48 Hours in Toronto

Saturday morning saw me on the bike down to the "Coffee Tree" streetside patio, New Yorker in hand. It's become a bit of a routine of late, and it takes the edge off that first few hours after waking up when you can't seem to make the voices stop. I read Goptnik's "Letter From Canada" on Ignatieff, sipping my Kenya Dark and watching his descriptions of Canada, and of Toronto, stroll past. The annual Bloor West Ukranian Festival was sprouting up around me, grizzled carnies bolting an ageing ferris wheel together, morning jog-niks puffing their way along the sidewalk past shuffling pensioners, bright-eyed dogs tied to parking signs waiting patiently for owners, and, out in the back alleyway, where I'd locked up my bike, a group of dark-haired girls in embroidered dresses rehearsing their act, singing and swaying in unison, their hands holding imaginary microphones. A family of Mexicans were setting up their roasted corn stall next to some chiseled, Slavic boys arranging a table of CDs for sale. I finished my coffee and my article and reluctantly cycled home to burn some archives.

17 straight days of sunshine at the end of an all-too-short summer can put a serious crimp in your ability to get things done. At least the things that require being inside. I was back at the festival by 4pm, having spent all the time I could stand in front of the LCDs in the living room. At the corner of Windermere Road and Bloor Street, in front of the Bank of Montreal, I was stopped dead for an hour, leaning on my bike, listening to a group of five immigrant kids play. Two violins, a bouzouki, a hammered dulcimer, a cello, and a dusty upright bass drum with a bent, tarnished cymbal bolted to the top of it. Military haircuts, aviator sunglasses, ripped vests and tattered punk rock t-shirts topped poofy Cossack pants and knee-high black leather boots.

Gusto, it seems, is in direct relationship to cold temperatures, political oppression, and poverty. The forward urgency of white folk music, that accent on the two and four, makes you lean into it, like careening down a steep hill in a shopping cart.

I ate a plate of pirogies, mainly out of a sense of occasion. Grilled onions and sour cream pooled into an auburn sludge around gummy, doughy lumps. Cold temperatures, political oppression and poverty, while producing thoroughly invigorating music, do not generate cuisine.

The large stage at Jane and Bloor was filled with folk dancers. Like so many other throwback traditions, the demure and prettily dressed women tip-toed about in sync, with sheepish smirks, as one by one, the men jumped forward to throw themselves about, squatting and kicking, spinning and lurching; displaying their maleness. Old and young clapped and bounced; those with the most recent memories sang along to ancient words.

Back at the house, I played a short, but entertaining game of "Risk" with Thorsten, Dirk's eleven-year-old son, and Robbie, the Trinidadian neighbour's son, who is in his first year of Philosophy at York U. At about eleven-thirty, the game pretty much a foregone conclusion, Robbie and I decided to go down to the Lula Lounge at Bloor and Dufferin for "Salsa Saturday" so that I could watch the band, and he could try to pick up girls. "I'd invite my friends." Said Robbie. "But I think they'd be weirded out that I was hanging out with an old guy. No offence."

I like him.

On our bikes in the crisp early fall air down to Lula. The place doesn't look like much from the outside. In fact, it is rather ominous, and smacks of back alley drug deals and broken-bottle skirmishes. But inside it is the best salsa club in the city. "I want to take lessons" said Robbie as we walked in. A great band; killer conga, just-off-the beat, make you want to jump timbale, and oh-so-sweet three-part Latin harmonies. The dance floor was an amusing mix of the talented, the sexy, and the stiff, the latter looking more closely at their feet than their partners. There are times when I am quite happy to be alone, watching. But everyone should have someone to dance with.

Sunday morning was shopping for vegetables and fruit. Another glorious, sunny day, I decided to head to Kensington Market. While the Village has exactly the same supplies, it was too beautiful out not to find an excuse to cycle the extra few kilometres. A warm poppyseed bun from Anna's bakery and a chunk of Old Dutch Master Gouda later, I was woefully unprepared for the bike home, two cloth bags stuffed with honeydew, Paula reds, broccoli, sweet potatoes, a football-sized pineapple and twelve limes. My neck is still killing me, and at one point, just turning off Spadina onto Dundas, I shouted obscenities as my wobbly progress was halted by a delivery van squeezing me between it's white panelled side and a parked pickup truck.

I needed boxes, and recordable CDs, so I dumped my bounty on the kitchen table and cycled north to Keele and St. Clair, where the Big Box Stores sprawl next to the railroad tracks. Feeling peckish on the tool home, and realizing that it was nigh-on suppertime now, I ducked into Pho'ga Bahn C'uon, a five-table Vietnamese restaurant in a sketchy strip mall on the north side of St. Clair at Runnymede, about a six-minute bike from home. A pot of tea was, as always, plunked down on my table, and a small piece of paper and a pencil added next to it atop the menu. Numbers and letters are the universal form for ordering food, when the language barrier is an issue. I ordered a medium bowl of tripe pho ( B5; $5), a glass of fresh coconut juice (D7; $1.50), and a Vietnamese shrimp pancake (Banh tom chien; C6; $4.25). You've all had pho; it's one of those comfort foods that you yearn for. The perfect, classic Asian mix of sweet, salty, sour and spicy. But it was the Banh tom chien that amazed me. A large plate was placed in front of me, with a yellow, half-moon pillow settled amongst crisp romaine lettuce, and piles of fresh herb leaves, both licorice-tinged Thai basil, and pineapple sage - the fuzzy, serrated leaves, with their bitter edge and sweet, aromatic finish. Cutting into the pillow, which crunched gloriously and puffed steam, the inside was a heady mix of bean sprouts, pink shrimp, and grilled pork. What you do is this: take a large leaf of romaine, place a good-sized hunk of the pancake on it, drizzle with nuoc cham sauce, throw a few leaves of basil and sage on it, wrap the whole thing up into a parcel, and devour it over your bowl of steaming pho, so as not to get the dribblings on the table. Three kinds of crunchy; crisp lettuce, fried coconut batter, and fresh bean sprouts meet the fibrous chew of shrimp and pork, the floral nose of fresh herbs and the hot/sweet tang of nuoc cham and fiery red chilies.

In one ear, on the radio Rex Murphy was waxing on about Swine Flu on "Cross Country Checkup" with a caller from Winnipeg. In the other, the high-pitched chatter and joyous slurping of Vietnamese families. I scooped the last of my shaved coconut out of the glass with a spoon, and waddled out to unlock the bicycle. A little Asian man stormed out of the dry cleaners next door, and, as much as an Asian man can be red-faced, screamed at me about locking my bike to his stand-alone sign in the parking lot. "3 Shrts Five Dollrs. Carpt Cleaning". Two Rastas, clandestinely drinking malt liquor from paper bags in front of the Jamaican patty shop, chuckled.

I wandered the Ukranian Festival for awhile again before deciding that I really ought to get some sleep.

Oh Canada
Our home, adopted land
True patient love
In everyone's command

With glowing hearts
we see thee rise
the true north, strong and free

From far and wide
Oh Canada
We stand on guard for thee

We'll keep our land
Glorious and free
Oh Canada, we stand on guard for thee