The Good Bike project refuses to die
seriously, i’ve been photographing The Good Bike project for over a year now! And examples are still popping up all over the city. This pink one was on queen street east.
i wonder if this is doubling as a ‘ghost bike’ because it begs the viewer to remember someone who has passed.
the stickers of dedicated have worn off of this one … “For…we’ll” is all you get now.
check out my Good Bike project category for more examples.
the devil takes care of his own
you can see the good bike project still soldiering on in the background.
i’ve noticed this photographic project before (ugh too lazy to link it up, just trust me). basically, photographs are taken of people in specific places, the photos are printed, then the people go back to the same location and have a photo taken of them with the original photo. IT’S SO META, IT MAKES MY HEAD EXPLODE. i like the idea, but some people feel like wheatpasting these all over isn’t the best way to garner street cred.
whatever, new and interesting ideas should be embraced. what do you think?
found this on augusta avenue in kensington market.
the Ossington strip
handsome & gorgeous
i had previously found one of these “handsome & gorgeous” stencils in kensington market back in august
“Bonjour Christine,
It is 5:01am.
I got out of bed at 3:30am, could not sleep, ate too late.The other day I was drifting up the main to the Mile End and then back to the Plateau ( cuz I’m dat cool ) and I spotted Stikki Peaches work all over. Even as far as on Chabanel in the garment factory hood.
I think Stikki Peaches might be going all city soon.So, today I woke up and I could not sleep so I decided to look for Stikki Peaches ( as I type this I hear something crawling in the ceiling, I think it might be a giant rat ) on the webz and I found your online memory data silo.
Interesting.I lived in Toronto for a while and also Vancouver but most of my life I lived in MTL. I’m originally from central america, Guatemala.
Where am I going with this? Oh yea.So, when I lived in Toronto and Vancouver I loved to see who was going up on what wall, who was throwing a tag here and there. Back then SPUD, JAFAR and a few others had gone all city but my favorite became TRIK.
TRIK here TRIK there TRIK en haut TRIK en bas TRIK to the left TRIK to the right TRIK on the rails TRIK in the toilets TRIK.
You get the idea.
Ok, so the proliferation of locations for a writer is not uncommon in the game, but here is why he became my favorite.I had to go back to Guatemala due to a death in the family.
I had not been there in 20 years and there was a cultural shock.
I felt out of place, in the home land, wow. I missed poutine, I missed the Wheat Sheaf’ giant moose and I missed the west coast rain. (sheesh, this is starting to sound like the vinyl cafe. Ok I like the vinyl cafe)
One night as I walked up and down the little cobble stone covered streets of Antigua, something caught my eye as I passed a street light post.There it was, written in a fine tip blue sharpie, TRIK.
I smiled, je me suis dit ” tout est en ordre et la vie continue”
It is now 5:35am.
Thank you for your time and thank you for your blog Christine.“
-Methuselah (not his real name)
Il n’y a pas de quoi, mon chum.
fanks for the past-midnight-musings. glad you appreciate! next time i return to montreal, we can wander with a sharpie.
the more i know people, the more i love the smiths
i leave today! Via Rail is putting me on the cross-canada train from Toronto to Vancouver (with a brief stop in Jasper, Alberta) to blog, vlog, and live-tweet the train experience, and upon arrival in Vancouver, I will be speaking on a panel for the Social Media Week conference. The panel is “Brands, Agencies, and Influencers” and we’re discussing how to build personal brands, the relationship between brands and bloggers, and the ethics therein. if you’re gonna be in Vancouver on September 19th, register to hear a sistah speak here!
most of you know that i’m a huge travel junkie, so being able to explore my own country as much as i’ve explored others is a huge opportunity, one that i couldn’t pass on. it takes a bigger woman than me to refuse such a generous offer.
i’ve travelled the european rail networks extensively, and i swear by them because they’re fast, they’re efficient, and they’re inexpensive. i’ve always been a critic of our canadian rail system, so this experience is the opportune time to prove me wrong.
time to whip out my backpack and load it up with travel essentials. tell me, what does one wear to a panel discussion? business casual? i have my pencil skirts and blouses buried somewhere.
more importantly, what does one wear on a train for three days? Via Rail has set me up in the swanky sleeper touring class cabin, where i will apparently get my own shower, and my meals prepared by a kickass chef. i get my own cabin as well, NO SHARESIES!
when i rode the rails in europe, I always had to settle for the 4 bed or 6 bed couchettes shared with complete strangers who snored, had screaming children, or yipped out the window at every train platform we crossed.
one time, when travelling for over 24 hours from lisbon to budapest (it’s a fricken lonnnnnng train ride, with stopovers in paris and vienna), there were no couchettes left, and i had to sit upright in a compartment with 4 others all night. it was THE WORST.
in india, you didn’t even get a separate compartment. you just slept right out in the open, no curtains, no privacy, and everything at risk of being stolen.
anyway, ADVENTURE TALLY HO!
see ya on the west coast, suckas.
* * *
speaking of Social Media and influence, I tweeted this on the 10th anniversary 9/11:
as you can see, it was RT’d by more than 100 people, which actually happens quite a lot on my end, but that number was probably increased when it was RT’d by my main man:
now i finally know what celebrity tweeters have to endure. some people were INCENSED by those nine little words. amazing how one little pacifist sentiment can incite so much furor. some of the messages i received in response to that tweet were ripped right out of Team America, surely. most of them were xenophobic and racist comments directed toward arabs and muslims, i might add. twitter really is the only refuge for the scoundrels.
hey everybody! got an opinion? you should post it on twitter.
PEOPLE WILL SHIT THEMSELVES.
I worked at the CN Tower during 9/11. I quit shortly thereafter, as did everyone else. I don’t just mean employees, I also mean guests and customers. Towers became taboo.
“Hi Christine,
i’ve been blogging about Deadboy‘s street art and graffiti for months and months now, and we talk often.
guess who i finally met?
YES YES YA’LL.
Deadboy had informed me a few weeks ago that he had been asked to participate in the street art showcase which drops in toronto on september 24th, and the official media announcement was last week at City Hall, so i went to support the man in the mask.
i actually didn’t realize he was the one in the mask until he waved at me and came over to say hi. seeing as how we’ve never met before, and i have no clue what he looks like, i just assumed he was someone else. as he got closer, i looked at his mask and was like WAAAAAIT A MINUTE, that’s the mask used in his street art!
anyway, we spoke for about an hour, and the press conference was actually super interesting. turns out the Street Art Showcase has received invitations from Bristol (banky’s hometown) and 5Pointz in Queens!
imma be out of town on the 24th (going to Peru!), but you should definitely check out the showcase. follow them on twitter for updates. support Deadboy, tell him Estima sent ya.
speaking of City Hall….
..and another one…
see what i did there?
lol.
interesting viewpoint.
do i think that graffiti and street art is vandalism?
the short answer to that is no.
the long answer is FUCK NO.
another brilliant and colourful Spud bomb, right across the street from MuchMusic.
CHRISSY MAD! CHRISSY SMASH!
i’ve not blogged about the Good Bike project lately, because there are just soooo many bikes to cover, and i see so many of them, i doubt i could ever photograph them all before they’re busted or ripped up. but this one on queen and spadina caught my eye because it had a name on it.
the Good Bike project ladies put Jane Jacob‘s name on another bike, so i’m wondering if Isabella Angel is an activist like Jacobs?
site specific work is the most ingenious work.
i love the idea that someone saw that sewer hole with the pylons and envisioned something else for it, something that is clever and provocative and colourful.
* * *
speaking of colourful, i was invited to the Diet Coke TIFF fest this year.
i went last year, and as you can see from my blog post at the time, it was a much smaller affair, just our little twitter crew. we all fit into 2 limos at the time. now the Toronto twitter crew has grown so much such that the attendance was easily over 500.
i didn’t bring my camera but raymi‘s photographer colleague made up for that.
there’s ameet off to the left. we met last year when he used to date a friend of mine, but we kind of run in the same circles, so we bump into each other from time to time.
this looks inappropriate.
raymi says she looks like sharon stone in this pic.
and i look like rachel weisz.
our movie would be box office poison.
my friend paul wrote a round-up of the night’s events for The Grid, and decided to link up one of my tweets about the night in the article (go to 10:30pm, and the hyperlinked “REALLY” in brackets at the end of the paragraph).
i stand by my love of veggie poutine, dammit.
and hey, i write for The Grid too, ya know.
Estelle was brilliant, and i managed to elbow my way to the front.
she’s so gorgeous.
and her shoes were fierce, miss thang.
reg and i were made into flipbooks. watch this video until the very end, where i vent my frustation in caption-form.
* * *
i meandered by a venue last night that i shouldn’t have. i saw the scooter and took off running.
go away. please go away.
Relax, I’m Hilarious
TIFF is coming up, and I’ve been invited to so many advanced press screenings that I’m debating whether or not I should throw myself face-first into the fest like I did last year. Last year was amazing, I reviewed the festival for FOUR different media outlets, including the CBC. I met some amazing people in the industry, attended some hoity-toity parties, saw a record-breaking 35 films (including The King’s Speech, where I knew from the press screening that it would win the Oscar), and feasted on the visual stimuli flashing through a darkened cinema. Static flicking off the beams of light.
So why the debate?
Mama’s got a book to write.
* * *
sneak with me as i disappear into the back alleys. keep your feet pedaling, the bike leaves no footprint. the night will swallow us like a python, opening its mouth, and then holding its breath.
all the kids in the ghetto call me Don chris estima.
gauzed in red, the colour tearing through my flesh, this painted city belongs to me.
we discover art.
and colour
and you will know i was once here
by the looks thrown over my shoulder.
Rob introduced me to Poser, who does these smooth rabbits all over town. Now you won’t be able to walk around without noticing them. I love how the rabbits are holding spraypaint cans whilst almost saying “Eyyyyhhhh, sup gurrrrrl.”
word.
speaking of Deadboy, my last post (which detailed his new Rob & Doug Ford as Tweedledee/Tweedledum wheatpastes all around the city) got some love from BlogTO
that single BlogTO tweet sent my blog traffic batshit crazy through the roof, kiboshing all previous records. fanks hombres!
hello new munchkin readers! enjoy my neurotic blogjaculation.
relax, i’m hilarious.
now shut up and show me your tweets.
rob takes a decent graffiti snap.
rob and i snuck around the back alleys for about four hours, well past midnight. darkness creeping in on secrets.
first obvious target: graffiti alley, then up the ossington alleys, then through kensington market. i think our next destination should be the rail path which runs through the junction. i know there’s some amazing shit there, my camera is gagging for it.
does anybody else think this looks like a concentration camp?
zejko? that sounds yugoslavian . . . maybe serbian or croatian or bosnian. i wonder who this guy is.
political figure? martyr? writer? philosopher? just some dude?
andy warhol just rolled his eyes.
ha, i love this little gas-can fucker.
oh hello mr elliott. we meet again.
i’m surprised to still see some of the Andrew posters around, they’re quite old (in terms of street art shelf life), so this was a rare find. however, considering the way Andrew died, tagging the poster with a mouthful of blood and a speech bubble with “liberal lies” is rather upsetting.
what kind of tagger writes “liberal lies” anyway? i’m sorry, is Andrew’s tragic story offensive to your conservative graffiti ethos? fuck off with that shit.
my last post detailed some Tokyo tags, and now we know who he is. Rob found him on facebook, so we have a face with a (fake)name now. Sup guy.
i also recently blogged about the posters and stickers that have gone up around queen and spadina, commemorating the kettling and brutality that occurred last year during the G20 summit. the stickers say “our civil rights were lost here.” the posters show sombre photos of the attrocities done against peaceful toronto civilians.
the “tokyo” is almost gone. i wish rob ford was rubbing away too.
this headless frowner reminds me of our unhappy hipster run-in while rob and i took a break at 416 Snack Bar. some loud hipsters with massive, square, black-framed specs, and nostrils brimming with white coke, shouted at me from across the table to smile.
i turned into them and gave a fatal grimmace.
coked-up hipster goes, “that’s the worst smile i’ve ever seen. why won’t you smile for me?”
to which i leaned in and coo’d, “I’m not going to be your monkey.”
and at that, his balls crawled back up inside his body.
from what i can gather here, someone stenciled “supreme” then someone with a spray can tagged it into “supremely stupid” but they spelled “stupid” wrong…. studpid? stucpid?
this freaked the shit out of me, because in the darkness of the alley, you couldn’t see all those details. you could see a bit of the face. my flash revealed the bleeding ghost.
some daytime shots from the back alleys in parkdale.
reminds me of some graffiti seen in the background during the film Children Of Men…. “last one to die, please turn out the light.”
is that elvis presley or chris cornell?
when horses are this lame, they shoot ‘em.
hi c-saw, i will respond to that question with this.
good call, speaking of bikes …
i’ve got more THE GOOD BIKE finds!
a basket filled with a potted plant, untouched!
AND it’s bolted to the ground. you ain’t stealing this, fuckfaces.
the photo of me at the top of this post is of me taking this photo….
wow, that’s so meta.
and the moral is: the easiest way to make guys lose their shit is to have yours together
we spies. we slow hands. killer for hire, you know not yourself
in the middle of the night, i am the girl biking in and out of toronto alleyways. my basket carries music, sending the raccoons scurrying behind wheelie bins and the cats under mufflers. the pavement echoes the grind of my chain and my voice, cooing. i look up to the sky, which is gauzed behind the strobe of tree tops and aching branches.
my thighs burn acid, and i need to go alkaline without the alchemy.
my body is in a constant state of metallurgy.
since my above The Grid article came out, it’s been the top story on their website, see:
if you haven’t checked it out yet, do it now.
fitting that as soon as my Rob Ford graffiti photos are published, Deadboy comes out with a new batch of Ford pieces that are so brilliant, it’s as if stephen hawking, a messiah, and gandalf made a spawn.
Deadboy, you are made of perfect jesus wizard sauce.
seriously, he is making some of the most thought-provoking street art in toronto.
he let me know the locations of his new work: Rob Ford and Doug Ford aka Tweedledee & Tweedledum:
an alleyway near Ossington and Humbert.
Queen Street West and Claremont
“Graffiti isn’t the problem. It’s society not knowing what to do with artists . . . Oh look, there’s a rose. LET’S PAVE OVER IT.”
-Ron English
Chinatown/Kensington Market
i have some exciting news to announce (and more which i cannot announce just yet, as it’s still in the works… suffice it to say, September is going to be an exciting month).
the first is that Ford Canada is lending me car for labour day weekend.
yes, you read that right.
sometimes having a social media presence has untold perks, which has slowly begun to reveal itself to me.
they approached me with the offer, and we’ve been ironing out the details for a while. so what am i going to do with a luxurious hybrid from september 1-6th?
i’m driving to montreal.
i haven’t been back to la belle province, the place of my birth, since 2005, so i am long overdue.
and you will witness the rediscovery of my hometown, as i will be blogging, vlogging, and tweeting the snot outta this trip!
thanks Ford Canada and the good peeps at National (hi matt!). we fit together like the ignition and the key.
vroom vroom.
i always thought “Adam’s Apple” was a strange name.
eve gave adam a forbidden fruit, he swallowed it, and desire caused their expulsion.
now, men must forever carry lust in their throats.
and isn’t it just so apropos that women, naturally, are rather good at bobbing for apples.
a conversation i overheard this week:
Gal #1: “I’m from the south, flirting is part of my heritage!”
Gal #2: “What does that mean?”
Gal #3: “It means her mother was a slut too.”
my past few posts have detailed the good bike project here in toronto, and here are more finds to add to the growing list of fluorescent cycles peppering the city, adding flavour.
this albany find was particularly important to me.
if you don’t know, jane jacobs was a local activist & urban planner who singlehandedly prevented the spadina expressway from ruining toronto-the-good. without her intervention, the city would have erected that gaudy monstrosity, destroying homes, communities, urban flow, cultural contentment….and even this blog.
odd that the albany-jane-jacobs bike wasn’t placed on spadina….
i see this “TOKYO!” tag all over the city, although many of their occurrences have been painted over or blasted off since the spring.
as Rob and i spent a night pushing our dead-body bikes across Bloor street, we came across this virtually untouched tag.
i cannot pass this tag without humming this chorus. it’s like a tick.
…where the demons from my past leave me in peace.
this is better than “stop, hammertime.”
the first photo at the very top of this post was an outtake. i’d heard a beautiful mural of a couple kissing was going up near Bloor and Bathurst, and snuck around the area at night to photograph it. My camera kept going out of focus right when the shutter clicked.
so i decided to make something out of the outtakes (creativity always affects something previously thought unusable. there are no lost causes).
hence, the photo at the very top.
and this one below.
can’t you see what you’ve done to my heart and soul? this is a wasteland now.
my next girl will be nothing like my ex girl; i made mistakes back then, i’ll never do it again
nicely done, deadboy
* * *
EDIT!!
guess who just sold the above photo, along with many other of my Rob Ford graffiti photos, to The Grid! I love adding “photographer” to my growing portfolio. Check out the spread here, munckins!
* * *
sometimes i share the emails i get here, sometimes not, but this one came with the tacit authority to share, and it’s rather lovely, so why not.
Hello!
My goodness! I’ve just spent the past three hours reading through your blog and I’m still not finished. Now I see you’re on Twitter, as well. Where do you find the time?
I “stumbled upon” your blog while browsing something totally unrelated (don’t know how Google always manage to do that) and I was so intrigued (yes, it was because of a photo of you) that I decided to peruse through it. Very entertaining, indeed. Informative at times… even inspiring (the bit about eating healthy). There’s so much material to cover that I doubt I will get to it all.
Portuguese and Lebanese, eh? I see it now. Beautiful combination. You kinda got that Nelly Furtado-Kim Kardashian thing going on, eh (Apologies if you can’t stand those two!).
Another thing from your blog which stood out in my mind is the part about how you would fill in the blank to end the sentence on the picture you saw at the hipster house party. I thought your response was brilliant. Deep with a dash of humour. I wonder how many people actually got it? I also made note of the part where you blogged about traveling to NYC because of a love interest but things didn’t go well and you were left crying on the steps of Union Square? I assume figuratively and not literally because, His loss, I assure you!
Anyway, it’s been fun reading. All the best to ya!
-”AWspicious”
fanks mate. for the record, i didn’t travel to NYC last summer for the guy, but i’ve known him for years and he’s always good for givin’r, so he just factored in to the trip. he’s in a relationship right now, so when i went to NYC earlier this year, i didn’t bother contacting him. if i did, the response would be silence. but if i’m being honest, he was probably one of the greatest longstanding affairs i’ve ever had.
technically, that’s not saying much.
and fanks for the “his loss” bit . . . it’s not his loss just yet, but give me some time, and it will be.
Banksy’s latest, in response to the News Of The World phone hacking scandal.
last week, i collaged about “the good bike” project here in toronto, which has been getting so much attention not just around town, over the pond in the UK, the guardian has even taken notice of our Mayoral clusterfuck.
anyway, here’s another find. this is the first blue one i’ve found, it was on bloor near dovercourt. i want to find the green “jane jacobs” one, anyone know where that’s located? i know it’s on Albany, but where?
i still need a name for my new bike (since my old bike Bea Arthur was totaled by a raging syphilis-cyclist, i hope she dies of a rectum rash), but i’m leaning toward calling it Aunty Edna. old lady names for bikes=boom goes the dynamite.
this is the mural at luna cafe on dovercourt and argyle. i always ride Aunty Edna past this lovely converted grocers, and i adore how they have kept some of the grocer’s painted adverts on the window. gives it such a great feel. people who live in and around argyle street are so lucky. i want to live there, the area kiboshes the annex.
text messages from august 10th:
mr k: your mind shines as brightly as your eyes do.
me: how is it you always know just what to say?
mr k: i just kinda adore you so it’s natural… everything about you just feels so organic. you blow my mind.
at the Ali Baba falafel place on bloor street with nate, a delightfully schizo’d woman heard me say that i was portuguese, so she came over and said that i was a beautiful portu-geezer, and proceeded to kiss my head about 16 or 17 times. i actually don’t think i processed what she was doing. i kind of tuned out, not even realizing it was awkward or weird. i let her kiss my hair, and stared at a point on the street outside the window.
it felt like everything and anything, except like what it was.
this photo was taken last year at the TedxTO afterparty, but i was only recently tagged in it on facebook. i don’t at all remember taking this shot, or frankly, who the dudes in it are. Reg, any clues?
i’m such a glad-hander.
i’ve blogged about fauxreel twice before, but this old piece of his from 2009 that went up in our fair city still gives me pause.
i was at a funeral once. as is expected, it was a very sombre, melancholy event. it was a hot july day, and the church had left the windows open for ventilation. as family members came forward to give their speeches, a car outside on the street was blasting its crap music (as most low rider douchebags who drag The Danforth are known to do). unfortunately, it was this song. the fucking car was stopped at a really long red-light outside, and because all the church windows were open, the song invaded the ceremony. we were trying to have this respectful, reflexive, and downright sad experience to mourn the loss of life…
…and instead, we were paralyzed with a case of the giggles. everyone had their hands over their mouths, unsure of whether to choke back tears, or choke on our cackles.
horribly hilarious, i was uncontrollably laughing at a funeral.
that’s what going to Moth-Up the other day was like.
someone walked by me, pretending not to see me. But seeing as how i’m an adult, i made the courteous move to say hello. i had forgotten that we weren’t talking … and now i remember why.
in hindsight, i probably should have checked the FB event page to see who would be at Moth Up so i could have avoided it altogether, but i have completely given up stalking on FB. if people didn’t show up in my FB newsfeed, i’d never know what others are up to. i absotively posulutely refuse to look at anybody’s profile but my own. i have extended this ban from FB to twitter, and even some blogs. … mostly, because i couldn’t give a shit.
luckily, i was with someone worthy of my attention. we giggled like conspirators well into the night, actually leaving the event early for more one-on-one.
we bounded out the door, taking the steps two at a time, and disappeared into the velvet black of midnight… i didn’t bother to take notice of what i left behind.
life is right in any case.
and my heart is open as the sky.
“your mind shines as brightly as your eyes do.”
you better run, better run, faster than my bullet
if you’ve been keeping your eyes open in toronto-the-good, you’ve probably noticed a few fluorescent bikes here and there. they’re part of an art project launched by some OCAD’ers, where they find abandoned bikes that are still locked up, and beautify them with different fluorescent colours, sometimes they even put a potted plant in the basket. anyhoo, i haven’t been able to pop a wheelie in this city without knocking over one of these bikes, they’re everywhere! i am so in love with the idea, as you can see from the above collage that i made which indicates each location i’ve found a bike so far. keep your eyes open, tdot.
to find out more about this project, visit the artists’ tumblr here.
text messages from august 4th
mr k: YOU make me want to do better things
me: that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me
mr k: it’s just you tell me about what you’ve done and i see this insane potential to do more and i think “holy crap man.. this girl is amazingly talented and has done so much!” it’s so awesome and inspiring….. to me you’re muse material because you create the drive for self improvement. Everything you’ve told me points that way. Whenever you tell me about how guys walk all over you, i actually think why?! someone like this is so worthwhile.
vicki vanilla sky
i am a bumble bee.
that’s what mr moore said about me the other day after we had dinner together at disgraceland. i’d never tried their vegan-friendly menu before. i like places that are west of ossington. the wester, the better. omg gurrrrrrrl you are soo west.
i wore a yellow top, black skort (remember skorts!), my yellow tube flops, and that ol’ buttercup yellow flower in my hair that i’ve been wearing since 2005… hence the bumble bee. my friend teresa describes that pill you have to take when you have a UTI as “the bumble bee pill” because it’s black and yellow as well.
i like it when things are named after flying killers.
someone in Kensington Market knows how to bang out the time-sensitive street art without flinching.
crying a gold tear.
i always thought winehouse would just keith richards her way through life. i was living in london when her second album back to black blew up, and she was in daily rags literally daily. remember when her and blake had that huge fight, and emerged on the street after the battle. he had massive nail scratches on his neck which he unsuccessfully tried to cover with a douchey scarf. …and she used to love traipsing around in those ballet slippers, which were bloodied now because she had injected the crack cocaine IN BETWEEN HER TOES.
living in london at that time, listening to her music as i ran through Southwark and Bermondsey, fisting Borough Market, kicking Tower Bridge, and owning the Elephant and Castle circus, amy is inextricably linked to that period in time. the pubs and punters screamed her songs, spilling out into the streets. her music got me through a horrible break-up at the time. made riding the DLR somewhat bearable.
amy, you should have been stronger than me.
on the corner of bloor and st. george
there’s only ONE law when it comes to graffiti and street art… you don’t fucking tag or go over someone else’s work. graffiti is all about ego, really. it’s about getting a kind of infamy for your art… when someone fucking tags your art, it’s the biggest form of disrespect.
hey “MER” don’t fucking disrespect. get your fucking tag off of the eyes.
shall we turn this into a new conga line, lisa?
i don’t think i could handle a constant state of pleasure until forever.
but i welcome the challenge.
* * *
i’ve blogged about Deadboy lots of times before, and he let me know recently that he’s hit the streets again. he’s launched an attack on the streets, and his provocative wheatpastes are in some of the best locations in the city. on top of that, they are powerful, they ask questions, they make you feel something.
here’s a cross-section of some of his work, with their locations. i invite you all to go on a scavenger hunt and find these pieces of art for yourself.
that’s the great thing about street art… it’s livable and democratic. you don’t need to be a glittering asshole who scrubs up to go to the gallery. you just need to enjoy investigating your own city.
free thought. free art.
probably the best piece of the lot, IMO.
the “fuck you stephen harper” wheatpaste is on queen west and augusta, across the street from Java House.
the “gun-toting toddler” is atop a construction overpass in kensington market, near baldwin and spadina.
right next to it, is this shaved-head kid with a rifle.
and the two make a second appearance on queen west and ryerson, just south of Theatre Passe Muraille.
this “my turn raccoon” which i already found in a kensington market alley is also on queen west and vanauley street.
do you see what i see on the abandoned blockbuster at queen and spadina?
* * *
a few months ago, i photographed this stencil saying in the exact same spot outside st george subway station, but it was promptly removed thereafter.
it’s back.
i was almost crushed by a tractor trailer the other day as i rode my bike through parkdale. he didn’t check his blind spot for me and starting turning. my bike crashed to the ground, and he kept going, his huge tires coming within inches of my body. he only stopped when other cars honked and flagged him down. i got up off the ground, shaking, and tried to smash his side window with blind rage. but i’m just a pipsqueak, really.
the flowers came off of my basket.
my leg is a bit bruised, and i have a few popped capillaries, but i’m fine.
cyclists need some peace of mind in this city. we deserve respect. i’m also a driver, and a pedestrian, so i know what it feels like to be all three. none of us own the road. we need to start sharing.
i’m fucking endearing.
