Party

This evening I went to two parties. The first was for a friend from school, Lili, who turned 25.


The blue candle holder is from Ten Thousand Villages, of course. From India.

I left early to go check up on Melissa who wasn't feeling well enough to attend. She still wasn't feeling well, but didn't need me for anything so I walked over to the Royal Ontario Museum where there was a street party and concert in celebration of the opening of "The Crystal". There has been a lot of what I would call hype surrounding this project, but to see all of the ordinary people who came out - Bloor street was densely packed with people - I'm starting to wonder if maybe this does mark the beginning of a architectural and cultural renaissance for this city. On the other hand, probably most of those people just came out to hear some of the performances by Deborah Cox, Dionne Taylor, George (oh, he had the young women screaming), and Isabel Bayrakdarian. My complaint is that most of the street immediately in front of the crystal was partitioned off for VIPs to sit in comfort while the general public was relegated to the sidelines. That's not a very good start for a building that is supposedly going to be a grand public space - a modern day Agora. All in all, this crystal is growing on me - I like it.


They had a whole myriad of lights set up to illuminate the crystal. Quite a visually stunning effect. Normally, it is plain white aluminum with a scattered handful of glass windows. Here's a daylight photo.


And, I'll include a photo of the church kitty corner from the crystal, just because I think it's an interesting picture. Notice how it is illuminated.