Uninhabited Spaces

Set of "Avenue Q", Lower Ossington Theatre, Toronto I treated Mark to a special birthday experience this evening, by starting off with an incredible dinner at an Italian wine bar called Enoteca Sociale . We each had a 4-course prix fixe that was based on a Parmigiano Reggiano theme.  We then walked over to the popular Ossington strip to Rock  Lobster for drinks.   Then we took the few steps down the street to the Lower Ossington Theatre to take in a show of Avenue Q, winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical, Best Score, and Best Book.  We had front row seats so I snapped the picture above for a souvenir.  The musical was hilarious, with stand-out performances from the leads, Cassie Muise and Stephen Amon. Ms. Muise was especially strong and moving, with a powerful vocal delivery and presence. We were pleased to see two Kingston connections in the cast: Kingston native Michael Donnelly was perfect as the comic-relief, gravelly-voiced Trekkie Mon...

Despite being rather frigid, we decided to get out and about. We went for a giant stroll eastward along Queen Sreet West, checking out the stores and galleries, including Propeller and MOCCA . Mark was on a mission to have some hot chocolate at Soma . Soma is among the few chocolate makers that makes chocolate in batches directly from the cacao bean or, as they say, "from bean to bar". They offer a hot chocolate elixir, which is essentially like having a melted top-quality chocolate bar. We each enjoyed a mug and wandered home quite content. While I made some delicious Moroccan food from the great cookbook The Food of Morocco, Mark snuggled up on the couch to watch "The Blob" (1958) starring Steve McQueen. Such a great B-movie. We had a blast watching this cheesy classic.

We had a memorable Valentine's evening, starting by attending "The Big Draw", a silent auction fundraiser for the OCAD U Drawing & Painting program. The auction ran for two hours and it was both fun and tense as we bid on two pieces and kept our eyes on a third. For the entire time we kept a hawk-like eye on the bid sheets next to our most desired work, as well as enjoyed some wine and mingling with our wonderful colleagues. The last 10 minutes was nerve-wrecking, as we had some counter-bids to contend with. They shut the auction down promptly at 7pm and we emerged as the winning bidders of our favourite piece, a lovely painting by Linda Martinello . In a great interview with Toronto Standard , Martinello explained, "My work is equally indebted to the long trajectory of landscape art as it is to the fictitious and real histories of places that have inspired it. Series of drawings and paintings that I create point at how ideologically formed, subjectiv...

Credit: GlobalHue While we awoke to a sunny day it was quite cold and especially messy on the streets, thanks to the recent "Snowmageddon". We decided to stick close to home and wandered through the neighbourhood beside us to the west, Parkdale. BlogTO describes Parkdale as a "diverse community...home to Tibetan, North African and West Indian enclaves mixed in with some of Toronto's best vintage fashion, furniture and fabric stores".  Others, as The GridTO notes, "denigrate Parkdale as a haven for slumming hipsters". The reality is likely a combination of both descriptions. There is certainly a realness to Parkdale, given its mix of down-and-out denizens, the Tibeten community, roti shops,  dollar stores, art galleries, payday loan joints, food markets, and, yes, dozens of enterprises catering to all things hipster. Parkdale mixes seedy with bohemian, a Bushwick in the making. We started our walkabout at West End Food Co-op ,  then checked ...

We started today with a fantastic brunch at our new favourite restaurant, Liberty 25. We are convinced that this lovely gem offers Toronto's best Eggs Benedict, plus they offer fresh scones with homemade marmalade and cranberry butter. Mmmm! Our plan for the the afternoon was to head to Corktown and the Distillery District but the Fates had other plans for us. A streetcar along our line decided to hit a delivery van, so we had to get off and make new plans. We ended up taking the subway north to Yorkville and went wandering. At one point we thought it would be nice to find a cafe and warm up, as it was getting chillier by the half hour. We ended up going down an alley and we stumbled across the Coffee Mill Restaurant . Little did we know we had found a Toronto institution. The menus had a sticker that proudly announced that 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of this establishment that bills itself as "Toronto's oldest coffee house". I got up from our table to ch...

This month marks the 30th anniversary of U2's album War. [I'll pause a moment to to let that set in...] 1983 was a crucible year for popular music; Punk was dead, New Romanticism was waning and ultimately morphing into Synthpop, and New Wave was emerging. There were records released in 1983 that would become iconic by the decade's end such as Synchronicity (The Police), and Murmur (R.E.M.), as well as solid releases from Duran Duran, The Cure, The Eurythmics, Madonna, David Bowie, Talking Heads, Billy Idol, and Culture Club that would birth some of the most beloved singles of that huge shoulder pad and large-framed glasses era. Of course, many of those same songs would now be regarded by some as vapid epic cheese. Alas... For their part, U2 released their distinctive third album in 1983. Coming off the commercial, and somewhat artistic, disappointment that was October (1981), U2 were still hungry for the chart-topper and to live up to the promise so brilliantly ...