The Memory Project
If you’ve never visited The Memory Project, Remembrance Day provides a great excuse to dip into the wealth of stories and digital artifacts assembled by this noble web initiative. The project is a nationwide bilingual initiative documenting Canada’s participation in the Second World War and Korean War via first-hand remembrances from hundreds of veterans. The website provides audio files and transcriptions of veteran accounts, plus digitized memorabilia.
McLuhan Centenary in Focus
Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Toronto-based communications theorist Herbert Marshall McLuhan. Around the world, a range of activities is being planned to celebrate the McLuhan centenary and organizers are seeking input into how to make the milestone as meaningful as possible.
As local plans take shape The McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology and The City of Toronto, Cultural Services have joined forces to galvanize the educational, cultural and artistic community to showcase how Toronto can honor its historical place as McLuhan’s home. The goal is to encourage and develop activities that are fun, provocative and collaborative, particularly with regards to the intersection of culture and technology.
Got a bright idea about how to celebrate the McLuhan anniversary? Then please attend a public planning session this Friday (October 29) from 1 – 3 pm at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto (iSchool) 140 St. George Street (north of Harbord), Room 728.
Lisa Pasold’s Literary Yorkville
Strolling the posh sidewalks of Yorkville, it’s hard to imagine that this quaint former village was a slightly derelict, bohemian drag as recently as 40 years ago. Best known for its 1960s and early ’70s coffee house scene, Yorkville was the launching pad for music talents like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Ronnie Hawkins and so many more.
But the area also has a rich literary history, which is what author and tour guide Lisa Pasold will be focusing on tomorrow afternoon (3 – 5 pm), as she leads local and international guests through the streets and laneways that gave rise to literary lights like Milton Acorn, Matt Cohen, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, bpNichol, Dennis Lee and others.
Pasold’s tour (email her for details, advance reservations are required), is part of a week-long “vacation for the soul” called Classical Pursuits organized by Ann Kirkland. Every summer in Toronto, more than 100 individuals from around the world retreat from the hurly-burly of daily life to engage in unhurried discussion and personal reflection about the world’s great literature, music, and art. Taking place all this week on the leafy campus of UofT’s Victoria College, Classical Pursuits features a variety of guest lecturers and tour guides; Kirkland likens the week to “slow food for the intellect.”
Yesterday, Pasold gave me a preview of her walk, which digs back into Yorkville’s 19th century history before fleshing out the literary side of things. We strolled past the sites of former coffee houses like the Riverboat, above, and the Mynah Bird, where authors rivaled the folkies with readings of seminal Canadian works.
Al Gilbert’s Life Behind the Lens
Al Gilbert probably won’t think much of my point-and-shoot portrait of him and his lovely wife Gail, who joined us for our interview Tuesday at the Market Gallery. Gilbert, 88, walked me through the show, a survey of images from his lifetime as one of Toronto’s most prominent portrait photographers.
After talking for more than an hour it was clear that Gilbert believes a portraitist’s skill lies in how he or she composes and lights a shot: “Photojournalism isn’t photography,” he says, a little dismissively, “you’re not setting up the shot, you’re just recording what you see.”
He might sound like a curmudgeon but Gilbert is anything but; he was gracious and funny as he walked me down memory lane, reliving the shoots that resulted in these images of Frank Sinatra, Golda Meir, Ed Mirvish, Oscar Peterson, John Deifenbaker, Robertson Davies, even world famous Canadian portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh.
“Was it intimidating shooting Karsh?” I ask.
“Not a bit,” says Gilbert. “When you’ve shot everybody from the Pope on down, what’s another photographer?”
“Al could teach Karsh about light,” says Gail proudly.
Heritage Walk Season Begins in Scarborough
The weather forecast for Saturday has improved considerably and Scott Woodland, for one, couldn’t be happier about it. A director of the Scarborough Historical Society, Woodland will leading the Thomson Pioneer Settlement walk May 1 beginning at 1:30 pm: it’s the first Heritage Toronto Walk of the season, one of dozens of free, real-time explorations of the city’s present and past.
A public school teacher and committed history buff, Woodland, above centre, is an expert on the early days of Scarborough and its founding family, the Thomsons. “David and Mary Thomson were the first European settlers to be given a land grant in the area [around 1798] although there had been native villages on the site going back about 800 years,” says Woodland.
