Pre-emptive Peacekeeping

The three graffiti jets fly over the saying 'PRE-EMPTIVE PEACEKEEPING' on concrete barriers at Trumps new building on Bay Street. The stylish template graffiti really makes you think. For me I think about wanting to watch an airshow - so off to Thunder over Michigan on the 23rd of July.

Graffiti and Ford

I support the fight to get rid of graffiti tagging. And posters, those things are stuck everywhere. Mayor Ford tends to get skewered by the graffiti artists for his stance.

Here are some graffiti murals at the Guvernment night club.

film festival poster

Posters and graffiti, time for a little art in your life - out in the streets. Above is some film festival poster residue.

Graffiti demonstration at Yonge Street

There was a graffiti artist giving a demonstration on a large white canvas at the intersection of Yonge and Dundas in Toronto today. I like to think that the white canvas was actually cut from a building and will soon be stapled back in place.

And as a bonus here is a panorama of the comings and goings of the intersection while the paint was being sprayed.

Stop war

It is amazing how handy stop signs are for making social statements. We have seen one that was modified to say stop eating animals and now I have seen one for stop war.

Banksy: cop and pink balloon

It's been over a year since Banksy blew into town, a mysterious artist hiding his identity, letting his art speak for him (well, some art and a movie). While some of his graffiti works remain, I don't think anything survived untouched. The Lake Shore Boulevard painting of the police officer holding back a floating, pink balloon dog is still there with only the modifications that were done soon after the art went up - namely the dog's Grrr!, the white highlight with the vulture on top of the cop's head and the yellow "Robbin' BANKSY". You can see the original here on BlogTO and one of my post of the paintings here.

What I find fascinating is that the painting is still pretty pristine, other than the above noted additions, yet the barrels that were beside the graffiti still remain, rusting. I mean who leaves barrels outside like that? I think that it's something out of the Simpsons - they are full of spent nuclear fuel or toxic waste. I think Banksy realized the danger of these barrels - his dog was trying to get to the bad waste.

Toronto Maple Waffles

Ha Ha! Seen on a Gardiner Expressway pillar on Yonge Street and Lakeshore.

Saturday May 21, 2011 Rapture - I meant 2021?

No Rapture yet and the day looks beautiful - I think someone slipped a bible decimal. Just in case I had showered with my 'Wash away your sins' cleansing bar, good for ALL 7 deadly sins. The only bad part is it has that 'Just-do-it again' scent and it is tempting, arrghh. I think I will live dangerously today so I suggest every one goes commando!

Maybe this guy was Raptured.

Raptured

Tomorrow (Saturday, May 21, 2011) is the one day when you should avoid carrying anything heavy – they say you have a high chance of rupture! Okay, bad joke, tomorrow is the ‘Judgment Day’ as predicted by some radio group. This date is not to be confused with their first date in 1994 because that date had a question mark and an alternate date was provided for in 2011. I don’t know about you but when I think of Judgment Day I think of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator movies. And he is certainly being judged now by Maria Shriver for his long ago affair and child born to his former housekeeper.

The Day is supposed to begin with a worldwide earthquake followed by tea and cookies. The Rapture will begin (God’s elect people ascend to heaven) and finally the world will end on October 21, 2011. I found a funny ecard that said “May you someday have a job where you don’t hope end of the world predictions come true.”

People are joking that they will be leaving piles of empty clothes around the streets so people would think that the bodies have been called to heaven. Others are talking of adding helium to sex dolls to create a floating army of people rising in the sky, but many say that the helium will not be able to raise the dolls into the air.

Make Love Not War

Live it, learn it, love it. Speaking of love, I think someone will be lucky tonite.

Bricks and other Art

Not all art is intentional, sometimes it just happens. This large wall has been painted pink, its covering of mortar falls away from some of the bricks. The wall slowly strips away its' facade. Maybe a mural or large advertisement will fill the empty space one day.

The Paint Your Faith mural at the side of the Metropolitan United Church.

Chinese Restaurant mural and sign (Fantino hearts me).

STOP Graffiti Vandalism Now

The Mayor of Toronto wants to stamp out graffiti vandalism, which is an excellent idea, especially since it explicitly excludes art murals, "One or more letters, symbols, blah, blah, blah, that disfigure or deface a structure or thing, blah, blah, blah, does not include an art mural". The blahs are mine, if you want to read the information check the city website.

Devil baby breathes fire!

Saying you want to get rid of graffiti is like saying you want to cure the homeless problem. It is very expensive, will cause much debate over who/what can stay in the streets and in the end won't cure the problem.

Fresh Homelessness

But I agree bad graffiti is either vandalism or gang markings and should be removed from city streets and alleyways and art murals should only go up on buildings with the owners permission.

See more graffiti after the jump.

Sandals and cherries - Bell Sucks!

I am without home internet as my Bell wireless modem (2wire) has again crapped out because of their failure prone power supply. When a new power supply finally gets to me, hopefully within a month, I will celebrate my fifth unit and hope its lifespan is far greater than the previous units. Something must be in the air because when I was still on my third power supply Bell sent out a new one in a general mailing saying that they have had a problem with the ac to dc conversion units and here you go.  It didn’t take me long to need that new unit and now that replacement has gone to a better place.

I hate dealing with Bell and I hate getting hosed by Bell and I really hate when they tell me, once again, that I am not listed on my account. PS my name is James Hamilton and I am addicted to the internet and Bell Sucks!

Condo Newspaper Boxes

The City of Toronto has introduced a new, sexy type of newspaper box - a community type of box with multiple newspapers living together in harmony, a sort of hippie newspaper commune or a condo-box for a condominium city. The grey structure I found at Queen Street West and Bay Street is branded with the City of Toronto Logo, holds eight different papers with up to four paid editions possible (yeah, like that will be necessary in the near future). Maybe they can remove the coin slot area and stick in more free editions as necessary. This design was actually released to the media in 2008 and shown in this Torontoist article but this is the first time that I have seen it in the wild.

The other newspaper boxes are scared of the beautiful lines of the new box and fearful of a future where they may have to go to for recycling. You can see the City's logo on the side of the box.

This sleek new baby replaces the long line of multi-coloured newspaper boxes that fill many street-corners and which many people consider an eyesore. I didn't mind the old individual boxes because they were sometimes the most colourfull objects on a downtown street. You can see that they must have just taken the wrapping off the installation as the dull grey finish is yet untouched by stickers, graffiti or posters. I will check back later this week to see if the finish remains virgin.

The old boxes in front of the Starbucks wait for the transfer of the paying editions to the new box. They are remarkably clean with very little marks added by artistic citizens. Both the Star and the Sun boxes have small stickers which mention agendas and lies.

A walk in the Beach

Toronto has a love/hate relationship with the name of the area just on the east side of the downtown core (starts at Coxwell Avenue) of the city - even their website shows "The Beach/Beaches". Whatever you call it, the area starts at the sandy foot of Lake Ontario and continues north. The favourite part for many is the long and wide stretches of beach full of sun worshipers, swimmers and volleyball teams in the heat of summer. This place is so much fun that even the bell telephones are happy (although it could be one of those new fangled emoticons  and not really a sentient telephone who appears to be happy).

Oh yeah, the best part of heaven is the bikinis and thongs.

Banksy in the alley

Banksy's Toronto graffiti still survives, barely, in a few places. Luckily he picked the right alley on Church Street because the building next door looks like it is coming down, while the second one away is down - done like dinner, nothing left but the splinters.

I was surprised to see that the Church Street Keg Restaurant has moved out of it's old building and into a new home on The Esplanade. I worked in that Keg for one night covering their staff party night - that's right I used to work for the Keg (Mississauga (the old Dixie-Dundas Keg) and the Brampton (the old downtown Brampton Keg)). Sadly, I just noticed that all my old Keg Restaurants are gone! I met and married my wife when we worked at the Keg and I have a ton of great memories from those days. Rock on Keg Staff.

Untamed Queen Street West

The lush texture of Queen Street West begins with the high end clothing and shoe stores and a crazy mix of some wild and wonderful stores like Condom Shack and the Cannabis Culture Shop and is followed, and always overshadowed, by the old CityTV/Much Music building with that SUV blasting out of the side of the wall, high above the parking lot. Stars and celebrities still wander through out the studios and people wait to catch glimpses of the famous. Wonder Woman engages in a wild fight with evil, phallic shaped MAC cosmetics in the store window above.

There is always colour and a vibrancy about the street coming from the area's desire to be something other than a staid business strip of typical merchants. That and the constant posters and graffiti everywhere.

Roommate wanted posters

"This wall looked better with graffiti" - I'm pretty sure it still has graffiti.