Walk Right In...Have a Seat

The facades that face the commercial streets in Toronto have a minimalist approach to texture and surface. Less seems to be better. All the surface and texture lie in the back alleys.  The pictures today show back alleys in the King Street West area yesterday.  I was in search of doors and chairs. The first picture is the remaining wall of a building under deconstruction/reconstruction. This is the alley-view of a second story door - I didn't go around to see the facade from the street view.  The door got my attention as it looks like a swing door.  What would have been on the second floor? These back alleys are grimy and gritty.  They don't get washed down like the sidewalks out front of commercial and retail stores.  At Yonge and Bloor, the gorgeous black granite sidewalk along Bloor Street got washed every morning before 7:30 as I was on my way to work. In the alleyways, back doors are open to the kitchens of restaurants.  Loud voices pour out, releasing the vitality and energy of the City.

On the Surface of Things

Whenever I go to conservatories and to Florida, I seem to take many pictures of the surface of palm branches, trunks, and other tropical plants.  They are unfamiliar and interesting.  They have so many patterns and designs.  Their textures are often in a horizontal pattern, compared to our northern trees which have more in the way of vertical patterns. Today we look at Palm patterns, with a Eucalyptus at the bottom.

One Down and One to Come

We made it to Autumn yesterday, and now right on its heels is a reminder from CNN on the Supermoon Eclipse this weekend. Super: What's better than a lunar eclipse? A big, fat supermoon eclipse. That's what the United States and much of the world will see Sunday night, when a big, bright moon -- or at least it appears that way because it will be closer to the Earth -- will be enveloped in a total lunar eclipse. This is the first time in 30 years we've had a supermoon-eclipse combo, and it won't happen again until 2033. So Sunday night step outside, look up and enjoy the show! Meanwhile, I was in Toronto yesterday at my hairdresser's.  This is Eve in her great outfit of zebra stripes and black and white patterns, posing for me as we did a bit of motion blur fun.