If you read TCL semi-regularly, you’ll know I don’t indulge in Top 10 lists. Top 5 either. Top Anything, for that matter. I just don’t find them terribly informative, mostly.

But, you know, sometimes you end up wandering aimlessly for a couple of days and don’t really have a good way to tie any of the resulting photos together. So in that spirit, here’s my list of 5 main reasons why I think living in the city, and in Toronto especially, is so durned good. With photos.

#1 – Spring Chickenism

This is definitely tops on my list. Here’s the thing, I’m down to the last notch on my last two remaining belts. A pair of pants that I’d held onto just in case I ever slimmed down now also require a belt. Some of my old pants are like potato sacks. But very comfortable, I’ll say that. In fact, if it wasn’t for a steady diet of junk food and, recently, Cadbury’s Easter Creme Eggs, I’d be forced to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe. Or some heavy-duty suspenders. I figure bad food is a cheaper alternative.

Now don’t get me wrong, I could still use some … toning. But in terms of my overall physical dimensions, I’ve shrunk. This with not caring at all about what I eat.

Are you asking, dear reader, what kind of exercise regimen I’m on? Perhaps what special “supplements” I take?

Nothing special, I just live downtown.

Unfortunately, I can’t locate the link at the moment, but I remember reading an article that compared the fitness of city-dwellers to non-urbanites. The consensus was generally that people in the city were a little healthier, a little slimmer. On average, of course. And, as I can attest, it doesn’t have much to do with our eating habits

It’s mostly to do with the fact that in the city, walking or cycling are much better ways to get around. One-way streets? Who gives a shit? No parking? I so couldn’t care less. Private property? These boots were made for climbin’, and that’s just what they’ll do.

I swear on all that is good that I’ve matched pace with a streetcar, more than once, from the sidewalk. And I wasn’t even going that fast. It’s why parking downtown is always such a pain; because everyone wants to do it and get around the smart way instead.

But as I’m sure I’ve mentioned, I understand the need for a car for the suburbs. I’ve been there, done that. And the sticks too. They had their charm — but I was undeniably chunkier.

#2 – Conveniencism

Everything is just, like, right there. Everything.

Sure, that store might not have it, but did you try those other six? Within walking distance, I mean.

It’s the density that makes it possible. When you cram enough potential customers together — within walking distance, say — it’s easier to sell niche items. There’s stuff I’ve found in dusty little shops around the city I never imagined I’d find. Or find again.

I ordered something off the web one day. I could’ve had it in my possession in half an hour had I bothered to do a Google search of nearby stores. The ones with websites, obviously.

There are still a few exotic items I haven’t found. Nothing I need, but still. For example, Green Oil, a Taiwanese product intended to be used similarly to Tiger Balm, but it’s liquid and comes in little glass bottles. It’s minty going on and leaves you smelling really nice for the whole day. I can’t even find a website for the damn thing. But then again, there are probably a gazillion local Chinese apothecaries I haven’t checked yet.

It’d be nice to be able to go later in the day, though. I’m watching TV right now. Oh, it’s open 24 hours? On account of it’s economically feasible for them to do so? Great! Back to TV…

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According to Bill McKibben, the environment has it in for us. All of us. Like, real bad.

I got the opportunity to hear him and Margaret Atwood chew the cud on the problem at the UofT Bookstore‘s Reading Series.  After all, the environment lurks mercilessly outside all of our homes, constantly waiting to pounce; needs a brainstormer, no doubt.

What I liked about Atwood was her willingness to delve into the causes of why the environment is being such a dick; let’s not be ignorant of the enemy. That and she brought up coffee and hemp as possible solutions. I like her. :)

So what did McKibben have to say? Basically that, at this point, the environment is already over the edge. Forget trying to slow it down — blast that motherfucker with everything we have!!

He goes into greater detail in his new book “Eaarth”, but wants to emphasize that it’s still, “all a long shot”.

Bill’s message isn’t terribly upbeat, even though he somehow is. Diplomacy, recycling, full-on frontal attack, we’ll need to do whatever it takes if we stand a chance against the environment.

From my regular viewing of public television, I know that small island nations like the Maldives are already under attack. They’re seriously looking into evacuation plans for whole countries, that’s how bad it’s getting. And unfortunately, publicity stunts don’t really seem to be getting the word out.

Bill had a big hand in 350.org, a site dedicated to disseminating information about the struggle. And a struggle it’ll be. According to what I’ve read there, it’s not a matter of if we’ll be attacked, but how severely. The best we can do now is to mitigate the damages. I’m definitely not getting that mortgage now.

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…continued from previous part.

I hope I haven’t misled you, dear reader. As the name implies, Rosedale isn’t all weird and unusual structures. The common Meadow Rose is rumoured to still spring up there, if that’s any indication of the place’s frilly beginnings. Probably still some growing around some of the older buildings. A testament to the fact that some of those buildings have been around since Rosedale got the name.

Back in the day, the community was thought to be waaaay out in the sticks. Maids wouldn’t travel out there so people didn’t want to buy houses for fear of  having to “rough” it. No shit. And there were some interesting goings-on too, like the disappearance of Ambrose Small in 1919, just after he’d sold all his theatre properties for $1.7 mill. Lots of suspicion on the wife, one of Small’s employees makes off with $100,000; sounds like good Sunday afternoon reading. Doesn’t Rosedale seem like a good setting for it?

Also there’s the story of Bill Bull, a prolifically ironic writer on church history, who in ‘31 had Al Capone trying to kill him. Hey, no one ever said that all the neighbourhood money was legit, did they? It certainly would explain why all the buildings have such imposing facades too. Plenty of spots for snipers to sit in wait for assassins. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that moats had once existed around some of these homes.

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I didn’t feel like getting an autograph from the Weasley brothers. I hadn’t really read their books. :( I’d heard of Henry Porter, though; not like I’m totally ignorant. I’d be ashamed to show my face down at the Science Centre again if I hadn’t done a little research.

But as I mentioned, I didn’t get around to reading the novels, so the movie(s?) is a bit of a hazy area for me. Fitting on a day like yesterday.

I suppose it would’ve been good to get acquainted with the Henry Porter series before setting out, but I managed just fine. There was plenty of time to stand around and gape (hence learn), while groups were taken through. The exhibit is timed so that people get ample gawk time when actually in it. In the circular waiting room clips from the movie(s?) are played in faux antique frames on the wall, possibly to suggest moving paintings. Not sure why. Then a big curtain at one side of the room opens with a billow of smoke and you’re ushered into the museum.

We were escorted through by Eddie Newquist and Robin Stapley, two gents from GES responsible for bringing the thing to Toronto. They were both gushing with enthusiasm over each and every item. Guess it took a lot for them to swipe the lot. Apparently even the walls are moulded duplicas of those used in the Dogwert’s castle. In the movie(s), I mean. That name’ll probably mean more to fans.

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…continued from previous part.

Industrial design has been a monkey on my back ever since I picked up the habit about eight years ago. My misbegotten aim was simply to learn about design – to get better at my Flash stuff. But, as was foreseeable, I got sidetracked. Into the industrial aspect; you know, design for mass production.

The movement started some time in in the early 1900s when factory production for most domestic items became widely available. They’d started to do weird stuff with wood and plastics were making a splash. But design still had much of an influence, despite the shared credo of “form follows function”. In fact, industrial designers concerned themselves more with the practicality of appearance than function most of the time; function was left to the engineers.

This extended to architecture too.

There are, of course, nasty leftovers from industrialization. Environment / people / health problems aside, many manufacturers took the opportunity to cut out the designer and head directly for cheaper products which has caused the epidemic of poorly-produced / copied domestic items we see today. If it wasn’t for stores like Ikea, we’d never know who was responsible for coming up with the objects sitting on our kitchen table. Or the kitchen table itself.

But I think the spirit of that earlier era still lives in architecture, and in places like Rosedale. Mostly because industrial design always came across as generally domestically oriented that I find it most obvious here. People in the area generally have the money to dabble with and buildings tend to last longer.

The fad in industrial design, at least initially, was to combine basic geometric shapes to produce interesting everyday objects (i.e. simple geometry=simple / mass construction). To me, the house above looks like an architectural draft, all linear and arcy. Note the simplicity of the form and the commonality of the building materials. Very industrial design. Here’s another Rosedale example:

Looks like a garage from a Lexus commercial, doesn’t it? Guess they have to shoot ’em somewhere. Not the kind of place I’d be keen to live in, but I’m glad someone does. :)

If I had to pick one of the more modern Rosedale houses to live in I’d veer more toward the homes that depend on a variety of materials rather than unusual structural shapes. Seems like they’d be more comfortable:

Rosedale  is quiet, and chock-a-block with flowers and people with too much time / money on their hands. And being just north of money-laden Yorkville, it’s essentially a part of downtown Toronto. If they weren’t all driving fancy talking cars, Rosedale residents could take the subway if they wanted to.

Continued in next part…

The TCL headquarters has been under siege all day, dear reader. By heat.

I’ve had the windows open since dawn, fans running, even took a prolonged and luxuriant shower. No good. The hot-water rads having been blazing all day. The superintendent is either cleaning the heating system for the season or the he’s trying to cook us out. By us I mean the whole building; the rads in the landing are all on full-blast so I’m thinking the other flats are probably getting it too. Maybe they’re testing how hot they can get the old iron grills before they explode. My recently relocated blogging chair is now just a nervous foot away from the big cast-iron one. Might be my last post.

So it was good to get outdoors for a bit. That and what the casual observer might mistake as summer outside. No, my living room is presently like summer, but nice try. (Sadly, this is not a hyperbole.) Outside, though, I tripped into a neat old neighbourhood that made me forget about my oven-like flat. Even the garden sheds are probably air conditioned there.

Rosedale is the place. North and a little east of the core. Took me a while to just get there, and once there the terrain is friendly to neither foot nor vehicle. Hilly, twisty, narrow roads, roundabouts going who-knows-where. Never a good time to stand in the middle of the road taking photos.

Took me two successive tries to get through there to my intended destination (with Google Maps on my mobile!). And I was started to feel smugly Torontonian.

Apparently the roads are based on pre-Toronto horse-riding trails, but if you ask me this is how they get away with gating the place without erecting actual gates.

To me Rosedale seems not unlike a miniaturized Bridle Path (farther north and east). On the Path, houses are on massive lots, usually far enough back from the road that getting to the front door would mean having to interact with armed guards and probably dogs. Mansions. The density of rich people in Rosedale necessitates that they settle onto smaller plots. The houses can’t get smaller, of course, so it’s usually the stuff around the houses that gets shrunk. Still neat, just really small.

I wouldn’t like to guess how much condos run for in Rosedale. This wouldn’t have even crossed my mind but smattered occasionally between the gargantuan houses are low-rise buildings that really couldn’t be called flats. Probably not rentals either.

Dang. Now I’m thinking too much about my own place again.

Still hot here.

So hot.

I bet the Rosedalians don’t have to put up with this.

Continued in next part…

Happy death and resurrection of our lord and saviour weekend, dear reader! If you’re into that sorta thing. Me, I’m pretty ambivalent about bunnies and coloured eggs don’t really do much for me, so Easter’s on the bottom of my holiday list. Also, I don’t get Good Friday; isn’t that when Jesus died? I didn’t know the guy but expiring on a cross doesn’t seem good at all. Should be called Ironic Friday, maybe.

But please don’t let me keep you from enjoying it. I am. I’ve managed to run some errands at the east part of town. The Beach.

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Okay, so remember that top-secret mission I mentioned last Wednesday? Well, the plan’s in action (eeee!), which means I’m allowed to go public with it.

But since I have to occupy a whole blog post, dear reader, why don’t you see how many steps into the production process before you figure out what I’m up to? I’ll describe the steps. :)

Step 1

Print a few test photos. Create some aberrations. Never speak of them again.

Step 2

Make exactly the same mistakes as in step 1, but on the other side.

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There isn’t much that would encourage me to stay indoors on a day such as today.

Yet, I found it incredibly difficult to rip myself away from my flat. Even today. Obviously, I did, and will again, but I didn’t / won’t venture far. I was / will be thinking about how Jeeves was / will be making out.

Jeeves, is the new Roomba. I named him Jeeves because I’ve always wanted a robotic butler (I will learn how to attach a drink holder to him!). Also because he’s black and white, looks like he’s wearing a smart futuristic tux.

I should mention it wasn’t a snap decision; my upright vacuum is on its last legs. Plus, it smells funny. I was looking around for a replacement and came across this limited shipment at Canadian Tire. I’d bought the upright for about the same as the robot, and even the basic Roomba cleans by its frickin’ self!

Well I was sold.

I went to the one store that still claimed to have ample supplies, spent a few minutes sweating it out as another guy pawed the last box, and grabbed it as casually as I could when he returned it back to the empty shelf. I was hoping for black and white.

Christmas :)

Of course I tried the Roomba out as soon as the the “Clean” button turned green.

It’s incredibly difficult not to become mesmerized as the cleaner works the room the first six or seven times out. It’s hypnotic. I’ve lost hours!

Jeeves doesn’t seem to faze Ollie much, which is good for all of us. The cleaner makes about as much noise as a child’s large, radio-controlled, toy truck. Quieter than the upright, for sure. And he’s not really what I’d call intelligent – I suspect Ollie’s got him figured out. He alternates between turning in circles, travelling in straight lines across the room, hugging the walls, and bumping into stuff along the way. Occasionally Jeeves gets stuck in a tight spot, usually because he’s a chickenshit and scared to drop two centimetres (about three-quarters of an inch), from the fireplace tiles. But he gets up there alright!

So I’ve changed the layout of my place; I now get to blog in front of the big window overlooking the street :) Plus, after about six hours of charging, I set up the Virtual Wall so that Jeeves doesn’t enter the kitchen (Ollie gets to make a mess in there undisturbed), and set up the flat to barricade the off-limit areas. Then, get the hell outta there!

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That romp I took through the Toronto Archives the other day didn’t end there, dear reader. It went on for hours as I pored maps and stories of the city dating back to 1834, when Toronto first became Toronto. Okay, possibly the second time, but this time the King himself signed off on it. York it weren’t no more anyhow.

It all started with innocently enough. I usually just close the window after flipping through the photos but this time, just for fun, I decided to click on the Archives logo in the corner. Sometimes their web exhibits are suuuuuuper boring. But this time, for Toronto’s 175th, they did a series on the city in 1834.

And now I can say that I know where the original city extended to — it’s been something of a bug on my itchy brain for a while now.

I checked the maps against current street names and locations and the boundary points I came up with seem to agree with the maps going back to 1834. Unfortunately these points disagree with the Archives’ analysis, but I don’t care.

According to me, the north-eastern edge of 1834 Toronto is the intersection of Queen Street and River Street:

At that time Queen Street was called Lot Street because it led to a bunch of allotted land — lots. Also, there was no queen. Clever.

The photos, by the way, are looking into the old city from the four corners. Some of those corners haven’t seen much action since the old city, as you can see above. Others, like the south-eastern Gooderham’s mill and later Worted boozery, have been since been gussied up:

But if full-on historical effacement is your thing (it’s okay to admit you like modern),  the south-western edge on Front Street doesn’t get any more devastating. Not only is the intersecting Peter Street discarded for Blue Jays Way (organized ball leagues weren’t really a priority in 1834), but there is literally nothing left of the original city except Front Street:

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