JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

  Winding down my Black History Month coverage for TVO for this year with the tale of one of the most controversial exhibits the Royal Ontario Museum ever mounted ...and how it became a textbook example of how not to mount such an exhibit.

  Toronto Star, January 2, 1971. For Spacing , I revisit a piece focusing on a January 1971 Toronto Star feature where local politicians and dignitaries were asked for their visions on how to make Toronto a more pleasant place to live . 

  Toronto Star, May 25, 1959. Kicking off my Black History Month coverage with a look at what happened when an interracial group of teens from Toronto travelled to Buffalo to appear on a TV dance show and ran into prejudice provoked by a few angry viewers .  EXTRA! How bad was the coverage of the incident in Buffalo's two major dailies? The Buffalo Evening News ran a wire report buried on page 17!

  Ottawa Citizen, February 16, 1934. To mark this weekend's NHL All-Star Game, for TVO I journey back 90 years to the first gathering of the league's top players, which was held as a benefit for injured Toronto Maple Leafs star Ace Bailey. 

  Eldorado’s John Street in the early 1900s, with a shingle mill, box factory, and railway tracks. Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County. For TVO, I look at Ontario's first gold rush during the 1860s , which was centered around our version of Eldorado, just north of Madoc. 

My last published piece for 2023 is a return to the pages of the Toronto Star , where I contributed a year-end quiz spotlighting some of the events and faces of the year gone by . If you prefer doing it in print, look for this weekend's Sunday Star . 

  Toronto Star Weekly, December 18, 1915. For my last TVO article of 2023, I share some stories revolving around holiday season drinks (boozy and non-boozy) in Ontario over the years. Tales include an interview with the Victorian equivalent of a hipster bartender discussing absinthe consumption in 1890s Kingston and a look at temperance advocates who thought 1917 was the best Christmas ever!

  Consumers Distributing 1984 Annual Report. For TVO, I look at the rise and fall of a retailer that was once a key part of the holiday shopping experience in Ontario: Consumers Distributing . This story took more dark turns than I expected.

  My latest piece for TVO looks at how Ontario nearly allowed sale of beer, cider, wine, and wine coolers in corner stores in the mid-1980s ...and why it didn't happen. It's a story to keep in mind over the next few years as we approach the possibility of booze in convenience stores in 2026. 

  Over on Spacing , I take a look at Christmas window displays over the years in Toronto . You many also want to read this TVO piece focusing on department store displays as a follow-up.

NEW! For TVO, I look at the 1992 Ontario Liberal leadership race, which, despite the press declaring it a dull contest throughout, had a very close finish. Also: do you know where your Dalton McGuinty rookie card is?  (For those of who wondering what's going on, I'm testing posting links to my journalistic pieces here to get around the shenanigans surrounding Meta and Canadian news outlets. These will last until I decide to leave Meta platforms again.)

"Better news: Social Services Minister Frank Drea shuts out the hoopla in the Legislature over the alleged budget leak by reading the Racing Form." Photo by Jeff Goode, May 1983. Toronto Star Photographic Archive, Toronto Public Library, TSPA_0044604F. As anyone who reads my work may have noticed, I often write about political history, especially when it's relevant to current events. This section of history is filled with the elements that inspire storytellers: heroes, villains, tortured protagonists, inspiring ideas, depressing reality, sudden twists in fortune, backroom intrigue, and all other kinds of drama.  What I try to avoid, especially when drawing parallels to the present, is armchair quarterbacking. I don’t want to come off as someone who has the answers to everything but never actually attempts to fix what is being criticized. The person who growls a lot with plenty of bark but no bite. Which sometimes makes me wonder if, to back up my convictions, I should con...

  Buffalo Times, December 31, 1921. Warning: this post will mix historical material with working out some thoughts about the present.  After the roller coaster of 2021, this cartoon feels equally at home now as it did a century ago.  Brantford Expositor, December 31, 1921.  After digging through some of the New Year's sentiments and sketches from that era, it's stunning how many only require minor adjustments to reflect present-day concerns and feelings - in many cases, you can replace the continuing repercussions of the First World War with COVID-related issues.  Regarding this front page cartoon, we're still dealing with housing insecurity, while you could swap labour disputes for the changes brought on (hopefully for the better in the long run) by the pandemic within the current labour force, and business depression into the insecurities surrounding operations under ever-changing conditions. Buffalo Times, January 1, 1922. In short, don't lose your head when ...

Feeling nostalgic this holiday season, I'm diving into Christmas records that my family owned when I was a kid.  And now, the other Christmas record I put on repeat as a kid, I'll Be Home For Christmas , which was produced by one of the largest purveyors of "junk" records. Pickwick was a budget label which hit its peak during the 1960s and 1970s. They released anything from covers of current hits by anonymous studio ensembles to re-releases of albums from major labels that dropped a track or two. Quality was not always Pickwick's highest priority. My guess is that this record was purchased at a discount department store in a sale bin.  In this case, just as Christmas Pleasures used Columbia's catalogue, this 1976 album digs into Capitol's vaults. Since, being a Pickwick product, this album only has ten tracks, let's plow through all of them... SIDE ONE Dean Martin - Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer This track amused me as a kid, having already sens...

Leaf through any mid-20th century general interest magazine and you'll fine tons of booze ads. For example, many 1950s American publications provide an education in just how many varieties of bourbon were available, targeted to every class and taste preference.   This edition of the New Yorker is chock full of booze ads, many of them with a holiday theme.  Ready to wander through a 1970s ad executive's cabinet as you open the Christmas cards slipped through your mail slot? Let's go! (DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible if you decide to sample each of these fine liquids while browsing this collection of ads. This post only contains ads related to the holidays or nearly related to the holidays. Trust me, there were plenty of non-Christmas booze ads in this issue.) O Tanqueray Gin tree! O Tanqueray Gin tree! How lovely are thy bottles! Then as now, you might choose to give a nice bottle of scotch in a fancy gift box. Some brands, like J&B, went for historical illustrations...

  Feeling nostalgic this holiday season, I'm diving into Christmas records that my family owned when I was a kid, starting with a late 1970s dive into Columbia Records' vaults, Christmas Pleasures. Click here for side one .  Mitch Miller and the Gang - Winter Wonderland       Ah, Mitch Miller. On the one hand, the man had an ear for hits, turning Columbia Records into a pop powerhouse during the 1950s. He helped shape the role of a record producer, transforming it from a passive to active role in the studio. On the other hand, he had a fondness for schlock, and resisted signing rock acts, leaving Columbia behind in that genre until the mid-1960s. And then there was Sing Along With Mitch . Growing out of a series of albums that started in the late 1950s, Miller welded large vocal ensembles with old-fashioned tunes that listeners could sing along with. They sold well with older audiences, leading to an NBC television series which ran from 1961 to 1964.  How...

  Buffalo Times, December 18, 1921. To compensate for not being able to visit Buffalo anytime soon (thanks Omicron!), I'm settling for flipping through the pages of the city's newspapers during the holiday season a century ago.  OK, that's not the entire truth. Awhile back, I spent a few days down a rabbit hole leafing through the Sunday editions of the great selection of early 20th century Buffalo papers found on Newspapers.com. There was a plan to begin a regular series of posts on Sunday papers of the era, focusing on a century ago, but the time wasn't there. File this idea under "projects for 2022." Still, material like this awkward shot of Santa hovering over a sleeping girl didn't deserve to be left in the can this holiday season. Illustration by Dan Smith, Buffalo Times, December 18, 1921.  A children's kingdom of toys and fairy tales, with characters ranging from classic comic strip character Krazy Kat to dolls that are inappropriate to own a c...