Month: June 2014

No, not Stephen Harper. (Good guess, though.)

How about a machine that ties a necktie and then unties it?

Here’s a nice 5 minute relaxer. My sister lives in the Rockies and she’s mastering a new camera. Great, sharp pictures and very soothing bird songs.
Watch for Mary waving her arms, reflected in the blue orb at the beginning. joni is shooting in her friend Mary’s garden.

Terry O’Reilly’s entertaining radio show/podcast on CBC reminded me about this excellent piece of advertising. Dreary, formulaic messages do work, but when the point can be made with style and originality we are looking at art, folks.

It was perfect weather in a lovely park but the large tent city in the Beach Kew Gardens held little interest for me today. I think I’m arts-and-crafts faired out for a while.

I got back on my bike and headed for the water’s edge. Always a refreshing restorative. Uhhh, maybe not on sunny Sundays though. Too crowded with strollers walking 4 abreast on the cycle path. Better save that trail for weekdays.

I’ve never seen the park fenced and gated with security guards before. Looking past guests whose bags were being searched, I could see something inside ominously called the “Grilling Tent”. I ran away PDQ from the BBQ.

Photo credit: “The Flaneur” by John Robert Colombo
John and Ruth Colombo showed me one of those nifty places that you’d never find on your own … a real Italian kitchen with buffet-style serving. The front of the place is a grocery store, so a casual passerby wouldn’t even realize that lunch was happening in the back. A popular place with the locals. Lucky we were there early enough to get a table.
My choice: Spaghetti and meatballs, with a big, fresh bun, mineral water and a capaccino. There were salads, fish, soups, calamari and loads of other choices, too.
This post is primarily to remind me how to get back there. 1224 St. Clair Avenue West, near Dufferin.

John Robert Colombo has just had another book arrive from the press and I went over to get a copy and see how the cover came out. You can read John’s blurb on A Rohmer Miscellany here, so I’ll take the opportunity to elaborate on the cover design.
Sax Rohmer was the world’s highest paid author back in the 1950s. He is perhaps best known for inventing the diabolical Dr. Fu Manchu. I used a rare photo of Rohmer to create his silhouette, throwing all of his features into mysterious darkness, except his pipe. To reference his Fu Manchu and similar tales set in East Asia, a dragon curls as smoke from the pipe.
John corresponded with Rohmer over an issue discussed and illustrated in the book. One of the treasures is a letter signed by Rohmer, using two strokes through the S on Sax. Yes, the dollar sign. He was proud of his financial success.

Thank goodness we’ve seen the last of the Hudak/Harris Conservatives. I’m not so thrilled that the Liberals have been handed a majority. I don’t believe that they deserve such trust.
Maybe the Liberal wrongdoers from the previous government will be prosecuted. I doubt it. Maybe Kathleen Wynne will run an honest government, respectful of public money. Will she? Or will a majority position tell Liberals that they can carry on as they did in the McGuinty days?
A Liberal minority would have been a better outcome, but well-founded fear of Hudak pushed us too far.

Although I used to work at billboard scale, little things for friends are more satisfying. Kash and Carlotta (Partners in Sweetness) were looking for something to write on the little plaque they were permitted to brand in front of their Niagara On The Lake gelato store.

Today Kash sent a photo. My little contribution sits between two star employees on the brand new bench. The plaque says, “Life is sweet. Have a seat”.
If you visit NOTL, do yourself a favour. Il Gelato di Carlotta. Here they are on Facebook.

The Luminato art festival has a “hub” in downtown Toronto’s David Pecaut Square. In addition to a big stage, the square is furnished with cardboard lounge chairs under cardboard umbrellas. Big, sculptural cardboard breakwaters add ambience and its quite a pleasant space to hang out in.
The pictures at the end of the slideshow are just updaters from the rest of my walk.
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On stage, Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq was doing some sound checks. I,ve never heard such a haunting sound before, especially live and by a solo singer. Amazing and stirring. My poor iPad movie isn’t much of a recording device, but you can hear that she sounds like at least two people, singing, chanting, growling. Backed up with drums and violins, her sound is most original and wonderful.