Urban North Inns

09/02/2026

10/01/2024

If you are looking for a fun all nighter event to spend with friends and or family, don’t miss Nuit Blanche Toronto on October 5. A million people attend this annual street art celebration and draws over 200,000 tourists to the city.

Tess and I used to go every year when they started in 2006 until we got to old for the massive crowds. It is an amazing event with hundreds of incredible street art from local and international artists.

Nuit Blanche is Toronto's free all-night contemporary art event.

08/21/2024

Personal recollections on Ninoy Aquino’s death anniversary.

A fraternity brother thinks Ninoy Aquino wouldn’t have thought that the dictator personally ordered his assassination.

08/15/2024

Dr Karayom’s multiverse interpretation

08/10/2024

Tess and I at the request of OCAD University President Ana Serrano hosted a reception for visiting award winning Filipino artist Dr. Karayom. His work will be on exhibit starting next week at OCAD's Onsite Gallery. See my previous post for details.

Ana mentioned that Filipino artists are starting to break through into the global mainstream markets. There will be a abad was my retrospective exhibition of artist Pacita Abad's lifework, after New York City's MOMA, at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Pacita Abad was my contemporary at the University of the Philippines but I don't recall having met her then, although her friends were also my friends. Our paths may have crossed but she was not yet an artist then.

https://ago.ca/exhibitions/pacita-abad

07/16/2024

Etienne who I know and will be hosting tonight is in the process of testing his therapeutic to treat memory loss. We have lost a good friend to Alzheimers. I look forward to my conversation with him tonight.

Dr. Etienne Sibille on new compounds for cognitive dysfunction in depression and aging

05/29/2024

I plan to post more of Davide's piano performances in his last 2 nights with us. Posting all at once will be too much to absorb. He plays mostly from muscle memory and without the aid of music sheets. Pieces Davide performed Bach, Liszt, Shubert, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Khatchaturian. We had 4 pleasurable nights of listening to this young mathematician play and they are too good not to be shared.

A harpsichordist and pianist who watched him perform last night, and has been into music for many years, was blown away and said this of the 23 year. "He is the most expressive pianist he has listened to".

The top three composers that Davide likes in order are Beethoven, Liszt and Schubert or Scriabin (he cannot decide), but not Mozart or Chopin.

The final piece performed was Franz Liszt's solo piano composition of the Legend of St. Frances of Paola walking on water crossing the Straits of Messina from Sicily to Calabria. I will post this last as it was a fitting ending and inspiring to watch him play.

05/16/2024

Vic Salas Meloy Mabunay Jerry Treñas It may be worthwhile for Iloilo city planners to listen in to what other cities are thinking as to designing the downtown core. They may want to register.

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