accidental rock garden

a spot garden at the eaton centre, made of wooden barrels cut in half with slabs of broken paving stone inside to keep the barrels from blowing over.

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pointed townscape

 

 

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split pediment

the r.c.harris water pumping station at the east end of queen street. the buildings of the lower terrace seen from the west, a split or broken pediment ornament ing the ground floor entrance door. split pediments have a gap at the peak, where other pediments would meet at the top.

classicists are split on this feature of euroese architecture. some argue that because a structural roof must be physically joined at the peak, the point of all roof ridges should meet even if they serve as ornament, other classicists, less puritanical feel it dosnt hurt.

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wall garden--eaton centre

pavilion as a gate to the north side of the church-labyrinth in the quiet back of the eaton centre. nature has begun to add touches of green to the wall surfaces making a smaller garden within the larger.

 

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lurking metadata leaks

 

 

those times priape-toronto employees seemed to know what i had been looking at on their online catalog. i went to priape after checking their online catalog and bought an herbal supplement. when i got there the product the catalog listed as in stock, was unavailable and the staff suggested another which i declined. this happened several times each time i was given a different excuse why it wasn't available any more and it was suggested by the employee, with a smirk on his face, i should buy the other and more expensive product.

this could be used in a fiction. a person checks a recreational sex shop web catalog to see if an herbal supplement is available and then goes in and buys some. he does this several times and then one time he is told it is not available at that time maybe he would try this other product but he declines.

this being asked to buy another more expensive item happens over four or five more visits and then the store is closed. a few days later he reads in the paper that the store was closed because the staff were collecting or receiving metadata from cyber hackers or rogue csec agents of people's searches into their catalog and using that to blackmail customers into buying something more expensive when they come in the store.

 

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russell page--groundscape

like that weakness for crazy paving which drives even quite sophisticated amateurs to smash good paving slabs into fragments and,

like hansel and gretel in the fairy tale, scatter trails of them across the garden.

yet i see little sense in being too much a purist.

russell page, the education of a gardener.

 

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accidental rock garden

norfolkisland pine tree on the patio at allen gardens greenhouse, weighted down with a rock to keep it from blowing over in the wind. making a small rock garden within the larger garden.

 

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civic improvements--garden pool

a small pool behind the allan gardens conservatory. in need of repairs beyond the city's garden budget and now that it has been empty of water for several years parks and recreation has begun breaking it up. while empty it had the strange attraction abandoned semi ruinous buildings get. left to nature, the blue paint peeling off of the cracked basin, untouched by mans rude hands, it may of filled with autumn leaves, weeds begun flowering in the basin, but ...

 

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overseen at starbucks

that time I was sitting across from the counter at a Starbucks on yonge street between bloor and asquith, the store was not busy at the time when a vehicle belonging to a local television station parked in front of the cafe and one of the stations celebritys came in the store and ordered a coffea. thit asked for a lid, left the counter and walked towards the door as thit took keys out of thit's pocket with thits left hand which thit then held the bottom of the cup with and paused at the further end of the counter to put the lid on the cup placing the hand with the keys on the counter and under the cup, once it's on thit continues on thits way then stops and holds the cup to thits eye level and looks at the bottom then turns around walks back to the counter and shows the staff the coffea leaking from the bottom, they give thit another coffea checking the bottom of that cup and one of the staff removes several more cups from the stack to look at their bottoms. they all laugh about it and thit leaves while they are checking the bottom of the paper cup of the person they had served before thit returned.

thit stops and looks over thit's shoulder to see where the staff is serving the customer who was behind thit and then as thit is seemingly struggling with putting on the lid thit seems to have something in thitsother hand which thit holds against the bottom of the cup rather than place it on the counter to force the lid on... thit gets the lid on and starts for the door then stops and puts thits hand to the bottom removes it rubs thits fingers together, lifts the cup up a bit and inclines thits head to peer at the bottom, the cup seems to have a leak... thit returns to the counter and excuses thit self for interrupting the customer they are serving and points out thits cup is leaking... the customer that was behind thit is now checking the cup she got, which is not leaking. they take the leaking cup from thit, apologise and check the next cup from the stack to make certain it didn't have a hole in it and some of the others to see if the damage had passed through more than that one defective cup, as though they thought the defect was from the manufacturing. they fill one of those cups and give it to thit. as thit leaves im thinking did thit put the hole in the bottom, accidentally or on purpose, with thits key or something else thit had on the keyring or was it there and thit didn't know the cup had a leak till thit got the lid on.

 

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new-world lurker

 

a person is standing behind several other people in line at a cafe, the person behind him says the label in his shirt is standing up and showing at the collar and continues on how she can't stand that, it's a thing of hers and she then raises her hands and makes like she will tuck it back in the collar for him. the first person moves away from her a little bit and says its fine it doesn't bother him, thinking to himself she must be one of those new-age service to others types he has heard of.

a couple of months later the first person is at another cafe and as he stands at a table waiting for his drink in the strong noon sun light in the window to the side of the table. a second person who is talking to a third person about a "neurosophics"tm. convention she had so badly wanted to attend but didnt have the money to buy, something about her voice sounds familiar and when she excuses herself from her conversation and points to the draw string of the window shade to him and tells him he can lower it if its too sunny she dosnt think the staff will mind if he does, and starts to get up as if she's going to lower the shade for him, he murmmers its ok he's not staying, and leaves with his drink and the feeling he must of seen her in that cafe before this incident but why her physical presence bothered, gave him some reason to raise his shoulders protectively he couldn't say.

several months after that incident as he is leaving another cafe and on his way to the subway station at the eaton centre, a second person approaches him as if to ask for directions. something about her makes him think she has done this to him before, and when she blurts out how she noticed his shirt tab was standing up again and could she tuck it in this time, he recalls the other two incidents where she tried to touch him and he backs off from her and she then turns and runs off in the direction he was going.

 

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side garden

along church street, a garden to the side of a building to the north of stjames cathedral. cast iron pinnacles atop the low brick wall.

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classical euroese drapery

sunlight filtered through scaffolding and a drop cloth, pulled back to reveal the mouldings at the base of a column, the modern intruding though knowing its place while at the same time complementing the model of euroese classicism.

 

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summer pavement

 

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wallgarden--ornament

on a wall, built to protect houses from a hydro transformer, covered in a thick growth of ivy; some one, other than the city parks and recreation workers I would imagine, has placed a bas relief of a urn. a small detail, yet it turns the whole wall classical.

 

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pigeon of the week

takes a break

 

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wall garden

subway vent overgrown with deciduous vine.

 

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couplet--muralism

blank walls, one example in a domestic building and the other behind a commercial building.

two walled areas, one a garden in luis barragans house in mexico city, and the other a car park to the side of a bank at bathurst and bloor. both of them examples of what can be termed muralism, the use of pure wall planes as the aesthetic of a building.

barragan, one of the few architects who intentionally give pure wall surface preminance in this way is the only one i can think of with a celebrity status. he has books written on his buildings, books with photos of the finished places the buildings form.

i don't know the name of the architect for the backside of the bank, and because it seems too planned to of been accidental i include it here with barragans patio as examples of muralism, the intentional use of wall surface to emphasize the form of a place.

 

 

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