[PHOTO] Angus Bernard MacEachern in the shadow of St. Dunstan's, Charlottetown

In the shadow of Charlottetown's St. Dunstan's Basilica on Great George Street stands a statue of Angus Bernard MacEachern, the Scottish immigrant to early British Prince Edward Island who brought Roman Catholicism to the territory.



Of note is the multilingualism of the plaque explaining MacEachern's life and works, in English, French, Gaelic and Mi'kmaq.



St. Dunstan's stands above it all.

[PHOTO] Violet bean flowers

The late crop of beans I planted is showing flower, at least, if not yet fruit.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• At Apostrophen, 'Nathan Smith describes his experience at the CAN•CON conference in Ottawa.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper speculating about the consequences of observing a large extraterrestrial civilization.


• Far Outliers notes how Chinese soldiers in 1937 Shanghai did not want to take prisoners.


• The Frailest Thing's Michael Sacasas considers the idea of distraction in relationship to high technology.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the overlooked food workers who were victims of 9/11.


• Savage Minds links to a variety of anthropologically-themed links.


• Seriously Science notes that houses in rich neighbourhoods contain more diverse insect populations than houses in poor neighbourhoods.


• Strange Maps looks at Proxima Centauri b and considers the idea of an "eyeball Earth".


• Transit Toronto notes plans for construction at Queen and Dufferin.

[URBAN NOTE] "How two queer Ottawa businesses are crowdfunding to stay alive"

Daily Xtra's Jeremy Willard describes how two queer Ottawa businesses are resorting to crowdfunding to stay alive.

For the owners of After Stonewall and Wilde’s, it has never been just about the money. It’s about helping sustain queer culture in Ottawa — and now they’re asking for help to keep their businesses alive.

“This hasn’t been a great year, business-wise, along Bank Street. It’s not just us,” says Trevor Prevost, owner of Wilde’s. “You sort of have to look ahead six months in retail and say, ‘okay, can I continue this way or not?’ And right now we can’t.”

As with many queer businesses before them (most of which were small businesses), the bills have become more than they can handle. So they’re running an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to merge the two stores, which will reduce overhead costs and provide more opportunity for collaboration and growth.

Prevost bought Wilde’s late in 2015, and Michael Deyell bought After Stonewall in 2012. They each had plans for their respective new businesses, but it was never just about making money.

It’s also about preserving two of Ottawa’s oldest surviving queer businesses — After Stonewall opened in 1990, and Wilde’s in 1993 — and about supporting local queer culture in other ways.

“When I took over the store, we really wanted to promote the area — we wanted to promote the Village,” Prevost says. ”Because people keep talking about places where the villages have gotten sketchy, and rough as well.”

“Being a business owner in the community we sort of have a louder voice and can do things.”

After Stonewall sells queer books and Canadian art, and Wilde’s is a sex shop. The two stores also sell tickets for local events, and After Stonewall hosts book launches and art exhibits, and throws occasional fundraisers.

[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto students reconnect with indigenous culture"

The Globe and Mail's Julien Gignac writes about a unique educational opportunity in urban Canada newly manifesting in Toronto.

During the next six weeks in Toronto, [Brittney Annand, a 26-year-old woman of Algonquin descent] will learn the age-old art of moccasin and mukluk making through classes at what has been dubbed the Storyboot School.

“This is a skill that my family lost,” she said. “I’m here because I really want to rekindle that connection with part of my past.”

On Sunday, 18 students started crafting pucker-toe or gathered-toe moccasins in a teaching space at the Bata Shoe Museum, meticulously taking measurements and cutting thick cowhide. Next steps will include sewing shoes with sinew and designing glass beadwork patterns for the vamp – the flat piece of leather above the toes – just like some of their ancestors did. Displayed in a corner of the room are different styles of knee-high mukluks adorned with vibrant flora patterns – a before and after glimpse of what can be done with the proper know-how.

The school’s mission is to reconnect indigenous people to their traditional culture and, in the process, help to preserve it.

The Storyboot School is an outgrowth of Manitobah Mukluks, a 20-year-old indigenous-Canadian enterprise, based in Winnipeg, specializing in the authentic, fair trade of hand-crafted mukluks and moccasins. So far, it has offered mukluk-making classes in Winnipeg and Toronto. A $20,000 grant from the TreadRight Foundation will help the school’s reach be more comprehensive this year.

[URBAN NOTE] "Flying Books, Toronto’s smallest and most portable bookseller, nesting soon near you"

I will have to keep out an eye for Flying Books. The National Post's Michael Melgaard writes about this project.

“We’re not actually in Flying Books,” Martha Sharpe explains from behind the counter of the Weekend Variety, a general store/gift shop/artsy curiosity emporium on Toronto’s Queen West. “We’re not there until we’re standing in front of the shelf.”

The shelf that constitutes Sharpe’s Flying Books is topped with the company logo (Amelia Earhart, as drawn by author and illustrator Leanne Shapton), below which are a half-dozen titles, all face out, with small, handwritten notes detailing their merits. The one accompanying Max Porter’s Grief Is the Thing with Feathers lets curious shoppers know that the book won the 2016 Dylan Thomas Prize for young writers, briefly outlines what readers can expect from it, and closes with, “Sad, but very worth it.”

[. . .]

The challenge facing any bookseller is that books are sold on tight margins, and while the cost of books has stayed relatively level over the past decade, the cost of renting retail space has gone up significantly. Staying open has proven too costly for many, and likewise, starting fresh with a large outlay of money was off the table for Sharpe. “I didn’t have a huge wad of cash to throw down for a commercial lease,” she explains.

So Sharpe decided that a small, “choosily chosen” selection of a half-dozen or so books tucked inside another retail space was a safer – and inventive – way to start. She pitched the idea to Queen West gallerist Katharine Mulherin, who gave Sharpe some space inside her Weekend Variety store.

Inspired by Amelia Earhart (who fell in love with aviation in Toronto while working as a nurse’s aid), the venture was named Flying Books, which coincidently fit into calling her selections “flights” – a term for a sampling of wines. On August 22, 2015, Sharpe “threw on her flying goggles and flew in,” uncertain if the project would work. “But the books sold quickly and people keep coming back,” she says, enough so that by February 2016, she had snuck shelves into three more locations: Northwood General Store on Bloor, The Gladstone Hotel, and Ezra’s Pound, a coffee shop on Dupont.

[URBAN NOTE] "How Toronto’s latest mega tower got the green light"

Jennifer Pagliaro's article in the Toronto Star explores the political mechanics behind the impending construction of a super-high condo tower at Yonge and Bloor. The City of Toronto lacks much control over the process, it seems.

An unprecedented development — an 80-storey Toronto condo tower that will be second in height only to the CN Tower — sets a new standard for density at a crucial downtown intersection. Those extremes have created schisms at city hall over more than a year, during a planning process that has left key questions lingering: How much is too much? And who decides?

What occurred with this tower, which Yorkville developer Sam Mizrahi has dubbed “The One,” does not reflect how all building applications are dealt with in this city. But it is an example of how, some councillors say, the city is being built higher and higher, under duress.

As real estate wars see developers buying smaller and smaller parcels of land at rising prices, they are increasingly building skyward to cover their costs.

That’s been noticed at city hall. City councillors and staff say developers are applying more frequently to build well above the prescribed height and density for a neighbourhood. Councillors say there is little recourse to accommodating exceptions, with a provincially legislated appeals body capable of overturning council’s planning choices.

With the province in the midst of a review of that powerful body, the Ontario Municipal Board, city advocates say it’s finally time to get serious about removing Toronto from its grasp.

In the absence of reform, this is how one very tall, very dense building got the green light at council.

[URBAN NOTE] Postmedia News on the problems with cycling in Montréal

Postmedia News' Rene Bruemmer describes what sounds like a frightening situation on the streets of Montréal.

Montreal’s latest ghost bike was installed in early September on a street corner in Rosemont where Justine Charland St-Amour died too young.

The 24-year-old, who had just completed her studies in occupational therapy at the Université de Montréal’s medical school, was an experienced cyclist who grew up in a family where cycling was the main form of transportation. At 2 p.m. on Aug. 22, she was waiting for the light to change on Iberville St., about a kilometre northwest of Olympic Stadium and not far from her apartment, as a dump truck idled beside her. Later, St-Amour’s father-in-law would tell La Presse he considers Iberville St. so dangerous that when he’s on his bike, he avoids it — “like the plague.”

When the light changed, St-Amour started forward, and the truck driver, who could not see her in his blind spot, turned right. She died at the scene. Police declared no one was at fault.

Hers was the sixth ghost bicycle, painted all in white, eerie, haunting and sad, that advocates have erected in the last three years in Montreal to commemorate cyclists killed. Five of them died in collisions with a truck. The other, 27-year-old Bernard Carignan, was killed a year ago when he swerved to avoid a car door and was hit by a vehicle on St. Denis St. in Rosemont.

St-Amour’s death came during a particularly bloody week in which four other cyclists were hospitalized after collisions, one of them an 18-year-old who was critically injured after being hit by a van crossing the Berri St. bike path to enter a parking garage.

Montreal prides itself on being one of the most progressive and successful bike cities in North America, with 733 kilometres of bike lanes and counting and a million cyclists. But the rash of serious accidents has raised an unsettling question: Has cycling’s popularity outpaced the infrastructure needed to ride safely?

[URBAN NOTE] "Presto: A Botched Opportunity to Market Transit in Toronto?"

When Steve Munro writes about an issue in Toronto transit, we should all pay attention.

The TTC is well into its rollout of the provincially-mandated fare card, Presto, across the transit system. Like any new piece of technology there are teething problems, but both the TTC and Metrolinx seem bent on making the implementation as difficult and unfriendly as possible.

As the implementation now stands:
•All streetcars have Presto readers at all entrances, although their reliability leaves much to be desired.
•About half of the bus fleet has readers, and this work is expected to complete by year end.
•Many subway stations have at least a few turnstiles with Presto readers. This too will complete by year end, but installation of new fare gates will continue well into 2017.
•Some stations have machines to allow riders to reload their Presto cards, but these are scattered around town, and their placement (inside or outside of the fare control area) is inconsistent.
•Riders can pay the equivalent of token or ticket fares with Presto at adult and senior rates, but the ability use Presto for all trips is hampered by whether readers are available throughout a journey.
•Metropass users cannot use Presto because the monthly pass function has not yet been implemented, and in any event would be worthless unless all of one’s travel were confined to Presto-enabled vehicles and stations.

The implementation of a new fare collection system, bringing the TTC into at least the latter part of the 20th century, presents a chance to “get it right”, to promote a more attractive fare structure and transit in general. This opportunity has been lost through a combination of factors at the TTC, city and provincial levels. What should be a “good news” story is one of uncertainty and complaints, with more to come.