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[URBAN NOTE] Five #cherryblossomsTO links
May. 13th, 2019 08:02 pm- blogTO notes that High Park subway station was very crowded Saturday with the crowds looking for the sakura.
- CBC Toronto shares photos of the sakura of High Park.
- blogTO shares photos of the sakura of High Park.
- Toronto Life looks at the weekend sakura of High Park.
- r/toronto shares this beautiful photo showing the cherry blossoms of Exhibition Place.
- Jamie Bradburn looks back at vintage coverage in the Toronto press from 1952 about some fortunate raccoons.
- blogTO notes that this weekend will seek peak bloom in the cherry blossoms of High Park.
- Edward Brown at Spacing writes about the decades-long struggle to get dog parks accepted in Toronto.
- CBC Toronto notes controversy in Etobicoke surrounding a local brewery's decision to process medical marijuana on site.
- This National Post article by Sadaf Ahsan looks at how now-defunct Queen Video contributed hugely to pop culture in Toronto.
- The project of building a new river valley in the Port Lands, at the mouth of the Don, is a breathtakingly bold vision. The Toronto Star reports.
- The High Park Zoo will be getting its own brand of beer. (Will the capybaras feature? One hopes.) blogTO reports.
- Toronto will be getting a sparkling tunnel at Yonge and St. Clair, Instagram-ready already with the hashtag #tunnelofglam picked out. blogTO reports.
- Kristyn Wong-Tam writes at NOW Toronto about why now might be time for Toronto Pride, to ensure its independence and security from threats, to break free from restrictive funding sources.
- Perhaps 40% of the people making use of Toronto shelters for the homeless are refugees or asylum claimants, a new report suggests. CBC reports.
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A friend's balcony offers unforgettable views of the Toronto skyline and Lake Ontario beyond, so I naturally took advantage of it.
Three photos in this set--the first one here, and the last two--are panoramas kindly stitched together by Google Photos. (One must acknowledge one's collaborators.) Click on them to see their full breadth.
Three photos in this set--the first one here, and the last two--are panoramas kindly stitched together by Google Photos. (One must acknowledge one's collaborators.) Click on them to see their full breadth.
I headed over to High Park to catch the sakura last month, but forgot to bring an adequately charged camera. These six photos are the best of the ones I was able to take that day. For a full view of the sakura, I had to come back later, on a different evening.
This particular September day was a hot one, fall making up for this Toronto summer's lack of heat. There were fewer people taking advantage of this heat than I might have expected. All the more sights for me, then.
On this cold chill night, I thought I would revisit and share some photos I took in the warm green hot fall of two swans feeding on the shore of High Park's Grenadier Pond. They may not be native to North America, but they are lovely, all white and grace.
[PHOTO] Emu, looking back, High Park Zoo
Nov. 21st, 2017 07:59 pm
I love visiting the High Park Zoo to see its resident emus, I have lately realized, because emus provide visual proof that dinosaurs have continued to the present day. Dinosaurs are not, as the consensus of a few decades' ago would have had it, a vast grouping of life that went extinct. Dinosaurs have, rather, continued, evolving after the Cretaceous into a plethora of new and highly capable species. Some of these species look at a first glance less like their distant fossil ancestors than others, but others--the emu and other flightless birds--like so like the dinosaurs of old that it is surprising it was ever thought birds were not dinosaurs.
Things hang around--it's just a matter of looking for them.
[PHOTO] Emu of High Park Zoo
Sep. 27th, 2017 09:57 am
Yesterday, I went on a great walk southwest of Keele station, through High Park and west along the shore of Humber Bay. I was particularly impressed by this emu I saw, safely contained behind a fence, in the High Park Zoo. This is surely a bird that would be recognized by the dinosaurs of the pre-Cretaceous era as kin.
- The mixture of high- and low-end real estate on High Park Avenue might be a model for Toronto. Tess Kalinowski reports.
- There are quite a few different proposals for replacements of the streetcar linking Union Station to Queens Quay.
- Edward Keenan argues that, however Union Station or Queens Quay are linked, the link should be funded adequately.
- The Globe and Mail reports on how the arrival of rent control is leading to the early conversion of rental units to condos.
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[BLOG] Some Thursday links
Jul. 20th, 2017 09:46 am- James Bow considers the idea of Christian privilege.
- Centauri Dreams reports on the oddities of Ross 128.
- D-Brief shares Matthew Buckley's proposal that it is possible to make planets out of dark matter.
- Dead Things reports on the discoveries at Madjedbebe, in northern Australia, suggesting humans arrived 65 thousand years ago.
- Bruce Dorminey reports on the idea that advanced civilizations may use sunshades to protect their worlds from overheating. (For terraforming purposes, too.)
- Language Hat notes the struggles of some Scots in coming up with a rationalized spelling for Scots. What of "hert"?
- The LRB Blog considers the way in which the unlimited power of Henry VIII will be recapitulated post-Brexit by the UK government.
- Drew Rowsome quite likes the High Park production of King Lear.
- Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers the idea that Pluto's moons, including Charon, might be legacies of a giant impact.
- Unicorn Booty notes the terrible anti-trans "Civil Rights Uniformity Act." Americans, please act.
- The Volokh Conspiracy considers/u> the perhaps-unique way a sitting American president might be charged with obstruction of justice.
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- archeology,
- astronomy,
- australia,
- blogs,
- christianity,
- crime,
- european union,
- extraterrestrial intelligence,
- first nations,
- geoengineering,
- glbt issues,
- high park,
- history,
- human beings,
- islam,
- language,
- links,
- physics,
- pluto,
- politics,
- religion,
- scotland,
- separatism,
- solar system,
- space science,
- terraforming,
- theatre,
- toronto,
- united kingdom,
- united states,
- venus
- Daily Xtra notes that, in the 1930s, the shops of Yonge and Dundas supported a queer community. The tours described sound interesting.
- Torontoist's Tricia Wood arguesthat the proposed high speed rail route in southern Ontario is wasteful spending, reflecting a two-tier transit network.
- Steve Munro crunches data on the Queen Street route to find that buses have an advantage over streetcars.
- The Toronto Star's Ben Spurr notes that the TTC is planning to noticeably expand its express bus network.
- NOW Toronto's Lisa Ferguson writes about potential NIMBYism in the opposition to new high-rises in High Park.
While skating in High Park does sound delightful, I do hope for the sake of--among others--The Globe and Mail's Marcus Gee that Grenadier Pond turns out to be consistently solid enough for skating. Sometimes regulations are a burden; sometimes, they're life-saving.
About a year back, breaking with custom, Toronto city council actually did something sensible: it ended a ban on skating on Grenadier Pond.
Skaters have been going out on the long pond in the southwest corner of High Park for a century and more. Archival photos show women in long skirts and overcoats lacing up their skates.
It is a wonderful Toronto experience. When I took to the ice on Monday morning, a middle-aged man with his shoes in a backpack was sailing around on long speed skates, his hands linked behind his back as he took big swaying strides. A couple of guys were playing shinny, using their bags as goalposts. A woman in a parka with the hood pulled up against the stiff breeze was skating alongside her dog.
One of the delights of pond skating is simply observing the ice, so different from the monochrome man-made stuff. Grenadier’s went from a cloudy white at the shallower end to an almost translucent black in deeper parts, marked here and there with circular white patches that looked like miniature galaxies in deep space. It is no wonder that Grenadier regulars wait with sharpened blades for a cold snap that will turn the pond into the city’s biggest outdoor rink.
In recent years, city officials concerned about safety and (more the point) liability issues tried to shut the party down. “No skating” signs went up. Those who ventured onto the pond sometimes found city bylaw officers hollering at them from the shore to cease and desist. They were, after all, violating Section 608-21 B of the Toronto Municipal Code, stating that, “No person shall access or skate on a natural ice surface in a park where it is posted to prohibit it.”
Hina Alam's Toronto Star report reminds me that urban folklore is almost always interesting, at least on a Halloween evening.
On a black, cloudless night in April 1903, while a new moon sailed across the heavens, there arose a black mist in Grenadier Pond. Like a widow’s veil, it swirled and snaked — and thickened, until it took human form. A man and a horse then emerged from the water, fire in the man’s eyes and bleeding head.
“There are sounds of groaning, and, lo!, in a trice, the wraith is galloping with the speed of sunlight through the park,” reads a page 2 Toronto Daily Star article from Apr. 22, 1903, sandwiched between a labour report and a police report.
They were among many ghosts said to glide around Grenadier Pond, yet so popular were the rider and his “white nag” that a poem was written in their honour, and people spent many an hour talking about them.
However, the spectral rider and steed haven’t been seen since. It’s been 113 years.
Another news report from May 1903 discusses a man named Ed Clarke who was in court on a charge of drunkenness. Clarke had been in High Park to see the phantom horseman.
The Toronto Star's Robin Levinson King goes into detail about the recent hunt for the capybaras of High Park.
This is the true story of Bonnie and Clyde.
No, not the infamous outlaws who went on an armed robbery spree during the Great Depression. This is about the two endearing but evasive capybaras who escaped from the High Park Zoo, prompting a media frenzy and month-long search and rescue mission.
Lost in the park’s 400 acres of forest, ponds and trails, the mischievous rodents evaded capture for 36 days and cost the city at least $15,000 in services and overtime for about 30 employees, according to emails from the city’s parks and recreation division obtained through access to information laws.
It all began the morning of May 24, when the capybaras, which had been purchased for a total of $700 from a Texas breeder, were dropped off at their pen in High Park Zoo.
Zookeepers had hoped to exchange the duo, who are capable of breeding, for lonely old Chewy, High Park’s OG capybara. But Bonnie and Clyde, as they were later nicknamed by city staff, had freedom in mind and went on the lam.
[PHOTO] Six photos from the High Park Zoo
Aug. 12th, 2016 10:24 amI went to the High Park Zoo in search of the capybaras, but all I could see of them was their enclosure's reinforced fence.
I did see plenty of other animals, though. I was especially impressed by the emus.
I did see plenty of other animals, though. I was especially impressed by the emus.
