Two men and...

I thought it would be fun to see what comes up when I Googled "two men and" (after my previous blog "Two Dogs and a Fire Hydrant." The first few links on Google are to that awful (yet awfully funny) sitcom Two and a Half Men. The rest are quite amusing.

Here's my condensed list:

"Two Men and":
- a Baby
- a Pretend Baby
- a Little Lady
- a Lady
- a Woman
- a Maid
- a Wardrobe
- a Thrift Shop
- a Truck
- a Jeep
- a Boat
- a River
- a Mountain
- a Lion
- a Dog
- a Donkey
- a Ghost
- an iPad App

When I went to Google Images with the same words, I found the following interesting looking pieces.

A pastel piece by a contemporary artist named Lisa Pope. Two men are working powerful oxen. I think this is her strongest work.
Two Men and Oxen, 2010
Lisa Pope
Barrigada, Guam
Contemporary
Soft Pastel on Canson Paper
18in x 12in
Fine Art America
What's on Lisa's Easel?

A photograph taken in a formal studio by D.A. Sigerist. Two men guide a woman through a very civilized-looking dance. It takes more than one man to civilize a woman?

Two men and a woman dancing three hand reel , ca. 1905
D. A. Sigerist
American
Born 1873
Black and White Film Copy Negative
Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Catalog Online

There are more photographs by Sigerist on the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, from the Library of Congress. He photographed early 20th century social dances.

When I Googled "Two Men and a Fire Hydrant" I got this photograph below by John G. Moebes, a photographer from North Carolina who recorded 1950s America.

Two Men Paint a Fire Hydrant, 1953
John G. Moebes
Alabama
1911-2002
Black and White Photograph
11in x 9in @ 300 ppi
Corbis Images

So, there you have it. The ways of the web.

Two Dogs and a Fire Hydrant

This photo is from yesterday's Drudge. I'm not sure if it's still up. All I could think was: "Why don't the dogs just lap up the water under the fire hydrant?" One has moved away, looking very hurt (his feelings, that is), but I'm sure he'll be back again to battle the elements.

Admitted Mass Murderer

Diana West has her insightful and informative article on Breivik, The Shameful Spinning of the Norway Massacre, at her website. She writes:

On Tuesday, I read a New York Times online report about a press conference held by Geir Lippestad, the defense lawyer for admitted Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik.

I wish she had written "confessed" instead of "admitted," or left "admitted" out altogether until Breivik does confess, in the manner I outline below. I wish she had been strong enough (as I was, in my humble capacity as an unknown blogger, where I simply write, with no qualifier here: "[T]he Norwegian murderer went on his rampage on the Utoye island summer camp." We know he's a mass murderer. We don't need (or require) his admission.

And Breivik is not admitting that he likes coffee, or that he vacations at those lovely Norwegian fjords. Anyone can admit anything (usually trivial). What we require now is a confession, a court-of-law confession of guilt. A confession is heavy-handed. It is the seal of recognizing, at least in front of a judge and jury and the public, that one's behavior is bad enough (horrific enough, as in Breivik's case) to warrant a public prosecution.

A Day Out

"Baa Baa Black Sheep"

From The Real Mother Goose

Illustration by children's

books illustrator

Blanche Fisher Wright

Early this morning, I hear the boisterous screams of my young neighbor which turn into uncontrollable crying. I look out my window, and there he is, with the Chinese/Asian (she might even be Filipino) woman pushing on one of his shoes. The boy then gets hauled up by the woman. He keeps turning back to his watching parents for help, hanging on to the railings of the fence, squirming and writhing. His crying turns into wailing, but to no avail. He's off somewhere. The clever "babysitter" (who is pretty small, but pretty adept at managing crying and struggling toddlers) pulls and turns him away from the parents, and walks across the street. His overweight parents stand watching on the porch, the father, much more concerned than the mother, leaning forward trying hard not to intervene in this necessary step of his son's education. The mother soon gets tired of standing watching, and walks back into the house. The father follows docilely behind.

I wonder if he's being taken to the daycare center I wrote about? Or for a walk in the nearby park?

In any case, it is now clear that the mother is willing to let her unhappy, no miserable, young son out of the house, and out of her way, to do whatever she plans to do for the day. Yesterday, I passed her by on the street, dressed up and coming back from some place which required "professional" attire.

I keep wondering how this will affect him? Especially after he sees his father submissively accept all this (children are very adept at assessing emotions, and at figuring out the "alphas" of the house. And the master ain't the Dad).

I hope it doesn't stop his confident, happy, and spirited scampers around the small garden.

"A horrifying lack of justice"

A commentator at the View From the Right says succinctly:

According to the liberal world view as evidenced in Norway, all humans are equal, all humans are good. Therefore monsters like Breivik are either mentally ill or the victim of bad circumstances. In either case, the liberal state must treat them; cure them—not punish them. It is this view and its end result—a horrifying lack of justice—that the outrage is directed against. The rot is indeed deep.

Liberals do believe in justice, but it comes from their own design. There is no higher justice, no Godly justice, which says that there is good and evil. And since liberals are against God, they have to discount his word (since it could also implicate them as evil). They therefore pronounce everyone "good." Everyone becomes equal in this goodness. And equality is the cornerstone of liberalism.

But the liberal elite hypocritically believe in the hierarchy of equality. Some are less equal than others. And who writes these classifications of varying levels of equality are the liberal elite, who are at the highest echelons of the equality totem pole. So, in this ordering of the world according to their design, these elite also mete out their own form of justice towards those who contradict, or refuse to believe in, their system of equality and non judging. They decide who gets to be guilty, and who gets to be innocent. Those that contradict their positions, and ideology, receive the wrath of this justice. This makes liberals supreme hypocrites, since they do categorize the world as good and evil, they do judge. Theirs is a humanized, whimsical, judgment, which is not based on any principles, but their own desires and beliefs.

One of the strategies of the fascist liberal elite to maintain their societal structure is to numb and unsettle the plebs, whom they really don't think are good (or evil), but tools to be manipulated in order to construct their godless world. They do this very cleverly with the existing systems, through: addictive T.V.; erroneous news; ever-shifting, unstable fashions and trends; mindless education, which produces unskilled, unemployable citizens (think of all those liberal arts university students); inundating their countries with incompatible peoples through immigration, to prevent citizen coordination - i.e. civil war; mediocre art and entertainment, which degrades people's minds; scorn for independent thinking and living; constant critiquing of the good, the true and the beautiful to destroy the human soul (and especially that of young people); hating beauty; and of course hating God (not even fearing him, which shows us their supreme arrogance).

With this kind of society in place, the liberal elite are now ready to do whatever they want. The Nazis sought a Götterdämmerung to create their eden on earth (through the blood of innocents). The liberal elite are trying the same, although less directly than the Nazis. But, they are the fools, if they think they can also ultimately participate in this eden. As I wrote here:

[T]he Nazis...refashioned the real exterior world to resemble this utopic interior (mad) one. I think this was possible because they were not isolated individuals, but groups of people who could discuss and build - in real time in their current real world - this new world. Their method involved destroying - the great Götterdämmerung - the current world and replacing it with their twisted vision. But in the end, what they wrought was dead bodies and ruins.

Our task is to prevent this destruction of our world.

St. George

Edward Burne-Jones
St. George Kills the Dragon (1866)

I wrote in my previous post (quoting from Our Changing Landscape):

Just as Muslims are working on a global take-over, or a global re-conversion of the human race back to Islam, what we need is a global counter-force that will work concertedly to remove this negative force. St. George is an apt patron for our times.

St. George is also the patron saint of England.

Strictly Halal: Coming to your neighborhood

St. George with Unicorn-like horse, Ca. 1740-55
(Ethiopian Orthodox illuminated manuscript)

I mentioned in a previous blog that I recently watched the women's soccer world cup final. I've observed many times, and spoken up (many times), that many of the tenants in this apartment complex in the suburbs of Toronto are Muslim. While going up the elevator this week-end, I saw a sign up for a barbecue party with this: "Food will be strictly halal." Not just halal, but strictly halal.

Slowly, incrementally, stealthily, our Muslim co-citizens are changing our landscape. "What's wrong with eating halal food?" you may ask. Well, the animals which the meat for this delicious barbecue comes from are killed IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, i.e. HALAL. So, these friendly Muslim neighbors are in effect forcing us to acknowledge this Allah, and by extension Islam. There is no tolerance in Islam, contrary to the beliefs of our multi-culti elites. It is Islam (or death).

I've written in Our Changing Landscape that halal has become a weapon with which Muslims infiltrate Canadian society. Innocent bystanders (at McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, mainstream Italian restaurants, and even grocery stores) are force fed this halal meat, making them, at least unconsciously, part of the great Ummah.

This is the consequence of multiculturalism. Since dismantling the whole multicultural behemoth is a formidable task, but one which will have to be confronted sooner or later, the more urgent task at hand is to roll back this stealthy march by Islam into our society.

Here is a list of articles by View From the Right's Lawrence Auster under: What to do about Islam in the West.

The basic premise of these articles is that Islam is incompatible with the West and with Christianity, and that there is no real way to accommodate it in our societies. Weakening, if not eliminating, Islam is the only option available, unless we want our societies to turn into the Muslim-conquered lands of the Middle East and northern Africa.

Here is the excellent book by former Muslim (and now Christian) Sam Solomon, Modern Day Trojan Horse: Al-Hijra, The Islamic Doctrine of Immigration, Accepting Freedom or Imposing Islam? Below is an excerpt from his book on the Islamization process that occurs after Muslim immigration.

The beginning phase of Islamization usually includes activities pivotal to building a physical presence. It consists of public calls to prayer; founding of schools, libraries and research centers; and the teaching of Arabic -- actions that appear to be reasonable and respectable infrastructure requirements necessary to support the presence of a faith. At this point in the Hijra ["immigration designed to subvert and subdue non-Muslim societies and pave the way for eventual, total Islamization"], it is permissible for Muslims to engage in haram, or forbidden actions, out of necessity to establish and empower the umma or Muslim community. Koranic rules such as the prohibition against friendships with infidels are suspended while the objectives of future Islamization are systematically put into place. In its initial phase, the Hijra passes scrutiny by the West whose citizens erroneously view the migration as mainly economic -- a pilgrimage for a better life.

I wrote at Our Changing Landscape:

Just as Muslims are working on a global take-over, or a global re-conversion of the human race back to Islam, what we need is a global counter-force that will work concertedly to remove this negative force. St. George is an apt patron for our times.

Saint George is the patron saint of these places:

Aragon, Catalonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Iraq, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, Serbia and Russia, as well as the cities of Genoa, Amersfoort, Beirut, Fakiha, Bteghrine, Cáceres, Ferrara, Freiburg, Ljubljana, Pomorie, Preston, Qormi, Rio de Janeiro, Lod, Barcelona, Moscow, Tamworth and the Maltese island of Gozo.

As well as political and cultural tools, our strongest weapon against Islam is our true Christianity.

What's the song?

"Baa Baa Black Sheep"

From The Real Mother Goose

Illustration by children's

books illustrator

Blanche Fisher Wright

What's this song?

"Ba ba ba ba, bababababa!"

Of course, it's "Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?"

Courtesy of my little toddler neighbor across the street, singing the first line full throttle, and perfectly in tune.

He only "knows" the first line - so far.

Baa baa black sheep (Youtbe link, in case you don't know it. :).

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.

One for my master,
One for my dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.

As always with "critics" of contemporary culture, there is an insidious attempt to destroy (or "reform") traditional culture. Here is what Wikipedia says about the song :

Modern controversies

A controversy emerged over changing the language of 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' in Britain from 1986, because, it was alleged in the popular press, it was seen as racially dubious. This was, as Curran, Pently and Gaber indicate, based only on a rewriting of the rhyme in one private nursery as an exercise for the children there and not on any local government policy. A similar controversy emerged in 1999 when reservations about the rhyme were submitted to Birmingham City Council by a working group on racism in children's resources, which were never approved or implemented.[5] Two private nurseries in Oxfordshire in 2006 altered the song to "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep", with black being replaced with a variety of other adjectives, like "happy, sad, hopping" and "pink". Commentators have asserted that these controversies have been exaggerated or distorted by some elements of the press as part of a more general campaign against political correctness.

You can read more of this at Wikipedia. Proceed with caution.

About Blanche Fisher Wright:

At this point, I read to my daughter from The Real Mother Goose mostly as an excuse to pour over the illustrations by Blanche Fisher Wright. Elegant and utterly charming, they sit shoulder to shoulder with the work of the great turn-of-the-century illustrators like Edward Penfield and Jesse Wilcox Smith (Philly’s own, Smith, born in Mt. Airy, studied at PAFA under Thomas Eakins and Howard Pyle at the Brandywine School) But what really captivates me about her work is the degree to which, stylistically, they recall the work of Art Nouveau masters like Alphons Mucha. They share the regal faces, flowing outlines, graphic crispness and posterlike composition. What transforms them into bewitching illustrations is her wonderful animating sense of gesture and flair for scene staging. Given her skill and achievement, her complete anonymity is surprising. Other than a few basic illustration credits, no biographical information exists online. She is absent from Walt Reed’s comprehensive Illustrator in America survey. Although The Real Mother Goose remains in print and easily available, Blanche Fisher Wright, at least for now, seems a near to complete mystery.

I'm just glad that this little boy sings the nursery rhyme with such gusto.

Back to Black

Amy Winehouse

I went to the British Daily Mail for all things pop, to try and find more on the very sad death of singer Amy Winehouse. Drudge had put this headline SINGER WINEHOUSE FOUND DEAD in bold, dark letters at the top of his site a couple of days ago.

I don't know why I felt so sad. Probably there have been just too many sad (tragic) news, and deaths, these days. Also, Winehouse, despite her horrible decent into drug addiction and alcoholism, was a very good singer. She sang mostly bluesy songs in her idiosyncratic, easily recognizable voice. She sounded a little like Billie Holiday, but a little harder, harsher.

At the Daily Mail, I found an article by Melanie Phillips: A life lost, a talent squandered, and a celebrity culture that worships self-destruction. There is no mention of Amy Winehouse in the title, but I knew right away it was about her.

Below are some quotes from Phillips' article. But the whole article, which expands into other self-destructive young contemporary artists, is well worth reading:

The terrible contrast between the singer's glorious voice and the debased conclusion to her once glittering career, as she stumbled around a Serbian stage last month too drunk to remember her own lyrics and being booed and jeered by the crowd, was stark indeed...

The singer went through a process of 'cold turkey' to get her off drugs - but she turned instead to alcohol and the whole sorry process of disintegration inexorably continued...

[T]he fame of Amy Winehouse did not rest solely upon the quality of her voice. Her public appeal also lay in the very lifestyle that has now killed her.

The soap opera of her deeply dysfunctional life boosted her appeal and commercial value. Indeed, this is openly acknowledged.

At the weekend, commentator India Knight wrote (after telling us all how devastated she was by the singer's death): 'And I loved that she was a bad girl with bad appetites: a breed that, with her passing, heads further into extinction.'...

Much of the marketing of such stars cynically milks the appeal of the 'wild child'...

[Drug]-taking has been tacitly encouraged by the Great And Not-So-Good, those well-heeled but grossly irresponsible committee clones who have decided that illegal drugs are not as damaging to society as the laws that keep them illegal - and who have accordingly helped present drug-takers as romantic rebels against the system...

With the sad and sordid death of Amy Winehouse, the fantasy now lies shattered...

How many ordinary lives have been shattered, after all, because of the addictive example set by such celebrities and the massive influence they wield?...

With Britain awash in drugs and alcohol and with the resulting breakdown in order, the sad fate of Amy Winehouse should indeed make us weep - both for her, and for what it tells us about modern Britain.

Here are a couple of songs which seem to show that she knew the directions she was headed:

- You know I'm no good
- Back to black - an uncanny prediction of her own fate?

Young, beautiful, white boy: Tall, handsome, young man

Jonathan Knight (1789–1864)
Artist unidentified
Connecticut
c. 1797
Oil on paperboard, mounted on Masonite
34 x 24 in.
American Folk Art Museum, gift of Ralph Esmerian, 2005.8.1

I recently sent the following email to a correspondent, with the subject line: "Young, beautiful, white boy." It was just before the Norwegian murderer went on his rampage on the Utoye island summer camp.

----------------------------------------------------

Dear______,

I hope you don't mind me asking your opinion on this. It bothers me a lot, and I have even talked to the family concerned about it.

I live in what used to be a Victorian neighborhood, in the center of Toronto (I live in an apartment high rise, and I am glad to say it is the only one in the neighborhood). Many of the houses are being renovated, in the anticipation that the real estate value of those homes will climb up and more wealthy residents will move in to take advantage of this historically attractive location. So far, many of the houses have been converted into several sections, allowing up to four tenants (some families) to live in each house.

The neighborhood is not the greatest, but I moved here as a student at the nearby Ryerson University some ten years ago, and it is close to the downtown, to the university's facilities, has nice trees and these nice homes, etc. so I haven't moved. It is also close to some other historic landmarks like the Allan Garden Conservatory, which became one of my textile pieces a couple of years ago.

There are a few marks against the neighborhood. One is a homeless shelter on the next street over. The residents are often harmless, but some are schizophrenics (there was a time when Toronto reduced its mental health facilities, so many are left wondering the streets), and others are alcoholics, so they are potentially dangerous. Also, I suspect that there are many refugees who are given temporary asylum there while their papers are processed. I see many able-bodied West Indians (I think Jamaicans) around. These are the real dangerous ones.

The area has also been taken over by Native American groups. One house is a job counselling center, and another is some kind of drop in center for drug and alcohol abusers.

There is a daycare center around the corner. I asked a nice-looking woman, who turned out to be Nigerian, how expensive the place is. She answered that she's there because it is subsidized.

There is a "women's" shelter down the street, which is a place where women "abused" by their husbands can go.

So, many clever minority groups have taken up this small area to open facilities for marginalized groups (funded by government monies). Some, as I said earlier, are potentially erratic and dangerous.

So, I'm not sure if this little street will ever catch on as an ideal place for the downtown minded. Cabbagetown, the area where there are superb Victorian houses, is about fifteen minutes from here, and will surely continue to be the prime attraction.

The family across the street from my building has done a great job of renovating its home. There is a lovely garden. The house is a pretty duplex, with what looks like a Chinese family living above, which seems very friendly with this family.

Their son is a rambunctious little boy (a toddler), with blond hair and blue eyes, who tears around the small garden when he gets out to play (which is about twice a day).

A few weeks ago, I went to the father while he was in the garden and told him to be careful, that such a lovely boy with such a loud voice, playing outside, is likely to attract attention. That although the neighborhood looks pretty and quiet, there are many things which might make it potentially dangerous. I asked the boy his name (he was curious and watching) and he said "_______" almost immediately. I wasn't testing him, but I later realized that he was too friendly, but that is probably normal for boys his age.

I felt sorry for the father. I couldn't offer him any solutions, but could only point out the dangers. I notice now that the little boy is playing less frequently outside, and there is always someone with him. Most of the time, though, it is the Chinese woman from upstairs. I don't understand this. This goes back to my original concern (observation) that this family doesn't really seem to be thinking about the boy, but about their "needs": to have a nice house, to have a ready baby sitter (I'm not sure if they pay the Chinese woman, but they must since she's almost always with him now). I don't run into the mother on the street, so I assume she stays home. Both the parents are overweight, the mother close to obese. The little kid so far is about average, although I'm noticing that he's growing both up and sideways these days.

As an aside, why leave the kid with this Chinese woman? I am getting more and more suspicious of the "Asian" immigrants these days. Why is she spending all this time with the boy? Even the financial pay-off cannot be that much. I know that Asians are always trying to know and learn as much about Canadian life and culture as they can (I used to teach ESL - English as a Second Language - exclusively to Chinese), and that their un-voiced goal is to find ways to compete against Canadians - whites - in jobs, homes, school admittance (they would literally memorize SAT and GRE handbooks) etc. And the women, I am sorry to say, are getting adept at catching the wayward white male, and there are many of them these days, and I'm sure these women study them (perhaps their mothers also coach them) and their behaviors, to make this easier (slam dunk, more like).

This family reminds me of the post you had about the family which moved into a dangerous neigborhood because they wanted to live in a house that they could afford. And your observation that living in a good neighborhood, perhaps in a modest apartment, would have suited them better until they could afford (or find) the nice house they so desire.

But, in the end, it is selfishness, which I think is at the core of such people, whom I will label as liberals (they cannot be anything else).

They come to a rough neighborhood not because they are going to improve it, but because they can find cheap housing.

They befriend the foreigner upstairs (the Chinese woman has a distinct Chinese accent) perhaps because they do like her, but also she seems a ready hand with house-keeping demands.

They grow flowers and tend their garden, in an attempt to make a small oasis of prettiness for themselves, although I do admit that the street generally looks pretty, but they are the only ones who have bothered with landscaping their front yard. This would be hard to do in many of the typical Toronto townhouses (which go cheaper) which have no garden areas, or in apartments even if it has a balcony.

They have a nice porch in front of their house. But there isn't much to look out to, and neighbors around here are not friendly, so there is no-one to talk to (unless, it is me :) ).

And so on.

Am I over-reacting? Is there anything positive that this family can do? Is the little boy doomed: Will he end up marrying the daughter of his Chinese neighbors? Will he ever learn to get suspicious of foreigners, and foreign and dangerous things of all kinds, when his talents - he is clearly energetic and talented - lead him to important positions in his country, and he becomes an easy target?

Part of my sadness is that this couple is using this little boy as an experiment - at multiculturalism, at living in their "house" regardless of dangers, etc. For all the adults in that house, he seems awfully neglected to me.

I cannot pinpoint the main question or point I want to ask you or make, but I am getting very cynical these days as to how our adults (leaders, parents, teachers, etc.) are running our homes, cities and countries. It looks like we've let something out of the bag, and it is slowly and methodically intent on wreaking havoc.

I hope this wasn't too dismal a scenario. I always think the first step out of a problem is to recognize the problem.

Thanks,

Kidist

Quick Exit Back: Clarification

In my previous post, Quick Exit Back, I wrote:

If I were them [the two well-dressed Indian men], I would make a quick exit back to India, or wherever they came from. If this is the outcome of a Canadian residency, an unkempt (unclean?), badly dressed, former countryman, then who wants to stay in Canada?

I should clarify that I was trying to think like the two men being verbally attacked by the third. It is not Canada that failed this man, but that he was unable to rise to the (his, too) expectations.

I think that immigrants to Canada now have little incentive to integrate with the mainstream culture, a mainstream that is increasingly being pushed aside and is being replaced by multiculturalism. And thanks to multiculturalism, immigrants now are essentially living lives very similar to the ones they left behind, from the food they eat, the people they associate with, the language they speak, etc. They are even importing their problems with them, including the inferior life styles they complained about in their countries of origin. I think we'll be seeing more immigrants like the "expert on Canada" I described in my previous blog.

A quick exit back would actually do them good. I'm advocating these days that even the second and third generation immigrants I wrote about in my previous blog return to their countries of origin, partly to ease their unarticulated discontent at living in Canada (even second and third generation immigrants are talking of "racism" and a general malaise about living in Canada), and also to work and live contentedly, making positive contributions to those countries they never tire of talking about.

And in fact, there is some kind of "movement back" by Ethiopian diaspora in America. I haven't seen this yet here in Canada.

Lilies Slide Show

[Slide show and photos by KPA]

Quick Exit Back

Personne n'est illégal/No one is illegal
Image from Citizenshift.org

I was interrupted while doing some research by a consistent monologue outside in what sounded like an Indian language, which went on for about 5-10 minutes before I looked out my window. Below were three Indians. Two were well-dressed, professional looking men, one of whom was constantly wiping his brow from the heat with a smartly folded handkerchief. The non-stop speaker was in drab, black, knee-length shorts, with his shirt hanging out, and greasy longish hair.

At first, I couldn't understand why these two well-dressed men stood silent (and sweating) in the midst of this verbal barrage. Then I heard the slovenly man say: "immigration," "employment," "mosque" and "Canada." I tried to catch a few more familiar words in English before making my assessment. None came, so here is what I think.

The slovenly man is the authority on Canada, immigration, employment, and apparently mosques too. He is dressed (albeit more drably) in the casual shorts and shirt-hanging-out uniform of many people, although I think his attire is a combination of his leftist "fashion" sense and of poverty. But, poor people used to have more dignity than that, at least by looking clean. His audience of two silent men are recent immigrants.

If I were them, I would make a quick exit back to India, or wherever they came from. If this is the outcome of a Canadian residency, an unkempt (unclean?), badly dressed, former countryman, then who wants to stay in Canada? And what Muslim looks like him, (or like them, for that matter)?

Foreigners who immigrate here for economic reasons are actually worse off than if they were back in their countries of origin (source: pdf file, page 31), despite being the "cream of the crop" and having produced: substantial sums of money, proof of higher education, and a good employment history in order to process their immigration papers.

Coming to Canada doesn't guarantee prosperity down the generational road either. Here (pdf file, page 32) is another study that shows third generation immigrants fare worse than their parents, and not that much better than their grandparents. Even mainstream papers have reported this. Data like these are hard to come by, and don't show the paradisiacal lifestyle that proponents of immigration advertise. The only ones who gain anything (if it is any gain) are refugees, who are immediately put on welfare, and stay on it for years, if not decades. More prosperous immigrants also go on welfare, or eventually accept demeaning or lower level jobs with little material or personal compensations.

So, I'm not surprised that this fast-talking expert looks like the one who just stepped off the boat, while the other voiceless two are much more presentable. I bet he's also telling them what a racist country Canada is, and how much worse it is for Muslims like them (and him). But, I'll wager that he's one of those "cultural" Muslim with little respect for religion, who uses that "identity" as ammunition to gun down to submission those racist, white Canadians.

"I’m an individualist, not a racialist"

Once in a while, I check up on ex-Canadian immigrant, ex-South African, libertarian, non-practicing Jew, columnist and author Ilana Mercer, who, in my humble opinion, has a mediocre writing style, which is full of jarring alliterations, although that is less so now. But she couldn't help a "by bombs and boycotts" in her latest blog post.

She is a writer at WorldNet Daily, although a while ago I noted that she was off their roster until she returned with somewhat subdued pieces. She was also part of that Alternative Right group, which ended up being an anti-Semitic site, and she hasn't written for them in over a year.

She writes on a recent post at her blog:

"I’m an individualist, not a racialist."

Then she proceeds to advertise her book, Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa, which is about how black-run South Africa is not working. Why conjure up the inflammatory image of a cannibal's pot? Why not find a clear-cut way of saying that black leaders are failing, and even destroying, South Africa, and are in danger of doing the same in America?

And even the book design, with black hand prints (it could be mud prints) soiling the white body of a naked woman, is not the neutral individualist's perspective she is trying to convey in her blog statement. It is aggressive and confrontational.

I'm not suggesting that Mercer tone-down the truth, but upping the ante with incendiary imagery, and race-loaded phrases, while talking the smooth talk of neutrality, is hypocritical.

I'm not sure why she needs to adamantly emphasize her individualism, since it is clear by now that her libertarian position informs many of her opinions.

But, of course, it is to contrast it with grouping people into racial categories, which to her is racialist, i.e. racist, which is the most evil thing a modern person can be. So she has antagonistically divided the world into racial groups, but she won't get her hands dirty and will remain the sacrosanct individual.

What we aspire most from writers, truth and discernment, becomes contradictions and in effect lies, when in the hands of writers like Mercer.

"And now for something completely different"

"And now for something completely different"

I recently watched the women's soccer world cup final (I hadn't been following it at all, but was with a group of people this past weekend who had, and who wanted to watch this final match). The final game was between the American and the Japanese teams.

It was an interesting game, especially for a neophyte like me. It was funny how many times I called out the commentator's comments by a few seconds on the various moves and maneuvers in the game.

Finally, about half way through the game, I made the call that the Japanese team was vicious and sneaky. The game statistics report here that the overall fouls committed by the Japanese was 51 compared to 72 by the American team. But, the Americans also suffered the most fouls, as I observed during this one game. And my observations on that one match was that the Japanese were more adept at camouflaging their fouls with what looked like normal body contacts. In fact, one replay of a foul showed a vicious, deliberate trip orchestrated by a Japanese player against her American opponent. Of course fouls are deliberate, but I think the Japanese took viciousness and sneakiness up a notch.

These underhanded fouls by the Japanese threw the American players off. The sports commentators seemed intent on reporting the "bad luck" of the American players. I think they were simply stunned by the level of viciousness of the Japanese, and their clever and hidden fouls which they disguised as inadvertent body contacts. This affected the Americans' goal-scoring abilities, and eventually their strategic and tactical moves. The statistics also show that the Americans were ahead with goal attempts 50 to the Japanese 30, which shows the Americans' overall offensive strategy.

I thought the Japanese played overwhelmingly in the defensive mode, concentrating on deflecting American goals by scrummaging to the goal area as the Americans tried to score, which is where the Japanese got most of their offside cards.

There was one American player, Megan Rapinoe, who was undoubtedly aggressive, and who committed fouls and went offside to gain control of the ball, but she acted individually (and narcissistically). She was one of the better players, nonetheless. And she in effect contributed to the team's loss when she finally (fairly) got the "red" card near the end when she could have helped with crucial overtime goals, which could have given the American team its win. Overall, though, the Americans mostly played as a team.

The Japanese played as a team, but they also committed fouls and offsides as a team. As I wrote earlier, they were also more sneaky about their fouls. Many times the referees ignored these fouls (e.g. deliberately barging into an American player) as inadvertent body contacts. But, I begged to differ, from my biased (less-than-perfect) vantage of a TV screen. So, I finally called the Japanese team as underhandedly vicious.

I also noted that the Japanese team looked masculine, despite the shorter stature and smaller bones of the women. Many on the American team looked pretty and feminine, and kept their hair long , which I think can dangerous be on the field, although I don't think that is the reason why these masculinized Japanese players keep their hair short.

The Art and Science of Lilies

Madonna Lily
Pierre-Joseph Redouté

I've searched around for the names of the lilies on my previous post and Pink Damask looks like a better fit for the first lily than Tiger Lily. And the second could be a Sammy Russell.

Here is a pretty comprehensive on-line source on lilies.

Lilies have been a special subject of two botanical illustrators of the 19th century. I think the attention given them is because they are so varied and numerous, as well as having many symbolic references in religion and literature.

I have already referenced W.H. Fitch in a previous blog post. Fitch illustrated A Monograph of the Genus Lilium (1877-1880) by the British scientist H.J. Elwes.

The second is by the renowned illustrator Pierre-Joseph Redouté, who has a whole treatise on lilies in his Les Liliacées.

More Lilies

Lilies are in bloom at the moment. I've never noticed them before like I have this year. I'm not sure why. I don't think they are "cultivated" but they seem to grow in all kinds of places, from building corners to gardens. They come in many shapes and colors, all flowering at once.

I'm pretty sure this top lily is a tiger lily, but I'm not sure about the other two. I will try to get hold of a botanical book to come up with their names.




[Photos by KPA]

Lily in the City

Lily in the City
[Photo by KPA]

As part of my urban flowers photos, I recently posted a photo of irises against a brick wall. This lily is growing in a similar spot, surrounded by pavement and a few other grasses and plants (namely hostas). It is a welcome oasis in the city.

Below is an illustration of Lilium brownii, also known Brown's lily, by Victorian botanical illustrator Walter Hood Fitch in H.J. Elwes's Monograph of the Genus Lilium.

Lilium Brownii
Illustration by W.H. Fitch
From: A Monograph of the Genus Lilium (1877-1880)

Shovel Ready, Etc.

For some reason, I posted four long entries yesterday. It is difficult to read earlier blogs that have been posted on the same day especially if they're longer than a paragraph, so here are the titles and links to those posts.

I had sworn never to blog about Michelle Obama, but never is a long time, so she's baaack!

- Jennifer Lopez's Wriggles at
American Idol Didn't Help Her Marriage

- Michelle and a Shovel (has a certain rhyme to it)

- "I'll See You in My Dreams"

- More of My Photos and Articles

Jennifer Lopez's Wriggles atAmerican Idol Didn't Help Her Marriage

Anna Wintour, Vogue's
Editor-in-Chief, and
fashion police, wouldn't
have Lopez on the
cover of her magazine

I started a blog post on Jennifer Lopez's role as a judge at American Idol this May 28, where she sends packing talented contestants because of well, her lack of talent at perceiving talent, but I left the blog as a draft. I've tried to figure out why she's so high in the popular music radar - she sells records, people go to her shows, she's married to a successful Latino singer, who really does have a voice. The only conclusion is that she is a pushy mediocrity, who caters mostly to Hispanics, who have made her into their pop star ( in defiance of white America). Here is the unpublished post that I wrote back in May, after watching American Idol (and there were some really good talents that came out of that season's show, as I blog here):

Jennifer Lopez wriggles on the dance floor with her non-singing voice squeaking out mediocre melodies, making sure the attention is on her moves rather than her voice. Recently on the variety show American Idol, we realize that even these small town contestants with no name are infinitely better singers than Lopez. We also had to watch her perform a stripper dance while her Latino husband Mark Anthony took the stage with his English/Spanish song. Even Ryan Seacrest, the diplomatic host of the show couldn't help saying: "Is that the kind of think you do at home?" at the end of her performance.

Then this comes up just today:

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony to Divorce

I had already found her interaction with her husband strange, and her "stripper" dance in front of him sounded off alarm bells to me about their marriage.

Lopez has been married three times, and she breaks off her marriages in "spectacular" ways, as I wrote here:

she broke off in a spectacularly nutty way an engagement to Ben Affleck before marrying Anthony in very short notice [implying an affair].

She also was having an affair with Affleck while still married to her first husband.

She gave birth to twins at 39 while married to Anthony. As much as I hate to "report" rumors, I think Lopez is exempt from that concern given her erratic behavior, and rumors of her conceiving through IVF were all over the Internet. I wonder who has custody of the kids now, and where they will fall in her larger scheme of things?

About her talents as a performer, this is what I've written at my post "Mulatta Madonnas":

You can watch Jennifer Lopez performing on New Year’s Eve [with her] aggressive moves, her hostile expression and her scant clothing...

She tried her hand in perfume creation, and I compare her concoction to Sarah Jessica Parker's far superior scents here:

Coty is behind [Dior's] J'Adore's bottle design and Lopez's Glow perfume, so I wasn't so far off in the "associations" I saw between Glow [Lopez's perfume] and J'Adore. Shame on Coty, which has a long history of working with perfume bottle giants like Lalique, and creates fragrances for discerning clients!...What Coty gave Lopez is mediocrity, a mere imitation, perhaps commenting on the product as a whole. Lopez is an aggressive (Latina) celebrity, and Coty may have found it difficult to refuse her patronage.

Even her fashion sense is not appreciated by the big wigs. In this blog entry, I wrote that:

[Anna] Wintour of Vogue "refused Jennifer Lopez her Vogue cover saying that Lopez was too "low class."

Lopez and Anthony were slated to go to Latin America to start its version of Idol. That seems like a scrapped project for now, although I wouldn't be surprised if Lopez continued with it, in an effort to promote Hispanic culture in America.

So, here we have it, the Hispanic pop star who seems to have made it into the American mainstream (if J-Lo can't make it, who can?), yet who keeps clinging to her Hispanic culture, and more dangerously, waving it around at the American mainstream culture (by which I mean the dominant white Anglo Saxon). I get the feeling that we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg with Lopez. And how about all those ordinary Hispanics, who I would wager follow the same desires to hold onto, and aggressively push forward, their Hispanic lifestyles?

Michelle and a Shovel

There is a blogger who goes by IMAO (In My Arrogant Opinion) who gets his readers to add captions to images he puts out. One of his readers came up with the caption above. I think just "Shovel Ready" would have been enough.

But IMAO's readers are not the only one to notice the shovel link. When I Googled: Michelle Obama Shovel, I got pages of Mrs. Obama hard at work.

Here is the actual image that is making the rounds:


A reuters caption describes what she is doing:

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama holds a shovel as she joins volunteers to build a playground at Imagine Southeast Public Charter School in Washington, June 15, 2011.

If you can bear to look, here is Mrs. Obama on a swing meant for young children, which she had just finished installing at this same school (scroll down for the image).

"I'll See You In My Dreams"

Sheet Music for "I'll See You in My Dreams"

- Inset photo is of Luigi Romanelli, who led the orchestra at the King Edward.

- A larger version of the illustration is in the pdf article "An Illustrated History of
the King Edward Hotel," page 41.

- The song "I'll See You in My Dreams" on the sheet music above is described as "A typical Isham Jones melody fox trot song" with lyrics by Gus Kahn and music by Isham Jones.

I'll See You in My Dreams (Youtube Link)

I'll see you in my dreams,
Hold you in my dreams,
Someone took you out of my arms,
Still I feel the thrill of your charms!

Lips that once were mine,
Tender eyes that shine,
They will light my way tonight,
I'll see you in my dreams!

Though the days are long,
Twilight sings a song,
Of the happiness that used to be;
Soon my eyes will close,
Soon I'll find repose,
And in dreams you're always near to me.

A commentator on the above Youtube source says that the piece was performed by Ray Miller and his Brunswick Orchestra and released by his Brunswick label. It was recorded on 12-4-1924 in NYC. I cannot find information the vocalist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In its heyday, the King Edward patrons were privy to the latest entertainment by the Hotel's orchestra. Above is a 1920s poster that is advertising an upcoming performance by Luigi Romanelli and His King Edward Hotel Orchestra. Romanelli performed at the King Edward from 1923 to the 1940s. What hotel has its own orchestra, let alone hosts dance evenings on a regular basis? Not the current King Edward.

Here's some background on Romanelli, including his Toronto vocalist Gladys Smith, who later on became famous as Mary Pickford:

Luigi Romanelli, a violinist, performed on the streets of Toronto. He and dancer, George Weitz, worked Yonge at Bloor. Weitz achieved fame as producer of a series of Broadway reviews, "George White's Scandals." Romanelli made his vaudeville debut, in 1897, with Gladys Smith, from Toronto. She's better known as Mary Pickford.

Romanelli lead the first orchestra heard on radio. The live broadcast came via CKCA-AM and from Shea's Theatre, in Toronto. That was 1922. Not long after, the Romanelli Orchestra had its own live radio shows on the NBC Blue Network.

Here's more autobiographical information on Romanelli as a musician:

Romanelli, Luigi. Orchestra leader, violinist, b[orn] Belleville, Ont, 29 Nov 1885, d[ied] Murray Bay (La Malbaie), Que, 29 Jul 1942. He was the son of the Italian-born harpist Joseph Romanelli (1859-1944, a concert and theatre musician in Toronto) and a nephew of Rocco Romanelli (d 1941, a violinist known as 'Romanelli the Great,' who toured briefly with Enrico Caruso in the USA and accompanied Nellie Melba).

In his youth Luigi Romanelli played the violin on Toronto street corners for a young dancer, George Weitz (later of George White Scandals fame), and at 12 made his stage debut as an actor with Mary Pickford (then known as Gladys Smith)...His was one of the first theatre orchestras to accompany silent films with descriptive music. The Romanelli orchestra at Shea's Theatre is thought to have been the first in Canada to broadcast on radio (1922, over CFCA).

In his day one of Canada's most popular orchestra leaders, Romanelli became music director for United Hotels in Canada in 1923 and at his death had performed at the King Edward Hotel, Toronto, for more than 20 years...Romanelli's 11-piece radio orchestra, the Monarchs of Melody, was heard on CRBC and CBC and, occasionally, in the USA on NBC's 'Blue' network.

King Edward also had its own radio broadcasting station from 1928 on (from pdf article p. 43):

On March 5, 1928, radio station CKGW beamed out its first broadcast from an ultramodern studio in the King Edward Hotel. “Tonight marks one great step forward in the history of radio broadcasting in the Dominion of Canada,” broadcast manager N. E. Maysmith announced with pardonable pride...

It also made sense, because it promoted the hotel itself. Broadcasting from six to midnight, CKGW offered mining news, weather, but mostly music. Romanelli and the hotel were front and centre on the schedule. Dinner music from the King Edward Hotel ... Luigi Romanelli and his Radio Syncopaters ... Supper Music by LuigiRomanelli and his King Edward Hotel Orchestra from the Oak Room of the hotel …And so it went for about five to six years, before the station moved out of the hotel and was ultimately rolled into something called the CBC.

The grandness of the hotel is still palpable. It almost seem to be still inhabited by the gentle ghosts of these bygone personalities (including the hotel patrons who came to enjoy a few days of relaxation - even busy business men entered an oasis when they came here).

The great news is that the hotel is undergoing renovations, mainly to restore it to its original state. Many of the downtown heritage buildings are getting similar attention, which seems to be a new focus to revive the important architectural sites in the city, and to curtail the encroaching glass-dominated high rise buildings which are often erected after the former have been demolished.

Here is the heritage plaque on the hotel.

The King Edward Hotel was built by George Gooderham's Toronto Hotel Company to meet the demand in the rising metropolis for a grand hotel. When in opened in 1903, the hotel, affectionately known as the "King Eddy", was embraced by the city. The fireproof, eight-storey building, designed by eminent Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb and prominent Toronto architect E.J. Lennox, provided luxury in service in dramatic settings. The 18-storey tower, with its top-floor Crystal Ballroom, was added in 1920-21 to enlarge the hotel. Although threatened with demolition in the 1970s, the hotel was revitalized in 1980-81. On its 100th anniversary in 2003, the King Edward, Toronto's first luxury hotel, remains a vibrant and elegant meeting place for local and international visitors.

More of My Photos and Articles

* I've added some more photos in my photography blog (it's not really a blog since I don't have any commentary there), including photos of the King Edward Hotel, which I blogged about here, and Toronto Street facades and windows, which I blogged about here, at Camera Lucida.

There are other "themes" besides buildings, including "water" and "flowers" - I seem to be taking on more "natural" themes, for now anyway.

* Also, I have set up a separate "articles" site, where I have linked to my published and unpublished articles, mostly on art and culture. I've had my published articles on Frontpage Magazine, The American Thinker, and ChronWatch. (No new articles, for now :-)).

Woody Allen's European Tour: Next Stop, Italy

Painting by John William Waterhouse,
A Tale from the Decameron, 1916

My previous post is on Woody Allen's latest movie, Midnight in Paris, which is part of a series of films he's shooting in Europe. He started this series in 2008 with Vicky Cristina Barcelona, then he went to London in 2010 with You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Midnight in Paris is his latest film set in Europe, and came out in 2011. His European tour continues in Rome, with his forthcoming film, The Bop Decameron, which might have been titled (and conceived) after The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio's medieval stories. It looks like Allen is paying homage to Italy's literary and film traditions in this film, where, for example, he refers to Frederico Fellini's La Dolce Vita using the talents of the Italian actor Roberto Benigni. Here is Wikipedia's synopsis of the film:

The Bop Decameron will be a modern-day take on Giovanni Boccaccio's "The Decameron" that will consist of four vignettes--one of which will consist of a husband (played by Allen) and his wife traveling to Rome, and meeting the family of the Italian man that their daughter is going to marry. Another of the vignettes will feature Roberto Benigni as a man named Leopoldo who gets mistaken for a movie star. A third segment will feature Alec Baldwin as an architect from California visiting Rome with his friends.

I can only speculate that the "bop" in the title refers to bebop, and we might get some more of Woody Allen's jazz music.

The Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini has already tackled these stories in his 1971 film The Decameron.

I wonder when Allen will return to his beloved New York?

"Midnight in Paris"

Vincent van Gogh's painting The Starry Night is also
on the poster for Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris

I wrote in this blog entry:

Woody Allen is back. In a modest and sweet way. He's brought his ironic, but profoundly romantic, slant back to his film-making in his latest film You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger.

You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger was in the cinemas in 2010. A year later, Allen has another romantic, light comedy, Midnight in Paris. He seems to be on a roll. I hope he comes up with similar projects each year, to make up for his hiatus.

Midnight in Paris is a flight of fancy movie with characters who wish they were living in previous eras. Owen Wilson's character, Gil Pender, has been stuck on writing his novel for several years. Gil says that he admires the 1920s and idolizes all these artists, who help him create his novel (in his epoch of 2011). Appropriately, his novel is about a man who works in a nostalgia shop. While not laboring over his oeuvre d'art, Gil is a successful screenplay writer for Hollywood.

He is in Paris on vacation with his fiancée Inez and her parents. When Inez leaves him to go dancing one night, he decides to go for a walk himself. At the strike of midnight (à la Cinderella?), what looks like a vintage car from the 1920s stops near him, and the driver tells him to climb in. Thus begins Gil's adventure, where he enters the festive Paris of the 1920s literary stars such as Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, surrealist painter Salvador Dali and modernist photographer/filmmaker Man Ray.

His 1920s interlude lasts only for the night, and he is back in ordinary Paris during the day. But he keeps returning to the same spot each night to be transported back to his idyllic era. There, he also meets Adriana, a young woman who is an assistant to Coco Chanel. She has recently separated from none other than Picasso, and Gil is more than willing to take his place. Her idyllic era is the very early 20th century Belle Époque, where, naturally, Gil and Adriana are transported (at least Dali, the guardian of surrealism finds this "natural"). Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Gauguin await them there. Gauguin reveals that his favorite era is the Renaissance, in the company of Titian and Michelangelo. And so back in time we travel again.

There is a funny interlude (still, the whole film is funny and witty) where Inez's parents hire a detective to follow Gil in his nightly escapades. Allen frames the detective in a dark doorway in the high contrast style of 1940s Film Noir, trying to hide from Gil. Later on this "detective" is seen lost running around in 17th century Versailles. Neither of these times seem to be the detective's ideal eras, but rather it is the filmmaker (Allen) who teases him (and us) by changing the backdrop according to his whim and creative fancy. I just think that Allen is biased towards "creative" people, and detectives not only don't fall in that category, but that their very role inhibits creativity.

These travels back in time aren't mere fantasy. They are Allen's way of showing us that artists are indebted to those who came before them, and do travel back in time figuratively when creating their own contemporary pieces. The film is as much a comedy about time travel as it is a gentle, imaginative exploration about how artists create. And surely, even Adriana, the modest assistant to Chanel, has chosen the rich late 19th century as her creative reference for designing and creating clothes.

Woody Allen fills this fantasy film with beautiful Paris scenes, and costumes and interiors straight out of art books. He also infuses his film with music, as he did in You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger. In Midnight in Paris, he has Cole Porter, Louis Armstrong's contemporary Sidney Bechet, and Glenn Miller's Moonlight Serenade. And many French melodies. He also reintroduces jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who was on his score for You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger.

While looking online for more references on the music from Midnight in Paris, I found a link to Duke Ellington's 1962 album of the same name. Wikipedia informs us that: "The album features performances of compositions inspired by or associated with Paris." The album has the fountain at Place de la Concorde with the Eiffel Tower in the distance on the cover (here is a current view of the fountain). Was Allen, a jazz musician himself, inspired by the Duke's music and homage to Paris to make his own film about the city? The intricate layers of influences that make a piece of art continue to unfold.

I have to admit that for all the bumbling ways of Gil, I am impressed with his choice of the 1920s. I say here:

As I wrote in my previous post on Chanel's No. 5:

During that era, film making, photography, music, theater and dance were all meshed together forming a kaleidoscope of art. The more "applied arts" like design and fashion were also taken seriously, and were included in the artistic activities.

I think if I were to relive any epoch in the short life of our galaxy, it would be the 1920s, and not because they were "roaring," but because they were so creative.

Toronto Street, Toronto

There is a tiny street, barely two blocks long, which bears the name of the city. Toronto Street is actually grander than it seems. It houses some of the important buildings of the original city of Toronto.

Toronto Street marked in red

- 10 Toronto Street housed the seventh post office of Toronto. It was built in the Greek neo-classic style by local architect Frederick Cumberland in 1853. Here is some historical and more current information about the building.

I joked with a traffic controller (actually, giver of traffic tickets) in front of the building that this colonial outpost on 10 Toronto Street could be compared to 10 Downing Street. (Number 10 in London looks much more parochial than this grand structure at Britain's outpost in North America). He didn't get my reference, nor my joke. But he did point me towards the Adelaide Street post office, the first post office of Toronto.

10 Toronto Street
[Photo by KPA]

No. 10 Toronto Street sign

- 17-19 Toronto Street were part of the Consumer Gas Company, first built in 1852, with various renovations through the centuries. 19 Toronto Street is now part of the Rosewater Restaurant. It is not clear what 17 Toronto Street houses now - it looks like office facilities.

17 Toronto Street facade
[Photo by KPA]

17-19 Toronto Street facade
[Photo by KPA]

- 23 Toronto Street is an odd, one-story glass building, clearly much more recent than the rest. It looks like some kind of private English as a Second Language school for foreign business students (which looks like it is now out of business - no pun intended. At least its website is non-functional). My (educated) guess is that whatever was originally between 19 and 23 Toronto Street was torn down.

For example, one building called The Masonic Hall built in 1858, originally on 20 Toronto Street, was demolished (what a horrible word) in 1965 during Toronto's "urban renewal" frenzy. Here is an archival photograph of the original several-storey building. What stands there now is a multi-functional high rise completed in 1963, without much character or design (the demolition was also without much character or design - a "just get rid of these old buildings" frenzy).

- 25 Toronto Street was also part of the Consumer Gas Company, and now is an Italian Restaurant. The photo of the window below is from the building. There is an inadvertent homage to the ancestral Scots in the tartan-looking curtain on the restaurant's windows. The Scots were significant players in Toronto's, and Canada's, history and formation. (Here is a link to the official Tartans of the provinces.)

25 Toronto Street
[Photo by KPA]

The buildings with even numbers, on the other side, are far less interesting, except for the post office on 10 Toronto Street, and the Excelsior Life Building on 36 Toronto Street, which still stands in its original form. It was built in 1915, and might be an early example of a high rise bordering on a sky scraper. Probably that is why it was spared, as it fit in with the "build up" mentality of the demolishers.

One interesting contemporary history about 10 Toronto street is that it was Conrad Black's head office for his Argus Corporation, and it was there where he was video taped taking out boxes of incriminating information. The building is now owned by a Canadian investment firm.

My plan was to go back to the King Edward Hotel, to photograph more of its facades, but I got lost (sidetracked?) along the way to the nearby hidden Toronto Street.

King Edward Hotel
[Photo by KPA]

Niagara Water Falls

[Slide show and photos by KPA]

I was at Niagara Falls recently. However touristy it gets, and however bottle-necked it is at the prime viewing site - right by the Horseshoe Falls - they are always majestic.

Above is a slide show I did of photos I've taken at previous visits. The water is actually a lovely ice green/blue. It looks so white and foamy seen from a distance.

(Please excuse the Photobucket logo. The slide show program is good for uploading onto blogs.)

"I'll Be Your Mirror"

Bill Cunningham was a milliner before he took on
fashion photography

I cannot say enough good things about Bill Cunningham, and the gentle ode to his artistry in the film Bill Cunningham New York. I watched it for the second time recently. Cunningham makes no ground-breaking declarations, provides no magical insight into his photography, and has no recipe to outwit the demands of hard work. He simply works hard, and cheerfully.

He allows the documentary filmmaker (after years of refusing to be the subject of his own film) to follow him around in his various assignments photographing women in fashionable clothes, whether in the streets or in the exclusive soirées of New York City. Despite his affable nature, he takes his job (that's what it is to him) seriously, at times performing seriously dangerous antics, like cycling around New York City traffic, to get it done. He says, in his out-of-place but charming Boston accent, that fashion is "the ahmor to survive the reality of everyday life," and that getting rid of fashion "would be like doing away with civilization." But no pompous expectations from him - he refuses to eat at the lush parties he photographs, he says to avoid distraction. He just chronicles his vision through his camera.

There is an especially telling moment in the documentary when he talks about the difficulties of working in New York. He indulges in this moment of uncharacteristic self pity (or perhaps it was simply his version of unedited honesty, which was caught off-guard on camera). But he almost immediately regains his composure and cheerfulness, and resumes his work looking at negatives with his signature laugh and "let's get this show on the road" gusto.

Iris Apfel, a New York philanthropist and who has worked on textile restoration projects for the White House, says that Cunningham is always kind to the women he photographs. His early job at Women's Wear Daily ended up with him quitting because the photo editors mocked the ordinary women he photographed wearing designer clothes.

There is a scene in the film where one of Cunningham's apartment neighbors in the (now former) Carnegie Hall Artist Studios has a photo of Andy Warhol amidst her rubble, and adamantly tells the filmmaker not to shoot the Warhol canvas. Cunningham, in his quick and humorous way, says that Warhol was all about taking pictures.

The end credits of the documentary plays "I'll be your mirror" by the New York band The Velvet Underground and their lead songstress Nico (the band was managed by Andy Warhol in the 1960s). I thought this was an odd piece of music to choose. The German Nico sings the song a little off-key, à la Marlene Dietrich (is she the standard for German songstresses?). Perhaps the filmmaker chose the piece for the words.

Perhaps that is how Cunningham gets his immeasurable energy, that he is the mirror to show "the beauty that you are."

Watch the film if you can, for a gentle uplift by a gentle man.

I'll be your mirror
By the Velvet Underground

I'll be your mirror
Reflect what you are, in case you don't know
I'll be the wind, the rain and the sunset
The light on your door to show that you're home

When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside you're twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands
'Cause I see you

I find it hard to believe you don't know
The beauty that you are
But if you don't let me be your eyes
A hand in your darkness, so you won't be afraid

When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside you're twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands
'Cause I see you

I'll be your mirror...