Category: Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Lost Conversations is the title of a series of blog entries that have

been sitting in draft form for too long; it’s my attempt to do some

“spring cleaning”. This is the third in a series — the other two are:

• Lost Conversations #1: Matchmaker
• Lost Conversations #2: Two Fandoms, One Approach

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Russ “Burkean Canuck” Kuykendall occupies a interesting position in my worldview. On the plus side, he is a colleague of Gideon Strauss,

a fellow blogger I hold in high esteem. On the minus side, he has

posting privileges on the foaming-at-the-mouth-conservative group blog The Shotgun,

which I treat as a warning sign on the same level as a white baseball

cap worn backwards or a predilection for bow ties — not enough for

dismissal by itself, but it’s a strong positive indicator for

“jackass”, which Kuykendall clearly is not.

In a recent blog entry titled Finding the Old Toronto in the Burned-Over District (which he posted in his own blog and cross-posted to The Shotgun, whose writership tends to the classic Albertan anti-Toronto stance),

Kuykendall talks about his experiences driving through the towns of

upstate New York: “Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany, and in

little burgs in between” and how he “could not help but notice the

general helpfulness, consideration for

others, and common courtesy I encountered, again and again, in service

stations, in down-scale and up-scale stores alike, in rest stops, and

so on”.

He then writes:

It makes me a little sad. Because there was a time when I noted the

contrast going the other way, even when visiting that New York wannabe,

Toronto, where I now live. “Toronto the Good” was also “Toronto the

courteous and considerate.” But no more. And no, I don’t mean that no

one is courteous and considerate. But I can’t tell you how many times

I’ve seen a door opened by one of the last gentlemen in Toronto for a

lady of a certain age only to observe three able-bodied men precede her

through the propped door. Or, how many times I’ve seen young people

walk three or four abreast down a Yonge Street sidewalk expecting

pedestrians to move out of their way.

Now, I know there are

communities across Canada that are more like the burned-over district

in this respect than they are like Toronto the Redoubtable. And I know

that many of the great American cities are more like Toronto as it is

now than like upstate New York. But it troubles me, nonetheless, to

note the change in what is now Canada’s largest metroplex. Can

Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver be far behind?

I

thought that the best response might be to ask my fiancee Wendy, a

dyed-in-the-wool Bostonian moving to Toronto, for her opinion since she

might have more “distance” from the topic than I would. Here’s her

response:

I

think it’s stupid that the Maple Leafs are not called the Maple Leaves.

 I don’t care much about the Bruins but I am a loyal Red Sox fan.

 I am a Bostonian who will soon live in Toronto.

 Considering I’ve spent nearly thirty years here in Taxachusetts

being a Masshole, no one will ever believe I’m actually from Canada.

 Even though I don’t have the huge,

close-your-eyes-and-think-of-Kennedy accent — unless I want to.

That said, I love Toronto.

Tranna. It’s clean, it’s safe, and drivers know how to merge.

 People are nice. I’ve actually been reduced to tears a few times

at the kindnesses of relative strangers who have told me how welcome

I will be in their city when I arrive next month.  Here at home, I

have great affection for the jerks who drive me around in their

cabs, sell me juice, or elbow past me on their way off the bus. But 500

miles west north west, I know I’ll find the opposite, which I also love.

It

was a little bit creepy when the girls working at the natural foods

store near Joey’s and my new apartment told us how gorgeous our

potential kids would be, but they meant it. I get warm hugs and kisses

from almost everyone I meet in “T-dot” – even though that kind of

fights with my New England sensibilities, it’s very reassuring. And

strangers in Toronto will pick you up off the sidewalk, not point and laugh, when you slip on the ice.

I never knew the “old” Toronto. Maybe people used to be nicer. Maybe they baked you fresh bread because they thought you might be hungry, or shoveled

your quarter-mile driveway because they were already out there anyway.

But from where I sit, normal humans couldn’t be nicer than they are

in TO. (Trying to learn the lingo here, please forgive my overuse of

slang.) I love the full-of-beans denizens of the town we don’t particularly

call Beantown, but it’s not because they’re polite. I’m looking forward

to living with the pleasantly less profane. Although it kind of pisses

me off that on top of having to be nice to them, I have to spell the

people next door “neighboUrs.”

Amber “Call for Help” MacArthur attended last week’s OPML meetup, where she announce this week’s must-attend geek event in Accordion City: a TechTV gathering featuring her along with Leo Laporte, Andy Walker and Kevin Rose, with Techphile.ca’s Frank Linhares doing the podcast! Diggnation will also be making their first Canadian episode, as they’re coming up to shoot the event

The event takes place this Thursday, August 11th at 7:30 p.m. at No Regrets, a great resto-bar located just down the street from Tucows in Toronto’s Porn Distri…er, Liberty Village.

I plan to attend, as does the accordion.

More details here:

• Amber’s blog
• Techphile.ca
• Kevin Rose’s blog
• The Toronto TechTV Meetup page

In 1993, Dateline NBC ran an infamous piece on safety deficiencies in trucks. In that story, they performed an experiment that made it appear that certain GM Trucks’ side-mounted fuel tanks were prone to exploding if the truck were hit
from the side. It was revealed that they rigged the tank with model rocket engines that were triggered by remote control in order to ensure that an explosion took place during the experiment.

They had to make an embarrassing mea culpa, which included this statement:

NBC’s contractor did put incendiary devices under the trucks to ensure that there would be a fire if gasoline were released from the truck’s gas tank. NBC personnel knew this before we aired the program, but the public was not informed because consultants at the scene told us the devices did not start the fire. We agree with GM that we should have told our viewers about these devices. We acknowledge the placing of the incendiary devices under the truck was a bad idea from start to finish.

A dozen years later, Dateline NBC is still around, and they have retained their knack for — ah, how shall I phrase it? — being at variance with the truth. This time they’re doing a story on porn spam and LizVang points out how they have described the neighbourhood in which we both work:

There is one place in Toronto that might help us: It’s called Tucows.

That’s the place that registers those Web site names. It’s what led us to Toronto to begin with.

The receptionist is happy to look up the name “Spunkfarm” for us. We get another address, this one very nearby.

We discover that down these dingy alleys of old industrial buildings, and a man on the street tells us that the whole area here is all dot-coms.

“Mostly, mostly porn though,” he adds.

We’re at Toronto’s Internet porn district. The man takes us around back to the freight elevator and gives an idea what goes on inside this building. There are more companies that seem to see porn within the building.

I won’t challenge the statement that many of the offices in the Liberty Village area are occupied by people in the adult entertainment business. Neither will I challenge the fact that porn companies do register their domains with us (but via resellers, not
directly — see my earlier entry on our business model).

However, I take exception with the “dingy alleys” description of the area, a falsehood presumably used to underscore the fact that people are producing or distributing online porn.

Liberty Village, for those not familiar with the area, an old industrial park surrounding Liberty Street, hence the name. Liberty Village has a number of large brick buildings that were once factories and now function as hipster office complexes. Yes, there are a number of companies specializing in online porn, but like Tucows, there are also a number of companies that provide internet-based services of a less tittilating variety. In addition, there’s at least one recording label, the Corus group of television channels (including YTV, CMT and Scream), several good restaurants, a rock-climbing gym, an executive training centre, a book publisher, a couple of architectural firms, a Vespa dealership, a 24-hour grocery and living spaces (both “genuine” warehouse lofts and “loft-o-miniums”). Calling Liberty Village the “porn district” is like calling Central Park West between 70th and 80th Streets the “Beatle Death Zone”.

The “dingy alleys” of which Dateline NBC speaks are actually often-used walkways for all of us who work in the neighbourhood; they’re no dingier than the alleys between warehouses in New York’s South Street Seaport or Cleveland’s “Flats” (and considerably less dingy and poop-filled than most alleys in San Francisco’s SOMA). When Dave Winer came to Tucows to speak at the OPML Meetup we hosted last week, I took him through the alleys behind the old Carpet Factory Building, and he found them quaint and charming.

The Carpet Factory Building in Liberty Village.
Image taken from OneDegree.ca.

You needn’t take my word for it. I happen to have a collection of photos that I shot in the summer of 2003 when I first got my new Nikon Coolpix SQ camera. They’re a study of these allegedly dingy alleys; you be the judge. Some preview pictures are below:

Can’t you just see the sleaze oozing all over this alley? Check out the hot Volkswagen-on-Volkswagen action that’s about to transpire!

Gateway to porn!

The alleyway that connects Mowat and Fraser Avenues. You can’t tell, but that’s a K-Y Jelly delivery van.

One of the so-called dingy alleys ends with this seedy courtyard, the patio of a pornographic Italian bistro.

One Degree has more to say about the Dateline NBC story

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Of course, the photographic evidence I’ve presented may end up being overwhelmed by Dateline NBC; this neighbourhood may be branded “the porn district” for life. In the spirit of going with the flow, here’s a little song from the oddball musical Avenue Q, titled The Internet is for Porn [2.7MB MP3, May not be safe for work, but relatively tame — the nastiest word used is “dick”.] I hereby declare this song the official anthem of Liberty Village!

Rannie “Photojunkie” Turingan has a new project called “Portraits in the Park”. I’ll let him do the talking…

It’s my pleasure to officially announce a new project called “Portraits

in the Park”. Starting next week, once a week, throughout the summer, I

will set up shop at one of our local parks armed with a tripod and my

Yashica Mat 124G. At the beginning of each week, I will announce a

location and time where I will be shooting.

I will take photos of any and all willing participants. One shot per

person. Come in costume, come dressed up, come as you are, just come to

the park. I will do this as a free service to all who participate, but

I will accept a suggested 5 dollar donations for each portrait [for

film and processing]. Each participant will recieve a copy of their

photo and a scan.

If you want to get in on this cool project (I think Wendy

and I will do so during the week she’s here, later this month), your

next opportunity is tonight at Bellevue Park in the Kensington Market area between 5:30 and 7:30.