Flags at half-mast for Tumbler Ridge

 

The flags of Canada, Ontario, the municipality and Franco-ontarians at half-mast near Alexandria, Ontario, in memory of the eight victims of a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. 

Miyo

Miyo Takeda (1983-2025), Toronto, July 30, 1998. We were shopping for a camera and I suggested she get this Olympus Stylus. It was rugged and weather resistant and had a fast 2.8 lens for candid photography. In my Plymouth Neon.

I thought I'd look up a friend I hadn't seen in years. The first thing I found was her obituary in the Toronto Star from a few days before. "No, it can't be the same person," I thought, but it was. I met Miyo at Canzine 1997 in Toronto, when she was 14. She did 'zines and organized music shows and later worked in art galleries and became a landscape architect for the city of Vancouver.

She lived in a rough part of Toronto - when I parked nearby, a prostitute came up to my car. When her dad had painted a door that he'd taken off the hinges and left it outside to dry, someone stole it. We both wondered what kind of market there was for a stolen used door.

We drove to the Beach (Beaches District in Toronto) and she noticed that there were very few black people there, something I, being white, didn't notice!

She used to work at an ice cream stand at Harbourfront. She told me she stole from the till and I wondered how she did it, and she showed me - she just pocketed some change and never got caught! "So how are you avoiding not having to shower with several heavily tattooed women, all named Butch?" I asked, and she deadpanned "Hello, Cutie!" in a butch voice, and said the owner just didn't pay that much attention to what was going on. A few years on, I saw her walking down Queen Street West, a club scene in Toronto, in a beautiful outfit and six inch platform shoes with a guy from CFNY, the hip radio station. 

She suffered from depression and was on paxil even in her teens.

 

Music Master Radio Reproducer

 I thought it was a fake antique! It is a real speaker that would attach to a radio. It was made sometime between 1924 and 1926 by the Music Master Corporation, 10th and Cherry Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, previously called Geraco and General Radio Corporation. The bell is made of mahogany strips and it has a heavy base of iron and the driver seems to be aluminum and steel. Retailed originally at 35 US.

.

Links:

https://newsm.org/wireless/geraco-music-master-radio-reproducer/

One for sale for 1595!

Interesting article about getting it to work with a modern amp by increasing the impedance to 600 Ohms

Snow horses outside the Riverview Group Home, Cornwall, Ontario

Beautiful snow horses outside the Riverview Group Home, Cornwall, Ontario.

 

Pussyhat abandoned

Pussyhat with the word "Justice" on band. Pussyhats were created by feminists to protest Donald Trump's election in 2016. This was in the door vestibule at a Value Village - Maybe someone dropped it and someone else put it in the window.

 

Bulk Carrier CSL Welland uses searchlight to navigate St. Lawrence

Bulk Carrier CSL Welland uses searchlight to navigate St. Lawrence near Akwesasne on its way to Toronto. The Seaway has remained open past its usual closing date in early January because early ice has slowed down shipping. January 10, 2026, 11.00 PM

 

Hogmanay 2025

 Hogmanay celebrations at the Glengarry, Nor'Westers and Loyalist Museum, Williamstown, Ontario.

Horses and carriage, Neil Emberg plays 'Black Velvet Band', a tune popularized by The Irish Rovers.