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Buskerfest Photo Gallery

Author: Cindy Francisca Posted under: , ,

 
 
The buskers are in full buskering mode at the St Lawrence Market neighbourhood so grab some money and head on down and let them busk you at the 2010 Scotia Buskerfest in support of Epilepsy Toronto. The fun lasts until this Sunday and the streets are also full of venders and there is even a beer garden on one of the side streets. Here is my post with photos taken during Saturday's performances.






 
 
Get ready for amazing tricks and fun, fun, fun as we fast approach the 2010 Scotiabank Toronto Buskerfest during the 26th to the 29th in the St Lawrence Market area. I found Silver Elvis in a small town warming up for his work in the buskerfest, posing in front of a beautiful red, classic, Falcon convertible. I told Elvis that he was on the poster for the event and he was surprised.

I also found a winged vampire - she was promoting Screamfest which is coming to Acton in October.


The St Lawrence Market Scotiabank Buskerfest festival continues to grow in popularity every year, so much so that it is hard to walk through the streets and you must pick your spot ahead of time - before the performers start their show. Held annually in August this event provides plenty of colour and excitement and lasts the entire weekend. Here are some pictures from 2006 to the 2008 festival.




In 2008 an intense rain shower cleared the streets in a matter of minutes. The rain soon went away and the crowds came back to watch the street performers continue their shows before an appreciative and moist audience.



Besides being highly talented the buskers usually say, right before the finale, that if you stay to the end you should pay $20 to watch the show and then they invite people to leave if they don't agree. Usually nobody leaves but few give the performers $20. People are asked to tip the artists whatever they can as I don't believe they are paid by the festival and must survive on the generosity of Torontonians.



The sky cleared and the crowds came down to the St Lawrence Market area for the festival of street performance artists known as Buskerfest.

The festival is almost too successful as the crowds make it hard to walk through the streets and see any of the acts. They should really build a few elevated platforms at the intersections so more people could see the acts. The actually had one large platform this year so maybe next year there will be more. Daisy the cute dog supports the fight to cure epilepsy.







There was a strange fire breathing, smoke belching and bubble making machine rolling through the streets..




credit to : torontogp.blogspot.com
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The Japanese Penis Festival

Author: Cindy Francisca Posted under: , ,
The Japanese Penis Festival...

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Woodstock 1969 - Hippie dippy

Author: Cindy Francisca Posted under: , ,
A naked woman stands up in the crowd during the 1969 Woodstock festival in Bethel, N.Y.  
A naked woman stands up in the crowd during the 1969 Woodstock festival in Bethel, N.Y. (Archive Photos/Getty Images)
 
This weekend, we can expect round-the-clock coverage of Woodstock’s 40th anniversary — or as I like to call it, the 10th anniversary of its 30th anniversary. (Maybe you prefer the 20th anniversary of the 20th anniversary.)

Year after year, boomers are compelled to celebrate Woodstock as an earth-shaking episode on the level of the Second World War.

Cue the superannuated hippies! Roll the archival tape of wasted, hairy people sliding through the mud! Someone please call one of the surviving members of the Grateful Dead! We’re in the dog days of August and this is a feel-good story news channels can use to kill significant time. Weren’t those flower children cute? And so idealistic!
The boomers are always happy to open their scrapbooks and share those misty, water-coloured memories. Let’s face it: no generation has enjoyed the same kind of cultural hegemony. Year after year, they’re compelled to celebrate Woodstock — without much media resistance — as an earth-shaking episode on the level of the Second World War.
Yes, the scale of the event was unprecedented. Almost half a million kids made their way to Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, N.Y., drawn by the lure of free love, cheap weed and, er, relatively inexpensive tickets ($18 US in advance for a three-day pass, $24 at the gate). Most of hippiedom’s pied pipers were there, including Janis Joplin, The Band, Sly Stone and Creedence Clearwater Revival. The long weekend resulted in two births, two deaths, four miscarriages, innumerable drug freakouts and a truly legendary traffic jam. Logistically speaking, Woodstock made the Beatles at Shea Stadium look like a Jane Austen tea party.
Some of the performances have stood up well, especially Jimi Hendrix’s magical rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner and The Who’s scorching set, which drew heavily on the recently released Tommy. The mythologizing of the festival started almost immediately, when Joni Mitchell sang about getting “back to the garden” in her 1970 song Woodstock. Clearly, she saw the event in almost Biblical terms, as a return to the innocence of Eden. When I watch the old footage, I’m immune to its alleged deeper meaning — I just see stoned, middle-class, primarily white kids trying to indulge their senses, and not always having fun doing so.

Musician Jimi Hendrix performed a scorching set at Woodstock.  
Musician Jimi Hendrix performed a scorching set at Woodstock. (Warner Music Canada/Associated Press)
What rankles me about the Woodstock nostalgia is the generational smugness, an almost pathological narcissism that comes out whenever the festival is discussed. Here’s a news flash for ex-hippies: the ’60s weren’t the only time when people protested war, flirted with anti-materialistic philosophies, listened to rock music or worked hard to save the environment.
And yet those “3 days of peace and music” will never go away. Each anniversary spawns some sort of tribute concert — the 1999 edition, in which Fred Durst and Limp Bizkit basically incited the crowd to riot, was especially misguided. This year, you can indulge your inner rebel by purchasing a six-CD box set called 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur’s Farm, or a 40th anniversary edition of Michael Wadleigh’s Woodstock doc, which comes with an iron-on patch and a reproduction of an original ticket. It’s just like you’re there — except, of course, you’re holding a useless piece of cardboard, and instead of tripping out with a gazillion other truth-seekers in the middle of nature, you’re watching the spectacle unfold on your home theatre with the AC cranked.
If you wipe away the sentimentality, you could argue that the real legacy of Woodstock — and that of its precursor, 1967’s Monterey Pop — is the commercialization of outdoor mega-rock festivals. Woodstock itself was a financial disaster, but other promoters were obviously watching, trying to figure out how to turn a profit from such a massive gathering.
Back in early 1979, I bought a humorous poster that I proudly displayed on my wall. It was an illustrator’s satirical vision of what Woodstock’s 10th anniversary would look like. It featured countless thousands of yuppies — the original participants — gathered again on Yasgur’s farm. But instead of their tattered t-shirts and Birkenstocks, they’re wearing designer suits, sipping cocktails and making small talk, embracing the Me Decade without hesitation. For me, that image still says more about the Woodstock myth than anything I’m likely to hear this weekend.
Greig Dymond writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.
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Helloween Time

Author: Cindy Francisca Posted under: , , ,
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Water battles on VDNH - So Funny

Author: Cindy Francisca Posted under: ,

Water battles on VDNH (101 Photos) 



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