Tuesday 4 July 2006
Took a couple cool walks through the west end, down the hill north of Davenport that marks the ancient Lake Iroquois shoreline, past the old Wychwood streetcar barns and the Tollkeeper’s Cottage, a couple of souvenirs of Toronto’s transportation history. The former site is slated for conversion to artists’ studios, greenhouses and parkland, the latter for restoration as a national heritage site.
And there were other neat things along the way - parks and neighbourhoods and friendly cats, and other stuff that may provide inspiration for the radio scripts I’ve been working on.
Down on Bloor Street, we passed by the trio of construction sites at Varsity Stadium, the Royal Conservatory and the ROM, and wandered down Philosopher’s Walk past the Conservatory and the U of T music building, there to check out the second lamppost bass installed by Richard Bishop (who ran across my post about his earlier installation, the Kensington Bass, and was kind enough to alert me to the arrival of its new sibling). A bit tough to play, but fun! I’ll have to come by with my contact microphone and an amp or recorder sometime.
Speaking of the urban landscape, city council is now seeking proposals to provide street furniture citywide. One side effect of this is that the Eucan “monster bin” project (see left) is dead. Good thing too - but we’d better keep an eye on the proceedings and let councillors know we want ads kept under control.
There’s also one really maddening bit: those three-sided “ad pillars” that AstralMedia have installed in parks are exempt from all this. They’re just off the sidewalk, and therefore within the jurisdiction of Parks and Rec, not Urban Planning.
More about this via Spacing Wire. Also, a Star article by Christopher Hume.
Also, on Friday, Newmindspace (instigators of Bubble Battles, subway and streetcar parties, and other revelry) are having a big mobile party they’re calling Flight Of Fancy, somewhere close to downtown. Route to be annouced via email. I’m gonna be there, hopefully playing some music!
Tags for this entry:
architecture,
art,
bass,
kensington bass,
newmindspace,
public art,
public space,
spacing,
street furniture,
subway,
toronto,
transit,
urban change
Friday 13 January 2006
Back on election day, 2003, I was delighted when Glenn De Baeremaeker won a seat on Toronto city council. An environmentalist who campaigned to save the Rouge Valley and the Oak Ridges Moraine, representing the heart of Scarborough — wonderful! Bit of a grandstander, but hey, that’s not always a bad thing.
It wasn’t quite so wondrous when I learned he’d voted against youth events being held at Scarborough City Centre after some kids had a bit of a scuffle there. But whatever. He was still on the right side most of the time. Right?
And then he became champion of the godawful ‘megabins’ - essentially six foot high billboards with a garbage and recycling bin squeezed awkwardly between them. Was he just so wowed by the fact that it had a slot for bottles and cans that he overlooked how annoying and poorly designed they are? Was there money involved, or what the heck?
Well, if we’re to believe the Spacing Wire kids, this latest news is one more nail in the coffin as far as I’m concerned. The man really really needs to be turfed this fall. I’d heard him referred to as the “class clown” before, but good flippin’ god. O.o
But I dunno. Maybe we do need a clown or two. Where would we be without Rob Ford to make fun of?
I also picked up a copy of the new book uTOpia: Towards a New Toronto, and the new Fembots CD, The City... and I can’t help but notice a certain similarity between their cover art (here and here), though they’re done using totally different techniques. I’m enjoying them both.
Wednesday 28 September 2005
Radical Cartography - experimental maps galore: Manhattan takes a trip around the US to visit other cities; the march of time zones; North America divided into regions by the dominant lanugage of its place names.
Link via Spacing Wire, whose headlines today also include “Hot St. Lawrence [Urban] Design Porn”.
Tuesday 30 August 2005
I’m discovering far too many cool blogs to keep up with. RSS doesn’t help - it just seems to make it all even more overwhelming. When will I ever have time to read all this stuff?
WorldChanging is an environmental blog with a futurist stripe.
We’re up against some heavy, heavy challenges, and it’s understandable that some people feel paralyzed by despair (heaven knows I get that way sometimes) or want to turn back the clock to some idealized vision of the past. But those aren’t terribly useful. If we’re going to make it through all this while saving something of this planet, it’s going to take effort on every front. WorldChanging’s got reports on ecosystems and innovations from around the world, and occasionally a personal piece or two, like A Love Note To New Orleans.
(I’ll have to jot down more of my thoughts on the environment some time.)
The Spacing Wire is from the people who bring us the excellent Spacing magazine - thoughts on public space, urban living and Toronto.
The Toronto Psychogeography Society blog is along similar lines (and shares some contributors, such as Matt Blackett). It’s more about the experience of the city; the Spacing Wire is more about issues.
CBC Unplugged has news and podcasts from the locked-out employees of the CBC, nationwide. I haven’t had a functioning TV or radio in quite a while, but when I did, I listened to the CBC almost exclusively. Now employees in several cities are turning to the web as an outlet.
The first English-language community radio station in Canada was formed by idealistic, disgruntled volunteers from Radio Waterloo, the University of Waterloo’s cable station, after RW was closed down by the student federation and reluctantly re-opened with a quarter of its original budget. I’m not expecting massive revolution at the CBC - it’s not going away - but still… this could get interesting.
