Tag: Ontario

  • Monument to the War of 1812, Toronto, ON

    Monument to the War of 1812, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    War, huh, yeah!
    What is it good for?
    Absolutely nothing other than creating an awesome Big, uhh!

    War, ebony heartthrob Edwin Starr once sang, should be despised as it means the destruction of innocent lives. But war was also the inspiration for these remarkable Toy Soldiers, so I guess it’s not all bad.

    Officially known as Monument to the War of 1812, these sexy servicemen have turned the once-peaceful streets of Toronto into a battleground, and serve as a commentary of the infamous scuffle between the Yanks and the Poms.

    Canadian creative Douglas Coupland fashioned the piece after realising Southern Canadians (or Americans, as they like to be referred to these days) don’t mind rewriting history.

    “I’ve grown up and a lot of people have grown up thinking ‘Oh, Americans lost that one didn’t they?”‘ Coupland (Digital Orca; dozens of other artworks that aren’t oversized objects and so are of no interest to anyone) gabbled during the shrine’s unveiling in 2008.

    “But once I began getting involved in the project and doing research, I began noticing that the Americans are now starting to change history and they’re saying, ‘Well actually we won that,’ or, ‘Actually, we didn’t lose’ or whatever.

    “So it’s a war monument but it’s also an incitement for people to remember what’s going on in the present as well as the past.”

    Plus, they look really cool!

    Love is a battlefield

    Big Things are usually peaceful, contemplative creatures (with the obvious exception of Canada’s other giant toy soldier), so it was heartbreaking to find these two at each other’s throats. I mean, you’re hardly likely to see Pat the Dog curb stomping Bruno the Peacock, are you?

    Pleading with them to put their differences – and their bayonets – to one side in the name of love, I assured them that we’re all the same colour on the inside. It was a lie, because I’m all red and bloody and full of guts, and they’re made of off-white styrofoam, but I was willing to say anything to stop the fracas.

    I cradled the boys in my arms. Asked about their hopes and fears. Massaged their ceremonial bonnets. Normally I love a man in uniform, but this display of toxic masculinity was just too much. Nothing could stem the tide of unrestrained, bestial brutality.

    Unfortunately, bringing an end to war was too much for even me. Oh well, I might as well cancel my lunch with Vlad Putin and Volo Zelenskyy.

  • Immigrant Family, Toronto, Ontario

    Immigrant Family, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    They’re a weird mob, these immigrants. With their moon-shaped heads, olive skin and bizarre clothing, they just don’t look like us.

    And, of course, they’ve already had a baby! And the father’s wearing a tie, so he’s probably after jobs that the rest of us would never consider doing in the first place.

    Soon there’ll be so many immigrants that you won’t be able to walk through Toronto without bumping into a nine-foot bronze sculpture with a bulbous bonce.

    To my disgust, these were my first thoughts upon meeting the immaculate Immigrant Family. Sure, you could blame my upbringing in a dilapidated caravan, raised by my violent white supremacist step-brother Jeong-ho. But, really, that’s no excuse.

    Within moments of arriving in Ontario, I’d fallen victim to the siren song of a group of hatemongers, who surrounded the Immigrant Family to shower them with abuse. It was only as I prepared to hurl a tomato at the father’s oversized cranium that I realised I, too, was a stranger to this land.

    As an Australian confused by the silly-sausage customs of Canadians, I had more in common with the Immigrant Family than these unwashed, toothless, inbred, hockey-loving racists. I dropped the tomato and flung myself into the bosom of the family.

    “Guys, I know the intoxicating allure of bigotry can prove irresistible,” I told the baying mob. “But Otterness’ work recalls the experience of new immigrants to Canada, capturing their sense of wonder at seeing the city, while gently bringing them close together as they embark on their new life.”

    The hateful horde paused for a moment, taking in my heartfelt words, before one particularly unappealing xenophobe rose above the others.

    “Firstly, Bigs,” he hee-hawed, “you obviously stole that quote from an art website, and you’re better than that. Secondly, if you’re one of them dang immigrants, we’re gonna have to whoop ya.”

    And then, with my new family watching on, the terror began.

    Meet Tom Odderness… sorry, Tom Otterness… no, it’s definitely Tom Odderness

    Tom Otterness, the savant behind Immigrant Family, can best be described as a lunatic. Despite being one of America’s most prolific sculptors, with his work exhibited from New York to The Netherlands, he’s best known for shooting a dog in 1977.

    Frustrated by his inability to find acceptance in the dog-eat-dog world of contemporary art, a young Tom turned to shock tactics to gain attention. He tied a labradoodle to a tree, made sure his Fujifilm Super 8mm camera was rolling, and blasted the poor critter in the face with a Glock 43.

    These days that would gain him a cult following on Tik Tok, but in those less enlightened times was met by stunned silence. Disheartened, Tom skippered plans to film himself bonking a cow with a baseball bat, and left the lucrative world of animal snuff films forever.

    He turned to something even more disturbing – corporate art, financed by faceless megaconglomerates intent on ruling the world. Whilst his work has been called everything from flaccid to morally bankrupt, it did deliver us the Immigrant Family in 2007, and so what if we had to lose a few dogs along the way to get there.

    Meanwhile, back at the scene of the crime

    Having had their way with me, the white supremacists raced off to find another minority to oppress. Silence descended upon Toronto, and I lurched into the gentle embrace of the Family.

    As I snuggled in, my tears drying upon their rotund bodies, it became obvious that we spoke a common language; one of ambition and hope despite a lifetime of persecution and ridicule. Finally, after decades of searching, I’d found my tribe.

    “I love you, Mummy,” I chirped. “I love you, Daddy.” Time stood still as I waited for words of affirmation that never came. They just smiled into the distance, clutching their beloved baby. There was no room, it seemed, for one more son. I gathered the pieces of my shattered soul and staggered into the night.

    They didn’t beg me to come back. They never do. Although I’m not proud of it, I punched a street sign on my way home, breaking my hand in several places. The silver lining was that I was sequestered away to Toronto Women’s Hospital, where the service was exemplary – hi, Mahmoud!

    My tragic experience shouldn’t prevent you from visiting the Immigrant Family, however. They’re charming, huggable and extremely quirky.

    Just don’t get too attached. They’ll kick your hopes dreams into the gutter, and leave you guzzling Prosecco out of an ice cream container in a futile – and really quite destructive – attempt to dull the pain. Just let them go off and play happy families by themselves.

  • The Giant Picnic Table, Toronto, Ontario

    “Everybody Wants Big Things” by The Sit Remedy

    Everybody wants to eat something
    From the Giant Table’s top
    Everybody wants something
    They’ll try to climb it
    But never get up

    Everybody get ready
    With sandwiches and beer
    The Harbour Square sensation,
    The only and only
    Giant Picnic Table’s here

    Everybody face up to
    The facts as they are
    You have to seat it
    To believe it ‘cos it’s
    The size of a car!

    A word on Colin Hanks

    As you can see from these photos, I encountered popular character actor Colin Hanks during my time with the Giant Picnic Table. Colin, an affable fellow with a dry wit and an intoxicating aroma, often clambers atop the enormous wooden totem to meditate, but was pleased to have his peace disturbed by this lifelong fan.

    We subsequently spent several days exploring Toronto and each other, but Colin asked me to keep the details of our encounter to a minimum. Out of respect for him, I haven’t included the delightfully crude love heart with ‘Colin Hanks 4 Bigs Bardot 4 Eva’ that he inscribed on one corner of the table.

    If you want to see it, you’ll just have to go there yourself.

  • Uniform Measure/STACK, Toronto, Ontario

    Uniform Measure/STACK, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Sew, you want to visit Toronto’s most fashionable tourist attraction? Then it’s thimble – oops, I mean simple! Pop over to the corner of Richmond and Spadina, where you’ll find Uniform Measure/STACK, a three-metre-tall Big Thimble that seams too good to be true.

    Needles to say, you’ll have a great time!

    This zany bunch of buttons and bits and bobs was patched together by the ever-trendy Stephen Cruise, who wanted to celebrate the area’s stitch – oops, I mean rich! – fabric and textile history.

    “Making a garment draws back to one’s hands,” the ‘Cruise Missile’ claimed in a very bobby pin-teresting article. “It’s choosing the thimble and choosing the buttons and hand sewing, so I tried to keep the tools as simple as possible.”

    The bonkers monument may soon be the only sign of the area’s industrial past. The factories and sweatshops have been torn down, replaced by co-working spaces for so-called digital nomads who sit, frappe in hand, slaving away on text for websites that will barely be read and certainly not appreciated.

    “As much as the street signs have the additional text to them, saying ‘fashion district’, in another short period of time it’s going to be just a memory. So the stacking of the buttons and placing the thimble atop it, there was this thought that I was creating a memory. So it’s evidence of what once was a colourful past.

    “It really was not the beginning of an industry,” the maestro pronounced, “but the signing off of it.”

    I think you’ll agree it’s a knitting – oops, I mean fitting! – tribute

    A Thimble of Hope

    After spending years roaming the area’s abandoned textile mills in search of inspiration, Mister Cruise finalised his bizarre design and found a location for the five-tonne behemoth. “That’s the only position on that little triangle of land that that amount of weight can fit,” the artiste thread – oops, I mean said!

    The project took 18 long months to complete, and faced cost blowouts due to the ambitious nature of the work. So Doctor Cruise, like many artists before him, took up work in a nearby steel foundry to pay for it.

    For months he slaved away in the oppressive heat, sweat pouring down his brow until his muscles rippled like those of a Greek god. Side-by-chiselled-side with a foundry full of handsome, masculine, frustrated steel workers, each brawny and brave, many with long beards and even longer stories to tell, this sculptor-turned-sculpted sex symbol forged steel as he forged lifetime friendships.

    One sweltering afternoon, when the fiery furnace burned so fiercely that the men were forced to strip to the waist as they grappled with a particularly strenuous task… [alright, alright, that’s enough! Bigs kept going on with this for almost 3000 words and entered some very troubling territory, so I had to give him a good dressing gown – oops, I mean dressing down! Let’s just keep going – ed].

    In return for his hard work, Professor Cruise was able to forge the thimble and buttons out of 28 separate sections of brass. His outlandish masterpiece was formally handed over to the people of Toronto in 1997, which gar-meant a lot to all involved.

    “It’s great that they’ve embraced it,” Lord Cruise tapestry-vealed, “and it’s become part of their neighbourhood.”

    Alright, I’m out of material – hope you enjoyed my yarn about the weird and wonderful Uniform Measures/STACK!

  • Wally the Walnut, Toronto, Ontario

    Wally the Walnut, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Hey you! Yeah, you, reading this! You belong in the nuthouse!

    Tee-hee, don’t worry, the inimitable Bigs Bardot hasn’t gone mad and resorted to cyber bullying. I’m merely suggesting that you visit the Nuthouse food emporium in Toronto’s eclectic West End. There you’ll find a wondrous walnut large enough to feed a family of chipmunks for a year.

    Wally, as he’s known to the ragtag bunch of office monkeys, social media influencers, hobos and Big Thing fanatics who meander past him every day, is certainly worth pecan at. You might even want to pop by during the evening to bid him goodnut. Pistachi-Ontarians have, understandably, gone nuts for Wally, but I guess that’s one of the perks of being a walnut.

    Sorry, that was a bit acorn-y! I remember when I was a serious writer, at the top of my field, and didn’t have to resort to tired old puns. I hope to legume my career one day – ha!

    Nut wait, there’s more!

    The health food store sitting beneath Wally’s pert rump offers a sumptuous selection of dried fruits, cakes and juices to please even the most punctilious of palettes.

    Feeling a little peckish, I opted for a bag of the Nuthouse’s famous Margueretta Martian mixed nuts. The lavish ensemble of almonds, sultanas and, of course, walnuts proved to be both noroushing and extremely moreish.

    Unfortunately I have a severe nut allergy and spent the next week clinging to life in the well-appointed Toronto Western Hospital. The room service, however, was attentive and tender (hi, Mike!), and the movie selection surprisingly varied, so I don’t regret my decision at all.

    Alright, you nutter, I’ll cashew later!