Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
The category, Elbow, is for posts that make us laugh.
There’s a shop on Parliament Street south of Wellesley that sells religious merchandise. I’ve featured the front window before; I had been drawn to it by a notice posted in the window. I now realize this is a shop I’m going to have to track over time. Interesting things happen here.
Now, as the weather turns colder, one must take precautions against over-exposure. Photographers, of course, are concerned about over-exposure all year round.
Mike invited me to a party. He said there’d be a girl there. The whole thing would be recorded on video. Streamed on the internet. I could wear a mask if I liked. I don’t know why, but while he told me this, I was wondering who he voted for in the last federal election. I didn’t ask, of course. I didn’t want to make him feel awkward.
A selection of signs in downtown Toronto: I don’t see that a psychic has much to complain about in this situation; she should have foreseen the problem before she set up business. Also, I would have thought psychics are better spellers than this. Couldn’t she “travel” to the library & consult the OED before she…
I like to think of the Japanese photographer, Araki, as (among other things) the grandfather of the modern selfie. Photographers have been taking self-portraits since the camera was invented, but Araki makes a regular habit of including himself in his images, and was doing so long before digital photography became a thing.
All the tourists go to Times Square in search of the real New York. What they find is each other … and people hustling them (which may, in fact, be the real New York).
This is related to my previous post about “commerce on the ground” only, in this post, the money is more obvious.
So Saturday we’re driving down Highway 27 from Haines City towards the Polk County Sheriff’s Office at the corner of Thompson Nursery Rd. It’s 32 degrees Celsius which is a far cry from the sub-freezing temperatures we left behind in Toronto. We pass a sign advertising a gun show this weekend.
In the middle of winter, public drinking fountains are pretty much useless.
At Parliament & Mill Street, at the northwest corner of the distillery district, there’s a wedge-shaped building, and right at the pointy corner of the wedge is a lighting store, and on display in that lighting store is (or was) a mushroom-shaped lamp.
Sometimes I wonder what the mannikins think of us as we walk by their windows. I’ve tried to put myself in their position (to empathize, if you like), but store clerks don’t like when I do that.
Koala Beavers have taken over from the Love Bots as the latest invasion in Toronto. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that there are lots of them scurrying around underfoot.
It’s good to see that Dadaism is thriving at construction sites in downtown Toronto. I call it Canadada
I suppose there are different forms of visual jokes, but the one that strikes me most often is a kind of ironic juxtaposition.
It’s October 31st, the day of the night when the dead cast off their shackles and mingle for a time with the living. To get us into the mood, a few scary photos: