Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

  Exhibition closes with a bang on a steelpan d rum Stephen Weir Monday. Just an hour before the CNE gates shut for the last time this year, Wendy Jones stood on the fair’s International Stage and asked an audience how they are all feeling.  A crowd of 1,000 pan enthusiasts shouted back long and loud. “Hot. Hot. Hot!” Wendy Jones and the Pan Fantasy Steelband and responded in kind.  A rousing stripped down rendition of the Merryman’s  Feeling Hot Hot Hot closed out their one-hour performance in Enwave building at the Ex.  By the time they had packed up their kit (and posed for this picture beside the stage) the CNE had already gone into its shut-down mode for what has been a very successful festival, coming off a 1-year Covid shutdown. The CNE was held from August 19th to September 5 th . According to Darrell Brown, the boss of the festival the “ attendance was over 1 million by the middle of last week, a 10 per cent increase when compared to 2019. He says even though the last four da

Two Years On - Monday's Emancipation Day This Monday marks the second federally recognised Emancipation Day in Canada, it is also the second time that Toronto will mark the event with a march along Bloor Street in downtown Toronto. Beginning at 1pm at Bathurst and Bloor Street the parade with travel west to Christie Pitts for live music and celebration in honour of Canada’s recognition of Emancipation Day. Emancipation on Bloor ends at 3pm. The event marks the actual day in 1834 that the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 came into effect across the British Empire. August 1st is now a day that honours the long legacy and contribution of Black Canadians and the commitment to unlearning anti-Black racism and pushing for a more just society. media covering 2021 Bloor March Emancipation on Bloor is once again organized by The Blackhurst Cultural Centre. Spokeswoman Itah Sadu says the parade will “a series of “statements” through artistic expression including the liberation from chains, m

  Sandy Daley's new play asks: Whose Vagina Is It, Really. Now playing in Toronto festival By Stephen Weir Author, Playwright, Movie Star and Actress Sandy Daley is the first to agree that the name of her new play  Whose Vagina Is It, Really?  really does  garners a lot of attention, most of it good. The play opens tomorrow (Friday) afternoon at the Al Green Theatre in Toronto’s Annex district as one of the showcase plays in this year’s Fringe Festival . “I will say that the title does catch the attention of male (theatres goers), the women get it immediately,” Daley told the Caribbean Camera yesterday. “Black, Brown, Asia and Caucasian the message is the same. Women don’t put themselves first. I constant remind that you must home in what matters – themselves. Don’t keep doing everything for everyone else (like husbands and other make figures).” “Whose Vagina Is It, Really?" is set in a church and focuses on women and the pressures placed upon them by society. Karlene (played

Taking their hopes and dreams on down that long York University road By Stephen Weir This past Wednesday, 500 graduate students with parents, teachers and principals cheering them on celebrated their last day in Grade 12 by walking up to gates of York University and marching right in. The students came from four high schools in the Jane Finch corridor district – C.W. Jeffreys, Westview, Emery and Downsview High. The point of the annual parade is to mark the graduation of the students and to encourage them not to end their studies after Grade 12.   Many of the students had probably never toured York – until Wednesday, and the university laid out the red carpet and red lion to ferociously make it a fun, memorable visit. I made that walk too for the Caribbean Camera. Olympus camera in had I marched with Itah Sadu, the MC and Ringmaster of this scholarly parade from C.W Jeffreys to York University. Here are four pictures from that Walk with Excellence. Pix 1. It All Started Here – The P

Two galleries is Just not enough for the genuis of the late Claire Wilks TWO seperate Yorkville exhibitions of the work of the late Claire Wilks opening in nine days in two different galleries on the same street must be a record of some sort for a Toronto artist! Wilks was a figurative artist and once called women’s bodies her 'chosen landscape,' but she did not consider this a political statement: "The female form is my line, the form lives in the brain of my finger." Yet, during the 1970s her erotic  images of women were rarely accepted in conservative Toronto galleries because of their intense, carnal imagery. These drawings nonetheless contributed to a new dialogue about sexual desire from a female perspective, which happened to coincide with the first major wave of Feminism. Wilk’s devotion to the naked female form kept her largely out of most Toronto galleries in the70s and 80’s. The novelist Timothy Findley wrote: “Looking at these drawings, women are going to

D’New Regulars will be Off-Duty Next Sunday Night By Stephen Weir    When it comes to Carnival Canada’s longest serving Mas Man, Michael Williams ( pictured below ) he is never off duty, except next Sunday. He started the D’Regulars in 1973 and now 49-years later with a slightly different name, he will be presenting a costume launch for this year’s Mas Band. Canada’s Armed Forces generals are not probably going to like what William’s troop of models are going to be wearing on stage at the Spade Bar & Lounge. But given that the D New Regulars theme is “Off Duty”, enlisted or not, Soca party people will want to jump up and jump in.   “We have five sections of which four of them tie right into military uniforms,” explained Williams. Two sections have naval themed mas costumes (think male and female white navy uniform tops and of course skimpy bottoms)and two sections based on camo army fatigues.   “I designed all of the costumes and for the fifth section I looked back into the old day

  2022 Saldenah Carnival Costume Launch By Stephen Weir   Louis Saldenah, Canada’s most winning Mas Man said it before last month's Saldenah Carnival’s Streets of Fire costume launch and he is saying it now for sure. “ I told you so! The people of Toronto are hungry, hungry, hungry for carnival and 2022 is going to be that year, ” predicted Saldenah after his launch party attracted 2,000 people hungry to  look at the costumes that will be worn on the road in this year’s Toronto Caribbean Carnival Grand Parade.   “ I have always said this is going to be the best Carnival ever,” he told the Caribbean Camera. “After two years being cooped up at home without Carnival, I think everyone is saying, “Damn it, let’s just get out there (and jump up).” Louis’s Saldenah Carnival (formally the Mas K Club) holds the record of twenty “Band of the Year” titles for the annual Caribbean Carnival parade. Not only does his band win prizes for the looks of their masquerade costumes they also bring the

 2022 Saldenah Carnival Costume Launch   By Stephen Weir / Photographs by Herman Silochan and Gilbert Medina. Louis Saldenah, Canada’s most winning Mas Man said it before last month's Saldenah Carnival’s Streets of Fire costume launch and he is saying it now for sure.   “ I told you so! The people of Toronto are hungry, hungry, hungry for carnival and 2022 is going to be that year, ” predicted Saldenah after his launch party attracted 2,000 people hungry to  look at the costumes that will be worn on the road in this year’s Toronto Caribbean Carnival Grand Parade. “ I have always said this is going to be the best Carnival ever,” he told the Caribbean Camera. “After two years being cooped up at home without Carnival, I think everyone is saying, “Damn it, let’s just get out there (and jump up).”     Photograph by Herman Silochan  Louis’s S aldenah Car nival (formally the Mas K Club) holds the record of twenty “Band of the Year” titles for the annual Caribbean Carnival parade. Not only

    MY CHEAP ATTIC OFFICE ROOM FRIGHTENS LOTS OF PEOPLE   By Stephen Weir OMG. No, Double OMG. If the city inspectors sees this, I’ll be tossed into a snowbank, while they weld my alley door shut for the safety of the city. What am I doing here? Stephen, the landlord had a list (72 pt bold) of the renting features of this attic bedroom cum office. “ Number One!  ” it yelled at me. “It is a Gawd Damn Cheap.  Number Two No Rats …  not on the third floor at least).  Number Three. No toilet  .  You use the landlord’s  downstairs …. and he promises to make sure it is kept clean … most of the time.  Number Four.  It is the cheapest rent you will get at Young and Egg.” Young and Egg?  What do I know? I thought I’d just moved into a third-floor office walkup at Yonge Street and Eglinton Ave. “Oh, what a unique space. Love It.” Truth was I didn’t bring a bed to my new city digs, and the space was too narrow anyway.  And, as I remembered, it was really cheap!   Landlord Stephen   (LLS) lay down

Toronto marks Bob Marley’s 77th Birthday Eight-community leader to receive  Bob Marley Day Humanitarian Awards    Toronto City Council has proclaimed February 6th, Bob Marley Day in Toronto.  This is the 31st time that the city has honoured the late great Jamaican musician.  In previous years there have been public events held to mark the Reggae star’s birthday, this year it will be recorded at A Different Booklist Cultural Centre - The People's Residence and broadcast on YouTube at 3pm.   After the Proclamation issued by Mayor John Tory is read, we will honour this year’s recipients of the Bob Marley Humanitarian Award. Bookstore owner and author Itah Sadu will read from her book, a children’s story about how a new Canadian youngster makes friends with his principal over their mutual love for Bob Marley. We will also have a presentation on the progress of little Jamaica by Nadine Spencer of the Black Business and Professional Association. Receiving awa

KUUMBA DEAD IN THE (FROZEN) WATER,  BUT SOME ACTS COMING THIS SPRING Trixx No official announcement has been issued by Harbourfront yet about the possible cancellation of their  Kuumba   Festival  but the word on the street is that the annual event is on life support.  Kuumba, Toronto’s keynote festival marking  Black Futures Month  (Black History Month), was scheduled to run from February 1-28.  Because of Covid, it has already postponed and cancelled all the advertised keynote live events.   In December the Caribbean Camera interviewed Kuumba organizers about the return of comedy, theatre, authors and dance. Before we could publish the story about the coming of live Black entertainment to Kuumba (in 2021 it was an on-line festival) the Province stepped in with Covid restrictions that have made it almost impossible for Kuumba to pull it off by next week!   Just after New Years the  government ordered the closure of all festivals, indoor concerts and live performances in Ontario. The l