living in Toronto: the appreciative post
Every now and then, I am reminded of why I like living in Toronto. Tonight, that reminder came as I finished renewing my subscription to Vanity Fair. On the website's Roundtable section, there is an article by Anderson Tepper on the strength of the Canadian literature scene in Toronto. It's a brilliant piece. I loved his comparisons of Toronto and New York:
It's not the first time the two cities have been compared. Peter Ustinov once said that "Toronto is like New York run by the Swiss."
Unfortunately, we've had some bad years since then. John Barber of The Globe and Mail wrote recently that Toronto is now more "like Cleveland run by the Canadians." Years of rule by an uptight Italian-Canadian-Catholic police chief has left my area of the city a pale shadow of its former self. (I flew to Spain for some goddamned backroom action! Hello!) Marge Simpson may have uttered the best recent description of Toronto: "It's so clean and bland... I'm home!"
But Tepper's article made me appreciate my city again. Just as the Turner/Whistler/Monet exhibit I took in last year at the Art Gallery of Ontario did. As does the fact that tonight, I finished my Christmas shopping in 30 minutes without setting foot in a shopping mall.
Check this out: Tepper mentions the Murmur project. What you might not have read about Toronto in a novel by Atwood, Ondaatje, or Irving, you can discover by walking around with a cell phone and listening to the narrative recordings.
Of course, Jason will likely post a bitchy comment about how Canadian literature is an oxymoron. Ignore him.
Toronto, like an eclipsed, earlier version of New York, is being re-written, remapped, reimagined. [...] Toronto: a mini–New York; an anti–New York; a younger, more global, more tolerant New York.
It's not the first time the two cities have been compared. Peter Ustinov once said that "Toronto is like New York run by the Swiss."
Unfortunately, we've had some bad years since then. John Barber of The Globe and Mail wrote recently that Toronto is now more "like Cleveland run by the Canadians." Years of rule by an uptight Italian-Canadian-Catholic police chief has left my area of the city a pale shadow of its former self. (I flew to Spain for some goddamned backroom action! Hello!) Marge Simpson may have uttered the best recent description of Toronto: "It's so clean and bland... I'm home!"
But Tepper's article made me appreciate my city again. Just as the Turner/Whistler/Monet exhibit I took in last year at the Art Gallery of Ontario did. As does the fact that tonight, I finished my Christmas shopping in 30 minutes without setting foot in a shopping mall.
Check this out: Tepper mentions the Murmur project. What you might not have read about Toronto in a novel by Atwood, Ondaatje, or Irving, you can discover by walking around with a cell phone and listening to the narrative recordings.
Of course, Jason will likely post a bitchy comment about how Canadian literature is an oxymoron. Ignore him.
Comments
Adorable Boyfriend has sold me on Toronto though. It seems like a wonderful city to fall in love, raise a family and be happy. Despite how mushy that sounds, isn't that pretty much what it's all about? Perhaps a change here or there, but we all want to be happy and in love with our mate and our city.
Toronto it is!
http://www.autobarn.net/aaaroadkit.html
it has hardly any wolves
there's nothin worse than following a funny man.
ya. i know.
how come I wasn't invited to the finale of the apprentice? oh how about a WEEDS night mloyd? we could pop ativan and surf the net after smoking some and enjoying our show....sans tbl....jk PETER!
I love Mary Louise Parker so much, it hurts.