? 2021 and 2022 was pretty horrible time for me.   Here's wishing 2023 is going to be different! As Curwin Baptiste posted just after the big ball dropped “I say let us get back to Basics, if you want to stop smoking, smoke a half a pack, not a full pack. Liming and enjoying each other company and stop taking and m...

Governor General Announces New Order of Canada Appointments By  STEPHEN WEIR  for  the  Caribbean Camera -  What a difference a Governor General of Canada makes. The people who decide which Canadians are to receive the Order of Canada have rediscovered the Caribbean Canadian community, albeit in a modest way. Last week her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada, announced 99 new appointments to the Order of Canada, including four Black members. Joining this elite group are:  Angela Ella Cooper Brathwaite,   Karina Chenelle LeBlanc, Frantz Saintellemy  and  Hamlin Washington Grange. As the Caribbean Camera has noted that while  Julie Payette  was Governor General ( 2017 to 2021)   there was a dearth of Caribbean Canadian appointees.  Reporter Stephen Weir penned an editorial that pointed out that Payette’s December 2019 list of citizens who had earned the Order of Canada had a ...

 A BUCK 'N' DOE OR NEW YEAR'S EVE PARTY FIVE DECADES AGO? Found Art. Pictures from the Sixties.  These pictures were inside a large box of unclaimed family snapshots, left for development, pickup and payment at a now long gone Drouillard Avenue store in Windsor, Ontario. I recovered the box while helping clean out the store. I promptly put them away in my attic office.   According to the orange Kodak envelope for this set of pictures, they were let at the store by a man who lived on Cadillac Street a few minutes from the front gates of theFord Foundry.  All the young dudes party in a beat-up basement apartment. Holes in the ceiling, third hand furniture, 60s style greaser hairdos. In 1965 the Elvis look still was a major influence on these hard drinking Windsor Hound Dogs.  Out of focus, damaged by the heat of being in my attic for 35 years, I rediscovered their pictures while cleaning out my files!  Young dudes party while the ghost of their yout...