While we at Spacing are about to launch our 10th issue next week, the literary magazine named after one of Toronto’s lost creeks is celebrating their 10th Anniversary tonight with the launch of their Christmas 2007 issue. Though it is only the most random of coincidences that the Spacing launch at the Berkeley Church is located above Taddle Creek, we give all props and praise due to this fellow Toronto magazine and encourage folks to support it.
When: Wednesday, November 28th 8pm
Where: Gladstone Hotel ballroom
Yes, it’s true: Taddle Creek is turning ten. Never one to rest on its laurels, the magazine has assembled the most incredible, all-new, giant-sized, amazing anniversary issue ever seen in the history of Toronto literary magazines.
Ever-so-brief readings will be performed by Gary Barwin, Chris Chambers, Dani Couture, Patrick Rawley, and David Whitton, with music by the Eradicators. There will also be door prizes, and maybe cake. Admission, as always, is free, free, free. But until then, please enjoy this sneak peek of the magazine’s postage-metre-breaking upcoming anniversary issue here.
Though Taddle Creek mainly focuses on fiction and poetry, their newly redesigned website contains an archive of much of their ten year accumulation of content, including Alfred Holden’s essays on Toronto. Holden’s essays are some of the best pieces of writing ever done on this city. “Dupont at Zenith” was required reading of anybody who spent extended time at my old apartment on Dupont at Spadina — it was the quickest way to understand where we were and what that place meant. Holden made my dowdy street seem noble and mythic. I read many of the other essays (listed below) before there were such things as [murmur] or Spacing, when I was new to this city. Along with Ninjalicious’s Infiltration zine, these essays are one of the first things I found that looked at and explored Toronto in a way that satisfied the innate curiosity I had about this place.
Are you “Modern” or “Borax”? How John and Joanne Brook and their furniture store pulled Toronto into a new age.
Dupont at Zenith: An overdue memorial to the forgotten achievements of Toronto’s twentieth-century avenue of enterprise.
Fake Authenticity: The de-evolution of Toronto’s street signs attempts to showcase their majestic past, but instead displays an uninspired future. (Photos by Holden, text by Conan Tobias)
The Forgotten Stream: Or is it? Taddle Creek, once the pride of the University of Toronto’s landscape, may be poised for a comeback.
Plastic Patches and Cat’s Eyes: Like most cities, Toronto embraced progress and the motor age. Unlike most, it had doubts.
The Playground War: “Danger!,†screamed the school trustees, as they tore down the monkey bars.
This Fabulous Place: You wouldn’t think an aging apartment house as a good place to put down roots. Think again.
This Once-Fabulous Place: How a landlord’s lack of vision led to the destruction of one of Toronto’s great architectural monuments.
Those Were the Days: Despite his passing, Uno Prii’s philosophy of city living lives on in the apartment houses he left behind.
Pillar of Community: Jane Jacobs persuaded us to rethink cities. Her new book warns us to rethink societies, or else.
