Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

It Isn’t A Game In The Other Side Of The Game Amanda Parris Toronto fervently wishes that the name Lester Donaldson would not be spoken and that 29 years after his death the city could return to being known as Toronto The Good.   But if wishes were kittens, Amanda Parris’s debut play, Other Side Of The Game, would still be a lion’s roar against Toronto’s treatment of the Black community – from police shootings in the last century to carding in the 2000s. Lester Donaldson is a name from way back.  He was a mentally disturbed Black man who was shot dead by police in a Toronto rooming house.  It was 1988 and the community rose up and marched, shouting Lester’s name at the police and City Hall. It was the spark that lit a roman candle under Dudley Laws who shortly thereafter formed the Black Action Defense Committee (BADC). There were more shootings of innocent Black men and BADC hit back with more  and larger demonstrations and finally a riot. In Other Side Of The Game, a B

Two Children’s Books Win Big In Toronto Tuesday Windsor's  Christopher Paul Curtis Two children’s books written by prominent Black Canadian writers won big on Tuesday evening. Children’s books were celebrated with more than $100,000 in prizes given to authors and illustrators at the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Awards ceremony.   Nova Scotia author Shauntay Grant won $20,000 on Tuesday night for her book Africville (illustrated by Eva Campbell).  It won in the Picture Book category. Shauntay Grant is an award-winning Canadian poet and author with strong Jamaican Maroon roots. She tells the story of  Africville , the vibrant Black community in Halifax which thrived for 150 years before being demolished by the government in the 1960s. The illustrated story is brought to life through the eyes of a young girl taking in the Africville Reunion Festival Also winning was Christopher Paul Curtis.   His “The Journey of Little captured a $5,000 prize for the best hist

Good live Caribbean Music coming to Scarborough this month  and Ossie says that is The Truth! By Stephen Weir: Next Saturday night Ossie Gurley wants people to wear costumes to his new gig at Scarborough’s Spades Night Club, but cautions anyone dusting off   and climbing into their Caribana gear.   “Sure come in Mas, but please make sure your costume isn’t too big for the door!” Ossie Gurley and his band, The Truth, have signed up to perform the last Friday and Saturday of every month at Spades.   Their first night is next Friday, October 25 th . Saturday October 26 th is their Halloween costume party! “ There hasn’t been a regular commitment by bands in the city for a longtime,” Ossie Gurley told the Caribbean Camera.”   We are doing this to get the community out, have fun and support the culture. We will do this every month for as long as people come out!” Ossie Gurley and The Truth  has been entertaining audiences across Canada since 2009 with its musical style

George Paginton. The man who quietly painted Peel, Mississauga, Toronto and Canada. New show. New book.   Rene Nand(l) PAMA, MPP Anand, curator author   Sharona  Adamowicz-Clements   By Stephen Weir and  P hotos  Herman Custodio  The 401 super highway winds through Peel County like a strip of concrete spaghetti.   There are glass and steel condos where cows once grazed.   Last century painting great George Paginton would not recognize his old stomping grounds where he loved to wander and paint. Back in the 1930s, 40s and 50s George Paginton was the patron saint of landscaping painting in a part of Ontario that would one day become the busy metropolises of the Toronto GTA, Brampton and Mississauga. Inspired by the Peel landscape like the Group of Seven’s love of the outdoors, Paginton's direct, truthful and rugged paintings of the land brought out a sense of beauty rarely seen now adays in art galleries and museums. Born in the UK in 1901 and orphaned at the age of 3

A World Stopping Nuit Blanc Installation by Director X By Stephen Weir: Spoiler Alert! Everyone dies, including the Sun, in Director X’s new art installation Life of the Earth and Death of the Sun.  On Saturday night and early Sunday morning, as part of the Nuit Blanche festival, the Ontario Science Centre stayed open to show-off Director X’s latest creation. Set in a large open space inside a lower level   gallery a huge white balloon hangs from the ceiling.   Using large-scale projectors, the orb becomes first a rotating and aging planet Earth and then it is our Sun evolving and eventually dying. Both the Earth and the Sun are shown as if seen from space moving from the past to real time and into a not so great future.   On a near by wall a huge LED display’s     charts the collapse of the sun and show pictures of life on earth from the beginning of time, to now. Throughout the night people trickled into the exhibition space, sitting on on the floor and leanin