Flavor of the Week

A weekly look at the styles of everyday people as seen through the eyes of, me, your intrepid man on the street.

Name: Andrew S.

Occupation: Publicist

Location: Parliament Street/Amelia Street, Cabbagetown

Clothing details: Top-American Apparel, Jeans-Diesel, Sunglasses-H&M, Necklace-was a gift, Bracelet-from India

What he was doing when I met him: Walking with his friend Alfredo.

Olympic Gold on Home Soil

Congratulations to Alexandre Bilodeau, the first Canadian to win gold at the Olympics on home soil for Canada! He just won the men's freestyle moguls a few minutes ago. After a drought of 34 years, after Canada hosted it's first Summer Olympics in Montreal in 1976, through 1988 when Calgary hosted Canada's first Winter Olympics, we're finally on the top of the podium at home. Embarrassingly, we were the only host country to never have done that before. What a proud moment for Canadians. And what a relief.

Photo by Adrian Dennis

The Reluctant Traveler

I believe my friend who I'll call, Sam, is a reluctant traveler in this journey we call life. Sam will stand at the shore staring out to sea and wonder what's beyond the horizon. There's a boat tied to the dock beside him, but he'll be too scared to get in and unfurl the sails because he's afraid that it might sink. Yes, the possibility, however slim it may be, is very real that a storm may come and capsize your boat and you may and drown. You can't fool yourself into believing it won't happen. As well, you may also get seasick and feel terrible nausea at many points along the way. This is a very real possibility too. But, what's worse? Worrying about the possibility of something bad happening and not taking the chance of finding true happiness? Are you so afraid of your own shadow that you're not willing to step into the sunlight? To experience the warmth and the joy that it brings? There is no question about what you must do. Beyond the horizon lays a world of wonders. You know it's true. Countless friends who've returned from that journey have told you so.

So climb aboard, my friend. Getting left behind while the world sails onward is not an option. Don't rely on secondhand information about what's out there. Go and experience it for yourself. It's a decision you'll never regret, I promise you.

Flavor of the Week

A weekly look at the styles of everyday people as seen through the eyes of, me, your intrepid man on the street.

Name: Cheryl and her two dogs Sunny and Chaiya

Occupation: Didn't say

Location: Parliament Street/Amelia Street, Cabbagetown

Clothing details: Top and Shorts-Bebe, Shoes-Replay from Winners, Sunglasses-Donna Karan, Bag-Kathy

What she was doing when I met her: Walking her dogs up Parliament with her two friends.

Manners people!

It's disconcerting to me the general lack of manners people have these days. I was riding the subway home the other night when I boarded the northbound Yonge train at Bloor. I took a seat with a few other people when the train arrived. It was late in the evening so it wasn't that busy. As it sometimes happens the train didn't depart right away perhaps waiting for a few more riders to come.

Across from me sat a woman of around 40. She had pulled out a thin catalogue she was leafing through after she settled into her seat. A few moments later a young man entered the car and asked her in a quiet voice if this train was going north. Engrossed in her catalogue she didn't respond. When he said, "Ma'am" to gain her attention she replied in a cold tone, "yes" to confirm his earlier enquiry (which I guess she did hear, but chose to ignore). She did all this without even giving him the basic courtesy of looking up from what she was reading. How rude is that? She couldn't even take a moment to lift her eyes from her catalogue to show the bare minimum of politeness when responding to his question. It's disappointing to me to see behavior like this going on. When you ask for something you say, please. When you receive it you say, thank-you. When somebody sneezes you say, bless you. It's not that hard.

While we're at it... Another thing I that perturbs me about people on public transit, particularly the subway, is that many people don't let all the passengers off the train before they board. What's wrong with you people? Can you not wait five seconds longer to let everyone off before you barge onto the train? Even worse, some people don't wait at all. They try to board as soon as the doors open without letting anyone off. They need manner police to stand by the doors and whack people over the head with rolled up newspapers when they do things like that. If you don't know your manners by now, perhaps beating it into your thick skulls is the only way you'll learn.

Sorry... I just had to get that off my chest.

Winter City Festival 2010

I dropped by the Winter City Festival at Nathan Phillips Square on Saturday. I believe it's an annual event they have here every winter in Toronto. They're probably trying to do something to take our minds off the normally long, harsh winters we have here in the city. Surprisingly, this year it hasn't been too bad overall. Though the past few days have been absolutely frigid, comparatively speaking anyway.

The festivities started at around 6:00 p.m. Originally I had arrived earlier. So to avoid the chill I headed to the Indigo bookstore at the Eaton Centre to kill some time. I found a relationship book my friend Cortina recommended to me - The 5 Love Languages, by Gary Chapman. It's actually not too bad. There are some useful tidbits of information people should take note of. Really.

When I got back to Nathan Phillips Square, the music and coloured lights had started. There was an installation set up by the Flaming Lotus Girls out of San Francisco called Angel of the Apocalypse. The above photos is from it. Though I don't know if the girl in the hot, pink coat was part of it, or if she was just an enthusiastic audience member. They had built large metal sculptures that pretty much breathed fire. It was pretty popular with the spectators. I'm not sure if it was because of the visual appeal or because they just wanted to keep from turning in to human popsicles.

There were other performers as well. People on trapeze swings, hanging from ropes and long pieces of fabric doing all manner of spins and tricks. Others were juggling fire or twirling it on various implements. The main attraction was a group from France called Compagnie Les Passagers. Over the course of Winter City they will be involved in three different aerial performances which combine theatre, dance and acrobatics set to music on a constantly changing, massive, vertical stage. The one they did this evening was called Cosmogonia. In a succession of twelve scenes they recounted the book of Genesis in the bible. It was quite fun. I don't know how they managed to do it in the bitter cold. Kudos to them. All I know is my skinny, little fingers were frozen to the bone and both of my Canon lithium ion batteries died a slow, miserable death. Luckily for me it was just after the performance was over. So we both got to go home and recharge.

View the entire slideshow on Flickr.com

Flavor of the Week

A weekly look at the styles of everyday people as seen through the eyes of, me, your intrepid man on the street.

Name: Julian C.

Occupation: Student

Location: Parliament Street/Amelia Street, Cabbagetown

Clothing details: Shirt-Gap, Jeans-Levis, Sandals-Aldo, Sunglasses-H&M, Watch-Guess

What he was doing when I met him: Out walking with his friend Monika.