{"id":2016,"date":"2007-06-17T06:30:06","date_gmt":"2007-06-17T10:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=2016"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:04:39","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:04:39","slug":"the-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/06\/17\/the-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"The Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This picture was taken yesterday on the beach here in Malta (Golden Bay<\/a>, again). It could have just as easily been taken in Toronto though — poking through iPhoto I’ve got similar shots taken at Ashbridges and Hanlans Point beaches (Lake Ontario really does get Mediterranean blue sometimes). The beach, in general, is a curiously organic use of public space — maybe as close to squatting as most of us will ever come. You arrive, pick an empty spot, then make it yours for a few hours. All it takes is a towel on the sand to mark your space, and it will generally be respected by everybody else, except the kids who run and kick up sand, or the dudes and their elaborately kicked soccer balls (I don’t know how this little island can contain so much testosterone). I feel unusually safe on a beach too, leaving things in and around my towel when I go in the water that I’d never leave alone in any other public space (keys, cards, digital cameras — semi-hidden of course, but still alone). Maybe stupid, but I noticed everybody else did it too. And sometimes I’ll fall asleep, which I can’t imagine doing anywhere else public.<\/p>\n

I was using this old umbrella we have here — like many artifacts like it, nobody can remember where we got it, but it’s useful. Looking around at the other umbrellas, I realized they’ve all got a corporate name on them. Perhaps it’s ad-creep (it was good of the Heineken people to write their name both ways on the fringe, so you’ll always know the brand your projecting) but it helped make an even more formidably occupied space on the beach — my little house, albeit boozy looking. Some people, like the couple directly in front of me here, were listening to more of the omnipresent and generic Eurobeat that is everywhere here at an inconsiderate volume as they ate ice cream off of wooden sticks. It’s a matter of taste, sure, but if people must listen to amplified music on the beach they should stick to standards and classics (but not the lowest-common-denominator stuff), like the Swedish group behind me that sang along to Aretha Franklin in broken English. Even Bob Marley is tolerable at the beach. Life is too short, or something like that, for bad music.<\/p>\n

Unless the internet is lying to me, Toronto will be 28 degrees today and sunny. If you are wondering what to do with a lazy Sunday you should head down to the ferry docks, go over to Hanlans Point, and squat for the afternoon on the sand. The water is a bit warmer here, and it’s easier to float in than fresh water lake Ontario, but the experience is just about the same and it will likely be full of hundreds of people confirming Toronto has a beach culture as healthy as anything over here in the overly mythologized Mediterranean. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This picture was taken yesterday on the beach here in Malta (Golden Bay, again). It could have just as easily been taken in Toronto though — poking through iPhoto I’ve got similar shots taken at Ashbridges and Hanlans Point beaches (Lake Ontario really does get Mediterranean blue sometimes). The beach, in general, is a curiouslyContinue reading “The Beach”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21758,5],"tags":[6074,6069,28,6075,6071,5967,6070,6072,1182,1127,6073,636,21,19],"class_list":["post-2016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-waterfront","tag-aretha-franklin","tag-ashbridges-beach","tag-behaviour","tag-bob-marley","tag-digital-cameras","tag-golden-bay","tag-hanlans-point-beach","tag-heineken","tag-lake-ontario","tag-malta","tag-mediterranean","tag-ontario","tag-other-cities","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Beach - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/06\/17\/the-beach\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Beach - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This picture was taken yesterday on the beach here in Malta (Golden Bay, again). 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