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Kensington Market

Father and son bio up for literary non-fiction award

http://www.towncrieronline.ca/main/...story&storyid=6589&rootcatid=21&rootsubcatid=

Father and son bio up for literary non-fiction award
(Posted Date: Tuesday, March 4, 2008)

By Lorianna De Giorgio

FILM BUFF: David Gilmour's family bonding story The Film Club: A True Story of a Father and Son, has been nominated for the literary non-fiction Charles Taylor Prize.

The only downfall of spending three years of one-on-one time with his son, Jesse, was that it ended too soon, says David Gilmour.

The author and former national film critic for CBC allowed his then 16-year-old son to drop out of high school on the condition that he watch three movies a week with his dad.

The experience brought father and son closer together. It gave them the opportunity to not only discuss every film from Casablanca to Robocop but allowed them the chance to connect on a much deeper level than they had ever done so before.

The three years also became perfect fodder for Gilmour’s seventh book, The Film Club: A True Story of a Father and Son, published last year by Thomas Allen Publishers.

Since publication, the memoir has gained high acclaim, and is one of five books nominated for the 2008 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction.

“I didn’t want my son permanently scarred for the purpose of a grade 12 diploma,†Gilmour said over the phone from his Kensington Market home last month about his decision to let Jesse quit school.

Many parents wouldn’t dream of willingly allowing their teen to drop out of school but Gilmour knew that if he didn’t let Jesse quit, school would eventually ruin him.

“School was destroying his personality,†said Gilmour, whose son was getting failing grades, skipping classes and hanging out with the wrong crowd. “Ultimately it was killing him, and I wouldn’t let that happen on my watch.â€

He came up with the idea to watch three movies a week, for three years. Gilmour, who was a pro when it came to the film world, having hosted the award-winning Gilmour on the Arts, an arts magazine series on CBC Newsworld in the 1990s, was an avid film fan.

They watched everything from such classics as The Birds and Chinatown to questionable films, including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Showgirls. They discussed the films and each other’s lives.

Undoubtedly, Jesse was “enormously grateful†for the opportunity. Now 22, Jesse is back at school, taking a general arts degree at U of T. He plans to enrol in film school once he graduates, Gilmour said.

For Gilmour, who won the 2005 Governor General’s Award for Fiction for A Perfect Night to Go to China, a haunting tale about a father’s attempt to come to terms with his child’s disappearance, the three-year experiment was beyond enjoyable.

“I loved spending time with a wonderful young man,†Gilmour said, admitting it was bittersweet when the three years ended. “I didn’t learn nothing new about him. knew he was a great guy before the three years.â€
 
Might As Well Jump

http://torontoist.com/2008/03/kensington_jump.php

from torontoist.com

Mark Oliver Tessaro just sent us a link to the video above, of an unbelievably fun-looking do-it-yourself ski-hill that he and his roommates built in mid-February on their Kensington Market deck.

Says Mark of the hill:

I live with 3 other guys above a used clothing store in Kensington Market and we have a ridiculously large deck. A few weeks ago this meant that we also had a ridiculously large amount of snow on our deck, so we decided to put an end to the fact that there's no ski-hill in Toronto by creating the Kensington Market Urban Snowpark, with take-off from our roof. So spread the word to all those Torontonians longing for the slopes—turns out all you need is good-old Canadian ingenuity (and, well, some beer) and you can catch some air with the CN Tower in view!

The video––skip to a minute in to pass the photo montage of the hill's construction––manages to be both inspirational and horrifying at once. Sadly, "the jump is a bit dysfunctional now," says Mark, "but we are expecting to get it repaired with the next dump of snow."
 
It ain't the Kensington Market library either

Cameron Strandberg, National Post

This Ain’t the Rosedale Library, the saint of the small press, comrade to the counter-culture and lover of left-wingers, is moving to Kensington Market after 22 years on Church Street.

Charles Huisken said he and co-owner Dan Bazuin had mixed feelings about two straight guys opening a bookstore in the heart of Toronto’s gay district.

“The community was so accepting, though,†he said. Now that the store is leaving, people coming are coming up to him and shaking his hand or breaking down in tears, he said.

He calls the move “bittersweet,†and reminisced yesterday about talking literature with Hunter S. Thompson and fondly recalls confusion over whether drag-queens are royalists. “This store’s brought me hundreds of stories,†he said.

Although he said there were hundreds of reasons to move, two big ones were age and economics.

“We’re both in our late 50s now and this is a neighbourhood that never stops,†Mr. Huisken said. “We need to slow down.â€

He also said that rent was getting to be too much for the store, and that the close proximity to Indigo Books at Bay and Bloor may have hurt sales. He’s hoping the scene in Kensington Market will help the bookstore bloom.

This Ain’t the Rosedale Library will reopen at 86 Nassau St. sometime during early May.
 
A rebel with many causes

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...9.MAVERICK29/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Ontario/

AGENT OF CHANGE: YVONNE BAMBRICK
A rebel with many causes

LISAN JUTRAS
March 29, 2008

In the middle of one of the snowiest winters on record, you may have looked out the streetcar windows and seen a lone figure on two wheels, squeezed onto the side of the road, and thought, That's crazy. Who does that?

Yvonne Bambrick, that's who. The cycling activist says she spent exactly eight days using public transit this winter. "The city's been doing a great job lately moving the snow," she says. "We've given them a hard time ... but they're doing all right." The problem, in her view, is drivers. "They just assume they're still entitled to the same bit of parking space and it doesn't exist - so instead they just put their asses out on the streetcar tracks."

The sentiment is vintage Bambrick - if a 31-year-oldcan be said to have vintage anything (other than stuff picked up from a second-hand store). The native Torontonian is not afraid to tell it like it is, but equally she speaks with diplomacy, and even, occasionally, generosity, toward the city.

Ms. Bambrick is one of a handful of thirtysomethings, such as Matthew Blackett, the publisher and founder of Spacing magazine, and Todd Irvine, a tree missionary who works for LEAF (Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests), who are shaping the city in the 21st century.

Above all, Ms. Bambrick is never complacent. "Change is the only constant," she says, summing up her philosophy in two sentences. "Get over it and get to work."

And work she does. She is involved with several organizations, chief among them the newly relaunched Centre for Social Innovation, where she is the "community animator," and the first face you see upon arriving. In jeans and a burnt-orange shirt hemmed with bronze-coloured sequins, she looks like she could be an intern, nose stud and all. But she commands the office space with a deft balance of authority and friendliness.

The centre comprises a space in a building on Spadina Avenue that serves as a physical hub for almost 100 like-minded social-mission organizations, ranging from the David Suzuki Foundation to the Organization of Calypso Performing Artists.

And just what does a community animator do? "It's having a sense of what people are working on, and knowing ... where those people might meet, and how they could work together," she explains.

She also does reception, publicity and event co-ordination. "I know it sounds corny," she says, "but I sometimes feel like the ship's captain a bit. I'm on deck making it all happen."

She knows whereof she speaks: her mother was a yacht master and coast guard captain in her spare time, which Ms. Bambrick says sparked her interest in volunteer work.

But it wasn't until 2003 that she really committed to activism, when, as part of the organization Streets Are for People, she helped to kick off the city's first Pedestrian Sunday. Returning to Toronto from an eight-year absence spent studying in Montreal and Sydney, Australia, she met fellow activists Kelsey Carriere and Shamez Amlani at a cycling committee meeting in Kensington Market.

Mr. Amlani, who owns La Palette on Augusta Avenue, had accidentally closed the street to traffic one day while hosting a parking-meter party outside his restaurant. ("If you pay for a parking spot, you can do what you like in that spot," Ms. Bambrick explains.) Three hundred people plus a samba band turned up, and "no cars could pass."

It was so successful that the two went to the city and proposed the idea of deliberately creating a pedestrian zone. As Ms. Bambrick tells it, "the city said, 'Oh, that sounds like a good idea!' So suddenly these guys ... were like, 'Okay, we've been charged with this idea, let's go!' And so people came on board."

People like Ms. Bambrick, who started off canvassing the area's residentsto find out how they envisioned the event and participated in community meetings that she described as "big jam sessions about what would go down." Five years later, the event is such a success that it has spread to other neighbourhoods, such as Baldwin Street and Mirvish Village.

Perhaps it's her outlook - she is a self-described optimist - but, by her telling, things in her life have a way of unfolding with a nearly scripted ease. She describes herself as "grateful," grateful to be a part of the circles she moves in, and at her relatively young age, she moves in more than most people do in a lifetime.

On top of her involvement with Pedestrian Sundays, she has worked on Adam Vaughan's campaign for city councillor; she is one of the directors of the Kensington Market Action Committee; she is involved with Jane's Walks, a series of free tours; and is helping out the newly formed Toronto Cyclists' Union.

At one point, she answers her cellphone saying she can't talk, she's at a rehearsal of the theatrical version of Peewee's Big Adventure that will show during Bike Month, May 26 to June 21. "It's pretty friggin' hilarious," she says, chuckling.

The event is typical of Ms. Bambrick's brand of activism, combining fun with a sense of purpose. "It's about accessibility," she explains. "Shouting and angry has a place, but in terms of bringing people on board to movements and action, play is vital."

It's hard for her to identify what keeps her so engaged; when asked, she flips the question on its head: "If you have any sense of the world around you, I don't know how you can sit still."
 
This Ain’t the Rosedale Library, the saint of the small press, comrade to the counter-culture and lover of left-wingers, is moving to Kensington Market after 22 years on Church Street.
Click to expand...
I don't think that's quite right. They were in Rosedale -- I think -- as recently as 10-15 years ago.
 
Rosedale?!? No, they've been on Church all that time--previously, they were in a couple of successive locations around Queen + Jarvis...
 
I don't think that's quite right. They were in Rosedale -- I think -- as recently as 10-15 years ago.
Click to expand...

Nope. Their previous location was on Queen just west of Jarvis.
 
On its website it states it was founded in 1979 and has been at its Church Street address since 1986. There's no info on its previous address.
 
I think it may have been more of a similar-phone-number than a locational factor behind the name...
 
Dan, one of the owners, went to OCA(D) when I did.

Their present location and their late hours are so convenient. It's more of a community centre than the 519 for some folks.
 
Sad to see it move

I brought a group of first time visitors into the store last night.

Its kind of sad their moving.

However, they had terrible customer service and everytime I heard a customer ask for a particular book they would never have it.

Louroz
 
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