Come to the MaRs Centre on College Street tonight at 6:00 and talk trash with Toronto's mayoralty candidates Stephen Pitfield, Rod Muir, and Jane Pitfield. Alphabet City is hosting a panel about trash - what we are doing with it now and what to do with it in the future. Join yours truly as moderator as we ask the politicians who want to lead the city their views on Toronto's growing garbage crisis.

Join us for what should be a fast-paced hour of questions and answers.

Do you have questions for the candidates? Let us know what they are and we will try to ask them. Just add them as a comment below.

After this evening's mayoralty debate on Toronto's garbage, why not come to one of the city's hottest venues to experience "Opera Trash." The program starts at 7:30. Be there.

Before living in Toronto, the city was defined in my imagination by places such as Union Station, and the Royal York and by its many limestone and brick facades. All of which were elegantly depicted by comic book artist and designer, Seth in his book, "It's a Good Life, if You Don't Weaken". Seth seems to particularly capture Toronto's winter grayness with a unique dignity that I don't often see in images of the city


Image Copyright 2003 Seth (G.Gallant).

This parking lot is not visible to everyone who passes it. Somehow, its frustrated monotony forms a barrier that the ordinary gaze doesn’t attempt to penetrate. It is a void in the built environment; stores turn their backs to it, leaving their garbage to spill out of this end. An old brown church awkwardly flanks the opposite side. From the sidewalk, the plaster peeling from the walls, the gravel and cigarette butts scattered on the ground, and finally, even the people standing outside become hazy, their distinctions bleeding together. Only the red lettering on a sign manages to draw attention to the drop-in centre that is tucked away in the basement of the church.

Kurt told me about this place yesterday. He lives in a tent at the edge of the city, and comes here almost every day. The drop-in centre is a place where the homeless can do their laundry, eat a hot meal, and plug in to an expansive network of resources and people who are eager to help them to a better life, when it is possible. Kurt uses these facilities sometimes, but he comes here regularly because he is a volunteer. He likes to cook, and usually works in the kitchen.

We are sitting in the parking lot outside, because Kurt wants to have a cigarette before he helps to prepare sandwiches for lunch. At first, he is quiet and pensive; slowly, he begins to speak, and it seems like he is not as small as he was in silence. He is recounting fantastic stories about road trips to the Maritimes, hard drugs, and near-death experiences; when he tells me about rescuing an old woman, as she is being mugged in a cemetery, he grows to the size of a hero; he looks at me covertly, trying to gauge my reaction, and when he finds it, he laughs, revealing a shocked topography of jagged black teeth. At the end of his story, the old woman is so grateful that she goes to the grocery store and buys enough food for him and his friends to feast on for a week.

Listening to Kurt talk, my mind sifts through the myths, trying to separate them from the truth, but after awhile I give up. His tone is dramatic; the grin he wears is slightly derisive, towards himself for telling these stories and enjoying it, and towards me for believing any of them. Perhaps the distinction is not important: myth will sometimes shelter intentions and possibilities; reality resides in circumstances that have been determined, decisions that have already been made.

I will be going to school in September, Kurt told me yesterday. Saying this made him cheerful. I’m going to learn about computers; you can’t get anywhere these days if you don’t understand computers. I’m going to learn to be a chef, too.

He invited me to the drop-in centre so I could try his cooking. In the morning, I arrived before he did; everyone in the room laughed (...read more...)