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 people, lots of people!
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.
Womens March
Nathan Phillips Square
A few photos of people (of all ages) and signs at today’s rally and march.
below: “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made” and “Destroy patriarchy not the planet” while sitting on the 3D Toronto sign.
below: “Grope”. A play on Obama’s Hope sign
below: Walking across Dundas Street. “Believe women”. “My body is not public property”.
below: There were many Princess Leia & the Resistance signs.
below: “Men of quality don’t fear equality”.
below: “Gender equality now”. “End Violence Against Women”.
below: “Boys will be good humans”
below: “I can’t believe we still have to protest this shit!”
below: “Love is the answer. Try it”
below: “I stand with the dreamers” “Defend DACA”
below: “Missing my nap to smash the patriarchy”
below: “Feminism is for everybody”
below: “The peeved beavers”
below: “I am a snowflake”
below: “Pussy power”
below: ” I stand with you” across the shoulders
below: “Why I march? So my daughter will never have to say #metoo” “Supergirl in training”
below: Trump in effigy, “Stop the madness”
below: “Care about each other, not like Donald Trump”
below: “Love not fear” and big red heart shaped balloon.
below: “I hope”
below: “Tick tock on the clock, we all say time’s up!” “You’re so vain you probably think this march is about you”
below: “Respecta mi existengia espera resistencia”. “We are the change”
below: “We won’t let this slide”. “My sexual preference is mutual consent”.
April 1st was International Pillow Fight day and like previous years, a group gathered at Nathan Phillips Square armed with pillows and ready for a fight. Swinging, ducking and hitting as well as laughing and smiling, ensued.
below: Superman made an appearance
below: A well deserved rest after a fight well fought.
Two empty chairs sitting in the sun. This photo is only a half truth; it suggests that the beach was sunny but empty yesterday when I took the photo. Sunny yes, empty no.
Back in the winter of 2015, I discovered the first “Winter Stations” event on a day when the temperature was -20C. There weren’t many people there that year! In contrast, yesterday was a beautiful and unseasonably warm February Sunday. Temperatures hit the double digits and lots of people come out to take advantage of the weather. It was also the first weekend of the 2017 version of ‘Winter Stations’. Although the installations officially opened today, all but one of them were completed and ready for the public yesterday.
below: One of the installations is “North” which was designed by studio PERCH in Montreal. Yes, it’s Christmas trees hung upside down. They are prickling to walk between. This year there seems to be a recycling and reusing theme in a lot of the installations. At least I hope these trees weren’t cut down specifically for this project.
below: Another installation is “Collective Memory” designed by Mario Garcia (Barcelona Spain) and Andrea Govi (Milan Italy). People are encouraged to leave messages in the bottles.
below: Paper is provided as are the bottles. The walls are constructed of horizontal empty plastic water bottles with the openings all on the inside of the structure.
below: The sun shining through the plastic bottles makes for some interesting effects.
below: Like most of the installations, “Collective Memory” encloses a lifeguard station.
below: The installation that wasn’t ready yet is “The Beacon” designed by Joao Araujo Sousa and Joanna Correia Silva (Porto Portugal).
The installation in the background in the above photograph is “BuoyBuoyBuoy” designed by Dionisios Vriniotis, Rob Shostak, Dakota Wares-Tani, and Julie Forand (Toronto Canada).
below: One of many photo ops!
below: Notched ovals made of wood and clear plastic were used to build this installation. The wood pieces were either painted white or covered with silvery reflective material.
below: More reflections, this time in “The Illusory” designed by a group from Humber College School of Media Studies & IT, School of Applied Technology.
below: Someone has already written on (scratched?) the surface.
below: “The Illusory” in front, “Flotsam and “Jetsam” behind, and lots of people in between.
below: “Flotsam and Jetsam” was designed by a team from the University of Waterloo. It consists of cubes made of wire cages. The cages on the bottom are filled with empty plastic bottles of different colours and shapes.
***
The Winter Stations will remain until the 27th of March.
Thousands of people (50,000?), men, women and children, rallied at Queens Park and then marched down University Avenue past the American Embassy this afternoon. This was the Womens March in Toronto, a march in response to Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States. It coincided with similar events in Washington, most major cities in North America, and other cities around the world. The Toronto marchers ended their walk at Nathan Phillips Square. It was a peaceful, positive event.
It was also a family event. There were a lot of kids walking with their parents (or being pushed in strollers). Many of the kids had made their own signs to carry.
There were also many people that came as groups, whether as groups of friends or groups united in a cause.
There were a few signs using the “We The People” designs by Shepard Fairey.
Donald Trump swings happily on a wrecking ball.
I march for equality and peace.
I’d rather have a queen than a trump.
There were lots of references to nasty women!
Many people wore pink hats. These mysterious two took it a step further, pink balaclavas.
Love not fear, and a pink hard hat too!
Free Melania | #freemelania
girls are strong
Women have rights and we’re gonna use them! … with rainbows.
A loud hear us roar!
Donald Trump was at the march too, even if only in effigy.
The march stopped for a few minutes when it reached Queen Street. There was much traffic confusion and chaos (and honking of horns) at the intersection of Queen and University until the police closed all traffic on Queen Street.
Orange? No. I’m peach. Great play on words.
Make America gay again!!
And that’s only part of the crowd at Nathan Phillips Square!
“Babies against Trump. We don’t like it when people call Trump a baby – we act better than him.”
Women’s rights are human rights.
#whyImarch | #womensmarch | #nastywoman | #lovetrumpshate | #noh8
Overheard at Nathan Phillips Square on Saturday:
“There must be 10,000 photographs being taken here as we speak”.
I suspect that he was right!
I think that there is something intriguing about what people will do when there is a camera in front of them, how some people are comfortable while others are not. The photos that I took by the 3D Toronto sign at Nathan Phillips square on Saturday were of people taking selfies or posing for pictures. None of them were posing for me, but for their friends or families.
There is also something intriguing about how people behave when they have a camera in their hand.
#share3DTO #hostcity2015
Murals painted by Elicser in 2014, under the railway bridge on Bathurst St., just north of Dupont.
It is difficult to do justice to the paintings with a camera because of the structure of the bridge. The following images are ones that I took yesterday. Yes, there are many!
as I walk Toronto 