A year ago, early on a Sunday morning, I walked past the Gardiner Museum as they were hoisting Jun Kaneko’s giant ceramic head onto its metal pedestal in front of the building.
Tag: Toronto
Rob Ford in Street Art and Public Protest
I make no secret of the fact that I intensely dislike Rob Ford. If it were simply a matter of concern for his substance abuse issues, I could cut the man some slack.
World Pride Toronto – 2014
This is my “Hello World” post to kick off the blog part of davidbarker.photography [subsequently rolled into nouspique.com]. And what a way to kick it off! With a massive party. I staked my ground on the northwest corner of Church and Bloor right where all the participants are marshaled and I let it all flow…
The Gay World
In 1970, W.E. Mann edited a volume titled The Underside of Toronto (McClelland & Stewart), perhaps an early effort to dispel the Disneyfied image of Toronto the Good. In Part Four, titled “Deviant Behaviour and Deviant Groups”, he includes William Johnson’s “The Gay World”.
10 Toronto Limericks
While browsing used titles in Cambridge, / I found an old volume, The Limerick. / Tho not illustrated, / ”Twas unexpurgated / The famous Paris Edition and you get the idea. It’s a consolidation of various sources dating from 1870 to 1952 and even includes one questionable mention of Toronto from 1941
Al Purdy: The Indignity of Immortality
Last week, I posted an image of Northrop Frye with a dump of snow on his head. I forgot to mention that Northrop Frye’s statue has a neighbour: Al Purdy’s statue sits across the road in Queen’s Park. Norrie and Al can’t see each other, and for three reasons.
The Swing in the Garden, by Hugh Hood
My third installment in the January Book Project is the first novel in Hugh Hood’s New Age cycle of twelve novels set in Toronto. Published in 1975, The Swing in the Garden has the feel of a memoir, evoking Toronto in the years of the great Depression, with a clear sense of local geography and civic politics.
Pico Iyer, Multiculturalism And Toronto
I first encountered the name, Pico Iyer, last year while reading Geoff Dyer’s latest book, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition. Dyer refers to him while writing about the nowhereness of hotels and airports, locales that have become emblematic of the global era.
We Can’t Af Ford This
After being away for a month, I returned home to Toronto with a question burning on my lips: So how’s Rob Ford’s War on Graffiti going? On Friday, I went downtown to get some answers.
Marshall McLuhan Centenary
To mark the Marshall McLuhan centenary (a day late), I offer a photo I took on Wednesday (a day early).
Sense of Place in Zoe Whittall’s Holding Still for as Long as Possible
Zoe Whittall’s Holding Still For As Long As Possible is a novel about queer youth in Toronto. I’m not a queer youth in Toronto. I’m a straight middle-aged guy in Toronto. (I leave for another time the debate about whether straight people can identify as queer.) So I don’t feel acutely qualified to pronounce upon…
Michel Foucault discovered leather SM in Toronto
Yes, you read that rightly. The famous French philosopher, Michel Foucault, had his introduction to leather SM in Toronto. He discovered bathhouses here too.
Six Metres of Pavement by Farzana Doctor
Periodically, I like to feature local books which, in the case of nouspique, means books with a connection to Toronto and environs. I do this, not to tout the virtues of my hometown, but to help cultivate the local in a global medium. I feel bound by an unwritten contract: I blog Toronto books in exchange for the pleasure of reading about other people in their locales.
War on Graffiti Produces Civilian Casualty
The Toronto Star reports that the city has painted over a mural that the city had paid $2,000 to produce.
The Social Significance of a Humungous Public Funeral for a Fallen Toronto Police Officer
Toronto has just witnessed the largest police funeral in Canada’s history, with 12,000 in attendance and a 2 1/2 hour procession through the downtown core to mark the death of Sgt. Ryan Russell who was killed a week ago when a man ran barefoot through the snow, seized an idling snowplow, and went for a joyride through the city streets.