[PHOTO] Colourful utility box, Yonge and College

[PHOTO] Three photos of Les boules roses at Wellesley

Claude Cormier's Les boules roses, the chains of pink and multi-coloured balls that have hung above rue Sainte-Catherine in the Village gay every year since 2011 (though perhaps this may be their final summer), features in advertisements for Fierté Montréal Pride at Wellesley subway station in Toronto's Gay Village. These ads were a bit poignant for me, coming so soon after my return from a fantastic four-day trip down Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence to the gorgeous city of Montréal, but in a good way.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams notes a paper suggesting that a world without plate tectonics could support Earth-like conditions for up to five billion years.


• D-Brief notes a paper suggesting that, although geoengineering via sulfate could indeed lower global temperatures, reduced light would also hurt agriculture.


• Dead Things notes a suggestion that the Americas might have been populated through two prehistoric migration routes, through the continental interior via Beringia and along the "Kelp Route" down the Pacific North American coast.


• Peter Kaufman, writing at the Everyday Sociology Blog, shares some of the impressive murals and street art of Philadelphia and grounds them in their sociological context.


• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing suggests that social media, far from being a way to satisfy the need for human connection and attention in a mass society, creates a less functional solution.


• Hornet Stories reports that Turkish Radio and Television vows to remain outside of Eurovision so long as this contest includes queer performers like Conchita Wurst (and other queer themes, too, I don't doubt).


• Lawyers, Guns and Money reports on a study suggesting that the oratory of Hitler actually did not swing many votes in the direction of the Nazis in the elections of Germany in 1932.


• Patricia Escarcega at Roads and Kingdoms praises the Mexican breakfast buffet restaurants of Tucson.


• Arnold Zwicky meditates on the Boules roses of the Village gay of Montréal, Swiss Chalet, and poutine.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: flooding, Humber Bay Shores, TDSB boundaries, Equilibrium by Okuda

• Toronto Life shares some stunning photos from the flooding that hit Toronto Tuesday night, here.


• The Tuesday night storm, it seems, was a one-in-100-year storm, thus explaining why infrastructure was overwhelmed so quickly. There seem to be a lot of these lately. The Toronto Star reports.


• Urban Toronto shares a stunning overhead photo of Humber Bay Shores and the adjacent condos.


• With just weeks to go, the Toronto District School Board has come up with six maps showing new school district boundaries for the Ford era. The Toronto Star reports.


• At Spacing, Sarah Ratzlaff examines the stunning giant mural at Church and Carlton by Okuda San Miguel, Equilibrium.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: greening vacant lots, lost St. Lawrence, Vaughan, Amsterdam, Ashgabat

• CityLab takes a look at how greening vacant lots can improve the mental health of the people living in different neighbourhoods.


• Paul Soucy at Global News reports on the lost villages of the St. Lawrence, drowned in the 1950s by the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway near Cornwall.


• There is controversy in Vaughan over a plan to sell public parkland to a developer. The Toronto Star reports.


• Is Amsterdam at risk of being hollowed out as mass tourism makes it a destination for partying tourists? Guardian Cities reports.


• David Farrier writes for Guardian Cities about his experiences in the strange new model city of Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: Claude Cormier, bisexuality, Wojnarowicz, trans rights, Queer Eye

• Claude Cormier, creator of the unforgettable 18 nuances de gai installation on rue Sainte-Catherine in Montréal, wants to take his work down at the end of the year. Ici Radio Canada reports.


• Bisexual men are less likely to come out of the closet than their gay counterparts, sadly. Attitude notes.


• Them reports on what sounds like an amazing David Wojnarowicz exhibit at the Whitney.


• CTV News reports on a recent trans rights march in Montréal, centered around a call for changes in documentation.


• Laurie Penny at The Baffler positions the new Queer Eye for the Straight Guy as a sort of therapy for straight guys left behind by economic and cultural shifts.

[MUSIC] Five music links: The Music Man, Raine Maida, David Bowie, 70s, Erland Cooper

• JSTOR Daily reports on how the 1962 movie The Music Man, based on the earlier musical, became a major Cold War export of the US even as small-town America was changing.


• This Global News interview with Raine Maida, lead singer of Our Lady Peace, makes me positive-nostalgic for the 1990s.
  
• NPR reported on the discovery of David Bowie's first demo, from 1963, some time ago, but this still amazes me.


• At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox took a look at the 1970s song "Hot Child in the City".


• The Island Review interviewed multi-instrumentalist Erland Cooper and shared some of his music, inspired by the culture and the sound of the Orkneys.