JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

"Windsbraut"(Bride of the Wind) by Oscar Kokoschka. Cover of History of the 20th Century #96 (1969). In the aftermath of the recent American election, there’s plenty of apocalyptic doom-and-gloom out there. How much is justified remains to be seen, though early glimmers aren’t heartwarming. Even a couple of weeks later, getting off/modifying social media to save one’s sanity, or, after doing some contemplative soul-searching, figuring out how you can actually make a real difference in your community or beyond seems like the best advice. Feeling meh or worse about the future is nothing new. Throughout recorded history, fears the sky was falling, or worse, are recurring themes during stressful times. The current malaise made me think of the one of the grimmest-ending essays I read when I was younger. Behind my dad’s chair in the basement of my childhood home was a bookshelf filled with historical “partworks”—magazine series, mostly British, mostly from the early 1...

Hello there. Been awhile, hasn’t it? I hadn’t intended a summer hiatus for this website or my newsletter—or worse, permanent hiatus, as sometimes happens—but summer was a hectic season, filled with peaks and valleys. During the first half of summer, I suffered what may politely be called a paralytic case of existential angst. I felt I was rolling towards breakdown, which I suspect was evident to others. My self-confidence went on summer vacation, leaving the rational sphere of my brain scrambling. Mix in burnout and fatigue (tired Jamie doesn’t function well), and you’ve got a bundle of neuroses. I questioned everything: my ability to produce work on par with peers; the overwhelming perfectionist impulses; the skill needed to keep money flowing (the joy of perpetual freelancer anxiety!); wondering if anyone cared about what I was writing. Then toss in growing disenchantment with humanity in the wake of racial strife, political shitshows south of the border, and the general lack o...

This post has been moved to Tales of Toronto .

Spring cleaning, especially when you're still sorting out the dregs of a move, often provides a few surprises. In this case, a folder of ads photocopied from early 1970s Canadian editions of Time , which were intended either for a post on this blog (when I was regularly doing such things ) or my long-running vintage ad column for Torontoist . Tucked in that folder was a Xerox campaign which occupied eight pages of prime real estate in the May 8, 1972 issue. It weaved the fictional tale of Snaggem Consolidated International (formerly Snaggem Fish Hook), and how the current line of Xerox equipment aided many aspects of the business. Feel free to make up further backstories for the employees shown below.

This post has been moved over to Tales of Toronto .

Add "participating in a panel discussion" next to "getting engaged" and "eating a grapefruit without grimacing" to the list of things I've done for the first time this year. Each of the participants was given a question to discuss for five minutes at the start of the session, before the audience asked questions. Mine was "What lessons from the 1970s have been lost?" After making a disclaimer about my personal experience of the city during that decade (restricted to tagging along with my Dad along Queen West), I launched into the following... Among the lessons we should revisit are appreciating architectural styles which fall out of public favour, which aggravates the spectre of doom looming over modernist buildings we’ve discussed in this series; and mobilizing greater public support for threatened sites. Outside of heritage activists and some community groups, think of the preservation campaigns you hear about most in the media—it’s ...

This post has been moved over to Tales of Toronto .

This post has been moved to Tales of Toronto . 

This post offers supplementary material for an article I recently wrote for Torontoist , which you should read before diving into this post.  Oakville Journal Record , October 8, 1980. Click on image for larger version. A reprint of the Oakville Star 's coverage from 1930. That there was "no editorial comment about the incident" speaks volumes from a modern perspective.

This post offers supplementary material for an article I recently wrote for Torontoist , which you should read before diving into this piece. The Globe , October 11, 1907. The fear of the "yellow peril" in action - one of the more jaw-dropping (from a modern perspective) editorials regarding the place of Chinese in Canadian society during the early 20th century.

This installment of my "Ghost City" column for The Grid was originally published on February 12, 2013. Portrait of William Peyton Hubbard, 1913, by W.A. Sherwood. When William Peyton Hubbard was born in 1842 it’s doubtful his father, a freed slave who had arrived in Toronto two years earlier, imagined that the infant would become one of the city’s most powerful politicians. The road to that accomplishment took time: Before Hubbard entered politics in 1893, he baked cakes and drove a horse cab, occupations that were the norm for the city’s small black population.

This installment of my "Ghost City" column for The Grid was originally published on January 22, 2013. Toronto Star , October 26, 1948. Until 1948, anyone headed to the southwest corner of Bloor Street and Concord Avenue typically went to peruse the area’s long succession of furniture businesses, looking for that perfect addition to their home décor. The granting of a liquor license that year to the Concord Tavern ushered in the intersection’s long association with music as a venue and instrument seller.

This installment of my "Ghost City" column for The Grid was originally published on October 23, 2012. Allenby Theatre lobby, 1936. Image courtesy Silent Toronto, which has more on the feature presentation depicted here . A suggestion for anyone hitting the town in their best Rocky Horror Picture Show finery this Halloween: Make a pit stop at the Esso/Tim Horton’s at Danforth and Greenwood . Walk through the restored front doors underneath the marquee of the old Allenby theatre. Buy some snacks to fuel an evening of time-warping. Take a look at the old ads in the showcase by the front doors and take a moment to pay tribute to the place where the movie became a Toronto cult favourite.

This post has moved over to Tales of Toronto .

The WHA! The original Jets! Willi Plett! Some people treasure pristine mint editions of old books and magazines. I treasure ragged copies that were well-loved, which display the repeated wear-and-tear of an owner who regularly flipped the pages (just as long as none of those pages are missing). This is one of the most worn items in my collection: The Hockey News 1978 Yearbook , previewing the 1977/78 NHL and WHA seasons. Part of its weary appearance is due to little Jamie's use of it as something to press down upon while scribbling maps, fake hockey cards, or whatever else entered my brain. Part is my childhood fascination with a season just slightly before I followed pro hockey, spotlighting a league (the WHA) which was gone by the time I started watching Hockey Night in Canada and collecting sports cards.