[PHOTO] Four photos of murals in Kensington Market, and one old fruit cart

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Danforth, #MeTooandthearts, Kensington Market, Yorkville, HomeShare

• The murder of two young people and wounding of more than a dozen in a shooting on the Danforth is shocking. CBC reports.
• CBC reports on a timely new exhibition at the ROM, #MeToo & The Arts.
• Samantha Edwards at NOW Toronto notes how plans to transform the old Fairland grocery store on Augusta into a big nightclub threatens the nature of Kensington Market.
• blogTO notes that the mist gardens of the Four Seasons Toronto on Yorkville Avenue are open to the public and free.
• The new City of Toronto program HomeShare, getting older residents to rent out unused rooms to younger tenants (often students), is one creative response to the crises of affordable housing and aging. The Toronto Star reports.

[PHOTO] Sixteen photos of art from Toronto Revealed, at the TD Gallery (#tdgallery)

As I promised yesterday, here is some more of the art that I saw at the TD Gallery’s Toronto Revealed exhibition. Although some of the works (paintings, today, mostly painted in oils) depicted scenes predating my arrival in Toronto or even my existence, like that showing the excavation of the Eaton Centre, most of the others were scenes that I recognized with delight from my daily life. One, of a nondescript gas station, was based on a location at most a lazy ten minutes’ walk from my home.

More details on the individual works–their names, their painters, their dates–can be found by clicking through to my Flickr page.

[PHOTO] Sunset, College at Augusta, Kensington Market

[PHOTO] Front yard robot, Kensington Market, Toronto

I’m not quite sure what this, and the other sculptures, on the front yard of the home at Augusta and Wales towards the south of Kensington Market is supposed to be. “Robot” was my best guess.

[PHOTO] Front window orchids, 4Life Natural Foods, Kensington Market, Toronto

Orchids fill the front window of Kensington Market’s 4Life Natural Foods, an organic supermarket in Toronto’s Kensington Market that fills the space formerly occupied by Zimmerman’s Discount.

[PHOTO] TNG Neighbourhood Watch, Nassau east of Augusta, Kensington Market

[PHOTO] Eight Toronto photos

Today’s posting is another aggregation of Instagram photos I’ve taken in Toronto over the past week, on Bloor Street, near Yonge and Dundas, around Church and Wellesley, and finally in Kensington Market.

(Normal posting will hopefully resume tomorrow, when I actually get a working laptop.)

Planters of the future, on Bloor west of Dovercourt

Looking west on Edward Street

The rainbow flag and the flag of Canada, outside of Buddies in Bad Times

Construction tower for 66 Isabella, Church and Isabella

Front garden, 575 Church Street

Looking into Cawthra Park from Church

Pink flowers, grey wall on Nassau Street

Looking north on Augusta Avenue

[PHOTO] At the Hot Box Cafe, marijuana trumps beer and equals love

Marijuana is better than beer; marijuana is love.

That’s the message on this eye-catching sandwich board sitting outside 204 Augusta Avenue in the middle of Kensington Market, the new home of the Hot Box Cafe since its relocation last year from Baldwin Street, The place, signs are careful to note, do not sell marijuana; they just sell pot culture paraphernalia, bongs and the like, and offer a nice patio where people can bring their weed and light up. (The Toronto police apparently haven’t gone after the Hot Box Cafe for providing a venue for smokers, but almost certainly would if it was actually selling a drug that’s still illegal.)