Reading Buildings, Part Two

Our Saturday morning in Toronto offered us two choices--breakfast followed by a trip to the Royal Ontario Museum, or a sojourn to the harbor front, which was reported to offer various beautiful vistas and interesting markets. We decided to go north to the Museum, because we were told there were better brunch options available in that area, which is a serious consideration in Toronto, apparently:in Michael Cera's new movie, set in Toronto, "Scott Pilgrim Versus The World," there is presented the prospect of a very existential brunch. I won't give more details, because you should go see the movie; highly entertaining.

In the end, we didn't do brunch; in the interest of time, we stopped by a Tim Horton's, which I understand is a consummate Canadian experience, in the way that Dunkin' Donuts would be a consummate experience of the USA.

After a quick bite, we walked along Queen Street, looking for the subway. There were some impressive metal and glass edifices, and an elaborate downtown mall, but this is the building that caught my eye:





This is the old Toronto City Hall, and it just looks dignified and grand. Good architecture is like pornography for me, in that I can't necessarily define it, but i know it when I see it, and this is good architecture. It feels historic, which sometimes only means that it looks like it has been around for a long time and things have happened there, which, okay, doesn't sound very exciting at first glimpse. But trust me; it's a great-looking building.

We pressed on, and found our way to the subway, which we accessed through the lobby of a bank, naturally enough. I like the Toronto subway. It seemed efficient, easy to figure out for tourists, and clean.



Downtown, we could see the Royal Ontario Museum from blocks away, as it was a very distinctive building.



As it turned out, the exhibit we wanted to see was at a different gallery north of where we were; since time was of the essence, we made do with what was there. We saw some interesting paintings from colonial times--it was a bit disconcerting to see a painting from that era, but not focusing on the Revolutionary War; the famous painting there was The Death of General Wolfe, set in the French and Indian War. We also saw some exhibits of art and craftwork from native tribes across Canada, including an impressively long canoe, and stuff from the Pacific coast that reminded Marina of what she saw during the summer she lived on a reservation on the Olympic Peninsula.

Finally, we went to the Distillery District, a collection of boutique shops and restaurants located in the 47 old brick-and-iron buildings that formed the Gooderham & Worts Distillery, around since 1832. Everything was closed to cars; it is a collection of brick-lined pedestrian thoroughfares, and apparently, it was everyone in Toronto, if not all of Canada, goes to get married--seriously, we were there for an hour and saw three separate wedding parties.

It was a fascinating area, and I would have enjoyed more time to explore. Apparently the design of the buildings was called Victorian Industrial.

I will let pictures do the rest of my talking for me, a collection of snapshots of the Distillery District. From here, we fought our way through traffic to get out of Toronto--apparently the city decided to close the Gardiner Expressway, the major freeway out of the city--on a Saturday afternoon, which choked the streets with traffic, and turned what should have been a 1 hour, 20 minute drive into a three hour journey. But that was not enough to poison what was an enjoyable, rapid trip to Toronto. I've heard people say that it is a clean version of New York, and I would agree with that, except that I haven't been to New York. However, based on the television representations of New York--and television never lies--I would say it is an accurate comparison.

Reading Buildings, Part One

Cities are defined by the experiences they offer, the people they contain, but just as much are they defined by their skylines and architecture. For me, Chicago is the cavernous hall at Union Station, the skyscrapers and towers forming canyon walls on the walk from the station to Michigan Avenue and the Art Institute. San Francisco is defined by the two bridges, the Transamerica Pyramid, the pastel colors of the buildings across the city from North Beach to the Mission to the Sunset by day, the cyber-noir feel of the Financial District at night in the fog.

What better way is there to describe our trip to Toronto than by posting photographs? The buildings were old, brick, lots of porches. The buildings along Queen Street and in the various neighborhoods/villages we passed through looked lived in, and Marina told me that they have a very East Coast feel.

QUEEN STREET:

Supposedly a "hipster" district, Queen Street West was full of small, dark, interesting looking bars in interesting brick buildings. Some had heirlooms and antiques in the window; there were curiosity shops and an ice cream parlor, and various restaurants. Notably, there was a bar called Brooklynn, named not after the borough in New York but after one of the owner's cats, and among the many rules posted on a sign outside the bar, one stated that comments of a sexist or racist nature were grounds for ejection. One hears that Canada is nice, but this seems too good to be true.





Pictures of the Drake Hotel, where we ate in the Sky Yard Patio. You can see where the Patio is in the picture with Marina, just to the right of the main building, above the cherry-red street car.









Here are some varied pictures from Queen Street: a mail truck in front of the post office; the Gladstone Hotel; some other random building that caught my eye on first getting out of the car; and a restaurant that shares the name of a beer I used to drink a lot during college.

And to wrap up the first collection of pictures, here are two I took through a fence surrounding a construction zone, catching a glimpse of a car on a backstreet. There seemed to be something about the image that promised a story, something behind the hip lights of Queen Street, whatever it might be.





More pictures from the trip to follow . . .

Puffs About Nothing: Religious/Political Debate

I'm glad to see that America is not the only country where people speak without thinking, especially when it comes to politics and religion. A Catholic Archbishop expressed worry about Australia electing the first atheist prime minister, Julia Gillard. He worries that churches will lose special privileges--which is fine; no one wants to pay taxes if they don't have to. That's just how we are as people, even if taxes are how we fund and maintain communities. Churches do offer many valuable services and a framework for charity, so I don't object to tax breaks for them within reason.

The thing that bothers me about this article on a Catholic website is this quote: “Many Christians are concerned that someone who does not believe in God may not endorse the Christian traditions of respect for human life, for the sanctity of marriage and the independence of churches, church schools and church social welfare agencies.” I'm bothered by the first part of that quote, the implication that someone who does not believe in God may not respect human life, or the implication that Christians have a special pedigree of respecting human life.

We will leave aside the question of Catholicism's history of human rights, because evidence can be found to endorse or undermine the claim that they respect human life.

The Prime Minister's atheism has nothing to do with whether she respects human life. You can believe that there is no god and still admire the beauty of innumerable possibilities that is the human experience. You can consider that we are creatures who have evolved wit, intelligence, innovation, the capacity for kindness as much as cruelty, art as much as vulgarity, debate as much as slander.

The problem with the current state of political/religious debate is that there is a lack of empathy, as evidenced by the apparent bias of the Archbishop's statement. Furthermore, context is everything, and we are a culture of snippets, sound bites. Consider first the quote by Gillard that the Catholic article included: “In terms of the work that the Catholic Church does, that other churches and religious groups do in our society, I am a big respecter,” she responded. “And my history has been to be a big supporter."

That's a pretty bland quote. And it doesn't sound particularly eloquent.

Compare that to this article from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and the much more eloquent prime minister portrayed here. I especially like this quote: "I am not going to pretend a faith I don't feel . . .I am what I am and people will judge that. For people of faith, I think the greatest compliment I could pay to them is to respect their genuinely held beliefs and not to engage in some pretence about mine."

In the end, the statement by the Archbishop is helpful for nothing more than firing up a conservative base, and it is more divisive than helpful. For God's sake--so to speak--wait until the tax collectors are banging down the church doors and the army is seizing your property before you start worrying about being oppressed. Christians in western cultures who play the martyr/victim card are, to put it mildly, not being realistic.