Designed my Thomas W Lamb, built in 1913, the Elgin and Winter Garden are not one but two grand full-sized theatres stacked on top of one another – a design fairly common in Edwardian days, but this beauty is now the last
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When people who are into sequential art, comics, and illustration history (an increasingly intersecting set on the venn-diagram, I am happy to report) talk about the science fiction and fantasy pulp of the seventies, ninety percent of the bandwidth usually gets taken
Another lovely thing about street festivals is all the nifty and eccentric characters one gets to see, some of them human, and some canine – but no less full of style, verve, and indeed, often hilarious achievements of attitude. It takes no
When I was a little boy, I always liked to ride in the front of the subway train so I could look out and see everything that was whooshing-by – while also pretending to drive the train (naturally). Thanks to the wide
While there are worrisome changes to the Toronto landscape, and also many new developments of promise – there are also, I’m very glad to say, many sweet things about Toronto that remain very recognizable, from when I was a kid. Ossfest itself
I am not myself religious – but I know many sweet folks who are – and I also have a great fondness for the lovely structures which have been created by extraordinary sacrifices of patience and investment, by so many congregations. Toronto,
I’ve already gone-on at some length about the great evolutionary significance of the arrival of flowers – not only a crucial increase in energy concentration for nifty things like mammals, that prefer above room-temperature blood (in the form of the vast variety
Here is a great example of old-school made manifest in a number of ways – first off, the place was closed on Sunday – because there once was a time when we had respect for the tradespeople around us, and didn’t put
This set of photographs contains a few lovely things at once. For one, it shows how the recent attention to rehabilitating the Don river away from it’s truly horrid state a few decades ago (open urban sewer) back to a more natural
Catherine and Nada will both tell you – I am a bit of an ornery old cuss. I don’t just go along with stuff because everyone else is doing it, I make my own call. No, I don’t want to be a
Here’s another one of my unexpectedly nifty hand-held nighttime rain-shots. This one took a bit of doing too – walked back and forth for about a block, to get the right sort of mix of odd little businesses set up in front
One of the most ridiculous modern beliefs is that we are smarter than people used to be. We aren’t – people have had this brain structure for much longer than culture has been making use of it – we just pack different
If you’re into music, you’re probably aware that the reason commercial radio suddenly began to suck a few years ago and has never recovered, has to do with Clear Channel and their approach of programming music based upon a mathematical analysis, rather
For some time now, the crack team of book-obsessives at Large Ess Small Press have been gearing-up to offer fine and original published works to you — and we are, at last, just about ready to announce our first of many planned
I’d rank Bumblebees as the second cutest insect after ladybugs, and they are far more cuddly-looking, thanks to their apparently soft and colourful fur But I have to say, I always thought the weird plastic wings that people wore for their bumblebee
I sure felt cool in that carpentry apron. Childhood is weird, and there’s no doubt that parenthood is challenging – but there’s one simple principle worth remembering – kids remember! Any experience they have of being able to create things which are
Funny note – Catherine is happy to be my lookout / security for when I’m standing in the road, or perched on something semi-dangerous. But in this case, she almost got overzealous in the role. A giant weird-looking bug was perched on
To the left, Hudson’s bay – finished in 1974 – 135 m To the right, CIBC building – finished in 1972 – 149m Still under construction, on the site of the old back-alley shop where one used to be able to get
Noam Chomsky has a lot of wonderfully productive phrases – “The threat of a good example” is one of my very favourites, because it describes something that all of us have seen, and sometimes found hard to describe to others. I remember
I really don’t like crowds (I mean REALLY) but today I not only made my way across the Harbourfront through the thickest crowds I’ve ever seen down there (counting even much-missed WOMAD in it’s glory days) – but I did four complete
I’ve got a strange pantheon of heroes, not just scientists and science-fiction writers – but also poets, mad-philosophers, artistes and engineers – but HG Welles has been right up near the top for me from very early days – not only because
I can also do simple – and admire the aesthetic greatly. Here I’m treating one of my most important recurrent themes for poetry and essays both – the idea that we aren’t frozen-mass sculpture, but always-changing and dynamic music. So many things
More Yonge-St wrecking-ball mayhem (near the much-missed Uptown theatre) I lost my chance to buy a proper Aquascutum pea-coat at Stollery’s (the very last place in town with a decent Haberdashery counter – dammit), and the ever growing tower on the opposite
So much for the American state making any social progress advancement for awhile – back to rebel-mode for every subculture that was feeling rare hope. Which means it is now a time for all of us to stand up for our friends,
As mentioned in my last post about the demise of the Brunny – there is good news on Bloor as well. This building, the former Hungarian Palace, was empty and abandoned not for years, but for decades. When I was a small
Nada and I saw an extraordinary show today at the Ryerson image centre – which (I repeat) is free and awesome, so if you don’t go, you stink! (so there) Their latest exhibition (on ’till Apr 9th) – contains optimal black-history energy