mouldings--fragment

fragment of stone moulding. convex thumb-torus above the concave scotia above the plane fascia of the base.

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pigeon of the week

waiting for the mail.

 

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accidental townscape--set piece

 

in the nineteen fifties the editors of the architectural review serialised a collection of articles on something about urban planning they termed townscape. the authors of these articles asked why so much of the scientific town planning of the post-war years seemed inferior to planning of earlier centuries. their goal was to discover if the earlier examples of urban planning held some overlooked principles of design and what could be changed about recent inferior design by studying the earlier examples.

some of the articles went further, asking why and how those towns specifically italian seemed especially attractive and more humane places to use. they argued that while the romantic image of italy and sometimes accidental effects of older town plans may contribute to the sucess of italian civilia, but also wondered if the effects were intended and built into the townscape by the designers. and more importantly if the secrets were rediscovered the rules could be utilized to design more livable modern cities. some of the research from the italian themed articles was later reworked by ivor dewolfe and represented in a book titled "the italian townscape".

one of the design ideas listed in the book as making a more liveable and interesting townscape was the side or service-mens entrance. this is a minor entrance which stands out because it is as visible as the main entrance of a building. an example of this piece of townscape can be seen at the east end of yorkville avenue where the side entrance in the west wall of the building on the east side of yonge street terminates the end of the view.

 

 

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geneology record

i recently rediscovered this recording while looking for geneological information on my great grandfather wellington thompson. our grandmother had a copy of it and played her fathers recitation of of the hungry fox two or three times for my sister and me. for family interested in the entire one minute piece it is available at the itunes store.

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cantilever--accidental

example of a cantilever made of brick at intersection of queen and sherbourne streets.

 

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lurking three letter agencies

is torontos public library system being used as a spy post by a surveillance agency to gather private research information on the people who use it? that is the question asked by pius nesapius the author of a pamphlet titled "conspiracy in the big smoke, the three-letter-agencies of toronto". the pamphlet went unnoticed by most when it was published in 2011and seemed to be destined for the abyss of forgotten books, it is now of renewed interest since edward snowden began whistling his leaky tune, though it predates that event by more than a year.

in his phamplet nesapius makes two related claims. one that the tpl (toronto public libraries), the ttc (toronto transit corporation), and tch (toronto community housing) are someway used by an unknown surveillance agency to spy on the people who use them. the other claim being that the canadian government and these canadian tax funded public services and some of their employes know of and cooperate with the espionage.

he begins the phamplet with some background, writing that from 1990 to the present he has been watching strange events pass, strange anomolies in the operation of library computers, witnessing bizarre doubled incidents on the subway and properties of the tch. these events which make up his evidence came to a climax during torontos hosting of the g20 meeting in 2010 but continue to operate as of 2011.

his evidence is, most of it, anecdotal accounts other people have told him of unusual incidents that happened to them when they used these public services which he then retells with some additional information. an example is this quote from the chapter on the toronto reference library.

"for example when using the computer catalog to search and request for books some people have noticed strange coincidents with their requests. to request books and other material from the closed shelves of the library a person enters thit's library card and pin number then library staff go to get the books from the storage area and put them on what are termed the retrieval shelves, these are a set of book shelves on each floor with alphabetized sections. the books requested are placed under the first letter of the persons last name. one woman i interviewed told me how she found the arabian cook book she requested on the shelf bearing the initial letter of her last name and on the surrounding shelfs above, below, to the left and right were other books on arabian cooking she had looked at while on the computer catalog but did not request. all those other books on the same type of cooking, all requested by other people, all showing up at the same time i requested one book, maybe it was a coincident but it seemed strange".

another interview he made was with a man who told him,

" i was using the internet to find information on a polish artist and had requested books the library has on his life and work, about a week later i was talking to a tenant in the building i live in and he asked me if i wanted a poster of the actor leonardo dicaprio. i thought it was strange the way the other tenant gave me a guy-fawkes-mask smile when i told him i had read some books on an artist last week and leonardo dicaprio and his father were friends of the artist and wrote the forward to one of the books. a few weeks later i had been looking up information on torontos lake shore and the oldest part of the city on front street. the next day while i was talking to another tenant he told me he had spent the previous day down on front street looking around torontos olde town with some friends who were visiting. he then gave me the same strange smile the other tenant had. i began to wonder if somebody was monitoring my computer use and telling these other tenants to mention something about it and to watch my reaction, or was it a coincidence? and if not was it a practical joke or something more sinister.".

all of that and more occurred in the reference library and other library locations before 2011 when the phamplet was published. so who is doing this and why? from 2004 to 2006 he thought it was other library users with some hacking skills and that it was being done for amusement, why would someone doing surveillance work draw attention to it by requesting books in the way described?. another possibility he tested for was i-t personnel the library has on staff and he has some things to say about them but could not find any direct connection to the events. it was only after 2007 he began to think the book requests and other computer and internet anomalies were coming from beyond the library, possibly the tpl's outside security, spyders-inc, or the nsa, the united states national security agency. he had inside information from someone only named the dot-com-roache who let slip that there was a group working for the nsa on the hawaiian islands or continental west coast of the united states who regularly practiced this type of information gathering and subtle-harassment of computer users at the tpl with the canadian governments permission. what is interesting here is that the hawaiian archipelago was where edward snowden last worked and collected evidence of undiscriminating intelligence gathering by his employer boozallenhamilton for the nsa. as some of the documents leaked by snowden do seem to reveal that the government of canada was permitting the nsa to spy on foreign politicians and other people during the g20 meeting, the suspicions of nesapius that the government of canada is behind the surveillance in toronto public services over the last two decades perhaps deserve a closer look at this time. especially his thoughts on the possibility the information is being used to implicate these people in false flag events.

it was the snowden computer surveillance news that reminded me of reading this pamphlet so i won't bother with reviewing the chapters on the ttc and tch except to say they cover other types of surveillance events happening in those public properties though they have less or nothing to do with to do with computerized surveillance, but seem from nesapius descriptions more along the type of thing termed organized stalking.

the rumour-mill phamplet is more of a book than a phamplet at twenty five pages of small print text. the hardcover binding has as usual the publishers motif for this series of books, a millstone with truth and lies being poured in the top of the millstone and their mixture, rumour coming out at the bottom. i think it is sold out and out of print at this time. the title seems to be an humorous allusion to the american federal-government agencies that use the three initial letters from their full name as an abbreviation, the cia, fbi, nsa and others, thus the tpl, ttc, and tch, torontos three letter agencies.

 

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moulding--shadow

autumn sun making autumn shadows on base of pilaster at king and sherbourne street.

 

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accidental landscaping

garden at the summer hill subway station in toronto ontario.

 

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lurking surveillance society

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GEl4ZhBbFY&sns=em

Sent from my iPad

a person is looking for books on the computer catalog at the toronto public reference library, books written by an author who has been in the news lately. from the dozens of books available he selects three and makes a computer request for the library staff to bring the books from closed stacks. he then goes to the second floor to pick up the books from the delivery shelf. when he gets there he notices some of the books he didn't request by the same author are on the book trolley by the shelf and thinks the authors books must be a popular read right now especially since a new book came out and the author was interviewed.

a couple of weeks later at the same library he browses the computer catalog to see if they have anything by an author he read of in another book. they have several books by the author and he reads the descriptive summarys and when he has finished reading them he decides the second one sounds the most interesting and tries to request it only to find it has already been requested, so he requests one of the authors other works. as he walks to the second floor to pick up the book he wonders to him self how strangely coincidental it is that an author who is almost unknown would have two people looking for his writings on the same day in the same city in the same library.

not long after that day he begins to notice strange activity by the libraries security guards who seem to be walking past him more than usual and looking at him from around the corner of the bookshelves.

 

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lurking surveillance society

a person is looking for books on the computer catalog at the toronto public reference library, books written by an author who has been in the news lately. from the dozens of books available he selects three and makes a computer request for the library staff to bring the books from closed stacks. he then goes to the second floor to pick up the books from the delivery shelf. when he gets there he notices some of the books he didn't request by the same author are on the book trolley by the shelf and thinks the authors books must be a popular read right now especially since a new book came out and the author was interviewed.

a couple of weeks later at the same library he browses the computer catalog to see if they have anything by an author he read of in another book. they have several books by the author and he reads the descriptive summarys and when he has finished reading them he decides the second one sounds the most interesting and tries to request it only to find it has already been requested, so he requests one of the authors other works. as he walks to the second floor to pick up the book he wonders to him self how strangely coincidental it is that an author who is almost unknown would have two people looking for his writings on the same day in the same city in the same library.

not long after that day he begins to notice strange activity by the libraries security guards who seem to be walking past him more than usual and looking at him from around the corner of the bookshelves.

 

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memorial--between a rock and a wall

 

the rolph school

dr. john rolph (1793--1870), lawyer, physician and politician founded in 1824 the first medical school in upper canada. as a reformer he was involved in the rebellion of 1837 and fled to the united states. following his return in 1843 he opened a school of medical instruction on queen street, incorporated as the toronto school of medicine in 1851. it became the medical department of victoria university in 1854. popularly known as "rolphs school". it occupied new premises on this site from 1856 until 1871, in a building originally built as a wesleyan chapel in 1841. it was demolished in 1974.

toronto historical board

 

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colour post

red, orange green, allan gardens toronto.

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accidental serial townscape

 

"let us suppose we are walking through a town: here is a straight road off which is a courtyard, at the far side of which another street leads out and bends slightly before reaching a monument. leaving the courtyard we enter the further street. again a new view is suddenly revealed although we are travelling at a uniform speed. finally as the road bends the monument swings into view. the significance of all this is that although the pedestrian walks through the town at a uniform speed, the scenery of towns is often revealed in a series of jerks or revelations."

gordon cullen, the concise townscape.

 

photos show charlesworthlane off of shaftesbury avenue off of yonge street near the summer hill subway.

 

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roygbiv

 

blue

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accidental townscape--skyline

the form of the old city hall roofscape repeated in the form of the maritime life office tower at yonge and queen streets.

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architectural plaque

yorkville branch,toronto public library 1907

yorkville branch is the toronto public library's oldest building, the first of four libries constructed with a 1903 grant from the carnegie corporation. it replace the library's first branch, 'northern', which had opened in the former yorkville town hall in 1884, only one year after toronto's annexation of yorkville and the introduction of free library service to the city. this building was designed by city architect robert mccalum in beaux-arts style, thought to give an appropriate seriousness to a civic structure. typical of many carnegie libraries it is marked by a broad flight of steps leading to a raised single storey, and by strong symmetrical classical details best seen in the imposing central entrance with its columned portico. constructed of yellow brick with ohio sandstone, yorkville branch was renovated and expanded in 1978.

city of toronto inventory of heritage properties

 

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you are here

tommy thompson park

 

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better nails

as found at the mocoloco.

''i have found again and again--without counter example--that our ability to see the field of centers in a thing, and to produce the centers which are indicated geometrically, tends to produce an object which works better. ... form follows function! but if we look at the examples i have given, it seems very unlikely that this is what took place when they were made. ... example after examples suggest emphatically that this is what came first: making the centers beautiful was the driving force. ...

'' the geometry that occurs in the 14th-century nail produces life that has both functional and ornamental qualities to an extraordinary extent. ... it also works incredibly well because of its size and the thickness of the head, it has a very long life and great strength, lasting in some cases 600 years--something that a 20th-century nail could almost never do. is it a coincidence that the 14th-century nail works so well both as an ornament, and as a functioning long lived nail? what is the connection between the ornament and function in the nail?"

christopher alexander; the nature of order, bk-i.

 

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accidental townscape--before and after

 

the boundary between the private garden and the public park was open until june of 2013, then the chain link fence was installed. a large gap in the boundary was left at the south end of the fence so people can get in and out of the private area behind the brick building.

 

 

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lurking smile

a student passes the open door of a class during a break and sees one of the teachers sitting at her desk. there is a male student kneeling beside her and she has her left hand on his left shoulder as he writes something into the note book he holds open on the desk. the student passing by smiles to him self about the way the scene appears as he continues down the hall. he dosnt mention what he saw to any one else.

a few months later during a break between classes while he is walking down the hallway with two other students the teacher who was in the room with the other student is coming down the hall from the other way, she passes them, turns around behind them and puts her arms around the three of them saying "oh you are all my boys and you love me and don't believe what they might say about me." letting go of them she and they continue in opposite directions. then one of the other students who's mother is on the staff of the school says something to the other two about not letting that teacher get close to you when you are alone. the student who saw her in the class with the other student thinks this has something to do with what he saw in passing the class during the break a few months back and smiles, mostly to himself about what was said but dosnt say anything to the other two about what he saw.

a few weeks after that while alone and leaving the school during a break he finds a note book laying open on the floor of the hall near the locker room. standing over it he can't help but notice the book contains the names of students in that catholic junior and secondary high school. the names have notes beside them on the home and school life of each student, along with suggestions about using any problems they are having to recruit them into a life of various crimes ranging from prostitution to selling drugs and guns. he lifts and turns the open pages with the toe of his shoe and yes there his name can be seen with the others, and with information he couldn't think how they had gotten.

he walks from the hall to his locker and while he is standing in front of the open locker with his back to the rest of the room he can hear the door of the mud room open and a person passes through the locker room and in to the hall, immediately return from the hall, stop for a second and then continue on and out the mud room. he checks the hallway and the notebook is not there, then follows who ever came in and left and from the window of the mud room he can see the teacher who had her arm around the other student, the one who had given him and two other students a group hug. she is sitting in her car the note book from the hall clutched in her left hand that rests on the steering wheel, and she is looking back at him. he smiles to himself now that he knows more about what's going on in the school and its connection to this teacher but dosnt plan to mention it to any one yet.

a few days after that incident he notices people lurking in cars on his path during breaks between classes, they all sit behind the wheel in the drivers seat holding up a note book the same colour as one from the hallway, the same colour as the one the teacher held in her hand.

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lavender wall

lavender growing in the mortar between a coping stone and rock of the grand stair-wall in the alexander muir memorial garden.

 

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mortis vanitas

bird nests with expired eggs. found on the ground under the rose shrubberies of a garden park downtown toronto.

 

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cat nepeta

drought tolerant catmint growing in the mortar of a brick wall at the south end of sherbourne street toronto.

 

 

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