Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

BRAMPTON’S RISING STAR GOING HIGHER THAN THE 13 th  FLOOR   By Stephen Weir : The star  Polaris is  408 light years from Earth.  At the rate Haviah Mighty’s career has taken off, she should be there any day now! The Brampton Hip Hop artist won it all Monday night at the Carlu Hall in Toronto.  Not only did she win the Polaris Music Prize but her performance at the national music event broadcast by the CBC was rated stellar too. The Polaris is a music award annually given to the best full-length Canadian album based on artistic merit.  Mighty’s new album 13 th  Floor was deemed the country’s best. The award was established in 2006 and comes with a $50,000 cash prize. On Monday night, a jury of 11 music experts came to the downtown Carlu to pick the best Canadian album of the year.  Haviah Mighty  made history becoming the first hip hop artist to win the grand prize.  On stage after capturing the Polaris Music Prize, Haviah Mighty explained what the 13 th  Floor w

  Bride and Groom all washed up, but that’s what made them so bubbly at this unique St Lucian wedding By Stephen Weir There wasn’t a dry eye at a very special St Lucia wedding held last Thursday.    A well-known scuba diving Canadian travel agent Julie Gilchrist and her beau Sean Gillen decided to get hitched underwater and in doing so set a record for the Caribbean! This past weekend the third annual Saint Lucia Dive Festival ended with a wrap-up celebration to honour the Southern Ontario couple who literally deep-sixed their wedding vows two days before.  It all happened some 30 feet down on the sandy bottom of a Caribbean bay near the ever-so-posh Royalton Resort. St Lucia is no stranger to out-of-country couples getting married on the island.  In fact they hold over 700 such weddings every year. But never ever in the history of the island have they ever seen such a wedding – it all took place underwater where the fish out-numbered the guests and wedding party. On beha

--> One Pot. One Chair. One Table. Charmin’ dining hidden in plain sight. By Stephen Weir How does Charmaine Desir do it? Her food shack on the edge of Castries Central Market doesn’t have a sign, has only a bench for three and one seat at the dinner table. Oh yes, it doesn’t appear to have power and the roof leaks over the visitors when it rains. It is easy on the island of St Lucia to enjoy expensive fine dining, 4-star restaurants abound. Finding a hearty, gut-pleasing meal for $5? Now that is an adventure that seasoned travellers should consider taking. For the past17 years the Castries shack chef has been feeding customers one serving at a time in an unmarked shed (look for a cartoon of a young couple having lunch and checking their smart phone). Those in the know find her and as a result there is always a customer or two outside waiting to be fed. Since she can only seat one or two people at a time, she gets to know her customers really well "if

Artur Walther outside the Ryerson Gallery doors - sweirsweir They photographed African women’s gazes, now those women look at us – new exhibition at Ryerson’s art gallery By Stephen Weir Artur Walther is that guy.   A self-made billionaire who in retirement has shucked off his golden handcuffs and dedicated himself to doing good things, including the collection and exhibition of historical and contemporary photographs. Over the course of the past 26-years, the former co-head of Goldman Sachs’ worldwide capital markets group in 1983 and the founding partner of Goldman Sachs’ operations in Germany  has managed to create one of the world’s most important privately held photography collections. His Walther Collection Foundation has opened two photography museums – one in Germany, the other in New York City. On Tuesday the 70-year old collector was in Toronto to open a photography exhibition of African women. Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portr

--> Proposed Jamaican Film Gets The Nod From The Big Pitch By Stephen Weir Horrific crashes are the stuff movies are made of. The Titanic. The Hindenburg. The Twin Towers. And if the judges at the Caribbean Tales Film Festival (CTFF) are right the next Jamaica feature film to be made is sure to be the second biggest train wreck of them all. The CTFF has given the nod to a film proposal that wants to create a drama around the most famous Jamaican train wreck you have never heard of! The 1957 crash of a packed train near Kendal, Jamaica. “Yeah you probably never heard of the Kendal. I didn’t, and I am Jamaican,” said award-winning filmmaker Gabriel Blackwood.   “When I did learn about the Kendal crash I knew I had to tell the story. You know when the train derailed over 60 years ago, it was the world’s second worse train wreck!” filmmaker Gabriel Blackwood picture by sweirsweir Kendal is the name of the feature length film the young Jamaican is geari