Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
Tonight, the Toronto Public Space Committee presents the fifth of six films screening at the Bloor Cinema as part of its ongoing Streets to Screens fundraising film series (which also includes monthly screenings of public space-themed NFB shorts at the Toronto Free Gallery).
The theme of the evening is Workspace: Public Space, and the feature presentation is the Toronto premiere of Robin and Rory Muir's Downtown Locals, a documentary following a year in the lives of six New York City subway buskers, as they weather personal difficulties while fighting the city for their right to perform in the public space. Preceding this will be Will Beauchamp's short Marianne, previously screened at Hot Docs, about the community that has developed around Marianne Moroney, the beloved hot dog vendor outside of Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital.
Rather than the usual panel discussions and Q&As that follow the films in this series, local buskers Sarah Burton and Silver Elvis (pictured) will perform in the theatre lobby and sidewalk spaces before and after the films.
At around 9:00, the festivities will move across the street to Pauper's Pub for an informal "meet'n'greet" with the performers and veteran music educator Jim Maben, who will be on hand to discuss the TTC's Subway Musicians Program, for which he served as an adjudicator for ten years.
It all gets going tonight at 7:00 at the Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor Street West, at Bathurst). Tickets are $9 each, and support the continuing work of the city's premiere organization for fighting those who believe that only the wealthy should be allowed to express themselves in public space.
Photo by trumpetflickr from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
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I'll be there :) Obviously we feel strongly about the Toronto Public Space Committee, but have never really considered its mission to be based on class.
Instead, I think the TPSC's mission simply to improve the quality of public life in Toronto, which improves a city's quality of life in general.
"Placemaking is the process of creating great places that attract people because they are pleasurable, interesting and offer the chance to see other people." -Adapted from William H Whyte
Wow. A TPSC member writing on Torontoist about a TPSC event.
If TOist want to have a greater sense of credibility, please stop navel gazing and get someone else within Torontoist to write about your events. Either that or don't hide your affiliation with the TPSC.
The only reason I point this out is that it looks incestual. Both the TPSC and Torontoist mean well, but lax judgment on these types of issues gives ammunition to those who want to see your organizations fail.
I implore Torontoist to use some kind of journalistic standards even though you're not exactly an ordinary media outlet.
Glo, I beg to differ. Originally things like this struck me as a "conflict of interest", but it occurs to me that Torontoist contributors are hired because they have their eyes in a number of interesting places in the city.
Members of groups are the most passionate about these places, of course, and are certainly the fittest to write them up. Blogs are not newspapers and Torontoist has not lost the "personal" touch of the blogosphere.
Kevin: My feeling is that the TPSC was originally created as a direct response to the dominant ideology of the Lastman regime which saw City Council trying to ban public postering on 98% of all utility poles while simultaneously selling public assets to advertisers and looking the other way when it came to illegal billboards. Very little has changed under Miller, as exemplified by that clip of De Baeremaeker, Miller's appointee to the chairmanship of the Works Committee, explaining that ads are "beautiful" and should be encouraged and posters are "ugly" and should be outlawed. There is no question that we have never done as much equity-based work as we would have liked, but almost everything we do is rooted in the mandate of Mez's previous project, Reclaim The Streets.
Glo: I'm running out of the house now, so I unfortunately don't have the time to craft an adequate response at this moment. If you happen to be there tonight, and know what I look like (I'll probably be carrying my NFB bag), feel free to approach me and we can discuss my "navel gazing." Otherwise, I'll have something written for you later tonight.