Month: April 2016

On the question of whether the city of Toronto or the drive to the city along the Lake Ontario Parkway is more interesting, I guess I would come down on the drive side. I love everything about Route 18, the Public Works Parkway design with its beautiful stone bridges, the dreamy views of the lake, the fact that there is hardly any traffic, the orchards, vineyards and fruit stands, not one gas station between Rochester and Buffalo and the small summer vacation towns with the lighthouses from yesteryear, like Olcott, where we stopped for lunch. I was looking forward to the ride home.

We were behind a cluster of trucks on the QEW as we headed out of town and I was thinking about how John Baldessari talked about the back end of trucks looking like modern art paintings. We were listening to AM740, Toronto’s “Timeless Hits station.” They were playing songs from 40 years ago, recapping the hit of 1976. If someone wanted to know why punk came about, that year’s playlist would be the most concise answer you could provide.

The Lewiston bridge was waiting for customers when we crossed into Canada. The trip to Toronto was a breeze. I thought there was supposed to be long lines at the border and back-ups near the city but we were early for check-in at our hotel. We took the Parkway and Robert Moses along the shores of Lake Ontario, skipped the thruway entirely and were downtown in three plus hours.

We set an all-time Moves record on our app by walking from our downtown hotel to the Harbourfront Centre along the northern shore of Lake Ontario. The energy generated in the reconditioned Power Plant is all from the power of contemporary art. The current show is mostly video displayed floor to ceiling in empty, pitch black rooms. We were mesmerized by Leslie Hewitt’s “Untitled Structures.” Shot in Memphis, Chicago and New York the pieces touched on civil rights. Hewitt worked with a cinematographer, Bradford Young, and created 35mm film studies (barely moving still images), transferred them to HD video and used dual projector software to juxtapose two images at a time on perpendicular walls.

We found a Portuguese restaurant near our hotel and had the best grilled squid ever. We were back out on the streets in time to catch this Japanese band playing on the street.

The outside world finds a way in even if you are off its grid. Pete and Shelley’s literary recommendation for us was Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here.” Guess it closely mirrors the Trumpster’s run.

Speaking of mirrors, we spent the next night on Mirror Lake in the Adirondacks. After leaving the woods and retreiving a couple days worth of messages and not finding anything urgent we continued north instead of heading home. Our view, from the town of Lake Placid, encompassed the high peaks and the ramps for the ski jumps in the Olympic Village. We were there in the way low season, a few weeks after winter and well before summer.

We walked to the the center of town and had dinner. I ordered a John Brown IPA that was brewed by the Great Adirondack Brewing Company located just behind the restaurant. The description in the menu read, “John brown, a fiery abolitionist, came to Lake Placid in 1855 to build a community of free men. After being hung for his his raid on Harper’s Ferry his final resting place is on his farm in Lake Placid. Our rebellious India Pale Ale with a mountain of brilliant pine and citrus hop flavor, is an plosives tribute to John Brown and his fellow rebels. Pushing the boundaries of the status quo and fighting for the betterment of mankind.

We went off grid for a few days but I was still able to recharge my watch with solar power. Cellular service ends just before the closest town to Pete and Shelley. We got right down to business on arrival. We caught up on health issues and then mutual friends. We watched the snow melt in the full sun and slide off the metal roof of their shed. We boiled water outdoors for our French press coffee maker. We took long walks down the road, first in one direction and then in the other, Setting an all time record with our Moves app.

Listened to Pete play the Wurlitzer electric piano without plugging it in. I took photos of the compost pile and played “Ambulance Blues” from my watch on the phone in Peggi’s pocket. We drank a twenty year old bottle of Cava, one that Shelley’s parents had in their basement when they moved into an assisted living facility. We studied their book shelves and looked at old photos from a box in the back of a drawer. We sat around the enamel-top table by candlelight and talked for hours without googling a thing.