Tag Archives: Toronto

Life is a Cabaret, Old Chum. Come to the Cabaret

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Cabarethttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moOamKxW844

Georgia celebrated her birthday this week. I had bought tickets to Cabaret at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada. I told her where to find them in my apartment in Toronto. They weren’t where I thought they were, but she called me on my land line and I told her to look under the paper weight and there they were. I had invited Blake to go with us. He had agreed to drive. And Georgia asked her daughter to go with them on my ticket.

When I bought the tickets in May, I thought to myself that it would be a treat to compensate me for the end of summer, as well as a good way to celebrate my younger sister’s birthday. Blake, my ex-husband, has known us since we were 16 and 10 respectively and we three always enjoy each others’ company.

Only problem – I am here where summer seems never to end and a typical morning greeting is “another beautiful day in paradise”. You hear that a lot in Southern California, but never more than here high in the mountains, a place which the  Chumash called the Center of the World. It is a town built around a golf club and its sole industry is leisure. Some people actually set out at 5 a.m. to drive down to work in the cities, even as far as Los Angeles, but many more do not. They get up early to play a round of golf and only then do they eat breakfast at the club house. They are resolutely friendly, waving as they pass you in their golf carts.

Others are economic refugees, here because you can buy a house for less than a hundred thousand or rent one for less than a thousand. There are many musicians and many free musical events. They will insist on playing without as much as free beer for their reward. There are talented writers and artists as well and festivals and events that showcase their work.

There are weekenders with big houses, executives, movie people, we suppose. We don’t meet them really.

And yet I missed Cabaret.

Georgia reported that it was wonderful, the set amazing. Blake took them to a good, untouristy restaurant for lunch.

I am suddenly struck by homesickness.

The maple tree across the street from the duplex where I live will have turned red by now. The one in front will soon turn yellow. The swallows will have left on or about August 28th. The geranium on the front porch -did anyone water it?- will be dying back even if they did. Tall grasses beside the bike path will be dead. Crows will be calling more than usual. Perhaps like the swallows, they are coming south.

It goes down below 60 F here at night. The cool air comes down from the heights above as soon as the sun goes down. I close the window before dawn. But by the time I go out the door, it is beginning to get hot, reaching the upper 80s by afternoon. And it is dusty. That’s the nature of a desert climate, even a high desert with pine forest. It’s rained once in the three months I’ve been here. A short trip on the golf cart leaves me, the cart and whatever I have with me -groceries, my laptop, my laundry caked in dust. In Bakersfield, an hour north, the valley floor kicks up so much dust that the mountains beyond look misty.

My Grandpa Munn couldn’t bear to leave his home, a farm in the mountains in Quebec. He would pine away when he did, growing more silent and pale as time wore on. The longest he was ever away was a week, but to him it felt like eternity. I’m not that homesick. I didn’t even notice it until I missed Cabaret. And these mountains are very like his mountains,so they are like that early home of mine.

Besides I’ve had the good fortune of having to be here amidst such beauty and in the middle of my family. Why complain?

The north seems to built into my bones. I miss the quickening of fall.

The Septuagenarian Hobbit Gets a Parking Lesson

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Oh, stop trying to make me hate you, Toronto. You’ve already got sub-zero temperatures, vicious storms and week-long power outages going for you. Why did you have send the SUV woman to give me parking advice?

I was in the under-ground parking garage at Mountain Equipment Co-op, still jet-lagged from my return from Brussels, but putting a good face on it and taking advantage of a break in the weather to return a faulty product. I had already paid for parking at the wonderfully old-fashioned booth. The attendant was happily gossiping with a friend. There were many empty spaces. I was taking the opportunity to change the carpet floor mats to the rubber winter ones, when a woman in a beige SUV pulled up behind me.

“I realize it’s hard to see the lines,” she said, “but you are parked so that no-one can use the next spot.”

I could just barely discern a yellow line when I looked down. It was covered with salt and dirt.

“Thank you so much for telling me,” I replied. “But try not to get hysterical. I’m leaving immediately.”

“I’m not hysterical…”

No, just really, really annoyingly self-righteous and hidebound and so very, very puritanical, typically Torontonian, indeed typically North American.

While I was thanking her again for rendering my day more pleasant, I was remembering how cars on my brother’s one-way street in Brussels were often parked facing the wrong direction. No tickets. No outraged neigbours. Oh, carry me back!

I’ll hate myself for saying this later, but at least our mayor is a little looser.

(I know that’s an allusion, but I figure you’ve all heard about Rob Ford.)

Toronto’s Mayor, Rob Ford: view from Etobicoke

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SAMSUNG DIGITAL CAMERAIllustration by Richard Johnson on front page of National Post, Sat. Nov. 9, 2013

I live in Etobicoke (sounds like Etobicoe), Mayor Ford’s home territory, one of the suburbs of Toronto that were unceremoniously mashed together some years ago by the reigning provincial government. Etobicoke is the west end of the mega city and Scarborough, where I brought up my children, lies in the east end. To the north lies North York, wouldn’t you know. There are diverse other subdivisions and tucked up in the south and centre, right against the lake is the old city of Toronto.

It is easy enough to find its centre, Queen and Yonge, the old city hall, red, Victorian with its tall clock tower, where certain courts hold forth and across the way, the present city hall with its clam shell and two curving towers of unequal height.

When it comes to Etobicoke, there is no there there. I mean there is no centre, I can see, but I do not see it as Mayor Ford sees it. I’ve heard rumours that there is a town hall where Etobicoke used to actually determine its own fate, but in the seven years I’ve lived here, I’ve never figured out where it is. I haven’t needed to.

Herein lies the rub. The people here are alienated I hear. They are sick of being pushed around by those uppity “elites” (please tell me it isn’t true that some say e-lights), those gravy train wasters from the city centre. That’s why they embraced their native son, Rob Ford, who had pledged to stop the gravy train, reduce spending, privatize garbage collection and put a subway in every burg.

Unhappily, he was unable to discover enough waste to trim the spending significantly, although he has put some of the waste management in private hands. His project to extend subways into hinterlands, which very likely cannot produce ridership to support it, will entail a tax rise.

But that’s not why you know about him.

You know him as our crack smoking, gangster associating, drunk driving, lewd talking mayor. You may have heard about him first last May when Gawker reported that it had  seen a video of him smoking crack. Our Toronto Star reported that it had also seen the video, which was for sale.  The entire summer was taken up with speculation, along with jokes on late shows and denial by the mayor. Meanwhile one of the guys the mayor was pictured arm in arm with was shot and killed. A police investigation ensued. Houses were raided in Operation Traveller. Arrests were made. Gradually, these arrests moved into Mayor Ford’s circle and heavily redacted documents were released. Media outlets went to court and this week a judge released a much fuller version of the documents.

Mayor Ford, who stubbornly denied all allegations, has taken to public admissions that get worse and worse. Yes, he may have smoked crack once while in a drunken stupour. Yes, he may have been badly inebriated at a street festival and on St Patrick’s Day. Yes, he may have driven drunk once in a while. Yes, he has bought illegal drugs in the last two years. Today he may have reached a nadir -let us hope- when he used sexual explicit language while refuting a claim a woman had made. But wait, he was back out there at the media scrum apologizing for that, wifey by his side.

No, he will not resign. No, he will not take a leave of absence. He charged at Councillor Minan-Wong, yesterday during a council meeting, with evident intent, only to be stopped by brother, Doug Ford, also a councillor and, ordinarily, as rude as the mayor.

Oh, make it stop! Make it stop!

Apparently, Ford’s policies still have the support of 40% of voters, but candidates with the same platform are already lining up for the mayor’s race in 2014. Only 20% still support Rob Ford himself. They are probably my neighbours. They are decent, forgiving folk who are careful with their garbage.

I didn’t vote for him. I’m one of those “elites” in his mind. I dislike many things about him personally and our politics are different. Initially, I felt a good deal of schadenfruede and even laughed. I’m not concerned about Toronto being mocked and vilified on the world stage. It’s a big city, all grown up. It can take care of itself. And I love a Greek tragedy as much as anyone, but NOT IN SLOW MOTION.