Alleycatnip
My sister, who often works late, takes some joy from the clowder of alley cats living near her place. (Yep, "clowder" - alt. "clutter" - look it up.)
So last week, she decided to give back some joy. She had come across some catnip growing wild in another part of town, and decided to see if she could get the party started among these normally skittish night creatures.
The result? "It was bedlam. Licking, fighting, drooling, bodies lolling like an opium den." Check out the blackmail pictures on her Flickr set.
Alley cats on catnip
The sweet yet sad part about it is that these cats usually won't let humans go anywhere near them. Catnip loosened the inhibitions just a tad:
Licking the hand that dopes you
Got me thinking, what the hell is catnip, anyhow? It's the common name for Nepeta, a type of mint. Gives off a pheromone that gives cats a temporary euphoria lasting 5-10 minutes. Once they eat it, it becomes a sedative. Don't worry, they won't eat enough to O.D.
Here's something interesting - susceptibility to catnip is hereditary, affecting only two-thirds of cats. Australian cats do not react to it. And according to Wiki, "There is some disagreement about the susceptibility of lions and tigers to catnip." WTF? Who tested that one out?
Though it does sound like an experiment I'd like to watch, from a safe distance. Like YouTube, maybe.
Ah, just Google it
For Doors Open Toronto, I visited Osgoode Hall, home of the Law Society of Upper Canada and several appeals courts. Among the most impressive rooms were the Hogwartsesque Great Library, and the enormous Reading Room beside it. Among towering stacks of reference books of all kinds (and one hell of a stack of paper), there's one single computer ... and you can see where it was pointed.
You figure those books will ever really be used again?
They built excitement
Last week I took a photography workshop that was held at an old auto yard - an amazing place that had been used as a car graveyard for more than 50 years. I'm still sorting through my images, but this seemed like the one for today, the day they announced the end of 82 years of Pontiac history.
I've never owned a Pontiac, though I went to the prom in a Trans Am, put myself through college by working in a GM parts warehouse and thoroughly enjoyed the occasional rented Grand Am. The end of any era makes me sad.
Leslieville signs, via my kids
Apparently my unhealthy fascination with signage is rubbing off on my kids - but their commentaries are much funnier than mine. Here's a sampling of their comments on signs in our neighbourhood:
Daughter: "Daddy, look. A frying pan with a smile!"
------------------
Daughter, walking past this untitled tattoo parlour on Queen St. (its sign used to proclaim it "Domain of Pain") and peering in at all the designs up on the wall:
"Ooooh, a sticker shop! I'm definitely going there when I get older."
------------------------
Five-year-old, frowning at the hussy on the left as we drive past this strip joint:
"Why is that woman pulling up her shirt? She should do something else. Like read a book!"
Stuck on CBC
CBC Toronto has gone sticker crazy. You know those giant, peel-off vinyl graphics you see everywhere these days? Well, CBC has bought in.
It seems every flat surface of the Broadcasting Centre, inside and out, is in the process of being tarted up with giant ads sporting CBC personalities and shows. The atrium looks like the hood of a NASCAR vehicle. Even the newsroom is getting plastered - though for all those interior uses, I'm not quite sure who we're supposed to be advertising to. Ourselves?
A few theories:Â Perhaps vinyl is suddenly cheap. Maybe it's good old fashioned end-of-fiscal spending, or new fiscal. Or perhaps we can't afford billboards anymore. Or we're trying to stay one step ahead of Rami Tabello.
With as many as 800 people heading out the door, perhaps temporary promotions are considered wise. Conversely, there's a rumour that if you make it onto a sticker, your job is safe - though that didn't help Steven and Chris.
With the peel-off craze nearing its peak, I can just tell what's coming next: Rex Murphy Fatheads!
At least they aren't scratch 'n sniff.
Check out a sampling of the plasterings here - bigger versions on Flickr, with comments.
Facebook freaks me out
So, all morning I've been ranting (quietly - this is me, after all) about CBC's funding mess: it appears there will be no extra money, no bridge financing, no carriage fees, no guaranteed CTF envelope... no help at all to deal with a potential $145 shortfall. And now the CBC's own board seems to indicate that the $60 million in "one-time funding" we've had for seven years now may also be dropped. That part really scares me - it's not just a refusal to help, it's a willingness to cut. [update: That money was later promised by the heritage minister.]
Suffice it to say that "$60 million" on my mind. And then this afternoon, I go onto Facebook to post a link, and a "verification" window pops up:
Anyone know where Facebook gets their verification code words? Other than "directly from my brain"?
All of this has happened before
At times like this, I like to glance over at this photocopy I found during my archival work.
Almost exactly 60 years ago.
Promo copycats
If you live in Toronto and take the TTC, you'll no doubt recognize this poster for a singer called Ali Slaight - they were plastered throughtout subways and streetcars for months.
I'm always a little suspicious of artists I've never heard of that take out massive print advertising campaigns - smacks of marketing instead of merit. Also, it's an EP.
But then I came across this Sarah Slean image from Canada Reads site:
Look familiar?
It's not just that the poses are so similar - slouched in the corner, one arm up, head at the top of the panelling, left elbow down (what is Slaight's elbow doing, anyhow? Did they photoshop out the table?) .... I think it's the exact same location! Take a look at the panelling and bench on the left wall - the railing, the slats - it's identical.
Yeah, one's in a dress, one's blonde, and one's in black and white... still. If I were a young Canadian female musician, the least I would want from my label or publicist is a promo pic that varies a little from the next young Canadian female musician.
Not much comparison in their music, though... I don't mind the little I've heard of Slean, while Slaight (hmm, even the names are similar...) sounds like drivel. But I could slug Slean for inflicting Mercy Among the Children on us.
I'll bet you that corner is in a Toronto bar or diner - anyone recognize it? If so, I'll go down there with my camera to take a picture for my own album, Copy the Stars.
Props from the fallen
This week saw the bittersweet bazaar known as the Royal Canadian Air Farce props & wardrobe sale. After 35 years on CBC Radio and Television, the Air Farce took its final flight.
 It's the end of an era, not just for the show but because it was one of the few A&E TV shows to still tape in the Toronto CBC building, using the last of the once-great horde of props and costumes built by generations of CBC craftspeople. Those days are over, and they aren't coming back. (See previous posts about the closing of the Design Department, and the subsequent sell-off.)
But it makes for one hell of a yard sale!
For two days, eager staffers were invited to pick over the remains of the Farce's unique creations. There are now strange objects scattered across cubicles on every floor.
The props area had coffins, statues, a bomb, rubber chickens and more, to say nothing of rather nice chairs, lamps and picture frames. In wardrobe, you could get labcoats, capes, hockey sweaters, muumuus, a Marg Delahunty costume and about a thousand ties (which eventually sold for a buck each.) Plus everyday sweaters, suits and pants - though every pair of pants I tried on were of Roger Abbott proportions - fit me loosely at the waist but barely reached my calves. Looked like knickers.
Still, I'm a sucker for weird junk, especially if it's a part of history. In addition to the fake switches and books pictured above, here's what I walked away with:
Impules buy - for $1 - a board game called "Separatist Careers"... you can even find the original skit online on the Air Farce site.
"Just be sure to avoid the Parizeau card, or you go home a loser." Priceless! And check out the Lucien Bouchard playing piece:
And for my dollar, they threw in a free box of Lloyd Robertson Hair Rinse for News Anchors:
But the crowning purchase - at a whopping $15 - was this Greek bust:
I think it's Pericles, but I'm not sure. He's currently backfilling for our encoder, who was sick that day.
Looking through that stuff was a riot, tempered slightly by the observation that the people selling off the wardrobe collection were a soon-to-be-unemployed seamstress and a scriptwriter.
If only I had bought the fake bomb, though! That would have been... never mind.
Shredding, old school
Last week the folks in the offices beside mine moved out, now occupying new digs on the ninth floor of the Toronto CBC building.
They took with them the paper shredder, but I was able to find an old one - a really old one - amid the rubble of old SCSI cards, 5 1/4" disks and skeletons of BASIC programmers.
Here's the shredder:
Handsome! But did you catch the brand name?
Yep, "Watergate - top secret". Someone in the manufacturing world obviously has a sense of humour!
Seemed like an odd omen for Inauguration Day, though. In fact, my very first memory of television is sitting down with my parents to watch Richard Nixon depart the Whitehouse. "He was a very bad man, and now he has to go away," my mom told me.
But I was four, so what I heard was, "He lied, so now he gets to ride in a helicopter!"
Amazing, then, to watch the crowds gather in the CBC atrium to watch Barack Obama being sworn in. If you want a better taste of history, please check out the new topic we posted on the CBC Digital Archives: Swearing In: U.S. Presidential Inaugurations - we've got clips of speeches from FDR right through to Dubya.
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