Day Two Hundred and Forty-Three - Taking It To The Streets

Toronto is pretty much blissfully free of street performers. One must apply to get permission to play on TTC properties and generally speaking - that's where all of the buskers are located. Something about street performers makes me very uncomfortable and feel slightly creeped out and therefore I do my very best to ignore them. Today, however we were walking around the harbourfront area after taking in the Blue Jays/Braves game @ SkyDome [yes, SkyDome dammit!] and we happened upon a street performer. Normally I would scuttle on past and do my darned-est to avoid eye contact [this is my general rule when interacting with any part/person of Toronto actually], however this time I was with my mum and her husband, who seemed interested. Attracted by a flaming torch thing and the fact that we had time to kill before eating dinner we decided to settle in for the show.

It was a mix of illusions and juggling with humour really driving the performance. It was surprisingly...good? Okay, maybe not good - but it was...something. I found the humour to be a bit shockingly edgy for family-based entertainment, so I enjoyed that. Also, juggling with fire is quite an enviable [though useless] skill - especially for a klutz like me who can barely catch one thing. So we watched the entire show and, since I don't really think anything in life is free I gave money to a street performer. I thought perhaps he might be getting money from Harbourfront Centre before remembering that they are probably quite frugal with their monies. As they do not have considerable monies. Anyway - the photograph is of his final illusion...which isn't really an illusion - but hey - you can't complain when something is free.