August 2011
39 posts
Doug Ford’s dream waterfront? Ferris wheel, monorail and a boat-in hotel
Betraying Toronto’s waterfront vision
Does anyone who lives in Toronto think that what’s missing from this city is a football stadium, a monorail cutting the city off from the lake - a highway was not enough - an enormous ferris wheel, a megamall, and a ferry service that cuts perpendicular to the path of...
One time at Hôtel Trémoille in Paris.
I took this photograph while visiting my grandparents in 2003 or 2004. This is the graveyard where my grandmother’s ashes will live and probably mine too one day. It is down the road from my aunt’s house, next to a forest full of skinny birch trees and wildflowers, beside fields of horses and beyond that is the water.
Ford really does want to fuck with the waterfront plan
(I didn’t take that photograph, it’s from an article in The Star)
We walked to Roy Thomson Hall for Jack Layton’s funeral, Louise came too, lots of dogs came, there were so many people, everywhere, gay boys thin as reeds wearing orange neckties and Wayfarers, sweet grey lesbian couples holding hands, bankers, children on the back of bikes, old men with turbans and tears in...
We were so lucky.
My grandmother died today. I couldn’t stay at work any longer without crying so I left and it started raining for a few minutes and I thought ‘maybe now’ and then my aunt called.
Watch
Watch
WatchKevin took these videos of lightning hitting the CN Tower from our bedroom window.
Icy Greenland The Atlantic, 2011
It is a photo essay about Greenland. I would really like to go there sometime, although my priority for next year is the Faroe Islands.
She is still alive, her heart is too strong for death. But it won’t last. It will be tonight or tomorrow or the next day. I wait for my telephone to ring all the time but it never does. I don’t want to be doing...
I’m in Oakville, after riding, the sky is flashing like the first minutes of ecstasy, like a shitty dance club, I’ve never seen anything like it. I might have to sleep in Mississauga, this is insane. It’s striking all the time, unwound ribbons across the sky.
We were married nine years ago tomorrow. The next spring he carved our initials into a tree next to the lake where we would sit and look at the waves and the dogs and imagine how things would be. I have been better loved than I knew to hope for then.
I will plant a tree for her in High Park.
I have always loved the ending of Karen Finley’s Black Sheep.
We are your holding hand We are your pillow, your receiver your cuddly toy. I feel your pain I wish I could relieve you of your suffering. I wish I could relieve you of your pain. I wish I could relieve you of your destiny. I wish I could relieve you of your fate. I wish I could relieve you of your illness. I wish I could relieve...
Jack Layton’s last letter:
August 20, 2011 Toronto, Ontario
Dear Friends,
Tens of thousands of Canadians have written to me in recent weeks to wish me well. I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful, inspiring and often beautiful notes, cards and gifts. Your spirit and love have lit up my home, my spirit, and my determination.
Unfortunately my treatment has not...
Mahler Symphony No. 9 (Mov. 4) Leonard Bernstein with the Vienna Philharmonic
This is a very beautiful essay: Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony by Lewis Thomas
Then we saw this.
We went to wait at the Elora Gorge.
I wrote my last letter to her, for my aunts to read to her. I wish I had just a few more days so I could go tell her myself. I don’t want to be on a layover in Frankfurt or Amsterdam when she dies, I want to be in the forest or in the lake or in my bed and I want her to know that I will be thinking of her that very moment. The waiting is just agony, but I am so thankful for this short time,...
It is happening. Maybe I should go? But I would have to leave in 8 hours. Maybe it will be too late? Would I want it to be my last memory? Does she have any memory left? Would it help anyone? What would be happening if she had not fallen? The last card I wrote her, the last letter, the last time we talked, I don’t remember them. I have photographs I took of her in June, my strongest memory...
I am so tired. Two months ago I was in Sweden for a funeral and now I am waiting to go for another. Please stop. Don’t disappear.
City Budget: This isn’t about austerity & four other notes
I don’t know who made this, sorry.
Ugly BBC Interview Touches on Deeper Issues in London Riots
About 500 people, mostly in their 20s, arrived from across London to help clean up the area, carrying brooms and plastic garbage bags.
But it was the voice of one angry man rising above the crowd that captured people’s attention and reflected the feeling that many people here described: frustration.
His rant reflected conversations being held across the city as Londoners ask why this has...
The Guardian has had many interesting articles on assisted suicide, so many that it is a whole subsection of the paper, much of it currently devoted to discussions on Terry Pratchet’s film on death at the Dignitas clinic, Choosing to Die.
I would like to think about The Book of Evidence and drinking on picnic tables in the forest before Louise jumps into the river and my best, best friends and not think about what it is to no longer want to live, about what doctor assisted suicide might mean, what informed consent means, what suffering is, how it is secret, how it happens in isolation, the weaknesses of families, the inadequacies...
The Swedish newspaper websites are broadcasting Monica Elisabeth Bøseis’s memorial service and I’m at work crying.
It has been a hard summer. I am far behind on things, on life. I have never sent so many sad flowers, to widows and graves and hospitals. I am a frequent FTD customer and only send white flowers, white flowers and green plants and all my cards say I am thinking of you. I am thinking of you, I am sorry you died, I am sorry you lost him, here are some lilies! I am sorry for your pain, good luck...
