Yesterday Ruth gave me copies of her 3 volume Sisters Agonistes and we are both pleased with the way the covers came out. Full credit to Gustav Klimt, of course. Ruth chose his image of Pallas Athena to front her classically styled and structured poems.

The first: invincibly lower class. The second: serially sincere.
You’re welcome. I know you will find perfect uses for them. I plucked these from a conversation yesterday with John Robert Colombo.

Saturday evening at the Flying Pony Gallery/Café.
Proprietor Andrew Horne embraced the South Asian street festival going on outside and threw Melanie MacDonald’s show opening at the same time. On his side street, he and fellow artist Rob Elliott built the big street sculpture pictured below. A colourful tent offered fresh, delicious Flying Pony baked goods, too.
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There have long been artists who look back at the past, sometimes inviting us to contemplate the ruins of collapsed civilizations (and consider the fate of our own), sometimes romanticizing bygone “golden” ages.
Melanie MacDonald’s scrapbook paintings are different. They simply celebrate the images and colours of sentimental pop motifs that she found in a couple of 1930s/40s scrapbooks. Kitschy images are monumentalized in large, wall-spanning canvasses, forcing our attention by sheer size.

Obviously, I clicked something on some site that tricked me into allowing creeps to install a malware extension into my web browsers … Safari, Firefox and Chrome. No big deal. I just started to get redirected to sites I wasn’t looking for, but annoying. It’s easy to get rid of. Just find your browser extensions and trash the MacPriceCut extension.

Danica and I took the one-hour class and we are good to go – certified 3D printer users. Our library card lets us book a time to use one. Five cents a minute plus a buck for the session. No making guns or sex toys, though. Hey, it’s the public library. Shhhh!

Our handouts included links to free software we can use at home to make 3D files ourselves. You can find out more here.

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We agreed that it was more fun last year, because we had Dryden and Dave and Nicole along with us, but it was still a great day. The forecast was for hot and humid. WRONG! The skies were mercifully overcast and Danica was actually chilly. Perfect day for me.
I was trying out a new compact camera and I’m pleased with what is does … and especially for its tiny size. Thanks for the tip, Bill and Becky. Sony DSC-WX350.
Yonge is closed between Richmond and Gerrard again on Sunday.

Photos: Danica Andersen
Artists Andrew Horne and Rob Elliott teamed up and got into the spirit … in a BIG way … for this weekend’s South Asia Festival on Gerrard East. There are more shots in the slide show to come, but I thought I’d start things off with these shots that Danica took.
In addition to being an imaginative and skilled artist himself, Andrew is the gallery/café proprietor of the Flying Pony and Rob Elliott is one of the artists Andrew has given a one-man show in the past year.
The shot at the bottom includes Melanie MacDonald, the artist whose show opened at the Flying Pony last night. She was chatting with Rob Elliott. I didn’t even know they were behind me. Typical.
Please note that I now refer to the Flying Pony as a gallery first, café second. Although I first appreciated the place for its coffee and bakery enticements, I have learned that they are secondary to what the operation is about.

Gord Sawyer’s bird photography is outstanding and his site puts an avian spin onToronto’s amazing diversity. Enjoy!

Yonge Street was already pedestrianized this morning, as set-up for the weekend long Buskerfest began. Saturday evening is Melanie MacDonald’s art show opening (7:00 p.m.) and if you go, you’ll be right in the middle of the Festival of South Asia. Spicy street food, music, dancers, bargains and ATMOSPHERE … Gerrard street, Saturday and Sunday, between Greenwood and Coxwell.

Bill Plaskett sent Joni this find, recently scanned from a Polaroid shot taken on South Pender Island in the 1960s. From the left, Eve Smith, my brother Jack, sister Joni and John Smith.
The Smith’s were family friends who lived on the island where Helen had a studio that Raabye built for her. Bill Plaskett is friend of Joni’s who has made his mark in Canadian music. Here he is, performing with his son Joel …

I wonder if I still have a tape somewhere of Joni and Bill performing their original tune “Wally the Whale”…. or was Wally a Walrus? Joni?