28 February 2018 – I emerge onto Bloor St. West from the rapid transit link between the airport and downtown Toronto, and start to laugh. Right there on that busy sidewalk, with traffic whooping by in the railway underpass.
“Hello TDOT,” I say to myself, and take the photo.
A whole riot of street art, running through the underpass. Definitely Toronto. (And thank you Barb, for this bit of local slang: Toronto aka T.O.; i.e. tee-dot-oh-dot; thus TDOT.)
That’s yesterday.
Today I’m walking around a bit of Riverdale, mostly on Pape between The Danforth and Gerrard. And yessir, TDOT just keeps kicking up more street art.
A fish threatens to swallow a phone box …
and he might as well, having already swallowed the phone.
A car makes a coffee-brake, right over the Schmooz café …
which I extra-love, since I made that same coffee brake pun in a post last October.
A guy eats an ice-cream cone, and clearly doesn’t like the taste …
which is fair enough, since the owner of this now-closed corner store has pinned a furious handwritten note to his store door, making clear he really doesn’t like the graffito.
On the other hand, a very spiffy meat & deli shop just south of Danforth not only accepts the mural on its side wall …
but the owner probably commissioned it, since it bears his store name in bold block caps.
About face, I’m heading south again. Some homeowner loves poppies, right there on his front porch.
Maybe painted them himself? (Or herself, come to that.)
Monkeys on a utility box, beside the Lucky Coin Laundry …
and, under the laundry’s neon logo, a beautiful poem by 14h-c. Persian poet Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz.
Forget washing your clothes! It’s dog-wash time at the Fur Factory …
and, if you get close to that vertical line of thumbnail images, cats are also acknowledged.
Another dog under the adjacent Atomic Age comix store, looking back in some amazement — as well he might — at the red techno-monster behind him. And robot dog.
It’s cat-and-dog time farther south as well.
Be sure to read both signs …
and if you think the second one says, “Beware of the dog,” read it again.
I know. I had to read it twice myself.
Your reward for close scrutiny is …
a flower.
Tacked to a utility pole that has clearly had many other things tacked to it in its time.
But none as pretty, I bet.
