Month: September 2014

We can get rid of Stephen Harper next year, but it may take years to get the smell out.

Setting aside the question of the deal’s terms (good for us or bad), it’s bad because it’s being done behind our backs. It’s bad because it lasts for 31 years. It’s bad because it hasn’t been debated or discussed nationally. It’s badly secretive. It’s bad because it’s probably unconstitutional, as so many Harper schemes turn out to be.
Find out more about the FIPA deal and sign the NDP petition against it if you think it will help. I’m not NDP, either, but they are the Official Opposition. Elizabeth May has warned us, too.

Let’s see how quickly Google will grab these images from my blog and associate them with an image search for “Raymond Souster”.
It is a mystery to me how Google grabs images from everywhere on the web and serves them up in collections so quickly when we enter a search term or two. Imagine the computer power it must take and the storage capacity!
First, a shot that has not been posted online before. From the left: George Elliott Clarke, John Robert Colombo, Sarah Doucette and Donna Dunlop prepare to reveal the new plaque at the foot of “Souster Steps”.
Donna Dunlop at the September 6th plaque unveiling, reading poetry she has written about Raymond Souster. Donna is Ray’s publisher, literary and estate executor.
And last, an image that I discovered while cooking up this test. I should have known that Barker Fairley would have done a Raymond Souster portrait, but had not seen it until now. One online source dates it to 1957.

I like Barker Fairley’s work and I have written about it before. He painted portraits of our friends Ruth and John Robert Colombo. Let’s see if Google can connect the dots … and let’s see how fast it happens. I’ll come back and add the result, if Google succeeds (or fails).
Result, after 10 hours.

Danica figured out how to photograph through the window reflections at 1847 Danforth today. It was a matter of holding the lens close to the glass.

Here’s a look at some of the inventive sculptures on display. A sign in the window gives this link to more photos and information about Shuttlewerks. My guess is that the figures are called “nobots” because they don’t move, but look like robots.
In the adjacent store window, Quack Quack Animations responds colourfully with assembled characters of its own.

The figures are not only fun in their own right, they are fun to examine closely, to see the bits and pieces they’ve been made of.

As our paradoxical global culture is driven by a restless obsession with novelty, our roads and cities look more and more alike the world over. Do we love what’s different or do we yearn for fuzzy sameness? The answer, of course, is yes.

Personally, I find “averaged” images bland and unsatisfying, but the notion that averages represent ideals goes back at least as far as Aristotle. The video displays technology that is very old and very new, at the same time.

Not only does the Riverdale Hub sport one of the nicest mosaic signs in the city, it also serves good coffee in a welcoming atmosphere. The café opened earlier this summer, but today was my first visit. Excellent wi-fi, BTW, and baked goodies, too.
Follow the link to find out more about this unique place. It has a lot going for it.

This is actually encouraging. The road ripping held off almost twice as long as I expected. This is what blogs are for. Any other questions?

Tomorrow Thursday, September 18 will be referendum day and, as stirring as it would be to see an independent Scotland, I hope they choose to stay in the United Kingdom. England badly needs the civilizing influence.

Perfect riding days are numbered so we took the opportunity to load the bikes onto the rack and head for the mouth of the Rouge River, where Scarborough meets Pickering.
[metaslider id=8788]
 
Along the way, we rode across nifty bridges, listened to the waves, cruised through fields of wildflowers and goldenrod, wondered about the mysterious holes in the bluffs, and turned back at Frenchman’s Bay. [Nice slides of reconstruction going on …]
We got within a stone’s throw of the Pickering nuclear station but the trail peters out and ends because there’s no bridge over the gap between the bay and the lake.
All in all, a beautiful, breezy day for a ride. When I first saw this great bike path, I thought, “I have to show this to Danica”. Now she’s seen it and we’ll be back with a picnic lunch, next time.

My choice for mayor is dropping out of the race. Same thing happened last time, come to think of it. While I don’t think Toronto is stupid enough to repeat the Rob Ford mistake, we weren’t smart enough to get David Soknacki, either.
So it looks like John Tory. He’ll have to do. I hope he’ll win and steal lots of ideas from the Soknacki platform.
Thanks for all the hard work and expense, David.

Danica took my picture for a change, when we biked to Cherry Beach today.
Before we got there, we turned up a side path to see the Jamieson Kuhlmann Field where two soccer pitches are served by a notorious washroom. Rob Ford condemned it as a waste of tax dollars. He knows you don’t need expensive facilities to pee in a park. We’ve all seen the surveillance photos.