Oscar Wilde. Wit. Wordsmith. Flaneur. Stupendous self-publicist. Master of paradox. Self-destructive dandy.
And now … unlikely guest-of-honour at a dinner happening later this week at Gilead, in Toronto. Solicitations for sit-downs...
Oscar Wilde. Wit. Wordsmith. Flaneur. Stupendous self-publicist. Master of paradox. Self-destructive dandy.
And now … unlikely guest-of-honour at a dinner happening later this week at Gilead, in Toronto. Solicitations for sit-downs abound at this time of year in my particular racket, let me be frank. Or, well, any time in the calendar. Chows in the name of fashion, books, art, et al. Meals for wheels — car dinners! Meals for meals — restaurant launches! Fundraisers for every charity under the sun, or at least every hospital bed. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Third weddings. So when this particular ‘vite pinged into my inbox, it did so with a certain intriguing panache — the suggestion of an “ambulatory feast” to celebrate “the 131st anniversary of Oscar Wilde’s lecture at Toronto’s Allan Gardens.”
‘I cannot help wondering why your citizens build their houses with that horrid white brick when red brick is the same price’
Ah, yes, 1882. A mere pebble’s speck in the pond of the history. Back when Allan Gardens wasn’t yet called “Allan Garden,” and not yet in the hands of the city, and when Mr. Picture of Doria Gray arrived in a pavillion in the park containing a 2,100-set theatre, on the south side of Carlton between Jarvis and Sherbourne. It was May, and Wilde was dressed in head-to-toe black (including black silk stockings), and he lectured on beauty for beauty’s sake — this being a stop in a long, long whistle-stop tour of North America. An apostle for the so-called “Aesthetic Movement,” Wilde — still then in the process of becoming notorious — had come here after enlightening as well shocking a string of American cities. 140 lectures he’d have covered, by tour’s end. 15,000 miles.
The commemoration all those eons later? It includes a spread courtesy of Jamie Kennedy, and is billed as a fundrasier for the Friends of Allan Gardens, “a group dedicated to the creative rejuvenation of the park.” Clever, no? Celebrated conservationsist Charles Birnbaumfor, founder of the The Cultural Landscape Foundation, will also speak at the function. (see era.on.ca for tix/further info!)
Oh, and a few more tidbits: according to Declaring His Genius: Oscar Wilde in North America, when one of history’s original celebutants arrived in T.O. way back then, he caught a Lacrosse game, which he declared “a charming game.” Alas, he wasn’t as seduced by the predominance then of white brick in the city, announcing publicly, “I cannot help wondering why your citizens build their houses with that horrid white brick when red brick is the same price.”
And now you know.
Also:
Mads Mikkelsen, who stars as the titular psycopath in TV’s new Hannibal, is “ashamed” to admit that he was pretty well-informed on the subject of serial killers – even before taking his latest gig! Speaking to The Telegraph in an interview conducted in Toronto, where the NBC show was shot over months and months, the Danish thespian added, “I also have a tendency towards biographies of Stalin, Hilter, Genghis Khan, people like that.”
Meanwhile:
“A coup” is what some are calling the latest art-snag by Galen and Hilary Weston. Jasper Johns, the man too often dubbed America’s Greatest Living Artist, is theirs, it would seem — at least for a spell — what with the ne plus ultra Toronto power couple having announced plans to show an exhibition of Johns’ work. See: their snazzy contemporary gallery at Windsor. See: their home-away-from-home in Vero Beach.
For several years, “the site of an interesting annual curatorial collaboration with London’s Whitecapel Gallery,” as the Financial Times recently put it, the Canadians are out-doing even themselves with an exhibit courtesy of Johns, 82. A creature and survivor of the 1950s-era avant-garde era, he, of course, stands alone amongst a gang that included names like Pollock and De Kooning – and, indeed, in 201l, became became the first painter or
