The Revival has been a part of Toronto’s Little Italy neighbourhood on College Street since 2002. It’s housed in a seemingly century-old brown-bricked building on the southwest corner of College and Shaw Street; practically next door, on Revival’s east, is a tiny mall with a twenty-four-hour Metro and Tim Horton’s; Shaw Street, to the west, […]
Streaming to the Real World
Picture this: It’s the aughts. It’s daytime during the week, and you’re at home for the day. You have nothing to do, so you turn on your tv and flip the channels and discover that there’s nothing on but cheap tv. You stop on Maury, a trashy syndicated talk show hosted by Maury Povich. Povich […]
What Would Hemingway Do?
I no longer in retail, and I don’t regret it. But I do. In October 2011, I began working at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario–widely known as the LCBO, for the full name sounds like it’s pulled out of the Prohibition Era that the LCBO was created to end–a job that started at 14 […]
Lord of the Fly: Violence, Macabre, and My Reading List
About three years ago, I began using Goodreads to track my reading habits. Goodreads, which allows you to search for books to read, rate books you’ve read, and set a yearly goal of the number of books you want to read, is the Facebook solution for people who at times prefer the company of a […]
Grouchy About the Oscars
Last year, close to 33 million Americans had their TVs tuned to the Oscars and watched in shock as presenters Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty flubbed the presentation of the Oscar for Best Picture. Dunaway and Beatty, who were given the wrong envelope by the TV producers, hesitated before declaring La La Land the winner. As […]
Men and Exercise: Try Something New
I started going to the gym 15 years ago, when I was an overweight university student. At the time, I applied for a summer student job at the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), who required me to undergo a physical before offering me a position. In his report, the TTC’s doctor wrote, “Healthy but clinically obese.” […]
Syphilis and a Flat Earth: Two Different Conspiracies
A Real Conspiracy On a May 16, 1997, gathering at the White House, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton made an apology to victims of a top-secret forty-year study that left lasting scars. Speaking directly to the handful of living survivors, including a 110-year-old man, Clinton acknowledged that the U.S. government “…did something that was wrong — […]
My Latest Song Addictions
I don’t think that I’m inherently conservative, so it’s interesting that many songs I listen to are older. I’m certainly not opposed to listening to new releases, and I do keep up to date with trending bands and the newest fads, but when it comes to songs that I play on repeat, they’re hits that have […]
Hugh Hefner: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Analyze the Playboy Bunny
When news of Playboy founder and publisher Hugh Hefner’s death broke three days ago, I mentioned it in passing to a woman about ten years younger than I. “I didn’t realize it was still cool to keep a harem,” she quipped sardonically. She was, of course, referring to the fact that Hefner, right up to his […]
My Long Short Summer
At the beginning of he year, I made a New Year’s Resolution to write one blog a month. My July post was a few days late, and now I’m writing my August post on the month’s very last day. This bog, therefore, will probably be my weakest. And for this blog, I’ll recount my busy […]
