"Think we'll turn back? YOU DON'T KNOW JACK."

[marnanightingale]

City Hall was good. No pre-organisation to speak of, no speeches; just a big quiet hugfest.

Someone read Jack's letter, and at one point there was a piper; I don't think anyone appointed him, as such, he just showed up and played. Later, a woman up on the ramp began to sing O Canada, beautifully; everyone joined in.

I saw/talked to/hugged/ended up at the pub with/check as many as apply zingerella, chickenfeet, lemur_catta, northbard, tormenta, trouble and several more friends, plus there were some I expected to see but who were out of town or couldn't get there or we just missed each other.

And this happened:

I wanted to take ... I don't know, something. Flowers didn't seem right. So I bought a couple of boxes of chalk.

And, as both benet and fairestcat texted me to say, I accidentally ended up on the CBC website.



When I was done I left the chalk on the ground by the ramp, and ... things got sort of splendidly out-of-hand.






I tried at one point to count the languages on the wall, but gave up. Mostly English, but French, Spanish, Greek, and I think Mandarin, as well as Vietnamese and I know not what all else.

Other sizes and the rest of Blackbird_012's great pictures of today are here.

ETA: and zingerella made the Globe and Mail.



And Blog T.O. has some great photos, including this one:



This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth. where there are comments. Comment here or there as you prefer.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

I love the "love hope change" in the outline of a mustache.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

The mustache was The Best Damn Thing.

[agoodwinsmith.livejournal.com]

Button. I need a button.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I'm not Canadian and hadn't heard of Jack Layton. The magnitude of this spontaneous tribute makes me wish I had.

[zxhrue.livejournal.com]

wow. that is indeed splendid. and brilliant.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

Great idea!

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

A candle against the darkness which lit many others... well done!

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Awesome.

[sabotabby]

I wish I could have been there. Thanks so much for sharing these.

[sunlizzard.livejournal.com]

I've saved this to my permanent memories. Thank you, Marna. A brilliant idea and a wonderous, beautiful tribute.

[foms.livejournal.com]

Worthy of Tooker. I'm proud of you.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

...oh, but that just made me smile.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

It's been making me blush.

[ami-b.livejournal.com]

Splendid indeed!

[pameladean]

I'm very sorry for your loss. The chalk was just epic.

P.

[fallconsmate.livejournal.com]

How absolutely brilliant. Well done!

[wood-dragon.livejournal.com]

The chalk was brilliant.

I've reposted at http://wood-dragon.livejournal.com/202872.html. Thank you for this.

[deathisyourart.livejournal.com]

@torontoist is tweeting a new picture to show how far the Layton tribute now extends. You really started something. Thank you!

The picture can be seen here: http://yfrog.com/z/h7xmaedaj

[deathisyourart.livejournal.com]

My mistake, the picture is from a @VirtueB

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

... I was just standing next to it when it caught on fire, I swear.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

AND WE WILL CHANGE THE WORLD

Thank you for this post.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

Go you :)

[audrawilliams.livejournal.com]

So glad you did this. I saw it last night. You are amazing.

[theengineer.livejournal.com]

When my brother stopped by there he said that they had archivist staff out taking photos of all the chalk messages.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

That's just way too cool for words.