Thursday, October 31, 2019

Lines and Squares 31

Life of B Lines and Squares

October 2019 - Toronto ON

Ending with a little sweetness.




Thursday Doors

Linking up at Norm's Thursday Doors.


May 2019 - Antibes France











Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Tuesday Treasures

Tom hosts Tuesday's Treasures.
Travel Tuesday
Our World Tuesday
Image-in-ing
My Corner of the World


April 2019 - Paris France


Random shots of Paris that don't really fall into any categories that were taken on our first day in Paris.



The Institut de France is a French learned society, grouping five académies, including the Académie française.

The Institute manages approximately 1,000 foundations, as well as museums and châteaux open for visit. It also awards prizes and subsidies, which amounted to a total of over €27 million per year in 2017. Most of these prizes are awarded by the Institute on the recommendation of the académies.

The building was originally constructed as the Collège des Quatre-Nations by Cardinal Mazarin, as a school for students from new provinces attached to France under Louis XIV.

The Institut de France was established on 25 October 1795, by the French government.
Viewed from the Pont des Arts.


The Place Saint-Michel is a public square in the Latin Quarter. It lies on the left bank of the river Seine facing the Île de la Cité, to which it is linked by the Pont Saint-Michel.
The Place Saint-Michel is known as the site of the Fontaine Saint-Michel, constructed by Gabriel Davioud in 1855-60. Nine major sculptors participated. Originally, the fountain's central statue was supposed to depict Napoleon Bonaparte, but the original conception came under criticism from opponents of Napoleon III; it was finally decided that the statue would be an image of Saint Michael, the Archangel, with two dragons that spout water into the fountain and figures of the four classical cardinal virtues.


The northern end of the Place Saint-Michel, the end closer to the river, is on the left-bank side of the Pont Saint-Michel, which crosses sixty-two metres of water to reach the island, Île de la Cité. At this point, the Place Saint-Michel is formed by the convergence of four streets: two quais along the Seine, the Quai Saint-Michel and the Quai des Grands-Augustins, and the Boulevard Saint-Michel and the Rue Danton, which arrive at angles.


Louvre is the world's largest art museum and the Pont du Louvre.


Signs 2

Joining Tom at Signs2.
Wordless Wednesday Wordless Be There 2day


May 2019 - Antibes France


Port Vauban is Europe’s first marina in tonnage and has 1642 berth places including 19 berths for superyachts along the well-known IYCA. Port Vauban is ideally located in the heart of the French Riviera, between Monaco and St Tropez.

That must be a superyacht at the back!



Over at Berth For Yacht with leases ending December 2021 I managed to find one berth for sale at €60,000!!!!



I really need to call these guys for my yacht and villa!



Perhaps he was here to work on this yacht?


Nothing to worry about if you can afford to dock here in the French Riviera.



Green

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge




May 2019 - Barcelona Spain



January 2019 - Mazatlan Mexico




April 2019 - Paris France



Lines and Squares 29

Life of B Lines and Squares

October 2019 - Toronto ON

Spadina House





Monday, October 28, 2019

Foto Tunes

Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.


May 2019 - Rome Italy



Bob Dylan - When I Paint My Masterpiece


Oh, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble
Ancient footprints are everywhere


You can almost think that you’re seein’ double
On a cold, dark night on the Spanish Stairs



Got to hurry on back to my hotel room




Where I’ve got me a date with Botticelli’s niece


She promised that she’d be right there with me
When I paint my masterpiece



Lines and Squares 28

Life of B Lines and Squares

October 2019 - Toronto ON


Inside the AGO, Art Gallery of Ontario. It is one of my favourite places in the city to hang out.


Monday Mural

I'm linking up at Monday Mural 


October 2019 - Toronto ON

We visited two laneway mural projects on the same day that we found this beauty.

It is done by Elicser and is on the side of a building off Bloor St. West and Brunswick. It is in a paid parking lot behind the Annex Hotel.
The building is the Tranzac club, a non-profit member supported community organization with a focus on promoting arts, music and theatre. The Tranzac (an abbreviation of Toronto Australia New Zealand Club) also continues to honour its Australian and New Zealand cultural roots.








Sunday, October 27, 2019

Yellow

One Word Sunday





Lines and Squares 27

Life of B Lines and Squares

October 2019 - Toronto ON

These two buildings are diagonally across (catty corner or kitty corner, depending where you are from) from each other at Richmond and Peter.

Queen Richmond Centre QRC The structure stands above a restored heritage warehouse however, the base of the building will not be outdone.
An L-shaped 70-foot-high lobby, opening on one end to Richmond and to Peter on the other is marked inside by the three x-shaped structural steel 'delta frames' which support the new building above.


Tableau with Shayne Dark's sculpture 'Nova', 90 feet high, rises from the ground and runs through an opening in the table-like structure to the fifth floor.


Saturday, October 26, 2019

Mug Shot

October 2019

Yorkville Toronto ON


Saturday and John golfed while I wandered Yorkville.

I've shown these murals here and here but there was another addition today.

"It's a kind of a reference to my childhood growing up in Florida," said Xray, whose real name is Bryan Lanier.
"So it's a combination of the fresh citrus fruit that the state is known for and another childhood memory of going to Disney."



Behind a gate, this wasn't quite finished the last time I was here. By Mathieu Bories, also known as Mateo, it is his first piece in the city.









Old and new, the ever changing skyline.


Popped into Toronto Reference Library.


New costume store on Bloor St. West.


Photos taken by John, on the golf course.





Lasagna for dinner.



The Scotiabank Marathon took place on Sunday morning resulting in traffic chaos as roads were closed around us.

The Lake Shore was closed at this ramp below us, which is one way. These drivers still thought they could take it, resulting in idiots backing back down, or even reversing and heading into oncoming traffic.






We didn't care as we took a bus and subway ride to Christie then a stroll south on Christie to Harbord and over to the lane running along side Art Eggleton Park.

WOW! Gorgeous.
Nick Sweetman organized the third annual butterfly laneway project with support from the city of Toronto and the David Suzuki Foundation. I will just give you a taste here, you'll have to wait for a future Monday Mural post to see them up close.

Some doors in the lane.



Back on Harbord on our way to our second destination, and found these.







Designed and painted by Nick Sweetman, in partnership with StreetART Toronto on the wall of Guan's Auto Service, an auto repair shop in Toronto. The Bears and the Bees (2016), Aerosol on brick, 15 x 35 feet.












What the heck??? I had just used a recent photo of this for One Word Sunday "Dilapidated"!  And now it has a fancy new paint job!


Alan Powell Lane was our next stop for more murals.

Wall Expressions had done a laneway project in 2017 and recently completed another one.


Some Spud bombs.




Some of Emily May Rose's raccoons.




You'll have to look in on Monday for the Elicser that we found.

Time for a coffee in the Annex Hotel.





Nick Sweetman, again, third time mentioned in this post!

As the notice below explains, the Bloor-Annex BIA has announced plans to build four parkettes and make streetscape improvements along Bloor between Spadina and Bathurst. The parkettes will be built on open part-lots, typically covered in asphalt now, where Bloor intersects Robert Street, Major Street, Brunswick Avenue and Howland Avenue.









A construction PITA (pain in the a$$) as the 142 year old watermains are being replaced.



John decided it would be more fun to take the streetcar home, so we walked along Bloor to Bathurst subway station and took the streetcar south to Queen.



HMMM waiting and waiting for the Queen St. streetcar, a bus comes along, packed. Then we read the notice, no streetcars on Queen due to the marathon. SIGH, walk to King or streetcar back to Bloor? We walk to King and it turns out our streetcar had been diverted to King so we were on our way.

Roast beef, roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts and gravy for dinner.

We didn't do much on Monday, I went to Bulk Barn to get some gluten free graham crackers crumbs and John golfed. We even had leftover lasagna for dinner.

Tuesday we met John's son for dinner at August 8, our favourite AYCE dim sum/sushi spot. A couple of new plates for us. The white fish is butterfish, new to me, I thought it was good.


Deep fried deliciousness.



Hand rolls.



Wednesday I had a coffee date with a friend.

We headed downtown.
Hey! Another shake my head this week!

What happened to the Village Idiot? It's now the Village Genius, as of yesterday!



John got a good shot of this new Birdo mural that went up a month or so ago.




John had decided that he'd like to see the Early Rubens exhibit at the AGO that I had seen a couple of weeks ago.


So I got tickets for 4 PM. John did enjoy it.


This was a copy of

The Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest -  1628
Oil on panel, 100 x 130 cm
Rubenshuis, Antwerp

In 1628 Willem van Haecht portrayed the art gallery of his employer Cornelis van der Geest, a wealthy Antwerp merchant. A grand chamber is populated with important people admiring important art. It records the 1615 visit of Archduke Albert (r. 1599-1621) and Archduchess Isabella (r. 1599-1633), co-regents of the Spanish Low Countries, to Van der Geest's townhouse adjacent to the river Scheldt. The picture pretends to be accurate, even if some of the assembled guests were absent that day and not all of the art was displayed in this single room. Nevertheless, the comprehensive collection encompassed everything from copies of famous ancient sculptures up to contemporary paintings by Rubens.





About four years ago, by his own guess, James Carl experienced a significant creative epiphany. "I found a venetian blind in the garbage," Carl recalled recently. "It was just one of those moments. I couldn't leave it there."

Of course not. Not if you're James Carl, who has built a considerable artistic reputation creating work placed directly at the intersection between consumer junk and his own playful, meticulous, highly ordered craftsmanship.




As we walk to the bus.


On the way home we stop in Chinatown for some vegetables and I pick up something for a friend.
Dinner was our new favourite Chinese curry chicken.

Thursday, another gorgeous day for John to golf.



And our windows got cleaned!



I picked up some things at the $ store and three sweaters for John at Winners.

Homemade hoisin sauce for moo shu pork wraps - new recipes to me. I used ground pork and I wouldn't bother marinating the meat before hand.

Friday and I decided to stay at home while John had a lunch date and picked up what we needed.

I put a big pot of bones and frozen vegetable leftovers on to make stock. Did some laundry, read and just enjoyed home.

I made a triple batch of these gluten free chocolate cookies with rum!


BOOKS


Indigo Book Store Bloor St. W Toronto

Finally! A book I couldn't put down, Beautiful Bad is a wickedly good read.

And another great read this week, Close To Home.





LINKING UP WITH
Beth hosts Weekend Cooking where you can post anything food related.
Sunday Salon
Seasons
Say Cheese
Monday Walks
Monday Morning Blog Club