take a hike

The Victoria Day long weekend is generally reserved for getting out of town, whether to the cottage or across the border. On shorter weekends, when there's no time for a whole day of driving, escape options are closer to Toronto than you think. Though a perfect day can be spent having a picnic in Trinity Bellwoods, birdwatching in High Park or cycling through Taylor Creek and down the Don Valley, consider something new.

One of my favorite spots as a kid was Rattlesnake Point. This conservation area on the edge of the Niagara Escarpment in Milton has it all: hiking, camping, rock climbing and caves! There is also gorgeous scenery, birding, and great picnic spots. Making the drive over takes less time than riding the TTC end to end. Enjoy!
photo by my dad

Baltimore on Toronto

A funny thing about American tourists is they never make a point of saying what province or city they're coming to here. We're just Canada. When I'm visiting family down south, they'll tell me excitedly "I just met someone else from Canada... do you know them?" but will have no idea where. The stereotype still rings true.

I was seriously caught off-guard about two months back when I got an email from an art director at Baltimore Magazine asking for permission to use one of my photographs. She explained it was for a travel piece in the magazine on roadtripping to Toronto and I agreed. Well, the article is out now (without pics on the web) and they've name-dropped a few of our standbys: dim sum on Spadina, Udupi Palace, St. Lawrence Market, and the list goes on. Also, the subplot about hitting up Orioles games in each town is good fun and not unlike the pursuits of Stephanie and Diego. Now that's showing a city respect!

Wouldn't it be fun to recreate this trip and see what Baltimore, the charm city has to offer, in addition to baseball?

This week in food: 003

I just got back from a week and a half in the deep American South.

Now usually I'll go months without eating fried foods, salt or dairy, which really cuts into my commitment to food review. Therefore, the bulk of grub tasting rests heavily on Jillian's shoulders.

However, this week she'll take a load off... cause everybody gets a little dirty in the south.

(click description for restaurant link and full menu)

A. Corn bread and biscuits with pepper jelly and whipped butter.
B. Po' boy (buffalo fried) shrimp sandwich with coleslaw and chips.
C. Fried green tomatoes topped with jumbo shrimp.
D. Sliced barbecue pork sandwich, to go.
E. Alligator gumbo.
F. Pulled chicken, turnip greens, green beans and corn bread, to go.
G. Hot and spicy dill pickle in a bag with Budweiser tall can.
H. Country fried chicken with white gravy, hash browns, bacon, fried eggs and biscuit.

Advertising in Cuba

[text&photo-heavy warning!!!]

As my favourite professor has repeated many times over, the word for advertising in Spanish is "propaganda" and we should all appreciate the irony in that. Who knows if it's true, my Spanish isn't so hot. Perhaps the most fascinating part of Cuba (to nerds like me) is that the only advertiser is the state yet billboards are still everywhere. Most of them are copy-heavy inspirational phrases or pictures of national heroes and lacking somewhat in the creativity we're used to.

Still, Cuba has some amazing artists. You gotta wonder where the socialista in-house agency has been recruiting Art Directors.

Speed IV: Che's Revenge

(actually says something like "fearless, faultless horseman")

Repping some local heroes. The UJC (Youth League of the Communist Party) logo is omnipresent!

These posters were in the windows of every shop in Old Havana.

Surprisingly, Fidel doesn't want his image used in most posters, preferring to leave the glory to Cuban heroes like José Martí and Che Guevara.

here, his ideals were compromised so his visage could ogle turista bikinis.

50 years of revolucion:

"the victory was, is, and will always be ours" -Fidel

"Lucky that we've got a revolucion!" - I'm starting to believe that Revolucion is really just a nickname for the party or whatever their system is called there.

Also, "no citizen will be left by chance" sounds like a direct No Child ripoff.

Fidel has proved to be the main copywriter for most of the ads in his country. "A better world is possible" is actually a pretty beautiful quote and hopefully inspires people.

This one was way out in the boonies and has led me to believe they have no budget for these things. They clearly sent out two students from the Josef Stalin School for the Arts with a couple buckets of paint and the Revolucion manifesto on a scroll and instructed one to write it out while the other had to paint this portrait of a militant Fidel from memory.

Something about "the party of all the battles".

aka. 50 years of Revolucion

Cubans love their stencils. Here, the ever-present José Martí watches over the Cuban 5.

It says "they will return" with their faces painted on every unused wall possible.

Here they are again, in high-qual print! CMYK or Pantone?

50 years. Pantone.

C'mon, they have a Karl Marx theatre. Hahahahah!

Something about patriotic Cubans and "cowherds"! in huge letters

José Martí

I can't for the life of me figure this one out.

"1 minute of blockade" and a barcode? help!

I was hoping for something like this and saw it on my last day. the clever copy reads "full [hand] of aces" but the highlighted text turns the Spanish word for Aces into Assassins. As much as I love puns, what's with the corny puzzle graphic?