Extra, Extra: Tracking Toronto’s Bedbugs, Lady Buildings

By Meg Campbell

Every weekday’s end, Extra, Extra collects just about everything you ought to care about or ought not miss.

A screengrab of the bedbug map posted by Global.

• Bedbugs! Just the word can make skin crawl, and actually having to deal with them is a major pain in the neck (or back or legs or arms). Patrick Cain, for Global News, wrote a report on the little crawlers, which includes a map of Toronto showing where reports of bedbugs are most concentrated; it also lets users compare 2009 to 2010 data and search by address or postal code.
• Toronto comics fans will be familiar with the more mature work of Bryan Lee O’Malley, creator of the Toronto-centric Scott Pilgrim comics. But what was O’Malley producing at age eight? Transformers fan art, of course. But, showing a flare for narrative that would bring him success later in life, he kicked it up a notch and made it into a choose-your-own-adventure book.
• Toronto’s best-known piece of architecture is decidedly phallic, but according to the Star‘s Christopher Hume, feminine architecture is what’s, ahem, on the rise. Examples of this rounder, less “geometrically rigid” feminine style in the GTA include the Rogers Centre, which “opens and closes” and feels “more responsive and receptive”; Mississauga’s Absolute Tower, nicknamed “Marilyn Monroe” for its curvaceousness; and New City Hall (“Its two curved towers seem to embrace the council chamber, and by extension, the rest of the city”). Problematically traditional characterizations of femininity aside (feel free to debate in the comments), it’s an interesting concept to consider.
• Also over the weekend, Reg Hartt celebrated a big milestone. The Cineforum operator turned 65, and he spoke to The Grid about his birthday celebrations (hint: they involved a well-known German Expressionist film).

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