In order to make the world a fair and equitable place for all humankind, its inhabitants will need to work together. And if they are to work together they will need a shared language of expressing ideas that reflect both current realities and future hopes. In his presentation, our featured speaker this week, A. D’Agio, will focus on the language being used in the current discussions around racism in North America (circa 2018). Although the focus will be on racism, A. D’Agio’s intent is to address and engage the broadest sense of “ism” as it impacts individuals and communities.
Born in England, A. D’Agio resides now in Toronto, writing poetry and lyrics about humans, and their quirksome relationships with each another. Experience first hand the mind numbing madness https://twitter.com/HumanistPoet or https://www.facebook.com/HumanistPoetAdagio
Our musical performer will be Elizabeth Block. Elizabeth was born in New York and loves telling people, “I wuz boan in Brooklyn. You gotta PROBLEM wid dat?” She was brought up on Gilbert & Sullivan, Broadway musicals (when they were written for singers), and the songs of Arthur Block – her dad wrote songs. She went to the High School of Music and Art, where she was an art student, but was allowed to sing in the senior chorus in her last year. She was a choral singer for decades, and a church soloist for many years. She joined Toronto’s informal folk song circle in – she thinks – 1984. She had always enjoyed folk music, but now she is a full-fledged folkie. A few years later she decided she should learn to play the guitar, which she did – not well, but well enough to accompany herself and other people. She knows a lot of songs, some in other languages, many satirical and/or political. She has written new words to existing tunes, and a couple of times tunes to existing words, never an entire song – but there’s still time.
Elizabeth is a potter by trade. You can check out her pottery work on her website: