Posts Tagged ‘narrative’

my go to places

Posted: April 29, 2025 in general Toronto
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Queen Street East, old brick building in front of new glass and steel condo tower

“My Go to Places” was recently a photo challenge from John at Journeys with Johnbo, another wordpress blog.  Because my blog is very Toronto centered, I don’t usually play along with such games but last week I thought that I would make an exception because “my go to place” is/are the streets and alleys of Toronto.

Every street has a story to tell, you just have to get out there and explore.

part of a mural on the Danforth, a larger than life person in white jacket and dark jeans, walking off the wall

On the Danforth, part of a mural by Monica on the Moon (aka Monica Weikler).

I enjoy finding the quirks of the city – humorous signs in store windows,  bizarre or funny graffiti, the quirky things people put in their front yards, and more.  I like stumbling upon surprises that make me smile (or wince!).

A happy face and poetic words on a TTC bus stop pole – “She lives to see the sun and feel the wind and drink the rain”.  Not bad words to live by!

But sometimes the joy is found in the ordinary.

a woman is crouching down on a sidewalk to get a better photograph of a garden full of bright yellow daffodils, with the stone buildings of Emanuel College, U of T, in the background

Bright yellow signs of spring, and hope, in front of the stone buildings of Emanuel College, University of Toronto.

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Out on the streets the cliche of ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ holds true – it’s all there (have I complained recently about the street level ghastliness of some new condos?).  And not just the on the streets, but also underground, wandering through buildings, or crossing above

looking out an elevated pedestrian bridge, enclosed in glass, looking out to street, and downtown Toronto

Sick Kids Hospital, crossing over busy streets

below: Behaving well on the subway.

small white curly haired dog sitting on a blue TTC subway car seat, with a woman in a blur coat, red scarf, and large red bag, she is looking at her phone

White Hydrangeas (A haiku for each petal)
…
Ivory flowers
sprout in the graveyard near me
soil-bound miracle
…
This ground is neutral
apparently this is so all I know is not
…
Dirt sits on a son –
a boy, thousand times unearthed –
who looks just like me
…
Bouquets mask his name
this world is not meant for us
still, white hydrangeas

I walk through ravines and along the lakefront….. past places that everyone recognizes as well as places that are hidden away.

GO train on tracks, repair and maintenance trucks parked beside the tracks, CN Tower and downtown Toronto in the background

A GO train travels just west of the CN Tower in downtown Toronto. A small piece of the white roof of the SkyDome (Rogers Centre) can be seen at the base of the tower.

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two people walking along the side of the railway tracks, apartment buildings in the background,

Walking beside the railway tracks, somewhere in Toronto.

I’ve seen the streets where we work, where we play, and where we live.

 

workman, cutting pavement, or sidewalk, outside, making lots of dust,

three brick duplex houses in a row

Duplexes on Eglinton

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large inflatable Santa Claus on a front yard of a large house with dark blue shutters

Santa Claus visits the west end.

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downtown row house with larger apartment building behind

Urban living downtown

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And I know that good things usually happen when you get out and be a part of the city.  Of course we have problems (that Eglinton LRT is a mess isn’t it? and it’s a shame about the Science Centre, right?)  It’s a friendly place.

pedestrians and one cyclist crossing on a green light at college and spadina

Pedestrians, a few cars, and one cyclist, crossing at College and Spadina.

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beside uber 5000 mural on the side of the Toronto Humane Society, people crossing Queen Street towards THS, people standing in bus shelter beside the mural, big orange cat and large dog, both in the mural

At River and Queen East, cats and dogs in a mural by Uber 5000.

Like all story tellers, I bring along my history and my biases.  If you were to walk with me, you might notice different things than I do.  Or if we see the same things, you might offer a different perspective. You would possibly write a different story but that’s okay.   Sometimes I wonder if I am writing stories about Toronto or if I am just writing my own story and Toronto just happens to be the setting!

A young woman in floppy navy blue hat and holding a cup of coffee, pushes a stroller along a Yorkville downtown sidewalk, bright red building across the street,

Yorkville

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man sleeping on a TTC streetcar

Riding the TTC

Last Folio

Posted: February 17, 2015 in galleries, history
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Last Folio, A Living Monument to the Holocaust
An exhibit of photographs by Yuri Dojc,
at the Art Gallery of Ontario

Yuri Dojc was born in Slovakia but is now based in Toronto.
Starting in the 1990’s he has returned to Slovakia a number of times in search of traces of Jewish life from prior to WW2.

a close up of a photograph of an old book, open, with the pages on one side all curled up. The photo is taken from the top of the book.

Details of one of the photographs in the exhibit.

There are only eight photographs in this exhibit but each one tells a story.   Narratives of loss and of life interrupted.
But also stories of memory and remembrance.

 More information about the Last Folio project.