Much sleeping in. Pringles. Shower. Greasy lunch. Nap. Dinner at Fid. Drinks at the Bitter End. Big slice from pizza corner. Back to sleep.
Where our day went
It's dangerous to be this close
Mmmmmmmmm. We’ve only been here 12 hours and it’s already been a pretty sweet trip. Our flight was on time, our cab driver (limo driver, really) was very friendly and helpful (try Crystal Limousine if you’re ever coming from the airport), we got some great food and Garrison beer at the Economy Shoe Shop, one of the few places still serving food. Wiped, we crashed hard in our king bed.
We woke up to a beautiful morning, a welcome respite from what we’ve heard is weeks of gray and rainy weather. We didn’t have too much time before prepping for the wedding, but we did manage to have breakfast, do some emergency sock-shopping at Dugger’s and pick up some wine at Bishop’s Cellar. With all the usual festivals and activities that happen here in the summer, and with Paul McCartney playing here today, the city’s jumping right now.
OK, gotta get ready.
PSA: your eyeballs have been granted a temporary reprieve
Blogging will be spotty for the next week or so as Nellie and I traipse about Nova Scotia.
Enjoy July’s warm, moist middle y’all.
It's a freaking mall, people.
BlogTO yesterday raised an interesting topic: the differences in travel styles. Emphasis is mine.
Yesterday, the New York Times published yet another one of their great travel articles on a Toronto neighbourhood that doesn’t get much play from the powers that be who promote our city. Titled Skid Row to Hip in Toronto, the article isn’t a comprehensive look at the area, missing favourite spots like Crema Coffee, Smash and The Beet to name a few. Here are the ones they did mention:
…
Which is to say that it’s a good start and exactly the sort of story the city should be trying to get out instead of the crap about Ontario Place and Casa Loma.
I’m of the same opinion as BlogTO on this: for Toronto, or any tourist destination, the real soul of a place isn’t in the big tourist attractions, it’s between the lines of the Fodor’s guide. For many cities, and especially for Toronto, it’s in the neighbourhoods. That you could wander from Chinatown to Kensington Market to Little Italy to the Annex to U of T (to take just one example) in less than an hour is fantastic because they’re all such different neighbourhoods. That’s what I want from a city, to get a real feel for it.
Obviously lots of people want to see the big attractions. When I lived at Dupont and Spadina I had tourists ask me every other summer day how to get to Casa Loma (which was always fun ’cause I could just point to the giant castle on top of the hill) and now that I live downtown I’m often asked where the Eaton Centre is. It always horrifies me that this is what tourists want to see, but that’s what’s in the guide books and, as BlogTO points out, the tourism promotions.
Should there maybe be two sets of promotion materials and guidebooks? Or is this the kind of thing that guidebooks just can’t keep up with, due to the rapid emergence and decline of neighbourhoods? Is this the role of the internet now? Until now a guidebook has just been an easier thing to carry around a city, but GPS-enabled devices could change that. I’m sure there’s already an iPhone app that points out cool insider tips about the neighbourhood you’re wandering through. If not, there should be. Damn, I wish I knew how to write those things…
I hope he remembered before he dropped the suit off at the cleaner's
Did you hear about how Stephen Harper may have been wandering around with a piece of Jesus in his suit pocket? The Telegraph-Journal explains:
A senior New Brunswick Roman Catholic priest is demanding the Prime Minister’s Office explain what happened to the sacramental communion wafer Stephen Harper was given at Roméo LeBlanc’s funeral mass.
During communion at the solemn and dignified service held last Friday in Memramcook for the former governor general, the prime minister slipped the thin wafer that Catholics call “the host” into his jacket pocket.
In Catholic understanding, the host – once consecrated by a priest for the Eucharist – becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ. It is crucial that the small wafer be consumed when it is received.
Monsignor Brian Henneberry, vicar general and chancellor in the Diocese of Saint John, wants to know whether the prime minister consumed the host and, if not, what happened to it.
If Harper accepted the host but did not consume it, “it’s worse than a faux pas, it’s a scandal from the Catholic point of view,” he said.
Here’s why this is so off-the-charts ridiculous: to be convinced that this is, in fact, scandalous behaviour on the Prime Minister’s part one has to literally believe the notion that a tiny wafer blessed by a priest becomes the actual body and blood of Jesus. This is absurd, of course, but let’s say you enjoy dogma and you accept this on its face. You then have to deem it an outrageous affront to put said wafer in your pocket, but eating it (and, uh, shitting it later) it is okay. I know, I know, Jesus said eat this blah, drink this blah. But if you actually spend fifteen seconds thinking rationally about this rather than reciting scripture, it’s painfully obvious that this is a non-issue.
Then again, expecting rational thought on a topic at the intersection of politics and religion might be asking too much. Isn’t that right, Diane Ablonczy?
No noose is good noose
I hate neckties.
I own several, and will employ one on rare occasions, but generally I will do my very best to avoid wearing one. My reasons are three-fold:
- They’re uncomfortable. Not the ties themselves, I suppose, but the shirt collars which have to be buttoned tight in order to facilitate the tying of the tie. By hitching up my neck and then tying a knot (albeit a stylish one) around my adam’s apple I feel as if I’m trying to commit very languid suicide.
- They’re useless. I wear suits to work most days. I feel comfortable in them, but not just because I like how they look. A good suit and dress shirt both protect and breathe, so on -40 days I don’t feel cold and on +40 days I’m much cooler than I should be considered I’m wearing three layers. On top of all that, they’re functional (lots of pockets) and very easy to wrangle in the morning…just grab a bag out of the closet and presto. Ties, on the other hand, serve no useful purpose. They’re only for decoration. Combine with with my previous point about discomfort and they’re no better than the fancy-but-painful shoes that I tease Nellie for wearing sometimes.
- I like the no-tie look. I like the dress-up of a suit and the dress-down of no tie…suits can be casual, you know. And hey, it works for Clooney. Not that I’m fit to carry the man’s dress socks, style-wise, but if he does it I think I’m on pretty safe sartorial ground to take the same approach.
Nellie likes to give me a hard time about not wearing a tie with my suits. What does everyone else think? Is it okay to go tie-less with a suit?
"What once was innocence, has turned on its side."
I don’t know much about Joy Division. I was too young to have known about them when they existed, and the place I grew up wasn’t exactly a thriving centre of post-punk, so I wasn’t exposed to them after the fact either. I didn’t know much of their history either, but after watching 24 Hour Party People I knew a little. What I did know was that they were — and continue to be — very influential, and that their singer Ian Curtis died very young.
Watching Control (imdb | rotten tomatoes) gave me a better lens on the man, as seen through the eyes of his wife Deborah and director Anton Corbijn, who before he premiered this film at TIFF two years ago had only done music videos and rock photography, some of which had featured Curtis and Joy Division years before. It was shot in a black and white that was achingly beautiful, as you’d expect from someone with Corbijn’s eye. I’d also heard that relative newcomer Sam Riley did a bang-on impression of Curtis, not that I’d know. I don’t think I’d ever seen footage of Joy Division before, or couldn’t remember if I did, but watching a few YouTube clips later proved that Riley nailed it.
Biopics are tricky things, especially about someone who’s become posthumously idolized like Curtis, but I thought this one worked well. It skipped the usual formula of tortured childhood + addiction/hardship = triumph over adversity, and it showed the weakness of Curtis’ character while never quite making him seem pathetic. I had no particular emotional interest in Ian Curtis or Joy Division, but I still found the story interesting and the method skillful. If you haven’t seen it it’s worth a look.
"'We were living beyond our means,' he says, 'and it’s all crashing down.'"
A little over a week ago I blogged about the most recent Toronto Life cover story:
“I’m angry at myself for throwing out my paper copy since TL won’t post most of their magazine content online (Dear editors: the 21st century. Please hear of it.) and I can’t remember the very best quotes, but suffice it to say I was barking with laughter after the Rosedale matron whined about the hardship of having to hide her full Holt Renfrew shopping bags for fear of showing up her friends and neighbours. Not to mention the lady who fretted about irritating her personal shopper when she asked for a discount on a dress that cost thousands of dollars.”
Fortunately Toronto Life has now opened up the article online so you can read the ridiculousness for yourself. To wit:
“It’s kind of becoming cool to be thrifty. It’s almost a point of pride,” said a woman who routinely makes Toronto’s best-dressed lists. She recently found herself haggling for the first time for a 10 per cent discount on a $3,000 designer dress at Holts. (Her personal shopper was not impressed.)
Also:
One young family decided to rein in their March break plans. Instead of going to the Four Seasons Mexico after skiing in Vail, they just skied Vail.
Heavens…how do these people survive?
More than one wealthy woman told me she’s economizing by getting her hair blown out twice instead of three times a week. For some, the biggest sacrifice is switching from a $400 to a $250 facial or letting go of the gardener who cost them more per month than their property taxes.
WOE BETIDE US!!!!
Some appreciated the gestures. “I walked through Yorkville the other day with my arms full of designer bags, and I got dirty looks, which really stung,” said one woman who recently moved to Rosedale.
Stop. Please stop. I can’t take it any more. I’m having sympathy pains. I can actually feel the pain that woman must have felt at being ostracized for being so wealthy.
OK, so I’m being cheeky. But this one might just take the cake (emphasis mine):
The day [a former Bay Street worker] was laid off, he and his wife hunkered down at their kitchen table to calculate how they could scale back. Pulling their kids out of private school would save more than $50,000 a year. Trading in their luxury cars could lower their $40,000 annual lease payments. Cancelling their planned March break holiday to the Caribbean was an easy way to save 10 grand. But could they afford to keep their cottage? Should they fire the nanny? Obviously they wouldn’t be giving to charity this year.
Well, obviously! I mean, if you’re at the point where you’re actually considering taking the kids out of the private schools or trading in the luxury cars or canceling the trip to the Caribbean or selling the cottage, then you’ve reached desperate times. Food banks and homeless shelters and hospitals may be desperate for money, but goddammit, the leather seats in those cars feel like motherfucking butter. Ahem…but there I go being sarcastic again.
Look, I don’t begrudge anyone making money. Of course I don’t. But I don’t understand someone whose first thought, when trying to tighten the purse strings, is to make charity the first casualty when you have such egregious luxuries as an upcoming $10,000 vacation and cars that cost $40,000 in lease payments every year. It doesn’t occur to you that someone might need a bit of help more than you need to keep the best Maserati instead of the second-best Maserati.
I remember hearing years ago that low-income families tend to give more of their paycheque to charity. The results from the 2007 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating (warning: PDF) back that up: while 90% of families earning >$100,000 donated to charity vs. 71% of families making <$20,000, families making <20k donated $210 on average while families making at least five times more donated only three times as much. In fact, if you look at the table on page 19 you’ll see the average donation as a percentage of salary range midpoint moves down pretty steadily.
This suggests to me that the wealthier you are, the less of your disposable income goes to charity. I assume this is because those closer to the bottom can relate, and know that “There but for the grace of interest rates or labour woes go I.” Clearly the people cited in this TL article have no way to relate to actual financial hardship, and that disconnectedness from reality would back up my assumption.
Anyway, the article has a lovely little close: the afore-mentioned former Bay Streeter (who, by the way, had his entire savings in the stock market, which makes me question his credentials for working on Bay in the first place) says that “until the economy turns around…his wife may go back to work to tide them over, or they may hit up their parents for a loan.” I wish this gentleman a speedy economic recovery, as well as the best of luck in locating his balls.
"I don't dance with naked soldiers."
Though Thursday and Friday were supposed to be a short vacation, we actually used them as get-shit-done days. Here’s what we’ve managed so far, the major points anyway:
- Got my driver’s license and health card renewed in what must surely be the most efficient government-related service experience ever. Ten minutes after entering the Service Ontario office at Bay & College I’d completed both renewals and was on my way home. I was actually a little shocked, and left wondering if I’d done something wrong.
- Watched all four Wimbledon semi-final matches, or at least parts of them.
- Went to the distillery district with Nellie (who left work at noon) in search of a hopside down glass (since I broke one) but to no avail. We had a bite to eat and a couple of cold ones at the Mill Street brew pub, and managed to get home without being rained on.
- Went for a run. Good one too.
- Watched Passchendaele (imdb | rotten tomatoes), which I had really hoped would be good, but it wasn’t. At all. It could have been, but when a movie called Passchendaele spends the majority of its time in Calgary it wastes whatever potential it has.
- Walked along the waterfront, checked out the new wave deck at the foot of Simcoe, despaired at the putrid wasteland that Queens Quay becomes east of Yonge.
- Visited the LCBO to pick up some wine for tonight (simple, tasty Cab Sauv from J. Lohr) and a few bottles of the Innis & Gunn Canadian Cask, as recommended on the always-helpful Great Canadian Pubs & Beer blog.
- Bought a new camera bag for the SX10 at Henry’s.
- Finished off (more or less) some rearranging we started last weekend. Lots more room now, junk recycled, shelves put up. Time to finally hang that diploma I got last fall.
- Picked up the new bench for our balcony at Andrew Richard Designs.
Now we’re getting ready to grill some Rowe Farms steaks, maybe watch a movie. It actually feels more like Sunday than Friday…I have to keep reminding myself that we have two more days off!
"Wish safe quick soon mission into next eternity."
I’ve finished one book and moved on to the next, and in doing so may have wrecked my brain’s transmission.
It was a pretty dramatic shift to finish The Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela (amazon) and start reading Chuck Palahniuk‘s Pygmy (amazon), not only because of the drastically different subject matter, but also because I’ve left the articulate and erudite memoirs of a lawyer and freedom fighter and found myself waist-deep in the bizarre pidgin of Pygmy’s protagonist. Here’s an example from page 2:
“Only one step with foot, operative me to defile security of degenerate American snake next. Den of evil. Hive of corruption. Host family of operative me waiting, host arms elbow bent to flutter fingers in attention of this agent. Host family shouting, arms above with wiggling finger.”
The entire book is like this, every single page…or so I assume. So even though Pygmy’s a fraction of the size of Long Walk, it’ll probably take me just as long to read.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 