I Spy With My Little Radar

I've been driving along Dupont street for years. Its a street rife with danger especially at some of the more notorious intersections like Dufferin, Bathurst or Spadina where it can be a very tricky manoeuvre if you're travelling north and want to turn left onto Dupont.

Cars emerge unseen, hurtling southbound through the intersections from under the CP railway bridges.Then there are the drivers who insist on bombing around the S curve right before the Kendal Avenue intersection.

I used to live on Kendal, only a couple of houses south of Dupont, and I always imagined a driver who's timing was just a tiny bit off allowing his car to take its natural course and ending up in someone's front yard or worse, in our someone's living room. (In fact I'm pretty sure there have been just those types of accidents).

Not that I don't understand the thrills to be had on and around Dupont street. A little G-force on the S curve or the heady drop-and-recovery from under the CP bridges. Even the dreaded left turns can sometimes feel like a game of chicken – a welcome test of reflex and driving skill in the otherwise aopressively dull, crawling traffic of Toronto. We are most of us Formula One wannabes at heart. Aren't we?

Its curious. Almost daily I see a car pulled over by police on the bottom of Bathrust street. But on Dupont? In the ten years living at various locations a stone's throw from Dupont, I cannot remember ever seeing anyone pulled over by police for anything.

Dupont has always been the Wild West of driving. Lawless – drive at your own risk – caution; this street is not supervised by lifeguards.

You can see, then, how completely bizarre it was to see what I saw the other night. Under a yellow sign reading 'YOUR SPEED' was a seizure-inducing bright red LED flashing the numbers '51'.It wasn't me travelling at 51KM/hr in a 40 zone. I was going about 45. Must have been the guy in front of me.

How Soviet. Do they think I don't know how fast my car is going? It wasn't a camera (we have, and have had, plenty of those in various forms) so its not like they were out to covertly stick me with a speeding ticket. No, this seemed to be something much darker.Like an animal trainer repeatedly reminding his beast of its commands until it finally becomes completely servile. I wondered if the City was doing the same thing – brainwashing us into following their orders of travelling at the speed limit. I know we have a left-leaning mayor, and that's fine with me. But this new speed-mind control seemed downright totalitarian.

I suppose I should mention that I get just a little paranoid on occasion. It usually passes quickly enough and did so that night. Once it had, I jumped in my car to test this new toy out. This was around 2:00 AM, mind you, and Dupont was all but deserted. I drove down the street doing a good 60KM/hr right past the new radar machine and…

Nothing. The sign stayed blank. And has ever since.

What's going on you ask? Well first of all, as it turns out, this is not a new device. It's been in place since September 2005 as a part of the City of Toronto's 'Watch Your Speed' program which is itself part of a much broader initiative 'We're all pedestrians' to make drivers more aware of pedestrian safety.There were even some awesome posters put up on sidewalk garbage bins and TTC shelters though it could be argued pedestrians were more likely to see those than drivers.

Watch Your Speed Program
Four speed display trailers are used throughout the city in neighbourhoods with a history of local speeding. A sign mounted on the trailer reminds motorists of the posted speed limit in the area while the radar unit measures the speed of approaching vehicles and displays this speed back to the motorist.

AT first glance this seems a good idea after all. Slow people down with these display trailers on busy, speedy streets, especially near intersections and crosswalks. But the Dupont display (east of Howland Avenue) can't be more than 80 meters from a crosswalk at Brunswick and that just doesn't give speeding drivers enough time to slow down.

Besides, since first noticing it, I've watched several cars speed right past me without so much as a burp from the display trailer. Must be busted.

Speaking of busted. Though clearly this program is only at the beta stage you have to wonder if the city just might be trying to save a little cash with this technology. Wouldn't it be more effective to post some actual cops on Dupont and nail these speeders? Police are expensive I guess.

Just to be clear. In reality I'm a pretty cautious driver and besides I often have my right honourable friend backseat driving beisde me. A shout of "Cyclist!" or "Pedestrian!" can be quite useful in suppressing my Formula One aspirations.

Pedestrian Safety Statistics

* Half of all traffic fatalities involve pedestrians.
* Pedestrian Fatalities in 2004: 28
* Pedestrian Fatalities in 2005: 12 (to August 31st)
* More than 2,300 pedestrians are injured every year in traffic collisions (Average: six people/day).

News release: September 2005.

Sources:

Display Trailer photograph (modified) by Joe Clark

Hammer and Sickle mock up by su'hs with no other source information.

Building Another Aircraft Carrier

So Frank Gehry is building a skyscraper in New York city. The Gutter and Curbed seem to the think the real story is who got the scoop on the proposal. More importantly for NYC is the impact the tower will have on their city and for the rest of us the impact it will have on the future of architecture. This might just be the building that enshrines Gehry forever in the annals of history making him the grandaddy of twenty first century architecture. His reputation is so prominent and his buildings so popular its hard to legitamately critique his work.

On the other hand, it might be a massive mistake. But then I'm no Peter Eisenman and Frank Gehry is certainly not some young naive student. And yet…

It was a heady time for most of us when Peter Eisenman came to our school as a visiting critic, even though his lecture left many scratching their heads. I found his buildings bland and over rationalized.The lecture itself was cryptic and, as was fashionably Derida-esque at the time, labyrinthine. Nonetheless Eisenman was in the pantheon of Archi-Gods and I think I can say we were all proud to have him critiquing our work.

AT Carleton we were used to being ripped apart at crits. Our more notorious professors thought nothing of using the most fowl language to degrade and humiliate us in the name of…indoctrination I suppose. But there would be no nastiness with Eisenman in the house.

Besides, on that day, one of the best students the School of Architecture had ever seen was presenting his project.The Pit was packed. His design was magnificent. His drawings; intricate. Awe-inspiring.That was typical Edward. His skill and talent often putting him out of reach of other students' ability to even comprehend what he was doing.

And best of all, he actually seemed to frighten our professors into acquiescence. A glowing exception leaving the wolves stunned and emasculated by the power of his work which they themselves could never hope to match.

Not so for Eisenman.

Of course he wasn't cruel or even aggressive. That was a specialty left to the proffs at Carleton. But neither was he going to let his critical mind go to waste over Edward.

Chomping on a toothpick, as I recall, he reclined and then sprawled all over his chair, arms waving lazily as he began his critique.
"I'm not going to address the particulars of your design. You've obviously met and even exceeded all the criteria for this project. Instead I will tell you a story."

So he proceeds to tell the story of another very talented student. A young woman who, like Edward, could produce evocative drawings and mesmerizing designs. She had been deft at conveying both minute detail and broad architectural concepts.

But Eisenman started to notice something by the time he had seen her third or forth project. Even though each project had a completely different program they were each clearly derivative of ship design (a popular theme at the time) and specifically aircraft carriers.

The student agreed with Eisenman. She admitted she loved aircraft carriers, but saw nothing wrong with using them as a starting point for her designs.More than a starting point, however, her real problem was that her skills and talent could make anything seem compelling even if she repeated essentially the same design in different iterations. And, with all her talents, she remained unchallenged.

Now, she may have served the public well as an architect some day – may have eventually have built beautiful aircraft carrier-like buildings. But when Eisenman asked why she just didn't go into military navel design she replied that her designs were a metaphor. Uh oh. HIS point was that she was no longer challenging herself. If she continued to convince herself and others that 'aircraft charier' was a legitimate response to ANY program, she would become disingenuous and so would her buildings.

Edward said very little in response. They looked at each other and nodded as if some secret Masonic message were being passed between them.

In the beginning (well after he had been in practice for a decade or two) Frank Gehry's buildings seemed so foreign they were beyond categorization. Giant curving blocks of volumes melting into one another. Ingenious – even troubling – use of materials like chain-link. Buildings whose skin appeared to be peeling away. A restaurant in Kobe Japan that looks like, no, IS a giant tail-flipping fish.

On when Is should be Has

He is schizophrenic. She is bipolar. He is a depressive.She is developmentally delayed. He is schizoid.She is mentally ill.

The illnesses may be frightening to some but if we're just talking verbs here none of the above sounds troubling, correct? In fact it's how we refer to people with mental illness and most often how people with mental illnesses refer to themselves. (Did you think I'd say the mentally ill?)They are their illnesses.

And here is how it works for just about every other medical condition. He has cancer. She has heart disease. He has the flu. She has mad cow disease. He has cerebral palsy. She has cystic fibrosis. He has multiple sclerosis. She has a fractured hip. He has AIDS.

This list goes on and on. Almost every medical condition one can think of is one in which someone HAS rather than IS something. Except when it comes to mental illness.

Imagine if non-psychiatric medical conditions were treated like mental illnesses. Lets try it.

He is heart diseased. She is cancerous. He is flu-ic. She is mad cowic. He is a cerebral palsyist. She is a fractured hip-er. He is an AIDSist.

Though rarely used in conversation or by physicians and especially not by people with these psychiatric conditions, its is possible to apply has to mental illnesses. However it is much more common, especially in the case of 'first-axis' disorders that a person inevitably is their illness.

How often do you hear "he has manic depressive illness" or "she has schizophrenia"?

I would be remiss for not pointing out exceptions in both categories. The exceptions are themselves informative. She has a personality disorder. He has OCD.She has an anxiety disorder.None of these are considered first axis and more importantly psychosis is rarely present. Insight is maintained.
There are also a few non-psychiatric conditions where people are branded as their illness. He is diabetic. She is hypoglycemic. He is HIV positive. In these cases we say is because the illnesses are chronic, life-long and and require substantial and regular medical intervention such as insulin injections, dialysis or prophylactic medications.Then there are those conditions which are poorly understood and especially those which are stigmatized.She is HIV positive? He is a leper? Why do we say such things?

But serious psychiatric conditions get the worst of both worlds. They are often poorly understood (by the general public and too often by physicians themselves) and deeply stigmatized. Add to that the necessity for insight in treatment and you have an environment that encourages people with mental illness to brand themselves according to their illness. The paradox is that only when you know you are ill can you begin to recover. Put more crudely; if you know you're crazy, you're not crazy anymore.

twIT girl.

We pull up to the twenty four hour grocery, me and my Right Honourable friend, in my bird poop splattered bumper-less little Civic. I just need fags and maybe a loaf of bread – shouldn't take long. As I head to the store's entrance I take note of the four illegally parked vehicles in front of us in this order: An Audi tt, a BMW X5, a Porche Cayenne and (almost jutting into the intersection) and a Mercedes ML 350.

The cars are no surprise. The street where they're parked borders three very tony neighbourhoods; Yorkville, the Annex and lower Forest Hill.

Still, the store itself is no Pusatari's being more often a tad filthy and a little smelly though it still manages to be over-priced. And it's not uncommon to see some down-and-outers, having migrated uptown, loitering in the store for protection against whatever weather threatens them.

But it can be hard to differentiate the over privileged from the less fortunate souls as the wealthy patrons are just as likely to wear a pair of old sweats and an overcoat (often as not hiding their pajama tops). No risk being spotted by anyone important at this hour and even if there was, surely it would be understood that black tie was not required for a trip to the corner store.

Then there's the young woman holding up the lineup to the cash -five persons deep with me near the end. I can't even begin to estimate the amount of money she was wearing on her person. Not to mention the expensive haircut, the manicured hands and the perfect skin with a healthy, and no doubt costly,and completely even tan. Very convincingly blond.Trim, fit and in any circle; beautiful.

While she's futzing at the cash, I was trying to figure out who in the line-up was driving what. That is until her shrill, girlish voice alerted me to trouble.

Now she's hassling the cashier. "This bottled water is chilled. Everyone knows that cold water is bad for you.Water should always be at room temperature. Everybody knows that. Right?" She looks to the cashier who isn't arguing with anyone.

"RIGHT!?" She points to the guy behind me in line but he says he has no idea.

She's probably frustrated but flashes a fake smile of perfect teeth anyway.Time for plan B I guess.

This really is taking too long. Perhaps her intention. Everyone is fidgeting now. She declares she will take the bottled water anyway and then starts fiddling with a can of whipped cream. She shakes it, looking around to make sure her audience is with her.

After removing the cap she holds the can up to the cashier."Taste it." Nobody moves. Nobody even breathes.

The cashier might have said "um" or "I don't…" but really he didn't have chance. Blondie reaches out, grabs his arm and squishes out a small pile of cream into his hand.Stunned silence from everyone, especially the young cashier.

"Taste it!"
And, with the saddest, most humiliated expression I've seen in a while he did just that.

"Well!?"

He says it seems fine and everyone exhales as Blondie puts the cap back on the cream.

"Yeah, I thought it was OK"

Whaaa?She thought it was OK? So why humiliate the cashier?

THE BEASTS!

Photo from Corp Athlete. Image of Pitt Bull by dubuc.
Chart attributed to FIGURE 1 from this abstract in Pediatrics Magazine.

Can you imagine my horror when I read in the Toronto Star (May 5, section B, GTA) that Dachshunds are the fifth most likely breed of dog to bite children under seventeen years of age?Dachshunds? Daschies? Wiener dogs? There must be some mistake.

True, my own adorable little Dachshund is likely to snap at you if you try to remove a bone he's found in the gutter. But who wouldn't protest in such a situation? And, yes, he does at times lunge and snap at larger dogs. But these dogs are never harmed and seem completely un- threatened.

Now consider the risk for my ten inch tall tube of love: A preemptive strike against, by comparison, a Goliath sized dog. Some might call that bravery.

And yet the big boys rarely even show their teeth.That's because the giant dogs my little guy 'assualts' understand his psychology. In a word or two; the Napoleon complex. No, he's not ashamed of having a notoriously tiny member. He's merely a little embarrassed at being so short and that embarrassment escalates to humiliation when confronted by a German cousin like, say a one hundred pound Rottweiler.
The truth of the matter is that my Dachshund, now 25 pounds, is expressing what canine therapists call 'fear-aggression'. Not uncommon in dogs who have been attacked by other dogs as he was when he was a puppy – by a crazed Dalmatian who grabbed him its jaws and shook him violently. Ever since then its been strike first or die.

The Star published an interpretation of the above chart coming up with a so called risk factor of 1.4 for Dachshunds. Compare that to the highest, the German shepherd at 2.8 or (at the bottom of the Star's chart anyway ) the Rottweiler at a risk factor of .9.

But wait, somethings is amiss here.Where is the Pitt bull on this list? A dog so notorious for attacking humans (Pitt bull lovers' often valid arguments aside) that here in Ontario they are no longer allowed to be bred or sold and the existing dogs must be muzzled.

Look closely at the study and you see will it was conducted in Austria. How many Pitt Bulls are there in Austria? Perhaps as many as there are English Bulldogs (docile creatures who the French have seen fit to eliminate from their breed registry because the deformation of their faces is considered inhumane. Have you seen a French Bulldog? Yikes!).

But the larger more relevant issue for my little guy is that Dachshunds are a German breed. Mine, in fact, is a standard-smooth-haired-red-German Dachshund. They're larger than what we normally see in North America but I assure you no more viscous. No, the point here is that I would surmise that Austria, just like it seems to have a shortage of Pitt Bulls, is positively saturated with Dachshunds.

MONSTER BONES

(Photos by Terri Meyer Boake)

The Crystal is the name given to the extension to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum), designed by the now famous Daniel Libeskind. Its currently under construction in Toronto.

Crystal. You're thinking reflective, transparent, prism, hard-edged, multi-faceted. And at the beginning that's what it seemed it would be – a gigantic collision of glass crystals nestled beside the the original museum, built in 1914.

But final models and renderings had it looking much more like a mammoth piece or origami, though without even the lightness of paper. Origami from thick cardboard maybe.It was a let down to see these images in the press.

True, the design process is one which is continually evolving. Libeskind himself, and those of his ilk, used to quietly lecture about desigNING being the thing. The process was all. Completion was frowned upon and buildings, actual built form was not architecture anymore. From the highest academic perches came the proclamation that Architecture was dead.

At the time, the mid eighties, Libeskind was producing amazing drawings. Depictions of the most abstract types of architectural drawings like axonometrics metamorphosed into explosions of line that retained depth and warped three dimensionality.They were intricate, evocative memories (or perhaps predictions) of architecture.

There's no fault in an architect struggling to get his vision off the page and onto the site. But Libeskind's visions in the form of his drawings were so complex, such an inversion of the inhabitable, of tangible buildings, it was hard to imagine how he would ever make manifest his imagination.His website is a strange, quietly provocative thing in itself – and worth having a good look at

He has since built many projects – actual buildings – which are some of the most interesting and challenging buildings anywhere. He's not only famous, he's revered..

For Torontonians passing by the site of the new extension on Bloor street, the process

Worries about the building not living up to its metaphor have been stomped on by the Godzilla that the construction site has become.

Massive steel I beams, still in their natural, gritty rust colour , fly in every direction only to intersect later at ungodly angles. The growing beast charges into the original museum (quite a beautiful, if quiet, building itself). Not only does it ignore the architectural cues of it's context, it appears to be on a seek and destroy mission against it's own ancestor.

And we mere puny humans can either duck our heads and run or stand back in awe of the of the skeleton which literally looms over the sidewalk itself, snatching out slices of sky from far above our heads.

The ROM addition is not now and seems unlikely to ever a be a 'crystal' of any kind. Its beautiful ugliness incarnate and though it goes against almost all the beliefs I hold about the social responsibilities of buildings, It's so so fracking thrilling, terrifying and 'stimulating' to see the monster grow, I almost get a hard-on

Much ado has been made of this new building addition along with a couple of others like OCAD by Alsop Architects, the AGO addition by Frank Gehry and two more projects by Libeskind: The Jewish War Veterans Memorial and The Hummingbird Centre.These are supposed to be iconic buildings for Toronto. Places that put the us on the international map and raise it to the category of 'A' list city.

But the ROM Crystal is now estimated to cost $200 million and will probably go higher. Most of these buildings have, of course, received funds from different levels of government but a huge amount has been raised from the private sector. So where's the problem, you ask, if private money is paying for these things? Nothing if it was also paying for social housing, parks, beautification and environmental controls.

Fabulous Fuselages

Thanks to Jill at Inhabitat (now on WordPress no less) for showcasing such a cool idea for a building.

An entry for a library design competition in Guadalajara, basically this proposal is a bunch of refurbished fuselages (that would otherwise be discarded) stacked on top of one another with catwalks and an open central core.But it's a little more than that. The building tapers out as it goes up like a giant parallelogram. A massive outward tapering screen makes up one side of the building.

Now, there are complaints by some commenters about its impracticality (apparently jets tend to leak if not pressurized). Then there's the inappropriateness of using junkyard jets for a library. Really? One complainant points out happily that this proposal didn't win the competition.

This one did. But there's no pictures or drawings of the proposal that I could find. And we don't like no pictures.

This building proposal is quite unlike anything else the architects at LOT -EK have designed. These guys are masters of re-use. Check out their CHK Container Home Kit. Its quintessential LOT -EK; rectilinear, hyper-industrial and bare bones efficient.

Adapting to the shape of the fuselages, their library is anything but boxy. Its a steely, airy, futuristic dream that just happens to be make remarkable use of what otherwise would be trash.

Fabulous.

Minx Mash

From my Right Honorable friend from his misreading of Little Minx's quoting his Uruguayan friend, who's English may not be perfect, in a somewhat All Your base must belong to us fashion emerged:

"That international gay man is carrying the new bag".

Willingly admitting his error my friend points out that he, "like Star Wars fans "incorrectly" remembering dialogue that ends up being better" inadvertently improved an already amusing line which we will repeat to one another in perpetuity whenever we see the bag or an international gay man and roar with laughter. Could this be The New Bag?.

The international gay man's The New Bag.

Homeless’s Hero

You find all kinds of stuff when you have bipolar disorder on your Google alerts. Most of it re-fried, naive, or requiring a subscription to read. If there's a piece about an actual person its either about another celebrity coming out or some sensational, heinous crime committed a Bipolor (even though the incidence of violent crime are no higher in the bipolar population).But there's usually a good find now and again.The Sun Sentinel posted a gem of a story.

Beverly Johnson from Florida is paying the bonds (bail) to get homeless people released from jail.

She was reported "spending $1,641 to pay the bonds of two-dozen inmates being held on minor charges." The inmates were all homeless people who couldn't afford even the small bail required to get them out of the can.

Beverly is a woman with Bipolar disorder who used to be homeless herself. Now after a divorce settlement she's pretty well set up with rental income and a home.

"I did this because I spent time in jail and know what it's like. It's awful in there".Twenty times in there while she was homeless for two years, actually.

The people she sprung were in jail for things like loitering, trespassing and disorderly conduct. And she's done this more than once – many times in fact.

It must be pretty hard to avoid getting in trouble with the police if you're homeless.

You need to trespass to sleep.

You need to loiter to beg for money to eat (I know; or drink)

No more room at the Inn (or Psych unit as it were) so your behavior can get bizarre.

A Hairy, Scary Stare

Hairy, Scary, Stare

From the age of 14 when showers were first required after gym (and a good idea too), I was the tallest and hairiest beast in the locker room. With newly elongated limbs, I was also the most uncoordinated. I dreaded the locker room, the towel whips and cruel taunts my classmates had to endure.

Luckily for me, the wee jocks seemed intimidated by my size and all that hair – head to toe, I assure you. Occasionally, when a little muscled sportsman would dare to try to goad me, a simple, fatherly stare would suffice to stop him in his tracks.

"Wow, the Bean gave me the evil eye, I'm shaking now.", one particularly small, fit and sexy black kid would say. His favorite taunt had to do with my disco shirts. But it never failed. After a stare, he left me alone. He was the only black male in grade nine (and ten and possibly eleven). Imagine the type of teasing he must have fretted over nightly.

In due course I learned more about my new super power. I used it sparingly. Everyone, even my buddies, stayed away from me in the locker room as if my hirsuteness were contagious. I had certain advantages I was not about to share with anyone. Although gym class remained a nightmare and I wouldn't grow into my limbs, well, ever. I came to nervously look forward to the changing room.

From my isolated perch above the wet heads of my class mates, I could survey the scene at hand and thus increase my repertoire of nocturnal fantasies several fold from each gym class. Thus could a gay gaze be had in peace.