Mayor's Evening for the Arts

I did not know what the Mayor's Evening for the Arts was when I was invited to it but to be honest, I had seen a lot of instagram posts lately of fun photos of people having a lovely time at events I had not been invited to. In another year, I would have just been happy for people to have a nice time—and I always am—but a string of these caught me at a low moment. So despite my joy for others' joy, and the fact that I was ineligible to attend some of these events, would not have wanted to go to others, and still others were in distant regions I would not have been able to get to for the sake of a party, I still felt bad. So although I did not really know what was going on, and Mark definitely did not know, we said we’d go (I said we’d go).

The first problem was that the party started at 8pm, on an evening Mark worked downtown. I had eventually discerned that the event was a fundraiser for the Toronto Arts Foundation, but they were also throwing in some actual artists, for flavour. Before the 8pm start, there was a dinner for VIPs, so I guess that’s why the late hour. I met up with Mark at his office and finally got a tour of it for the first time ever, despite his having worked there for 12 YEARS. It’s nice. Then we went for dinner at a Korean restaurant and then we did a little shopping and then it was finally finally time to go to the party, although unfortunately by this point we had already done a lot of things for a weeknight and were already slightly tired. Uh-oh.

The party was very loud and exciting from the moment we walked in at the stroke of 8pm, I guess because the VIPs had already been partying for a while. We got in right away and checked our coats and got drinks, and then set off to see the art. There were a few different installations. The art was all fairly cool and interesting and befitting an event where everyone was excited and overstimulated and somewhat drunk on open bar—fun and interactive, but the explanatory notes were all in tiny type and sometimes hidden in shadows or behind a velvet rope or both, and I never got to read any of them. I never even found out who any of the artists were! As a sober nerd, I really wanted to so that was sad. Anyway, there were those urban foxes pictured in the header photo, a giant cat or perhaps fox that lorded over the main foyer area, some decorated picnic tables I never got a close look at, some abstract paintings that had an augmented reality layer you could access with an ipad, a collaborative painting that was going to be disassembled in a complicated way later in the night, an a digital interactive screen where if you waved your hand in a certain way digital butterflies would assemble, then fly away. I liked all of it but it was hard to spend much time with any of it, especially without the notes, and after about 20 minutes we had seen pretty much all we could see. Oh, and there were glowing plastic swings you could sit in. I don’t really know if those were art or just cool but I loved them. More events should have swings.

There was also music. The main band we saw was Toronto Big Smoke Brass Band who had tshirts and said their name at regular intervals and were the opposite of the art notes in that they were very clear about who they were and what they were doing, which was great. Another layer of my nerdiness is former band nerd and I always feel like I somehow belong in a brass band even though I don’t have any talent, just because I slogged away in one all through highschool (I played the flute). Anyway, they were great!

So there was art, music, lavish open bars that Mark liked but that meant nothing to me, snacks that were pretty good but we’d already had dinner so they weren’t that interesting to us, and then…the other guests. In the end, it was really the people watching that made the night. To be clear, I did not see anyone I actually knew the whole night—maybe one person off in the distance but she moved fast so it was hard to be positive. I also barely met anyone new, though people were friendly enough—it was just so loud and crowded, and people were with their crews. So I never found out if the reason I didn’t know anyone was because there mainly weren’t lit people there or there mainly weren’t creatives at all there or just a random coincidence or the zeitgeist has just entirely passed me by and I don’t know enough cool people.

This event was populated by the COOLEST PEOPLE. You know how when they have the Met Gala, the next day various outlets post slideshows of all the celebs in their fancy clothes and us plebes click through and are impressed? They should have had that for this event! It was very impressive fashion-wise. I wrote a draft of this post and was going to finish later and then they sent me the photo gallery with some images of the fashion. Please see here to view them. It’s the later ones (after dinner) where you see the less staid, cooler (non-VIP) people. Also one of Mark looking neither cool nor staid but simply nice and rather sleepy. I do not appear, that I can tell.

Before the above gallery came to my inbox, what I had planned to do was tell you about all the things people were wearing in words instead of picturesand since a number of my favourite outfits are missing from the gallery, you know, I think I still will. Here are some of the fashion highlights, according to me: sequins were huge! My favourite were a pair of sequinned go-go boots but there was at least one full sequinned cocktail dress and many sequinned accents on gowns and clutches. A young woman in full punk gear with delicate glue spikes who I later saw kissing a guy from the brass band. A fellow in a kilt. A guy in a sleek black suit, black shirt, and elaborate sequinned fascinator. One couple in cowboy hats, I think worn ironically (they didn’t go with the rest of their outifts, which were both rompers); a guy in a porkpie hat, and a guy in a fedora, I think non-ironic. Several children, including one who appeared to be a newborn wearing a onesie, and a very advanced seven-year-old wearing a blue-velvet gown. And so so so much more.

We left around 10 in disgrace—disgrace because the party was going to go so much later and we were not taking advantage of it. We were very tired, and really I was already filled to the brim with the wonders I had already seen. Also, we had had this conversation about half an hour earlier, which is hard to top:

(Rebecca and Mark stand by a fire exit and eat tacos that are allegedly finger food but both are struggling with.)
MC Booming in Next Room: And now won’t you please welcome to the stage, K… R…!! (thunderous applause)
RR: Did he just say, Kid Rock is coming to the stage?
MS (consumed by consuming taco, shrugs)
(both go into the room with the stage where a beautiful young woman is singing. RR and MS finish tacos, enjoy music)
RR (points at a poster) Oh, not Kid Rock, Kibra is the singer’s name. She’s good.
MS: She is good. And that makes a lot more sense. Kid Rock would not be popular with this crowd.
RR: Why not?
MS: He’s a huge Trump supporter.
RR: Really? I did not know that about Kid Rock.
MS: That is pretty much the only thing I know about Kid Rock.
RR: The only thing I know about Kid Rock is he sang that lovely duet with Sheryl Crow.
MS: Really? I didn’t know that.
RR: Yeah? It was all over the radio about 10 years ago. It was really pretty. I’ll find it for you when we get home.
MS: So now we know two things about Kid Rock.

***

Reminder that the Rose-coloured survey still exists and aches to be completed before it expires. To my surprise, it has thus far been unpopular. I personally love doing surveys and imagined that everyone would love them, but I guess I was wrong there. Anyway, if you’re more on the “tolerates surveys” part of the bell curve, it’s short and pretty simple to complete, and I’d really appreciate it you have time! If you truly hate them, you’re off the hook!