Mighty Fine.
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Good Time Boy
Mighty Fine.
Cherry St. and the Port Lands
The re-development of the Port Lands in Toronto is a big deal. There is a lot of prime downtown land opening up, and work on the infrastructure which will support new neighbourhoods is well under way.
I drove to Cherry Beach the other day. It was late morning and there was plenty of (free) parking still available. My goal was to document a walk north along Cherry St, in an effort to capture a sense of the scale of the whole Port Lands project. The walk finished with fries from the chip truck at the beach. My co-host on The Agency Podcast, Candy Minx claims this truck has the best poutine in Toronto (discuss in the comments).
I hope you find this video to be an eye-opening glimpse at an area of huge future development, tucked in beside downtown.
I drove right to the beach. There is a bus to Cherry Beach that runs from the Distillery District. Another great option is to rent a bicycle downtown and enjoy a ride through the Port Lands. I was there during the week. Parking pretty much filled up by about 1:00 pm in the beach lots. I bet on weekends it fills quickly.
If you are enjoying my Rediscovering my Toronto videos, a great way to support the channel is by subscribing. It’s free and my videos will show up in your feed when published. If I get some impossible number of subscribers, I can earn a few bucks from YouTube. That seems very very far away. Good thing I’m doing this because we have a great city and I want to get out and experience it in a new way.
Necropolis
In today’s vlog, I take a leisurely stroll through Toronto’s historic Necropolis Cemetery, located in Cabbagetown, on the west side of the Don River Valley. It is a beautiful and serene place, with monuments to many Torontonians going back to the 1850s.
Double Rook Sacrifice Wins in 9 Moves
Fabi Caruana crushed Alireza Firouzja in 9 moves with 2 rook sacrifices. Even Grandmasters blunder. Watch the reaction of the commentators when Firouzja falls into the trap.
A Big Yellow Parade
I was walking east on Bloor from Bathurst, shooting video, when a parade appeared, featuring many people dressed in yellow and many people banging drums.
Bikers
Special guest for today’s episode is Anthony Stagg, the artist known as Stagg. This was recorded at Agency World Headquarters in Toronto Canada.
Listen here or find it at all the good places.
This episode:
Stagg in Kensington Market
Busking
Toronto: change and traffic
Flaming Hot
The Bike Riders (and other biker stories)
Drive Away Dolls
Email the Agents anytime.
In the studio, late 90s
I had some very enjoyable years living and working in the old casket factory at Niagara and Tecumseth back in the 90s. In this photo, I’m showing recent paintings to my friend, painter Claude Breeze. I recall exhibiting the one on the right in c.1997 an exhibition I co-organized with Sheila Gregory, and several other artists. The painting on the left, called Underground, was a fave of mine at that time.
Painting on an outdoor wall
This huge triptych no longer exists. I don’t remember the title. This would have been in the late 90s. I recall I hung it on the wall behind the 89-109 complex to take advantage of outdoor light on an overcast day for photos. The building formed a U-shape with a parking lot out back. In this photo, the rail tracks are directly behind the wall, followed by Fort York, then the Gardener Expressway, and behind that, the old Molson plant, which, like this painting, no longer exists.
I used to carry storage space for my paintings, but after many years I found there was no market my old paintings and they had become an albatross to me. I destroyed this painting (and many others) in an effort to reduce my painting storage cost, because to not put too fine a point on it, I had to live,and I created far more paintings than I was able to sell. I just couldn’t stop myself from making more. I guess that’s the nature of a vocation like painting.
I remember that after the painting purge during which I destroyed this painting, I talked to someone at my day job about it. She was angry with me. “You can’t just destroy your paintings.” “Yes I can. I made them. I can destroy them.” “No, you have a responsibility to protect these creations.” And so I asked, “when was the last time you bought a work of art from a living Canadian artist?” Crickets. End of discussion.
We had managed to reduce our painting storage considerably, but we were still holding on to a storage space, when the storage people decided it was time to double our rent. We found homes for a good number of the paintings then left the storage space, determined to never again give one penny to those robber barons.
For now at least, I’ve brought enough paintings into the world. The last group of paintings I made was during the midst of the pandemic. I’ve been making mosaics with Sheila on a commission-only basis. As well, I’ve been making occasional books of collages, focusing on playing fiddle and recently, making videos for my YouTube channel, Rediscovering my Toronto. Along the way, I also wrote a graphic novel, which was beautifully illustrated by my friend Jacob Yerex. There are many ways to live a creative life.
Stagg in the studio
Stagg has been staying with us and painting up a storm in my studio. He’s been taking paintings fresh from the studio, to Kensington Market every few days and selling them on the street. If you like his paintings, contact me and I’ll get you and Stagg together to negotiate some great deals. Stagg’s work is very reasonably priced.
Buy a Fabulous Toronto Landmark
Today I trundled on over to the east side of town to have a look at what has become a Toronto Landmark, the Leslieville Doll House. I love the obsessive creative spirit the folks who have lived there long-term possessed. Now they are moving on and they’ve put the place up for sale.
Thank you to realtor Nadine Comeau for taking a few minutes to chat with me this afternoon.
27th Street 