Material Archive

Last night I saw: Cave of Forgotten Dreams

"Cave of Forgotten Dreams is the result of Herzog's exclusive access to the recently discovered Chauvet caves in the South of France, and their extraordinary cave paintings, dating back 32,000 years."

 

Lost Toronto

 

I accidently stumbled across a really cool blog called Lost Toronto on the weekend that compares present day Toronto architecture to what existed in the late 1800s – early 1900s. I haven't shown any of the "afters" here in my post as I wanted to simply recreate my morning commute to work starting from Parkdale to Yonge Street and beyond with "befores".  Have a look at the site – if you love this sort of thing, you will get lost in it for hours.

 

Looking east on Queen towards the Dufferin underpass

The Gladstone looking east

 

North side of Queen just east of the Gladstone, 1931

 Queen & Lisgar

Queen West just east of Ossington c1919 – north side. Black Dog Video is here now.

 

Trinity College, 1913. The buildings, all except for St. Hilda's, were demolished in 1956.

 

 Queen & Manning

 
 

Queen & Bathurst, 1935

 

Queen & Bathurst (There's a Starbucks on that corner now)

 

South east corner of Queen & Bathurst where the Big Bop was.

 

Queen & Portland, 1958 – the Epicure Cafe is here now.

 

Queen & Spadina, 1910 - south east corner

 

Queen & Spadina – before the streetcar median was here, there were public bathrooms

 

 

North side of Queen east of Spadina – Le Chateau, the Rivoli and David's Tea are here now

 

Queen and Peter looking east

 

Looking south onto Peter from the north side of Queen. You can see "Peter Pan Lunch" to the left, which is still there today.

To the right under that hoarding, you can now find a GAP.

The CityTV building, which was originally constructed for the Methodist Church of Canada in 1913, was bought by CHUM in 1985.

 

Looking north on Beverly from Queen

 

 

University Ave looking south

 

University Ave looking north towards the Canada Life building.

 

Bay & Adelaide

Queen & Yonge

Yonge & Shuter – to the right is Eaton's

The first Loblaws in 1919

Yonge & Dundas 1922

Yonge & Dundas

Yonge & Dundas 1952

 

 Toronto Street & Adelaide

Dundas & Victoria Street 1923. That building is still there as "Hakim Optical".

 


This charming young butcher was photographed in front of his shop at Bloor & Brunswick in 1921.

Here's the link again: Lost Toronto

Enjoy!

 

J. D. Salinger: "Holden Caulfield is unactable."

 

Here's the transcript:

R. D. 2
Windsor, Vt.
July 19, 1957

Dear Mr. Herbert,

I'll try to tell you what my attitude is to the stage and screen rights of The Catcher in the Rye. I've sung this tune quite a few times, so if my heart doesn't seem to be in it, try to be tolerant....Firstly, it is possible that one day the rights will be sold. Since there's an ever-looming possibility that I won't die rich, I toy very seriously with the idea of leaving the unsold rights to my wife and daughter as a kind of insurance policy. It pleasures me no end, though, I might quickly add, to know that I won't have to see the results of the transaction. I keep saying this and nobody seems to agree, but The Catcher in the Rye is a very novelistic novel. There are readymade "scenes" - only a fool would deny that - but, for me, the weight of the book is in the narrator's voice, the non-stop peculiarities of it, his personal, extremely discriminating attitude to his reader-listener, his asides about gasoline rainbows in street puddles, his philosophy or way of looking at cowhide suitcases and empty toothpaste cartons - in a word, his thoughts. He can't legitimately be separated from his own first-person technique. True, if the separation is forcibly made, there is enough material left over for something called an Exciting (or maybe just Interesting) Evening in the Theater. But I find that idea if not odious, at least odious enough to keep me from selling the rights. There are many of his thoughts, of course, that could be labored into dialogue - or into some sort of stream-of-consciousness loud-speaker device - but labored is exactly the right word. What he thinks and does so naturally in his solitude in the novel, on the stage could at best only be pseudo-simulated, if there is such a word (and I hope not). Not to mention, God help us all, the immeasurably risky business of using actors. Have you ever seen a child actress sitting crosslegged on a bed and looking right? I'm sure not. And Holden Caulfield himself, in my undoubtedly super-biassed opinion, is essentially unactable. A Sensitive, Intelligent, Talented Young Actor in a Reversible Coat wouldn't nearly be enough. It would take someone with X to bring it off, and no very young man even if he has X quite knows what to do with it. And, I might add, I don't think any director can tell him.

I'll stop there. I'm afraid I can only tell you, to end with, that I feel very firm about all this, if you haven't already guessed.

Thank you, though, for your friendly and highly readable letter. My mail from producers has mostly been hell.

Sincerely,

(Signed, 'J. D. Salinger')

J. D. Salinger

Here's the link to the original post: Holden Caulfield is unactable.

Women in art

I just overheard Bach's Sarabande performed by Yo-Yo Ma and oddly enough it reminded me of this lovely video that was circulating a year ago.

Moma to Warhol: "No thanks for the gift" – circa 1956

Click on image to see larger.