Urban design awards in Toronto

Toronto's urban design awards were announced Monday night at the highly fabulous Palais Royale.

built in 1922, the Palais was originally a dancehall with a boat house downstairs. the building on the shore of Lake Ontario hasn't changed that much--though the view from the verandah probably has...
considering these awards focus on new buildings' context and the evolution of the Toronto's urban fabric, the Palais location seemed peculiarly appropriate--a gorgeous corner of the city's history, marooned by poor planning decisions. of course, the good people at the ceremony were far too polite to mention that fact.

no huge surprises at the awards. i was delighted to see two of my personal city faves being singled out for further glory: the 40R_Laneway house and the Spadina wavedeck.


and this is the Palais at the end of the rainy evening, when there was a special city bus to drag revellers back to Union Station. instead, i braved the crazy pedestrian bridge across the Gardiner Expressway (easier to get home, from there.)

for more about the Urban Design awards, check out my article for blogto.

RATS is here!

my copies of the book have arrived...very exciting...

a really really BIG rat

while i'm waiting for the first copies of my book RATS OF LAS VEGAS to arrive, i couldn't help noticing this great tidbit of RAT news in the world...

there's a newly-discovered giant rat in Papua New Guinea, living in the crater of a volcano. and the rat is quite friendly, as you can see on the BBC website's video. hopefully it won't meet too many humans who pull its tail (that might influence how friendly it feels towards us.)

and in case you think i'm exaggerating with the word "giant"...the rat is 82 cm long.

Rats of Las Vegas - the book trailer!

i'm thrilled to be back in Toronto for the launch of my new novel, Rats of Las Vegas. i'm gearing up for the first Rats-related event, on September 28th...a cabaret at the Gladstone Hotel, hosted by This Is Not A Reading Series. curious about the book? Kit Pasold, a Toronto-based television producer & graphic designer (& by amazing good luck, he's also my brother), has created a fab book trailer, which is a great intro to the novel:

Summertime and the livin' is...

Burgundy sun coming up on another gorgeous day with no internet & no telephone. just good company, a quiet writing room, and a lovely garden. aaahh...bliss.

i love Paris...in the air...

this is a great ferris wheel--old & slow, it is set up every summer in the Tuileries Gardens. this is the first time i've actually taken the trip.

i especially like the pigeon sitting on the head of the statue, which is apparently "Monsieur Fery"--no relation, as far as i know, to the Ferris Wheel. and the "non non non" from a nearby passenger, whose chair was being set spinning. but most of all i like the view in all directions...

urban Paris apiary

turns out bees are thriving in cities...and Paris has some great examples. despite the die-offs in working pollination bees (used for large-scale commercial farming), bees in urban environments are doing just fine.
maybe that's not so surprising: cities have a great selection of flowers for the bees' delectation (whereas so many acres & acres of our farmland is now mono-cropped & covered in pesticides, which is hard on the bees.)
in Paris, i like to visit the beehives at the Luxembourg Gardens (taking care not to walk on the grass, of course!)
but the most bizarre beehive location is on top of the Grand Palais, the immense glass-domed exhibition space. the bee-keeper has quite the view! and i'd love to tell the tourists, touring the Opera Garnier, about the bees...i like the idea of the Opera being haunted by bees rather than Andrew Lloyd Weber.

SummerWorks coming up...

some great performances, starting this Thursday, at Toronto's SummerWorks. i'm especially intrigued by the Gladstone's Performance Gallery...i chose some upcoming highlights in the fest for blogTO, here.

(this mysterious photo is from 'The Art of Catching Pigeons', part of the fest)