Loaded up my mp3 player of choice with some tunes and came across a reunion tour of epic proportions.  SWERVEDRIVER are touring after a 10 year pause.  So happy that they will be playing Toronto!!!  Ah, but not until June 13th (at Lee’s Palace)…

Never lose that feeling… 

Not long ago, a manager at the TTC said that that brake dust was responsible for the grime coating every surface in a subway station, couldn’t simply be washed off, and made it impossible to keep the system clean, as if that was a new problem, making me wonder how previous generations of TTC janitors managed to clean off the brake dust so that the stations always looked spotless. And then I started thinking…. Rather dangerous because sometimes you shouldn’t think. Thinking takes you places you can’t do thing one about.

“When aluminum ceiling slats are removed to make repairs or renovations above them, the black soot can’t be scrubbed off with water and is still there when they go back up. The soot on the top side of the slats is so thick that it oozes back down over the face of the slats for days after it becomes wet, which only makes the problem worse.” The Toronto Star, 15 March 2008

If, as that manager asserted, that brake dust is like glue resisting efforts to even hose it off when they take those ceiling boards down for maintenance work, just what is that fine brake dust doing to my poor little alveoli? You see, the thing about lungs is that there’s no nano-biomechanical engineer going in there regularly with his little scrub brushes and pails of soapy water to scrub all the grime off the mucus membrane surfaces. We already know from smokers that the lung’s natural cleaning ability is no match for man-made particles. So has that dust laid itself on my alveoli like a fine coating of plaster, preventing the oxygen from slipping through the alveoli’s membrane into the bloodstream? Are asthma rates going up because more people are using the subway systems all around the world and fine brake dust is clogging up and irritating their lungs? You see where thinking takes you?

Jack Lakey was focussed on the filthy state of the TTC, but I’m amazed no one at The Star picked up on the bigger story: the effect of grimy, fine brake dust on the lungs of all us regular passengers.

Glad I can now return to some sense what is “normal”.  Sickness, work and exams have tied me down for weeks.  I missed great shows at CMW not to mention a few parties along the way.  Oh well.  Earning and living and learning to insure I can continue to do so are worth the sacrifice.  At least I could experience my first lazy Sunday today.  A family adventure to the Ontario Science Centre and the last day of the Titanic exhibit in Toronto were a great choices.  Glad I ventured out there.  I hadn’t been to the Science Centre since grade school and even with some kids bouncing off the walls (as most would during the tail end of March Break) it was still a great time.  The Titanic exhibit I had intended to see soooo long ago and it was worth every penny. I’ll have to book a time back at the Science Centre again for a Jazz concert or an IMAX some flick.  Good to see that an institution like the Ontario Science Centre can survive and improve over the years.

After my first day looking, my first condo visit, and my first big disappointment, I was exhausted. My memories of the CityPlace’s Superclub are still fresh. I can still see in my mind’s eye the indoor track, the basketball court, the two bowling lanes and even the massage room. I might have made up that last part. It was three floors of fitnessy goodness. Shame.

After that first unit, things get pretty hazy. All the units I saw mesh into a blur. A few units stand out. Like the one in the Esplanade.
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Looking for a home in Toronto is insane. Whether you’re looking for a house or a condominium, it’s pretty much all the same: deep demand.

I really haven’t had much time to write on the Metblog because I have been trying to find a home. This is the beginning of my story.
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It’s official if you haven’t already heard. GO Transit is offering free rides after 7pm New Year’s Eve. Seems that they have received corporate sponsorship from a US Fortune 500 Bank/Finance company. I stand corrected. I had thought the TTC would face the same fate as last year but the same sponsor will pay people’s way home on the TTC. Sad that no Canadian banks or corporations chipped in but such is life.

Have fun Toronto, just leave the driving to your friendly neighbourhood GO Transit, TTC or cab driver.

Well, I’m back from my time off from blogging. It’s been quite interesting. Went out for lunch recently, something quiet, something good to nosh on, a time to relax and let the mind go blank. But then a young woman came breezing in and plunked herself down at the table beside me, opposite a very patient man. He’d been waiting about the time it took me to order, get my meal, make serious inroads into it, and watch him finally order a bowl of soup. He quickly ordered a main. She was talking through her own soup when his steaming hot lunch arrived. She stopped waving her spoon around and dove it into the end of his loaf, the end closest to her, and said, “This looks so good, you don’t mind if I try some.” Now, what’s a guy to do? He was gracious and said, “Go ahead.” I wonder if he just didn’t care about her slobbered-on spoon desecrating his meal or decided to eat up to but not that portion of his loaf. I left before I discovered the answer to my question.

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Sitting semi-comatose on the subway train, waiting in the station for who knows what reason, I stared mindlessly out the open train doors. Into view scurried a little hump-backed, deep brown-furred creature with a thin, long tail. Blink. Pause. Blink, blink, blink. The hallucination didn’t disappear. Instead it sniffed between the raised yellow circles on the yellow warning band that edges the subway platform, and it went hither and thither on the trail of crumbs and kleenex bits dropped by your typical TTC patron. I sat up. Was it coming closer? Nope. It swooped away from the doors and scurried out of view. The chimes sounded, the doors closed, and I had no photo of this first-in-a-lifetime event. (Acutally it’s the third rat sighting I’ve had late this year, and I don’t think I’ve seen 3 in all the decades before that.) The shock made me forget all about getting a photo! It even struck me dumb. And I became rather nervous when I had to leave the train, looking hard to the floor to the left and right of me. I should’ve shouted, “RAT!”

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The Toronto Maple Losers, um, Leafs have apparently become a hot topic. I’ve long since grown bored with the Leafs. They never win, they never even look like they’re going to win, and their owners clearly don’t care as they’re raking in the cash in bumps and hikes of millions and millions. At least in Harold Ballard’s day, his antics and controversies — which makes today’s look like so much milky mush — overshadowed their perennial losing and kept us amused. Now the faceless corporate entities don’t even do that. They just hide in their counting house, ca-chinging the money flowing in. Rats!

Dark Hand and Lamplight are in town this week as part of Pleasure Dome. Dark Hand and Lamplight are a collaboration of Toronto musician Doug Paisley and artist Shary Boyle. A truly amazing musical and visual project. They are in Toronto this weekend after a celebrated tour in the US opening for Will Oldham (PRINCE “BONNIE” BILLY, PALACE, WILL OLDHAM, THE CONTINENTAL OP). For the project “Dark Hand and Lamplight”, Paisley wrote a collection of songs which Boyle uses as the basis for live drawings. Dark Hand creates art that surrounds Lamplight. The two feed off each other’s material often coming up with interesting improvisations.

Dark Hand and Lamplight share the stage with Liss Platt. Platt will be premiering a newly edited version of “You Can’t Get There From Here”. The film will be projected using a bicycle-powered 16mm projector ( designed by Petra Chevrier and Martin Heath).

See Dark Hand and Lamplight this Saturday as part of Pleasure Dome - Live Projections!

Performances by Shary Boyle with Doug Paisley and Liss Platt
Saturday, November 24, 8pm
Latvian House, 491 College St.
$10 at the door
$5 for members or students

One of my favourite photographic events to hit the city and now in its 6th year at Brookfield Place, World Press Photo. The exhibit showcases the finest in photojournalism. Art that makes you think, laugh and cry. (There are some disturbing images though they are tactfully displayed and shielded from general public view).

I was interested to hear there is little to no budget for this project and that it survives on sponsorship and donations. Amazing! They have even gone so far as have a Globe & Mail photographer, professors, photo editors and other media professionals providing free lectures for the public. Better yet high school students have had tours of the show as part of their curriculum. I couldn’t think of a better idea. All the sponsors and volunteers should be commended for their efforts. You make Toronto proud!

Well check it out before 6pm today because the exhibition will be on its way to Belgium… That’s right Montreal and Toronto are (or were) the only Canadian stops for this International exhibit.

World Press Photo 2007

7am - 10pm daily - including Sundays
Closes Wednesday, October 24 at 6pm

(Today is the last Day!!!)

Photo by Points North

When I was growing up, we all walked to our local school or, when older, took the TTC. So it was a bit perplexing when I noticed many years ago, an increasing number of these small school buses motoring into my quiet neighbourhood at some ghastly hour of the morning to pick up a kid or two. Why on earth were kids in Toronto being bussed to school, I wondered? I also noticed more and more parents driving their children to school when the children could easily have walked. That left me scratching my head.

Toronto ain’t that dangerous. We have the lowest crime rate in the country; it’s probably proportionately better now than when I was growing up because it’s the young who commit the crimes and the boomers were all in that age category back then, and now they’re old geezers uninterested in committing crimes. Also, wherever I turn, there’s a Catholic school or a public school or both. So why the need to drive and bus the kids? I understand bussing in suburban areas or the country where distances are great, but in Toronto?! Have people lost their minds and become so paranoid that they’ve lost the art of teaching older kids responsibility and trust by having them walk the younger kids to school; and teaching older kids how to navigate the streets on their own; and teaching children how to avoid danger and learning the feeling of confidence and competence by doing it on their own? It’s not like there were no pedophiles around when I was young. I was just taught to spot them, stay away, or where and how to go for help.