Texas Monthly, “The National Magazine of Texas”, runs its annual “Bum Steers Awards” every January. This coming January, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney gets a place both in the awards and on the cover:
The fine print on the cover reads:
* Yes, this is a photo illustration. If we don’t say so, Dick Cheney will shoot us in the face.
Photo by David Topping. Click to see the original on its page.
For those of you not familiar with Accordion City, Sassafraz was a restaurant in the tony boutique area of town known as Yorkville. The place had a reputation for so-so food at ridiculous prices (I’ve had brunch and lunch there, and yeah, you can get much better for the money), but that’s not why one went there. It was a big celebrity hangout. Whenever a big movie star was in town on a movie shoot or publicity tour — and that’s fairly often — they often ended up at Sassafraz.
I use the past tense because Sassafraz burned down yesterday afternoon in a five-alarm fire that brought over 40 fire vehicles and called for 135 firefighters. Here are some major news outlet stories on the fire:
And here’s what the online locals have had to say:
My cousin, Malou, is in the restaurant business. She worked in Manila for years, then in New York, and as of March, she’s been working here in Accordion City — at Sassafraz. Naturally, the first thing I did was to call her mobile phone and see if she was all right.
“C’mon,” I said to no one in particular while the phone rang, “pick up…”
“Hello?”
“Hey, Malou, it’s Joey — just checking to see if you’re all right.”
“All right? Oh yeah — the restaurant. It’s okay, I took a sick day today.”
“That’s got to be the best timing ever,” I said, “I’ve already told Mom that Sassafraz is on fire, so expect a call from her any time now. And hey, if you need anything, you know that you can call any one of us.” (The closest immediate family she’s got is in California; the rest are in Manila.) “I’ll see you at the Christmas party if not sooner.”
Whew.
I find it disappointing — but not surprising — at the various online comments expressing near-glee at the news that Sassafraz burned down (one commenter on BlogTO was hoping that the Drake Hotel was next). While I believe that celebrities are generally over-worshipped and overrated, I don’t see see much reason to jump for joy at the loss of a local business, especially one that played a key part in the Toronto International Film Festival, which in turn feeds one of the city’s most high-profile industries, the film industry. Consider also the people who worked at Sassafraz. Thankfully, none of them were injured, but consider that they’re now without a source of income, and we’re deep into the holiday season.
If local indie-hipster hangout 56 Kensington (a charming hole-in-the-wall in the city’s most boho neighbourhood) had burned down, there’d have been a benefit concert with the Barcelona Pavilion as the headline act, and there would’ve been a general call among the local underemployed arts graderati to save an important cultural landmark.
In my opinion, there’s room and need for local institutions of all sorts in this city — from hipster dive bars to Zagat top-rated restos. The sooner we get our collective heads out of our collective asses and recognize that, the better this city will be.
Today’s Audio Advent Calendar goodie is a spoken word piece by British musician-turned BBC DJ Tom Robinson. It’s called The Joys of Christmas in which he talks about Christmas gifts for his kid and the accumulation of stuff.
Tom Robinson – The Joys of Christmas (6.8 MB MP3)
Although Vince Guaraldi’s jazz pieces written for A Charlie Brown Christmas is now associated with Christmas (and recently, Starbucks), it was an artistic gamble at the time. Network execs were a bit iffy about airing a cartoon that:
But somehow, it worked, and A Charlie Brown Christmas is still considered to be one of the best-loved Christmas specials of all time. So here it is: Vince Guaraldi’s Linus and Lucy.
Vince Guaraldi Trio – Linus and Lucy (4.3 MB MP3)
Ladies and gentlemen, the Official Disturbing Japanese Christmas Image for 2006:
Courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
In case you missed it last year, here’s 2005’s Official Disturbing Japanese Christmas Image.
In some ways, I’m glad they haven’t heard of Chanukah yet — consider the menorah/tentacle porn possibilities.
I’ve been a bit on the busy side, what with work — both Tucows and TorCamp related — and the usual hoo-hah that goes along with the holidays, but actual posts are forthcoming!
I wanted to give a quick shout-out and thanks to all of you who attended last Friday’s Blogstravaganza. It was a fun event where bloggers of all stripes — liberal, conservative, tech, religious, secular, news-ish and personal — got together to meet and chat over beer, sub-par pub food, and then later half-decent Chinese food. I’d like to sent an extra special “thank you” to Bob Tarantino, who masterminded the event.
Topics at conversations I heard at the event:
Wendy and I had a bit of “small world” moment when I discovered that one of the bloggers there, Chris Taylor, lives with his lady friend Wanda (later that night, spurred on by Andrew Coyne, the group decided that “lady friend” sounds more spicy than “girlfriend” or “wife”) lived not only in my building but on the same floor. We’ll have to have them over sometime.
James Bow — who I somehow managed to miss chatting with — has a pretty this observation to make, based on the event:
I feel that the Canadian political blogosphere is actually quite special, bucking several trends that we’ve seen develop over the years in the American political blogosphere. Where else would Liberals and Conservatives set aside their differences and work together to organize something that celebrated the spectrum as a whole? And this really is important. I met people on Friday that I agreed with, and I met people on Friday that I disagreed with. I even met one or two people with whom I shared a heated word or two, and yet we were able to smile, shake hands, laugh and talk. Despite how we may lean politically, events such as this remind us that we’re all not that different.
Anyone who still would rather hide under a rock and not get out and meet their fellow bloggers should go take a look at the article I reference in Why the 21st Century is Making Us Miserable.
