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I was wandering through the sad little outpost of the Chapters/Indigo mafia on my lunch break the other day (there really is very little to do in Dundas Square once you’ve worn out your welcome at Best Buy and Crappy Tire and have developed an allergic reaction to the Eaton Centre), playing my favorite game of “Which store display will enrage me the most?” This game is wayyyy too easy at the World’s Biggest Bookstore, as whoever works there is quite fond of strict gender constructionism, and has been known to build big pyramids of books labeled “For Him” (motorcycles, George Carlin, military histories, rock autobiographies) and “For Her” (low fat muffin cookery, Elizabeth Gilbert wankery, random pink shit). By the time I leave the store, I’ve usually worked myself up into such a lather that I’ve probably burned more calories than a half-marathon. So much for Crapters’ claim that they are “a Canadian bookseller committed to providing a stress-free approach to satisfying the booklover.”

So, what did World’s Biggest Most Mediocre Bookstore have for me today? I was looking for a book on workouts you can do at home with no equipment. Sadly, the gender binary of the fitness section put me off. How ridiculous I was being, thinking that basic human physiology would allow men and women to partake of the same workout regimen. I just couldn’t bear the thought of buying either of these:

So I gave up and took photos instead. The fitness section was full of workouts for macho men and anorexic women, as well as general medical quackery:

And books stating the obvious:

Here, I am going to write my own definitive text on walking. Ready?
1. Buy comfortable shoes
2. Go outside/Get on treadmill
3. Walk at whatever speed you like for whatever distance is comfortable
4. The next time you go for a walk, try to increase your speed and/or distance
5. Dog companion optional

Done. I’m brilliant. Somebody give me a publishing deal.

There was also this:

Which is all well and good, it’s just sad that instead of digging up some lesser known books or using the display to link the King James to related events or topics, the World’s Biggest Most Mediocre Bookstore instead chooses to highlight books about insipid conspiracy theories and general nonsense. “The King James Only Controversy”? Really? Is that what counts for a controversy these days?

I will admit it wasn’t all bad at the store that day. They did have this nice, if not very exciting, display:

I came *very* close to buying a copy of Deliverance, which I have been meaning to read, but stopped myself. I knew I would feel dirty for the rest of the day if I bought a banned book from a store responsible for the downfall of the independent publishing industry.

Especially after I noticed this display sitting right nearby:

And yes, before I rage some more, I did check to see if I could find a matching “Girls With Brains” section. I couldn’t, however please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. But anyway, it was hard to be too upset by a display as idiotic as this one. First of all, I think Francis Fukuyama would plotz if he found out, after all his hard work in the academy, he was one spot removed from Jay-Z. Furthermore, it wasn’t really clear what “Boys” referred to – sometimes it seemed to be referring to the author, like Fukuyama or Jay-Z, sometimes to the subject of the book, as in Einstein or Isaac Newton (referring to Newton as a “boy” is just awkward), and sometimes it referred to a woman, as in the author of Your Creative Brain, Shelley Carson.

I couldn’t help but think that some of these books would have been better served by different displays. “Boys With Brains” seems to be a key phrase meaning “Fun With Popular Science.” Dan Ariely is awesome, but how would the mere fact that he is a man (rather, a “boy”) convince a shopper that they should own his book? Fully half the population of the world is male, that’s not a very unique selling point.

So I was already late for work the other day when I got to the subway station. When I descended the stairs to the train level, I found that there was a holdup on the subway line and a huge crowd already on the platform, and I decided that if I was going to be late I may as well be really late—I took the streetcar. It’s slow, but at least I would get a seat, instead of having to puzzle myself around knees and elbows and briefcases on the train.

I took my place in one of the seats at the back of the streetcar, and what to my wondering eyes should appear on the seat beside me but a surgical mask? Wait, before you say, Ewwwww, don’t touch that!, let me explain. It wasn’t just some discarded surgical mask from a passenger who showed up 8 years late to the SARS-phobia trend of 2003. This mask had a little note attached.

Clearly it had been been deliberately left on the streetcar. I took a closer look at the note.

Ooooh! A game! Or possibly some public art. I do love public art. I find a lot of it on the streetcar, actually. Not just the regular Sharpie graffiti, either. Streetcars make very popular galleries to budding artists, I find. I held the mask in my hand and turned over the note. Lo and behold, on the back I found a website.

I was so happy that I had taken the streetcar and was thus above ground with cell reception. I checked out this Masked Crusaders site and found a series of photos of people wearing these masks, each decorated in some way to express the subject’s answer to the question on the note. They even have an option to submit the photo using an email address they have set up to ensure anonymity. Kinda like a Post Secret sort of thing, but challenging people to expose their own impression of themselves through the mask.

In short: it IS a game! Yay! If there’s one thing I like even more than public art, it’s interactive public art. Good times!

I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for more of these masks.

I love graffiti! Graffiti, peeling posters, and the layers and layers of stickers, chipping paint, and exposed bricks that make up a typical city wall. Toronto excels at this, despite various city government wars on everything from graffiti to flyers on telephone poles. Our neighborhood has some choice examples.

There are the tags:

And then there are the wild beasts!

Uh oh!

Help us, Xena!

It’s about time we presented the promised part deux to the Little Malta series. Michelle covered the electronics and the dough stuffed with cheese. I found myself more interested in the local colour. Like the big sign advertising service for your Colour TV.

As Michelle said, the windows of nearly every store displayed electronic goods. Which was especially interesting in the windows of the Slavic Bazaar, which in words boasted “Delicious varieties of delicacies,” but whose window displays bore megaphones, transistor radios, miniature televisions, and painted styrofoam cutouts of words like “radar.” It was a bizarre bazaar.

I found myself amused by numerous spelling errors, because that’s what I do in life.

But my favourite part of Little Malta had to be it’s tiniest Ambassador.

This little fella spent a good 20 minutes welcoming me to the area and giving me the lowdown on the goings on in Little Malta. My tour wouldn’t have been complete without his hospitality.

Stark and I went for a walk up Dundas to the Junction today. We are always fascinated by crumbling paint and old signs and have been trying to capture the glory that is old Dundas before it is completely and totally gentrified by hipsters and then glass condos. A lot of the stuff we found reminded me of my (still incomplete) Avenue U project.

When we walked far enough West (North? Who can keep track of Dundas’ shifting direction?) on Dundas, past the sight of our last gentrification photo project in the Junction, we reached a Maltese neighborhood. Who knew there was such a magical place? There was even a Maltese bakery promising something called Pastizzi. I thought that sounded promising, as anything that sounds like a combination of pasta and pizza would, but it was closed. Curses! I looked it up when we got home and pastizzi are ricotta-filled pastries. I MISSED OUT ON A NEW FORM OF DOUGH STUFFED WITH CHEESE. Goddammit. Well, reason enough to go back… unless the hipsters move in and it goes out of business first.

Anyway, walking back from the sadly closed pastizzeria (I have learned a new word, courtesy of Wikipedia) we passed a whackload of neat looking stores. It would seem that it is a hobby of THE ENTIRE Junction to collect old electronic and mechanical equipment. Almost every window, no matter what the content of the store, is filled with at least one old typewriter, transistor radio or product from brands like Electrolux or Westinghouse or RCA. Why? I don’t know. Maybe this is how the people of the Junction dealt with being denied alcohol for so many decades. But moving on, if there are two people in this world who appreciate the beauty of a broken radio from 1965, it is Stark and me.

So, a photo tour: Welcome to Toronto’s Little Malta

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The residents of North Slope, or High Park as it is formally known, are an outspoken people. They wear their politics on their bumper stickers, hang them in their windows, and sometimes even scrawl them out on public structures.

Some of their theories are more…controversial than others.

And sometimes they express more personal entreaties.

And sometimes they simply furrow their brows and engage your sense of disgrace.

Let the finger-wagging commence!

Toronto loves its canine population. I was surprised when I first moved here how many dogs there were in the city’s downtown core, living among the highrises. Big dogs, too, even great danes and wolf hounds living in one-bedrooms. Toronto loves dogs, and it’s built a number of landmarks to accommodate its furry residents.

Doggies walking through the parkette at Yonge and Gloucester can drink merrily in memory of Barney.

There are plenty of unofficial dog pee stations throughout the city, but the one at Church and Alexander is the first I have seen with a dedicated sign.

Parks throughout the city offer fenced off-leash areas for the pups to run around and frolic. High Park’s off-leash area is by far the most expansive, including not only an open dog park with running water, but some fenced trails as well.

Oh, and it even has its own fire hydrant!

Toronto doggies are well looked after.

Wednesday, October 20 was Spirit Day, so in support of queer youth and in opposition to homophobic bullying, my work people and I decked ourselves out in purple.

Morning show host Chris was clad in purple from head to toe. Even his backpack matched the ensemble!

Weekend host and promotions guru Neil went for the more subtle colour pop with a snazzy purple tie.

Overnight personality and programming manager Amanda busted out the argyle.

Evening host Sean also rocked the purple argyle. Pretty pretty.

Afternoon show co-host Acey showed up all decked out in…black and white. Acey always wears black and white. Occasionally blue. Her interpretation of Spirit Day was either really lazy, or really creative.

Of course, tackling bullying and homophobia takes more than just wearing purple. Here are a few resources on how to take on bullying and homophobia:

Bullying Canada
End Bullying Today
Kids Help Phone 1 800 668-6868
Canadian AIDS Society report on Homophobia and Heterosexism in Canada (.pdf)
The 519 Community Centre (Toronto)
PFLAG Canada
Human Rights Watch – LGBT Rights
EGALE Canada
Without Prejudice: Resources for Change
International Day Against Homophobia site (Great Canada-wide local resources on their links page!)
Toronto District School Board resources

This was definitely reality TV week, as in addition to the SYTYCD tour, Stark’s friend got us tickets to two tapings of “Battle of the Blades.” The first season was taped at Maple Leaf Gardens, but since that is currently being transformed into Ryerson’s new gym/grocery store, the CBC has turned Pinewood Studios into a simulacrum of Maple Leaf Gardens, with its signature windows hanging, divorced from context, in mid-air.

Floating windows…

It was great to see the show. I find it a bit boring on TV, but in real life, it was fun. I certainly never thought I would get to see Ekaterina Gordeeva, Kurt Browning, and Jamie Sale skate ever, never mind from front row seats. Lots of skating celebrities were there and it was low key enough that you could even talk to them. And on the second night, Johnny Weir did an exhibition skate to Lady Gaga. We were sitting right by the backstage area, so we could watch him warm up. It was great. And, as always, I love the sound and light show:

Through the miracle of a job in media, Stark got us free tickets to the So You Think You Can Dance tour. It was at the Air Canada Centre, and featured dancers from season 6 and 7, as well as some of the “all-stars,” such as my girlfriend, Courtney. The show was fun, but weird. It was very long, but half the time was occupied with showing clips from the TV show that we just watched, not even new material. Less clips, more dancing! Plus, they don’t have an MC or host, the dancers are forced to awkwardly introduce themselves. Even weirder was when pre-recorded Cat or Nigel would react to the audience. Very surreal, like being inside that episode of the Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” where Ned Flanders controls a 1984-type future world and is always scolding people via jumbotrons. It was cool to see the dancers, though. And all the sound and lights, which just went from big…

To bigger…

And even bigger…

Finally approaching something similar to an alien abduction or a nuclear detonation…