Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

. HOW IS IT BUILT? Construction company using concrete, and lots of it, to give Marilyn Monroe curves that will stand the test of time. Toronto Star September 18th feature story (Condo Section: http://www.yourhome.ca/homes/realestate/article/861508--mississauga-condos-absolutely-brilliant ) By Stephen Weir Long after the world has forgotten Marilyn Monroe, two well endowed condos will still be twisting the years away in downtown Mississauga. Curvaceous. Shockingly new. Absolute Buildings 4 and 5 are being built to last for the next century and beyond. While their growing shapes are unconventional (Absolute 4 been dubbed the Marilyn Monroe because of its curves while Absolute 5 will sport a masculine big butt profile) it is the traditional application of concrete, and lots of it, that will make these buildings an eye-catching monument in time. The 50 and 56 story condominiums have been under construction for over three years. Now, as the structures begin to tower over the nearby City Ha...

. Condo Trivia By Stephen Weir Mississsauga's startling new condominium project. Story appeared in September 18, 2010 Toronto Star. Factoids only on website. Main feature appeared in print. FACTOIDS • Absolute 4 (Marilyn Monroe) has a rotation of 207 degrees from the base to the top. • Absolute 5 has a rotation of 200 degrees from the base to the top. • Absolute 4 (Marilyn Monroe) will reach 56 storeys. Each level has 9ft ceilings except the penthouse levels which will have 10ft ceilings • Marilyn Monroe has 428 suites; her shorter companion will have more … 453 in total. • Marilyn Monroe’s largest suite will be 3,500 sq feet, her smallest will be 545 sq ft • Marilyn Monroe will have 6 penthouse units, 100 21/2 -bedroom suites, 217 2-bedroom suites and only 28 1-bedroom units. There will be no bachelor units. • Amount of concrete that has been poured: 4400 cubic meters • Amount of concrete still to be poured: 1500 cubic meters • Absolute 4 and 5 share a common garage. There will be...

The McMichael unveiled its plans to enhance the gallery grounds and build an outdoor Sculpture Garden featuring works by a well known Canadian artist Ivan Eyres at a media event early in September. Two of the large nine pieces that Ayres is donating have been cast and will soon be installed in Kleinburg. The remaining pieces will be cast over the next 18-months. The McMichael previously received confirmation on March 12, 2010 that the Federal and Provincial governments will contribute $4.2 million through the Infrastructure Stimulus Funding program to complete this major project. This money will be used to enhance the grounds of the public gallery. A fund raising project has been launched to cover the costs of installing Mr. Ayres work. CUTLINE: Upkar Arora, chair of the McMichael board of trustees, with from left, Michael Johnston, chair of the McMichael Foundation, Tom Smart, outgoing gallery executive director and board member David Loch. Three of nine maquettes created by Winnip...

R enfrew. The luckiest town in the Ottawa Valley  The unfortunate love story of Lucky Gord and Hilly.   By Stephen Weir a rare unpublished fiction short-story based on fact/family history   DeMoss, the hired hand who spent his winters in the lean-to barn at the end of our unpaved lane, said I was lucky that I lived in Renfrew. The clean Ottawa Valley air. The good huntin'. Best of all, an arena that let you play full contact hockey without havin' to wear sissy protective gear.  DeMoss never thought to talk to me about the women. Didn't say anything about the men either. He was blissfully unaware of Renfrew mating practices. The young males and females in Renfrew had no trouble finding each other, but they were really lucky if they could find a place to be alone together. Priests. Neighbours. Fathers. Mothers. Noisy brothers and sisters.  You know the drill. My 17-year old sister Hilly and her 30-year old fiancée, Gord Ford, took to parking his Dodge (no kiddin...

. . Sublimnos No Longer Out Of Sight … And Definitely Not Out of Mind By Stephen Weir It will take a long long time for a piece of Canadian dive history to rust into dust. Given the hard feelings surrounding the historic Sublimnos Project, the deteriorating, remains of that underwater habitat could well be an above-water Lake Ontario eyesore for years until rust indeed becomes dust. Back in the summer of 1969 Sublimnos was set down in the waters of Georgian Bay near Tobermory, Ontario the self-described "fresh water scuba diving capital of the world" .It was a bargain basement underwater research station. Constructed from a railroad tanker for just $10,000.00, Sublimnos became Canada’s first subsurface research laboratory. From 1969 to 1971 the Sublimnos project, funded and spearhead by physician, author, explorer and frequent Diver Magazine contributor Dr. Joe McInnis, was headline news around the world. Built to accommodate up to four divers at a time, in its first two-ye...

. AN UNDERWATER FIRST FOR CANADA Scientists. Students. Divers. Thanks to the media the world came to see Sublimnos. In Canada almost every major news outlet from the Toronto Star to the CBC came to Tobermory. The international media came too. National Geographic Society helped fund the Sublimnos project and their magazine covered the story as well. “David Doubilet is notably one of the most famous National Geographic photographers and a mentor to photographers today,” said film producer Diana Woods. “One of his first photography assignments was Sublimnos in Tobermory in 1969!” Probably the most definitive U.S. article on Sublimnos appeared in Popular Mechanics Magazine (PMM) in April 1971. Back then PMM was ‘the’ voice of innovation and invention for Americans. At the time its readership was over 6.6 million, so the MacInnis Sublimnos Project gained high profile throughout the English-speaking world. Entitled Bargain Basement Habitat, the story was written by Douglas Hicks and informed...

. Lord Black fills the cracks in the Calypso Monarch programme - Scotiabank Caribana event at Science Centre Jokes about Conrad Black Itah Sadu has been making a living as a storyteller for almost twenty years in Toronto. She has the ability to make up a humourous story in a New York minute ( I guess I should say a North York minute) and give an Oscar winning performance delivering the goods. She is so fast that audiences don't even realize that when she takes a deep breath on stage she is actually dreaming up her next 2-minute bit to keep everyone amused. Her talents were put to the test on Saturday night at the Ontario Science Centre. Itah was the MC for the annual Soca Monarch Contest. This contest is the culmination of a summer of performances by Calypso singers who fight it out to see who can compete at the Monarch for the right to wear the Calypso crown (there is indeed an actual crown). The evening was plagued with delays. A late drummer meant that the doors opened almost ...

Caribana™ Arts Group/Yorkgate Mall 7th Annual THINK! Scholarship 2010 recipients receive cheques at the closing ceremony of the Scotiabank Caribana/Yorkgate Mall Junior Carnival Parade The “Caribana Arts Group/Yorkgate Mall Scholarship” Selection Committee announced on June 6th, 2010 that two scholarships have been awarded to high school students selected from Wards 7, 8 and 9 to pursue their post-secondary education at Seneca College beginning this fall. Payments will be handed out to awardees during the closing ceremonies of the Scotiabank Caribana/Yorkgate Mall Junior Carnival Parade on Saturday, July 17th, 2010. The scholarships are fully funded by Yorkgate Mall Administration in partnership with Seneca College, Fire & Ambulance, the City of Toronto, Community Partnerships and Toronto Residents in Partnership, RCMP, Metro Toronto Police Services (MTPS) - 31 Division, and the Caribana™ Arts Group (CAG). This year’s scholarship recipients are: Osato Idemudia (17 years old) Osato...

. INSIDE OUT AND GETTING WET IN ANTIGUA (repost request) By Stephen Weir As spectator sports go, Antiguan Starfish Flipping has a very small fan base. That is because you have to be a certified scuba diver, have the patience of Job and a high tolerance for low jokes to appreciate watching a Oreaster Reticulatus turn itself inside out. Antigua is a small vibrant island of 67,000 English-speaking people. Situated on the Eastern edge of the Caribbean Sea, the former British colony is within sight of the islands of St. Kitts, Nevis, volcanic Montserrat and its political partner Barbuda. Although this popular scuba diving destination is not blessed with an abrupt deep coral wall drop-off, it does have a rich healthy ring reef system that is close to shore. These shallow reefs are almost untouched and are filled with unusual sea life including a vast number of bottom dwelling starfish. “ If you came back from a dive and said you didn’t see anything, then you didn’t really dive, you just go...

. CUSHION STARFISH FACT FILE • Starfish is a name that is beginning to fall out of fashion because they aren’t really fish. The species are now called seastars. • Cushion Starfish or Seastars range in colour from brown to orange, red, and yellow. They grow to a diameter of 10 inches and lives at a depth to 50 feet. • As a natural defense mechanism, the starfish is able to change its body colour to hide or escape from predators. • The arms of the starfish are used for movement, catching prey and digestion. It is able to grow a new arm if one is lost. • It feeds on slow-moving or stationary animals. Clams, oysters and snails are the usual prey, but it also eats fish eggs and mollusk. The starfish stomach extends through the mouth to snare food. The meal is then transported to the starfish's digestive glands within its arms. • Cushion Starfish live up to 8 years in captivity and can survive up to two hours out of water.

. Scotiabank Caribana Programming at the Science Centre in June 2010 The secret to playing the steel drum? Don't bang the instrument with your "sticks", roll them across the surface of the metal ... or so says pan expert Salmon Cupid. Cupid, a music teacher within the Toronto District School Board is also the inventor of the E-Pan, the world's first electronic steelpan. On Friday morning he was at the Ontario Science Centre with 20 sets of steel pans and his E-Pan. The Ontario Science Centre has become a partner in the annual Scotiabank Caribana Festival. The Science Centre sponsored Salmon Cupid's visit to their building. Cupid had the help of a number school aged players and also called up members of the auidence to come up and learn all about the steel pan. The steelpan, also known as the steeldrum, is an invention that was made in Trinidad and Tobago. It is an acoustic musical instrument indigenous to that nation which remains to this day, the only such inv...

. G20 - One Billion, The Arts - No Score. Terracotta Warriors will have to wait to be discovered by the media Everyone was there for the press preview of the Terracotta Warriors this morning at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. There was the Cultural Minister from the British Columbia provincial government, Michael Chan, Ontario's provincial minister of culture and tourism, the head of the Vancouver Art Gallery, the head of the Glenbow Museum, the head of the Montreal Museum, vice president of the Bank of Montreal, a gaggle of high ranking Chinese government officials (and their translators) but, not counting the Chinese language TV and print, there was no mainstream media. Good show. No Hollywood (like the Art Gallery of Ontario's Tut exhibition -- with the voice of Harrison Ford and movie set entrance doors), just a dynamic, well thought out and tastefully presented exhibition. The media should have lapped it up. According to Wikipedia,"The Terracotta Army is the ...

. Demonstrators Already Claiming Victory in G20 Battle http://torontoist.com/2010/0/demonstrators_already_claiming_victory_in_summit_battle.php Boarded-up shop windows surround King Station. Photo by Stephen Michalowicz/Torontoist. Unless you've been living under a rock this week—and let's face it, with the security clampdown, lots of people downtown feel as though they are—you've noticed that the core of the city has been brought to a virtual standstill. Some streets are so vacant, you could use them as bowling alleys. Employees have been told to stay home. Shops are closed (some are even boarded up), the daily subway commute feels more like a Sunday afternoon than morning rush hour, and people are talking openly about leaving town for the weekend. Turning the country's biggest city into a ghost town is quite a feat. To some protesters, that's a major victory—and it's been won before the actual summits even begin. "Definitely the Harper government and the ...

. The World’s Worst Underwater Magician Hocus Pocus, Kodak High Def Underwater Video Camera Still in Focus Story filed with Diver Magazine June 8, 2010 By Stephen Weir The Pixel Wars are over, picture resolution can’t get any higher. Now the race to produce pocket sized high definition waterproof video cameras is on. One of the first out of the box is the Kodak PlaySport. In April the venerable film manufacturing company began selling in Canada and the US, a High Def video camera that looks like a cell phone, works underwater without a housing and easily links in to You Tube and Facebook. “It is brand new and just became available to consumers,” explained Kodak’s PR console, Carla McFarlane.” Major retailers are just receiving their inventory now since the product is so new (but soon it should be available everywhere). It is available in purple, blue and black.” According to Kodak their PlaySport is built for people who enjoy the outdoors. It is waterproof to 3-metres without a hous...

. Police, children, volunteers and the Scotiabank Caribana Festival stakeholders were at the Jane Finch Yorkgate Mall in Toronto to open the Toronto Police Junior Mas Camp Senior Officer Superintendent Sam Fernandez from 53 Division officially opened the Metro Toronto Police Force’s Mas Camp for Children on Monday May 31st at the Yorkgate Mall (Finch Avenue East at Jane St). He was joined by children were at the camp to learn how to make mas (masquerade) costumes for this summer’s Scotiabank Caribana/Yorkgate Mall Junior Carnival Parade. The camp is located in an empty Macdonald's Restaurant on the second floor of the Mall. Toronto Revellers Mas Band leader and NBA star Jamaal Magloire was at the Mall to help open the Metro Toronto Police's first ever Mas Camp for Kids. He spoke briefly to the children and the press and then signed autographs. Tony Ishmael, one of the founders of the Caribana Junior Parade and a costume designer for the Toronto Revellers Mas Camp, spoke at the ...

Follow on item to underwater records Flickr, photography's social media site, has recently put on line an emmense collection of public archives photographs. A quick search through the photographs that have already had subject tags added, found what may be the first ever photographed underwater poker game! Photographed in May 1951, the 4x5" b&w photograph show an underwater poker game. the picture was taken at Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida, home of the famed breath-holding Weeki Wachee girls (in mermaid costumes). The photograph is part of Florida' Department of Commerce collection and is resident in Tallahassee, Florida. According to the collection there is an accompanying note with the photo which reads "Dick & Shirley Woolery, Bud & Patsie Boyett, and Rudy & Thelma Halabuck. Poker game."

Peter Hughes quits as president of his former company. Stays in Florida but now runs a Galapagos Live Aboard Dive Boat In the last issue of Diver Magazine, travel editor Stephen Weir revealed that Live Aboard Dive Boat operator Peter Hughes had sold his industry leading Peter Hughes Dive operation. One month after that article appeared Hughes told Weir that he has left the employ of Wayne B. Brown, the current owner of Peter Hughes Diving and the principal owner of the Agressor Fleet. " IT is bitter, sweet for sure. My last day with Peter Hughes Diving was May 15th, 2010 and now I am on my own " Hughes first order of business has been to purchase the startup company DivEncounters, Inc. of which he is now the President. He is based in Florida near Miami. His immediate responsibility will be to handle the affairs of the M/V Galapagos Sky (formerly Sky Dancer), ensuring the continued high standard of operation. Hughes says there is possible product expansion in the future. Hug...

. Photography Festival has the Message and the Medium but at the grand opening, where is the Media? Friday photography show opening draws crowds but not the cameras Hot show and very hot festival uses McLuren as inspiration but private launch runs cold with the media. What is the message here? In 1974 I took a number of pictures of Marshall McLuhen as he addressed the media covering the annual Juno Awards. My close friend, Dave Tollington was working for RPM Magazine - the creators of the music award - and got me in the side door and let me take a half a roll of black and white film before shushing me away from the cooler filled with O'Keefe lager beer. My notes from that session are long gone. I don't remember anything he did say. I do know from my student newspaper tear sheet, that he did talk about popular culture to the people who promoted such big stars (back then) as Terry Jacks, Anne Murray, Stompin' Tom Connors, Murray McLaughlin and or course Valdy. McLuhen spok...