Summer of Love
There's a big arts festival being held in Toronto over the next ten days called Luminato and it's featuring all kinds of interesting art, theatre, dance and music. As part of the festival tomorrow Yorkville in downtown Toronto is having a Summer of Love day, harkening back to its glory days in the 1960s. The Yorkville area of Toronto was our "Haight-Ashbury", the area where all the bohemians and folkies hung out, where folks like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot honed their early talents. Tomorrow they are re-creating the era with displays and clothing and videos and music, including several concerts leading up to headliner Sylvia Tyson.
After being in Toronto twice last weekend for the Heather Dale concert and the UT recording session I was going to stay close to home this weekend, but I think I'm being lured back into TO after all to hang out with these latter day hippies. I've always had a fascination for the 1960s- the music, the culture, the politics and always kind of felt as a teen in the 70's that I had just missed out on an era that was more intense, more colourful, more creative. A bit of age and experience taught me that living in an age of political and cultural turmoil might not be as colourful or desirable as I might have once thought when I was young, especially when recent years have thrown political and cultural turmoil at us as sobering and real as anything seen in the 60's.
But musically the decade still speaks to me strongly and having an iPod full of songs by The Beatles, The Who, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Phil Ochs, The Byrds, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Kinks, early British invasion tunes, a handful of San Francisco psychedelic tunes, early 60's protest songs and folk rock fusions, still feels as fresh and exciting as the stack of 60's albums I listened to at 13.
So I'm curious to go downtown tomorrow and see what happenings they'll have going on in Yorkville. Should be fun.
(Photo: Dressed up for our school's "Sixties' Day" back in 2005. It was the 40th anniversary of our school opening in 1965. Note the cool tye-dye shirt that
clothsprog made for me especially for the occasion and mailed to me from England! I'm going to wear his tye-dye shirt to Yorkville tomorrow, too.)
While I'm downtown I'm also curious to go check out the movie "Once" as it is only playing in one theatre in all the Toronto area. Have any of you seen this film or heard of it? It's an independent Irish film about two musicians whose lives come together for awhile and the relationship between them. The reviews for this movie have been totally spectacular. Critics can't seen to rave enough. It's taken several film festival awards and it's presently sitting at a very impressive 98% on Rotten Tomatoes' "tomatometer". I was wondering if maybe the film is getting more play in the British Isles.
After being in Toronto twice last weekend for the Heather Dale concert and the UT recording session I was going to stay close to home this weekend, but I think I'm being lured back into TO after all to hang out with these latter day hippies. I've always had a fascination for the 1960s- the music, the culture, the politics and always kind of felt as a teen in the 70's that I had just missed out on an era that was more intense, more colourful, more creative. A bit of age and experience taught me that living in an age of political and cultural turmoil might not be as colourful or desirable as I might have once thought when I was young, especially when recent years have thrown political and cultural turmoil at us as sobering and real as anything seen in the 60's.
But musically the decade still speaks to me strongly and having an iPod full of songs by The Beatles, The Who, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Phil Ochs, The Byrds, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Kinks, early British invasion tunes, a handful of San Francisco psychedelic tunes, early 60's protest songs and folk rock fusions, still feels as fresh and exciting as the stack of 60's albums I listened to at 13.
So I'm curious to go downtown tomorrow and see what happenings they'll have going on in Yorkville. Should be fun.
(Photo: Dressed up for our school's "Sixties' Day" back in 2005. It was the 40th anniversary of our school opening in 1965. Note the cool tye-dye shirt that
clothsprog made for me especially for the occasion and mailed to me from England! I'm going to wear his tye-dye shirt to Yorkville tomorrow, too.)While I'm downtown I'm also curious to go check out the movie "Once" as it is only playing in one theatre in all the Toronto area. Have any of you seen this film or heard of it? It's an independent Irish film about two musicians whose lives come together for awhile and the relationship between them. The reviews for this movie have been totally spectacular. Critics can't seen to rave enough. It's taken several film festival awards and it's presently sitting at a very impressive 98% on Rotten Tomatoes' "tomatometer". I was wondering if maybe the film is getting more play in the British Isles.