As the news cycle slows for the summer, reporters are leaning heavily on a pair of old standbys: polls and lists (a close cousin to polls). On that note, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) recently ranked the world’s top cities in a livability survey, and Toronto came in a middling eighth, losing points for sprawl and limited “cultural assets.” Despite their city falling several places from its spot in previous livability rankings, Torontonians may not want to start with the usual self-deprecation—even the surveyors admitted the whole exercise was weird. Previously, the survey used 30 weighted indicators in five broad areas, including categories like infrastructure and culture. This year, the unit decided to shake things up by considering spatial qualities like isolation, pollution and sprawl instead, but they say the new features “may not have been applied in quite the right way” (for instance, pollution-plagued Hong Kong came in first). Plus, Vancouver wasn’t even considered, which is odd considering it usually scores well. If this list doesn’t help Toronto compare itself to its West Coast rival, then, really, what good is it? [The Economist]
All stories relating to culture
Current Obsession: Larry Towell’s haunting photographs from the ruins of Afghanistan
The Canadian photographer’s images capture the human side of an unwinnable war
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Larry Towell was in New York for a meeting when he heard that the twin towers had been hit. He immediately grabbed his camera and ran to the scene; his resulting images of dazed and dust-covered New Yorkers have become iconic. That reaction was part of a pattern for the 58-year-old Towell, who for more than three decades has been travelling from his southwestern Ontario home to places like Nicaragua, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and South Africa to take photos of people caught up in bitter, bloody conflicts. Beginning in 2008, Towell went to Afghanistan to witness first-hand the war that had been sparked by 9/11. He spent months in the country, and though he spent some time embedded with U.S. military units, he was determined to take pictures that said more than what government and political officials were telling the world. Many of his stark and unnerving photos are now on display at the ROM as part of a joint exhibition with the Irish photographer Donovan Wylie. We asked Towell to give us the backstory on some of the show’s unforgettable scenes.
Weekly Eater: Toronto food events for July 2 to July 8
Farmer’s market season has arrived (Image: Kevin Ho)
Monday, July 2
- 86’D With Ivy Knight: Check out a double bill at the at the Drake Lounge. First, a throw-down for the ultimate hangover cure: the Bloody Mary versus the Caesar. Second, a watermelon-eating contest. The Drake, 1150 Queen St. W., 416-531-5042. Find out more »
- Piola’s Monday Night Mixer: A weekly aperitivo italiano with cocktail and beer specials and complimentary snacks. 1165 Queen St. W., 416-477-4652. Find out more »
Reasons to Love Toronto: No. 7, because kids have a playhouse
How do you make Toronto’s best building even better? You put in a kids’ space. The Weston Family Learning Centre at the AGO is sort of like the city’s finished basement, if the city had artsy parents with money. It’s one of the rare spots where children can be happy and those responsible for them can lounge hiply, admiring an architecturally superb space, designed by the super-hot firm Hariri Pontarini. It’s almost too nice to have grubby little children running around in it.
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See, Hear, Read: our experts pick the movie, music and book release of the month
They love it. We want it. Three red-hot releases
“In this affecting movie, a 10-year-old girl moves with her family to a small town in France where the kids mistake her for a boy. She decides to adopt that identity and call herself Mikael. The style is minimalist, graceful and naturalistic, similar to Monsieur Lazhar. It’s also one of the most beautifully shot films I’ve seen in a while. It’s sweet without being saccharine, and tender without feeling cloying or manipulative.”
—Daniel Pauly
Staffer at Queen Video on Bloor
Tomboy, Céline Sciamma (June 5)
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The city has been working for months to off-load one or more of its three theatres—the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts and the Toronto Centre for the Arts—because they cost taxpayers over $4 million a year. According to the Toronto Star, the city has now made a baby step forward by issuing a request for anyone interested in buying, leasing, operating or a (dubious-sounding) “other arrangement” to submit preliminary ideas. Painter, drummer and councillor Gary Crawford, who chairs Rob Ford’s task force on arts and theatres, says artists shouldn’t be concerned about the push for privatization as the city’s still trying to “ensure these theatres are strong and viable parts of arts and culture in our city.” Reassured? [Toronto Star]
Spotlight: John Irving’s new novel In One Person is an epic tale of bisexual bawdiness
(Image: Matthew Tammaro)
John Irving writes big, blustery novels full of larger-than-life characters and sex in all its acrobatic and often scandalous manifestations. His first bestseller, 1978’s The World According to Garp, featured the rape of a dying soldier by his nurse, a cross-dressing former football star and an act of oral sex that ends in accidental castration. His next, The Hotel New Hampshire, had brother-sister incest and a polyamorous woman in a bear costume. No wonder Irving’s books have occasionally been the target of ban-happy religious groups. In One Person, his heartbreaking and comic new novel, is a fictional memoir by Billy Abbott, a writer who realizes very early on that he is prone to “crushes on the wrong people”—as a kid, he is as interested in bedding Jacques, his school’s star wrestler, as he is Miss Frost, the town’s eccentric librarian. Abbot is bisexual, though he rejects the idea that any label can contain the whole complicated mess of a person’s sex life. He witnesses America’s sexual revolutions and counter-revolutions, from the repressive 1950s to our era of militant sexual identities. It is Irving’s most political novel yet, and yet still infused with his signature brand of literary lust. In One Person frequently plunges to near-pornographic depths, though its impact is always felt above the waistline, in the head and the heart.
BOOK
In One Person
by John Irving
On shelves May 12
The Weekender: Picasso, Bring It On and six other items on our to-do list
The Weekender: Bring It On, Picasso and Star Wars Day
1. PICASSO: MASTERPIECES FROM THE MUSÉE NATIONAL PICASSO, PARIS
Even if you know nothing about art, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with the great Pablo Picasso. The Spanish painter and sculptor was an artistic pioneer—he co-founded the Cubist movement and collage, and revolutionized several other styles. He was hugely prolific, and the creator of some of the most expensive and most oft-stolen pieces of art. This AGO exhibit, comprised of 150 works from the Musée National Picasso in Paris, covers all of the painter’s major periods and includes works like The Death of Casagemas, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and the famous The Matador, a self-portrait completed three years before Picasso died. This summer-long stop at the AGO is the final stop of its tour, and the only Canadian one. To August 26. $19.50. Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas St. W., 416-979-6648, ago.net.
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Spandex and sequins and Salchows, oh my. Four-time world champion Kurt Browning makes the jump from performer to co-director and choreographer with this edition of the annual figure skating extravaganza. He shares the ice with Olympians Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir, Joannie Rochette and Jeffrey Buttle. May 4. $25–$150. Air Canada Centre, 40 Bay St., 1-855-985-5000, ticketmaster.ca.
Editor’s Letter (May 2012): the city is in the midst of a cultural renaissance—except at city hall
The spectacle at city hall has become a common obsession, even among people who never before cared much about municipal politics. It’s part comedy, party tragedy, and overall the weirdest show in town. The carnival-like atmosphere reached its apex when Rob Ford jumped on a giant scale and turned his weight problem into a public exhibit. David Miller, for better or for worse, was at least sensible enough to drop his extra pounds before discussing it with the world. In our cover story this month (“The Incredible Shrinking Mayor”), the writer, Marci McDonald, makes the case that beneath all the Ford family buffoonery is something quite dark. And also sad. The portrait that emerges from her sweeping narrative is of a man who would rather be coaching football than running the city. In fact, he’s a failed football player and reluctant mayor, much like George W. Bush was a reluctant president who really wanted to be baseball commissioner. And it’s no fun to watch someone ill-suited to his job struggle on a daily basis, particularly when the stakes are so high.
If you closely follow the day-to-day skirmishes at city hall—over subways, the waterfront, bike lanes, labour unrest—you might start believing that Toronto is hopelessly debilitated, which just isn’t the case. This is, I believe, a great moment for Toronto. The city is more energetic, creative and prosperous today than maybe ever before. In a recent issue of Toronto Life, we ran a profile of the city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, who said something that stuck with me: “Right now city hall is completely out of touch with the urbanism and energy that I feel in our neighbourhoods. We’re in a period of cultural renaissance and transformation.”
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Current Obsession: cartoonist Junko Mizuno twists Hello Kitty–style art into something seductively nightmarish
In Japanese culture, Kawaii is the blanket term for the alternately beguiling and disturbing brand of Hello Kitty cutesiness in which all creatures are big-eyed and roly-poly. The work of the Japanese cartoon artist and painter Junko Mizuno drags that sticky-sweet aesthetic into an R-rated world where hungry femmes can be unashamed monsters, in the Lady Gaga sense of the word. The 38-year-old Mizuno made her name writing and illustrating violently erotic versions of fairy tales, which garnered her a fan army of gothic Lolita types who buy all her books and line up to meet her at comic conventions. Her manga-inspired psychedelica is a perfect fit for Magic Pony, the Queen West designer toy boutique, which hosts a solo exhibition this month in its gallery space, Narwhal Art Projects. Narwhal’s curator, Steve Cober, describes the work as “delightfully dark sexual foodie art.” The paintings feature girls with voluminous tentacles of hair posing like erotic Hindu statuary, but instead of being passive objects of desire, they are nightmarish creatures, cheerfully vomiting up sushi and whipped cream. Mizuno’s fan base has grown to include international art collectors who eagerly shell out thousands of dollars for her work, so this may be one of the last times to catch her in such an intimate setting. Just as the surreal paintings and ceramics of Shary Boyle—another Magic Pony favourite—have graduated from boutique galleries to the AGO and the Gardiner, so too are Mizuno’s gluttonous monsters destined to raise eyebrows in more conservative art venues, without a comic book in sight.
ART
Junko Mizuno
Opening in March
Narwhal Art Projects
Editor’s Letter (February 2012): why Ontario schools should talk about homosexuality in the classroom
When I was in the sixth grade, a health instructor employed by the board of education was parachuted into my classroom to talk about puberty. She arrived with two life-size felt cut-outs of naked, child-like bodies—one male, one female—which she hung on the blackboard. After a brief preamble, she asked the class to name the changes bodies experience during puberty. Kids tentatively put up their hands, offering ideas: “Girls grow breasts,” and “You get pubic hair,” and “Boys grow moustaches.” After every correct answer, the health instructor dug into her bag and, without even a sprinkle of humour, extracted small felt swatches of pretend armpit hair and cushiony stuffed pretend breasts. As she Velcroed them onto the nude figures, we watched the nameless doll figures grow up before our eyes.
By that point, a few kids in the class were already going through puberty, so most of this wasn’t news. But it was helpful to have the subject released from behind a cloak of confusion and shame. The rest of my preteen sexual education was provided by Sue Johanson, who was a sex educator in North York classrooms before she became a media personality. On her Sunday night call-in show, she took all questions seriously, no matter how goofy, offering frank answers. She believed that everyone had the right to enjoy sex, safely and sensibly, and I can’t imagine a better way to learn about it.
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The Argument: the Group of Seven has finally been set free (with help from art-obsessed London)
As a native Torontonian who has spent the better part of the past decade living in London, England, I get two questions on visits home: 1) Isn’t it expensive there? And 2) What do they think of us?
The answer to the first is, it isn’t too bad if you factor in cheap booze and avoid taking taxis. As for what the British think of us, the answer is, they don’t.
Of our many collective insecurities, the enduring Canadian obsession with how other cultures view us is by far the most cringingly parochial and self-defeating. And, as they like to say in London, it really gets on my tits. We’re like the anxious party guests sweating silently in the corner. Our palpable desperation to be liked precludes the very thing we want most, which is serious attention and respect from places more populated and historied than our own.
You can understand, then, the extreme trepidation with which I approached Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, an exhibit at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in South London. Yes, I was glad the Group of Seven had finally commanded a large-scale show in a major European gallery—and it is, without question, the group’s most important international exhibition to date. At the same time, I was determined not to be reduced to a state of slathering patriotic gratitude by the mere fact of its existence.
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Dear Urban Diplomat: is arriving late to parties just part of Toronto culture?
(Image: Khairil Zhafri)
Dear Urban Diplomat,
I moved to Toronto from Tokyo about a year ago. Maybe it’s just a difference in cultures, but no one shows up for my parties on time. Where I’m from, if an invitation says 8 p.m., you show up at 8 p.m. Here, some guests arrive an hour late and don’t even apologize. Often, I am too annoyed to enjoy myself. Any tips for handling this situation next time?
—Times Have Changed, CABBAGETOWN
Why three prominent Chinese-Canadian writers launched a $10-million plagiarism suit against Ling Zhang
A tale of death threats, tarnished reputations and literary jealousy
(Image: Daniel Ehrenworth)
The streets near Scarborough’s Confederation Park curve and loop in a vertiginous web. The neighbourhood was built in the 1970s—several blocks of low-lying split-levels and bungalows divided by neatly trimmed hedges and 20-foot pines. The 401 is just a few blocks away, but these houses are quiet and isolated, even prim. Ling Zhang lives here in a large mock Tudor. She answers the door on the first ring, a diminutive woman with full moon cheeks and a bashful smile. At 54, she wears her hair in a wispy, youthful updo and is dressed in a peacock-blue sundress, a simple cardigan and slippers. The house is immaculate. We pass through a large front hall with a formal dining and living room off either side. Matching white leather sofas sprawl across polished cherry floors. Everywhere I look, there are vases filled with flowers in pastel pink and white. They’re all fake, but the effect is cheerful.
In the kitchen, Zhang makes me a cup of tea. Her husband, Ken He, a slight man in a short-sleeved plaid shirt, pops in to say hello—but not much else. Zhang explains his English isn’t great. “Moving to Toronto was a big sacrifice for him,” she says. The couple met in Vancouver, at the church where Zhang, a born-again Christian, was baptized as an adult. They came to Toronto so Zhang could take a job at Scarborough General Hospital as an audiologist. Her husband, who was an ophthalmologist in China, now sells real estate to the GTA’s Chinese immigrant community.
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Editor’s Letter (January 2012): how immigration and repatriation are making Toronto a more interesting city
Cities are often affected by political events outside their borders. In the mid-20th century, North American cities profited enormously from the arrival of well-educated immigrants fleeing the Nazis. The brilliant philosopher Hannah Arendt famously landed in Manhattan after escaping France in 1941. The pioneering modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe moved to Chicago in 1937 after the Nazis deemed his work not German enough. Later, in 1956, when Soviet troops occupied Hungary, Canada admitted close to 40,000 Hungarian refugees, nearly doubling the Hungarian-Canadian population. Many intellectuals, writers and artists settled in Toronto, and the city’s café culture was born.
A decade or so later, Canada absorbed a tidal wave of draft dodgers—tens of thousands of young Americans, many of them well-educated, who came here to avoid fighting in Vietnam. For Toronto, it was a windfall. Dodgers proved to have a profound impact on the social makeup of the city, assuming leadership roles in our universities and cultural institutions as well as the corporate world. Andy Barrie, the former host of Metro Morning on CBC, exemplified the phenomenon: for 15 years on the show, he was a fierce Toronto patriot, more enthusiastic about his adopted city than many of us who were born here.
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