Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

. The Sci-Fi Visions Of Canadian Artist John Scott Twee HUFFINGTON POST John Scott - from George Socka video I met artist  John Scott  back in Windsor in the late 60s, long before he started painting bunny ears on boxer Mike Tyson and a sci-fi wheelchair for a long-forgotten pope! It was my first year being on-air at the Windsor U radio station and it was an era of profound change in Canada's Motor City. Back then Scott was a young street artist. He was also a factory worker (he had dropped out of school before he finished Grade 10) and a union activist. It was a good time and a good place for him to be. Anyone young and living in Windsor in that decade, John Scott included, was politically aware and ready to take to the streets to support the cause of the week. He had a ringside seat for the burning of an American city during the  Detroit Riots . There were the anti-nuke protests that brought us all out to shut down the Ambassador Bridge -- indus

. The Growth of the Modern World Via The League of Nations A Review of Susan Pedersen's The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire By KJ Mullins-Toronto History Today:  For historian Susan Pedersen the League of Nations was a fascinating period of restructuring the Imperial World to Nation States while attempting to maintain old school ideals of how to govern the masses. Susan Pedersen (middle) wins the Cundill Prize Nov. 2015 Pedersen was in Toronto this November as part of the shortlist for the 2015 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature.  Just hours before she took the prize we sat down to discuss her book The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire.   "I didn't write my book as a comment to current affairs, that is for the reader to draw on." Pedersen stresses that she is a true hardcore research historian and that her focus is on the world prior to 1945, not on the present day. Narrowing in on the mandate

Dr Sharpe in Toronto DR SHARPE HEADED SOUTH TO NORTH TORONTO  TALKS WHALE BUBBLE NETTING! ... Diver Magazine Canadian educated American whale expert Dr Fred Sharpe (pictured below) was in Toronto last week to promote the new Imax film Humpback Whales. The Alaska based whale expert is featured in the new movie because of his leading-edge theories about the social feeding behaviours of this large cetaceans. Narrated by two-time Golden G lobe nominee Ewan McGregor, Humpback Whales is a immersive ocean adventure that invites audiences to dive into the underwater world of these 17-metre, 45 ton mammals. Humpback Whales has been made by Freeman Films who have done many other underwater documentaries including The Living Sea, Dolphins, Coral Reef Adventure and To the Arctic. While many of the science large format documentaries bemoan the demise of the animals they are featuring, Humpback Whales, in comparision is a good news story. Once feared as monsters, and very nearly hu

ANCIENT SHIPBUILDING DESIGN - THE WRECK OF THE LAST DHOW EXHIBITION - AGA KHAN MUSEUM - TORONTO Model of Dhow  - Aga Khan Museum - photo by George Socka The Dhow is a traditional one or two masted sailing vessel usually with lateen rigging (slanting, triangular sails) that has been used for two millennia in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. It was constructed of wood.   Boat builders steam-shaped wooden hull planks, roughly 2.5 centimeters thick and between 20 and 50 centimeters wide.   These planks were stitched edge to edge with rope. According to the Aga Khan Museum “wadding was placed under the stitching both inside and outside the hull. A lime-like sealing compound applied to the exterior waterproofed the hull.”

DR ALAN CHONG TALKS ABOUT THE LAST DHOW RECOVERY - THE VIDEO Video talks to Dr Chong about the shipwreck of the 1,200-year-old dhow by Stephen Weir and George Socka for Diver Magazine DIVER MAGAZINE talked to Dr Alan Chong, the head of the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore about underwater archaeology and shipwrecks in the Java Sea.   Alan Chong is a former Toronto Art Gallery curator.   That interview can be seen in a short YouTube video at : http://youtu.be/jfI5pnTn-1U

.   . AS MAY FADES, SO DOES THE CONTACT FESTIVAL. STILL TIME TO SEE MAGGS, MACLEANS AND SCHOOL EYED KENYA! (Draft article for Huffington Post Blog) Somewhere in the great city of Toronto, there is an art lover who has seen every single Contact Festival picture hung by over 1,500 Canadian and international photographers in 175 venues throughout the city.  But for the rest of us,  it is a challenge to  see at best a few of the exhibitions that make up the  world's largest month long photography festival.  With only a few days left in the At the Design Exchange Big Show, what will you see? May I suggest three -  the late Arnaud Maggs (AGO/Ryerson), Maclean's Face to Face (Gladstone Hotel)  and the intriguing group show - I Am Standing In The Place Where I Live - by four students from Emori Joi High School in Kenya (Design Exchange)! I Am Standing In The Place Where I Live : Christopher Nokes is a well-known figure in Toronto's art scene, and an inspirationa

  Cue the actor. Eric Peterson to receive Order of Canada - Socka You Knew He Was Important Because Of The Size Of The Camera Crew I knew that the film crew of six had to be from the National Film Board . It was 8am on Saturday at the St Lawrence Market, and the crew members were flush with the knowledge of earning time and half pa y.  They were all men. Of course. They were all in the 30s. They all looked like they had worked for the Peace Corp - a few steak dinners ago. Old jeans, but pressed. And of course, the pre-planned 5 o'clock shadow that requires you to shave at 9 oclock the evening before to look like a real player!   Who else but the National Film Board could afford to go this big, this early? Who else could afford a camera man, a sound man, a director, a man with a monitor around his neck (and a cool hood to let him watch the action in the dark), a model release guy and some other man that looked for suckers to fluff up and interview? Sigh. I w