We enjoyed a nice weekend in sunny Toronto, spending two days and nights in the TO during the height of Film Festival madness. We stayed at a great little bed and breakfast in Cabbagetown and enjoyed a terrific show by Sufjan Stevens and the Illinoisemakers at the Trinity St. Paul’s Church on Saturday night. Stevens, whom I’d been dying to see for awhile now, is on the second of what will be many, maybe even 50, albums each devoted to a single state in the union. With Illinois as the focus this time around, he and his bandmates wore cheerleading outfits emblazoned with the letter ‘I’ and mixed a variety of choreographed cheers in between the songs in the setlist. My favorite cheer came before the song “The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts”: “Go Go Metropolis, see it through binoculars, Webster’s Popadopolis, Go Metropolis!”



We also had a great time walking around Bloor, Yonge, and Queen Streets, and took a trip up the CN Tower to get an aerial perspective on the city and the Toronto Argonauts CFL game going on below us in the Rogers Centre (ex-Skydome). We’ll be back next weekend thanks to a gift from work of Blue Jays-Yankees tickets; it’s funny to think that it’s easier for a Yankees fan living in Western New York to go to Toronto or Cleveland for a game than it is to get all the way to the Bronx.

Photos from the trip.