Rob the Tour Guide
(Left to right: Carolyn Clink, Robert J. Sawyer, Peter Halasz, Shoshana Glick, Robert Charles Wilson)
Shoshana Glick, my dear friend from Seattle, came to stay with Carolyn and me for two days this week (Tuesday and Wednesday), and I played tour guide. On Tuesday, Sho and I went to the Royal Ontario Museum -- my first time since the grand reopening last month -- to see the new dinosaur gallery (about which more in another post when I have time) and a wonderful display of antique typewriters.
We then spent the evening at The Central (a pub) for the Plasticine Poetry series, where my great friend Halli Villegas was headlining; she read fabulously.
And yesterday, Carolyn and I picked up Hugo-winner Robert Charles Wilson and we all went to Sci-Fi World, one of Toronto's SF specialty stores, then headed off to rendezvous with SF collector Peter Halasz for lunch at the Sierra Grill, which has Toronto's best salad bar (Shoshana is a vegetarian -- that's fake fur in the photo).
After that it was off to The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy (where I used to be writer-in-residence), where the wonderful Lorna Toolis gave us the behind-the-scenes tour (including showing us their copies of the first edition of Amazing Stories and the first edition of Dracula).
After that, I kid you not, it was off to a museum devoted entirely to footwear: The Bata Shoe Museum. It was fascinating, actually, and the displays were very well done, unlike (cough, cough) the new ones at the Royal Ontario Museum.
Then it was time for a little RJS colour: we went to The Duke of York, the pub that Lenore works at in my current novel Rollback. After that, we saw the play "Criminals in Love" by George F. Walker at the Hart House Theatre. After that, we had drinks in another pub, then dropped Shoshana at the bus terminal just after midnight so she could head off for Detroit.
All in all, a very pleasant couple of days! But now -- back to work for me ...
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Posted by Rob on Thursday, January 24, 2008
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2 comments
2 Comments:
And, and excellent tour guide you are!!
I interviewed a curator at the Bata Shoe Museum about the history of the shoe on Episode 11 of Perils For Pedestrians. Here's the info:
Tuesday, February 12, The Universityhouse Channel will show Episode 11 of "Perils For Pedestrians".
Contents of Episode 11 (1997):
--The city bicycle planner tells us why Toronto was rated the number one bicycle-friendly city in North America.
--Go Transit celebrates 30 years of commuter rail service in Toronto.
--Feet On The Street advocates for pedestrians in Toronto.
--The history of the shoe is preserved at the Bata Shoe Museum.
--A pediatrician at Montreal Children's Hospital studies how to prevent collisions between children and cars.
--The Canadian Volkssport Federation walks across the Confederation Bridge from Prince Edward Island.
DISH Network Channel 9411 -- The Universityhouse Channel
Tuesday -- 9:30 PM Eastern, 6:30 Pacific
Episode 11 is also available on Google Video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4119338630762229522
Note: Public access cable channels are showing different episodes than DISH Network.
Thank you.
John Z Wetmore
www.pedestrians.org
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