Toronto, Pt. 2: Episodes

The first night was basically spent settling into the creaky bunk beds at the Global Village Backpackers hostel. It’s not a bad place to stay, if you don’t mind dorm living, and all of it’s accompanying nuisances. But on the second day it was time to set out and explore.

It was also time to discover that calls don’t ring through on either of our phones while in Canada, and text messages don’t give alerts when they arrive either. Plans to meet up after Timm’s appointment at the school fell through due to a complete and total lack of ability to communicate. But that did allow me to explore a broad swath of the city on my own, on foot. I walked a several mile long, circuitous route around the center of the city, from the University, Westward down Bloor, then back East and down Yonge, around College, and back to Spadina (our mnemonic device: Spadina rhymes with Vagina), passing about a million interesting sights along the way. I also wore my feet out completely that day, not realizing yet how excellent the transit was, and how it could have saved my sorry ass some discomfort.

We finally met back up, and for entertainment that evening, stumbled across the Rivoli theater. I recognized the name, being an obsessive Kids in the Hall fan from back in the day, and we went in to check out some stand-up at the club that got that troupe it’s start. The first comic was terrible. We’re pretty sure he was on speed; his delivery was fast but tentative, and his material was uncomfortably self-deprecating and misogynistic. I was getting a little worried, but the rest of the night was well worth it. Out of a total of 8 comics, only the first was what I would call “bad,” and several of the other ones were excellent. At least one had me in tears. Interestingly, there were far more jokes about American politics than Canadian, despite a somewhat tumultuous recent election in Canada. There were also two comics from suburban Ontario who based their material on the favorite pastime of bored suburban males: getting drunk and picking fights on weekends. Interesting…

Tuesday comprised the bulk of what we dubbed our “Scott Pilgrimage”; we spent some time wandering around, scouting out real life Toronoto locations that appeared in the comic book series Scott Pilgrim, by Bryan Lee O’Malley. Yes, we realize this is incredibly nerdy, and no, we don’t care. We took in everything from the stark existential horror of Honest Ed’s, a discount retail behemoth like no other, and the stately gardens of Casa Loma, where we braved frigid rain and threats of snow before finding our way back to that quintessentially Canadian institution, Tim Horton’s, to warm up and rest our feet. The trip was bookended by stops at Sneaky Dee’s, possibly a favorite destination on this trip, for nachos in the early afternoon, and beers in the evening.

The bulk of Wednesday was spent at the Royal Ontario Museum, and it wasn’t even close to enough time. If I’d realized how amazing it was, I would planned on at least two days. As it was, we took the 1pm tour, which gave a good overview of all the assorted collections, then spent the next 5 hours crawling through the top two floors. We saw a special exhibition of current art focusing on urban China, ranging from fashion design to video installation; an excellent Egyptian collection; South Asian and Middle Eastern religious artifacts that were simply breath-taking; a gallery of textiles and costumes, including everything from a dress worn by Marie Antoinette to modern couture. We barely touched on the dinosaur exhibit, the massive Chinese art collection, the Canadian First People’s exhibit (though we did spend some time with the massive, 4 story totem poles that the main spiral staircases were built around), or any number of other fascinating displays. I highly recommend visiting if you’re ever in town. Come with a plan though. Don’t get caught off guard by closing time like we did.

Our search for a place to unwind with some coffee and spend time with our books/journals was assisted by the local alt-weekly, which had a feature on the best local coffee shops. The nearest one was Kindred, just a few blocks away off Yonge. A mention of a smoking patio made it the ideal candidate, though we didn’t realize until we got there exactly what that meant. We arrived at the converted townhouse, ordered coffee, and were asked if this was for upstairs or downstairs. When we replied upstairs, we were asked if we were members, or if we’d been referred. So the upstairs is apparently a different type of smoking patio! We got our coffee and settled in to the chairs downstairs, and listened to the staff try not to be too obvious about their operation around us “non-regulars”. Choice conversational snippets:

“Hey, do we have any coffee?” “Yeah, tons!” “No, I mean real coffee….like, coffee beans.”

“Can we order two milkshakes for upstairs?” “Sure, would you like the $15 or $20 milkshakes?”

“How can we run a  coffee shop with no coffee?” “Let’s talk about this upstairs, we have non-members here…”

And so on.

Stay tuned for Toronto pt. 3: In which Timm becomes a target at the Cock & Tail on West Queen West; plus, what it sounds like when 12 musicians miss the point of Motorik entirely. Same Successless time, same Successless channel.

Toronto, Pt. 1: Impressions

I caught my first glimpse of Toronto as the plane banked steeply left on it’s descent into Pearson Airport (YYZ). Damn, that’s a big city, I thought. Followed shortly by Damn, that’s a flat city.

Not to come across as a country bumpkin from the wilderness of Seattle, visiting the big town, but Toronto is much larger, much flatter, much taller, has a larger urban/highrise centered Downtown, and sprawls out without the geographic restrictions that make Seattle a mass of oddly angled roads, bottlenecking bridges, and steep hills. These are easy conditions to plan a build a livable city in, and Toronto has taken advantage of them.

Though it’s a big city, it feels much smaller. Most of this is due to the well thought out and ubiquitous public transit. On paper, it doesn’t look like much. A long East-West subway line, with a North-South loop that crosses it twice in the center of town, plus two auxiliary lines serving a couple of far flung suburbs. Those two main lines cover all the major urban centers of Toronto though, from the extreme East and West limits of the city, through the Waterfront and Financial Districts, around the University and major shopping districts, and out into the gentle hills to the North. There are also streetcar lines that run on every major street that’s not served by Subways, and buses cover pretty much everything else. Not only are you never more than a block or two away from a transit stop, but you’re also rarely more than 10 minutes away from the next train or streetcar, including many main lines that run 24 hours a day. As a complete newbie to the city, I never needed to look at a transit map or timetable.  Just go to the nearest stop, wait up to 10 minutes or so, and catch the first train in the general direction you’re heading, get off at the right intersection, and walk a few blocks. Every neighborhood in this sprawling city was accessible in under 30 minutes.

Of course, it helps that the entire city is laid out in an almost unbroken grid pattern, making it easy to navigate. And since the city is so flat and the CN Tower (like a taller, re-proportioned Space Needle), is visible from everywhere, it’s easy to find out what direction you’re facing at any given time. There was never a single moment where it seemed like a car would be a more convenient way of getting around. I can’t imagine wanting to have a car in this city.

Beyond that, there’s plenty of character here at the street level. Each neighborhood has some unique character, architecturally or otherwise. There are definitely “typical” Toronto buildings, like the 2-story duplex houses that fill the Annex neighborhood and other areas of the city, with their split paint jobs and basement apartments. And there’s plenty of flash, from the old Victorians of Cabbagetown, to the ultra-modernist, conforntational new addition to the Royal Ontario Museum.

It also feels like the town never stops. Most nights presented multiple options for entertainment, and I ended up attending a fashion show, a dance club, a stand-up comedy showcase, and an avant garde rock show, while also stumbling onto a zine festival, a bluegrass performance, a singer songwriter show, a Punjabi street fair, and a Hardcore punk festival. It’s worth mentioning that two of those events happened at the same night, at the same venue (which also had a room generously set aside for a meetup with some local electronic producers).

I did miss a good beer selection though. For all its reputation as a country of serious beer drinkers, Canada doesn’t offer a lot beyond lager and pilsner. Most bars had a selection of several of each, and only the more adventurous ventured into the realm of pale ale, amber, porter, or stout. The ones that did tended to have good ones, but it was odd to not find anything darker at many places. Especially during the early winter!

I’m sure I could go on and on about this city. So many little things jumped out at me while I was there, way too much for me to remember in one blog post. However, I did keep track of exactly what I visited, broken down by day. I won’t bother to list it here, but there were some definite highlights:

Sneaky Dee’s: Visited here at least 5 separate times, for breakfast, nachos, or beer.

The Bovine Sex Club: A goth-y dive bar and venue.

The Cock & Tail: A new, very lovely little bar on Queen West.

The Green Beanery: An organic coffee shop on Bloor, in an old bank building. It still has a vault in the corner.

The Rivoli: The comedy club where the Kids in the Hall got their start.

Kindred: A “coffee shop” with a “member’s only patio” where they apparently sell $15-$20 “milkshakes”, Amsterdam style. Not that I’m into  those type of “milkshakes”…but we stumbled upon it looking for coffee. Overhearing the not-so-subtle conversation between the proprietors was entertaining.

Royal Ontario Museum: This deserves a post of it’s own. It’s a museum of art and natural history, with a collection spanning eras and civilizations. I could spend weeks in there, easily. We barely got through a floor and half before closing.

The Beguiling: A comic book store tucked into a converted house. It’s cramped and somewhat disheveled looking, but the selection in unbeatable.

David’s Teas: For Seattlites, think Remedy Teas, but with a more retail-oriented atmosphere. Service was incredible, and I felt bad about only paying $2 (Canadian, at that) for a cup of tea after the thorough recommendation process.

Moog Audio: A well stocked DJ/Producer oriented audio shop, with records and T-shirts for sale alongside MIDI gear, new Moog synths, and Serato scratch setups.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. Though I will write a second post about Toronto, recounting some specific incidents. Stay tuned.

Great White

I don’t think I’ve mentioned of here yet, but I’m currently hanging out in one of the great cities of the Great White North. That would be Toronto, Canada for those keeping track. At the moment,I’m sitting in the lounge of the Global village backpackers hostel, trying to shake of the beers I drank at the Bovine Sex Club tonight. Links and more detail to come later, since I’m laboriously and un-coordinatedly typing this post on the non-tactile keyboard of an iPod Touch. But let me just say that this city is amazing. Best transit system ever, and I’ve ridden the Tokyo subways. More later…

C’est La Vie

So Paris is off. At least for me, for now. Serene will still be going, and living it up in the City of Light for a week, while I stay home in Seattle.

So what happened?

I sent in a Canadian passport application ages ago, since my old one had expired. Time went by. It got closer and closer to my travel date, and my passport charge had yet to show up on my bank record. So I called the passport agency. I knew they were backed up a few weeks, due to sudden high demand spurred by new US travel regulations, but I was expecting to receive the passport with plenty of time to spare. But when I called them, they were only starting to process applications they had received on January 12th. The 4 week delay they claimed to be experiencing was more like 8 weeks.

I ran over all the possibilities in my head. Luckily, I had a second copy of my birth certificate on hand, and if necessary, I was willing to camp out at the Canadian consulate in Seattle, or make a trek into Vancouver to apply in person. But after calling the consulate, I found out that even their rush service was close to 3 weeks at this point, and the only rushes they were approving were for the death of a family member in a foreign country, or urgent nonrefundable business travel. And they required supporting documentation for either one. The soonest I will see a passport, in any case, is early April. I was supposed to fly on March 20th.

There’s some small silver lining. Not going to France eases up my financial situation, though I had to eat $230 to cancel my flight. But I will get to go to APE in San Francisco in April, and probably take some other trip later on in the year.

Anyways. Paris isn’t going anywhere. I could use the cash I was forfeiting by skipping a week of work, and Serene will be an experienced Parisian navigator when we finally get to go together.

But this still sucks.

Clearly Canadian

So I was in Canada this weekend, eh? Stayed in the city of Kamloops. “Kamloops?” you say, “Never heard of it.” Exactly.

I won’t bore you with the details of what was essentially a sort of family reunion, but I will say this: upon returning to work this morning, one of my coworkers jokingly asked me if I watched some hockey and had maple syrup. And I was forced to answer that yes, I did both.

A Busy Month

This month has barely started, and already it feels full. I’ve got so many events to go to and projects to work on, it’s hard not to feel excited an overwhelmed.

First up is my impending trip down to San Francisco tomorrow night, to attend the 2006 Alternative Press Expo, meet up with California friends, and just generally live it up.

Then, as soon as we get back, we’ll be heading to Neumo’s to see Subtle, Fog and Jel on the 11th. Then there’s a free Calexico in-store at Easy Street Records in Queen Anne.

That weekend I’ll be heading up to my hometown of Abbotsford, and then on to visit family in that area of BC, some of whom I probably haven’t seen in over a decade. Sadly, I’ll have to miss the baby shower that Serene organized for Tracy that weekend though.

After about a week of relaxation, we’ll be hitting up a records number of shows, seeing Mates of State, Pinback, and the Books. We would’ve gone to see David Sedaris too, but that sold out immediately.

While all this is going on, I’ll be scrambling to get my latest EP mixed down and mastered (panicNow is working in mostly analog for the mastering process now, so I’m excited about that!), and get artwork done. I’m hoping for a release on Belladonna Records by the end of the month…we’ll see. I also need to have a new track ready for a compilation on that label by May 15th. And I still haven’t settled on a new artist name…

Oh, and I’m also working on a ground-up redesign of this site.

So, if I seem a little out of breath, that’s why.

More later…

Random Thought

You know what I miss? I used to see this in every grocery store in Canada, but I never see it anymore, and I’m not sure why it popped into my head. Generic Food. And by that, I mean completely generic, brandless food. Not just the knock-off brands, like Tootie Frooties instead of Froot Loops, or store brands like Safeway’s Dr. Skipper instead of Dr. Pepper. These were boxes and cans, always covered in a full coat of 100% cyan ink, with bold yellow uppercase sans-serif letters on the front proclaiming their contents in the most general possible terms: WHEAT CEREAL. FLOUR. VEGETABLE OIL. CONDENSED VEGETABLE SOUP. COLA DRINK. The boxes had the bare minumum of legally required information, no variation in appearance, no photos on the box, no catchy slogan, no other identifying information whatsoever. I’m not sure why that strikes such a chord with me all of a sudden.

Canada, the Conclusion

Days Three through Five? Six? Something like that….

Well, the wedding was nice. Cliff and his family were fun to hang out with and it was good seeing Chloe and Graham and Ingalise and her family again. Highlights of the trip: watching Graham say grace at the reception, Graham’s impromptu stand-up comedy hour, Chloe’s singing at the reception, hanging out (not really) at the “Sev” with Lindsay and Emily (yes, I’m sorry to say, but in Abbotsford, the 7-11 parking lot is the only place for wayward youth to hang out in the later hours…). Eating at the Glenwood Cafe in Eugene, Oregon. Finally listening to the official release of Hail to the Thief today on the way back down I-5. Watching End of Evangelion on the 53″ TV w/surround sound. Hearing all the crazy British humor and trying not to imitate the English accent (at least not in front of the British kids).

Ahh, yes. But here we are, back at last. We got into Rohnert Park at around 9:30 tonight. Emily drove the lion’s share today, doing a good 5 or 6 hours straight through from Yreka to home. Yesterday, we did the usual Me/Her/Me routine to get to Eugene.

Road Trip soundtrack is hard to remember for today and yesterday, but here’s what I remember, in no particular order:
Me: Radiohead - Hail to the Thief, My Bloody Valentine - Loveless, Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, A Mix CD full of new downloads (Fog, Four Tet, Fennesz, Rafael Toral, Mu-Ziq, etc…), Cex - Tall Dark & Handcuffed, a bunch of other stuff.

Emily: Sutekh - Incest, Autechre - Confield, Nine Inch Nails - the Fragile (Disc Two), Assemblage 23, VNV Nation - Praise the Fallen, Radiohead - Kid A, a bunch of other stuff.

I should’ve written that shit down, yo!

Anyways…back to work tomorrow. I hope things have gone OK while I was gone, cause I don’t want to have to step into the middle of any messes right now. I hope it’s slow, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be.

More later…

Canada: Day Two

Day Two: My first international post, as this is being typed from Ingalise’s basement in Canada. We left Eugene at 11 this morning, then shot up through Oregon WAY faster than I thought we would. I’m not sure exactly what time we hit Washington, but it surprised me to realize we were crossing into it. Once we hit Washington, we pulled off and Emily took the wheel for a couple of hours, until shortly before Seattle. I took over then, since Seattle is a fucking maze of highways and left exits and express detours and what-not. It’s also, we found out, a massive traffic jam around 4 pm, leaving us stuck at an average of 10 MPH for over an hour, through Seattle and way out past it as well. After slogging our way through that, it was smooth sailing once again, and we arrived in Bellingham, switched over to the 539, swept through Lynden and Sumas, and made our way across the border. All in all, the drive was a lot shorter and easier than I thought it would be, and we only made a couple of brief wrong turns. We did see a truck burning on the side of the road today though…that was neat. I wish I’d had my camera out for that…very intense. I wish I’d had my camera out for a lot of things, like the giant American flag billboard in Northern Washington, that said “Now Is The Time to Disband the United Nations!” Hmm…

So, now here we are. We just finished watching a Bug’s Life on the 53″ TV, in surround sound…we sat through Homeward Bound earlier, with Chloe and Graham and some English kids (relatives of Cliff’s, Ingalise’s fiancee). One of them, Emma, is a complete goof, and seems to live for and audience. Next, I think we’ll be watching Terminator 2, since I feel a second wind coming on.

Road trip soundtrack, Day Two: First Stretch (Eugene to the Washington border):
Stereolab: ABC Music/BBC Sessions Disc Two
Sutekh: Incest

Second Stretch: Washington border to Kent:
Skinny Puppy: the Process
Skinny Puppy: Singles (Not Collect)
Funkervogt: something or other, Disc One

Third Stretch: Kent through Seatlle/Bellingham/Abbotsford!
Mates of State: My Solo Project
Twerk: Now I’m Rendered Useless
the Dismemberment Plan: Emergency & I
Radiohead: Kid A
Hum: Downward is Heavenward

More tomorrow, probably. I have cable internet at my disposal…

Canada: Day One

Day One: Smooth sailing.

I’m posting this form Eugene Oregon, in my sister’s apartment (more like compartment, if you ask me…barely enough room for her and her hamster). Me and Emily made it here waaay sooner than I expected. We left and 9 and detoured through Sacramento, but we averaged about 80 MPH the whole way, and hit Eugene shortly after 6. It wasn’t that bad a drive at all. I did two shifts behind the wheel, and Emily took a few hours in the middle of the day, from Sacramento to Castella (AKA Castle Crags, in the mountains, where it was about 96 degrees out…hot enough to melt my fudgsicle all over my hand while I ate it).

Road trip soundtrack so far: for the First Stretch (Rohnert Park to Scaramento):
Blondie: Parallel Lines
Original Hamster: Notorious DSP (the only song I have of theirs)
Bjork: Post
The Smoking Popes: Destination Failure

Second Stretch: (Sacramento to Castella):
Nine Inch Nails: the Fragile (both discs)
Nine Inch Nails: some remix album…has a Telefon Tel Aviv remix (yay!!)
Nine Inch Nails: the Downward Spiral

Third Stretch: (Castella to Eugene):
Radiohead: Hail to the Thief (unmastered version)
Neu!: 2
the Promise Ring: Very Emergency
Dntel: Life is Full of Possibilities
Pavement: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

We might stay in Eugene tomorrow, or we might hit the road again and go the final run, hitting Abbotsford by Thursday evening. That’s what I’m hoping for, but we’ll see how we feel in the morning. We’re going to watch Adult Swim with Lindsay and her friends later tonight.

Later on, kids….