Java Knights - A lively evening of socializing & creativity for queers living in Toronto's West End
Toronto Economists listen up: The spoken word is the latest to fall prey to supply and demand. For while talk may be cheap, Queer Toronto's craving for conversation is ever-growing. ACT Toronto and Gay West Community Network have formed a new partnership to present, Java Knights, a new monthly west-end social night. Java Knights is cross between and a Conversation Cafe and the monthly Trampoline Hall.
Java Knights was launched Tuesday January 31st, 2006 in the intimate confines of newly renovated Gladstone Hotel Art Bar The night featured a safe sex demonstration by Gill a cooperative worker from Come As You Are a store at 701 Queen St W., and hosted by none other than Enza Supermodel. It was an informal evening where about 20 individuals found out more information about future events and pick up AIDS Committee of Toronto and Gay West literature. Refreshments and snacks were provided and there was no cost to attend.
The evening is not just about AIDS. It’s… …a monthly west-end social event to discuss what’s on your mind, …interactive, entertaining and stimulating with a wide range of topics from sex to politics, …an informal drop-in format that is open to all individuals, …a resource for upcoming event information in queer Toronto. Conversation Cafés is an idea that might provoke social panic attacks in typical eye-contact-avoiding urban dwellers. There other types of conversation and philosophical cafes. See: Toronto Wilde Chats
"While attendance is designed to be small (from six to a dozen people) to maintain the intimacy of a conversation, the appetite for the cafés is steady." said Michael F. Paré , Toronto Wilde Chats founder. "There is a hunger for conversation. People want to come to the café to express their ideas. They want something that isn't a magazine, isn't the Internet, isn't TV. Something that's live."
"People are sick of clean lines and digital animation. They are tired of stickers which don't peel off and sexy people on the billboards. They do not like the coiffed hairstyles of the men and women on the TV." said Trampoline Hall creator Sheila Heti.
"People have really lost the art of conversation," Paré says. "If you tell them they are invited over to have a kitchen-table conversation, nine out of 10 times they will not come over. They need an excuse for that conversation to happen."
But people will take any excuse, hence the success of queer chat cafés, a folksy but surprisingly popular activity where anyone and everyone is invited to meet at local coffee shops and art bars to talk about anything and everything.
At Java Knights the bill of events is obviously eccentric, but there's a successful formula behind Java Knight's madness. The monthly is becoming the in place to hang for a certain subset of Toronto's queer west end youngish literary crowd.
Note Bene March 16, 2009: the Java Knights is no longer being held, its possible it will come back under a new sponsor. Java Kights was a program of Gay West Community Network Inc.
Toronto Economists listen up: The spoken word is the latest to fall prey to supply and demand. For while talk may be cheap, Queer Toronto's craving for conversation is ever-growing. ACT Toronto and Gay West Community Network have formed a new partnership to present, Java Knights, a new monthly west-end social night. Java Knights is cross between and a Conversation Cafe and the monthly Trampoline Hall.
Java Knights was launched Tuesday January 31st, 2006 in the intimate confines of newly renovated Gladstone Hotel Art Bar The night featured a safe sex demonstration by Gill a cooperative worker from Come As You Are a store at 701 Queen St W., and hosted by none other than Enza Supermodel. It was an informal evening where about 20 individuals found out more information about future events and pick up AIDS Committee of Toronto and Gay West literature. Refreshments and snacks were provided and there was no cost to attend.
The evening is not just about AIDS. It’s… …a monthly west-end social event to discuss what’s on your mind, …interactive, entertaining and stimulating with a wide range of topics from sex to politics, …an informal drop-in format that is open to all individuals, …a resource for upcoming event information in queer Toronto. Conversation Cafés is an idea that might provoke social panic attacks in typical eye-contact-avoiding urban dwellers. There other types of conversation and philosophical cafes. See: Toronto Wilde Chats
"While attendance is designed to be small (from six to a dozen people) to maintain the intimacy of a conversation, the appetite for the cafés is steady." said Michael F. Paré , Toronto Wilde Chats founder. "There is a hunger for conversation. People want to come to the café to express their ideas. They want something that isn't a magazine, isn't the Internet, isn't TV. Something that's live."
"People are sick of clean lines and digital animation. They are tired of stickers which don't peel off and sexy people on the billboards. They do not like the coiffed hairstyles of the men and women on the TV." said Trampoline Hall creator Sheila Heti.
"People have really lost the art of conversation," Paré says. "If you tell them they are invited over to have a kitchen-table conversation, nine out of 10 times they will not come over. They need an excuse for that conversation to happen."
But people will take any excuse, hence the success of queer chat cafés, a folksy but surprisingly popular activity where anyone and everyone is invited to meet at local coffee shops and art bars to talk about anything and everything.
At Java Knights the bill of events is obviously eccentric, but there's a successful formula behind Java Knight's madness. The monthly is becoming the in place to hang for a certain subset of Toronto's queer west end youngish literary crowd.
Note Bene March 16, 2009: the Java Knights is no longer being held, its possible it will come back under a new sponsor. Java Kights was a program of Gay West Community Network Inc.
Comments
Post a Comment