Now, the party buzz. Members of the Canada Council milled around by the nut bowl, sloshing back glasses of Pinot Grigio and talking politics. They were actually very friendly, especially a youngish fellow named Dean who chatted away about the excitement of being on the Canada Council. It was refreshing to see a bureaucrat who genuinely seemed to love his job and care about art. The CBC's brilliantly acid-tongued Michael Crabb was there (looking remarkably like a young Samuel Beckett), chatting with Writers and Company's Eleanor Wachtel. I guess no one's had a cost of living raise at CBC in quite some time. Both Wachtel and Crabb are greyhound skinny, and didn't venture too far from the welcoming comfort of an overflowing snack bar.

I had a fascinating conversation with contemporary classical pianist and composer Eve Egoyan. For those not in the musical know, Eve's Atom's sister and she didn't sleaze in on her brother's famous coat tails. She's an accomplished, respected composer in her own right, with a critically acclaimed CD on the shelves, and currently at work on a collection of international commissions.

Other usual suspects included AGO host/curator Dennis Reid and former video award winners Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak. It was a genuine pleasure to get spiffed up and work the atrium at the AGO with a group of Canadian art lovers and members of several funding agencies. Despite the current doom and gloom of cutbacks, one thing was abundantly evident that night. Cultural is alive in Canada, and if we all take just a bit of time out of our busy days to foster it, it might just survive and actually flourish.

Last week I promised you a bird's eye view from the cheap seats at a Toronto International Film Festival Gala. Maybe it was because the tickets were freebies ... Maybe it was the fact that I didn't give a hoot about some American soon-to-be-released mega feature, and didn't really give a tinker's damn about the promise of seeing Elizabeth Hurley and Sean Penn mugging for the paparazzi. Or it could be chalked up to laziness (the flick didn't start until 9:30 and I'm not the night owl I used to be), but as you've probably guessed, I didn't go. Does this make me a bad art citizen? I don't think so. The Toronto International Film Festival doesn't seem to really be about art anymore. It seems to be about press and photo-ops. This isn't bad, as it's turned into a great little revenue generator for the city. But as for me? I'm afraid it sort of leaves me cold. Got an opinion? Did you see The Weight of Water? If so, please pick up the ball where I dropped it and write in a report.

Barachois
The musical group Barachois returns for its sixth consecutive season in The Charlottetown Festival -- offering up an array of humour, traditional music and dance. The festival describes Barachois as celebrating "a heritage that has survived like the water in the local tidal pools from which the group takes its name."

Fine Tuning
Now that summer's over, CBC Radio Two is going to take you on an audio journey highlighting the best of Canada's summer music festivals. Today, cellist Desmond Hoebig will be joined with the Domaine Forget 2000 Orchestra performing a selection of works by Tchaikovsky and Dvorak. That's today on Take Five, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.