A Lady-Date with Meghan : A Movie, Dinner and Drinks

My friend Meghan is a fan of The Beatles, so got us tickets to see the new Ron Howard documentary Eight Days a Week at the Bloor Hot Doc Cinema on Saturday afternoon. The movie was immediately followed by a half-hour screening of remastered footage from the Beatles concert at Shea Stadium in 1965. This show was was attended by 55,600 people, and goes down in history as the world's first ever major stadium concert.Both the movie and the concert segment were really good, featuring lots of previously unseen footage focusing on The Beatles' touring years.

Dinner and a Movie at Our Place : Halloween 2016

Hi. I hope all who celebrate it, had an excellent Halloween!We marked the occasion with our friends Leslie and Niall, who came over for a pizza dinner and a movie.Decorations included the few Halloween/Autumn decorations I already had ...

At the Gallery : Mystical Landscapes Exhibition at the AGO

There are some esteemed guests here in Toronto right now, in that some special paintings from around the world are currently hanging at the AGO. The show is called "Mystical Landscapes" and it's here until January 29th, 2017. [EDIT: the show has been extended to February 12, 2017] Taking over five years to come together, this exhibition includes works from great masters we know and love, Van Gogh, Monet and Gauguin, and many we've never heard of because the paintings have never before left the countries of their origin. In all, 37 artists from 14 countries are represented, in 90 paintings and 20 drawings, created over the 50 year span from 1880 to 1930. Each reflects the artist's desire to capture the spiritual presence they sensed out of doors -- in woods, on mountain tops and in the night sky.Conceived and organized by the AGO's senior curator of international exhibitions, Katharine Lochnan, together with several guest curators and in partnership with The Musée d'Orsay in Paris, this wonderful show invites guests to reflect on the role of nature and spirituality in their own lives.

More Late Night Art : Pneuma by Floria Sigismondi

c="http://www.loulou.to/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/pneuma-film-in-fountain-nathan-phillips-square-toronto-nuit-blanche-by-floria-sigismondi.jpg" alt="pneuma-film-in-fountain-nathan-phillips-square-toronto-nuit-blanche-by-floria-sigismondi" width="640" height="640" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-34058 blk-brdr">In this recent post I wrote about our adventures at this year's all night art show, Nuit Blanche, mentioning that one exhibit I especially wanted to see wasn't working when we arrived to see it at 4:30 in the morning. Luckily though, this was one of the three pieces that had an extended showing, so we had another chance.Pneuma by Floria Sigismondi was a seven minute video installation that used the sheet of water from a fountain as a screen, complete with a musical accompaniment.Aside from really wanting to see this thing that sounded really neat, I also was drawn to it by the artist herself. Floria used to live in Toronto and while I never met her directly, there was a period of time that I used to go to some of the same parties that she went to. That was because my sister, who is a hair stylist, worked at the salon owned by a close friend of Floria's. They used to host regular parties to which I was glad to tag along to with my sister. You can say I was somewhat in awe of this beautiful, impressive person, who at the time was on the brink of becoming the important artist she is today.Her work includes photographing David Bowie with Tilda Swinton, and Jack White. And she has directed at least 55 music videos for the likes of Bowie, Pink, Katy Perry, Bjork, Justin Timberlake and many more. The one she did for Justin, "Mirrors", won video of the year at the MTV Video Music Awards. Also, she wrote and directed the movie The Runaways about the all girl rock and roll band, with Kirsten Stewart and Dakota Fanning.If you'd like to take a quick look at some of her photographs, you can find them on her site here.[Aside, her friend and the person who owned the salon with the parties, Pamela Neal, is also a pretty big deal today as well, doing hair for people like Susan Sarandon. She did Adele's hair for the video of "Hello". And she did my hair for our wedding! I see her name listed in the credits for Pneuma, so she and Floria are still close. Clearly friends for life.]So, long story short, I really wasn't going to miss a chance to see Pneuma, which was showing in the fountain at Nathan Phillips Square.

At a Friend’s Book Launch Party

Our friend Nyla is a poet and her second full-length book, Stranger, came out last week. We went to the launch party, held at The Monarch Tavern in Little Italy. It was a join release with another Canadian poet, Robert Moore, whose book "Based on Actual Events" was also being presented.

The Monarch is one of Toronto's oldest bars, having opened in 1927. It was lovely with its glimmering chandeliers and lush red velvet curtains -- a perfect setting for poetry. True to the description on their site, "At night, the lights get turned down low and the room is transformed into a cool but totally casual cocktail lounge and event space, ..." it was very dark in there.

So, I had to push the light on all of these pictures which is why they're so grainy, but hey, badly lit pictures are better than none, right?!