Forget about it. It’s only temporary. The road rip-ups and closures associated with installation of the monster streetcar barns in East Toronto have been going on for months but this is the first time that Memory Lane has been affected.
Did you even know we had a Memory Lane?

Gord Smith‘s art is pretty easy on the eye and customers might be drawn to the delightful, bright colours and the superficially abstract shapes and patterns dancing across the surfaces of his paintings and tiles. Don’t be fooled. The creative process behind the work is radical, not decorative.
Gord Smith at the Gerrard Art Space, May 4, 2014
Faced with a choice today of listening to a 2-hour artist’s talk by Gord or tagging along on a Jane’s Walk about the Art of the Danforth, I went to hear Gord. Too bad the events were at the same time, because I would have liked the Jane’s Walk, but I don’t regret my choice.
Without hearing Gord’s talk, would I ever have suspected the notions that inspire his output? Probably not. A quick glance won’t do with these pieces, but that’s almost what they invite. Only if you take time to observe them for a while, does their energy begin to draw you in, setting up questions about how they work and why.

Friday began the annual Danforth art event which is ongoing until May 11. Inside Artisans At Work, I met Tara Shelton, who not only runs the place (and started it, with fellow artisans), but is possessed of many skills. She does wood burning, teaches sculpture and listed so many more crafts, I can’t remember all of them.
The studio/gallery/shop offers variety, too. Paintings, drawings, ceramics, leather goods and jewellery are for sale. There are life drawing sessions, craft classes, community meetings and monthly art exhibitions. On May 24th there will be a swap meet for trading and selling unused art supplies.

Click the pic to go to the BBC item …

My take on the article
I must admit that I have succumbed too often to purposeful walking and I am the poorer for it. When I started my goal of walking at least 10,000 steps a day, my walks were purposeless, free and uplifting. But slowly, I began to spoil my walks with destinations and chores.
I am grateful to the author of the BBC article for reminding me of something I already knew, but was neglecting. Purposeless walking is the real deal. Nothing can replace it, not even cycling. Not even purposeless, bike-path cycling.
As the weather warms, I’ll be happy to get our bikes down from the garage wall, and I’ll enjoy the rides, but I would be cheating myself to let them become substitutes for the kind of walking that Finlo Rohrer has written about.

I opened the Crackle movie app and felt myself whisked back in time. Suddenly, I was standing in my local corner store, waiting my turn at the cash counter and idly perusing VHS videos that I never rented.

You don’t expect much from a free movie app, but its power as a time machine is surprising! I haven’t been inside that corner store since I quit smoking over 20 years ago, but looking at the Crackle covers, I could vividly visualize the old store’s walls and spotty fluorescent lighting, its aisles and worn wooden floorboards.

Visnja sends her siren song, inviting us to join her and Stanko for coffee on a beautiful day in Sydney, Australia. Danica’s cousin is serenading us with Mozart and looking gorgeous as as a yoga instructor (which she is).
So you see, we have even more reason than most Canadians to regret the collapse of Blackberry. Stanko was working for RIM in Waterloo and he and Visnja were on the brink of becoming Canadians when the layoffs occurred and Stanko relocated to Australia. Our loss, no question.
We are happy, though, that the talented couple seem to love their new Aussie home and Visnja doesn’t miss our winter cold one bit.

Toronto is one of the best cities in the world for Jane’s Walks and there are 136 of them ready to go on Friday, May 2nd, Saturday, May 3rd and Sunday, May 4th.

Yesterday (Monday) was the only sunny day in our short term forecast, so it seemed like an ideal time to head over for some shopping at the Tap Phong Trading Company. I’d been by many times, but not inside. A search for a new wicker basket to carry fireplace logs sent me there.
Bill Byres usually likes to haunt such places so I called him up and we met for lunch at the Free Times Café on College. Bill declared the Mediterranean Omlette good, but added that his own omlettes were better. Probably. Bill is a very good cook.

A fairly good number of Beach Hill residents showed up this sunny morning to help clean up the litter exposed by the melted snow.
I worked my way up Gerrard to Woodbine and then along to north of the Via Rail tracks. We know from experience that there are lots of pickings on that route, don’t we, Thorne?
A survey of my findings: