fourONEsixSTYLE

Happy Hallowe’en Toronto!

Six scary episodes of Spook in the City are online at blogTO including the latest, the hauntings of Colborne Lodge and Grenadier Pond in High Park.

Have a taste for more chilling ghost stories? Follow John and I as we take you to the scene of several high-profle hauntings in some of Toronto’s most historic places.

Prepare to be spooked!

The Distillery District

The Royal York’s Haunted Stairwell

The Royal York’s Haunted Hallway

The Royal York’s Crystal Ballroom

I’ve been captivated by woodblock prints for sometime and finally made my way to the ROM Friday night to see their exhibit Drama & Desire: Japanese Paintings from the Floating World. This is the last weekend the exceptional collection is on display. While the pieces are predominantly from the early period, before colour technologies blossomed, it is a great starting point to learn about the art and history of Edo.

Before there was Tokyo, there was Edo, a scintillating place for artists, actors and musicians to celebrate life, sex and nature, oooh, and clothing, beautiful clothing. While in Tokyo I’d once seen a portrait, a slice of Edo, of several women floating around in a boat, drinking sake in lavish kimonos, celebrating the arrival of cherry blossoms and the changing seasons while monkeys performed and musicians played. If only I could be transported back in time to enjoy this rich and poetic culture.

This exhibit showed some screens and scrolls with similar scenes, women in colourful garbs fishing, lounging and smoking, with always a bit of nature peaking out of the background reminding you where the people were; beside each piece, a charming tale to help bring the art to life.

I’ll admit I was a bit dismayed that the ukiyo-e collection at the ROM, on loan from Boston, was missing some of the great masterpieces I’d expected. There were limited pieces from Hiroshige and Hokusai and only one true landscape piece, Hokusai’s Li Bai Admiring A Waterfall. It’s his prints that always strike me the most. While he’s well-known for The Great Wave, it’s his pieces with one solitary individual in the throws of nature that I’m especially drawn to, those that make you reflect on the power within yourself and aware of the delicate balance mankind shares with his surroundings.

Ask anybody who the new James Bond is and they’ll likely be able to answer, they’ll probably even add an opinion as to whether actor Daniel Craig will fill the famous Bond shoes, but ask anyone who Frank Pickersgill is and you’ll likely draw a blank stare. Pickersgill, however, is not very different than Bond, except that he was a real spy, and a hero, a Torontonian and didn’t sport the same kind of Bond bling. Frank fought for our country, during World War II, as part of a unique group called the SOE - Special Operations Executive - initiated by Winston Churchill.

To train this elite force Camp X was created, close to the shores of Whitby, Ontario. It was at this spy school, the largest in North America, that Canadian, American and English men and women were taught how to transmit messages secretly, kill silently, and how to handle interrogation if captured.

Ian Fleming was part of the spy school at Camp X, but space was limited so he was living on Avenue Road in Toronto and travelling to the school when necessary. It was while while living here in Toronto that the author penned his first book Casino Royale and named the character James Bond from a nearby church.

Fleming went onto great fame and success but not all of his comrades at Camp X were so lucky. Pickersgill was captured, and interrogated, on a couple different occasions. The first time he broke out by sawing out his cell window, using a blade baked into a loaf of bread. Years later, the Canadian spy parachuted into enemy-occupied France. Fellow SOE members drove into the Loire Valley to find him but all were intercepted and Pickersgill was taken back to prison. This time his escape through a second floor window didn’t end successfully. He was recaptured and later executed. A garden is dedicated in his honour on UofT’s campus.

It’s not the ending fellow Camp X alum Ian Fleming, creator of agent 007, would have written but it’s a story that deserves to be told out of respect to those who helped gain our freedom.

If Fleming were aiming for authenticity it may’ve been with a Canadian accent that we would hear the famous spy’s introduction: “Bond, James Bond” and Canadians would realize that their biggest heroes are not Hollywood-born.

Every morning I drive to work past The Boulevard Club, wishing I could afford the $6000 membership fee, and could work out in their gorgeous weight room overlooking the lake. This morning was no different, except that I thought I’d found a way to make myself feel better: Sure it’s a beautiful view, except that it looks right across the lake at the ugly Lakeview Power Generating Station. The archaic coal plant, affectionately dubbed The Four Sisters, had been spewing pollution across Toronto for years. The thought that this monstrousity marred, ever so slightly, the patrons’ views almost comforted me. Until later today, when I found out that the gruesome smoke stacks were demolished this morning. You Tube has a great video to boot.

Every year Doors Open is an event to look forward to, for many it is our only chance to peek into hidden corners of Toronto’s rich cultural and historical background. For no admission fee, except perhaps a little patience, you can wander back in time to see what made places like The Carlu, Liberty Grand or St. Lawrence Hall thrive. New to the list this year is the much talked about Palais Royale, currently undergoing a 2 million dollar renovation. Even though it isn’t fully completed, the public is allowed in (Sunday only) to view the work-in-progress. Also new to the list are the Cadbury Chocolate Factory, the tall ship Empire Sandy and MTV’s new digs at The Masonic Temple. Popular photographer hang-out, the Don Valley Brick Works, will also be open to sightseers with representatives from Evergreen on-hand to show you a bit about the site’s proposed enviro-friendly redevelopment strategy and help you plant a tree. Bring your friends, family and your camera.

Reprinted for the film debut of The Notorious Bettie Page.

The Ryerson Theatre was a bad venue for last night’s (Toronto International Film Festival) picture The Notorious Bettie Page though, ultimately, I did leave the theatre feeling like I’d seen and done something worthwhile. The well constructed movie depicted the historical icon and pin-up girl Bettie Page (played by Gretchen Mol) as an innocent and somewhat naive woman. I’d been unaware until reading the movie synopsis that Bettie’s modelling career had led her to do some bondage photos with other female models, and that the issue had arose in the US supreme court in 1955, ultimately leading to a ban on the photos and their subsequent burning. Suppose in a way that Bettie was the original Madonna. 50 years later there’s not much difference in how Western, and especially American, culture reacts to fetish and bondage images. Some of Madonna’s videos won’t see any airplay in this country either, understandably, since TV is seen by the masses, but there was still quite a coup over her “scandalous” images in the pictorial book SEX. Admitly, I thought her overly staged shots just made her look like a sad celebrity overindulging in her rauncyiness; with all respect, however, to a woman who knows how to push and play with society’s morays.

Gretchen, who ran by me 3 times wearing fantastic heels the girls I was with were dying for, did a beautiful job as Bettie Page, the icon who loved her body and enjoyed showing it. At the end of the day however I felt the film didn’t leave anything for me to take away, to ponder, except perhaps where a sense of shame comes from. Once people told Bettie what she was doing was wrong she began to feel ashamed of her “sins”. She turned to God and dropped out of sight. Perhaps she just needed Madonna’s “cojones”, a better group of friends, and should have moved to Paris to live the good life with her shameless peers Anais Nin, Henry Miller and Josephine Baker in a place where nobody gave a damn about a naked nipple or some leather boots. *(Added note as at September 22) - Bettie Page wasn’t coerced into dressing up in “special costumes” and reportedly admitted having fun playing dress-up. This blog in no way condones harm to others in any way or form. It does condone loosening up a little.)

Vintage postcard #6
Originally uploaded by jmv.

Got my breaking news from George Stroumboulopoulos’ The Hour tonight about the Fairmont chain of hotels being bought by a Saudi prince and an American developer for $4 billion. So we can say Goodbye to another Canadian icon. Many of these hotels were built in the late 1800’s under the vision of W.C. Van Horne, who dreamt of building lavish rest stops alongside the newly constructed Canadian Pacific Railway. ”If we can’t export the scenery, we’ll import the tourists” he was known for saying.

I’ve been lucky enough to stay the night at the Royal York and tour some of the famous suites: The Governor General’s and The Queen’s. The room we had was kinda old school (think Laura Ashley decor} but it had a great view and the eggs benny in bed (vegg style) was phenominal.