TO Poet’s keen eye finds beauty in the oddities and detritus of hidden Toronto. (Enjoy his pics on Tumbler here.) He’s an early riser and dedicated walker. Recently, he led me through the back alleys of East York to view some amazing art.
Welcome all art lovers who enter here
East York, until 1998, was Canada’s only borough. In 1924, the 600 or so residents, pissed about their apparently inferior roads and sewers, voted against joining the City of Toronto. For decades the area remained dry, ie no serving of alcohol. so its southern edge, Bloor-Danforth Street, became the sinful watering hole. Prohibition was only abandoned in the 1970’s!
Most Torontonians associate East York with WWII veterans who flooded the area in 1940’s. The houses are tiny by today’s standards, typically bungalows with high basements, metal awnings over the cement front steps and trim, if conventional gardens.
Characteristic street
So one might expect street art to be scarce. Not so! Garage doors are the preferred canvas. View here: (BTW for a better view and deets, click on each pic.)
Neat abstractCrazy Penguin
Crazy fish
Water liliesAquarium bubblesConventional calligraphyAbstract calligraphySpace rocket motorbike
Garage walls also offer opportunity. Especially corner walls.
Sleep of springI see you
Mother chickMystical tech support
And regular walls:
Wolves de rigueur21st century Rousseau
Self portrait?Conventional skull motif
Or an interesting take on fence paint:
Originally and staunchly British, East York’s population is now almost 50% foreign born. As a student, I survived on the beloved Greek steam table and souvlaki restaurants along the Danforth. Gentrification has swept these away, but not this feast for the eyes.
NYC is a maze of surreal trapdoors. Especially the legendary subway, setting of innumerable horror flicks, cop shows and true crime.
So this happened….
After visiting the Mysterious Book Shop and the twin towers memorial, we boarded the R line. We collapsed onto the hard plastic seats of the train car, the a/c bliss after the 30 degree heat.
A large Asian man wearing a green foam Statue of Liberty crown slumped onto the seat opposite us. He was clearly suffering from the heat. Not so much though his slimmer wife and teen-aged son.
“Do you live here?” the lady asked us after we exchanged a few pleasantries waiting for the train to get going.
“No,” we said, flattered. “We’re Canadian. From Toronto.”
“Well, I’ll be! That’s near Brantford, right? Have you been to the pow-wow there?” I replied sadly no, but it was on our bucket list. She broke into a huge smile. “You see, I’m Chippewa. An Indian married to an Indian!”
Dad shrugged and smiled. Teen-aged son squirmed. White liberals gringed, but Mother continued: “So 86th Street, right? Our young guy’s quite the artist so we’re taking him to see Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’. We’re off to the museum.”
“No, before that we’re going to the museum. You know, The Museum. It’s got everything in it you folks need to know about The Bible.”
Que?
“You must know about The Museum. You do love The Bible, don’t you? It’s the best museum in the whole wide world, put together for our brothers and sisters.” Mother beams and leans forward. “I’m a Jehovah’s witness!”
Angels on high are laughing!
Gotcha!
Sigh, sometimes the penny doesn’t drop, it floats down.
“You sure do need to visit The Museum. You would love it. It’s got money problems right now, so we’re gonna make sure we see it before they move it someplace else. Can I talk you two into coming along?”
“Sorry, no, we’re meeting some friends.”
Mother now turns her attention to the other passengers in the car. She teaches us all Chippewa expressions in between urging us to Praise the Lord.
Mercifully, the train starts up. Also mercifully, it’s an express. We’re at our stop in two minutes flat.
We race out of the car, leaving Mother cheerfully proselytizing, Dad smiling beatifically and son sulking, while she aims to convert someone, anyone before Times Square.
This really happened: surreal NYC did not disappoint us!
Just completed my 9th Ride to Conquer Cancer, a 213 km marathon charity bike ride from Toronto to Niagara Falls via Hamilton. The Ride is the biggest fundraising success story in Canada. This year over 4000 cyclists raised $17+million for the Princess Margaret Cancer Research Centre, which has spear-headed individual cancer therapy.
My friend, Andre and I did the inaugural Ride in 2008 and it had by far the best spirit. People rode everything from carbon fibre racing machines to old clunkers pulled out of the garage. No cops doing traffic: instead we relied on a friendly motor cycle club. Road signs got lost or misplaced. The route was tres hilly, too. I remember falling into bed at 6 pm, completely exhausted after finishing that first day.
Since then, every year never fails to be an adventure due to the vagaries of weather or the misadventures of crazy cyclists. This year was no exception.
Start at Ex Day 1
Here you see me and my buddy, Marci, at the start of the Ride in Toronto. (That’s me on the left.) We were worried about the predicted thunderstorms hence the rain gear. Instead we got major crosswinds that threatened to blow us off the road as we struggled up and down a hilly course in 35 degree weather (that’s 85 Fahrenheit). Almost impossible to avoid serious dehydration: I downed 2 litres of Gatorade en route!
We did get our reward at the end of Day 1 though: 15 km of speedy downhill to the McMaster University finish line and two beers each! To be shared with our faithful husbands and support crew.
Enjoying much-earned beer with road crew, Tim
Day 2 dawned clear and much cooler. The wind was behind us and we pumped our way through 119 km of undulating wine country. Beautiful!
Riding with 4000+ cyclists is hazardous. We saw 3 accidents involving 3-tiered response with wailing ambulances. The compulsory safety video doesn’t sink in for many participants who freewheel down hills at 30 MILES per hour, pass too closely and indulge in forbidden drafting.
Many participants sported road rash or suffered bike breakdowns. Fancy road bikes do not fare well on rough, pot-holed roads. Elite cyclists may despise my faithful hybrid, which is slow on hills, but it’s rugged and has held me up through thousands of kilometres.
Crossing the finish at Niagara Falls
Next year will be the 10th anniversary of the Ride. Did I sign up? Sure! And so did Marci. More adventures to be had in defeating this horrible disease!
Our visit took a literary bent. We stayed at the Algonquin Hotel, site of the famed Round Table where sharp-tongued Dorothy Parker and her literary frenemies traded barbs and founded the New Yorker magazine. Every guest room at the hotel gets a free copy.
Wham! martinis
What’s it like to stay there? Great, actually! Location is excellent next to Times Square. The rooms are small, like all NYC hotel rooms, but elegant and well-designed. Each door sports a pithy saying from a member of the Round Table. You can download selected best-selling authors for free. And the bar delivers the – wham! – best martinis in NYC. Economy rules: after one, you’re flying all night!
Algonquin cat history
Another neat tradition: the Algonquin boasts a resident cat. Current version, Matilda, happily sleeps in a mahogany file tray on the check-in desk, Do Not Disturb sign prominently displayed. You can book Matilda for your birthday party: her fees go to support a local animal shelter.
I crossed an item off my bucket list when we checked out The Mysterious Book Shop, NYC’s legendary crime book store. It was founded in 1980 by the equally legendary Otto Penzler who lives upstairs.
Mysterious Book Shop
The bookstore is located in the cool Tribeca area of Manhattan at a disturbingly short distance from the former twin towers, now memorialized by two sunken waterfalls with the names of the fallen carved into the stone edges.
The Mysterious Book Shop is not much bigger than my favorite Toronto bookstore, Sleuth of Baker Street though it does sport towering book shelves, easily 15 feet high. You really do need that ladder to reach the top four or five shelves! Like many bookstores today, its stock is a mix of new and vintage books. Signings are held several times a month: if you launch your crime book here, you know you’ve arrived!
Like the Mysterious Press, the bookstore is very active in cyberspace. I recommend subscribing to its newsletter to keep up with the latest and best in crime fiction.
A neat idea: The Mysterious Press prints long stories or novellas by distinguished writers in chap books, costing about $6 US. I picked up The Little Men by Megan Abbott, a truly chilling tale. Excellent writing: I can’t wait to dive into her novels!
Otto Penzler
Otto Penzler is regarded as the world’s foremost authority on crime fiction. In 1975 he founded The Mysterious Press, publishing virtually all the greats: Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, P.D. James, Ruth Rendall, Ellis Peters, the list is endless. He also worked closely with many of my personal favs: Sue Grafton, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke.
Over the years, The Mysterious Press underwent many changes, thanks to the constantly evolving – or perhaps devolving – publishing biz until Penzler got the name back. In 2011, he founded Mysterious Press.com, a digital publishing house for vintage crime writers like Ross Macdonald.
Every year, Penzler brings out the highly regarded anthology, Best American Mystery Stories. (Canadians are eligible as long as their stories are published in the USA.) To be inspired by the best in crime fiction writing, these stories can’t be beat. EAT ALL OF THESE ANTHOLOGIES!!
Penzler also includes a long list of distinguished stories in each volume, stories that almost made the cut. My friend, Ray Daniel’s short story made the long list and he believes Penzler’s recognition led to the traditional publication of his debut novel. (Check out Ray’s most recent book, Child Not Found.)
This year, the Robert Lopresti story in my friend, Caro Soles’ Poe tribute anthology, Nevermore, was accepted into Penzler’s anthology – a dream come true for any crime writer.
Rosemary and I first became friends through our literary critique group which continues to thrive 15 years on. When we met, we'd each had one or two crime short stories published. Since then we've both published several more stories and been short-listed for the Unhanged Arthur and the Debut Dagger awards. And together we have broken through the barrier of traditional publication though Rosemary continues to set the pace!
This week Imajin Press released Raven Lake, the third book in Rosemary's popular Pat Tierney series. Rosemary draws on her work experience as a business journalist to create Pat, a tough, warm-hearted financial manager who runs her own business, deals with her family's many problems and solves crimes faster and better than the police! Jack Batten, the Toronto Star's crime fiction reviewer, has called Pat "a hugely attractive sleuth figure".
Subscribe to Rosemary's blog, Moving Target. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter. Check out her website, too.
The most successful novels are sparked by their authors’ passions. What passion did you follow in Raven Lake?
Gliding in my kayak over a quiet lake or creek, preferably one with no cottages, I feel completely plugged into nature. I come upon turtles sunning themselves on logs; loons teaching their chicks how to fish; herons blending in with marsh vegetation as they stalk their suppers; mink and bobcats drinking from the edge of the lake. One day, I rounded a bend in a creek and found a young bear fishing. Surprised to see me, he scrambled up the bank and disappeared into the woods.
So it was mandatory that I get Pat into a kayak—and, of course, she loves paddling as much as I do. And when Imajin Books asked me for suggestions for the Raven Lake book cover, I immediately thought of a figure in a kayak. I was thrilled with the cover that artistic director Ryan Doan came up with—complete with the shadow of a raven on the water. The back cover has a flock of ravens—an “unkindness” of ravens is, I believe, the collective noun.
I set Raven Lake in Ontario cottage country in the summertime to celebrate my many wonderful summers in the Haliburton Highlands north of Toronto—God’s country, it surely is! During those months, I spent a fair amount of time in my kayak exploring the lakes of the Leslie Frost Centre, a spectacular 32,000-hectare Crown land nature preserve that was accessible from my cottage.
Did you revisit any favourite topics in Raven Lake?
In Raven Lake, I took on a new financial crime based on a real scam that was plaguing Ontario cottage country two summers ago: cottage rental fraud. Con artists were posting photos of lakefront properties on legitimate internet vacation rental sites. Would-be renters would wire their money to the “property owner” – discounts were given for payment in full – and when they arrived for their vacations, they were told by the real owners that the property was not for rent.
A crime perfectly suited to cottage country.
Like Pat, I’m appalled by the financial exploitation of unsuspecting people that is rampant these days. Con artists are swindling their victims out of their savings through investment frauds, identity theft, telemarketing scams and loan schemes. The penalties for these crimes aren’t tough enough in Canada to deter these crooks.
Where can readers buy Raven Lake?
Click on the book cover image above. It will take you directly to the Amazon store in your country. And here’s the link, too:myBook.to/RavenLakeTierney
What do you like about the crime fiction genre?
Crime fiction gives me an opportunity to work with some great bad guys and gals, characters I can really love to hate. I believe the antagonist is the second most important character in a novel, after the protagonist. I avoid completely evil antagonists because I can’t believe in them. No one is bad all the time.
I like the sense of closure at the end of a mystery or thriller. Peace and order has returned to the world. It may only be a temporary state of order; the antagonist may still be out there. But it’s peace and order for a time.
Tell us about your readers.Where are they located? Which topics have proven to be the most popular with them?
Many of my readers are women, and judging from readers’ reviews, they seem to be taken with Pat Tierney’s ongoing family problems. They like the fact that she’s an Everywoman: a single mom who supports her family, does her very best for her clients, and has to deal with a whack of domestic problems. They can relate to a character like her.
The beauty of e-books is that authors can reach people who read English throughout the world. Safe Harbor, my first mystery, currently has 115 reader reviews on Amazon.com, and I think it’s safe to say that most are American readers. There are 15 reviews on Amazon.co.uk, so I know I have some British readers. And, of course, I have many readers in Ontario and I credit public librarians with bringing Ontario writers to the attention of library users.
Will there be a fourth Pat Tierney mystery?
I certainly hope so, although I’m not sure where Pat will take me next. I need to spend some quiet time this coming summer listening to her.
Where can readers buy the first two Pat Tierney novels?
Click on the images below or use these links: Safe Harbor can be purchased at myBook.to/SafeHarborTierney. And Black Water at myBook.to/BlackWaterTierney. These are universal links that will take you to the Amazon store in your country.
