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preseamelt
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Name: preseamelt
Country: Canada
Gender: Female
Interests: Hockey, anime/manga , books, blogs, fanlistings, languages, grammar
Expertise: Editing essays, papers and assorted assignments; writing rambling blog entries
Occupation: Teacher
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
2/27/2005
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| During my summer vacation back home (i.e. Canada), I finally got to go to Manic Coffee and the Monster Factory, both of which were as cool as expected. ^_^
Manic Coffee is, as the name suggests, a coffee shop. It's located at College and Bathurst and was opened last year by a friend, Matt Lee. All of the coffee is fair trade and, like they state on their website, you really can feel that the shop really is "about people who love coffee." Heck, I don't even like coffee and I found myself able to appreciate the cup Matt poured me. (Probably because he knew I'm not a big coffee drinker and gave me something not so bitter.)
Then too, I was impressed when, on the way out to lunch (with me), Matt noticed that a lady had spilled her iced coffee on the table. He quickly helped to clean up and asked one of the baristas to make her a new cup. Said barista also remembered what she had ordered. I think that's the kind of customer service that tends to get lost in franchise places but is really the mark of an excellent shop/restaurant/cafe.
The other cool place was the Monster Factory. Ever since I got Di rk from Jen for my birthday, I've been wanting to go to their workshop in Toronto. It was WAY out there on King St. West (especially since I walked all the way from Manic Coffee), and I would've missed the building completely if I hadn't noticed a monster character on a trash bin in the building parking lot (I'd actually already walked past the entrance) since there was nothing on the entrance signage to indicate that the Monster Factory was indeed housed in the building!
 
But anyway, I went inside and was astonished to find that it really was a workshop and that the small number of staff there were actually tracing out and cutting patterns by hand and sewing on a seemingly ordinary sewing machine! Unfortunately I was too timid to talk much to them (apparently Jen spent quite a bit of time in discussion with them about me when she bought Dirk, so they might've actually recognized me from that conversation), but I still got the sense that they were pretty nice, friendly people. When I finally decided on Mr. Jefferson after spending like 40 minutes considering my options--how could I resist "a grade 8 science teacher" who "conducts himself in a gracious manner , though he has been known to lose his temper while playing board games"?--they mentioned that they were changing his colour and even showed me the new one. (I liked the old colour better, so it was good that I bought him that day!)
If I get a chance to visit again when I'm back home for Christmas, maybe I'll try to talk with the staff more. ^_^
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| For anyone in the Toronto area, there are some interesting sounding art exhibitions on around the U of T campus:
The street belongs to all of us! - Exhibition
Eric Arthur Gallery and Larry Wayne Richards Gallery
John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape & Design, University of Toronto
Exhibition Dates:
Thursday, June 12, 2008 - Sunday, October 5, 2008
*Admission is free*
Date: 06/12/2008 - 10/05/2008
The LWR Project Gallery
The world’s streets are places of encounter and
conflict. How are streets planned and designed? For what and for whom?
Who decides, controls, oversees? And how are the multiple occupancies
and speeds of pedestrians, cyclists, cars, service vehicles, and public
transportation systems reconciled? What should the balance be among
advertising, business, art, and free expression as competing interests
jostle, each wanting to have its say? Exploring cities on five
continents, the exhibition finally asks: How do we share the street
(which belongs to all of us!)?
These are some of the questions posed in this exhibition organized by
the Paris-based IVM, Institut pour la ville en mouvement [City on the
Move] and produced for North America by the Design Centre at the
Université du Québec à Montréal (in collaboration with IVM). The
exhibition is supported by the City of Montreal, and the Toronto
presentation is facilitated by the John H. Daniels Faculty of
Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto and
the Consulat Général de France à Toronto.
http://www.ald.utoronto.ca/news_events/eric_arthur
Stories,
In Pieces
July 10 - August 24, 2008
Opening Reception: Thursday July 10th, 5:00 - 7:00 pm
Curated
by: Aileen Burns
Artist
Talk: with Curtis Grahauer & Kara Uzelman: Saturday, July
12, 2pm
Curator’s Tour: with Aileen Burns: Saturday,
August 9, 2pm Curated
by Aileen Burns, the exhibition brings together works from Toronto and
Vancouver by artists Geoffrey Farmer, Curtis Grahauer & Kara Uzelman,
Liz Knox, Myfanwy MacLeod, and Jon Sasaki.
Stories
are told in many ways and for infinitely diverse reasons. They pass
history and culture between generations, serve as cautionary tales,
inspire innovation and adventure, convey news items, communicate personal
experience, or provide a much-needed escape from reality. A number of
recent contemporary art exhibitions examine possible reasons for the
resurgence of narrative in visual art. Artists are reformulating tales
of past events from personal perspectives, in order to reclaim and diversify
history. They comment on pertinent global issues like ecology, or create
psychedelic, alternate worlds that provide fresh perspectives on, or
whimsical escape from, the realities of the contemporary moment. Whatever
the goal of a particular story, narratives are constructions that follow
familiar patterns, and draw on culturally ingrained expectations.
Artists
Geoffrey Farmer, Curtis Grahauer & Kara Uzelman, Liz Knox, Myfanwy
MacLeod, and Jon Sasaki, create stories through means specific to visual
art. The visual and audio cues of their work call on the viewer to engage
in narrative processes. This dynamic form of narration contrasts with
more linear, predetermined stories that unfold before a viewer, reader,
or listener, while watching a film or reading a book. Through their
open and suggestive constructions, these artists’ works allow
viewers to draw on their own associations, memories, or archive of stories,
to develop narrative readings of the work. The viewer becomes the causal
agent, narrator, or protagonist, and contributes to the essential temporal
component of storytelling. A dynamic engagement with the various elements
of each piece is integral to the formation of a story.
We
gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. http://www.jmbgallery.ca/exhibitions.html
Also, did you know there is a University of Toronto Art Centre? This was definitely news to me!! (How sad is that, after spending 5 years as a student there?)
http://www.utac.utoronto.ca/
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| For everyone still living in/near Toronto:
EVENT DETAILS
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Date: Saturday, Sept. 29, 2007
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Time: 7:03 p.m. to sunrise
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Location:
St. George Campus
Click below for a list of sites and event descriptions:
http://www.arts.utoronto.ca/nuitblanche/venues.htm
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Info: http://www.arts.utoronto.ca/nuitblanche
The University of Toronto is pleased to invite you to spend the night at the St. George campus for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, "an all night contemporary art thing" on September 29, 2007. This is a free, public celebration of contemporary art occurring throughout the city all night long. Paris held the first Nuit Blanche event in 2002, and this year U of T is delighted to partner with the City of Toronto to host another "Sleepless Night" of artistic activity.
The University of Toronto will be transformed into an avenue of the arts with one-time-only installations, performance-based art, musical encounters, drama, film, and more from sunset to sunrise. Three St. George campus art galleries will also be open throughout the night. From a subversive Night School and an Emergency Room Recruiting Centre to an Electronic Forest and Video installations, there will be a wide array of events to feed your soul and expand your mind. Come join us!
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| Read about my adventures in Japan at http://melt-in-japan.blogspot.com
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| As part of our pre-deparation preparation for JET, we were advised to consult a lawyer and write a will. The weird/hard part for me is the property disbursement (bequests). I mean, how specific should I be in outlining who gets what stuff from me? And would people even want the stuff I'm giving to them post-mortem? Would people be offended that I left them out of my will? At what point should I stop and just say that my parents and brother can deal with everything else however they please? Such are my thoughts. When I stop and reflect on it (as I'm doing now), I find my mental acrobatics around the subject rather morbidly amusing. I mean, it's not likely that anyone will die while doing JET, but I can't help but take the exercise seriously. It's funny because I remember that I thought about (and possibly even wrote!) a rough will when I was a kid (somewhere in the early to mid-teens) and I didn't think it at all disturbing or odd then. Maybe it's just different now because it's "for real"? Anyway, I'm emailing the information to my lawyer when I get home from work, but I'm sure I can still make changes afterwards, so if there's anything anyone wants (from me, post-mortem), let me know! | | |
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