Ain’t no cure for
the summertime views
For
some, summer
is about hitting the road; for others it’s all
about hunkering
down at a cottage or, as we like to say in
Quebec, a shack on
the lac. But for most Canadians, summer means
hitting the
streets of the city. It’s festival time. Time
for cool clothes,
cold beer, a hot dog or two, light shoes and
sore feet. Cities,
towns and villages are non-stop open-air
celebrations of
everything from bathtubs to beer, fireworks to
lumberjacks, with
a little jazz, film, shopping and
people-watching thrown in.
This
month, we celebrate the celebration with a detailed program of
festivals across the country. And we spice it up with a look at
film festivals, big and small, mainstream and arcane, around the
world, including May’s bacchanalia at Cannes, where Denys
Arcand’s new film, L’Age des ténèbres or The Age of Ignorance,
was to close the festival.
And
we also tell you where you can catch some cutting-edge theatre
with a schedule of the country’s largest fringe-theatre
festivals. The fringe is for pro and semi-pro performing the
dubious and delightful, all at bargain-basement prices, because,
often enough, the theatre is in a basement or some other
off-the-beaten-track venue.
And
what would summer be without a circus? Cirque du Soleil has
unveiled yet another show, its 20th, which opens in Montreal,
Quebec City and Toronto before trucking off on a tour of the
United States.
