Description 72 - Between Mud and Sky

Volunteering for a theatre company, I explore Dufferin Grove Park, where the play's the thing in more ways than one. Featuring a naked kid, a pongophone, ice cream truck music and Stephen Harper getting beaten with a stick.

Click here to subscribe
Click here to download directly

Associated links
(Update: November 21 - Jutta Mason opens the Dufferin Grove rink for the season with her own two hands)
Friends of Dufferin Grove Park
You may know Todd Tyrtle from such podcasts as The QN Podcast and Talking Stick
Blog post: The Tyrtles Have Landed
Clay and Paper Theatre
Trailer for Between Sea and Sky with ASL
Ryerson University Centre for Learning Technologies
Citizen Z @NFB.ca (not with description, which kind of sucks)
Dufferin Rink
The Brick Oven @Project for Public Spaces
Barbara Klunder
"Dufferin Grove Park" poem by RM Vaughan
Okay, technically, the wading pool is not a Splash pad...
For the Birds by Margaret Atwood
What is Cob?
The QN perspective on the Punch and Judy show with Stephen Harper

In case you think Dufferin Grove Park is some sort of hothouse of gentrification in some well-to-do, lily-white neighbourhood, you would be wrong. That area has had a history of poverty and crime and all kinds of people from everywhere doing their best to get by, so making the park what it's become was an uphill battle and continues to take strength. The fact you wouldn't immediately know that from being there speaks volumes.

If you could only click through one link in that list (and that's not true, so go to all of them), it would be the one for Friends of Dufferin Grove Park, because not only does it have all the information about everything going on in the park (rink! oven! cob! campfires! farmers' market! arts! history!), but it sort of evokes the vibe of the park - there are forums and public discussion sections everywhere. The transparency of process in how things work is really impressive.

It should not come as a surprise, then, that the editor of the site is Jutta Mason (from Germany - yet another immigrant), who was a major part of the "friends" creating what Dufferin Grove Park is now. She won the Jane Jacobs Prize in 2001, and continues to help hold together the spirit of freedom and community the park embodies every day, inspiring work beyond that block through the Centre For Local Research Into Public Space (CELOS). Mind you, she only helps to hold it together, because this sort of thing doesn't work the way they've done it through the control of a person or two - it has taken a deep but not-foolish trust in one's fellow neighbours.

I think many of the greatest thinkers concerning social media can relate to that. So if you have any interest in any kind of community, you'd do well to study that one site as deeply as you can, and take notes.

Coming Around Again

A new episode is coming next week, but a couple old episodes somehow seem to fit with some current events.

In Description 46, I talked about working "location support," and did a soundseeing tour of one of my long days guarding a location film set. The film in question was The Time Traveler's Wife, which is finally getting its release this weekend. In the previews, I've already spotted a scene (in front of a tv store in the '70's) in The Junction neighbourhood where I had a couple shifts, and even the gazebo/bandstand in Kew Gardens, where I started the tour of the last episode. Other settings where I stood/paced/sat for 12 hours at a time included a very wood-lined mansion (the Christie Mansion, where I finished Description 45) and an old hospital ward (actually an abandoned part of the Centre for Mountain Health Services, aka Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital). But if you check out the movie and notice scenes inside a house where you can see snow in a yard outside, that's where I was for Description 46, with leftover "snow" cushioning my butt on the concrete steps and keeping me warm in the autumn dusk. It's more than likely you won't notice a thing beyond the romance of the story, which is testament to the talent of the hard-working Art Department and those people whose job I would not wish on my worst enemy: the Location Managers. I don't know if I'm going, but if I do, I'm sticking around to see their names (especially A.J., Warner and Don) way down in the credits, and applaud.

And for something completely different...perhaps you've noticed the "debate" in the U.S. about proposals for reform of the healthcare system. I've been a bit more vocal about this on Twitter and Facebook, but suffice it to say it's been fantastically stupid and most of its stupidity has been fueled by very distinct economic interests. One element of the stupidity has been fearful and silly attacks of the healthcare systems in Great Britain and here in good ol' Canada (NDP leader Jack Layton said his piece about the matter in Huffington Post a couple weeks ago). I remember in the miniseries "Prairie Giant," the protests Tommy Douglas had to deal with a few decades ago from doctors spooked about his proposed introduction of healthcare reform in Saskatchewan (which eventually led to the systems we have today). Douglas must have thought the doctors' strike was pretty scary at the time - it's not quite like the more literal "strike threats" President Obama is dealing with now.

Anyway, a couple years ago, without such clouds of comparison over me, I did an episode illustrating a typical experience of mine with the healthcare system in Ontario (healthcare being under provincial jurisdiction) with a soundseeing tour of my trip to St. Michael's Hospital to get my first mammogram. So you can follow along in Description 52, but don't expect any death panels. ;-)

Dubber Takes the Subway, Spoons Makes the Archive

(As usual, the part of this post you'll actually find really useful is near the end.)

Anyone who's in the Canadian podcast fishbowl or has listened to Description 18 might know my big tipping point in becoming a podcaster was listening to and guesting on a podcast called Dubber and Spoons Take the Bus, in which two media profs in Birmingham England would have an often-funny conversation on their bus ride home from work. On vacation in 2005, I rode on the bus with them for an episode on Canada Day, we hung out afterward with their respective wives and Dubber's son and all were lovely to me; then when I got home, I sent them an audio message saying how lovely they'd been and other general things, inspiring Dubber to say I should do a podcast, which eventually resulted in me doing this one.

In the years since, they podfaded - Spoons (James) moved to Australia with his wife to another prof-type job and furthered his career as an excellent photographer, and Dubber (Andrew, and originally from New Zealand) became one of the preeminent authorities on using various tools on the internet to create, promote, share and make money from music.

Dubber's expertise on that and radio brought him here to Toronto to speak at a big academic conference about radio at, of all places, my alma mater of York University. A couple nights ago, he came downtown and I was happy to reunite with him in actual physical space, having drinks with some great guys who had been to the latest edition of DemoCamp nearby that night. When things broke up, Dubber had the idea he was going to drop the equivalent of a week's rent to take a cab all the way back up to York, but I told him that was insane when he could get more than halfway there on our own public transit (actually, he could get the whole way up, but those buses to York from Downsview Station have always been kind of a drag). So I gave him a token (which he found really small and really odd) and introduced him to the wonders of the TTC. He survived to present the next morning, and will now go on to share his wisdom in consultancies with bands in Hamilton and Montreal. For more on his multitude of works which you'll find useful (most of them, anyways...), take a look through the links at andrewdubber.com.

But say you're a podcast listener who's noticed that many of your favourite podcasts have been less frequent in the summer as folks step back or recharge or do whatever it is they do. Looking for something to listen to in their place for a while? Consider the fact, then, that James has gathered most of all the old episodes of Dubber and Spoons Take the Bus (there were just under 50, and Dubber didn't really keep anything), and has put them on a new blog, thebuscast.com. Get a taste of it with these promos I helped them do back then, and decide for yourself if they'd be good summer replacement material.

Description 71 - Back to the Beach(es)

Taking Queen Street to its eastern end, I extend one previous journey and correct another. Featuring music by Luke Doucet, a dog that sounds yippier than it looks, a walk around a picket line and not a single soul bared. :-)

"DL Burnside?" Where did that come from? It was NQ Arbuckle! Damn!

Click here to subscribe
Click here to download directly

Associated links
beachestoronto.com
The Beaches @Wikipedia
The Beach Business Improvement Association
An even better tour of The Beach by Doors Open tour guide Gene Domagala
Beyond Landscaping
Ivan Forrest Gardens
That Luke Doucet song in full @the Mod Club
You know about Rick Danko, right?
Official sites for Luke Doucet, NQ Arbuckle and Justin Rutledge
Six Shooter Records
Garden Gate Restaurant (aka "The Goof" because sometimes the "d" was missing)
Fox Theatre
Torontoist stories tagged "city workers' strike"
The kicking at Christie Pits
History of the Neville Park Loop
Harris Water Treatment Plant @Wikipedia
Harris Water Treatment Plant History
QTVR Harris Treatment Plant tour
I ended up on Balmy Beach (Flickr photo by Diego_3336)

Woodbine Avenue is also kind of a signpost for me because it's where my friend Julie (now in Western PA) once lived long ago when I was first living in Toronto. I'd go out there to see her, thinking I was going to the far edge of the city. Obviously I was wrong.

Hey! Speaking of being wrong...

When I should have said NQ Arbuckle (and he was my favourite part of that show at Lee's! Argh!), I must've been thinking of RL Burnside, the legendary Delta Blues guy who passed away a few years ago. That was weird. My subconscious has better taste in music than I do.

If you or your subconscious has great taste in music and you're in town when this episode is posted, you'd do well to go where I walked, because for the next few days you will be smack dab in the middle of the annual Beaches International Jazz Festival. More than 50 jazz and jazzish bands clogging up Queen Street East and Kew Gardens with coolness, so go if you can..and take your garbage with you when you leave, because the strike is still on and it's nice to help out those residents who work so hard to keep their neighbourhood lovely without kicking people.

The Spirit of Radio

At the start of Description 70, I mentioned that I did the episode I did then inspired by something I had listened to the previous night. On The Rock 94.9 in Oshawa (the last place I had a full-time radio job, when it was owned by other people), David Marsden, one of the architects of CFNY (in fact, they were called "The Spirit of Radio"), did a tribute to one of the last men to inhabit and breathe life into what he built, DJ Martin Streek, who had killed himself days earlier (and a couple months after being let go by what had become "102.1 The Edge"). Left entirely to his own devices, Marsden spent his five-hour shift playing music Martin loved listening to and playing, as well as sharing his memories of the man along with reading the memories of others. Those others seemed to fall into two categories: people who knew Martin as a kid, and people who were with him at CFNY over the years. In the latter case, what emerged was a feeling of family which is seldom sustained in radio to this extent. 102.1 The Edge themselves will be having their own tribute tomorrow from 5-8pm eastern, and I understand it will include many messages from CFNY alumni. While that's great, it will have a lot to do to live up to Marsden's tribute a week ago last Thursday.

As I listened to the show, lying in bed, letting it wash over, I was able to record some of it, in the hopes I could share it with people who had missed the show at the time. To their credit, The Rock 94.9 and David Marsden have allowed all five hours to be made available as .mp3 downloads. Here they are available via Toronto Mike's Blog with the playlist all in one place.

I point this out for a couple reasons. CFNY and Los Angeles' KROQ were basically the first alternative stations in the world. In fact, they were alternative stations years before anyone came up with the term "alternative" to describe them. Once that term became a format, things began to go downhill. So there is historical relevance here. Also, podcasters and others sometimes aren't sure what I'm talking about when I say radio used to be different, and that while nothing was perfect by any stretch, it had elements to it that now exist in much of podcasting and other social media: an intimacy, an honesty, a sense of community even if you were by yourself. Even if you listen to a part of one of those .mp3s, I think you'll get a sense of what I'm talking about. If nothing else, you'll get some great music.

Description 70 - Walking the Walk in Midtown

In a productive overreaction, I blather about the nature of desire unedited while going from a busy intersection far away to a pair of twins in a stroller to the grave of a Prime Minister.

Click here to subscribe
Click here to download directly

Associated links
Martin Streek remembered by Liisa Ladouceur in Eye Weekly
Marsden's playlist from last night (Again, more on this later.)
Eglinton Way (via boldts.net)
Belt Line Railway @Wikipedia
Beltline Reach (This looks like the whole path where I walked.)
Podcasters Across Borders
Forest Hill @Wikipedia
Baldwin Steps (to Casa Loma) @Wikpedia
Forest Hill Village @BlogTO
Ajahn Brahm website
Davisville Subway Yards @Transit Toronto
Mount Pleasant Cemetery
Feed of the Ajahn Brahm Dhamma Talks podcast The joke was in "The Power of Mindfulness and Compassion" and the sample was from "The Secret (Lo-Fi)" Figures I would sample the one with the technical problem. :-)
Mackenzie King @CBC Digital Archives
The Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King

After the recording, I continued on through the cemetery until I realized I was getting tired, then had to work to find my way out the place. But I did and got back to Yonge just north of St. Clair, where I finally sat down again for a little bit, then kept going south and finally made it back home. I mapped out what I remembered of the walk on Running Map, and it said I'd walked 6.5 miles in total.

Thanks again for putting up with this. It's pretty important, but I know it's not exactly what you signed up for. As always, listening is optional. A more typical episode, which I was originally going to make Description 70, is really coming in the next week, so if you took out these Walking the Walk episodes, the time between that and the last typical episode (Description 68 - Gretzky) is still ahead of my usual pace.

And really, I'm fine. What happened isn't a bigger deal than I made it sound in Description 69 - I just had these extra realizations that made me have to kick my ass in a big way.

If I was so earnest and stuff all the time, would I still find this video 20 kinds of awesome? Not bloody likely. (Warning: not Canadian.)

Description 69 - Walking the Walk

So what was the deal with me mentioning rejection and acceptance in the blurb for the last episode? I explain and try desperately to avoid ChickLit as I make my way to Lake Ontario on Canada Day. With music by The Constantines and some douchebag with a bicycle bell.

Click here to subscribe
Click here to download directly

Associated links
Coach House Books
An Online Archive for bpNichol
BlogTO in bpNichol Lane
Toronto Fringe Festival (Ha! I made it in time! It's on until July 12! Go!)
The Robarts Library
The redesigned Art Gallery of Ontario
Grange Park on flickr
OCAD @Wikipedia
The Vagina Monologues @Wikipedia
Loose Moose Tap and Grill
Harbourfront Centre
Air Canada Centre
Constantines

Yes, already. But I wanted to get this out there while it was fresh and before it seemed too reactionary.

As often happens, it takes me a while to get going on this thing, but stay with me because I do get going.

For once, I guess I should explain a reference I made that is more American than Canadian. Lifetime is a tv network in the States sort of like the W Network in Canada, with programming aimed at women (Oxygen is a younger, louder variation on it). So you have makeover shows and movies with Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon in them, and basically shows that are supposed to be empowering when maybe sometimes they're more enabling. Then there are the Lifetime TV movies (which often appear on W as well), which are often shot in Canada because it's cheap. The typical Lifetime TV movie stars some actress who used to be in a successful tv series which was cancelled years ago, who plays some woman who goes through some sort of great difficulty ("based on real events" and often caused by some man or men or psycho woman or "the system") and comes away from it a stronger person. Of course, there is much drama and sturm and drang along the way.

THAT is what this episode is NOT. You know why? Because drama should be the exception, not the rule. There are no good guys and bad guys, everybody does the best they can, sometimes they screw up or have intentions that don't match, life sometimes sucks by its nature and life sometimes rocks by its nature, and it's all good. And EVERYONE deserves to be empowered, regardless of gender.

And you know I mean that because I used CAPS. :-)

Six String Nation Army

So yesterday was Canada Day, and I spent the end of it walking from home to Harbourfront (which is kind of far) and talking most of the time, and that will probably be Description 69 maybe next week...if I don't puss out on it because it was mainly talking about me and some stuff I've been experiencing lately, which was hinted at in the latest episode.

One of the many wacky things that happened in June was Podcasters Across Borders in Kingston. What I said about PAB last year in Description 54 still stands - there was just way more of whatever I had talked about - so there wasn't much point to talking about it this time on my show, although I did talk about it on other people's shows. Also, I was a bonafide presenter this time (last year I gave a five-minute "Jolt"), talking for 25 minutes about the work I do on the other podcast, Movies For the Blind, and how its thought processes may relate to other forms of podcasting and new media. Needless to say, I was freaked out about doing it (though fortunately other things distracted me leading up to it), but part of the idea of PAB is getting out of your comfort zone and sharing your knowledge and passion in a welcoming environment, so I straightened my spine and got it done. The reaction was pretty great - the questions afterward were really interesting and interested, and while I got to the point I felt like I was talking too much about myself and my work, it was only because people were asking, so that's cool. I thank those people who were so interested, those who didn't ask anything but took it in (like I would have), and especially those people who got my ass up there in the first place.

Since this podcast is (usually) about little elements of this city and this country that somehow add up to something, anyone who listens would probably be interested in a project that does pretty much the same thing, although much more elegantly and precisely: Six String Nation. The creator and guardian of this project, Jowi Taylor, gave the opening keynote address at PAB this year, and he kind of swept us all off our collective feet. Basically, it's about this guitar which was constructed with pieces of things that each have some significance to this country - mammoth ivory, a Massey Hall seat, the oldest rock in the world, Louis Riel's school, a Rocket Richard Stanley Cup ring, the sacred murdered Golden Spruce, it goes on and on. Every one of the 63 pieces has at least one remarkable and very Canadian story attached to it, making it not merely an object but a sort of national encyclopedia for a people who would otherwise leave it on a shelf. Among those people, unfortunately, are people at the CBC (for whom Jowi worked for years, winning some major awards) and the federal government, who have intermittently supported him and left him hanging because of their own petty troubles and typically Anglo-Canadian angst. While he worked hard to suppress his bitterness resulting from those battles while talking to us, it had to sneak out sometimes, making us all the more empathic to his cause, since podcasters have some small idea of what it's like to be passionate about something but keep feeling as if you're rolling that big boulder up a hill forever. Regardless, what mattered in his talk, and through all of PAB, were stories - how to find them, how to let them find you, how to share them.

Other people who were there with me have done a great job lending their support to Six String Nation, both financially and in terms of getting the word out (helping get the story told, of course). This is my meagre attempt, but hopefully it combines with those others to, again, construct a greater whole. Today, a Canadian who wasn't at PAB but has much in common with its principles, Cory Doctorow, wrote a post about Six String Nation in the popular and influential blog BoingBoing - oddly enough, inspired by a Canada Day interview with Jowi which appeared in the radio and podcast editions of the CBC show "As It Happens" (Jowi and the CBC remain in a push-pull relationship). Cory's post is here, along with some links to the interview, the official site and the site regarding the Six String Nation book. The YouTube channel, with some of the stories, is here.

Because you may have noticed that I haven't really done an episode about Canada Day. To me, when it comes right down to it, every day is Canada Day. So any time to learn these stories is the right time.

Description 68 - Gretzky

I go to Brantford to start a month in which I got some rejection, but way more acceptance from people I could never have imagined. Featuring music from me and The Pursuit of Happiness, a stuffed cow in compromising positions, Canada's Dad and a surprise ending.

Click here to subscribe
Click here to download directly

Associated links
The original song by The Ambers was in Description 55
Zipcar
Walter Gretzky Online
Gretzky.com (check the video section for Kevin's visit to the Gretzky home)
Brantford.com
The seeds were sown in Description 64
The thread on the View Askewniverse Message Board
The View Askew Street Hockey Podcast thread
Puck U Game 1 video on YouTube
You Tube playlist of more highlights!
Tournament wrapup from Brantford.com
"Silent Bob plays hockey" from joblo.com
Hockey54.com (home of The Schwartz, who did most of the commentary of the games)
Who is Mooby?
The Dutch Rudder Fan Club on Facebook
The Pursuit of Happiness (yes, my site)
Brantford Via Rail Station
Kel's Family Restaurant (the one I was in was much smaller, but still awesome)
Brantford Civic Centre: "Home of the Brantford Blast"
Brantford Charity Casino

My song has nothing to do with anything in the rest of the show, but rather other stuff that happened in June. It's sort of a sequel to what I did at the start of Description 54, which some people really liked, and it was in me to do. As for the other song, that live version of TPOH doing "Gretzky Rocks" was recorded at The Bombshelter at the University of Waterloo January 25, 1996, and you can download it via the Audio/Video page of tpoh.net.

Again, I can't thank enough all the Boardies who were so awesome over the weekend, especially the patient souls (and Mooby) who talked with me at that diner. Some of them are already getting prepped for more ball hockey craziness in Kevin's native Jersey in July. To learn more, check that link for the Gretzky tournament thread.

Due to time and technical crap, I had to cut out two major parts of the weekend. On Saturday night, we all went to the lovely Sanderson Centre (thanks to syracuselaxfan and Tears In Rain for getting me to cut the line and being otherwise amazing) for "Stocky Night in Canada", which ended up being a live version of SModcast. Scott Mosier, unused to this star-type stuff despite his magic on the ball hockey court, was reportedly nervous about performing live, but he did brilliantly, and it was like any ol' SModcast, only even better with guest stars from Puck U: Jennifer Schwalbach (Mrs. Smith), old friend Bryan Johnson, Church and Wellesley's own Malcolm Ingram, webmaster/logistics genius/co-MVP Ming Chen, porn and Zack&Miri star Katie Morgan, and ex-Degrassi crew member (and Katie's new fiancé!) Jim Jackman. You can hear all of it as SModcast 88. Then again, maybe not all. They cut the part where the captains of the other View Askew teams went up on stage and presented Kevin with a gorgeous replica of the Stanley Cup. Here's a photo of Kevin lifting it in triumph.

The other thing you missed was me actually meeting Walter Gretzky. Seemed like everyone else had, which was easy because he was out there meeting and greeting everyone. But I was my usual gutless me. Sunday, watching those kids, I remembered that I'd produced description for a tv movie about Walter's recovery from his stroke and knew that he'd done a lot of work for the local chapter of the CNIB. So I walked up to him, waiting for him to finish laughing and joking with someone.

When I introduced myself and told him what I'd done on the movie, he raised his eyebrows and beamed. "Really!?! You did that!? Wow! What a little world!"

He laughed in amazement, which I think he does with many things in his life. I thanked him for everything, he thanked me, we shook hands, and I walked away as giddy as I could be.

At that moment, I couldn't have imagined being happier.

Considering the end of this episode, it's clear my imagination is limited.

Description 67 - The PATH

From Toronto's oldest hotel to its oldest store, I go underground and show that not even a free breakfast can make me a morning person. With music from Modernboys Moderngirls, places where the water gurgles up, free radio consulting and a Correction From the Future.

Click here to subscribe
Click here to download directly

Associated links
City of Toronto: PATH
The PATH @Wikipedia
Erin Davis writes about getting the 2009 Rosalie Award
Rosalie Trombley and CKLW in The Walrus Magazine
Janik Media
Valerie Geller's Creating Powerful Radio
The Fairmont Royal York Hotel
The Royal York has a podcast?
Lisa Brandt isn't at 680 News anymore? Told you I'm not a morning person. (Congrats on the new job, btw!)
Royal Bank Plaza @Wikipedia (Yes, it's coated in gold.)
Toronto Dominion Centre
First Canadian Place
Atrium on Bay and the Toronto Coach (Bus) Terminal
BCE Place (It's called Brookfield Place now? Sheesh.)
Cerealicious
Montréal's Underground City @Wikipedia
Modernboys Moderngirls: official site, @myspace and @publicbroadcasting.ca
NxEW (not a typo)
Sheraton Centre
Hudson's Bay Company @Wikipedia
Eaton Centre

That thing I sent the boys at Canadian Podcast Buffet was an audio comment in response to a discussion they had about, oddly enough, CKLW in CPB-141 - an episode I listened to while starting to put together this show. I talked about listening to that station when I was very little and the notion that its heyday was brought to an end in part by the advent of FM radio (yes, kids, it was that long ago) and in part by the less graceful advent of Canadian Content regulations by the CRTC (though I'd say it was more FM than CRTC). I got to tell them all that stuff, so you are spared from it. :-)

You were not spared from my trying to figure out what the furthest points of the PATH are. Technically, the southernmost point is the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, I guess because they count Skywalk (which you had a taste of in Description 44, connecting Union Station to MTCC and the CN Tower/Rogers Centre area) as part of the PATH. The previously mentioned bus depot...er, "coach terminal", is the northernmost point. And that's the limit of my geography geekiness.

Since PATH is capitalized, you may think it's an acronym. Alas, it's not. The logo is supposed to help you remember the directions: the red P for south, the orange A for west, the blue T for north and the yellow H for east.

Well, that makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

For its part, the Montréal version is officially called RÉSO, which is just a play on the word "réseau," meaning "network". So not much different in that respect.

The idea of underground and/or linked malls/office complexes is fairly common in Canada, where many people in suits would like to be saved from having to go outside at least four months out of the year. In Calgary, for example, they're connected by covered walkways above ground: the skywalks of +15. I haven't been to Calgary yet, but I know about it because of a very cool movie I did description for once called waydowntown, about a group of office drones who live in the system, so they make a bet of one month's salary and compete to be the one who can go the longest without going outside. To the relief of Jane Jacobs, I would guess, they each slowly start to go a little squirrelly in bizarre ways. It's well worth a rental, and it will definitely get you to go outside afterward and get some fresh air - even if it's -30 or +30C.