Posts in Category: Toronto
Late Winter / Early Spring in Toronto
***your phone will crush these photos-this will look much better on a laptop***
It’s been a long time….
…since I have put up any pictures. I have been taking pictures but very few seem worth sharing.
Day to day, I walk the same familiar paths and see the same things over and over. I pass by the same trees, the same houses and the same streets with the same stores. Walks through nature become routine as well, especially during winter when almost nothing changes. When you experience the same things over and over, they lose their impact and you kind of stop seeing them altogether.
This makes me think of my last trip to Tokyo where everything was new and everything that I saw was interesting and beautiful in some way. It was so easy to take pictures and the pictures themselves were so absorbing. When it came time to post up the days’ travel diary, I had a hard time choosing between the photos.
The Tokyo natives must have thought i was insane, photographing every vending machine and bicycle and sewer cover! But, I think the same thing when I see tourists in Toronto taking pictures of black squirrels and pigeons and geese. Why are they taking pictures of such ordinary things?
The normal Tokyo things were interesting to me because they were unexpected. And so, they sparked that wonder and excitement that only new things can. Like hearing a new song or meeting a new love.
I haven’t travelled in well over a year and I think that partially explains my lack of inspiration. I have been too lazy to put in the effort to look at my own environment from a new perspective. Just like relationships with people, your relationship to your home environment takes effort and imagination to keep it fresh and engaging. Comfort and familiarity are important but almost never inspire creativity and passion. You need to find a balance by looking at your familiar home with fresh eyes and an open mind, experience it in some new way. This article is an exploration of that idea.
Photographer as witness…
Sometimes things just happen in the environment and they are so unusual and striking that no effort is needed to get a good image. This winter, some weird weather made for good pictures. I was happy that, for a change, we had a little more snow than usual and a couple of really powerful snowstorms. The first one was such a white-out that I didn’t even take my camera with me when I went out in it.
Sometime towards the end of winter, there was one unusually hot day. Suddenly, the temperature was close to 20c while there was still deep snow everywhere. This hot, wet air crept over the cold snow and set a thick layer of fog low to the ground. In the cemetery, where the snow never gets cleared, the fog was especially thick and eerie.
The last big snow…
Spring arrives in full colour….
This spring has been mostly cool and wet with a few big blue sky sunny days. Toronto is a city that can go from winter to summer in a very short time: one week you are shovelling snow and the next week you are sweating buckets while stuffing the air conditioner back into the window. So it has been nice to see a cold and snowy winter followed by the slow and steady warm-up of spring.
Spring trip to Leslie Spit
Tommy Thompson Park on the Leslie Spit is a natural wonder of Toronto and an urban wildlife sanctuary. It is made entirely of rubble, cement, brick, tile, metal rebar and other construction/destruction detritus from Toronto’s development. Nature has gradually taken over and thrived along this area of the lakeshore. I won’t go into it too deeply here but, if you are interested in reading more about this area, I wrote about it in this article last year.
About looking at familiar things from a different perspective…
Yesterday was a grey, cloudy and cool day. I set my mind to going out and making some spring photos around Evergreen Brickworks park, a place that I have walked around and photographed hundreds of times. Everyone thinks of spring as a time of renewed colour with trees and bushes flowering out and halo of bright green in the forest canopy. After seeing the above pictures, I thought it would be an interesting challenge to try to capture spring in black and white.
I love going to Brickworks often but I really felt like I had photographed everything I wanted to. So…I knew that this would be difficult and I would have to try hard to look at things with a fresh perspective. Here is what I got…
The idea for the next photos came to me in the moment and they are a perfect example of trying to see ordinary and familiar things from a new perspective:
I am not going to say anything about them other than they are some of the best photos I have taken recently.
When I got home to look at these, I wasn’t sure what I would find. So often, I go out and capture what I think will be good images only to be disappointed in the result. Not this time. This last handful of pictures make me really happy. I thought really hard about how to take a dreary day by the water and turn it into some compelling shots.
I came to the realization that while sometimes the world just hands over great images to capture, other times, you have to turn the world on it’s head to find them. In these photos, I consciously tried to see things in a different way, photograph things that I would normally pass by and photograph them in a way that I have never done before.
If you think you know how the last group of photos were made, please leave a comment below. There are definitely hints in the photos (and text). If you guess right, I will buy you a Pocari Sweat next time I see you.
If you enjoy the content and would like to contribute towards website maintenance and development, you can make a donation here. As always, thank you for reading TigerSalad.
Expensive Pencil
I like to write with a pencil.
I like the way a pencil feels warm between your finger tips and resting in the crook of your thumb. When I write with a pencil, I feel resistance. Pencils push back a little. They let you know that you are not alone in your writing or sketching. They are right there with you.
In contrast, ball point pens feel slippery to me, like walking on wet ice. My writing is naturally sloppy so a pencil slows me down enough to keep the letters a little more legible. I also think pencils smell good and I enjoy sharpening them to a fine point.
There is a lot to like about a pencil.
Stationary Shops
I find it hard to walk by stores that sell writing tools without going in to have a quick look around. Even though the feature displays of high end fountain pens are beautiful, I immediately gravitate towards the pencils. And sharpeners. And erasers with all their different materials and colours and stickinesses. White polymer is my favourite. It cleans up my messes the best and it has a chewy texture that I like, softer than the raspy pink ones.
Today I found myself in the Junction area of Toronto where I was surprised to find 3 well stocked stationary and art supply stores within 2 blocks. They all had a great selection of writing tools and very little overlap between them.
In the last shop I visited, I found a pencil that I had to bring home. It’s this one:
There wasn’t a price on it so I brought it up to the cash register to see. I found out that it cost around 2 dollars. TWO DOLLARS!! This is a Tombow brand pencil, made in Japan by a small factory. The barrel is cedar, the graphite core is the highest quality, and it is finished with more than a few coats of rich black lacquer. There is even a cute silver dragonfly embossed onto the barrel (Tombow means dragonfly in Japanese). This pencil is a skillfully made tool and it is a pleasure to write with. It makes rich, dark and consistent lines without excessive pressure. It is perfect. And it costs 2 dollars!
Think about what else you can buy for 2 dollars…
Nothing…you can’t buy anything for 2 dollars. Not even a bag of chips. Not even at the “dollar” store.
I left the stationary shop with my brand new shiny black-lacquered Japanese-made super-high quality cedar-barrelled premium graphite-stuffed cute dragonfly-embossed pencil feeling pretty good about myself. I knew that I got an amazing deal.
What can you do with a 2 dollar premium-grade pencil?
- draw a picture of your cat.
- write down something that you know you will forget (make a memory out of paper, as an elementary school teacher once told me).
- write a poem about something that took your breath away.
- write a love letter to a person you have been thinking about non-stop to the point that the rest of your life has ground to a complete halt.
- take out a pad of paper and write a message to the person sitting next to you on the subway…you KNOW that they are reading over your shoulder. Make them smile.
- leave a note to your partner (or your parents!) before you leave the house telling them how important they are to you.
- write a paper letter to someone. Nothing in the digital world can touch the intimacy of pencil (or ink) on paper. Instant gratification in nearly every aspect of our lives has all but erased the joy of discovery, the excitement of anticipation. Imagine the thrill and surprise of finding a handwritten letter addressed to you in your mailbox.
- make a list of things that you want to do…things that will make your life richer.
- make of list of things you never want to do…this kind of list is also surprisingly helpful.
- you could write a long letter to someone explaining why you have to leave them. A pencil can break somebody’s heart too.
- the list goes on and on
That seems like a lot of joy, a lot of potential, a lot of power for 2 dollars…
Yes, of course, you can do a lot of these things on your computer or phone BUT…they will soon get lost and forgotten among all the other junk on there.
A warning I found on the Tombow Pencil website:
I think this is a direct translation from Japanese:
In elementary school I seem to remember more than one kid that got stabbed in the hand with a pencil by a pissed off classmate. Maybe it was just my school… maybe Tombow knows something about this too. Anyways…boys will be boys etc…
Tombow Pencil Company Limited seems to recognize the power of their product…. here is a link to their website if you want to check out their super-pencils.
A scientific case for pencil use
I recently read a study that looked at dementia in very old people. Specifically, it looked for commonalities among seniors who have managed to maintain perfect brain function even though they are well on their way to 100 years of age. Across all cultures, across all socio-economic backgrounds, looking at everything from education to physical fitness to diet, there was only one thing that all of these sharp minded ancient people had in common: Every single one of them wrote by hand, everyday. Diaries, letters, notes…whatever. Pencil or pen on paper. Thoughts and ideas…flow through complex muscle movements in the arms and hands coordinated with vision to make written language on paper. Powerful.
Happy writing!
If you would like to visit the shop where I got this pencil, check them out here: Articulations.
If you enjoy reading this stuff or find the recipes useful and would like to contribute towards website maintenance and development, you can make a donation here. Thank you for reading TigerSalad.
Winter Solstice
The shortest day
December 21st is the shortest day of the year. Daylight shrinks to barely 9 hours with sunrise just before 8 am and sunset just before 5 pm. I know I am not the only one who feels the weight of this time of year. Many people I know seem to enter some kind of seasonal depression, sometimes (but not always) tempered by Christmas festivities.
Toronto is a lovely city for the three warmer seasons but not so much in winter. From now until spring the sun rarely shines and the occasional bright morning inevitably turns to gloom by the afternoon. Most years, there is not much snow in the city and winter temperatures tend to fluctuate above and below the freezing point. Snow quickly melts into salty, grimy pools that later freeze into sheer ice. Sometime in the new year, Toronto enters a deep freeze that lasts anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of months. These cold days can bring sunlight but it doesn’t last for long and the city soon sinks back into murky grey.
When traveling, sometimes people ask me what Toronto winter is like. I am sure they are imagining crisp cold air and bright blue skies meeting a sparkling white horizon. I am always a little sad to tell them that, at least where I live, it is mostly salt crusted dirty streets, grey days and long dark nights.
Winter Blues (except when it snows)
Even though I live in this colourless city, I can still enjoy winter. The cold doesn’t bother me, and of all the natural phenomenon in the world, I am always deeply moved by the magic of a big snowfall. Every time. I love the way it mutes the city noise and how it transforms the urban landscape into something soft and beautiful. I can’t think of too many things that make me happier. Unfortunately, it doesn’t usually last very long before the next melt cycle.
Deep in the typical gloom of Toronto winter, I have a hard time seeing anything that I want to photograph and writing becomes a lot more difficult. Creativity shrinks back. I tend to retreat into reading books, watching films, listening to and learning music and language studies. A lot of input, not much output.
From spring to fall I was writing on here at least once every two weeks and I had so many pictures that I sometimes had trouble organizing them. Lately I have been doing less creative writing. And I have not wanted to pick up my camera as much but, I have taken a few pictures that I like. I will post them up here with no other purpose than sharing a few good, mostly unrelated, shots.
2025 in review
For a long time, I had planned to take a year off from work and 2025 was it. Originally I thought I would get right into planning my next career move but, instead, I was flooded by the desire to create and to learn. Not in any organized way…just to follow threads as they appeared and to accept and act on ideas and inspiration without any resistance and with the least amount of judgement possible. The result was a ton of writing.
This website started as a travel diary for an early spring trip to Japan and Korea that I took with my daughter. Sick of all the trash and advertising on social media, I thought this would be a fun alternative. In the end, it became something I loved doing and something I am quite proud of. I still revisit the trip quite often. The photos are good and the articles are fun and pretty well written.
When I got back, I wanted to keep writing and TigerSalad became a place for me to document photo projects, recipes, articles, ideas and sounds…all things I used to dump (in some compromised way) onto social media. On here, I rarely involve my phone and I can write as much or as little as I like. To date, I have written over 70 articles.
Surprisingly, TigerSalad has done ok. I get a decent amount of traffic and I know that the people who are visiting are interested in what I am doing rather than getting directed here by some stupid algorithm . I don’t link ads or pop-ups and so, I make zero income from it. Fine with me! Instead, I have a discreet donation link where people can send me some dollars which I put into website maintenance if they enjoy the articles. Even though I had zero expectations, a few generous amounts came through in the first few days. Thank you!!
On top of those 70 or so website entries, I have been doing other writing on the side. I have started some long form fiction (in other words, a book). Whether or not it ever gets finished or sees the light of day is not so important to me. I just enjoy writing it and learning about the inner lives of my characters as they unfold. I like the people in the story. They make me laugh and I care about them and I want to know what happens next. That is enough for now.
In the last few months, I have also picked up a few paid jobs doing copy writing: captions for social media projects and website copy. I really enjoy this work. I will labour for hours choosing the sharpest word, the most effective sentence, the most concise and economical phrase where necessary. To me it is like solving a puzzle. I love it. And, I do it all facing my big windows with a hot coffee and a sleeping cat on my desk. It is like a dream and I wish I could keep doing it. Let’s see what happens…
Christmas is coming…
I have a few close friends who are sincere Christians with a strong connection to their church and community. Christmas has a deep spiritual meaning for them. It is a time for celebration. The effort and joy that they put into this season is awe inspiring. It is fun to witness and some of their energy definitely rubs off on me.
As for me, I was mostly raised without any religion. Czechs, along with Japanese and Chinese are among the worlds least religious people. My family never went to church and religion was never a topic of conversation. Christmas was important but it centered entirely around family.
When I was very young, my parents (barely 20 years old) were new immigrants to Canada with no family here at all. I don’t remember too much of those days. I think our Christmases were probably more like house parties with lots of music, drinking and smoking with me sleeping in a pile of fur coats on a bed somewhere. But, over the next few years, my family began to grow as my parents began sponsoring their brothers and sisters to move to Canada.
At some point in my early adolescence, our family was suddenly huge. Aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, everyone gathered at our house for the Christmas season. For around a week between Christmas and New Years Day, our house was packed with aunties cooking and baking and uncles smoking and drinking and talking non stop. Food was everywhere. People slept over and stayed for days. One meal would blend into the next. Endless packs of cigarettes would burn to ash over hours and hours of card playing and laughter. To me, it was heaven. I can’t remember a time when I felt more warmth and happiness.
Of course, as years pass, time takes its toll and my once huge family Christmas has all but disappeared. Death, disease, divorce and relocation for work have all played a part in chipping away at the giant celebration of the past. These days, Christmas is always coloured with a little sadness. I miss that huge family made up of the people I have loved the most. I especially miss my uncles who have died, the ones who worked awful jobs and had nothing, but would still manage to tuck a few hundred dollar bills into my pocket every Christmas. XOXOXOXO.
These days, my family is very small. Still… we have our Christmas rituals, we eat our turkey dinner, exchange a few gifts and enjoy the love and warmth of the season. We are lucky to be able to do so. Although Christmas arrives with a little sadness and a little loneliness, I still look forward to it and feel fortunate to spend the hours with people that I love. Merry Christmas!
Best Christmas Song: “The Christmas Song” Nat King Cole (chestnuts roasting on an open fire..)
Best Christmas Food: Turkey (brined)! Stuffing (must have bacon or sausage)! Cranberries!
Best Christmas Movie: “2046” Wong Kar Wai. Not exactly a Christmas movie but a lot of its key moments happen at Christmas. It is really my favourite movie. I watch it once a year at night on the 25th.
Upcoming Projects
Although I haven’t posted up anything lately, I have been busy photographing and documenting a few fermentation projects. My apartment is cool in winter so it is a perfect time for long ferments. I have a batch of 2 stage makgeolli (Korean rice alcohol) that is almost done. A detailed recipe with tons of pictures and sounds will go up soon. I will also be fermenting pears, first into alcohol and then into vinegar. This will take well over a month but it is in the works.
TigerSalad has a fair amount of recipes and I use them all the time. Originally, I had recipes scribbled down all over the place on loose paper and the backs of receipts etc… I started putting the recipes on here because I wanted to make an online cookbook for myself so I can have everything in one place. I really dislike cooking from videos, and most online recipes have too much filler and way too many ads and pop ups. My recipes are designed to be clear and logical, with lots of photos to make even complicated things doable. Try them…they work.
Winter Photos
I hope it snows soon. Big snow. Lots of it. I am looking forward to getting out in the city with my camera and capturing Toronto in some of its handsome winter moments. Like this one in St James Town last year:
Big City Winter Survival Tips:
1-Go outside! It’s not as cold as you think and the more you go out the more you will get used to it. There is lots of oxygen and less pollution in heavy cold winter air. It is energizing.
2-Don’t try to look cool or fashionable in winter. Just dress up in warm layers of clothes. Unless you are very wealthy, it is hard to be warm and look cool at the same time. Just give up!
Happy holidays from TigerSalad! See you soon with a home made booze recipe just in time for New Years!
If you have any comments, questions or suggestions please leave them below. I look forward to hearing from you. It is the only way I know you have been here…other than vague stats from Google : )
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