To be perfectly honest, there’s nothing I enjoy more than having someone tell me how to operate my own equipment. I mean, a suggestion is one thing. That I don’t mind at all. It doesn’t make any presumptions. But when that short, older man (wearing a Yankees cap!) told me, “you can’t shoot directly into the sun, son”, I could scarcely contain my rage.

I took him to the nearby corner of Yonge-Dundas Square and I showed him a few things.

“You see, sucker”, I thought to myself. “There’s enough ambient light on the sidewalk”, now out-loud, “to illuminate subjects from the front. They’re kind of shadowy, but I think that’s kinda cool. All thanks to this iContrast thingie.”

“Ah!”, he marvelled. “What camera is this? I have an EOS Rebel XSi at home. Is that a Rebel too?”

“No”, I replied, “it’s a … umm …”. I’d forgotten the name. Flipped it over. “Oh, yeah, a Powershot … SX 10 … IS. Fixed lens (can’t stick another lens on there) … but what a lens!”

I went on to extole the virtues of the camera and its lens while flipping through the other photos.

“So, it has all the same software?”

What an odd question.

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This is starting to look bad, isn’t it? Second Friday post that didn’t make it out until the weekend. But this time, dear reader, I want to assure you it was an absolute necessity. You see, an event took place this weekend that marks TCL’s first technical anniversary and I didn’t want to waste a post on something more mundane.

I say technical because if you look at the archives, TCL only goes back to January. But it’s really been online since November of last year.

Luckily the WayBack Machine has, as yet, no record of it.

At that time TCL had a mostly-black theme with content that induced hemorrhaging from the eyeballs and projectile vomiting. Pretty awful stuff. Back then I didn’t have the experience or the sphincteric relaxation to do anything interesting, really. Had anyone suggested I run a shocking exposé on what really happens at the annual Santa Claus Parade, I would’ve balked!

But in mid-November I attended Illuminite, the annual Christmas lighting of Yonge-Dundas Square. It was a cold and rainy November night, but the show went on anyway. Try as I might, I wasn’t able to muscle my way up to the front of the crowd, and it was in that soggy moment of inspiration that I remembered it was Toronto City Life. Most of these people were alive, so they qualified. I was getting all bent out of shape for nothing!

That epiphany, and the attitudinal adjustment that came with it, carried me through all the way around to this year’s event. Good thing too because there were a lot more people this time around:

Most of the show, consisting of fire, sparks, trampolines, and dancing, took place at the far end of the square. There was a lot of loud music that, more often than not, descended into a raucous noise that in no way said season’s greetings to me. Eventually, the same spooky music I remember from last year came on as the fire dancers wound their way across the square toward the stage I’d plunked myself behind:

The dancers paraded around on stage in wintry white and silver, twirling fiery objects and having pyrotechnics go off behind them as if to say, “here’s the last blast of warmth you’re getting for the next six months”:

The audience were close enough that one slip and the girl in the red hood got a face full of fire. Now if that’s not a reason to go see something live, I don’t know what is. The fireworks were pretty scary too:

Behind the dancers was the reason for the whole display, the tree.

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What to say?

Not every day has a festival or intriguing political scandal. Some days I just get up, leave the apartment, shake my software developer ass for a few bucks, then straight back home again:

That could get pretty bleak, pretty fast. So, on days like these I try to break up the momentum by taking a detour. Today I marauded through Trinity Square, getting into all the nooks and crannies I’d not previously explored:

I do believe that’s a real water well! Kinda picturesque, don’t you think? But what makes this spot that much neater is that it’s right outside the Eaton Centre. I want to emphasize right outside:

Most people walking through the mall turn out onto Yonge Street instead of taking the opposite doors to the Square. That’s a shame because the church kicks-ass and the little park attached to it is the kind of park where lonely old men come to feed the pigeons and sigh about their bygone days (also kick-ass):

Right at the back of the photo you can make out a gushing mini waterfall. It hits a shallow stream that runs along the side of the building and underneath a wide bridge, both of which form the path to the main church entrance. I guess this is intended to ritually cleanse the spirits of pedestrians as they pass over hallowed ground. Or to ward off vampires.

There’s also a circular labyrinth off to the left side of the Square. Every photo I took of it somehow managed to capture a woman with an unflattering backside trying to find her way to the end. I have a responsibility not to post images like that. It’s just better for everyone.

It doesn’t matter though, because the “maze” is ridiculous; it’s so easy to cheat! It’s a roughly nine meter (thirty foot) diameter circle made of compact, concentric paths. The whole thing is paved but the path part is made of different coloured stone. That’s it! No walls! Nothing! Yup, just walk right to the end, save yourself an awful lot of bother and solve that sucker in record time. My tip to you ;)

The only possible reason I can come up with for the construction of such a dumb “maze” is that it’s some sort of demonic ritual symbol that, if enough people trace its sinister shape toward the dark stars, summons Cthulhu. So then the water’s dumb because there’s no way that that’s going to help. Good luck, Trinity Church!

But as my friend Rob points out, a church will probably hold out until at least winter at which point all the zombies will either slow to a crawl, starve, or freeze to death. Yup, with Cthulhu come zombies; that’s just fact. And with zombies come shotguns. :D

Then for Christmas we could all watch A Christmas Story, as is the custom at Trinity. By this time next summer, we’ll have forgotten all about it. But the maze will still be there … waiting.

And so will I.

Unless there’s a festival or some intiguing political scandal afoot.

The crumply tin chairs and crumply tin tables at Dundas Square were again available tonight and I finally got to sit at one with a crumply six-dollar Stella.

The main show on stage was Disco Inferno who’s name left so little to the imagination that I couldn’t think of a word to write. I sat there certain that the scary security guard, who’s goatee alone would be considered a weapon, was peeking over my shoulder. It just wasn’t an environment conducive to concentration.

I gulped back the uninspiring lager and left the boozy oasis, seen here at back under the red umbrellas:

Note that Disco Inferno did actually have people doing the pushin’-up-the-sky dance (hold palms up and pump skyward – ooi! ooi!). If you can make out the detail above, there’s even an old lady getting out of her wheelchair in the middle of the crowd. Cured!

Here are the Inferno; numerous Bar Mitzvahs, weddings, birthday parties, and corporate events having tuned their act to this singular moment of perfection:

Far too many people were hurting themselves trying to re-live their youth and I didn’t want to join them. I wandered off to the pedestrian part of the square where there hung a bunch of photographs on triangular mounts. I guess these were intended to allow for quick juxtaposition of adjoining images, allowing us to more broadly grasp the photographer’s vision, to understand the underlying narrative that they’re trying to convey, but they were still mostly boring. Here they are being ignored:

To be honest, there were a couple of cool crowd photos. But not many.

A friend notified me that a giant red ball is being moved about Toronto to various spots and I discovered that it will be in my neck of the woods soon.  Giant red ball wedged into city crevices. That just kinda writes itself.

So far Luminato at Dundas Square hasn’t been the outlandishly artsy event it’s been billed to be. Unless you count the L’Oreal makeup tent as art. But maybe I’m not giving it a fair shake. Maybe the ball will silence me with it’s glory.

I decided that I was going to take a stroll down to Dundas Square with my wee little PC, the camera, and sit down at one of those tin little tables on one of those tin little chairs. Aluminum, really. But what’s the difference? When I plunk my ass on them, they both crumple in the same way.

I’d hoped to gawk at the tourists at the Hard Rock across the street and provide a second-by-second reportage of greasy food consumption. I was also looking forward to spotting inattentive parents and in their periphery, infant children as they put their tiny, inquisitive hands in pigeon poo. Then to experience the flavour for the first time in their lives. Magical.

Instead, the entire square was being hogged up by this:

That illegible blue banner says “Luminato 2009“.

I wasn’t yet living in Toronto at this time last year and spent most of the festival in rush-hour traffic. But I have to say, now that the sun is shining more brightly, I’m extremely glad I don’t follow the Toronto social scene too much because if I tried to, I’d be DEAD. JUST DEAD.

Luminato itself has quite a few moving parts, and the city is already packed to the rafters with stuff to do. If I’m sitting on a patio somewhere sipping a beer and snapping candid photos, that’s quite enough excitement for me, thank you!

It’s fairly certain that pedestrians will be tripping over Luminato-related events on almost every corner and, if they miss those, something else will be happening two feet further. There may not be that frenzied, singular density that Nuit Blanche has, but I’m expecting to not be able to find any tin seats or tin tables for me to sit at any time soon.

The pavement hurts my bum so.

My journey around old city hall has consisted of about five meters, four of which have thus far been spent in regrettable company.

Not more than a step further, I find myself with a raised eyebrow, arched in the direction of an encircled, chanting muddle of the local Krishna chapter . They’ve positioned themselves in an awkwardly dark and inaccessible point just a bit further along the embankment.

I’ve only basked in the live Krishna experience in what seemed to be ad hoc processions around Dundas Square or Bloor and Yonge. Today, donning coats that resemble puffed-up pigeons, they’ve festively interjected “Happy New Year” with every other “Hare Krishna”. They seem like a nice, warm little community. Don’t you think?

Wrong, commie!

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I feel kinda guilty for doing it; paying a guy to snap his photo. I mean, it’s supposed to be just a passing shot from the street and that’s it. He is, after all, selling trinkets for “a loonie square”, so I figure two is okay for one quick picture.

Instead, he invites me up onto the embankment where he directs his wife and son to pose. Somewhere from within three out of four uncomfortable grins, I align my shot and take it. The flash is weak and the picture doesn’t come out.

Fucking asshole of an idiot me.

I say “shit”, just a titge too loud, while grinning into the dim glow of the image. Before I even have a chance to confirm that, yes, I do want to permanently delete this already sullied scene, he jumps into action.

I, clearly, didn’t get my money’s worth.

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