Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

 The Mighty Sparrow on stage at the Royal Theatre - Photo by Weir From my Huffington Post feature about the Mighty Sparrow and Lord Superior in the movie The Glamour Boyz Again -  http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/stephen-weir/a-documentary-to-be-seen-_b_5767108.html Toronto's  Caribbean Tales International Film Festival  kicked-off its ninth annual season last night at the Royal Theatre with a world premier screening of a new documentary about the  Mighty Sparrow  (Dr. Slinger Francisco) and Lord Superior (Andrew Marcano). Once dubbed the Calypso King of the World, an obviously failing Mighty Sparrow appeared on stage after the first showing of the  Glamour Boyz Again: The Mighty Sparrow and Lord Superior on the Hilton Rooftop . Written and directed by American author/filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn, the feature length movie follows a very simple format: two famous aging Calypsonians on a roof with one guitar and a bucket of Caribe ale. The two men ...

. ... If the Litton Logo Police Were Still Patrolling Outer Space but say what you want it still looks like a man on a toilet Logo for Sci-Fi Movie The Moon I was never a card carrying member of the Logo Police when I worked at Litton Systems Canada Ltd and later at Litton Industries.  Oh, I did a bit of sleuthing for the Force now and again, sniffing out internal fliers, memos and shower invitations that took liberties with the Li.  But, when it came to taking on companies that monkeyed with our trademarked symbols, it was a crack team of lawyers and PR directors from both sides of the border who manned the walls firing off lawsuits and writs at anything that moved. Hollywood's man on toilet logo Pre-Internet, a logo, its pantone colours and its careful designed typeface were as much a part of the company treasures as the patents for everything from dithering mechanism in ring laser gyros to the secret recipe of the chicken pot pie sold by Stouffers ba...

Shark Encounter Has Diver Using The Word Of Mouth (By STEPHEN WEIR, PUBLISHED IN DIVER MAGAZINE) Backside of Stephen Weir's Dental Implant. Some numbers obscured for privacy If you can see my social insurance number, it means you are my dentist, or I am dead. Eaten by a shark. Lost at sea. Or, maybe I was onboard an exploding airplane that somehow missed the crushed coral runway on a distant atoll. Late last year I got my Toronto dentist to tattoo my social insurance number onto the backside of my new upper left implant. You can’t see it without a mirror and me opening my mouth wide. It wasn’t cheap. But, as a diver who has had a few close calls underwater (all of them my fault), the tattoos give me peace of mind knowing that if my body washes up on a faraway beach, or if fishermen find my jaw in the gut of a shark, there is a good chance that I will be identified and my remains returned home for cremation. I have had two encounters with sharks ...

Yes I broke my @#&£§≤#! ankle birdwatching in the rainforest A NOTE ABOUT TOMORROW'S LUNCH Dear John and Alex: Last Saturday got permission to get into the  Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge  on The Big Island of Hawaii. The huge, usually off-limits Hakalau Rain Forest is located on the  windward side of the  Mauna Kea volcanic   mountain between 2,500 and 6,500 feet above sea level. This year the Forest is only open to the general pubic twice (up from once-a-year). Four-wheel drive required. It is down the mountain from  a dozen observatories including the Canada France Hawaii Telescope. Anyway, got to the rainforest early and my wife and I joined a Hawaii University Ecology professor and went into the forest looking for tiny colourful songbirds. The 32,000 acre preserve was established in 1985 to protect endangered birds and native Hawaiian plants. Our mission was to find and photograph 'akepa , the 'akiapola'au, the 'i'wi and th...

 . APRIL 2nd – Big Big Day For Three Canadian Book Prizes Today is an important day for three book prizes – one prize announces its grand winner tonight, while two other prizes announce their shortlists this morning . In Ottawa this evening, the Writer’s Trust will be awarding the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing . The winner will receive $25,000, the runner-ups received $2,,5000. The shortlist has five authors including one who is a past RBC Taylor Prize winner and one a RBC Taylor Prize finalist: • Margaret MacMillan - The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 • RBC CTP winner: Charles Montgomery - Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design • Donald J. Savoie -Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher? How Government Decides and Why • RBC CTP Finalist Graeme Smith -The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan • Paul Wells - The Longer I’m Prime Minister: Stephen Harper and Canada, 2006 – This morning the John W. Dafoe...

Weir Facebook Posting: Sad News From Eastern Canada  - Artist Molly Bobak Has Died Canadian Press is reporting the death of East Coast artist, 95-year old, Molly Bobak.  Mrs. Bobak was the first female Canadian war artist and had a long successful career as an artist in New Brunswick.  There were 32 official war artists in World War II and she was the last surviving member of that group .  Born in British Columbia, she made a name for herself in Atlantic Canada. I took the above picture of Molly and her late husband, artist Bruno Bobak, in the Founders'Lounge a few years ago at the McMichael Canadian Gallery in Kleinburg, Ontario.  The couple had travelled to Toronto to see Bruno's exhibition at the McMike.

FIRST COMEDY FOR TORONTO’S FILM AND OPERA DIRECTOR By Stephen Weir  (from Huffington Post ) Photographs by Stephen Weir and George Socka http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/stephen-weir/atom-egoyan-opera_b_4674959.html#es_share_ended It is night-time in downtown Toronto. The opera,  Cosi Fan Tutte , has just ended and the subway platform is crowded. Amongst the post show murmur two names are overheard -- Atom Egoyan and Superman. The Canadian director of movies and tonight's opera is juxtaposed with the Man of Steel. “ Egoyan takes a Superman view on facial recognition,” one 20-something woman lectures her group of friends.   “ When Superman puts on glasses everyone thinks he is Clark Kent – they just aren’t able to see the Man of Steel behind those horn rims.” In Egoyan’s COC production of Cosi Fan Tutte, the movie producer turned opera director admits that the big challenge for this Mozart opera buffa is to make the audience forget some of the silli...