JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

While shopping at St. Lawrence Market early this afternoon, the front page of the Toronto Sun caught my eye. The Summerworks theatre festival was the target of their trademark sensationalism-in-the-name-of-showing-easily-outraged-taxpayers-where-their-money-is-being-wasted-today. Seems one of the plays takes a sympathetic view toward a convicted member of the Toronto 18. Cue outrage from politicians and lobby groups sympathetic to the paper's editorial tilt. Talk about lazy: of course if you ask the Canadian Taxpayers Federation what they think of funding anything vaguely artistic or fun, the answer is going to be no . Too predictable, too pat, too much of a reconfirmation of the views of the paper's readership. And the play hasn't even opened yet. Summerworks's blog has responded . *** Speaking of the Sun, amid some research I've done through its back pages lately and a recent find at Value Village, there will be upcoming posts devoted to oddball discove...

All was going well until, distracted by further questioning from Sluggo, Nancy accidentally opened her eyes... Strip originally published August 5, 1953. Nancy © United Media - JB

Photograph by Alfred Pearson. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 16, Series 71, Item 10091. According to the City of Toronto Archives, these pictures show a "traffic tie up on Elizabeth Street south of Dundas with truck having lost a rear wheel parked on tracks on Elizabeth Street delaying a Peter Witt streetcar on the Dundas route" on January 10, 1934. Photograph by Alfred Pearson. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 16, Series 71, Item 10092. This incident may not have made it into the day’s papers, but Elizabeth Street figured in two stories in the following day’s edition of the Star . A front page headline noted that “GAMBLING DENS THRIVE IN CITY HALL’S SHADOW OPEN TO ALL COMERS.” An undercover reporter, “who had never placed a bet or risked a nickel in any public gambling house,” visited three bookie joints within three blocks of (Old) City Hall. Among those stops was “a rendezvous on Elizabeth Street” that was “known to the sophisticated. The reported wasn’t asked any...

(click onto image for larger version) Another case of accidentally stumbling upon an old ad or newspaper story that relates to a current headline story. Our wonderful, forward-thinking federal government has decided that the mandatory filling out of a full census form is a horrifying violation of personal privacy , despite the wealth of useful information derived from such surveys for eons. Defenders of the government's actions are emerging from the usual quarters: the Fraser Institute and the Toronto Sun . Could it be that the evil-looking kid on the left grew up to be a Conservative advisor and remembered the separation anxiety when their father took too much time away from them to complete the census? Pro-mandatory long form census editorials from Toronto newspapers: Globe and Mail National Post Toronto Star Source: The Telegram , May 21, 1971 - JB

Wandering through Kensington Market earlier this month, I noticed a recent installation at the north end of Augusta Avenue to welcome visitors to the neighbourhood. Photo taken July 2010 - JB

Before reading this post, check out the related article on Torontoist . Here are winners of the Toronto Sun 's contest to have dinner with a wookiee, as presented in the December 2, 1977 edition of TO's daily tabloid. From the same edition, columnist Sylvia Train compares her size to Mayhew's. As she succinctly put it, he was "really big." Special note was note was made that "though he is large he's perfectly proportioned," so that readers wouldn't worry about the man suffering from any size-related physical deformities (who wanted to talk acromegaly or other disorders in a fluffy entertainment column?). - JB