Santa Claus Parade 2018
The 114th annual Santa Claus parade filled the streets with lots of fun and excitement.
Floats, clowns, and hundreds of characters in costumes.
And of course, Santa Claus at the end of the parade sitting in his sleigh with toys and Christmas surprises. The star of the parade, the person everyone came to see.
It was the last night of October, the rain had stopped earlier in the evening, and Church Street was closed between Gloucester and Wood streets. It was ‘Halloween on Church’, an annual street party filled with costumes on display wanting to be seen and other people wanting to see and take pictures. These photos represent only a small selection of what there was to be seen that night (obviously!).
below: A one night stand to remember
below: Glowing red and green
below: Japanese ghouls, dressed to kill?
below: White man on keyboard.
below: A group of people went as the 3D Toronto sign.
below: More playing with lights, this time as stick people.
below: Looking at instagram in a new light, from a different point of view.
below: With a doll and a lit candle
below: With a doll and a dog.
below: This one is for Jude, something about wanting to take this one home with her…..
below: With pale pink hair, a shimmering dress, and a big smile
below: Crossing light sabres with Darth Vader.
below: Kermit only has eyes for Miss Piggy….. or else!
Enter if you dare!
To houses guarded by skulls
and ghosts. Where skeletons rise out of the ground
Where spider webs cling to everything – is that spider nearby too?
Happy Halloween everyone!
This is a “Thursday door” post. If you are interested in doors and want to see other people’s blog posts about doors, start with Norm 2.0’s blog post. At the the bottom of that post you will find a link to many more!
Waterlicht is a large-scale light installation by Daan Roosegaarde, a Dutch artist. It showed at the Bentway, in front of Fort York, for three nights this past weekend.
below: Light, like water flowing under the Gardiner.
below: The fluid patterns of light and smoke created waves and angles of blue.
below: One of many selfies
below: From above
This year’s Nuit Blanche was on September 28th and 29th. The night’s activities were spread over a large number of locations around the city. That was a few days ago so yes, I am a bit behind. I was laid low for a couple of days with this cold that’s been going around… or I took a few days to recover from being up until 3:30 a.m.!
below: Part of ‘Continuum: Pushing Towards the Light’ by Brandy Leary and the Anandam Dancetheatre. They made they way across the glass enclosed bridge over Queen Street between the Eaton Centre and The Bay store.
below: From behind the burlap (or tarp?) Nathan Phillips Square, from an installation ‘Radical Histories 2012-2018’ by Ibrahaim Mahama.
below: More from the same installation, this time from the “right” side. It was great for making shadow figures. Thanks to Jude for starting off the evening with me… and getting creative (silly?) too.
below: We found a photo shoot on Bay Street.
below: On Bloor Street, nothing to do with Nuit Blanche but it looked cool. Reflections and lights.
below: Eaton Centre, a quieter moment that night.
below: Checking the map. Yonge Dundas Square – the installation there was very unimpressive so I took people pics instead.
below: At Church of the Redeemer (Avenue Road and Bloor), Korean Dancers. “Star Moon Water Stone” by Ensemble Jeng Yi
below: Drummers, same venue as above.
below: ‘This Storm is You’ at the Ontario Science Centre, an installation by Zahra Saleki. Photography on the walls and stories on the floor.
below: Walk among the stories. “Every story deserves to be lit. Grab a sharpie and write yours.”
below: Smile!.. and a testament to the start of love. Two of many lit stories.
below: Saleki’s photos displayed here are abstract dance photographs in black and white. Negative images and slowing the camera to produce the blur of motion.
below: This is what you saw when you first got off the subway (is the SRT a subway?) at Scarborough Town Centre. It’s part of the ‘The Things They Carried’ Babel series. The motifs are similar to those on the installation at Yonge -Dundas Square, that oops, I don’t have a picture of.
below: At Scarborough Civic Centre, ‘Everything I Wanted to Tell You’ by Hiba Abdallah. A series of words in lights projected onto several buildings. The words changed every few seconds to tell a story or two.
below: More of the words. “People hold on so tightly to a specific narrative of this place”.
below: More projections at Scarborough Civic Centre. Sorry, not sure which installation this is.
below: Scarborough Town Centre (mall) had a mountain of inflatable globes you could walk under, or just look at. ‘Walk Among Worlds’ by Maximo Gonzalez
below: Weaving stories, ‘Interlacing’ by Community Arts Guild, at Scarborough Town Centre.
below: Watching a performance at the Scarborough Civic Centre.
below: Running through the lights.
below: Reflections, Aga Khan Museum
below: more Aga Khan
below: Showing ‘Insomnia’, a video filmed in Tehran showing simply the view out his bedroom window, by Simin Keramati, Aga Khan Museum
below: Trash at Yonge Dundas Square. Nothing to do with Nuit Blanche, just an ordinary day’s worth of garbage. It just happened to catch my eye as I was walking down the stairs to the subway.
Ending with rubbish would be a weird way to end a post, so here’s another mannequin. I saw lots of them that night too, unfazed by the activity around them, unmoved by the night’s events.
below: I’m out here every night. Nice of you to finally notice….
Open Streets – the second, and final, Open Streets for 2018 was held last Sunday. Large sections of Bloor and Yonge Streets downtown were closed to traffic leaving lots of room for cyclists, pedestrians and a number of activities.
below: Axe Capoeira
below: Mayada’s Belly Dance at Yonge & Bloor
below: And other dancing in the street too – or rather, a very active fitness session!
below: It looks like animals can dance too… this dog seems to be having a great time!
below: Little drummer boy on a fancy Home Depot drum set!
below: Decorating bikes and scooters
below: Sharing a hammock in the middle of Yonge Street.
below: Trumpet lessons
below: Yoga in the park
below: And for those who were looking for something less active…
below: Yonge Street was also on the route of the 2018 Toronto AIDS walk
below: A Lamborghini. 0 to 6 in how many seconds?
below: IATSE Local 58 led the parade this year. They have been locked out of the CNE who brought in workers from Quebec and Alberta to help set up the Ex this year. Usually the parade ends at the CNE grounds at the Dufferin Gate and participants get free admission to the Ex. This year, the parade ended at Lamport Stadium instead.
below: Mayoral candidate, Jennifer Keesmaat, walked in the parade with the IATSE locals. At Bathurst St., the groups at the front slowed down to let the others catch up. At that point, Keesmaat was interviewed by CP24.
