Sex is legal in Canada
Oct. 28th, 2007 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vicarzI've always said that there is nothing magic about one place vs. another, that essentially people are all the same and while the clothes and minor differences in mannerisms may vary that ultimately people are people and it's foolish to dream that things are better or worse in a different locale. There may be differences in terms of geography, such as rural vs. urban, but that's it. I respected Kel, but she always said things were different in Toronto, and I never believed her.
I've never been to Toronto.
The night I arrived, coffee, had foods at Terroni with a side of yum. Cute little place, authentic italian complete with a smattering of employed recent immigrants. Amazing lemon pasta, skinny pizza, and some salad later we headed to loftee. I like it the loftee, high ceilings, exposed duct work, open kitchen with granite counters - it has all the advantages of my condo #2 and then some. But I digress.
She walked me down the street to go out to the club. For the record, I really intended to do what Kel wanted rather than just see the clubs I wanted to see as I can see clubs any old time. Kel took the initiative to plug in club activity, most of which can be walked from her place.
We walked down Queen street. Past a goth club. Then we passed the EBM club night, and the live band playing metal across the street. Oh, then we past the OTHER goth club on our WAY to the GOTH CLUB #3 we were going to. With no cover. On Thursday. Let me repeat, lest this effect be missed:
On Thursday, we passed the 2 goth clubs, an EBM night, and a live metalhead band - that were between her apt and the goth club night, one of many, we were heading to. My. God. The entire way - many many blocks, was filled with every imaginable ethnic restaurant and people to match. Along with the food joints were adorable shops of...well junk, but art, crafts, furnishings, textiles...over ten blocks that I saw of whiplash-inducing oddities and store-sites just on the way to the night we were hitting. This Queen street was everything G'town wants to be, that South street was for a while...only more of it.
The club night itself was good. One drawback, they measure their drink liquor (if I were drinking much it wouldn't matter due to the lack of cover). The crowd did know how to dance, was diverse both in type of dress - and unlike DC, age. There were 20 something club kids and grandparents, and no one seemed to care. Neat. The music was old and new, goth to EBM. I got to get my dance on. One DJ played all night, no beat matching or talking. The night started around 11 or 12, we did the night, and talked until I don't know when.
It was odd being in Canadia because it was hard for me to find Kel. Here it was easy, as a long haired girl with big black boots on had a good chance of being Kel. Not so in Torono, where the standard female uniform was black tights, gray or black skirt, big black boots, floopy top with a p-coat variant over the top. It was a land of Kels.
The next day blew my fucking mind. I know I'm supposed to be more articulate than that, but...the city blew my mind. We walked back down Queen, grabbed quick eats at a cute polish deli/diner, coffee from a place that was so environmentally friendly they gave you sugar in a jar with metal spoons to use (clean ones here, dirty there). In the daylight I again spun my head around at the bazillion neat artwork pieces in all the shops on Queen. Then we made a turn...I noticed several houses with signs in azn language, thought it was cute that a bunch of azns were in this area. The area was a block, then another, oh...and then we hit chinatown. This wasn't a DC chinablock, this was a real china town with real azn stores, real scary and neat things in windows, and azns walking around speaking azn-ee languages everywhere. The thing went on for at least 5 blocks...when I vocalized my shock, Kel cued me in that this was just 1 of 2 such places in the Torono area. Kinda puts lucky world to shame, horribly. Speaking of azns, there were people of all races - azn, black, island, Indian, middle eastern...I have to say, the middle-eastern people looked a lot less pissed off. Maybe that was my imagination.
Kel ditched me for businessy stuff, and I did the Bloor street corridor (I hear I just did half). I had a hard time making the time to meet when we were supposed to as again I was caught in the plethora of shops and cafes. I resisted a rum ball, resisted a present for my mom she wouldn't use and a gift-insult for someone else, but was provided with a copy of the zombie survival handbook. I should also mention that punks, Goths, freaks, artists...whatever you call people in leather, boots, inked, interesting colored hair, art-on-body people were everywhere. And it wasn't just angry 20 year olds - when you saw a skirt with tights and arty jacket on someone out of the corner of your eye, you might turn to find yourself facing a grandmother. There was no status gained by being a "freak" at all - like NY, no one cared. It was normal - but not, there was so much diversity it's not like punk was the new preppie - there were just too many people in radically different types of outfits to care about anyone's personal statement.
We went back down through another section of chinatown - turns out what I thought was half of 2 parts of chinatown was just part of a part of the china...you get the idea. I think I drove Kel nuts with my cute-thingy-touch-ADHD. Then we went down...I don't know, it was like a punk thrift mecca. Imagine the thrift district of Haight-Ashbury located in house-stores and filling 3-5 blocks. I'm pissed I didn't buy a canadian surplus jacket, but goth gear, thift finds, fake thrift finds, costumes, erotical-gear, slut gear...all sorts of dress-uppy clothes were in abundance.
Now that I think about it, with my paranoid show-up early approach to airport security, I think my travel time by plane was about the same as if I took the car.
Dinner didn't work that night, and we saw some piece of a concert that if I liked, would have been a rocking good night. As it was, with the lights on I fell in love with the threatre - it was sit-down, many stories tall, and if memory serves erected in 1903. There were two rows of balcony seating, though we were sitting front and center. Amazing acoustics, stunning condition of a gorgeous building. That's another thing - the entire city had gorgeous and interesting architecture. There were so many old buildings, but almost all had some interesting feature, a round window, slanting bricks, oddly shaped patio - something that put someone's stamp onto a functional building. Some new ventures placed signs outside the vintage signs that preceded them out of respect for the departed camp.
Forgot to mention we passed the sex club. They have...a sex club. Well, several, but we passed one. Not a night, not a bath house - but they have those and they are legal, but a club that has the sex theme. All the time. For fuck's sake. Sex is legal in Canada, and it seems not something to be ashamed of - or proud of. You don't get points for it or shamed for it.
Toronto had many theatres, an opera house...the city is huge and a major art mecca, or I'm just used to such a sterile environment in USia (we have always been at war with eurasia) that seeing that much art in one place just appears to be amazingly a cultural interest in art. That's it...there were millions of people there that must have given a shit about art, appreciated camp, liked doodads, bought trinkets, designed their lofts...they like art. There was such a large market for art you could have a large variety of art galleries, stores, supply shops, studios, and whatever else - there was a market for art. The culture there - liked art. Appreciated it.
After ditching the concert, we spruced up and hit another gothy night near the district we visited during the day. Again the space was good, this time in a basement (Toronto is also nonsmoking so this is not an issue). Again the music was on, the drinks were stronger, and a couple of fun friends joined us (thanx Zoe who drove us, cute girl who fell entertained) and there was more music to dance to. One problem - success hurts me. The places were filled quickly, so you had a limited amount of space to dance compared to a dc club. My style of dance, eyes closed, had to be modified. I nearly cried - danced to great songs, but right after we left Gary Numan was heard wafting out of the door. I could have danced, to Numan, in a club. Fucking Toronto. I hear Kel had an unfortunate view in the club, as did Zoe in another incident. Did I mention sex is legal in Cadaydia? Club was followed by good food at what...3 in the morning?
The next morning, and I went back to add this in, had a brunch worthy of a separate post. I can't do any justice to the crunchy oatmeal pancakes with gooey strawberry-blackberry sacue, sweetened sugar/creme, and whipped creme - plus herb potatoes that nailed the dismount (not home fries, not frozen fries, cut potatoes with some pepper and good FRESH herbs sauteed in). With all the restaurants, despite the long cold walk to get there, even though I was only there for a few days...we had to go back for seconds before my flight today.
This is long. I'm tired. No one will read this whole thing anyway, nor should they as I've missed 4 days of LJ and have no plans to catch up. So I'll wrap up here for now, except to say this:
WHEREFORE the party of the USian part, being José, had previously disagreed with Kelowna, hereinafter referred to as the party of the Northern part, HEREBY ADMITS that the party of the Northern part was correct in their proclamations as they pertained to the culture, presence thereof, numerousness, diversity and depth, and concurrent appearance of the existence of appreciation of art and expression for the pure delight thereof, to be starkly contrasted to the visual display thereof for society status and rank. FURTHERMORE, the party of the USian orientation concedes that the evidence supporting his contentions, made in good faith, that cultures vary little from locales with similar geographical structure, has been found somewhat lacking and stands in apparent opposition to the reality found in the geographic locale centralized around the party of the Northern part. Kel was right, I was wrong.
Edited to add - oh, it bears a serious mention that Kel was a phenomenal host. Much luvs to the North, it was and is very appreciated. I can't thank you enough, but I will try.
I've never been to Toronto.
The night I arrived, coffee, had foods at Terroni with a side of yum. Cute little place, authentic italian complete with a smattering of employed recent immigrants. Amazing lemon pasta, skinny pizza, and some salad later we headed to loftee. I like it the loftee, high ceilings, exposed duct work, open kitchen with granite counters - it has all the advantages of my condo #2 and then some. But I digress.
She walked me down the street to go out to the club. For the record, I really intended to do what Kel wanted rather than just see the clubs I wanted to see as I can see clubs any old time. Kel took the initiative to plug in club activity, most of which can be walked from her place.
We walked down Queen street. Past a goth club. Then we passed the EBM club night, and the live band playing metal across the street. Oh, then we past the OTHER goth club on our WAY to the GOTH CLUB #3 we were going to. With no cover. On Thursday. Let me repeat, lest this effect be missed:
On Thursday, we passed the 2 goth clubs, an EBM night, and a live metalhead band - that were between her apt and the goth club night, one of many, we were heading to. My. God. The entire way - many many blocks, was filled with every imaginable ethnic restaurant and people to match. Along with the food joints were adorable shops of...well junk, but art, crafts, furnishings, textiles...over ten blocks that I saw of whiplash-inducing oddities and store-sites just on the way to the night we were hitting. This Queen street was everything G'town wants to be, that South street was for a while...only more of it.
The club night itself was good. One drawback, they measure their drink liquor (if I were drinking much it wouldn't matter due to the lack of cover). The crowd did know how to dance, was diverse both in type of dress - and unlike DC, age. There were 20 something club kids and grandparents, and no one seemed to care. Neat. The music was old and new, goth to EBM. I got to get my dance on. One DJ played all night, no beat matching or talking. The night started around 11 or 12, we did the night, and talked until I don't know when.
It was odd being in Canadia because it was hard for me to find Kel. Here it was easy, as a long haired girl with big black boots on had a good chance of being Kel. Not so in Torono, where the standard female uniform was black tights, gray or black skirt, big black boots, floopy top with a p-coat variant over the top. It was a land of Kels.
The next day blew my fucking mind. I know I'm supposed to be more articulate than that, but...the city blew my mind. We walked back down Queen, grabbed quick eats at a cute polish deli/diner, coffee from a place that was so environmentally friendly they gave you sugar in a jar with metal spoons to use (clean ones here, dirty there). In the daylight I again spun my head around at the bazillion neat artwork pieces in all the shops on Queen. Then we made a turn...I noticed several houses with signs in azn language, thought it was cute that a bunch of azns were in this area. The area was a block, then another, oh...and then we hit chinatown. This wasn't a DC chinablock, this was a real china town with real azn stores, real scary and neat things in windows, and azns walking around speaking azn-ee languages everywhere. The thing went on for at least 5 blocks...when I vocalized my shock, Kel cued me in that this was just 1 of 2 such places in the Torono area. Kinda puts lucky world to shame, horribly. Speaking of azns, there were people of all races - azn, black, island, Indian, middle eastern...I have to say, the middle-eastern people looked a lot less pissed off. Maybe that was my imagination.
Kel ditched me for businessy stuff, and I did the Bloor street corridor (I hear I just did half). I had a hard time making the time to meet when we were supposed to as again I was caught in the plethora of shops and cafes. I resisted a rum ball, resisted a present for my mom she wouldn't use and a gift-insult for someone else, but was provided with a copy of the zombie survival handbook. I should also mention that punks, Goths, freaks, artists...whatever you call people in leather, boots, inked, interesting colored hair, art-on-body people were everywhere. And it wasn't just angry 20 year olds - when you saw a skirt with tights and arty jacket on someone out of the corner of your eye, you might turn to find yourself facing a grandmother. There was no status gained by being a "freak" at all - like NY, no one cared. It was normal - but not, there was so much diversity it's not like punk was the new preppie - there were just too many people in radically different types of outfits to care about anyone's personal statement.
We went back down through another section of chinatown - turns out what I thought was half of 2 parts of chinatown was just part of a part of the china...you get the idea. I think I drove Kel nuts with my cute-thingy-touch-ADHD. Then we went down...I don't know, it was like a punk thrift mecca. Imagine the thrift district of Haight-Ashbury located in house-stores and filling 3-5 blocks. I'm pissed I didn't buy a canadian surplus jacket, but goth gear, thift finds, fake thrift finds, costumes, erotical-gear, slut gear...all sorts of dress-uppy clothes were in abundance.
Now that I think about it, with my paranoid show-up early approach to airport security, I think my travel time by plane was about the same as if I took the car.
Dinner didn't work that night, and we saw some piece of a concert that if I liked, would have been a rocking good night. As it was, with the lights on I fell in love with the threatre - it was sit-down, many stories tall, and if memory serves erected in 1903. There were two rows of balcony seating, though we were sitting front and center. Amazing acoustics, stunning condition of a gorgeous building. That's another thing - the entire city had gorgeous and interesting architecture. There were so many old buildings, but almost all had some interesting feature, a round window, slanting bricks, oddly shaped patio - something that put someone's stamp onto a functional building. Some new ventures placed signs outside the vintage signs that preceded them out of respect for the departed camp.
Forgot to mention we passed the sex club. They have...a sex club. Well, several, but we passed one. Not a night, not a bath house - but they have those and they are legal, but a club that has the sex theme. All the time. For fuck's sake. Sex is legal in Canada, and it seems not something to be ashamed of - or proud of. You don't get points for it or shamed for it.
Toronto had many theatres, an opera house...the city is huge and a major art mecca, or I'm just used to such a sterile environment in USia (we have always been at war with eurasia) that seeing that much art in one place just appears to be amazingly a cultural interest in art. That's it...there were millions of people there that must have given a shit about art, appreciated camp, liked doodads, bought trinkets, designed their lofts...they like art. There was such a large market for art you could have a large variety of art galleries, stores, supply shops, studios, and whatever else - there was a market for art. The culture there - liked art. Appreciated it.
After ditching the concert, we spruced up and hit another gothy night near the district we visited during the day. Again the space was good, this time in a basement (Toronto is also nonsmoking so this is not an issue). Again the music was on, the drinks were stronger, and a couple of fun friends joined us (thanx Zoe who drove us, cute girl who fell entertained) and there was more music to dance to. One problem - success hurts me. The places were filled quickly, so you had a limited amount of space to dance compared to a dc club. My style of dance, eyes closed, had to be modified. I nearly cried - danced to great songs, but right after we left Gary Numan was heard wafting out of the door. I could have danced, to Numan, in a club. Fucking Toronto. I hear Kel had an unfortunate view in the club, as did Zoe in another incident. Did I mention sex is legal in Cadaydia? Club was followed by good food at what...3 in the morning?
The next morning, and I went back to add this in, had a brunch worthy of a separate post. I can't do any justice to the crunchy oatmeal pancakes with gooey strawberry-blackberry sacue, sweetened sugar/creme, and whipped creme - plus herb potatoes that nailed the dismount (not home fries, not frozen fries, cut potatoes with some pepper and good FRESH herbs sauteed in). With all the restaurants, despite the long cold walk to get there, even though I was only there for a few days...we had to go back for seconds before my flight today.
This is long. I'm tired. No one will read this whole thing anyway, nor should they as I've missed 4 days of LJ and have no plans to catch up. So I'll wrap up here for now, except to say this:
WHEREFORE the party of the USian part, being José, had previously disagreed with Kelowna, hereinafter referred to as the party of the Northern part, HEREBY ADMITS that the party of the Northern part was correct in their proclamations as they pertained to the culture, presence thereof, numerousness, diversity and depth, and concurrent appearance of the existence of appreciation of art and expression for the pure delight thereof, to be starkly contrasted to the visual display thereof for society status and rank. FURTHERMORE, the party of the USian orientation concedes that the evidence supporting his contentions, made in good faith, that cultures vary little from locales with similar geographical structure, has been found somewhat lacking and stands in apparent opposition to the reality found in the geographic locale centralized around the party of the Northern part. Kel was right, I was wrong.
Edited to add - oh, it bears a serious mention that Kel was a phenomenal host. Much luvs to the North, it was and is very appreciated. I can't thank you enough, but I will try.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 02:19 am (UTC)And I agree, Toronto is awesome. I absolutely loved it when I went up there 5 years ago. If I ever had to completely redo my life and move from DC, Toronto would be top on my list.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 10:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 03:27 am (UTC)Sounds lovely, but all my friends are in DC, and I've discovered the hard way that I don't know how to make new ones.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 03:58 am (UTC)Tho the downfall of certain venues certainly had to do with the rent changes in the area rather than a lack of demand. People just went elsewhere and out of the four clubs I chose to attend, three of them have been going since I first left Toronto in 1995.
I live on the border between Queen West and West Queen West.
--kelowna
Be positive!
Date: 2007-10-29 10:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 04:00 am (UTC):D
Good to see your memory stayed pretty focused! Tho, I don't remember what Zoe's view was... was it the same as mine?
--kelowna
no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 10:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 11:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 12:40 pm (UTC)I need to go back sometime when I'm not in town for a con so I can just explore the city.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 03:05 pm (UTC)--kelowna
no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 02:25 pm (UTC)Don't know why that came as anonymous
Date: 2007-10-29 02:26 pm (UTC)