word on the street

'Word on the Street' festival today, like Christmas in September for slightly nerdish bookworms like me. My first time at the festival happened by accident, I was newly licensed and still in high school just starting to make the drive into the big city in search of something...anything other than the coffee shop/pool hall mind-numbing monotony of the suburbs. When I was a kid, I read - a lot. My version of getting in trouble was being yelled at for checking out too many books from the library at one time. There was nothing cool about it, no bookclubs to join, and no one to talk to because playing pool (actually, watching the boys play pool, but that's a different story), smoking, bush parties were all kinds of cool but reading? Not cool.

At the time, finding the coolest street in Toronto closed to celebrate books, and to find the street packed with people who seemed like the kind of people I'd like to know, was a revelation. A good one. I look forward to it every year the way some might a real holiday. I don't usually buy anything but I love being there, wandering around, watching the crowds and getting slightly giddy at the sheer number of people there all for the love of books. People still read, all is not lost.


"Magician at work", he hoodwinked a little boy's parents into putting $20 under his pillow tonight because "Put this piece of paper beneath your pillow and if magic actually exists - and it does - you'll wake up to find the paper replaced by $20". Funny.

Not sure what the pig had to do with it all but cute...


Not sure who these guys were supposed to be but they were kind of creepy...


Taking the Philosopher's Walk shortcut back up through the city