1. Has anyone else observed that the festive illustrations on this year’s Starbucks holiday cups look rather like Edward Gorey on Xanax?
2. JVL, K-Jo and I took festive Christmas photos at home last night for our household holiday cards. They’re hilarious. I’ll be posting some of them, friends-locked, in the next few weeks.
3. Yesterday I shelled out a lot of dough for a quilt book. Sigh. It’s this beautiful, massive hardcover on ‘Gee’s Bend: the Women and their Quilts’. I thought it was out of print, which is why I bought it from ‘Another Man’s Poison’ on McCall for quite a lot of money. But as I’ve just learned, it’s available on Amazon.ca for a lot less. Dammit. It is so rare for me to purchase something without doing at least some basic research on the internet. Caveat emptor.
4. Busy weekend coming up: work party tomorrow, birthday party way the heck out in Whitby Friday, Mathom party (and kitties!) Saturday.
5. I’m thinking about taking an all-day $75 course in free-motion quilting that is being offered Saturday, January 8th through ‘Sew Be It’ studio. I worry it will make me want a new sewing maching, though. I’ll hold off on signing up for a few weeks.
6. So far, so good with the Nuvaring. I still haven’t done that extremely graphic post yet, but it will come in time. Anyway, not to get into gory details, but it looks like a skinny, translucent jelly bracelet, about an inch and a half in diameter, and it’s very bendy. No weird side effects yet. I can’t feel it at all, and we have a green light on the nookie front. So ladies, go forth and acquire once-a-month, non-injected, removable birth control if you want it.
7. The cover story on the Metro today is about the TTC spending $350,000 on TTC station aesthetic upgrades. FINALLY! I am so, so happy about this. It’s about time Toronto took its transit seriously as a tool for promoting tourism and a major investment that they should enhance whenever possible. I can’t wait to see the Osgoode-Opera station with its musical enhancements, and the Museum station with its sarcophagus and totem-styled columns. And how cool would it be if they trashed the dreadful puke-green tile in St. Patrick, and replaced it with something representative of the newly-renovated AGO and OCAD buildings just around the corner? SO COOL. My commute would become much more pleasant. Yay, TTC!
8. Jeez, look at this numbered list. Who do I think I am –
Ooh! I’m very excited about the spiffying up of the stations!!!
I hope you have time today to check out my LJ entry from last night… it is dedicated to you.
Of course they plan to sex up Museum station just as I move! D’oh!
It does look freakin’ hot, though. Go team TTC!
The picture makes me want to live in the subway. 🙂
And yes, the timing is of coure, hilarious. However, you’ll be living across from the hockey grocery store, with your soaker tub!!!
It’s just like that time GGC finally gave me my wall, after 4.5 years of fighting and waiting for it… the day AFTER my last day there.
But if Museum station isn’t vomit yellow, how will I know where I am!?!?! (You say the sarcophagi should be a hint? Preposterous!)
These upgrades may be the tackiest design idea in Toronto history. And this is a city that once put plaster moose on every street corner. Spend the money sheltering some homeless people or subsidizing strippers or something actually useful, not making our subway stations look like some gargantuan nick-nack shelf.
Seriously, it they go through with this, I’m going to organize my own army of Space Monkeys just to deface them.
That’s exactly what I said! I figure they’ll get around to spiffing it up just after I graduate from the law school that is — I’ve counted — exactly 120 paces from Museum station. Mawr.
Still: I’m thrilled to see someone in Toronto’s public service finally taking aesthetics as seriously as they do in every other world-class city. Every time I hear about TTC Chairman Howard Moscoe, he reveals himself to be highly cool. This is going to be awesome.
Also, it’s great that they’re starting with the University line! I’d always thought the University line was kind of second-fiddle to the Yonge line, so it’s nice to see the underdog get some attention.
BTW, the “that’s exactly what I said” is aimed at Chrissy’s comment about moving on just as they spiff the place up.
Normally I’d agree that there are more urgent ways to spend the money, but apparently it’s a revenue-neutral project for the city. The Metro article says that they’ll fund the renos out of the regular maintenance budget and make up the rest with private matching.
As for the design aesthetic — maybe it’s my Egyptian heritage talking, but I love the idea of mummies in the subway. Anything is better than the “urinal chic” look that currently graces our city’s underground.
It’s an urban subway station. It should look like an urban subway station, not a Pottery Barn that trains occasionally run through. If people can’t handle standing in one because of aesthetic irritation, they’re welcome to walk. Strolling two stops in the middle of February should convince them that maybe they can handle seeing tile walls after all.
And this “revenue-neutral” thing is a sham. The maintenance budget should be spent on “maintenance”, not “faux mummy case purchase”. If there’s money left over it should be spent on “more maintenance”. I actually sent a letter to the transit authority this annoyed me so much. Is anybody trying to make the London Underground look like a Gap outlet? Or redress the NYC subway as a Sharper Image?
Really, after this, what’s next? Shall we pipe in some calming easy listening music to help further soothe commuters? How about open up some little manicurist boutiques and kiosks that sell potpourri sachets on the platforms? And what about all those irritating trains with their noise and vibration? We should just get rid of them entirely so that the form can totally overtake the function.
You know who else does this to their subways? The French. There is no stronger argument against it than that.
I think it’s fabulous they’re going to decorate the underground with beautiful egyptian-looking pillars, BUT, why aren’t you replying to my emails? It’s crucial information I am needing! Please!
Debbie Downer 😛
Hey, numbered entries are where it’s at!
And I think the subway renos are MARVELLOUS – until they fuck up the commute with construction. 🙂