Word on the Street: Readers in a Candy Store

Forget the kid in the candy store. Any Toronto book lover will tell you that the Word on the Street book festival is much more exciting than that. And infinitely more tasty.

Elizabeth Abbot, Charlotte Gray, Tim Cook

This annual festival, held recently again not just at Queen’s Park in Toronto but in several major cities across Canada, might start with books,  but it then extends well beyond them. In fact, this event might be better described as a readers’ and writers’ festival, instead of narrowing it down only to books. Where else can you find one speakers’ tent devoted to e-readers and other digital ways of reading, another tent for magazine publishing, another for readings by the authors of recent best-selling books, and another whole tent completely devoted to cookbooks?

In one tent, people gathered to hear history authors read from and talk about both their writing process and the actual historical events they wrote about. In another, hopeful writers learned some of the manuscript submission process from publishers and agents. Some even had pages of their work critiqued on the spot by published writers and writing professors.

Booths everywhere!

Beyond all the speakers’ tents, the streets on either side of the park were lined with information booths, populated by representatives from publishers and writers’ clubs, bookstores and magazines, and published authors promoting their books. Whatever aspect of writing or reading you were interested in, you could find it there.

I’ve attended several of these September festivals, usually looking at things from an author’s point of view. It’s been interesting to see the digital world gradually infiltrate and begin augmenting the physical. Three or four years ago, the farthest it went was the panel discussions about the great things that could be done by blogging as either a pastime or an occupation. This year, the panel about e-readers was conducted twice. And both agents and published authors talked at great length about how to use social media like Facebook and Twitter to promote your writing and build a fan base, even before you submit your manuscript anywhere.

Yet judging by the interests of the crowds and the brisk business being done at the booths of the bookstores, the physical paper book is no less alive and vigorous, even if digital books are also becoming popular. And despite complaints by many social analysts that the skill of solid reading is being used less and less in society, that doesn’t appear to be true in Toronto. You may get some clues from hearing about the frequent author readings throughout the city each year, not to mention the International Festival of Authors held each October.

But the best evidence you’ll get, of how Torontonians love their books, is to visit the Word on the Street festival in the autumn. And slowly work your way through the crowds and the immense feast of reading and writing laid out before you.

Nina Lassam, Mark Leslie Lefebvre, Anita Windisman, Julie Wilson

 

 

Toronto Music Garden: a place of Enchantment

"Gigue" - Folia Ensemble

I went for the baroque music, and found something even more enchanting.

The Toronto Music Garden, created in 1999 by famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma and landscape designer Julie Moir Messervy, is the site of the annual Summer Music in the Garden series each week at the Harbourfront Centre. It provides a beautiful setting, with the featured performers playing under the green trailing branches of a tall tree, with spectators sitting on tiers of grass forming an amphitheatre above, surrounded by a rich garden of wild flowers, tall grasses, and lush bushes and trees.

Sunday’s performers were FOLIA, a trio of musicians playing authentic baroque instruments: Linda Melsted on the violin, Kiri Tollaksen on cornetto, and Borys Medicky on the virginals (a small version of a harpsichord). We were treated to a program called “Utopian Voices,” a pleasant concert under the warm sun of a summer Sunday afternoon. Free concerts like this, for me, are one of the best things about living in Toronto.

Menuette

But as I strolled along a nearby path after the concert ended, I discovered another “best thing.” I came upon a small sign that said, “5 – Menuette,” and which described the gardens and the metal circular pavilion before which it stood, in the area above and behind the amphitheatre.  I thought to myself, “If there’s a number 5, where are numbers 1 through 4?” And I set out to discover them.

I found myself following a series of labyrinthine pathways leading from an entrance point (1 – Prelude) past other musical movements: 2 – Allemande, 3 – Courante, and so on, a series of musical concepts that made me think of something like the Stations of the Cross. The paths ducked into secret groves under the trees, led the way past benches sitting in serene shadow, or circled around groupings of boulders in the midst of enclosures bounded by fir trees or grasses.

Sarabande

One path circled around and around among tall grasses and meadow wildflowers planted to attract butterflies and birds (I saw two butterflies that looked an awful lot like Monarchs), finally coming into the open where the sculpture of a maypole loomed overhead. Another path of rough flagstones circled into what was called a “poet’s corner,” surrounded by a wall of evergreens. A large stone at its centre held a still pool of water, and in the enclosure stood a man playing a flute.

The haunting music followed me as I worked my way back out and along the rest of the paths. In the end, I found six signs: or rather, six movements(**), as the Music Garden was designed to interpret J.S. Bach’s First Suite for Unaccompanied Cello. The idea was first broached to the city of Boston, which never followed through, and that city’s loss has been Toronto’s gain. The Music Garden rolls gently over three hills, the paths rising and falling even as they spiral and weave.

This is truly an enchanted garden, music expressed in nature, nature embodying music. I can’t believe I didn’t even know it was there until yesterday. But you can be sure that I will be revisiting the magical, musical place as often as I can.

Courante

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(** The movements are: 1-Prelude, 2-Allemande, 3-Courante, 4-Sarabande, 5-Menuette, and 6-Gigue)

 

Doors Open Toronto and Toronto Transit

Up on stilts

If there’s one thing that stands out about employees at the Toronto Transit Commission’s heavy repair facility at the Greenwood Shop, it’s that they all love their jobs. I don’t mean “job satisfaction” or contentment or anything like that. We’re talking love, here.

This weekend is the tenth anniversary of Doors Open Toronto, in which significant buildings all over the city open doors to the public that are usually shut. And all the tours are free. I go every year, and usually I favour old, historic buildings, rather than something newer.

But when it comes to the TTC, I make an avid exception. Last year I missed the tour of the Lower Bay Street subway station that’s been closed for decades, so the Greenwood Shop was at the top of my list today.

It seems to be at the top of the list of the people who work there, too. It didn’t matter which shop you walked through — Vehicle Overhaul/Body Repair, Electrical and Electronic Repair, Truck/Axle/Gearbox/Rewheeling — everyone standing by to explain their section to onlookers was enthusiastic and interesting, knew their stuff — and loved being there. That was a universal theme with anyone I talked to, whether the Axle/Rewheeling guy who had been on the job for almost 29 years, or the young man in Pneumatic Repair who had been there only three.

Shiny!

They do a darn good job, and are justly proud. The Pneumatic guy explained the mechanism by which the air pumps work, to power the doors in streetcars or release the brakes in subway cars. Farther along the line, another man showed off his bright, shiny new paint job on a 15-year old car.

In another section, the Axle/Rewheeling guy spoke at considerable length about how they balance the wheels on those huge things. Did you know that there are something like 26 motors on a 6-car train, all of them controlling the wheels? And that, while those are great for pulling a train up a steep grade, there’s little you can do to reduce all that power when the train is flat and you really don’t need them all going at once? We learned what the millwrights do, and how there’s a “flat wheel monitor” that watches each train passing between Eglinton and Lawrence stations, producing graphs that let supervisors know if any of the cars need to get their wheels worked on.

We saw gearboxes and trucks and snow throwers and air pumps and couplers and breakers and nuts and bolts — it almost made you dizzy, this proliferation of mechanical and electronic gear! And right in the middle of it all, several men ran a gorgeous train set that featured miniature models of TTC streetcars from several eras. It was charming, and I coveted it mightily.

Touchy equipment!

Rows of yellow “Caution” tape guided us from shop to shop, while keeping us at a safe distance from all the equipment. But there were pieces of that equipment all along the other side of the tape, clearly labelled, with people to answer any questions we had. All the staff were friendly and helpful, and seemed just as pleased as punch to tell us about all the cool things they did. And all of us spectators were just as pleased to be there; I didn’t see one person who appeared bored.

Really, you just couldn’t be, in the midst of that dazzling display of craftsmanship and skill.

Considering that this was the first time the Greenwood Shop had done a Doors Open tour, it was a well-planned, very detailed, frankly spectacular success. If these people are even half as thorough and competent when they work on subway trains and streetcars, Torontonians have the safest system on the planet.

(For more photos, visit my Doors Open Toronto 2009 set at Flickr.)