Clay & Paper Theatre's Night of Dread lets people parade their collective fears through the streets of Toronto ... Filmmaker Andrew Kowalchuk sends this segment on the 2006 parade held last Saturday evening.

Tonight after the last of the carved gourds has guttered into darkness, the leaves will divulge their final secrets and the soil will sigh in its bed. Around midnight the wind will shift and almost invisibly the season will turn toward winter.

In the city it is still possible to sense this turning. Even if our harvest is second-hand, we fatten ourselves like squirrels, bulging suddenly in thicker coats, our eyes bright and covetous of the season's spoils. Like cattle treading reluctantly toward pasture on a chill morning, we jostle against one another in the subway, our breath bright and visible until warmed in these slow-moving subterranean stalls. All along the highway the sound of traffic is muted, headlights disappearing periodically as if into a sudden fog. Cyclists spin past unnaturally quickly, despite seeming almost to lumber in thick coats and gloves. The city appears to move in a single direction; inward.

The city is liminal on this night at the threshold of winter, and our celebrations signal our ambivalence about crossing it in either direction. Because at All Hallow's Eve we acknowledge not only the turning of the season but also the passage of our own lives. Even if we do not believe that spirits walk among us on this night, at the feast of Samhain we allow that they might. And if we have shortened the ritual from eating with the dead to simply eating them in the guise of skull-shaped candies, still we commune with them.

But if the turning of fall to winter signals a kind of death, it also reveals parts of the city that remain hidden to us during the rest of the year. The contours of the city's ravines, appearing suddenly at the verge of our daily commute, show us how the city rises above ancient river valleys at the edge of the old lake bed and remind us that our travels take us across not only hours and days but also across seasons and epochs. Visible all at once, as if trees and buildings have parted to reveal it to us, the CN Tower blinks at each of us from across the city, its cadences remote and impenetrable but comforting at the same time. At this season it looks very much like a giant carved pumpkin, grinning at the city through gritted teeth. And when we creep inside it and look out through glittering eyes, what do we see of this city at the verge of the season's change? Its topography laid out before us in regular or uneven rows, its streets and buildings peering back or looking away, people moving through it like a thousand stray cats searching for a warm corner to sleep in? A city preparing for a long night, preparing to sleep before popping up like mice under the cover of snow at the first retun of light?

Still, this morning the little birds sit outside my window eating cedar buds. Despite the grey morning, the last leaves glow (...read more...)

The 7th annual Planet in Focus, Canada’s leading international environmental film and video festival, takes place November 1 to 5, in Toronto. Featured are over 80 films from across Canada and around the world, panel discussions, special events, an Eco-Fair, free films for children, an Organic Pancake Breakfast and a Spotlight on Toronto. Screenings take place at the ROM, Innis College and the City of Toronto Archives.

WEDNESDAY NOV 1
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm @ the Royal Ontario Museum
Farewell Oak Street (17 minutes / Canada)
Takes us into the squalid living conditions of Canada’s urban poor, then presents a mid-century vision of hope for our first social housing project, Regent Park. http://www.planetinfocus.org/farewelloak

THURSDAY NOV 2
5:00 pm to 7:00 pm @ the Royal Ontario Museum
Geologic Journey – Great Lakes (54 minutes / Canada)
Tells the story of the dramatic changes in the geology and landscape of the vast central area of North America. Only in very recent geologic history takes has this taken the form of five great, interconnected freshwater lakes. http://www.planetinfocus.org/geologicjourney

Screened with:
Last Stand (68 / Canada)
A 34 year battle has raged to stop a Pickering airport and save 18,000 acres of the richest farmland in Canada. The battle now continues with a new generaton of fighters. A historic tale with candid talk from some of Canada’s well known cultural figures. http://www.planetinfocus.org/laststand

7:00 pm to 9:00 pm @ the Royal Ontario Museum
Escarpment Blues (59 / Canada)
Sarah Harmer’s diary of her tour to end quarry mining in the Niagara Escarpment. http://www.planetinfocus.org/escarpmentblues Screening followed by:
Panel: Preserving Our Greenbelt

As the Greater Toronto Area continues to expand, pressures on our precious Greenbelt mount. Where, what and how can we grow from here? What is at stake? Singer activist Sarah Harmer, artist and inventor Bill Lishman, President of Local Flavour Plus Lori Stahlbrand, and environmental lawyer David Donnelly join broadcaster Tim Weber in a lively discussion on preserving our Greenbelt. http://www.planetinfocus.org/preservingourgreenbelt

FRIDAY
9:30pm-11:30pm @ Innis College
Borderless (25 / Canada)
Borderless is a docu-poem about the lives of undocumented workers in the City of Toronto. http://www.planetinfocus.org/borderless

SATURDAY
11:00 am to 1:00 pm @ Bata Shoe Museum
Walking Tour with David Crombie and Friends
Join former Mayor of Toronto David Crombie and some special friends on a walking tour from the Bata Shoe Museum to the Steam Whistle Brewery. http://www.planetinfocus.org/walkingtour

1:00pm-3:00pm @ ROM
A Whale of A Tale (45 / Canada)
The miraculous discovery of A Whale Bone by a Toronto Transit Commission subway construction crew in Toronto in the 1980’s generated a lot of buzz at the time of its excavation. Peter Lynch unearths its mystery. http://www.planetinfocus.org/whaleofatale

3:00 pm to 5:00 pm @ Innis College (rm 222)
Hogtown: The Politics of Policing (96 / Canada)
Winner of the 2005 Hotdocs Best Feature Length Canadian Documentary Award, director Min Sook Lee with unprecedented access, takes us into the machinations, political pressures and influences over the Toronto Police Services Board. http://www.planetinfocus.org/hogtown

7:00 pm to 9:00 pm @ the (...read more...)

Dump image from York University's Environmental Studies web site

Mayoralty candidates Stephen LeDrew, Rod Muir, and Jane Pitfield joined the Alphabet City Trash Festival crew Saturday night at the MaRS Centre on College Street to discuss the city's garbage crisis (Mayor Miller declined the invitation to attend). In spite of what many people in our city seem to think about political candidates in general, those people who came to listen and ask questions found that the three performed well - they had ideas that might even work to reduce our city's ecological footprint.

While researching my preamble to the evening's discussion - I moderated the event - it occurred to me that the real cost in environmental impact terms of shipping tons of garbage hundreds of kilometers was never made public. I wanted to know how much air pollution a truck creates when carrying one ton of cargo one kilometer. With that information in hand it would be easy to determine how much invisible damage our NIMBYism was inflicting on the environment.

According to a study sighted by the Victoria Transit Policy Institute, in 2002 transport trucks produced on average 12.7 pounds of pollution emissions per ton per mile (or roughly 8 pounds per kilometer).

The Michigan dump site is about 260 miles from Toronto or 418 kilometers.

In 2005 we sent 86 trucks a day 365 days of the year to Michigan. They carried a total of 750,000 tons of Toronto garbage. That is 1.5 billion pounds of solid waste.

So, let's do the math. For the sake of fairness, we will reduce the pollution generated on the empty return trip to Toronto to one-quarter. To do that we will say the trucks travelled only 100 kilometers on the way back.

Total trip length 418 + 100 = 518 kilometers

Total pollution per kilometer = 8 pounds

Total Tons shipped = 750,000

Then 518 x 8 x 750,000 = 3,108,000,000 pounds of tailpipe pollution.

There it is folks. To move 1.5 billion pounds of garbage so we don't have to face our local responsibilities for waste reduction and management, we create at minimum 3.1 billion pounds of "Invisible" waste not to mention the other physical problems having those trucks on the roads produces (this does not factor in the pollution created by the truck drivers in turn driving to their jobs, manufacturing the trucks, producing diesel fuel, etc.,). The purchase of a new dump in Ontario reduces the amount of pollution but is still unconscionable. Toronto has to deal with its local waste issues locally.

To the panelists' credit, that was their position. Each offered different approaches. Given Rod Muir's experience as founder of Waste Diversion Toronto, it was not surprising that he had probably the best practical solutions to reducing Toronto's waste. Jane Pitfield was a close second given her long experience on City Council and as Chair of the Works Committee, she knew the issues from the perspective of an involved politician. Stephen LeDrew was a contender in (...read more...)