[PHOTO] Five photos from the Choir! Choir! Choir! celebration of Leonard Cohen in Christie Pit

Last night, I went to the Choir! Choir! Choir! celebration of the life and music of Leonard Cohen, held last night at 9 o'clock in the man-made amphitheatre that is Christie Pit.













The sound on my recording of "Suzanne" is not the best, but I think you might be able to get something of the power of the event, of the hundreds upon hundreds of people gathered together.

""Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen, with Choir!Choir!Choir! at Christie Pit" (Watch on YouTube)

I liked the Toronto Star report of the event by Alicja Siekierska.

The outpouring of love for Leonard Cohen continued in Toronto on Wednesday, as hundreds of mourners gathered in Christie Pitts Park to sing some of the legendary singer-poet’s greatest hits.

Led by Choir Choir Choir, they began with “Bird on a Wire,” belted “Hey That’s No Way to Say Goodby”e and, of course, performed an emotional rendition of Cohen’s best known song “Hallelujah.”

It was an emotional evening for many, but despite the sombre goodbye, it was a joyful event truly celebrating the work and life of Cohen.

“I want everyone in Montreal to hear us from here,” Choir Choir Choir co-founder Daveed Goldman exclaimed to the crowd, just before launching a boisterous version of “So Long Marianne.”

Clad in warm clothing, gatherers young and old began tricking in an hour before the event started. By 9 p.m., the hill in the park was packed, flickering candles lighting up singing faces.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomy notes the weird polar hexagonal wind systems of Saturn.


• blogTO notes that Presto is now in fifty TTC stations.


• The Broadside Blog talks about ways to be a good guest.


• Centauri Dreams notes efforts to image planets orbiting Alpha Centauri A and/or B.


• Crooked Timber takes a first look at the origins of Trumpism.


• Dangerous Minds notes that the Jesus and Mary Chain are set to release a new studio album.


• The Dragon's Gaze looks at the testing of the James Webb Space Telescope mirror.


• Joe. My. God. notes that HIV is now recognized in the US as a carcinogen.


• Language Hat looks at principles for naming in different languages.


• Language Log notes that Trumps' granddaughter did a good job of reading Tang China poems.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that the TPP is dead.


• The LRB Blog looks at the continued threat of tuberculosis.


• Steve Munro looks at 504 King travel times.


• The NYRB Daily notes the likely future degeneration of Turkey.


• Seriously Science notes that the most one posts comments on Reddit (and other forums?) the worse they become.


• Transit Toronto looks at TTC bus route changes planned in light of subway expansion.


• Window on Eurasia looks at ethnic conflict in Archangelsk, in multi-ethnic Stavropol and among Circassians in Krasnodar, even with Belarusian activists in Smolensk.

[URBAN NOTE] "Massive new park at Ontario Place will open next summer"

blogTO's Derek Flack reports on the exciting plans to renovate Ontario Place in time for next summer.

There's life at Ontario Place. Aside from the peek that we got at the dilapidated grounds for the in/future festival, there's been little news about the site's future outside of delays to the opening date of the urban park that will make up phase one of the revitalization efforts.

Provincial representatives gave tours of the construction site today, which is slowly starting to reveal the shape of the park to come. The new opening date is now pegged at next summer, a more realistic goal based on the amount of work that's been done thus far (the original target for phase one was 2015).

The 7.5 acre waterfront park will have a variety of features when it opens to the public, including granite rock faces that'll provide skyline views, a central fire pit, a waterfront trail, a boardwalk and an open-air pavilion. It all looks very promising, even as the rough outline is only coming into view now.

[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto is getting a gorgeous new pedestrian mall"

This transformation of Wilcocks Street into a pedestrian mall, again described by blogTO's Derek Flack, sounds fabulous.

Toronto's inventory of pedestrian spaces is about to get a lot more beautiful. Plans for the revitalization of Wilcocks Street were recently revealed by U of T at an open house, and the designs from DTAH Architects look auspicious. Improvements include a new tree canopy, social gathering spaces, a basketball court and a complete revamp of the current landscaping.

The city first experimented with making Wilcocks a pedestrian-only zone, between Huron and St. George streets, back in 2010 on a pilot basis. Upon conclusion, it permanently closed the street to traffic. Since then, the closure has retained a haphazard look with oversized planters to block cars and some patio furniture to capitalize on the space.

Now it will get the full design treatment it deserves. The plans are in their early stages, but in addition to the beautification, it's possible that the section of Wilcocks between Huron and Spadina will also be closed to traffic. At a minimum, it will be converted into a shared street with a heavy focus on the pedestrian realm.

[URBAN NOTE] "Six Things We Learned from Ryerson’s Cycling Report"

Torontoist's Cayley James shares her summary of six key points from a recent report on cycling in Toronto. There is definitely a lot of potential for it to increase.

Ryerson University recently released a report that is the first of its kind in Canada. Cycling Behaviour and Potential in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area [PDF] is a nearly 100-page document that analyzes current cycling patterns, with an eye towards how Metrolinx and the municipalities in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) can increase cycling.

Written by Raktim Mitra, Ian Cantello, and Greggory Hanson, three researchers from Ryerson’s School of Urban and Regional Planning, as well as Nancy Smith Lea from the Toronto Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT), it received funding from Metrolinx, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

There are 14 million trips made on a daily basis in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. Anyone can tell you that Toronto has a travel problem. The roads are clogged with cars, there is a dearth of hard-rail transit that Metrolinx is trying to remedy slowly but surely, and those who could be cycling aren’t. For me, a commuter, a cyclist, and someone who can’t drive, a lot of the problems brought up in the report were common knowledge. What was enlightening was the breadth of these problems across the region and the surprising areas that potential is hidden.

[URBAN NOTE] "How Libraries Are Helping Newcomers Adjust to Life in Toronto"

Torontoist's Nikhil Sharma describes how important Toronto's public library system can be for immigrants, thanks to settlement programs based at some of the branches.

Three years ago, Gong Zan Cang entered through the doors of the Parliament Street library for the first time. He lived nearby—it took him just a few minutes to get there in his wheelchair.

The 79-year-old immigrated to Toronto from China in 2002 to join his daughter who already lived here. He speaks Mandarin and little English.

Cang went to the library that day to attend one of its workshops, Tai Chi for Well-being. It wouldn’t be the last time, he’d be a frequent client of the library in the coming years.

[. . .]

[T]he TPL provides physical space for the workers in the branches and resources such as ESL collections, materials on resumés and job interviews, and electronic business resources.

Sixty-seven per cent of immigrants use Toronto Public Library branches once per month or more, compared to 46 per cent of non-immigrants, according to a November 2012 report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

While there are 100 public branches across the city, the library settlement partnership program is only offered at 16 of them, which raises the concern of limited accessibility.

[URBAN NOTE] On Christopher Bird's fisking in Torontoist of Matthew Lau on Toronto libraries.

Torontoist's Christopher Bird engages in an excellent criticism of an ill-judged, ill-thought op-ed in the Financial Post against the Toronto public library system. ("The Financial Post and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad anti-Toronto Library Op-ed" is a fantastic title.)

Periodically, one gets the opportunity to see the pundit equivalent of a caterpillar emerge from its chrysalis, typing unsupported or simply wrong and factless drivel in the same way that a veteran of Toronto newsrooms would. The difference is that these caterpillar pundits are much younger, giving us the opportunity to see how your Margaret Wentes and Joe Warmingtons enter the pundit world.

Enter Matthew Lau. Lau began publishing poorly written libertarian/conservative screeds while at the University of Toronto, and appears to have graduated, hack-wise if not degree-wise, to the Post, where he has written about how the Laffer Curve shows that Canada’s taxes are too high and how the gender pay gap isn’t a problem, thus ensuring he has a future writing hateclickbait.

Lau’s latest screed, however, is about how the Toronto Public Library is fiscally wasteful, and at a certain point one must stop indulging the follies of youth and slap them across the goddamn face.

Just the other week, the Toronto Star complained in an editorial that municipal politicians were still convinced they had to “stop the gravy train…. But there is no gravy train.” The editorial was decrying a request from Mayor John Tory that city departments, including the Toronto Public Library, cut a paltry 2.6-per-cent from their budgets. City spending, the Star insisted, “has already been cut to the bone.” Oh, please. Anyone who looks at the library’s budget will find more gravy there than at Swiss Chalet.

This sort of writing just sets my teeth on edge. That Swiss Chalet line in particular is the sort of Toronto pundit quip that is completely tone-appropriate for Toronto newspaper punditry, because it is a Canadian cultural reference that manages to be hackneyed, unfunny, and not even really the right answer because Swiss Chalet isn’t known for their gravy but for their delicious barbecue sauce.

[LINK] On the ethics of actually teaching First Nations languages in Ontario

If the situation is as described by the CBC News' Jody Porter, I'm struck by the lack of sense in this decision. Why would you have someone teach a language they are not fluent in?

David Thompson believed his Ojibway heritage and his university degree with special qualifications in native language instruction would give him job security as an Ojibway teacher in Ontario's public school system.

He was wrong.

During a round of job cuts this year, Thompson was bumped out of his full-time permanent job teaching high school Ojibway with Lakehead Public Schools in Thunder Bay, Ont., by a man who is a specialist in business studies and has no professional qualifications in any language.

The teacher currently doing the job is not Indigenous and does not speak Ojibway, Thompson wrote in a complaint filed with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

"It's a total insult to our youth to put someone in front of the classroom to teach Ojibway, who is not Ojibway, who is not affiliated with the culture or brought up with it," said Thompson, who was raised by his grandparents at Rocky Bay First Nation in northwestern Ontario.

[URBAN NOTE] On the troubles with Hotel X at Exhibition Place

The Toronto Star's Alex Ballingall reports on the latest problems at Exhibition Place.

The already-delayed construction of a “cutting edge” resort at Exhibition Place was halted last month when the company that was building the complex placed a $32-million lien against the city-owned property, the Star has learned.

In an Oct. 25 email to the Board of Governors of Exhibition Place, which includes five city councillors, Chief Executive Officer Dianne Young said she had informed the city’s legal department of the situation at the Hotel X, a project near the iconic Princes’ Gate that has been discussed since as early as 1999.

Young wrote that one week earlier—in mid October—Multiplex Construction Canada “suspended work on the Hotel X site” and took out liens against the property. Young said the owner of the Hotel X development subsequently hired a new builder “because of this action and the inability to move the project forward.”

Exhibition Place is a publicly-owned area that is run by a city-appointed board of governors, which can lease properties for business ventures with municipal approval. The Hotel X project was given the green light in December 2009, and was originally slated for completion in May 2015, according to a board report.

Government records show Multiplex certified a lien against the Hotel X property on Oct. 19 that is worth $32,573,260. Six more contractors took out liens in the following days, ranging from just over $20,000 to almost $5 million. Liens are typically placed against properties as a means to keep a right of possession until a debt is paid.

[URBAN NOTE] "Brampton council shocked by cost of York Region project"

The Toronto Star's San Grewal provides yet another example demonstrating how Brampton stands out among GTA municipalities for its many municipal controversies.

While some residents in York Region are angry over a $212-million price tag for a soon-to-be-built regional headquarters, Brampton councillors are questioning how their own controversial city hall building cost almost the same price for less than a third of the space.

“Is this supposed to tell us what we already know — that we overpaid?” Councillor Gurpreet Dhillon asked his colleagues, voicing frustration as a motion at Wednesday's council meeting was introduced to find out how York Region is paying $212 million for a planned 422,000-square-foot building.

In 2011, Brampton agreed to a deal for its new 126,000-square-foot city hall building that is costing local taxpayers $205 million.

“I almost laughed,” said Councillor Elaine Moore, pointing out a Toronto Star article about the cost of York Region's new headquarters. “I certainly received emails yesterday,” she said, mentioning the reaction of some constituents.

Moore told the Star that even though the York project's cost does not include financing (it's being funded internally) while Brampton's cost does, the math still doesn't add up. "With municipal borrowing rates having maintained at historic lows around three per cent, we are still paying close to three times more than York," she said.

[URBAN NOTE] Marc Campbell at Dangerous Minds on the energy of the New York scene of the late 70s

Marc Campbell has a fantastic post over at Dangerous Minds talking about the vitality of the late 1970s/early 1980s music scene in New York City, an era of remarkable popularity and productivity.

Whether playing CBGB or not I probably spent most nights in 77/78 either there or at Max’s. It was the last great era of rock and roll as far as I’m concerned. We’ll be talking about The Ramones, Talking Heads and Patti Smith long after grunge bands like Alice In Chains and Soundgarden are long forgotten (if they’re not already). As far as music of this new century goes, I’m not sure much of it will be remembered 20 years from now. I’m not hearing anything that really blows me away. I wish I did. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m just an old fuck living in the past. But that past, particularly the glorious whole of the New York Club scene of the 70s and early 80s, was pretty fucking wonderful. Seen from a passing satellite I can imagine Manhattan, Brooklyn and The Bronx looking like a giant throbbing meatpit glimmering with copious amounts of sweat and dripping with… (use your imagination).

Punk, rap, disco and Latin music were drifting in and out of each other and the barriers separating uptown from downtown were being shattered. Blondie, B-52s and DEVO were being played at Studio 54 and bands like Liquid Liquid, Bush Tetras and Konk were taking disco’s four-on-the-floor beat and putting some angsty urban edge into the mix. The bottom line is people were dancing everywhere, even in clubs where people had been too cool to get crazy. Leaning on the bar and striking hipster poses looked pretty square when hundreds of people were going mad on the dance floor to The Gun Club’s invocation to “explode to the call… move, move, sex beat, go…!”

My own circuit included Danceteria, Peppermint Lounge, Mudd Club, Club 57 and Hurrah’s where new wave, post-punk and ska bands played regularly and deejays like Mark Kamins, Anita Sarko and Dany Johnson kept the crowds in perpetual motion.The segue from live bands to vinyl was an art that was being mastered as the scene unfolded and the best deejays were being born on the spot.

At downtown clubs like The Paradise Garage and The Saint deejays Larry Levan and Alan Dodd spun dance floor filling beats for predominantly gay clienteles who embraced divas Loleatta Holloway, Donna Summer, Grace Jones and Sylvester as well as euro-disco and the very beginnings of house music. These were the test markets for new singles by new artists and the latest dance re-mixes. If a 12-inch extended dance mix worked at The Paradise Garage it would work anywhere. It wasn’t long before rock bands like The Clash and Blondie were hitting the studios to re-work their tracks into dance mixes. No one was listening to radio. We were all too busy nightclubbing.

[MUSIC] Pet Shop Boys, "It's Alright"

In writing my new Thursday [MUSIC] posts, I find myself revisiting songs I'd touch on before. The Pet Shop Boys' 1988 single "It's Alright" is one I had written about back in January 2009.

What is necessarily wrong with that? Songs can remain the same, but interpretations can change. There are some undeniable core continuities between me now and me in 2009, say, but I don't think about things in quite the same way.

"Pet Shop Boys - It´s all Right - (Introspective 1988)" (Watch on YouTube)

Generations will come and go
but there’s one thing for sure
Music is our life’s foundation
and shall succeed all the nations to come
I hope it’s gonna be alright
'cause the music plays forever
(For it goes on and on and on and on…)
I hope it’s gonna be alright
(On and on and on…)
‘Cause the music plays forever
(For it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on)

A song that expresses hope for the future, and expresses it in the hope of music’s eternal power in the face of all the ills of the world, is always worth listening to again.