Stockyards Art
No backstory here – I was simply intrigued by this sculpture we discovered on a visit to The Stockyards Village (St. Clair & Weston Road):
Through The Glass
I took this casual shot with my iPhone while we were waiting to go into a concert at Roy Thomson Hall. I love how the CN Tower is framed by the glass panes and surrounding buildings:
Bloor-Yorkville Icefest 2019
It had been four years since I’d photographed the annual Bloor-Yorkville Icefest. The weather finally cooperated this year and gave us below freezing temperatures which preserved the beautiful sculptures of the ice artists (unlike the last couple of years, when “Icefest” became more like “Dripfest” due to very warm temperatures). It didn’t hurt that the organizers finally moved the event to early February this year instead of the customary late…
E-cigarettes/Vaping
OK, whoever came up with these things really has a lot to answer for. Vaping is one of those things that really bugs me for some reason and I’m not sure exactly why. It could be the fad-ish nature of it where everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon, but I think the main reason I find it so irritating is the pretentiousness of the whole thing. People who…
Scratchings From The Past – #1
Tragedy and Oppression:Sophie Zawistowska as Victim in William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice Then again I fell asleep, only to wake with a start just before dawn, in the dead silence of the hour, with pounding heart and an icy chill staring straight up at my ceiling above which Sophie slept, understanding with a dreamer’s fierce clarity that she was doomed. (Styron 63). These words uttered by Stingo, the hero of William…
Star Wars & The TSO
You’ve probably read the title of this post and thought: “Whhaaaaa??”. It’s an unlikely combo at first glance: the film Star Wars: A New Hope coupled with the TSO (Toronto Symphony Orchestra). Not so weird actually. What a brilliant idea. Over the span of the next couple of years the Toronto Symphony Orchestra is performing the John Williams-composed Star Wars soundtracks live while the movies are projected larger than life…
SARStock / Toronto Rocks
There were two memorable events in Toronto during the summer of 2003: one was the massive power blackout covering most of northeast North America (read my post on that here) and the other was Toronto Rocks or, more informally, SARStock. Held on July 30, 2003 at Downsview Park (previously a former military air base in the north end of the city), the event was a gigantic, marathon rock concert to benefit Toronto’s economy and…
Boxing Day
For any American or European readers not familiar with some of Canada’s holidays, we celebrate Boxing Day in our country. Boxing Day is a federal statutory holiday which always falls on the day after Christmas. All banks, government agencies, etc. are closed on this day. Boxing Day originated in the UK and is celebrated in the countries that, at one time, were part of the British Empire (Canada remains one of the Commonwealth nations of…
Christmas Windows
I’d been meaning to capture The Bay’s Christmas window displays at night for quite a while now so I took a little spin down to Yonge and Queen last night to see this year’s offerings. The windows are quite good this year but, sadly, not nearly as extensive as they were prior to the merger of Saks Fifth Avenue in the same building. Prior to Saks, the Christmas windows continued…
Cousin It Meets The Beatles?
I was passing by The Bay at Queen & Yonge tonight, and I couldn’t help noticing these shaggy mannequins in the windows:
Life’s A Journey…
I saw this in the subway today and thought it clever of Lyft’s Marketing department:
Land’s End, U.K.
Land’s End is literally the end of the land in England, the very south-west tip. There is no more land west of here until you hit Newfoundland. The scenery here is quite dramatic, to say the least. I took these shots on September 28, 2018, during my photo tour of Cornwall in the U.K.:
Crossing the Bar
Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea, But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I…
On PrEP
For much of this year I’d been seeing posters in the subway platforms and cars depicting a healthy-looking, hot guy (or guys) staring dreamily into the camera with captions reading I’m on PrEP, or Ask your doctor about PrEP or some such verbiage involving something called “PrEP”. I had no idea exactly what PrEP is, other than it obviously being a product strategically aimed at a gay male audience, so a little Googling was in order. I found out…
Capote Quotes: In Cold Blood & Music For Chameleons
I’m on a Truman Capote binge lately. I’ve been re-reading a couple of his novels as well as discovering some of the ones new to me. The more of Capote’s work I read, the more I appreciate this man’s incredible writing. He truly was a literary genius but a tortured one in his private life, at least in the last few years of his life. I’ve just finished re-reading In Cold Blood and…
An Old Safe
I was running some errands downtown last weekend and had to make a stop in 80 Spadina Avenue (above King St.). This building at one point in time was an old Toronto warehouse which has been converted into artist spaces, studios and photo reproduction companies, among other things. I spotted an old-fashioned, decommissioned safe in the building’s hallway and found it interesting; I have a penchant for historic items such as this. I love…
My “B-List” Songs
I call these tracks the “B-list” of my favourite music. These are all special songs to me and remain some of my favourites, but they don’t quite merit a place on my Desert Island Songs list. Like my other lists, this one remains a work in progress. Here then, is more of my life’s soundtrack: