Trusty Dundas and Sherbourne. Holla if you’s holdin’ or a hoe!!

To be perfectly honest, there’s nothing I enjoy more than having someone tell me how to operate my own equipment. I mean, a suggestion is one thing. That I don’t mind at all. It doesn’t make any presumptions. But when that short, older man (wearing a Yankees cap!) told me, “you can’t shoot directly into the sun, son”, I could scarcely contain my rage.

I took him to the nearby corner of Yonge-Dundas Square and I showed him a few things.

“You see, sucker”, I thought to myself. “There’s enough ambient light on the sidewalk”, now out-loud, “to illuminate subjects from the front. They’re kind of shadowy, but I think that’s kinda cool. All thanks to this iContrast thingie.”

“Ah!”, he marvelled. “What camera is this? I have an EOS Rebel XSi at home. Is that a Rebel too?”

“No”, I replied, “it’s a … umm …”. I’d forgotten the name. Flipped it over. “Oh, yeah, a Powershot … SX 10 … IS. Fixed lens (can’t stick another lens on there) … but what a lens!”

I went on to extole the virtues of the camera and its lens while flipping through the other photos.

“So, it has all the same software?”

What an odd question.

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…continued from previous part.

You know, dear reader, the most aggravating thing about this whole affair lately has been that it got me off kilter. Weren’t we talking about Regent Park or something? Dang.

Unfortunately that seems like a lifetime ago now. And, also unfortunately, I’ve recently very much enjoyed re-connecting with the city again (i.e. more frickin’ pictures). So I’m going to pull some academia out of my butt here and am calling this final installment a “photo essay”. Haha! Wicked. Whoever thought of that one gets a high-five from me!

This implies there will be no words. *snicker*

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…continued from previous part.

The “trial by fire”, as my manager put it, continues. This is the eighth straight day of 12-hours-per-day, no-breaks keyboard bashing and code-slinging. Sheer exhaustion set in about two days ago. The deadline looms, I get it — I just better get a few days off after this is all over!

In the meantime, however, the small pocket of wit I had stored at the back of my brain was used up about four days ago. I hope you bear with me through this challenging time, dear reader. It’s hard enough to just string a sentence together let alone something coherent. At least there are some photos to fill in the gibberish!

Plus, thankfully, Regent Park has a history that I can regurgitate to pretend like I’m saying something meaningful :) For example, after a little digging around I learned that Regent Park was considered a slum in the heart of Cabbagetown well before it was destined for the projects. In other words, I don’t think the buildings necessarily made it what it is. But I don’t think they helped.

There, didn’t that sound meaningful? Haha … I can’t even tell anymore!

Anystars, the northern part of Regent Park was built in the early fifties, the southern nearly a decade later. Apparently the guy who designed the southern towers won an award. From the air, I guess, they’re nicely arranged. On the ground though, they just don’t seem terribly people-friendly.

Oh don’t get me wrong, the place has “fascinating history” written all over it, even if that history isn’t necessarily all happy. Why the heck else would I go there? I already have enough crack at home.

There are some unusual aspects to the place that give it a little more fat around the jowl; you know — character. It is, after all, easy to dismiss it as that place you avoid at night, but that’s way too simplistic.

The majority of Regent Park is composed of mostly poor Asian people who’ve been living there for decades, most of them with kids. The predominant ethnic group is Chinese. Which pretty much proves that the Chinese are troublemakers. But if you don’t buy that, it at least shows that the problems that Regent Park has aren’t necessarily caused by one group or another.

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Wow, I sure am being put through the paces these days. Big client. Big deadlines. No weekend :( Gonna be pounding the keyboard hard, so I’ll keep it brief and choppy. But luckily, that’s probably the best style to adopt for what’s coming up.

Also, I luckily managed to string that U of T series along for a bit, and even more luckily, the this week’s stuff is considerably less soppy: Regent Park!

It all started with a great documentary called Invisible City that I saw on TVO last Sunday.

In it I learned all sorts of interesting things, like Regent Park is Canada’s original housing project. And much like many of it’s American cousins, this one went south. You know, the usual stuff; drugs, violence, poverty, all mushed together in a gooey mess. There’s a northern part, made up of short and brutish red brick buildings facing each other antagonistically, and a southern part consisting of a cluster of tall, low-privacy, high-density apartments ringed by run-down townhouses.

What struck me as sad about the documentary, though, is that the two kids are already feeling a bit nostalgic for the place, both because of the course of their lives and, I suspect, because the neighbourhood’s being torn down. The new buildings being put up contain starter condos — around $200 Gs. That’s a very reasonable price for a downtown location and is a much more affordable starter loan. As shocking as this may sound, I think the city actually did something right there – it seems to make sense.

Unfortunately, it also means that Regent Park may be disappearing. I mean, it’ll be a while yet, but the revitalization is slated for completion around 2015. And, once again, bizarre as this may seem, I believe that the project is mostly on schedule. Weird, right? Maybe it’s because this is my homegirl’s ward.

In any event, shortly after watching the documentary I decided I had to see it for myself. I only had to walk a few blocks. I know! All this time and I’ve never been!

Well, I went, and I got a little panorama-happy. At least at the beginning — kept me in a natural three-sixty motion. Smart! But I relaxed eventually, though the place continued to be unpleasant. In the middle of February, not a place to bring your valentine. Well, maybe the right one ;)

Anyhow, the buildings may look a bit warped, but at least you’ll have context. But, because of so much context, I humbly request your patience when you click on the pics -– they’re loading, they’re just big. Now’s the time to get that refreshment you’ve been thinking about. Go ahead, it’s alright, that photo won’t go nowhere :)

Also, I’d recommend turning on full-screen mode (usually under the “View” menu at the top – or try hitting the F11 key). Stick your schnoz into the monitor to complete the effect. Finally, because the photos will probably take up more than your whole window, you should probably know how to get back here :D You have a few options:

1) Hit the ESC key. Works for me, probably will for you :)
2) Use the scroll bars, or the arrow keys, to scroll to the lower-right corner of the photo (down and right). Just below that is the close button.
3) Use the scroll bars, or the arrow keys, to scroll above or below the photo. Then just click anywhere on the blog.

And please enjoy your visit!

Continued in next part…

This is starting to look bad, isn’t it? Second Friday post that didn’t make it out until the weekend. But this time, dear reader, I want to assure you it was an absolute necessity. You see, an event took place this weekend that marks TCL’s first technical anniversary and I didn’t want to waste a post on something more mundane.

I say technical because if you look at the archives, TCL only goes back to January. But it’s really been online since November of last year.

Luckily the WayBack Machine has, as yet, no record of it.

At that time TCL had a mostly-black theme with content that induced hemorrhaging from the eyeballs and projectile vomiting. Pretty awful stuff. Back then I didn’t have the experience or the sphincteric relaxation to do anything interesting, really. Had anyone suggested I run a shocking exposé on what really happens at the annual Santa Claus Parade, I would’ve balked!

But in mid-November I attended Illuminite, the annual Christmas lighting of Yonge-Dundas Square. It was a cold and rainy November night, but the show went on anyway. Try as I might, I wasn’t able to muscle my way up to the front of the crowd, and it was in that soggy moment of inspiration that I remembered it was Toronto City Life. Most of these people were alive, so they qualified. I was getting all bent out of shape for nothing!

That epiphany, and the attitudinal adjustment that came with it, carried me through all the way around to this year’s event. Good thing too because there were a lot more people this time around:

Most of the show, consisting of fire, sparks, trampolines, and dancing, took place at the far end of the square. There was a lot of loud music that, more often than not, descended into a raucous noise that in no way said season’s greetings to me. Eventually, the same spooky music I remember from last year came on as the fire dancers wound their way across the square toward the stage I’d plunked myself behind:

The dancers paraded around on stage in wintry white and silver, twirling fiery objects and having pyrotechnics go off behind them as if to say, “here’s the last blast of warmth you’re getting for the next six months”:

The audience were close enough that one slip and the girl in the red hood got a face full of fire. Now if that’s not a reason to go see something live, I don’t know what is. The fireworks were pretty scary too:

Behind the dancers was the reason for the whole display, the tree.

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