... for the love of beards...

I have been following this blog ever since i first got a reader... in fact, it was the very first blog i ever added to my reader....

I love that she's been writing about, collecting images and even making beard crafts for almost 2 years...

loves it!

ps. if you want to secure my undying love or one whopper of a good mood, get me one of her yarn beards... i so want one

... how much do i want this...

.... this may even force me to break my NO DECALS rule....

especially since my laptop is starting to look like shit....

Urban Adventurist: The Junction

The Junction is the Bermuda triangle of Toronto. Everyone has heard of it, not many have been there. The truth is, most people have no idea exactly where it is. And once you go there, there is no coming back. People disappear into the Junction, never to be seen from again. It was armed with only this knowledge that I left for my adventure.

(Ed Note*** This is in no way meant to be any sort of a travel guide. It chronicles the journey from my house to this place, and includes anything of interest I see along the way. If you were planning to use this to plan your day trip.... well... don't do that. Not unless you were planning on leaving from and returning to my house)View Urban Adventurist: The Junction in a larger mapI got off to a little bit of a rough start, heading straight north from my house and ending up in a little bit of a sketchy neighbourhood just north and east of Bloor and Dufferin. Urban Adventures need to happen in a place you feel safe getting lost and wandering around in. When you have your phone out and 9-1 dialed (finger hovering over the last 1), you know you have to find a new street to walk on.

But I quickly got my groove back by hopping onto Wallace heading west. 2 minutes later I stumbled upon the

watertower at the corner of Ward and Wallace. It doesn't look like much. But any local tech geek worth his facebook status knows that this abandoned building is the home to the new office of Ubisoft. Its pretty cool that they found a space this big in a building that has some history behind it. No

t sure what it was in its heyday, but it brings a very industrial age to mind. Which is funny, because I guess animators and game designers are just the factory workers of the new millenium. You need a TONNE of them to get out any mass of product, performing repetitive and highly specialized craft skills.

These guys just get more than minimum wage, and have drum sets and pool tables in the break room.

This office is going to go a loooong way to bringing more peeps into this hood, and lending some cache and importance to the drive to name this area. You can check out the issue and discussion thus far at fuzzyboundaries.ca

After Ubisoft I really feel into the swing. Its fun to come to a corner and make a last minute decision on your direction. If you sort of blank out and follow your nose you stumble on some great stuff. Next on my list was Yasi's Place. I had been there once before with a friend I love and havent seen in FOREVER, but never quite new where i was. Now I know, its the corner of Wallace and Campbel. And its just about the cutest thing ever. The menu is stellar (and vegetarian friendly, for those of you who tend to the herbivoric) and it just s

eems like a great place to cuddle up with a book on a bleak day.

That was not, however, on my agenda, so I trundled on along Wallace, reaching the end and the greatest pedestrian bridge i have discovered in Toronto in all my 28-some-odd years. Apparently it has been there s

ince at least 1932, as this picture shows. Which is very cool. I really dig that about these walks, and Toronto in general. I am always able to unearth some history. Don't get me wrong, I know I am no archaeological excavator. But stuff like this, and the water tower at Ward reminds me that there was a time BEFORE, stories and people that are all but forgotten in the new world of neighbourhoods we think we are discovering for the first time. I mean, we all talk about how we are "discovering" or "introducing" Leslieville, or The Junction or whatever. But its been around forever.

Anyway, up and over I went, and saw a bit of the Junctions greenery from overhead right before I plunged back into it.

The next twenty or thirty minutes was really just pointless wandering and real estate lusting. I have finally reached a point in my life where people are actually acquiring property. Its weird, to have friends that OWN houses... I am so so so far away from it. but still, it makes me look, and lust, at houses. H

ouses with big windows, houses with too many stairs to the front door, houses with driveways, houses with porches, and balconies, and turrets and additions.... By the time the bank will trust me enough with a mortgage (and it will be awhiiiiiiiiile) I will be ready to go.

I think I need to live near a park. I grew up a block away from one, and I loved it. And I want my (future and entirely hypothetical) kids to have one. The one in this neighbourhood is pretty cool. Baird Park is your typical, mid-city space, open with a playground and a wading pool. But it also happens to be the home to the West Toronto Lawn Bowling League, which is pretty fucking awesome. There was one in the park near my house as a kid. I never played. But always associate the sport with childhood. Maybe I will try it out this ummer. I think its like bocci ball.... but I have to get together some whites.

From there I was pretty much officially in The Junction proper, signified by the development of any historic space into lofts. I counted 5 churches in a 2 block radius around Anette and High Park Rd, 3 were being condo-fied.

And when I reached the main drag at Dundas I found many many businesses accomodating the furnishing of these new lofts by young hipsters in the style to which they have become accustomed (and will demand, cheap)

Mjolk (there is an umlaut supposed to be in there somewhere) is a kickin' design shop at 2959 Dundas St W. It is way out of price range (signifying its quality) but has stuff I would trade my left arm for (signifying my taste). Its only been open since December, but the kids are discovering it fast. The place was packed. I went in thinking i found the hot Junction bar... turns out, it was just shopping day on Dundas.

Smash has been around a little longer, I am told. But its definitely not tired or 'done' yet. Smash is a store and gallery that specializes in salvage and restoration of kooky and kitsch. They were clsoing up when I was walking by. But if you get there soon, you will be able to see the nose print i left from smooshing my face up against the glass to peer inside at themounds of treasures stacked to the ceiling. A quick run across the street will show you a twin set of smudgy nose prints as the stores "warehouse" is a glass front across the way. Its like eye candy treasure for a design freak like yours truly, and definitely worth the trip to the Junction even to stare through the windows at.

The last place on the journey, before officially heading for home was for a much needed caffeine jolt. And if I was judging a neighbourhood by its coffee shops alone. The Junction would be worth its weight in fair trade Colombian. My cuppa came from Cool Hand of A Girl, a cute shop that is bare cept for the things it needs to deliver sweet sweet caffeine rushes to my bloodstream.

So thats it, my day in the Junction. Well, if you take a look at the map you will see I doubled back and around a bit before heading for home. This was completely unintentional... Its just I had absolutely no idea what direction I was headed in, until I happened upon the West Toronto Lawn Bowling clubhouse, from the exact same direction I had encountered it the first time.

I have a theory on this, because I am generally REALLY REALLY REALLY good with direction.... like I NEVER get lost. But when Dundas curves up the entire grid pattern that Toronto is built on swivels around. Everything going south is now west, everything east is north... its discombobulating.

But maybe thats why, when people go into The Junction, they so rarely come out again....

... blown right away....

.... between a longstanding love for film, a healthy respect for architecture, a nearly fetishistic obsession with design and a newfound respect for the sheer AMOUNT and quality of work this kind of animation requires I must say that Alex Roman's film The Third & The Seventh literally BLEW MY MIND this morning....

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Seriously, you must go full screen to enjoy this....

.... best way i have found to support a charity today!...

If you buy this duvet cover, screen-printed to resemble cardboard boxes, the proceeds go to support a dutch homeless shelter....

Now thats thinking outside the box....

I realize most of the people who read this are located a little west of the atlantic and probably are worried about the homeless problem at home.... Well, for all you Noprth American Stylistas/Philanthropists.... go here to get the duvet, help out some dutch people, then go here to make a donation to the United Way...


oh, yeah, I am scouring the interweb for new duvet covers to go with my kickass new apartment... description coming soon, as are the horror stories from my search!

... a new post to combat boredom and spread the creepy....

...yeah, that's right... I am posting again... what of it...

I spent the morning trying to find the name of this sculptor whose work i saw on display at the new contemporary galleries as the transformed AGO...

I even got the few remaining drones at TIFFG this holiday season in on the party... Dave and Meg and I spent an hour entering google searches with combinations of

"face" "sculpture" "silicone" "creepy" "mashed up" "toronto" "Art Gallery of Ontario" "contemporary" "stretchy" and "squishy"....

and finally we landed on Even Penny...


I cannot describe to you the sensation of eerie creepus-maximusness that grabs hold when you view his works... The one in the AGO is like the one at left... a normal face, just elongated... please, do not attempt to adjust your screen, it is actually just stretched out like that, but in every other way an exact replica of a human face... each hair is real and individually added, each pore is porously there, the lips, the nexk, the everything is real...

... and the face is about 6ft tall, and just staring at you... and you keep thinking he's gonna open his mouth and ask you what the fuck it is you think you are looking at.... it's a total head trip, mindfuck....

... and Evan Penny, a Toronto-based artist, does lots of them... different distortions, angular views, human backs.. its freaking creepy. My current favourite is the project he did with Michael Awad, another favourite local artist of mine




Freaky freaky y'all.... sweet dreams

... i have this weird project ongoing....

... My dad has always, for as long as i can remember, with only one exception, had some type of facial hair... Mostly I remember a full beard and mustache combo... for a while, in the 90's he had a goattee instead. I think it matched his collarless shirts and John Lennon glasses better....

And there was one day, when I was about 8 that he shaved it all off, on whim. My sister and i, as was our custom, rushed up the stairs to my parents bedroom one saturday morning to find him cleanshaven. I was aghast. My sister thought that my mother was having an affair with my uncle. That's how convinced she was that the shorn version of my dad was an impostor (she was kinda dumb back then though... or six, however you want to spin it)

Anyway, facial hair has always had a presence in my life.. is what I am getting at here... Thats the main thrust of this post... that i am writing... now... here on blogger...

And a while ago i found this:




and I printed it and posted it on my office window (if i have never mentioned this before, the only window in my office looks out on... the hallway of my office... I have taken to filling it with amusing odds and ends)... I also sent it to everyone I knew with the hormonal cocktail ideal for facial hair growth (this was most guys I knew... some are still in their "peach fuzz" phase of life...) with the challenge to create and send me all the types....

This met mostly with failure. One stalwart and amazing friends sent me a few... which I promptly lost....

But then I found this and I no longer have to rely on men!!!! (yay, another way)

I will be ordering the full gamut pretty soon.

... project fox....

Volkswagon has long since been the car of the new generation. the hippies, the yuppies, or the yuppy-puppies (read, today's new urban hipster), VW has been a car that is driving them to a new world, of discovery, and bringing their ideology to the world....

That is why it fits that they are behind Project Fox....It's really cool. It started out with the designing of the new Fox 21. Which took to the road a couple years ago. But as part of the launch VW sponsored the creation of Hotel Fox in Copenhagen. It has 61 rooms, and 21 artists were commissioned to create each of the spaces as an individual environment/installation. It's pretty awesome. Similar to the hotel at the Galdstone in Toronto, or the Hotel du Petit Moulin in Paris.

However, unlike these spaces, this was designed by strictly visual artists, with no prior experience in Interior Design. The result is quite amazing. They think so too, they also think so about the experience of its creation, as you can see in the video found on the hotels website....

Finally, the hotel has given new chefs reign over its kitchen, and thus the hotel resto is home to some of the most creative and unique culinary displays on the planet... it's all new, and all available to the public.

I really need to get there... and stay in as many of the rooms as possible.

wiki-vision

so, another person who is way smarter than i has created another kick ass website that I can waste hours on.

Wikipediavision lets you watch in real time where in the world the updates to wikipedia are coming from. It shows a map of the world and up pops a google location buble, telling you the location and the title of the article on the (english version) wikipedia.

It only shows the edits done to articles by people whose IPs are not hidden, but still

I have spent the last 20 minutes mesmerized by these popping-up bubbles. people editing entries on things i have never heard of,..... it's just an illustration of how random, wide and quick changing the world imagination which is the internet can be....

...i usually hate commercials...

....having worked on them a bunch, and watching too much television I am a diligent hater of commercial breaks (sorry jon, but you know its true, they suck)....

however, this commercial for Sony Bravia is amazing... the whole campaign is great, but this one is especially genius... my favourite part's the clown......

...which of these are in your bookmarks?.....

....this is nutty....

...um...hi....yeah.....

.... i need this phone!....

...but, as all cool phones, it will probably not be available in Canada, for at least 6 years, if at all.....

...but I covet it, how cool is it?

...from god's mouth to his.... lego....

... best thing of the day....

... my first ten commandments....

...art is dead....

....my grandma made me take calligraphy lessons as a kid..... and I still have awful handwriting... I cannot think of any situation where I would not print... I still even refer to it as cursive writing... and the mere sound of those words coming out of my mouth makes me sound like a kid pretending to be a grrown up....

...Grammy, on the other hand, has beautiful penmanship.... and still owns many quills, fountian pens, bottles of ink, sheets of parchment, nibs, nubs and all that crap used to make the aesthetics of words live up to the potential of their meaning...

that's why I think she would love Betsy Dunlap. A caliigraphic artist, she puts a modern age in a classic art, that both me and grammy can enjoy....

...masterstroke...

...last nite i went out for a couple of drinks with Jason Miller...


...He's in town for the opening of Ministry of the Interior (whose official site isn't up yet, so I am posting a link to a review in sweetspot.ca)... MotI is a new concept store opening this week at 80 Ossington (just north of Queen, right near where the Sparrow was til recently). The space is set up as part-store, part-gallery, and all awesome. Jason MacIsaac has been working on it since earlier this year, gutting what was once an auto-body shop to prepare the now-raw space for peculiar and intrigueing home design accesories for the urban hipster set.....


...What results is a space that sells really cool home accessories... lamps, furniture, plates, wallpaper, bedding, etc.... but also serves as a show space for new, fresh, creative and forward-thinking designers that are making there mark on the world of interiors... He set up a "designer in residence" program that will allow him to host a rotating roster of wunderkind.... selling these higher pricetag pieces to those that can afford, and letting the rest of us simply admire and drool (although try not to stand to close to the pieces if you choose to actually salivate)


.... And in the grand tradition of Opening Soon... I got a call late monday night to come down and help assemble lamps and wipe down plates in preparation for the Tuesday soft launch... my thumb is still sore from the "easy to assemble" David Trubridge lamps....



They are simple enough... but I wouldn't advise putting together more than one without the aid of a thimble (who knew those still had a use in the modern world)... they are well worth it though, as they throw playful shadows around the room and have the appeal of appearing to be caught in their birthday suits....


When I got to the store, amidst the chaotic painting, assembling, cleaning and stress was one installed piece of work... the centre piece of the back room and the first exhibit in the residency program that MacIsaac was running was Jason Miller's Antler Chandelier...

...Wallpaper named him as one of the best breakthrough designers of 2007... but he has been around for a while now, being pointed out (by those ahead of the curve...ahem, ahem) since at least 2005... (i'm just saying...c'mon Wallpaper)

The photo at the right is actually a smaller version of what is hanging in the store, but it looked so familiar to me that (several hours, countless blisters and two lamps) later I went back through the archives of the long since deleted former blog of mine "Masterstroke" (which, by the way, means "feat of genius" and besides being completely narcissistic as a blog title, also seemed appropriate as a name of this post, both in reference to Miller's work, and the newly opened Ministry of the Interior) and found an entry that I had written in early 2005 about the Canadian design collective Motherbrand. Apparently I had been quite taken with their Cabin show, which re-analyzed the traditional canadian cottage items for a new millenium, and had gone trolling for other reconstituted Canadiana..... and found this.....


The chandelier, as he told us yesterday over beers at Sweaty Betty's, has become the staple of Miller's collection... as he put it so eloquently, "it pays the bills."

...He also assured me that only one deer has ever been harmed in the creation of these lamps....

But Miller is no oneder... (for all of you who don't immediately jump to your late 20th century film reference library and mentally scroll to That Thing You Do, that is one-der.... or, one hit wonder... had to get a pun in here)...

His body of work has only been getting better, and everything is just as quirky, imaginative and fun.


A couple of my favourites:

The tea sets are reconstituted and given new patterns... the piece is called "seconds" and the text from Miller's website actually made me laugh out loud... so I am quoting it here:

"Products that are "seconds" are products that are not quite right. They are imperfect and somehow of lesser value. But who made the rules? Who says a flower can't grow down? Who says a whole bird is any better than half a bird?


conventions are for suckers "


The Duct tape Chair was, apparently, according the Ministry of the Interior manager Julie, what drew them to Miller's work in the first place... and was, according to her, how MotI ended up with a residence programme at all..... She told me that her and MacIsaac saw this chair and "just had to have it", but it was way too expensive for the start-up to stock right away.... So Julie emailed Miller, who was just finishing up a string of shows, and ruined, his quiet, lazy summer, roping him into being the shining star of this kickass stores premiere.....

...it's a tough life for the talented.... really... my heart goes out to the talented and jet-set young Miller, who must spend his life being creative and playing with conventions.....

....He is a great guy though, and cute too (that's him staring dreamily into the mirror in the photo below). With his laid-back smile and an aura of mischief about him...

I can see how people are attracted to the objects that spill out of his head... he is returning the playfulness of the things you had in your room as a kid to the adult-lescents of today.... adding aesthetics to games....

I for one, could not be more excited to finally get a chance to gaze my way into his daydream mirrors, which I haven't gotten a chance to see yet in person....

But I will, the store is open now at 80 Ossington (at the corner of Humbert), and Miller's work will be there for a while... get there and check it out.....

...if anyone wants to buy me a present....

... i would definitely put out for this....

...i mean, maybe just first base.... it is only a book after all... but i am a pretty good kisser.....

...if you really loved me you'd just get it for me....


Manhattan Oases: New York's 1932 Speak-Easies, with a Gentleman's Guide to Bars and Beverages by Gordon Kahn
by Al Hirschfeld; With An Introduction By Heywood Broun

By 1932, with a feeling that Prohibition was ending, Al Hirschfeld decided to use his artistic skill to document the various speakeasies around Manhattan. This is a first edition of Manhattan Oases, featuring thirty-six drawings of bartenders by Hirschfeld and a witty guide to "bars and beverages" by Gordan Kahn.

...coolest job of the day!....

... I am tempted to restart this whole"working world" thing in order to try and get on a path that would lead me to this job...

How awesome would it be to simply create libraries for people with insane amounts of money and enough interest in books (or at least an interest in looking like they are interested in books) to hire someone to find you good ones......

God, I think i am going to bed tonight dreaming about having a life in which I would pick up my morning starbucks, head into my cool office at the Strand and try and continue my search for the original Boccioni "Manifesto of Futurist Painters" for Beck.... and then start to introduce him to some new street artists that I think he would like....

Fuck, and I thought I already liked my job.... now I have career envy..... Damn you New York Magazine....

...virtual//reality....

NowNow Gallery has been created as a simple and accessible platform for the presentation of photography both Australian and International.

The online gallery, based out of Australia aims to give exposure to contemporary photographers who are committed to documenting the way they live. As these photographers' galleries evolve, it will inevitably become kaleidoscopic. At the very least, giving an alternative view of what we know. And at best, giving us a whole new way of looking.

The site is pretty incredible in general And the blog is superfun

But right now I am totally obsessed with a series of entries that they entitled desktop//desktop. The entries asked each photographer who contributes to the gallery to send a screengrab of their computer desktop, that appears on their monitor, and also to send a photo of the desk the computer is on so that we can see what the actual "desk top" is like.... I love it we are virtually ale to consume the actual reality as well as the now (twice) removed virtual reality of a human we have never even met (or heard of in most cases).... It's more intense than the Hills or Big Brother, and best not to think to hard about....

i will post mine once i remember to bring my camera to work... but here's the screen shot for now:

...if you have kids....

...or know kids, or can get your hands on any kids....


GO TO THIS!!!!!!



Demolition Art House.... insanity... there is a boarded up house that is slotted for demo in the fall... well, the neighbours are letting kids (under the guidance of resident artists) create.... whatever.... and apply it to the exterior of the house, creating a huge, cooperative living piece of art..... kickass...

how fucking cool..... Any kid that does this is guaranteed to grow up cooler than if it had been missing from their lives

... i spill a lot....

... the other night I told a friend of mine how brave she was for wearing a white dress....

...she gasped, eyes widening with bewilderment and asked me, tentatively..."why?"

It took me a minute to realize she thought I was calling her a big fat heifer.... I guess there is a certain connotation that white can make a girl look... extra jolly... but no, my natural gut always associates white with the patches of oddly-formed discolouration left behind after i spill a little bit of... whatever it is happens tyo be in my hand.... food, drink, a dropped pen... my clothes all bear the phantom badges left by my daily adventures.... and no more prominently than my white clothes...

Which is probably why THIS appealed to me straight away and so much....

a great and fashionable tool for the uber-klutz hostess... it's a wine tray that is basically two levels... the bottom flat and the top punched out... so that there is a round whole for a bottle of wine to nestle in , and a slot into which you can slide up to four wine glasses. Managing to carry everything without spilling a drop....

What a fantastic idea.... It's available exclusively online. I suggest buying it directly from the manufacturers... MuNiMulA. They are a small design firm in Michigan, and it's always good to support those indie hipster rockin designers...