Bill Andersen having fun

Here she is, looking all Hollywoody back in about 1950. Ann is the widow of my friend Ben and she showed me this photo above and two others (below) when I visited her one day. The photos were curled and cracked, so I borrowed them to scan and repair. Today, I picked up new copies from Black’s and they came out well. Ann has those now, but I have the digital versions.

Ann was a healthy, attractive and stylish 23 year old when these were taken. No sign of the tragic events that brought her to Canada from England. She lost two husbands, both Canadians, to wartime and postwar duties in the air force. One died in a parachute accident, the other in a crash after the war had ended. Ann was left on her own with two young daughters. Since their father had been Canadian and since her prospects were nil in Britain, she came here, found work and made a life. Ben came onto the scene decades later.

Here are the other photos, if you’re interested.

Ann sat for these photos as a favour to a fellow who was trying to win work as and advertising photographer. The original photos look to have been developed in a home dark room.

OK, Canada, time to wise up. When world adventure traveller Peter Sever (who rode all the way around the world on a motorcycle recently… through freakin’ PAKISTAN)… when Peter says he’s going to “scratch Mexico off my travel list for the next while”, shouldn’t we all do the same?

Peter’s email comment to his list of friends was inspired by the brutal attack on a Canadian tourist in Mazatlan. Looks like that guy was smashed on the head with a baseball bat. He survived, but plenty of Canadian tourists don’t.

What does it take to make a cheap vacation look like not such a good deal?

Creative Director: OK, we all agree… it’s FOR garbage, so it should LOOK like garbage.
A Designer: Can it look like a toad?
Director: Great! With a big, toady face, smiling at everybody!
Another Designer: Can we make the smile look like it’s missing a tooth?
Director: Ye-e-e-s-s-s!!! Is that it, then?
Noobie Designer: Let’s put warts on the bottom.
Creative Director: You got it, kid!

There are rules about these things, aren’t there, Kathy? I’ll wait for my birthday, even though the Drca’s parcel arrived from Windsor today.

I wouldn’t have gotten as far as the gift bag, except the shipping box jumped mysteriously down from a small table and I needed to make sure that nothing inside was alive and in need of feeding. I found the cautionary card, suggesting that I use only one candle this year. Global warming. Good point.

Thanks, you guys!

Click to enlarge

Like any grandmother, Helen Andersen loved her grand kids and her photos of them. When she turned to those photos as reference for paintings, she used them to explore and express character in her subjects, not to produce sentimental idealizations. Brooke is grown up now, but I think you can see a lot of his boyish energy, personality and independence in this depiction.

Carlie, her granddaughter was a special darling. Helen just adored her. In this oil, she takes Carlie just as she is… a solid character with her own way of seeing things, and utterly unpretentious. I think I know why Helen felt so close to her.

This CD offers me no clue about what it goes with. The name and slogan are useless. Rummaging around, I found an “info” sheet. It offered this, in English and several other languages:

BEFORE YOU START INSTALLATION OR USE OF THIS PRODUCT:

1. Do not make any connections to your SpeedTouch™ until you are instructed to do so.
2. Insert the setup CD in your computer’s CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive.
   • On MS Windows: The CD should autostart.
   • On Mac OS X: Double-click Menu in the window with the content of the CD.
3. Carefully follow all the instructions.

OK, that’s all you get. Any idea what a SpeedTouch is? [Hint: It's not a quick grope on the subway.]

East Queen Street, just east of Beech Ave.

A hefty patron has just flumped into an easy chair, knocking the coffee table and spilling my cup onto the newspaper it rested on. A perfunctory “sorry” preceded her loud cellphone call. Subject: chicken for dinner tonight. The coffee is smoother than my neighbour, who is now eating something noodly from a plastic tub. Time to abandon the free wifi and resume my walk.

Danica and I sat up high in the front window of a nifty little coffee place on Gerrard Street East. We didn’t really try to act as window displays but ours was the last available table. There are, maybe, 3 or 4 tables all together. There’s free wi-fi.

The “sideshow” refers to the fact that the coffee (and ice cream in the summertime) outlet is an add-on business. It is attached to the Centre of Gravity Circus Training Studio. Neat place and interesting people. We ordered Americanos…they only have an espresso machine… which were delicious. Danica’s small was 2 bucks and my medium was a better deal at $2.50