Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

CNW photograph -  Josh Basseches Trending At Toronto's Cultural Attractions: Hire Out Of Canada . Just got a CNW release about the new head of the Royal Ontario Museum here in Toronto. In the press release ROM welcomes its new Director & CEO, Josh Basseches . He was previously the Deputy Director of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Basseches is well qualified to take-over a museum the stature and budget of the ROM. However, by passing over, once again, worthy Canadian candidates for the job (last CEO, an Australian, lef t her post early), ROM has continued a disturbing trend here in Toronto -- most of the high profile roles at this city's key cultural institutions have been handed over, at a huge expense, to foreign nationals. Earlier this year the Art Gallery of Ontario announced that after a 7-month worldwide search it had hired Stephan Jost as CEO of the Gallery. A Michigan born art expert, Jost does not appear to have a background in ...

. The Business of Promoting E-Books SALLOW CITY - Micah Reed's Flint Michigan Blood Bath From time-to-time I promote E-Books.   On a couple of occasion I have been very successful. Other times, well let’s just say less so.   Last   author driven project I worked on, the aging/ailing   Beatle biographer was so unimpressed with the campaign I launched that he refused to pay full freight on my invoice – it was so bad I couldn’t afford a dozen brown ones to wear on my face. When it comes to book promotion It is easier to squish a camel through the eye of a needle than it is to successfully push an E-Book work of fiction.   Electronic book sales are currently in decline in Canada, but the number of E-Books that   first timers are selling cheap   or simply giving away for FREE soars. Readers have quickly gotten used to the idea that they don’t have to pay much (or anything) to fill their Kobo, Kindle or IPad .   Every day I am offered,...

IAN BROWN SHORTLISTED 2016 RBC TAYLOR PRIZE Regrets? For journalist Ian Brown there are a few but not for the big things. Ian regrets the book not read, should he read three long classics or just the one he knows he will enjoy, does he have enough time to finish?  Face to face Brown is the kind of man you just want to be friends with; smart, funny, educated and able to hold his own in a conversation. His takes on life have you laughing and thinking at the same time just as they do in his recent memoir ' Sixty, ' shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize. In Sixty Ian kept a journal of his 60 th year with a touching honesty that left no wart untouched. Baring his soul was powerful and in many ways liberating for him giving him an outlet to vent all of his emotions of a mentally challenging year. Putting words to paper is what writers do but baring your soul can be like walking into a minefield. Catching a bite at Fresh and Wild during a lunch time interview I...

BOOK SHORTLISTED FOR RBC TAYLOR PRIZE   Canadian David Halton grew up in London during WWII with a father who was rarely home. Matthew Halton was the voice of Canada, sending reports home for the Toronto Star and CBC from the front lines. His stories from the battlefields kept Canadians aware of what was happening daily but today that voice has been largely forgotten, or was until David put ink to paper. Dispatches From The Front brings this extraordinary man to a new generation. Born in Pincher Creek, Alberta Matthew may have grown up with humble means but his parents made sure that their children read the classics, cultivating a love and thirst for knowledge. David reflected how his grandmother had the writing bug reporting for the local paper where Matthew would write his first stories. When at 12 Matthew asked to write for the paper the editor sent him out to cover a local campground as a lark thinking nothing would come of it. Matthew not only covered it but wrote wi...

K.J Mullins interviews Toronto writer Camilla Gibb Camilla Gibb believes in keeping journals, in fact her students at June Callwood Professor in Social Justice are required to keep one during their studies using an actual pen for the art of writing. With five award winning books under her belt Gibb knows the importance of catching those moments that may be forgotten if not written down in the moment.  Camilla Gibb Camilla Gibb is the author of 'This Is Happy,' one of the five shortlisted books for this year's RBC Taylor Prize to be announced on March 7 in Toronto. Snow was falling outside as we sat in the lobby at Toronto's King Edward Hotel to discuss her book and how life has changed since it was written.  Gibb said that her book was documenting a moving target (the birth and first few years of her daughter's life) while looking back to her own upbringing. That moving target, life in motion, has grown in the two years since the book was written. ...

from social media posting(s) Press photo of Erin Whitley. She is the Group Sales and Marketing Director for Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas in Nassau. Iconic sculpture the inspiration for model's ink I did a photo feature with the Discovery Channel about the underwater Christ of the Abyss sculpture. They used online  a number of pictures I had taken of Him while on a photo shoot in the Keys with Olympus Camera. Christ of the Abyss is a bronzed statue that is underwater in the John Pennekamp Underwater Park near Key Largo - it is probably the most popular dive/snorkel site in America. Christ of the Abyss. John Pennekamp Underwater Park in the Florida Keys. Photo by  Stephen Weir   The bronze statue was sculpted by Guido Galletti, in 1954. The original is underwater off the coast of Italy. A second casting of the statue is underwater near Key Largo -- it is the most popular snorkel / dive site in the Florida Keys. There is an above water casting of Chr...

. 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 Bridg...

Persil Kicks-Off The Annual Jump On The Bandwagon Super Bowl Competition By Stephen Weir from article on Linked In 01.23.2016 When Super Bowl Frenzy grips our neighbours to the south, PR/Marketing experts try to jump on a crowded Super Bowl media bandwagon, even if their products/message has absolutely nothing to do with the February Classic. This morning Persil laundry detergent - a popular German soap marketed in North America by Walmart - kicked-off the non-NFL sanctioned  Super Bowl of Commercial Tie-ins  gorilla marketing competition. They got in the game by  carefully avoiding the Trade Marked Super Bowl Name when they issued the result of a consumer survey they called THE BIG GAME STAIN! Persil hired a firm to interview 10,000 Americans - 5,000 males and 5,000 female - all of whom had watched at least part of The Super Bowl within the past three years. Reviewing the results Persil found that: Almost 2/3 of participants (64%) had spill...

Received  a Press Release this Morning Offering Big Bucks For This Bob Dylan Poster December 29, 2015 - Rock 'N' Roll collector using press release to find owner of a rare Bob Dylan poster. $5,000 US reward. Avid boxing style rock concert poster collector, Andrew Hawley issued a North American wide press release this morning to advertise that he is on the hunt for a rare piece of early 60s music. The owner of Vintage Rock Posters, is looking for a 1963 Bob Dylan Newark Mosque Concert poster and is willing to pay big bucks for it.  The concert was promoted by Moe Septee and Fe lix Gerstman who were early supporters of 1960s folk and rock acts on the East Coast. Dylan played the Newark Mosque on November 30th. According to Hawley, "This would be the first of two visits for Dylan to Newark in the 1960s. Two years later he would play the Newark Symphony Hall. Murray Posters of New York City printed the concert posters on thick cardboard, which measures approximate...