Hey.

What are you doing Thursday night?

Come see this. At Joe’s pub. Live.

In your brain.

It might do you some good.

There’s been much talk about the 1968 student demonstrations on the Columbia campus these days. About the spirit of rebellion and protest embodied by that particular class forty years ago. You know, way back when the school had all these racist, classist plans for expansion and there was a nasty, unpopular war going on.

On April 25th I’m marking my own protest day, my own day of thanks for small miracles, held hands, linked elbows, and flaring tempers. It’s taken me nearly three decades and hundreds of kilometres to understand where I come from, and to learn both the dirtiest and the most glorious secrets about those who came before. And there are a plenty of both. I could tell you some things, but I’ve got a flight to catch. Better get some shut eye, wake up bright and early, check things off my list. Il faut se battre. I just wish we could tap into that sentiment today…

Had the loveliest conversation with Dr. Winford James of the University of the West Indies this afternoon, and he pointed me to page 409 of the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage:

And then there are romantics like Pico Iyer who, like, totally disagree. More revelations to come!
You unkempt looking knockabouts!

Today the air was heavy, cool with moisture. The city smelled like:
urine,
sweat,
garbage juice,
fried fat,
wet soil,
cucumbers.

The MoMA screened a crop of new Canadian feature films all last week, and I skipped out on responsibilities for an evening to go see the latest work by one of my favorite (or in this case, favourite) directors of all time: Denys Arcand.

In the recent future of his “L’Âge des ténèbres“, the n-word has been banned. Some of this is lost in translation, lost in the nuances of Joual, and perhaps complicated by Arcand’s awkwardness with racism, racist lead characters, and supporting characters-of-colour that never quite seem to stand up for themselves (all of which may be on purpose — perhaps making his portrayals all the more brilliant). But, delicacies aside, any and all applications of the n-word in Quebec are inexcusably, unforgivably interdit. In one scene, the word nègre slips from the protagonist’s lips (dull, disillusioned, trapped in a lifeless and bureaucratic job, he says it during a snarky confrontation with his white boss), and he’s nearly sidelined by a workplace intervention. They are very serious, they explain, about enforcing legislation. When the sole black man in the room tries to step up, they dismiss his opinions — what he thinks doesn’t matter. There’s no room for discussion.

But there *is* some discussion here.

The good folks at Cyberkrib alerted me to a recent TV piece by poet and style icon Clifton Joseph, where he explores the use of the n-word in Canada by way of hip-hop. (For those of us currently not based in Canada, the video can be accessed here — Windows Media Player alert.)

Clifton brings up some interesting and valid points, and I was happy to see that he went beyond the Usual Suspects(™) for his interview subjects, but I feel as though there was a huge chunk of the story missing.

The most interesting element of this discussion could have been the context of the n-word in Canada. Tristan touches on this in his interview, but Clifton really only gets into it himself in the post-script to the segment:

I was born and raised, until adolescence, in Antigua & Barbuda, in the West Indies. I had never heard the word “nigger” there, and had no idea what it meant, until moving to Toronto in the early 1970s. Then, I was introduced to it thru books, popular culture and black comedians, especially one of my all-time favourites, Richard Pryor, as exemplified on his 1974 album “That Nigger’s Crazy”. I didn’t use the word myself, but listened to it and laughed at the jokes it was in.

But the frivolities around the word were wiped out for me in 1975, when white supremacist Ronald Steven Ryan shot and killed 15-year-old Michael Habbib around Fairview Mall in Toronto after declaring that he was going to kill “the first nigger” he saw. Habbib was working a part-time job in a merry-go-round set up in the mall’s parking lot, and me and my friends realized that it could have been any one of us, that we could have been that “nigger”.

There is no one central, unifying, dominant narrative of black identity in Canada, at least not in the way that one exists in the United States. Among the most distinct and prominent histories, though, is that of Caribbeans who migrated to Toronto and other urban centres in the 60s and 70s. Clifton fits somewhere into that story, as do many of the second generation friends I grew up with, and their parents.

I would have loved to hear the story of the n-word as seen or felt through that context, through that history. I would have loved to see an exploration of how elements of a dominant American black narrative have clashed with and influenced identity in Canada, how those clashes are affecting intergenerational relationships, how young people find justifications and reasons to relate, and how all of this plays out through music, art, activism. This goes far beyond simply discussing the n-word, it’s history, and its potential merits or offenses. Far, far beyond.

In trying to ban that word, what else would be banned? What discussions would be shut down? What sort of climate would that create? Would we find ourselves in a Denys Arcand reality, vacuumed and sterile?

There’s still a lot to be told, and a lot to be explored.

7500 words later, masters project DONE.

Now it’s sitting in a box somewhere, waiting to be bound and shelved.

I call this one “Hey! I wanted to read that!” or “Subway Advertisements I Don’t Agree With.”

Today, one the holiest of journalistic holy days, the distinguished newspaper and magazine editors that make up the Pulitzer Prize jury are milling about my school building, nibbling on refreshments and contemplating the year’s best work in print. As they deliberate, I feel I should take a moment to do some reflecting and praising of my own.

Three years ago one of my favourite places to freelance went bust. The CBC Radio 3 Magazine was a beautiful, visually and culturally rich, 105-issue-deep online treat. I can’t imagine how much bandwidth for each new issue cost every week, and I don’t really want to know, but I’m willing to bet that it was worth it.

(I know I’ve bellyached about their heavy emphasis on indie rock in the past, but coming from someone who spent years covering and promoting rap, that’s more a general complaint of Canadian music media. I couldn’t help going to bat for it, and ended up shipping half my independent hip hop CD collection to HQ back when I worked on an hour-long audio doc about the Toronto scene. Most of those artists, who later ended up on Radio 3’s regular rotation, had no idea how their music originally made it’s way on the air. But that’s another story.)

I was lucky that my Radio 3 producers let me do most of the stories and interviews I pitched, both for the magazine and the radio show, and that they respected my work enough to publish it largely unedited. The magazine was put together by people who genuinely loved music. People who loved photography, loved art, loved storytelling, and loved sharing it. The online magazine was funny and beautiful and I looked forward to every new issue, every new assignment. Too bad it was so chronically under-promoted. Sometimes being a “best-kept secret” is not such a great thing.

Three years ago, I was crushed to hear the news of the magazine’s demise. A lot changed at Radio 3. They overhauled the website. Started a blog. Got their own channel on satellite radio. I made the shift to broadcast and produced a few pieces for air, but slowly pulled away once the final switch to satellite was made. I think I felt a little alienated by all the changes.

Summer of 2006, I paid a visit to Radio 3’s Vancouver HQ for the first time, and was happy to meet some of the hilarious, wonderful producers that had helped me out so much in the past. They took a chance on a random rap writer from Toronto, and let me be a part of something pretty special. Many of them are still there, and still doing creative and wonderful things with the satellite channel, the podcasts, and a hilarious foray into video-casting. There’s still too much indie rock, of course.

The magazine is archived in its entirety on the Radio 3 website, and I hope they keep it up for as long as they can. The navigation is a little counter-intuitive, so you may need to do a little investigating and experimenting to find your way around. Click ‘archive’ at the bottom to go through older issues. Type my name into the search box if you want to see what I got up to back then, and please make sure you’re good on the pop-up tip. Top right corner has your page forward and back buttons. Sometimes, especially for the larger features, you’ll have to click directly on the text or an image to navigate.

I still really like going through some of the stories on there, especially the visual features. If you’ve got a moment, go take a peek, explore, click some buttons, listen. If it was a secret while it was active, now that it’s inactive it may as well be dead. There’s no reason something this good should be subjected to such a lonely, loveless death. Long live Radio 3.

Thomas Edison on loop. From the perma-installation on American Identities at the Brooklyn Museum.

Thanks to a hookup from fellow Poundling Angelica, I’ve jumped aboard the New Amerykah Badu-wagon. It’s a beautiful record, and schizophrenic just the way I like it. Everyone seems to be feeling ‘The Hump’ extra hard, but I’m still trying to listen without looking at song titles. Do yourself a favo(u)r, take the time to let it sink in as a whole, to let the pieces and patches bleed together.

It means a lot to find a piece of exciting, loving music these days. So much of my identity used to be framed and punctuated by the music I listened to, the music I was paid to write about. I don’t know what happened, but I lost that… loving feeling. Which is okay. I’ll stay bored and detached from it as long as I need to. Other things have been framing and punctuating my days — texts, images, conversations, tides, windchills, textiles.

I’ve never been able to understand identity, or taste, as anything less than fluid. My takes on citizenship, immigration especially, and other physical markers are influenced by my (family’s) own continent-hopping, and by the lessons I picked up as a kid from the other kids on the block with similar emigrant or émigré stories. Émigré. Rhymes with gourmet, betray, folkway. Segue.

Here’s an excerpt from part one of The Border by William Langewiesche. The Atlantic, May 1992:

The twin cities of El Paso and Juárez, with a combined population of 2 million, mark the midpoint of the border. This is where the Rio Grande, having flowed due south from its origin in the Rockies, snakes through a gap in the desert mountains and turns southeast. It is also where the two halves of the boundary join: to the west the line runs crisply across the deserts; to the east it rides a more ambiguous midchannel course through the curves of the Rio Grande.

As it flows between El Paso and Juárez, the river is hemmed in by levees. We drove for a time along the northern side. On the opposite shore the tin and cardboard shantytowns of Juárez sprawled over low hills. The Juárez slums are as bad as the shantytowns I know in West Africa. They are less crowded than but as bad as the slums of Bombay. A gully spewed black water into the river. Tainted upstream by agricultural runoff and sewage, the Rio Grande swallowed the filth easily. A family bathed among the bushes. Out of modesty the women washed themselves with their dresses on; the men had stripped down to their shorts. They stood in the water and watched us pass. Ahead the bridges between Juárez and El Paso spanned the river. A rowboat heavy with passengers nosed against the U.S. shore, bypassing Immigration. One woman couldn’t climb the steep embankment. Others, who had made it to the top of the levee, went back down to help her.

Sealed in the air-conditioned minivan, we crept through the crowd on the levee. There were about a hundred people, getting their bearings and watching for the Border Patrol. Though the levee is technically U.S. territory, in practice it is neutral soil; retreat to the river is easy. The crowd was mostly local — unemployed Juárez youths without border-crossing cards, going to El Paso for the day. Some were going farther; they might have come from the interior of Mexico, or from Central or South America. These travelers carried suitcases and scurried away from the van. The locals were not so shy. Recognizing the Boundary Commission seal on the door, they tapped on the roof, peered through the windows, smirked and joked. They begged cigarettes, which we did not have. Boys stood in our way nonchalantly, showing off for girls.

Gunaji seemed oblivious. He spoke about his decision to become an American citizen. His older sister objected, but he insisted. “I told her, ‘I’m going to serve India by staying out of India.’”

I interrupted him. “Doesn’t it seem odd, if you think back, to find yourself managing this boundary?” I gestured toward the crowd.

He looked annoyed. “In the United States I have always tried to participate in the workings of government. I served on the Las Cruces City Council. Now I serve as commissioner. I am happy such an honor has been bestowed upon my family. A nation needs its boundaries, no?”

I nodded yes. You need a them to have an us.

All sorts of identities are defined in this way, not just the most obvious, political ones. And when self only exists in opposition to another, in the absence of an-other, you must invent one. Is that why war is so important? Assert your own existence by destroying that of others?

I know I’ve said it before, and I know I wasn’t the first to spell this out. That: the idea(l) of a static, definable, distinct identity — one with strict, defendable borders — is dangerous and toxic and boring, and it doesn’t work. Whether it be in terms of music, nationalism, subculture, it’s not healthy. I wonder what came first, though — the border or the enemy discourse? The threat or the wall? How does one define the other?

Solidao, 1969.

My father never got used to the taste of mint toothpaste. His appetite was robust and his stomach enviably strong, but there were three things that I knew always made him want to wretch: the smell or taste of roast lamb, the smell or taste of cheese, and toothpaste. I never thought to ask him what he had used to clean his teeth as a kid (did they even have toothbrushes back then? if he couldn’t afford shoes, could he have afforded colgate? what about that sorriso pepsodent?), and became accustomed to hearing him gag and curse as he brushed before bed each night.

His voice was, and still is, a warm, low rumble. A perfect tenor. And my mom’s a perfect fadista. I remember making pause tapes and recording random sounds around the house, even at a young age, but I wish I had thought to record my mom singing, at least once. She sang usually when she thought she was alone — working, sewing, cleaning — in time to a machine’s loud rumble or the vacuum’s whir. Her voice traveled throughout the house, filled up the basement, wound up the stairs, under my door, and through my headphones. The high notes were loveliest, and even now the memory of the sound pinches my throat. I used to creep closer to her, duck down on the stairs or behind a wall, just to hear her better. She reads my blog, so I guess now she knows.

It was years before I realized that many of those songs were made famous by Amalia Rodrigues. I had a conversation about Amalia the other day. She brought an oppressive sadness to Fado that it had never had before, said the other. She was a disturbed individual. Depressed and agitated and complex, and her love songs were almost always sad songs, but I don’t care. There’s something so beautiful about her kind of rawness. Yes, she fused Fado with an almost unshakable legacy of misery and saudade, one that has permeated and stretched across all sorts of Portuguese cliches, but every time this woman’s voice brings me to tears — and she does bring me to tears — it’s delicious. The older her voice, the more tortured, the more desperate, the more complex… She didn’t even have to try. She didn’t have to sing. It just happened.

I’ve been investigating past, present, patria, beloved dictators, graceful revolutions, the psychology of my peoples, citizenship and belonging, all as part of some neverending, almost irritating fascination with identity. Pot’s on the boil, I’ll be back to regular programming soon. For now: cheekiness and cheekbones, subtle melodies, and heartache:

…which means it’s the year of New York. Be careful out there, little guys.

An image from the archives, Boelhe in 2003. The doors above were locked. The links below are not, and open in new windows.

• Tiago, the homie in Maputo, sent along a little project he’s been working on. Thirty second snippits of music previews set to dreamy little quicktimes.
• Oh word? Kamau has a blog now. Surprise number two is: he also knows his way around html. Check for photos from Kenya and an upcoming event. Now I wait for the storytelling.
• Hip Hop Word Count, via Jay.
• …Though it was developed by these guys. New favourite link alert.
• Indigenous film and filmmakers, exciting and brilliant, via the the sharp-tongued lyrical one.
• Documentaries for free.
• What I wouldn’t give to have been in the audience for this one-night-only night. I mean, the line-up alone!
• I still really enjoy keeping up on the “official” (in)side of things, especially at the New York Department of Education and at the fully dipped US Department of State blog.
• My favourite Dipnote hands down is still the “Guess who’s coming to Iftaar?” post, where the Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary live-blogs the breaking of the fast and drops Jay-Z references with the recklessness of an aging radio disk jock hoping for a call-in.
• Pound hasn’t been updating their website, but the two last issues are up: thirty-nine and forty, blaow.
• Speaking of word counts, I’ve got 5000 more to go. Back to work.

Condensation on the window, traffic lights blinking stop-wait-go below. Another January night. Dang it was hot in there.

I don’t have much use for end-of-year top-ten-album lists or record rankings of any sort. Partly because I’m too indecisive to ever be good at compiling them, but also because the way I take in music is far from orderly, stackable, or business-like. (I even once discussed critics’ lists in the same breath as Ursula LeGuin theories on literature, but we won’t turn this into a gendered discussion right now.)

My old editors can attest to my dislike of record rankings. Just getting me to turn out record reviews eventually became a painful process, so I stopped doing them altogether three or four years ago, and stopped reviewing live shows soon after. I had to own up — I’ve always been a far more passionate ref on the court when it came to judging disk jock skill, the strength of a sound system, and dance floor rockability.

The bar was set high early on. While the decks at most school dances are manned by somebody’s cousin, at my high school the cousin happened to be DJ Mikey Sly from the Sunshine Soundcrew, the premier soundsystem north or south of Eglinton Avenue. It was the era of Master T and Roxy on Da Mix, when Mastermind still ran the Street Jam, and DJ Short was making girls sweat blending Black Sheep into Mr Vegas. I still remember my favourite playlists, my favourite mixes, my favourite sets.

I have a critical ear when it comes to DJs, but I’m also generous with my appreciation — and so I’d like to salute some of the stand-out DJs, mixes and limes from 2007. Thank you for giving me reasons to pound the walls of a club in excitement, wile out to your selections, and lose my mind with every white-hot genius-perfected blend. I know I’ll always find a home between my headphones.

Gang of Two & The Peachfuzz Soundsystem

Click here for the gang of Andy Capp and Rod Skimmins, and here for the peachy triad of Skimmins, Mensa and ArowbeX3.

I think I started off 2007 with an early Gang of Two party at The Boat, all over-heated and dancing shoulder-to-shoulder with the spandexed set to hard disco, electro, and generous helpings of Grace Jones. I spent much of the rest of the next eight months around the corner at Peachfuzz, with some of the same faces, a completely different dress code, and a playlist that ran thick with SWV, Tiombe Lockhart, Juice Crew, and a dash of E-Rule. I don’t have any Peach mixes, but you can go here to download Go Bang! parts one, two, and more.

Son of S.O.U.L.

Son of S.O.U.L. (aka Masimba) has been one of my favourite DJs for as long as I can remember. With a sound as warm and unmistakable as his trademark grin (and beanie), he’s been carrying his incredible haul of records from Scarborough to gigs across the city for yearrrs. The highlights for me have been his appearances at the old Movement Culture parties on Queen West. These jams were password-only affairs filled with friendly faces, creative vibes, and tangles of dancing bodies. Movement Culture is no more, not since the eviction party in the spring, but I hear the fete continues over at a certain tea gallery on Adelaide West.

I’m sad that I missed out on Masimba’s annual Sagittarius Birthday Coolout a few weeks ago at Moja, but I have Toronto Fusicology to thank for posting links to his set: parts one and two. Kornflake Saymore handles toasting duties, like the gentleman he is.

Superfriends

This is a mix by DJ Ayres and Nick Catchdubs. When I first moved to New York in August, I remember hitting up a pool party in Williamsburg, where Ayres was handing out copies of this mix. I get handed mixes all the time, and usually I’ll let them live in my purse for a few weeks before I finally take them out and add them to the ever-growing dusty piles of CDs I don’t listen to. This one was different, though. I popped it in my stereo right away, and have been listening to it fairly regularly every since. Full mix and playlist here. Oh, and I caught his set with The Rub at Southpaw last weekend, too. Always nice to see a crew on their home turf.

APT

No, not a soundsystem, and not a mix, but this little nook in the meatpacking district is where I’ve felt most at home in New York so far. It reminds me of the basement at Alto Basso circa 2001 on Love Movement Mondays. I love the dancefloor, I love the crowd, and I love the sets I’ve caught there so far. Here’s a little gift Lovebug Starski dropped (along with some delicious cookies and turkey-themed flower pots) during his Thanksgiving Blowout in November.

Vá Primeiro Você

I can’t remember when I downloaded this, but at some point I followed my mouseclicks to Minusbaby’s new contributions on this site, downloaded Vá Primeiro Você, Pt. 9, and forgot about it. I found the curious folder on my hard drive in December, and boy oh boy am I glad I did. Rich has always had a fantastic ear for soft or endearing sounds, and every note on this compilation is soaked through with his love for Portuguese-language music. It’s part of my personal soundtrack, and had me sighing and singing along all through the holidays. Such a lovely way to wind down the year and cozy up to a new one.

Special mentions: Footprints for their insane and wonderful monthlies, DJ L’Oquenz for a phenomenal poolside summertime set (still waiting on that mix!), the Peer Pressure Crew for actually getting me to step foot in the Drake upstairs lounge, and Bryan from the Legends League for Volume 1, Volume 2.5, and that song by Ox. I seem to have misplaced the download links, but they’re out there somewhere in the interwebs.

I just came across these two dope blogs attempting to chronicle early and recent Toronto radio DJ history: 416 - Before the Bloods and Crips and FM 416. My jaw dropped when I saw some of the gems on there. There’s a lot of material to go through, but if you’re up for it, check out some of the classic sets from Masterplan, Powermove, and others. What better way to kick off 2008 than with a trip back to 1998?

Happy listening, keep your levels right, and don’t forget to tip your DJ.

I’m starting off 2008 with less baggage and cleaner priorities. I’ve deleted or disabled my FaceSpace accounts, wiping out years of time-suckage disguised as social networking, and, uh… signed up for Twitter instead. Updates posted on the sidebar to the right, under maintenant headlines. Hopefully this means I’ll be hanging around here more often.

Late afternoon sun glows dimly across a west-end parkette; a technicolor CN Tower presides over skaters at Nathan Phillips Square.

Flight canceled this morning, so I have some time to kill before I can get on a plane. Time for blogging and reminiscing, of course. I haven’t done much work or research over the holidays, but I did leave plenty of space for decompression, digestion, reflection.

Anyone who moves around a lot likely obsesses to some degree over the idea(l) of community. Our relation to one another, how we fit in each others’ lives, how we treat the folks around us. Individuals, neighbours, classmates, fellow passengers, fellow pedestrians, friends, rivals, alpha men and women, nervous little kids on the first day of school.

Some countries, like some people, exist only in opposition. There is a constant need for enemies, for wars, for a reason to rally together against something or someone. These communities cannot simply be, cannot be content to live together, admitting to need, to dependency, rejoicing in it, and hide instead behind real or imagined menace. They won’t hug for love, but they will huddle for protection.

Other communities—artistic, spiritual, the non-geographic sort—aren’t much easier to figure out or tame. When the territory is invisible, lies within the heart, it’s harder to tell what kind of ground you’re standing on.

I’ve spent years trying to build community. I gave up on the idea of a single catch-all community as a kid, realizing early-on that listening to the same music or reading the same books or having the same upbringing doesn’t necessarily translate to connection. My music communities and journalism communities have taught me more about this than anything else. Just because we’re two heads, or two heads that write about being heads, doesn’t mean we gon get along. Finding community isn’t about finding other versions of self. It’s not about reassurance in mirrors. It’s about finding complements, other pieces, links that fit.

I devoted a lot to community-building in 2007, in my personal life, in how I’m creative, and how I work. I’m still trying to understand it, and still trying to fend off this growing Western sense of selfishness and alienation with closeness. I’ve backed away from those two monstrous online communities, but that hasn’t severed any ties. If anything, I’m devoting even more to nurturing, strengthening, valuing and expanding my communities. To making them healthier. May the people you surround yourself with and connect to in 2008 reflect richness, strength, bravery. Happy new year.

_

click for larger. original image from an “ugliest intersections” feature, here. galleria to the left, macdonalsh to the right.

[]

I was back not two hours and already frustrated with the Duff-ring bus. Waiting for what felt like hours, sandwiched between tall, traffic-dirtied snowbanks, while five or six buses passed in sequence across the street, going the other way. When my bus finally came, of course, it was too packed to get on — a crush of bargain shoppers, women with baby carriages, kids with hockey sticks and nylon bags bulging with equipment, cussing to each other and yapping into cellphones.

[]

Everything was the same. There were the same dudes, parked behind the McDonald’s around the way, their souped-up Mazdas (sub-woof in the trunk, momo rims and a tinted windshield, eh bro!) blasting music with bass so heavy it rattled the windows, the frame, the entire depressing block. Shit-talking dudes with cigarettes hanging out their mouths, spitting, pacing, staring at girls, but mostly just cursing and flexing hard. When I was younger, guys like these wore their hair slicked back, dark and greasy. Now they had buzz cuts and fades, their bright leather bombers looking more hip hop than FOB. Some of them had graduated from hatchbacks to SUVs or Escalades. Probably sold drugs for Pino around the way. Probably still lived with their moms, too.

[]

Across the parking lot from their Friday night ritual was the Galleria — the mall of lost souls. Old Portuguese men killed time from morning to dusk here, shifting from bench to bench, conversation to conversation, sometimes people watching or staring into space. Far from the Old Country and the lively cafes and public squares where they used to gather, they made do with the drab, faded brown interior and florecent lighting of the Galleria. The orange glow from the Price Chopper grocery store by the entrance was their substitute for sun, their secret weapon against the year-round S.A.D. that seemed to affect the neighbourhood. So much grey, so much asphalt, so much grime and gloom…

The same tired food stand sold stale corndogs and Italian sodas. The same lottery kiosk run by the same Korean family still had a line of customers blocking up too much of the hall, each hoping anxiously for a piece of the next big prize — something, anything to help them escape this. To ease their tired expressions, sloped shoulders, aching backs, holey winter boots, scuffed jackets, grown-out roots, waning patience, and grumpy, perpetually displeased children. Too much sugar in the diet. Veggies aren’t so fresh at the Price Chop.

Zellers used to be the big draw at this mall, Where The Lowest Price Is The Law, according to the old tag line. Clothing, canned food, greeting cards, bedding, toys, DVDs, soaps and medication for less. The aisles used to be teeming with shoppers, their carts filled and their kids tugging at their sleeves for more, screeching in portuglish or enguluese, maaaaheeeng, mãe mãe, eu quero this one, pleeease?

Since the Walmart opened down on Bloor at that much nicer, much bigger mall years ago, the Galleria, and Zellers, have emptied out dramatically. Except for the old Portuguese men wandering the halls and taking up bench space, the orange glow of the discount grocery store, and the sad-faced lottery ticket hopefuls, this place feels like a ghost town. The Dupont or Duff-ring bus is still the only way out.
[]

Home. Ongoing.

I got one last riverside bike ride in before the leaves and freezing rain began to fall a few weeks ago. It’s four:thirty, and the sun has set over Manhattan, outlining brown brick buildings and rooftop water towers in pink and orange.

This city ain’t so bad sometimes.