Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs

I was at the Lester B.Pearson airport yesterday, widely known as the most important airport in the world. While waiting for a friend, I happened to notice a sign that confounded me.

At first I thought it indicated a place where one could sleep under an over-sized boomerang. Weird.....and unreasonable. My second thought was that the airport provided a place for people to read small books in tiny tents.

Eventually I clued in to the fact that this sign indicated a place to pray.

Or text Jesus.

Tingley's Tike At Loblaw's (Maple Leaf Gardens)

Feel free to interpret this image anyway that you like. Here's a few bonus interpretations:

1) Wendy, taking her youngest child shopping.

2) Ian Varty, basket case.

3) Wendy, desperately missing Julian, asks me to reenact that fateful day in Sussex when Julian's legs wouldn't fit into the cart's leg holes (though ultimately they did). Not wanting to disappoint her, I complied. Note: we did not attempt the leg hole dead lift.

4) Ian: man who no longer cares what he says or does in Toronto because everyone here is crazy and he just wants to appear 'normal'.

5) A literal interpretation of 'the vegetable department'.

6) Fit?

I could go on and on, but I think that you should draw your own conclusions. That said, I would like to give my actual reason for doing this; it's because.....

"I'm (the son of) Dorothy Gordon and I'm two years old."

Is That A Chocolate Hare I See, Or Chocolate Heresy?

Sometime just after Halloween, in early November, and once your dentist has filled your last cavity and you've tested positively for early onset diabetes, the stores roll out the Christmas chocolate displays. Assuming that you survive Christmas and the week long Boxing Day sale, there is a brief hiatus before the Valentine's Day chocolate displays are in your face. About two minutes after Valentine's Day ends and you're finished showing your loved one how much you love her by fattening her up, at precisely 12:02 a.m. on February 15, they roll out the Easter candy display in stores across North America. Note: they don't do this in Europe because Europeans aren't gluttonous morons.

Revisiting Christmas and Easter for a moment, what is it with Christian 'holidays' and chocolate? Is Easter just a misspelling of 'eaters'? I don't remember chocolate being mentioned in the Bible, though I suppose I'd have to read it to find out.

You read The Fishing Bible once, when you were a teenager, didn't you, Ian?

I did, as a matter of fact. Teach a man to fish....blah blah blah. Today's blog is fishy, but not about fish. It's about foul....foul chocolate!

Look at today's image....what do you see? A milk chocolate Easter bunny and a white chocolate Easter bunny, right?

Wrong!

Let's have a closer look, Inspector Varty. Show us Exhibit A.

The small print says 'made with real milk chocolate' and the larger print says 'Crispy Solid Bunny'. We could spend a few minutes debating whether or not this bunny is going to be 'crispy' or not, but we'd be splitting hares.

The point I'm trying to make here is that this chocolate bunny is made of chocolate, 'real milk chocolate', as it should be. You're not, after all, going to get diabetes from a carob bunny. Go big or stay home, I say.

Now, in contrast to my dark love bunny, I present exhibit B...my beloved white chocolate bunny. I love white chocolate, and that's why today's blog is about heresy (hare, I see?).

A closer inspection of this bunny reveals small type that says 'white chocolatey' and the larger print says 'solid bunny'. Is it just me, or did you too hear the sound of screeching brakes when I said 'white chocolatey'?

Spell check doesn't even recognize 'chocolatey' as a word, so how can it be edible?? Watch this....I'll type in 'haggis smothered in dog shit and Vegemite'. See? No problem with spell check!

So, what the hell do they mean when they say 'white chocolately'? I suppose first and foremost, it ain't chocolate.

So what is it?

I suspect it's a blend of ear wax, sugar, powdered capelin scales, and gypsum dust. You might have noticed that the packaging shows a street sign that says 'Carnaby' which I believe to be a contraction of the three words 'Carnauba wax, b'y'. I think this product may have been made in Newfoundland. This comes as no surprise given that people in this province put buttered corn flakes on top of their dinner entrees.

Umm....question. Why isn't the white chocolatey bunny 'crispy' like the brown milk one?

Good question. What the hell is going on with white chocolate in today's world? Why are 'they' always trying to scam the white chocolate aficionados? Would you, my faithful readership of three and a half, like to help me with my research? Next time you're in Shoppers Drug Mart buying your insulin, take a look at the white 'chocolate' bunnies. Do they say 'chocolate' on the packaging? I'll bet they don't.

Wendy Nielsen And Her Amazing Technicolour Accordion

If I learned three things in les Iles de la Madeleine, then they are as follows:

1) Jean Gaudet is a modern day genius and an all-around great guy.

2) Windsurfing is an addiction.

3) I love the sound of the accordion.

Today's focus will be on the accordion. Within the past year or so Wendy has expressed an interest in learning the accordion. That's music to my ears because I'd love to see her expand her hobbies/interests and I'd also love to hear the bittersweet sounds of the accordion regularly.  

I never paid much attention to the accordion for my first forty years, thinking it to be little more than the  'oom-pa-pa' at Octoberfest. During the past ten years I've been more aware that the accordion has made its way into popular music, and I like it. Bands and artists ranging from Nirvana to k.d.lang to John Mellencamp have incorporated the accordion brilliantly.

I think I have to attribute my interest/love of the accordion to Sonia Painchaud, the owner of Café de la Grave in les Iles de la Madeleine. While vacationing in les iles we happened upon a café in La Grave and my appreciation for the accordion was born. Every evening Sonia would play her accordion in the café and the place would be transformed to old France or early Quebec, or so it felt. The accordion was both mood creating and mood altering. It's not easy to explain. You pretty much have to go there to experience it for yourself.

Back to 2014....though Wendy had expressed an interest in the accordion, none of us knew much or anything about buying an accordion. I wracked my brains for a couple of months but still wasn't comfortable buying a used one. Accordions have a long shelf life and there are plenty of them on the market, but my experience in buying used guitars had left me wary. And then the lights went on....

My ukulele instructor, Steve McNie, is a multi-instrumentalist and a music tour de force (and a nice guy!). He also plays the accordion. I asked him for some advice on buying an accordion and ultimately ended up buying one of his (he had a dozen or so, two of which were for sale). So, on March 3, 2014, I very proudly gave Wendy her first accordion. It's a Marotta United accordion, made in Italy in the 1950s or the 1960s. It's in mint condition and sounds great.

I think I'm as excited for Wendy to learn it and she was to receive it (it was a surprise!). I'm pretty pumped for us to get going on some music that incorporates guitar (Julian, me), piano (Julian) and accordion (Wendy!). On that musical note, Wendy just rolled out of bed. When she came out of the bedroom door her first words this morning were....

"Where's my accordion? I've got to get to work!"

Music to my ears.

The Yorkville Walk

People in Toronto seem to have a different kind of walk, don't you think?

I know what you mean, but it's not the people of Toronto. It's the people of Yorkville. They have what I call the 'Yorkville stroll strut'.

That makes sense because they're a special breed. The walk says 'I'm hip and I'm fashionable...and you're not'.

That's it! It also says 'I'm in for some chiropractic treatments in my future'.

So, Ian, you can talk the Toronto talk, but can you walk the walk?

I'd say so.

Oscar Worthy?

Schindler's Lift.

Canadian Graffiti: Anger, Art, Anarchy?

I'm a huge fan of graffiti and Toronto delivers it in waves. In an alley behind Queen Street West, near Bathurst Street, is a veritable tsunami of graffiti. I think it's where Rick Mercer sometimes films his rants. Today, there's no rant, just graffiti and a half full can of thought.

Interestingly enough a few nights ago five of us had a discussion about graffiti. I announced that I loved it. Another guest announced that it made her feel uncomfortable because it felt angry. I saw her point, but I have to overlook, or simply accept, that fact because, artistically, I find the creativity stunning. And unlike many of those who frequent these back alleys, the graffiti is usually happy and bright, at least in colour. It's often playful as well, but there is that dark, almost criminal side too.

In many ways the graffiti is representative of my experience in Toronto, ranging from anger and frustration to lighthearted frivolity. Every city experiences this in its people and its attitudes. Country living, I think, falls more in the middle. Perhaps the lack of rural density just dilutes appearances, and the countryside is no different than the city. I do experience two very different palettes of colour and emotion when I look to either side of my country property. I'll have to mull this 'city versus country' theory over. I do know that everything feels distilled in the city, and this can be both good and bad.

I hope you enjoy your walk down graffiti alley. I'd be curious to know what you think. Is it vandalism? Is it art? Is it talent without a real home, or homeless art? Is it frustrated expression? What is graffiti to you?