My Walk To/From Work

So it takes me about 30-40 minutes to walk to work, and I've tried several routes. I love the neighbourhood, and the lovely old homes (some monstrous in size). There are many more things than I can show here that are part of the trip including cute little dogs in cute little coats, an increasingly decomposing dead squirrel, many smells including the sewers, chimney smoke, exhaust, garbage, cold, trees and bushes. Don't get me wrong, there are some less than lovely things, but I love the walk. It's getting more and more frigid, but I'm having fun trying different routes, testing my speed, getting to know the streets, and listening to my CBC podcasts. Here are some photos...

That castle in our neighbourhood.

Good old CN.

Near home.

Check out the bike-lane real estate on Davenport! I'm still too chicken to ride though... maybe next year.

Chris, Front Street, and the St. Lawrence Market

Christian's mother Chris visited us for a few days, and provided a great excuse to be tourists in our city. We headed down to the St. Lawrence Market for lunch and a few hours of shopping/browsing.

Friendly Entrepreneurs

Inspired by this post on Blog TO, Christian used his Nova Scotian charm to get us an invite to a coffee cupping session at te aro in Leslieville last week. I've never been to a wine tasting myself, but this is very similar to what I'd imagine the ritual to be. A lesson on coffee history, flavours, roasting, and grinding - complete with 'Coffee Tasters Flavour Wheel' for descriptive inspiration, some bean profiles to give us hints about our samples, and a list of cupping basics.

I forgot my camera that evening, so I apologize for the poor-quality cell-phone images. I just hope that I can convey the value of this worthwhile little business, and how hard the owners are trying to reach out into the community to share their passion for coffee. Thanks very much to owners Jessie and Andy Wilkin for the experience, and for helping add to my knowledge of and interest in this place called Toronto.

te aro in its renovated garage space on Queen st.

Fuzzy view of the tasting table. I particularly loved this gorgeous salvaged wood countertop.

We had the opportunity to taste three yummy coffees, and decided to take home some beans and a grinder too. Our favourite was the Etheopian Sidamo (description: blueberry, rhubarb, lemon, lime, jammy, fruit punch, floral).

And for my mother we snapped this shot of the Swiss Made Coffee Center with her personal hero Roger Federer. More on the Federer connection here.

Murmur Street View

What better way to develop a sense of place in your city than strolling through it and listening to stories about the things around you?

I've been doing a little research on Murmur, and decided to listen to some stories while on a virtual stroll using Google Street View. The following are a few highlights from Toronto and one extra from Leith, Scotland. It's worth dialing the number's on the little green ear signs around town, or surfing the streets with the stories playing at home. See the Murmur website to find out which cities are part of the project.

Vesuvio: This sounds like a good Italian restaurant to try out in the Junction neighbourhood. Definitely on my list now. Doug Hain has a great story about eating here while he was in school in the 50's. Imagine pizza being a "foreign food".

Dooneys: This one is such a sad story. I was listening to some great memories about the community that surrounded this cafe at 511 Bloor, especially Dan Yashinsky's attempt to place a curse on anyone who would replace it with a chain store (there was a big fight to keep Starbucks out). According to Google Street View though, it's now the T Cafe so I looked it up, and sadly Dooneys was sold in 2008. Here's the story. How many times did I walk past here without a second glance, when it meant so much to the regulars?

Baldwin Steps: This is around my new neighbourhood, at the bottom of Casa Loma and Spadina House. I had no idea that this is the former edge of Lake Ontario (Lake Iroquois). Also, I was curious about the lovely lighting in this area (best taken in on a stroll after dark). Have a listen to what Brad Golden has to say about it and check out the Spadina Line project webpage.

Madison Ave: While surfing around the Baldwin Steps area, I came across this kid alone in a park sitting up on a high tree stump. Very strange, and I can't think of how he possibly got up there. Any ideas?

The Queen Alleys: Unfortunately this is as close as I could get to the alleys on Google Street View. This one is definitely worth a real life walk-through I think. Here's the story, and here are a set of pictures from inside.

Rumbletums: This is a little place in Leith, Scotland. We never made it this far out of the centre of Edinburgh when we visited, but this story brought back a nice memory of "brown sauce". Here's Linda McDonald with a cute little story in a bonny accent.

Pathway to Winston Churchill Park

Near our new home in Toronto there is an excellent pathway that leads up to the park on St. Clair. There are two tiny wetland zones and the colours at this time are perfect.

Here is the location, and here are some larger versions of the photos below.

Loop Studio Space at Wychwood Barns

On Saturday night Christian and I walked over to the Artscape Wychwood Barns on Christie st. to catch a sound performance by animator Pierre Hebert and musician Stefan Smulovitz. The performance was part of the SOUNDplay Festival, put on by New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA) and it also included a screening of recent short animation works from Toronto artists under the title Locavore.

The space was lovely and the sound, as you can imagine, was impeccable. We saw some really creative and curious animation shorts and were sensually overwhelmed by the live animation and sound improvisation that were part of the performance. It was a small room with around 20 people in attendance. We were surrounded by speakers and enveloped by digitally processed nature sounds and live viola squeals, clicks, and notes. On a projected screen, Hebert displayed his live animation drawings and on occasion he would run over to an old projector and make scratches in the film reel to create dancing lines of light over top of his digital creations. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves but felt some tension between the frontal display of the animation and the surrounding environmental atmosphere of the sound.

This was my first visit to the Artscape Wychwood Barns, and I've been wanting to see it since it opened in November of last year. We'll have to go back for a daylight inspection of the building and grounds, but what we did see we really enjoyed. We almost walked into a wedding that was taking place inside, but eventually found our way to Loop Studio Centre for Lively Arts space. Here's a video with architect Joe Lobko speaking about the Wychwood Barns project.

We'll be checking out some of the other offerings of New Adventures in Sound Art soon. Here are some shots of the Barns.

AGO Spiral Stairwell

On a recent visit to the AGO, I went straight for the new exhibitions on display. I was especially fond of Alexander Calder's wire sculptures, and also really enjoyed the theatrical lighting and elegant men and women in Edward Steichen's photographs. I was mostly interested though to see the exhibition Beautiful Fictions. After missing out on the Canada pavilion at the Venice Biennale, I've been itching to see Mark Lewis' video works. There were three on display in the contemporary galleries as part of this exhibition and they were mesmerizing. Another highlight for me was the pairing of several stark and formal empty cultural spaces by Canaida Hofer with Thomas Struth's shots of galleries packed full of school groups and tours (basically my experience of the Uffizi gallery). It was a really nice juxtaposition.

I left the contemporary galleries and walked down the best stairwell in Toronto on my way to the exit. These shots are from inside Frank Ghery's Spiral Stairwell. Larger versions are available on flickr.

Apologies

All my apologies if this blog comes across as a boring personal diary. I'm attempting to focus my ideas into something concrete with this, but it's not really happening just yet. In the long search for a job, I'm continually rethinking how I feel about work in the cultural field, and what it is exactly that I really care about and hope to achieve. My interests are so changeable and all over the map that I'm not sure which direction I'll take, but one thing remains constant, and that's my belief that my own happiness depends on developing a strong sense of place and appreciation for where I am right now.

I hope that this blog will function for me, at least, as an archive of interesting places, people, and ideas that cross my path here in Toronto. For anyone who is paying attention to this - it'll get better soon I promise!

Some fall colours on our street. Oct 21, 2009

Soap and a Movie

On the weekend we met up with a few different friends to catch up after our summer away. Saturday we made soap in Port Credit with Trish, Nari, and Andy and then went out for a Dosa dinner. On Sunday we went to a movie with Kaylin and Matt after lunch on Yonge st.

On the Go Train to Port Credit.

Lakeshore bvld. through the window.

The last bit of Christian's sandwich.

Trish mixing the Lye. She had all her own safety gear from her job. She found the soap recipe at treehugger.com, find it here.

Trish and Nari (her new husband) with the hand blender.

Andy-a-mixin.

One of Nari's designs.

Functional cardboard chair that Nari built.

Another hand-made design. Before we left for dinner we had a little jam session in their music room.

Here's the soap!

We had dinner here on Bloor just East of Landsdowne, amazing Dosas.

Next day we met up with Kaylin and Matt (who really don't want to be in this picture).

We had lunch at The Monk's Table, which as you can see from this shot of Google St. View, used to be Abbot on the Hill. Yummy food, and a great beer selection.

Here's a shot of the bar. Upstairs there's a great skylight.

Afterwards we went to the Carleton theatre to see 500 Days of Summer. When we came out the street looked like a fantasy scene.