It’s been 30 years since the “snowstorm of the century,” with traffic snarled, flights grounded, and the army called in to bail residents out.

By the end of 24 hours, some 35 centimetres of snow had accumulated, bringing the city to a standstill.

Wait, just 35 centimetres? That’s far short of the 46 centimetres that fell at Pearson Airport on Sunday, and the 60-odd centimetres dumped downtown – for which we did not call in the storm troopers.

That’s because this winter catastrophe occurred not in Toronto, but in Vancouver in 1996. The normally mild B.C. burg was truly unprepared for a storm of any significant magnitude, with only 16 snow removal trucks covering all of Vancouver and a typical annual accumulation of just seven centimetres.

The Toronto Star took particular glee in reporting on those west coast snowflakes, giving Vancouver the front page treatment on Dec. 30, 1996.

Check out the double headline – “British Columbia paralyzed by snow” and “Motorists stranded, army called in.”

That’s a lot of A1 real estate for a weather event so far from the city the Toronto Star serves. Could a local paper possibly be mocking another city in its time of need?

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If Torontonians were snickering at the time over wimpy western Canadians blanching over a little snow, it would come back to bite them hard just three winters later.

That’s when Toronto mayor Mel Lastman infamously waved the white flag and called in the army to clean up our own snowstorm in 1999.

To this day, the rest of the country won’t let Toronto live that one down. The media has been all over the story – yet again – in light of Sunday’s massive snow dump.

So even though we just came through the biggest 24-hour accumulation of snow in Toronto history – bigger even than any official one-day record in Ottawa or Montreal – we wouldn’t dare call in the army this time.

But next time we are reminded of that dubious day when our military beat their swords into plowshares snowplows – and we will be, you can count on that – just remember to give those west coast trailblazers the credit they deserve.

The threat of 25% tariffs against Canada and Mexico has subsided, for now, but creeping stupidity has not.

I’m having trouble getting past this viral poster that spread across social media in the days leading up to Trump’s promised Tariff Tuesday.

It’s like one of those illustrations for kids where you’re supposed to circle all the things that are wrong with it.

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At first glance — yay! Canadians and Mexicans uniting in solidarity against a genuine threat to their prosperity.

At second glance — what a steaming pile of AI-generated sludge.

A poster with so little to say, it says it twice.

A poster that can’t seem to think of any Canadian products that aren’t maple syrup — and which has trouble spelling “maple syrup.”

Is the bottle on the right — “Canaidan Mapesy” — meant to be whiskey?

Also, is this supposed to be the way that Canada saves itself from tariff-induced catastrophe, by buying more maple — excuse me, mapude — syrup? There are only so many pancakes we can eat.

And check out that, um, quintessential Canadian skyline.

In fairness, this could be any number of office buildings in downtown Ottawa.

Meanwhile, in Mexico…

A flag-adorned bottle of, presumably, tequila, the sort of overpriced souvenir you’d spend your final pesos on at the Cancun airport.

The message here, obviously: Save the Mexican economy! Stop buying American tequila!

Buy this creepy-faced craft instead.

and start eating more of … these.

Buying random crafts and foods from Canada and Mexico is not going to save us.

But what’s really troubling here is that the generative AI algorithms that have taken over the Internet are apparently so poorly trained on our non-American cultures that they can’t come up with anything that’s typically Canadian or Mexican beyond a few stereotypes.

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If they scoured Reddit threads and sites like this that have proliferated up over the last week, they may get some better ideas.

I asked Copilot to make a new poster including “food, drink, automobiles, clothing and more” artifacts from our two cultures. The result is even more atrocious spelling and nonsensical slop — but the hybrid flag is a nice touch.

I then put the same prompt into ChatGPT. More nonsense. Syrup is mentioned (and misspelled) six times!

There is also what appears to be an avocado beer. Such a great idea for a product that unites our two besieged nations!

Alas, there already is such a thing as avocado ale, and it’s — you guessed it — American.

Complaining about public transit is a local pastime that never runs out of fuel. But it often goes off the rails.

To be sure, transit riders have plenty to be angry about. Late trains. Trains too crowded to board. Major construction that never seems to end. Streetcars that have to reroute around that construction. A retired rapid transit route replaced by sluggish buses. And don’t get us started on our fellow passengers.

Toronto pedestrians, too, have nearly as much to be angry about: Reckless drivers. Rude cyclists. Urban design that treats walking as an afterthought. Waiting for the light to change. Pressing a button that doesn’t work. Getting splashed. Slipping on ice. Trying to make eye contact through deeply tinted windows with a driver who’s staring at his cellphone. Skunks. Pigeons. Dog shit. Dogs.

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And so, in the second installment of our series, we set out a series of minimum standards that both sets of commuters should expect. All of these rights point to one thing: a little dignity. Is that too much to ask?

As a transit rider, you have the right to:

1. Get to your destination without death or injury.

2. A reasonable wait time that doesn’t make you wish you’d walked.

3. A bus or streetcar that isn’t bunched together with three other buses or streetcars.

4. A ride that isn’t being outpaced by grannies with walkers.

5. Ample warning of a short turn.

6. A few millimetres of personal space, free of stares, sneers and sneeze particles.

7. A seat unoccupied by gum, garbage, food, feet, pets or anything other than clothed human buttocks.

8. A streetcar exit lane unthreatened by pushy drivers and cyclists.

9. A customer experience worthy of three dollars and 35 cents.

10. A new transit project that opens within, oh, a decade of the original deadline.

As a transit rider, you are expected to:

1. Pay your three dollars and 35 cents.

2. Stand for someone who needs the seat more than you do.

3. Maintain a minimum standard of personal hygiene.

4. Use your inside voice.

5. Eat if you must, but only if you offer some to your neighbours.

6. Look upon traffic-bound motorists with pity or scorn.

As a pedestrian, you have the right to:

1. Get to your destination without death or injury.

2. A sidewalk free of bikes, cars, scooters and those irritating dudes on hoverboards. (No bill of rights for you, hoverbro!)

3. Use a crosswalk without crossing yourself first.

4. Buttons that actually trigger the WALK signal within, say, 20 seconds of pressing it.

5. Jaywalk at the 21st second.

6. Construction hoarding that doesn’t force you into traffic.

As a pedestrian, you are expected to:

1. Look up from your phone long enough to look both ways.

2. Understand that if you’re wearing dark clothes on a dark street on a dark and rainy night, you are invisible.

3. Use your right of way with caution. You may have the right to step without looking in front of drag racers, bike couriers or galloping Mounties, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a moron.

Depending on your mode of transportation, you may be venting about the worst commute times in North America, or Doug Ford’s weirdly specific war on bike lanes, or comically interminable transit construction delays.

But if there’s a solution to our commuter crisis, it involves making the streets work better for everyone and turning the temperature down, not up, on the rhetoric.

Whatever mode you choose, you’re taking your life in your hands.

Despite years of Vision Zero efforts, it remains a distant vision with zero chance of success. As of Oct. 9, there were 35 fatalities and 159 seriously injured so far in 2024. Not a great year.

But we all have to get along on these mean streets somehow, so to fend off commuter civil war, let’s try instead for some civility.

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The time has come, fellow commuters, for a collective bill of rights. Why should taxi and airline passengers be the only ones to get that civic recognition, but not the cyclists, transit riders, pedestrians and, yes, motorists who risk their lives and dignity every day navigating our treacherous thoroughfares?

We begin today with cyclists and motorists, two groups who are supposed to be polar opposites in this war on wheels, but who tend to have the same goal: to get where they’re going safely and efficiently. As both a cyclist and a driver, I feel the aggravation of both sides.

As a cyclist, you have the right to:

1. Get to your destination without death or injury.

2. Whine about streetcar tracks.

3. Shout obscenities at headwinds.

4. Slow down but not necessarily stop at stop signs.

5. Block traffic if necessary. Because you are traffic.

6. Safety measures that go beyond those useless drawings of bicycles on the road.

7. A contiguous network of unobstructed, separated bike lanes that don’t end abruptly at terrifying intersections.1

8. Bike racks that weren’t designed by some jackass who obviously hates bikes.

9. Leave your bike locked up with a reasonable expectation that most of it will still be there when you return.

10. Gaze upon motorists with righteous pity.

As a cyclist, you are expected to:

1. Give pedestrians the right of way.

2. Actually stop at red lights.

3. Get off the sidewalk.

4. Make yourself visible at night.

5. Apologize when you cut someone off.2

6. Stay out of a car’s blind spot.

7. Use your damn bell.

8. Slow down a bit and enjoy the commute.

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As a motorist, you have the right to:

1. Get to your destination without death or injury.

2. Get there sooner than you would if you walked.

3. The mythical freedom of the open road you’ve heard about, but that you can only seem to find at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday.

4. Parking that costs less than whatever it is you’re driving to do.

5. Intelligible road signs that aren’t designed to turn you into traffic cop bait.

6. Pedestrians and cyclists that don’t veer erratically into your path.

7. Whine about suburban planning that includes overpriced toll roads and bike lanes that no one uses.

8. a rush hour that doesn’t end at midnight.

9. Complain about everyone’s driving except your own.

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As a motorist, you are expected to:

1. Get to your destination without causing death or injury.

2. Hit the brakes when the light is about to turn red. Even if it’s the opposite of what everyone else seems to do.

3. Give pedestrians and cyclists the right of way, even when they don’t deserve it.

4. Lean on the horn, but avoid other ways of getting out your aggression.

5. Put down the phone.

6. Acknowledge the privilege of traveling in your own cozy, safe, roving piece of private property, while the rest of us are dodging, sweating, and breathing on one another on the sidewalks, roads and public transit.

Yet every time I see a bar or restaurant with a supposedly witty slogan in glowing cursive letters, I can’t help but feel a little cursive myself.

That happens a lot these days.

Take a stroll downtown along Queen, College, King West, or pretty much anywhere, and you’ll start to notice it too.

It’s the restaurant equivalent of a bad tattoo. It probably seemed clever at the time.

The trend has plagued fine dining establishments and fast food, cool cocktail bars and ice cream parlours.

You start to notice certain themes.

But whatever you do…

I choose panic.

Of course, every place wants to have a memorable backdrop worthy of influencer shares.

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But the proliferation of these neon signs is owing to the fact that they aren’t neon at all. They are, generally speaking, LED signs that can be customized to order and delivered quickly for a few hundred bucks. This a far cry from the iconic neon that adorned the likes of Sam the Record Man (and still adorns the El Mocambo).

I went on a couple of Amazon stores and previewed some mockups.

I was tempted to order one for myself.

But I worry that, like the trend itself, it would come off as, well…

Let’s close out this tilt-a-whirl of the last year at a theme park.

Well, “theme park” makes it sound vast and thrilling, whereas this one is small-scale (yet epic in its own way) and the joys more low-key.

Little Canada is Toronto’s newest tourist attraction, an unusual addition — in any year, let alone a pandemic one — to the dystopian grit of Yonge-Dundas Square. It distills the country’s landmarks and cityscapes (only those in Ontario and Quebec, for now) into miniaturized form, with astonishing attention to every detail. Passengers alight as the UP Express doors open and close; brake lights come on as cars veer around curves; the Rogers Centre’s roof plates retract with perfect accuracy.

But that’s not why we’ve come here today. When you ride the escalator down beneath the city’s busiest intersection, you are not only entering a delightfully intricate representation of the country in miniature; you are being transported back in time. To the “before times,” to be specific.

Here, the trains run constantly and on time. The traffic rarely snarls. The weather is always good — and it’s summer everywhere except in the winter wonderland of Quebec, home to ice hotels, sugar shacks, and canoe races across a semi-frozen St. Lawrence.

Life here is happy and wholesome, from the Tulip Festival in Ottawa to the outdoor event wedding in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Theatres and stadiums are packed. Romeo and Juliet is playing to a capacity crowd — indoors! — at Stratford’s Festival Theatre. Come From Away (which just closed permanently) is still playing at the Royal Alex. The Raptors (partially sidelined by quarantines) are back in winning form circa 2019, playing to a full house at Scotiabank Arena while fans cluster outside in Jurassic Park.

Here, no one keeps a six-foot distance, and no one — except the visitors, and the Little Canada staffers studiously disinfecting the installation with a spray bottle and cloth — is wearing a mask.

Of course, this is all by design, in keeping with the vision of Little Canada’s founder, Jean-Louis Brenninkmeijer.

As a sign informs you near the end of the exhibition, in both English and Dutch, “Here the world is still OK.”

To my surprise, that illusion alone is worth the price of admission — $29 plus HST per adult1 is a lot to pay to see a model exhibition of a country that’s only partly finished. But I’d pay it again.

Partway through this miniature marvel, between Ottawa and the Golden Horseshoe, is the “Littlization Station,” where visitors can step inside a spherical contraption fitted with lights and cameras that take a 360-degree photo. This image can then be used to make a miniature model version of yourself, so you too, for a fee, can become a resident of Little Canada.

Before my son and I step inside, the station operator lets us know that at this point we’re allowed to remove our masks.

When in Rome, I guess…

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Does every city have these? Local news websites obsessed with uncovering the latest “secret” craft cocktail/smash burger/glamping destination.

Toronto has numerous of them, all clamouring to outrank the others on Google searches and social media with their non-critical coverage of, say, a strip club that’s reopened as a raw bar, or Drake’s latest publicity stunt.

The sites can almost seem like parodies of themselves…

…so it can be hard to tell when an actual parody surfaces.

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BlahTO appeared out of nowhere on Facebook about three weeks ago with some spot-on mockery.

The page takes particular aim at its namesake BlogTO, Toronto’s reigning king of clickbait. Each post hilariously proclaims something to be “secret” or “hidden,” and/or making people “angry,” “mad” or “furious.”

In short order, BlahTO has amassed thousands of followers and lots of gleeful engagement, so it soon launched a fast-growing Instagram account. Related merch is apparently coming soon. Not bad for a brand without any actual content, as you’d learn if you clicked through to the BlahTO homepage.

Daily posts take the piss out of clickbait content. But the best ones simultaneously poke fun at the absurdity of the city itself.

Amid a seemingly endless, confusing and arbitrary lockdown, Torontonians apparently crave an outlet to let out some steam and laugh at themselves.

So who’s the satirical mastermind behind it all? Is BlahTO a Beaverton spinoff? Is it the work of an underemployed comic waiting for comedy clubs to reopen?

“I work in robotics, and before that banking,” says the voice at the other end of the phone call. “I’m a vice president in robotics.”

Not what I was expecting.

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The mystery man behind the mirth is choosing to keep his identity — like Toronto’s best hidden barbershop inside a vegan cupcakery — a secret.

“I think people would be grossly disappointed” if they found out, he self-deprecates.

“This is the first foray into anything comedic I’ve done in my entire life,” he continues, sounding surprised but genuinely pleased by the reception. In the last few weeks, he’s had “daily requests for writing assistance from people in the comedy field” plus “a couple of offers for writing gigs.”

I ask whether his intention is to skewer Toronto in general or BlogTO in particular. His answer? Both.

“Art imitating life, I guess, right? I think that there’s enough satirical situations in Toronto that present themselves,” he says. But “BlogTO has definitely set a voice and a tone. And it brings a familiarity to that absurdity, when the stories are done in their voice and tone.”

He was inspired to launch the Facebook page, he says, by witnessing an increased propensity for BlogTO to prioritize clickability over useful information.

Just as important, he says, “I think everybody needed a laugh.

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“I didn’t think we needed to have too much of an agenda. I don’t think it has to be all that serious. People have just been very receptive to it and it’s strange to me that we have never had a white space like this, where we’re just completely mocking our own existence in Toronto and just how absurd things are.”

He says he has no intention to make money from his side hustle. When he starts selling t-shirts and other “stupid, very Toronto-centric” merch, “it would be entirely for charity. I would not take a cent off of it.”

Instead, he’s energized by his newfound ability to make people mad — with laughter for a change. Including himself.

“I’ve laughed more over the past week than I have in a long time.”

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One of the best things about going to film festivals, besides the films, is lining up for them.

Maybe that sounds odd, but these are no ordinary movie lineups. There’s something about the festival experience — everyone a bit sloppily dressed, a bit bleary-eyed, carrying identical tote bags, anxiously leafing through dog-eared programs — that changes people, breaks down the walls around them, makes them (and me!) unusually friendly.

It’s in conversations with cinephile strangers in the rush lines at TIFF, for instance — waiting 90 minutes or more for a movie you might not even get tickets to! — that you get the best tips on what to line up for next.

So yeah, I’m at the “I miss lineups” point in the pandemic.

I could really use one right now, to help navigate the “219 documentaries from 66 countries” in this year’s edition of Hot Docs, which kicked off Thursday and runs to May 9.

The good news this year, since the festival is fully virtual, is that there’s no strict schedule; you can watch any of the films at any time within the festival window, and it’s open to viewers across Canada.

So where to begin? Scan the program, find a subject that interests you, and take your chances. The worst that can happen is 90 minutes with a great story poorly told.

And if you’ve seen anything at Hot Docs, good or bad, please tell us about it in the comments — it’s the closest we’ll get to a lineup this year.

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Hot Docs diary

Keep checking this space for mini-reviews as I update it throughout the week with more new documentaries from Toronto’s Hot Docs festival.

Wuhan Wuhan After 16 months, you might think you’ve seen and heard quite enough about the pandemic, but never quite like this. Chinese-Canadian director Yung Chang gives us a stunningly intimate peek inside the epicentre of Covid-19 during the strict lockdown in the early months of 2020. There’s no politics here, no inflammatory rhetoric; just ordinary people facing head-on a still mysterious terror. A beautifully quiet film, Wuhan Wuhan begins with a bird’s-eye view of the usually bustling Chinese metropolis, its streets and waterways mostly bare, before the camera hones in on a modest apartment occupied by a very pregnant Xu and her husband Yin, who volunteers as a driver for frontline medical workers. Chang takes us into a hospital where an exhausted doctor is struggling with a shipment of faulty PPE, and to a massive quarantine facility — set up in the city’s convention centre — filled with mild to moderate cases, where volunteer psychologists try to calm the afflicted. Considerable time is spent inside the hospital ward, with frightened patients struggling for breath, but the goal here is not to traumatize the viewer. We are left instead with a sense of everyday bravery and humanity in the face of unrelenting calamity.

Set! I’m a huge sucker for documentaries that dive into esoteric subcultures peopled with endearing obsessives. (Think Spellbound.) Scott Gawlik’s Set! is this year’s entry in that category, and it does not disappoint as it lifts the cloth on the weirdly cutthroat world of competitive table setting. Excuse me, tablescaping. It’s not just about putting the dessert spoon in the right spot or providing a soup bowl when a consomme bowl is required — though that’s part of it. It’s also about the “wow factor” that will turn the heads of those fickle judges at the Orange County Fair. So competitors spend — no joke — months treating their tables as dish-laden dioramas, incorporating things like Dr. Seuss-inspired balloons, a swinging chandelier, an LED-lit windmill, fake insects and real taxidermied animals. It’s so much work, and all in the hopes of winning Best in Show, a prize that consists of nothing more than a single ribbon. Most competitors seem self-aware of the ridiculousness of it all, but that won’t stop them from trying even harder for the prize again next year.

WeWork: The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn. Even though you know where this story is headed, it’s hard not to find yourself sucked back into the WeWork dream of Instagram-perfect shared office spaces that offered free-flowing beer taps and an instant social life (plus infamous annual “summer camp” parties for employees). But as fomo-fearing investors wanted in, the dream rapidly expanded, along with the already inflated ego of its charismatic cofounder, Adam Neumann, driven by his vision of a “capitalist kibbutz,” until it reached that questionable valuation of $47 billion in 2019. Of course, that number and the dream it promised was too good to be true, as the company plummeted back down to earth before a planned IPO. Jed Rothstein’s visually inventive doc keeps a caffeinated pace, telling the tale chronologically, with a powerful coda that acknowledges the company’s present-day incongruity. If hubris (and outrageous overspending) didn’t break WeWork, the pandemic probably would have done the trick. Imagine: paying to share an office? The horror.

(Director Rothstein, Wall Street Journal reporter Maureen Farrell and former WeWork employee Megan Mallow take part in a live Q&A on May 4.)

Dead Man’s Switch: A Crypto Mystery Where WeWork’s Adam Neumann was in his element in front of a flock of hundreds explaining how they’re going to change the world, fellow bushy-haired visionary Gerald Cotten was more comfortable with a small crowd, turning up his boyish charm when he wasn’t quite the centre of attention. The ever-smiling founder of QuadrigaCX, supposedly Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, had a knack for getting Bitcoin enthusiasts and other investors to trust him with their money, but when he disappeared, so did more than $200 million that should have been spent on the blockchain but is now all but unrecoverable. Cotten died suddenly of complications from Crohn’s disease while on honeymoon in India in December 2018. Or did he? No one seems entirely convinced — some are still demanding his body be exhumed for a proper autopsy — and it’s hard to blame them. Faking his own death, it turns out, would only be the latest in a long line of deceptions. Writer/director Sheona McDonald follows the money, ultimately tracing his presumed final footsteps in Jaipur, in search of answers. Since this is a movie about cryptocurrency, there’s a lot of complicated stuff that needs explaining, often with overwrought animations, which tends to gum up the story gears. But it remains a compelling real-life thriller, full of jaw-dropping twists, and maddeningly unsolved mysteries. I defy you to watch Dead Man’s Switch and not start Googling for more answers immediately after. Where’s the money, Gerry?

International Dawn Chorus Day On May 3, 2020, songbirds from around the world — including London, Melbourne, Cape Town, Tokyo, Cairo, Montreal and Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park — join a lively Zoom call to mark the annual International Dawn Chorus Day. We get to listen in to their morning conversation thanks to Google’s new “avian translation app.” That’s the whimsical conceit for John Greyson’s 15-minute experimental film, but don’t be lulled by the birdsong. It packs a serious gut punch. One day earlier, dissident filmmaker Shady Habash died in Cairo’s notorious Tora prison, so that’s what the birds are chirping about. A month later, Egyptian queer activist Sarah Hegazi, imprisoned and tortured before coming to Canada as a refugee, would take her own life in Toronto. Greyson — who was infamously arrested and imprisoned at Tora in 2013 — uses the enduring visual of the pandemic, the Zoom call, to draw attention to the continued struggle of Egyptian artists and activists. The bird chorus, captured by 40 filmmakers around the globe, pays poignant tribute while drawing attention to a human rights crisis in which “lockdown” takes on a whole new meaning.

Saw something you liked (or didn’t like) at Hot Docs? Leave a comment.

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Hey friends.

How are you all doing today?

I’m guessing this fancy chicken speaks for many of us.

I hear ya.

How did you take the news that schools are returning to remote learning?

This little gull says it all.

We sure did.

And dare I ask what you thought upon hearing about Ontario’s latest crackdown on golf courses, tennis courts and playgrounds (since reversed)?

This eagle here says it so you don’t have to.

With an endless list of things to complain about these days, is it any wonder these foul-mouthed fowls have taken flight?

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Effin’ Birds is the vulgar brainchild of Toronto’s Aaron Reynolds, who has honed his particular knack for merging exquisite vintage avian woodcuts with crude putdowns over the past four years, to the point where it’s become an actual business with six employees, selling books, posters, calendars, mugs, t-shirts, tote bags and playing cards, and churning out fresh bird memes daily. Not bad for something that began as an amusing Twitter side project.

“Effin’ Birds is my day job,” Reynolds says.

You may have seen some of his night jobs, especially Swear Trek.

But nothing quite lends itself to social sharing and t-shirt sales like shore birds dropping f-bombs.

And those birds are everywhere, once you start looking: on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Reddit. You can sign up for a weekly newsletter, and get daily text messages to your phone (via the Community app). Reynolds is nothing if not prolific.

Apart from disabusing us of the notion that birds are sweet chirpy featherballs of joy, he’s tapped into something real: our need, between photos of masked-chic selfies and home-baking triumphs, to express how we really feel.

Not everyone appreciates the intrusion, however, nor does everyone find Effin’ Birds funny. Reynolds takes particular delight at readers, especially bird lovers, who find the memes offensive, and take the time to tell him so.

Me? I can’t help it. I find Effin’ Birds effin’ hilarious. Not all of them, of course. But I routinely find myself sitting alone at my computer laughing out loud at a picture of some bird with some rude caption.

I always expect I’ll get over it, get tired of the crude humour and the weird bird juxtapositions.

But there’s something about those birds — at once aloof and goofy-looking — that make them the ideal canvas for our shared frustrations.

Reynolds agreed to answer some questions for Uncultured about his journey from bird-meme enthusiast to a guy who can now recognize actual birds by name. (Scroll to the bottom for a special offer.)

Just why are these birds so angry?

I don't know if I'd say angry as much as frustrated or resigned or ground down by life. But if you try to map human expressions onto birds, those eyes and their beaks look like someone who is thinking "oh no, what the fuck" all the time.

It sounds like you're a really busy guy these days. I was surprised to read that you have three employees. Are you all in the business of making birds swear?

I have six now! I make all the jokes and handle social media — replies, scheduling, measuring engagement — and then I have a team of people running the store, doing customer service, doing wholesale and fulfilment, stuff like that. Effin’ Birds is my day job. 

About how many bird memes have you made so far? 

We had to do a big copyright filing in December, so I got to count them — there were over 2,000. I've kept to a pace of one new joke a day since then, so we must be over 2,100 now.

Got a personal favourite?

I like the owl that says SOMEONE SHOULD SHOVE BEES UP YOUR ASS because it's a joke I pillaged from another thing I wrote that will likely never see the light of day.

I know you've been doing this project for awhile but I only came across it in the last year. Have you noticed an uptick during the pandemic?

We thought the pandemic would be bad news for the store, but sales were up year over year. In terms of engagement online, the pandemic and the final year of the Trump presidency in the USA wore a lot of people down, so I was glad to be there to help.

How do you feel now when you see real birds out in the world?

I recognize some birds now, which is weird. I didn't think I'd ever be That Guy.

You seem to take great pleasure from the indignant bird-lovers who don't realize what you're doing is all a joke. But have you also come across birders with a sense of humour who love what you do?

Sure! The thing about Effin’ Birds is that the birds are important to the joke, but it's not important to know about birds to get the joke. There are people who are upset that there's no level of gatekeeping that prevents non-birders from getting the jokes — but I'm not making jokes about birds, I'm making jokes about my own very relatable emotions. There are people out there who are real mad that I'm not making jokes about birds that only ornithologists will get, and how different is that from asking someone to name all the players on a sports team before allowing them to enjoy watching the game?

I spent a decade in a job where my primary goal was to simplify messages so that everyone could relate to them, a skill that gets a lot of use on Effin’ Birds. Deliberately crafting a message so that only a select few can relate to it is utterly alien to me.

Looking ahead, what other wholesome things can you fuck up for us? Why not Effin' Puppies? 

Dogs always look happy, so the joke doesn't work with them. I do have three other projects in the works, all of which treat their central subject with very little respect. 

Would you say you're more loved or hated for making a career out of this shit?

I don't like to think about it that way. Humour is subjective, and I can name dozens of funny, popular things that I did enjoy, and dozens that I didn't. So I'm never bothered by someone not liking what I do, because I don't like lots of stuff that by any measure is successful and good. What I make can be successful and good and still have lots of people who don't like it.

I do take a special joy, though, in the small number of people who send me DMs about how angry they are that I make a living doing this. They usually talk about how easy it is and what a garbage way to make a living it is — but they're not doing it, so obviously it's not that easy.

What do you do for fun, when you're not inserting profanity where it doesn't belong?

I like to listen to music really loud, and I play the ukulele terribly and work out uke arrangements for songs that should not be played on the ukulele.

Anything else? This is the space you can use to plug your store or an upcoming product.

This fall will see the release of Greetings From Effin’ Birds, a book of 100 tear-out postcards. Plus the Effin’ Birds field guide which came out in 2019 is getting a paperback release and a French adaptation.

I keep plugging along, making new jokes every day, and for people who don't want to be on social media (and who can blame them, it's a cesspool), I started a text messaging service where you can receive Effin’ Birds in your texts every day for free by sending a message to 647-424-3381.

Special offer for Uncultured readers

If you’re as amused by these birds as we are (or you’d like to send a crass curio to someone you hate), you can save 10 percent off Effin’ Birds merch by using the offer code UNCULTURED at effinbirds.com.

If you’re offended by the memes, well, Reynolds would love it if you said so in the comments.

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Stories matter.

Take that of Jenn Guo and Adam Szakacs, a Toronto couple who invented a delightful family card game called Not Your Ma’s Jong. The game is an homage to their grandmothers, who came from different cultures (one’s Chinese, one’s Jewish) and spoke different languages, but bonded over a mutual love of mahjong.

My own family discovered the game recently on BoardGame2Go, a local app that allows you to rent or purchase games and have them delivered to your door. (Scroll to the bottom for an exclusive offer.) It was easy for kids to learn but still reasonably challenging for adults to play too.

But what really won us over were the illustrations.

The red cards pay winking tribute to Guo’s grandma, the blue cards to Szakacs’ — and, by extension, to nai nais and bubbies everywhere — while the green cards imagine the two women enjoying pastimes together, like building snow sculptures, playing bingo or practising tai chi.

“When I was pregnant with our first daughter in 2018, we started thinking about how we could connect our children with their cultures and heritage,” says Guo, explaining the card game’s origins. “I realized that living in Canada, they would not have the same exposure to Chinese traditions like mahjong as I did growing up. We started thinking about ways to honour the memories we had of growing up with our parents and grandparents.”

The project quickly found an audience, reaching its initial Kickstarter funding goal in 12 hours.

“We really liked the game,” says Howard Hu, owner of BoardGame2Go. “They contacted us when they first launched … and we were happy to support them and give them exposure.”

Hu adds he’s been working with the creators on developing “a drinking version” of the game, a set of rules that adults can play when the kids go to bed.

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By now some of you might be thinking this story, of a modern mahjong update, sounds kinda familiar.

Maybe you heard of another effort to give the classic Chinese pastime a “respectful refresh.”

It blew up certain parts of the internet back in January, and not in a good way. 😬😬😬

The Mahjong Line, which gave the game pieces a makeover so they resembled Pantone colour tiles, and stripped them of their traditional Chinese lettering, caused a significant backlash, prompting an apology from the founders over accusations of whitewashing and cultural insensitivity.

Today, the line is still selling for $325 U.S. per set, though the website has now been updated with more sensitive language and a page explaining the history of the game in China and the U.S.

Not Your Mah’s Jong, which takes inspiration, and its cheeky name, from mahjong, has received no such blowback. Why not?

notmahjong

A post shared by Not Your Ma’s Jong (@notmahjong)

For one, the creators make it very clear that the game is not mahjong, but merely inspired by it (note its Instagram handle @notmahjong and its homepage URL: notmahjong.com).

But the authenticity of its story sets it apart too, and it’s hard to play the game without wanting to know more about the one that inspired it.

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Guo sums up simply. “We drew from personal experiences, and the game comes from our hearts. It's been a bonus that it's resonated with people around the world.”

Guo and Szakacs agreed to answer a few more questions for Uncultured about Not Your Ma’s Jong in an email exchange. (Answers have been lightly edited.)

First please tell me a bit about yourselves.

Adam: We're Jenn and Adam, a couple from Toronto. We met here nine years ago, and have since lived together in San Francisco and New York. We're now settled back in Toronto with our two young daughters. Jenn was born in China and immigrated to Canada as a child, and I'm originally from Mississauga.

Jenn: I learned how to play mahjong as a kid by watching my grandma play in China. Mahjong was a part of our daily lives, and at the centre of every family occasion. For me, mahjong is a way to connect with those memories.

So I'm really interested in the backstory of the game. On the website it says "When our grandmothers first met, they didn’t speak the same language but quickly discovered their shared love of mahjong." Can you go into more detail about that? Did your grandmas start playing together or what?

Jenn: In the early 2010s, my grandma used to split her time between her home in Xi'an, China, and Toronto where she stayed with my parents. In 2014, we brought my grandma to visit Adam's granny who was healing from a hip injury. My grandma speaks only Mandarin, so we started by translating some simple hellos and small talk. My grandma was in awe of how energetic and collected Adam's granny appeared in her late 90s. It was so special to have them meet and communicate with each other.

Adam: At one point, we were talking about their respective cultures and things they enjoy. My granny plays a lot of card games, and also mentioned mahjong. Jenn's grandma's eyes lit up, and she told all about playing throughout her life. Jenn's grandma is certainly the more avid player, but once my granny's hip recovered and she was back home, they were able to play together.

And how did that connection lead to this card game?

Adam: We … realized that even though our grandparents play mahjong and we played with them, we never played with our friends. We started asking around and kept hearing the same thing — most of our friends had heard of mahjong or seen their families play, but few knew how to play themselves. It can be a tough game to learn, so Jenn suggested that we try to create a simpler version of mahjong that our generation and their kids could learn and enjoy.

I love the drawings on the cards. Where did those come from?

Jenn: Thank you! We wanted to dedicate the game to our grandmas. I'd say half of the cards are symbols and memories we have of growing up with them — some with Adam's Jewish granny, and some with my Chinese grandma. The other half are a bit whimsical — we imagined what their friendship could have been if they had lived near each other earlier in their lives. Things like doing tai chi together in a park, or building a muscular snowman together! We wanted to make them relatable for people who grew up in any culture, with special winks to people who grew up Chinese or Jewish. 

And what has the response to the game been so far?

Adam: It's been thrilling to ship Not Your Ma's Jong around the world, and to hear how much people enjoy it. Our Kickstarter in 2019 met the funding goal within 12 hours, and we're currently on Indiegogo to fund our second production run. Our favourite feedback is when a customer reorders because they say a friend or cousin stole theirs!

What do actual mahjong players think of the game? More to the point: What do your grandmas think?

Jenn: Several mahjong players have thanked us for creating a fun adaptation of the game, since it's given them a way to introduce mahjong to their friends or children. We did have one mahjong player online criticize our "fast-paced" tagline since tile-based mahjong can also be fast-paced — which of course is true for veteran players. Not Your Ma's Jong gets games moving fast within a few minutes of opening the box.

Adam: My grandma unfortunately passed away in 2019 at nearly 104 years old. She had an amazing life and we miss her every day. Although she didn't have a chance to play the final game, we were able to share some of the concepts with her. Jenn's grandma is enjoying showing her illustrated self off to friends in China :)

Which do you play: Mahjong or Not Your Ma's Jong?

Jenn: Mostly Not Your Ma's Jong, our friends have caught on really fast. The games are quick and it's cards instead of tiles, so very convenient to carry around. Mahjong is of course the Chinese New Year staple, but we haven't been able to see our families much this year to play either version.

What's next? Any more games in the works?

Adam: Our second daughter was born in October, so we're a little tired! Future expansions for Not Your Ma's Jong aren't out of the question, but for now we're enjoying hearing the stories of people enjoying the game.

Special offer for Uncultured readers

Today we’ve got a special promotion for BoardGame2Go, the excellent board game rental app (only in Toronto for now), where you can choose from more than 1,200 titles, get them delivered to your door, and picked up again a week later. It’s where I discovered Not Your Ma’s Jong, the game discussed in today’s post.

New signups using the offer code “uncultured” will get 1,000 Go points, worth about $5 off any rental (the cost of a small game), plus Elite membership status, which accrue points twice as fast and earn a $2 discount off every delivery. Download the app on iOS or Android, and get renting!

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Update, March 17: After sifting through hundreds of submissions on Instagram, Guinness confirmed Arts Help’s world record.

On Monday afternoon, Arts Help hosted a free art therapy session over Instagram Live.

Immediately after, Guinness observers were on hand for an attempted world record: the most drawing videos uploaded to Instagram in a single hour.

It’s an esoteric record for which there are no current title holders, and it came with weirdly specific rules: each video must be at least five seconds long; no abstract drawings (but a simple 🙂 or ❤️ will suffice); video must show the artist’s face and the artwork being hand-drawn; the final product must be displayed; and the video must be posted on a public Instagram account, using the hashtag #artshelp2021.

If they pull it off, Arts Help can add one more superlative to its impressive c.v.

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In just two and half years, the Toronto-based non-profit has grown to become the “no. 1 arts publisher” and the “no. 1 network for artists, visual storytellers, and the new cultural economy.”1

That might sound hyperbolic, until you do the math:

• 2.7 million Instagram followers;

• another 1.3 million followers, and almost 10 million likes, on TikTok;

• 3.9 million uses of its hashtag #arts_help.

Add to this a website with an editorial team producing daily original content, a “proprietary network” of art curators who can be called on to share work with their own followers, and a private sector collaboration that provides access to a network of digital billboards around the world, from Toronto to Los Angeles to Lagos to Dubai, allowing Arts Help — in between ads for H&M or Uber Eats — to showcase artists’ creations to a global audience.

All told, says co-founder Mo Ghoneim (along with artist Sophie Brussaux), the organization reaches about 28 million people a month over its digital platforms.

On TikTok, “just in the last six months, we’ve grown from zero,” Ghoneim says, sounding amazed. “We actually have the screenshots.”

And what does Arts Help do to grow and feed this platform? It shares the work of artists they like from around the world.

During the pandemic, when major galleries are closed and exhibitions delayed, it’s no surprise this activity — and its popularity — has accelerated.

arts_helps

A post shared by Arts Help (@arts_helps)

Every day thousands of painters, dancers, animators, sculptors and other artists post work on Instagram with that #arts_help hashtag, hoping they’ll be noticed by the organization’s editorial staff and reshared to their millions of followers.

arts_helps

A post shared by Arts Help (@arts_helps)

You’ve probably never heard of most of these artists, and that’s the point.

“We try always to stay away from the big Banksy,” says Brussaux, Arts Help’s chief visionary officer. “Banksy is absolutely amazing. What he does, his work is amazing. But he already made it.”

So Arts Help uses its massive platform to amplify the work of those who haven’t quite made it to the Banksy level (yet), and could benefit greatly from a little push.

arts_helps

A post shared by Arts Help (@arts_helps)

“You have no idea the impact sometimes that sharing their work will have on artists,” Ghoneim says. He points to a recent post by Toronto’s Katarina Mogus that earned nearly a million likes on Arts Help’s Instagram alone, “the most likes that we've ever generated.”

(The post in question was a short video of a “product photography hack.” By intention, Arts Help tends to promote a pretty broad definition of art.)

Lest you think Arts Help is the Beeple of non-profits, rest assured they’re not just in the business of accumulating likes and shares. Here are a few other things they do:

• run free online classes (like Monday’s art therapy session) and quarterly master classes;

• connect young artists with industry mentors;

• spotlight quarterly “icons,” beginning last fall with Chicago painter Harmonia Rosales, giving them an extra profile boost on billboards including Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo;

• create backpacks out of discarded vinyl billboards, which they give away to kids in local elementary schools where they lead workshops;

• oh yeah, they also lead workshops in local elementary schools.

Currently, says Ghoneim, they are looking into ways to help artists navigate the exploding crypto art market (NFTs).

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Arts Help was among the first to call attention to the work of Nadeen Ashraf, the catalyst behind Egypt’s #MeToo movement, who used an at-first anonymous Instagram account called Assault Police. When she revealed her identity last year, the organization helped connect her with human rights lawyers and other support, Ghoneim says. A painting of her by Brussaux was broadcast across the billboard network, further publicizing her crusade.

sophieknowsbetter

A post shared by @sophieknowsbetter

I must confess to being unaware of Arts Help’s digital dominance until I wrote a short story for the Star last month about its Black Artistry series. The organization seemed perfectly positioned — with its command of social media algorithms and its billboard network — to capitalize on a pandemic that left few real-world spaces, or even media outlets, for artists to bring their work to the world. So I set up a Zoom call with Brussaux and Ghoneim for a deeper dive.

The one thing I knew about Arts Help was the event that launched the organization into mainstream consciousness in 2019: a United Nations-endorsed show2 at Toronto’s Design Exchange that attracted a huge opening-night lineup.

The show, Icons with a Purpose, featured Brussaux’s bright pop art-styled portraits of 17 public figures — including Angelina Jolie, Priyanka Chopra and both Obamas — each representing one of the UN’s sustainable development goals for 2030, from climate action to gender equality.

sophieknowsbetter

A post shared by Sophie Brussaux 🧿 (@sophieknowsbetter)

Those goals continue to serve as a framework for the organization’s programming.

“There’s at least something within those 17 global goals that I truly believe everybody can relate to, or is passionate about,” says Ghoneim.

Last year, they launched an initiative called Artists for Social Change, inviting, for starters, 30 students from BIPOC communities to participate in workshops with leaders from the business community, including executives from Apple and Google, “talking about the intersectionality of art and their industry,” says Brussaux.

“We really want artists to shift their mindset … (to) own the fact that you're an artist, and that this is your job, and that you can make a sustainable living out of this, and that you really have valuable assets to bring to society.”

The program was expanded, and culminated last month in an event celebrating the Top 10 Canadian artists for social change, with a judging panel including Director X, Deborah Cox, Brussaux and Tegan Quin (of Tegan and Sara). R&B musician Meagan de Lima was named the social change artist for 2021.

“We have always believed that art is a vehicle for social change,” says Ghoneim, summing up the ethos that he and Brussaux bring to their organization. “Art is more than just a pretty painting on the wall.”

It’s also more than, presumably, a product hack video.

Arts Help has expansion plans in the works for 2021, beyond the ever-growing reach of its social networks. A world record, for starters.

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But the shows, all of them, must go on — in some form or another. You may have seen the recent live Golden Globes gala, a glitch-ridden shadow of its usual louche self.

The Oscars themselves have been delayed two months, until April 25, and no host has yet been announced. The nominations, plucked from a year mostly lacking in tentpoles, blockbusters, sleeper hits or even indie darlings, are due to be announced on March 15.

Toronto’s modest critics gala may actually be improved this year by the fact that movie talent is spending a lot more time at home: there’s been a record number of acceptance videos submitted by the category winners, says TFCA president Peter Howell.

What’s happening this year with prize galas, including Toronto’s, is a function of what the movie industry itself has had to endure this past year: delays, cancellations, adapting on the fly to changing COVID-19 protocols and lockdowns.

But the biggest shift has to be the wholesale acceptance of streaming services as the default platform for feature premieres.

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Not too long ago, a movie that fast-tracked to Netflix after its theatrical premiere was cause for controversy. Now the theatrical premiere is skipped altogether, and it’s still eligible for Best Picture consideration. What a difference a pandemic makes.

So on Tuesday, the TFCA’s 24th annual gala, normally held in a luxe ballroom at the Four Seasons or the Carlu, will, like everything else, be a streaming event. To celebrate a medium designed to be experienced on a big screen in full auditoriums, the city’s critical mass gathered at a mostly empty one.

“It made me feel sad and excited at the same time,” says Howell, longtime critic (and my former colleague) at the Toronto Star, of finally stepping into a theatre again last month. Segments from Tuesday’s awards show were pre-recorded at the recently refurbished Paradise Theatre on Bloor St. West.

“The ceremony was mostly pre-taped,” said Howell in an email, “for the simple reason that we couldn’t all get together because you-know-why.”

Eleven masked critics gathered at the theatre on Feb. 21 to record “socially distanced ‘Siskel and Ebert’ bits” about the prize nominees, Howell says. Then last week, Lainey Lui and Kathleen Newman-Bremang went to record their hosting segments.

“For the grand finale, we will go live at the end of the show for the big reveal of the winner of the $100,000 Rogers Best Canadian Film Award.” You can stream the nominees for a fee: Anne at 13,000 Ft.; And the Birds Rained Down; and White Lie.

The gala, streaming Tuesday at 8 p.m. at torontofilmcritics.com, will be preceded by an invitation-only “virtual cocktail party.” Follow the recipe below and raise a toast to a time (next year!?) when we’ll all be schmoozing, and watching movies, with live people again.

The official drink of movie night

Toronto bartender Lisa Bell of Annette Food Market in the Junction offers this twist on the classic French 75 as the official cocktail of the 2021 TFCA Gala. It takes its name from the Paradise Theatre, owned by Moray Tawse, who donated the space for shooting much of Tuesday's event.

Ticket to Paradise

2½ oz Tawse Spark sparkling wine

1 oz Tawse Gin

1 oz freshly squeezed grapefruit juice

½ oz Aperol

¼ oz thyme-infused simple syrup1

2 dashes of Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients except the sparkling wine in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake briskly until tin is chilled, and strain into a champagne flute. Top with the sparkling wine and garnish with a sprig of thyme.

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Screens are overrated.

A year ago, Zoom could do no wrong. The videoconferencing platform was an easy winner in those early pandemic days. If we were all going to be stuck indoors at home, at least we could still approximate the face-to-face experience.

In no time, the brand lived up to its onomatopoeic billing, becoming a household name, even a verb: “Let’s Zoom!”

A year later, it’s become a syndrome: Zoom fatigue.

What happened? Oh, a little thing called reality. Months of bad wifi connections, grotesque camera angles, embarrassing gaffes, Zoom-bombing, fussing with ring lights and retro radio-styled mics and unruly Covid hair, screen-to-screen meetings started to evoke not excitement but dread.

At some point, many of us asked: can’t we just talk on the phone like in the before times?

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This is what’s made the Clubhouse app zoom into our collective consciousness in 2021. You mean I can chat with friends, meet strangers, and drop in and out of seminars without tidying my bookshelf first? Sign me up!

This year, video is out, audio is in. And there’s no better symbol of this shift than the weird disembodied celebrity heads and awkward technical hiccups that dominated Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards.

If the last year hasn’t proved that videoconferencing actually kinda stinks, watching Hollywood stars in their living rooms, some wearing hoodies, delivering glitch-ridden acceptance speeches was the clincher.

Good riddance.

This is the year we binge less on TV shows, more on podcasts. The year “virtual” becomes a dirty word. The year we start cutting the cord on streaming services. The year the Grammys outshine the Oscars. The year we dust off our land lines to reach out and touch someone. (Click to tweet this)

“This is a very serious matter,” says Inspector Brown over the phone, a note of concern in her voice.

My family has been taking turns explaining the real-life issue that’s plagued us for more than a year: the Case of the Half-Eaten Food Left on the Windowsill. We suspect it’s a squirrel with a well-developed palate that leaves offerings of partially digested pizza, bagels and fruit, but we’ve never been sure.

“Okay, this is sort of strange,” Brown says suddenly. “I just had a text message pop up on my phone. Not from a number that my phone recognizes. And I think it's related to your case.

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“Wow,” she continues. “It's the squirrel. It's texting! Do you mind if I quickly take a look at the message and I'll call you back in a few minutes? … I don't think we should let this get away from us.”

She hangs up, leaving us in silence, amused and more than a little intrigued.

The performance is our own personal episode of the Ministry of Mundane Mysteries, a brilliant piece of improvised “telephonic investigation” developed for the pandemic by Toronto’s Outside the March theatre company. For $45, my family enjoyed an hour of mystery comedy, with a surprisingly complex storyline of sinister squirrels, entirely over the phone.

In a year with precious little new theatre, the Ministry proved a genuine hit, with 1,174 cases in 22 countries to date. The format expanded to theatre companies in Lima, Mumbai and, coming up next, Chicago, while Outside the March’s own inspectors go on hiatus.

My point? All the things we like about screens — the drama, the stimulation, the human connection — can be had, sometimes better, without them.

Sure, not everyone has screen fatigue, and there are some for whom a room feels naked without at least three monitors broadcasting at once.

And this is not to say I’m disavowing TV, that I won’t be lining up Friday to watch Coming 2 America on Prime. Oh, I will be.

But when I chat about it with friends afterwards, you can guess the one platform I won’t be using.

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Excited yet? Or nah?

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Now that weekends aren’t substantially different from the other days of the week, those three words just don’t have much resonance.

Hey, you might have more leisure time! To spend indoors! Where you’ve already spent the previous five days!

But I’m selfishly wanting to get back out and enjoy the city in a way that doesn’t involve strapping on skates and waiting for my pre-booked 45-minute window to carve misshapen O’s on a half-melted rink. Is that too much to ask?

Yes, Toronto is still in lockdown so there’s not much happening. Even drive-in movies and large-scale art projections are shelved for now. And just this week, the city extended the cancellation of all major outdoor events until July 1.

Some events, such as Doors Open and Canada Day fireworks, will be scrapped altogether, while most will continue to have virtual editions. This includes, among others, the Toronto Marathon, the Juno Awards, Ride for Heart, NXNE, Luminato, the Pride Parade, the Indigenous Arts Festival, the TD Toronto Jazz Festival and the Toronto International Dragon Boat Festival.

I’ll leave it for another installment to figure out exactly what a virtual dragon boat race looks like, but suffice for now to say: if you’re planning to head outside on what looks to be a balmy weekend, you need to get creative. (Got some better ideas? I’d love to hear them!)

Five non-virtual things to do this weekend that don’t involve slush-skating

1. Marketing: Malls are closed, but food markets are open. This includes the farmer’s market at BrickWorks, both buildings of the St. Lawrence Market (expect a lineup getting in), the storefronts of Kensington, and the container village of Stackt.

   • Bonus: At Stackt, you can book at game at the city’s only outdoor crokicurl rink, whatever that is!

2. Dining In. With the popular Winterlicious off the menu this year, some 75 Toronto restaurants are offering affordable prix-fixe takeout under the LocalLicious banner, with $1 from every order going to charity. The event continues to March 7. See participating restaurants, from Afrobeat Kitchen to Zicatela Cocina del Mar, right here.

   savehospitality.ca

   

   A post shared by SaveHospitalityCA (@savehospitality.ca)

3. Dining out: Feeling brave? (I’m not.) Just to the north of Toronto, York Region is currently in the red zone of reopening, which means limited indoor dining is permitted.

   • Pro tip: Restaurants and bars are allowed a maximum of 10 seated diners, no matter the size of the venue. So pick a big place, book an off-peak time, and spread out.

4. Golfing: This weekend’s warmer temperatures make sledding, skating and ski resorts less enticing. But disc golf can be played in any weather, at any of the city’s six public courses. The family-friendly game is typically played with a variety of specialized, weighted frisbees, but any disc will do in a pinch.

   

5. Travel: Staying in any hotel right now and just ordering up room service would feel exotic, and maybe a bit dangerous, but a cheaper escape is possible. GO trains and the UP Express are running close to empty right now, especially on weekends, so pick a destination and get a car nearly to yourself.

   Got a better idea?

Plus one virtual event

1. Long Winter TV: The organizers of Long Winter normally throw some of the most creative events in town, so this one’s worth flagging even if it’s gone virtual. Saturday’s event, live-streamed on YouTube and Facebook, features live music performances, video art, short films and documentaries, and some sort of arcade. Check it out at torontolongwinter.com and watch the previous webisode here:

I wandered through Toronto’s PATH today, feeling kind of sorry for the once bustling place, so I left behind a small souvenir. It’s hanging behind one of the billboards in this corridor between Commerce Court and TD Centre. If you find it before a custodian does, it’s yours.

Like what you see here? Please tell a friend. It’s the best way to support the newsroom-of-one that is Uncultured.

An easy way to share is by clicking this link in your inbox, which will generate a handy pre-written message that you can forward to anyone who might enjoy joining the Uncultured club. As a token of thanks, claim some free swag by clicking here.

You can also follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn.

I’m always up for a coffee. And don’t forget to click that ♡ button on your way out.

Talk soon.

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If you want to know what’s making headlines on any given week, you could do worse than scroll through the social media feed of Caryma Sa’d.

The Toronto lawyer is an advocate in every sense of the word. Though she specializes in housing, cannabis and criminal law, you can often find her speaking to news media on poverty, racial inequality, pandemic policy and other areas of systemic injustice.

Those are all serious, worthy topics, but I’ve come for the comics.

That’s where Sa’d has really set herself apart from the rest of the legal community (and almost everyone else), documenting the indignities wrought by Covid-19, the plight of the city’s growing homeless community, the outlandish statements of Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and the endless absurdities embedded in the day’s news.

In the last week alone her comics have covered:

• an Ontario Superior Court judge caught remote-working from Turks and Caicos

• former Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion’s 100th birthday

• the possibility of bar service coming to the province’s 7-Eleven stores

• the city taking legal action against a carpenter who makes small winter shelters for the homeless

  

• and a retrospective on one of her favourite subjects, the misadventures of Adam Skelly, Toronto’s anti-lockdown provocateur of Adamson Barbecue infamy.

(It was a screenshot Sa’d shared on Twitter this week that managed to propel the Adamson controversy back into the news.)

When I reached out to Sa’d, who compiles her cartoon chronicles at carymarules.com, I wanted to know how she possibly finds the time, on top of a busy legal career and frequent media appearances, for a productive side hustle as an editorial cartoonist.

Well, she doesn’t, not exactly. Sa’d calls herself “art director” rather than artist for the ongoing series, which began in earnest at the end of 2019.

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“I provide the concepts, the text, the captions, and oversee the little details and minutiae that are included in there,” Sa’d says over the phone on Monday.

“If I were to do it myself, A) they wouldn't be as good, and B) I'd probably still be on comic no. 3.”

The actual illustrator behind the illustrations remains “a trade secret,” she says, invoking attorney-artist privilege.

Sa’d uses comics as a way of “pointing out some of the inconsistencies or absurdities in all sorts of policy,” she says.

“If this contributes to making either legal information more accessible, or prompting critical thinking from people about the laws and policies and how they shape our day-to-day life, then I've done my job.”

One of her most frequent subjects, not surprisingly, is Premier Doug Ford.

I ask if she considers Ford a muse, and Sa’d laughs heartily.

“Yes! I’m going to start saying that in interviews actually.

“He's a full-bodied muse. You know, you turn on the news or just kind of refresh for headlines and it's always something new. When I say the jokes write themselves, it's really like, often I'm just quoting them verbatim in the speech bubble. So yeah, he's there a lot.”

“Also, I'm Toronto based, a resident of Ontario, and I don't like what is happening in our province. So as much as the cartoons aren't necessarily about me expressing my own politics and more just kind of making observations or drawing inferences, he shows up a lot, because he's quite active. And in my view, that's something that needs to be called out.”

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The Ford comics in particular seem tailor made for social resharing, and tend to be among her most popular, while some of the more nuanced and thoughtful illustrations are less likely to go viral.

One exception, she notes, is the multiple comics and infographics she did highlighting the hypocrisy of Bell’s “Let’s Talk” campaign for mental health awareness.

“That's probably by far the most ‘successful’ series that we've had.”

For the record, Caryma Sa’d is not the only cartoon lawyer out there, not even the only one in Toronto. She tips her hat to Bryant Greenbaum, who has collaborated with cartoonist John Olbey on, among other things, a book about controversial police carding practices.

But Sa’d is unique in her ability this past year to play off the news of the day and help drive the conversation about it, through her prolific media appearances and her intentionally cringey comics.

As the executive director of the cannabis advocacy organization NORML Canada, Sa’d last year launched an outdoor, pot-themed comedy venue called 420 Cannabis Court, in the courtyard outside her Chinatown law office. She hopes, “fingers crossed,” to bring it back, when lockdowns and snowbanks subside.

So, cartoons and comedy bars. Are magic shows next?

“I am not good at sleight of hand,” she laughs. “So no magic!”

But there is another trick up her sleeve.

“I'm actually going to be doing a Doug Ford colouring book,” Sa’d reveals. “(We’re) doing that as a Kickstarter, so it's in the works.”

“This came out of a Twitter thread … (asking) how do we get rid of Doug Ford? And someone's suggestion was, let's chronicle all of the stuff that he's done and make it simple and easy for people to understand.”

Sa’d doesn’t know if her efforts are doing enough to truly change the discourse, “but I’m for sure writing that way.”

Comics can’t draw blood. But they can take a strip off the status quo.

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I may not be Caryma Sa’d’s secret illustrator, but don’t let that stop you from buying me a coffee.

Talk soon.

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Just how much do you miss going to bars? Slip on some headphones, head over to imissmybar.com, and find out.

This audio project comes courtesy of a bar called Maverick in San Pedro Garza García, Mexico, and as a barfly simulation it’s surprisingly effective.

You can customize the ambience to raise or lower the volume on the clinking of glasses, patrons chattering, a bartender mixing drinks, rain tapping on windows, street noise, and summery night sounds like chirping crickets. It’s even got a decent Spotify playlist, rotated weekly.

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And so it is that I’m sitting at my desk with goosebumps up my neck, and a longing to be around strangers, sipping something stronger than this mug of tepid rooibos tea. Turns out I do miss bars after all.

There’s a good mix of sounds here, though after a while it gets repetitive. For variety I’d add a crowd cheering on a sporting event, the mechanics of a jukebox, and the mashing of buttons on a retro videogame cabinet. Guess it’s not that kind of bar.

But there are some sounds I would never feel are missing from my bar experience:

• a Slurpee machine

• high-schoolers microwaving burritos

• customers paying for gas

• the whirr of many, many refrigerators

• dreams dying.

Have a listen, and imagine trying to relax with a cocktail to these vibes:

I’m talking, of course, about the biggest little news item out of Ontario this week: the revelation that 7-Eleven stores across the province have applied for liquor licenses — not so that customers can buy beer or wine to go, but for that beer or wine to actually be served, and ingested, in a designated in-store drinking area.

I went to my nearest location on Dundas West, an area already thick with delightful licensed establishments, to confirm whether we’ll also be getting a shitty one.

Indeed we are. That is, if the application is ever approved.

Go ahead and see for yourself if you, too, might get a convenience-store cantina in your neighbourhood.

There are various grounds on which to object to such an idea, but for me it’s just one: why? When restaurants and bars have been struggling for months under lockdown just to stay afloat (and many of them won’t), why add cheap competition from a retail giant?

Seven-Eleven is a great place to buy junky snacks, exchange propane tanks, use the ATM, cash in lottery tickets.

It’s the place you want to go to after a night of drinking, at which point those two-for-$5 slices of salty pizza tanning behind glass are exactly what you crave. You’re there for us, 7-Eleven, with bags of Doritos and tall cans of sugary iced tea just when we need you the most. You’re our Cinderella in reverse, magically transforming into a fluorescent-lit princess after midnight.

Don’t spoil a good thing by having us start the night there, slouching on a vinyl stool squeezed between the Blueberry Blasts and the day-old Taquitos, knocking back buck-a-beers out of a Big Gulp cup.

We don’t wanna go where nobody knows your name.

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Lockdown means we can’t go for beers, but you can always buy me a coffee.

In lieu of tips, please click the ♡ on the way out.

Talk soon.

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We’ll get to the mixtape in a minute, but if for some reason you just can’t wait, skip to the bottom of this post.

In the meantime, this is the cover.

Now here come the liner notes.

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Making a mixtape shouldn’t be stressful.

Just throw a few tracks together on your streaming platform of choice, click “share” and you’re done, right?

That’s what I had in mind when I put out the call to readers a few weeks back asking for the songs that they’ve kept coming back to over this last, long year. What music speaks to the moment for you? And what songs are the antidote to the trauma and monotony of 2020 and early 2021?

People have very different responses to those questions. And very different ideas of what music should be featured on an ultimate pandemic playlist. Who knew?

One friend on Facebook responds with some very on-the-nose titles, including “Mad World,” “Road to Nowhere,” “History Repeating” and “Your Racist Friend.”

Another rings in some classic rock titles that have no discernable connection at all, such as “Eyes Without a Face” by Billy Idol, Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me” and Elton John’s John Lennon tribute “Empty Garden.” Though they all speak to a certain loss or alienation.

Still another offers up the nu-metal anthem “Bodies” by Drowning Pool.

Not the sort of song that plays well with mixtape neighbours like Dolly Parton and David Byrne.

I also enlisted contributions from other members of the Toronto letterati. Friends of the letter, Get Wit Quick’s Ben Errett and At the End of the Day’s Hannah Sung, serve up Anderson .Paak’s “Lockdown” and The Weeknd’s “Starboy,” respectively.

“I was into his Super Bowl halftime show,” says Sung of the Weeknd, “and it was an awesome montage of just 100% hits.” 

Rapper Cadence Weapon, aka Rollie Pemberton, who peddles his own eclectic tastes over here, has a new track from an upcoming album called “SENNA (feat. Jacques Greene).”

“It's inspired by the legendary F1 race car driver Ayrton Senna,” Pemberton explains. “There was a documentary about him that came out in 2010 that really resonated with me. It's about taking the road less travelled.”

The track lands on Feb. 19. In the meantime he offers “my anthem for 2021 so far: ‘Back Together Again’ by Jean & Trevor, a lovers rock reggae cover of the original by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway.”

“I hope to blast it at top volume DJing somewhere like the Garrison when it's all safe for us to be back together again.”

Finally, to flesh out the playlist, I turned to previous Uncultured guests, Ben Rayner and Nobu Adilman.

Ben has several playlists of his own, most of which start in a dark place and take you somewhere darker, but I managed to salvage a few gems.

I asked Nobu for a couple picks. He ended up sending me an album’s worth and put them in a Spotify playlist of his own. It’s a well-observed list, but some tracks are so obscure, the artists themselves may never have heard them.

While I want this mixtape to be a collaborative affair, I take my responsibilities as a curator seriously. The mix needs to contain songs I’d be happy to listen and relisten to, so a lot of suggestions didn’t quite make the cut — or I’d make modifications. If I considered a song too overplayed for the mix, I’d replace it with a deeper cut or a cover version.

The final product — three hours, 45 songs — wallows in misery, anger and futility for the first half, then takes a joyful turn in the second, beginning with “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’” by Scissor Sisters. Have a listen:

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion, even if the actual tracks didn’t make the final edit. Got some better candidates? Hit me up in the comments. This is, like everything else, a work in progress.

Like what you see here? If you miss culture as much as I do, please tell your friends. An easy way to share is by clicking this link in your inbox, which will generate a handy pre-written message that you can forward to anyone who might enjoy joining the Uncultured club. As a token of thanks, claim some free swag by clicking here.

If you’re not the sharing kind (or even if you are), you can always buy me a coffee.

See you soon.

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I’m always looking for ways, these days, to differentiate one day, one week, one year from the last, something to distinguish any given day from any other. When you’re barely leaving the house, that can be a challenge. Except in the kitchen.

Not to brag, but there’s been some magic happening in mine. Over the course of two weeks I made Trinidadian doubles with channa masala and cucumber chow,

Chinese beef in black pepper sauce,

and *chef’s 😘 kiss* eggplant parmigiana cooked to perfection.

You’ve read the headline, so you might have guessed I didn’t do this all on my own. Each dish was made from meal kits concocted by three Toronto restaurants: Patois, Lai Wah Heen and Eataly, respectively.

I used to think such kits were a dumb idea. Now I think they’re one of the best trends to come out of the pandemic.

If you’re ordering from a restaurant, I’d thought, why should you have to cook it on your own stove, dirtying pots and pans, and fussing over precise instructions? Why not just get ordinary takeout or delivery?

Because on every measure, except those dirty pans, the meal kit is superior:

• Taste: Fresh from the stove or oven, not scooped, lukewarm, out of soiled containers.

• Cost: One meal kit is often larger than a typical takeout dish, so you’re saving money.

• Satisfaction: Yes, someone else does all the preparations, and in most cases you just put it all together and add heat. But there’s still something satisfying about playing pretend chef and delivering a pro meal to your famished family.

Plus, it makes the whole house smell amazing, which helps to recreate a bit of that long-lost restaurant ambience.

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The kits are uniformly attractive and neatly organized with easy-to-follow instructions.

Eataly takes the experience one step further, providing a basket of raw ingredients in advance that you’ll use in a one-hour live cooking class. The virtual classes book up quickly, so be sure to reserve well ahead.

Lai Wah Heen, one of the city’s best-known destinations for high-end Southern Chinese cuisine, freshly prepares each meal for same-day pickup. Other kits include three-cup chicken (pictured below), Wuxi spareribs, scallop cakes in truffle oil, and lobster with ginger and scallion.

The Caribbean-Chinese joint Patois offers its delicious doubles kit, a jerk pork yakisoba kit and a substantial juicy jerk chicken (pictured below), complete with rice and peas, potato salad and a mac-and-cheese pie.

Eataly’s cooking school started offering its virtual classes with pre-selected ingredients last summer, and it’s been a hit for the still-new Toronto location of the Italian gourmet chain.

Some of the students in my virtual cohort teamed up for the occasion with family or friends in other households so they could cook the same meal at the same time; one of the amateur chefs had returned to the virtual school for her third time, after previously tackling homemade pasta and pizza.

The classes are deftly hosted by chef Mattia Pagliara, who demonstrates charm and patience as he waits for students, watching on two pages of Zoom grids, to catch up to his directions.

I know my way around the kitchen, but it always helps to have a pro chef underscore, say, the necessity of slowly heating the frying oil, testing its temperature with a drop of egg batter.

He even finds time to interact with guests a little, discussing wine varietals and Italian food trivia as he, and the rest of us, peer into strangers’ kitchens.

There’s a hint of camaraderie here, and I only wish there could be more. A pre-dinner Zoom “cocktail hour,” perhaps, for anyone who cares to mingle? An after-school gathering where we can show off our kitchen creations? After all, in these groundhog days, it’s not often we get to meet new people. It’s not like we’re going to actual restaurants anymore.

Lai Wah Heen

108 Chestnut St.

Meals made: three-cup chicken ($18.50); beef in black pepper sauce ($24.50)

Time required: 10 minutes for both.

Difficulty: 🟢 (novice)

Verdict: 🥡🥡🥡

Eataly

55 Bloor St. W.

Meal made: eggplant parmigiana for two ($65 including virtual cooking class)

Time required: 90 minutes

Difficulty: 🟡 (amateur)

Verdict: 🥫🥫🥫

Patois

794 Dundas St. W.

Meals made: Trini doubles with chickpea masala ($18); juicy jerk chicken for two ($35).

Time required: 5 minutes for the doubles; 45 for the chicken.

Difficulty: 🟢 (novice)

Verdict: 🍗🍗🍗

Like what you see here? If you miss culture as much as I do, please tell your friends. The easiest way to share is by clicking this link in your inbox, which will generate a handy pre-written message that you can forward to anyone who might enjoy joining the Uncultured club. As a token of thanks, claim some free swag by clicking here.

If you’re not the sharing kind (or even if you are), you can always buy me a coffee.

See you soon.

*Special thanks this week to Lai Wah Heen and Eataly for providing the meal kits.

But, sorry Dude, there was still something rage-making that I had to get off my chest. So here goes.

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What are you thankful for?

Ninety-eight years ago, my grandmothers were born one day apart. Four years ago, both of them died, one month apart.

Today I’m thankful for that.

Um, you’re thankful your grandmothers died?

Well, I’m thankful that they didn’t live long enough to experience the horrors of Covid-19 from the inside of a seniors home.

Even if they could have lived in relative health and happiness for those four years, it wouldn’t have been worth it if it meant being left helpless, terrified and alone as a pandemic swept through Ontario’s healthcare institutions in 2020, and then again in 2021.

Every day I get these updates on my phone.

Normally I look at the alert with a pang of passive sadness, then move on to the Bernie memes and the rest of the day’s distractions.

At some point last week I was moved to explore further. That’s when it literally hit home.

Out of Ontario’s 626 long-term care homes, an astonishing 255 are currently battling an outbreak of Covid-19. That’s more than the number of homes hit in the first wave.

The data is updated daily and you can scroll through it on Ontario’s Covid-19 hub, but the exhaustive list of locations and raw numbers obscures the very real suffering and grief behind it all.

I pored over the data with a bit of dread, wondering if my grandmothers’ former homes had been affected. One bubbie lived in a Toronto retirement residence; the other in a different residence, before her health declined and she moved to a long-term care home.

All three facilities have battled coronavirus outbreaks over the last year. One of them, the nursing home, is still in the throes of an outbreak. I had no idea. And now I can only imagine what it must be like to have your loved ones inside one of those homes, and, yes, I’m thankful.

As of this writing there have been 3,336 deaths of long-term care residents, plus 11 staff, in Ontario. By the time you read this, the number will no doubt be higher. As it stands, that accounts for 58 percent of all Covid-19-related deaths in the province.

Some of the stories are truly horrific, like this account from Cynthia Mulligan of CityNews of a Whitby home where all but one resident caught the infection, or the Roberta Place home in Barrie where at least 41 have died, and where the extra-contagious U.K. variant of the virus has now been confirmed.

And what are we doing about it? This.

In lieu of taking any meaningful steps toward containing a catastrophe — like hiring more support staff, offering them paid sick days, preventing them from working in multiple homes, implementing a rapid asymptomatic testing regimen, measures that should have been taken after the first wave’s devastation — the best our premier can muster is a lighthearted video urging Ontarians to stay home, awkwardly repeated in multiple languages.

The vaccine is thankfully being administered widely in these homes, but for too many, it’s too late.

When all this is over, when this present-tense nightmare is finally in the past, we will — I hope — look back upon the neglect of our elders and their preventable deaths with the utmost shame. Our long-term care system has been underfunded for decades, but maybe this is the moment when lessons are learned, and changes are finally made.

Because when we send our loved ones to a new home we want to be able to look them in the eye and tell them: don’t worry, bubbie. You’re going to a good place.

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I’d hate to end on that note. This newsletter is supposed to be about diversions from reality, not the hard truths of it. So let’s get back to those Bernie Sanders memes, which stole the thunder from Joe Biden on his inauguration day, and haven’t let up since.

Come to think of it, Sanders makes an apt mascot for today’s theme. A septuagenarian, recently vaccinated yet sensibly wearing a mask outdoors, sitting solo on a bench, bracing himself from the cold with a cozy pair of mittens. He knows better than to go inside.

I won’t repost any of those silly memes that show Sanders superimposed on everything from the Star Trek Enterprise to the CN Tower, but I must give a nod to the crochet talent named Tobey Perales King, who knitted a perfect likeness of Bernie on a bench, which she’s selling on eBay.

The bidding is at $15,400 U.S. and counting, with a day still to go. King promises all proceeds will be donated to Meals on Wheels. (Update, Jan. 26: the item has sold, at $20,300 U.S.! But you can still buy the pattern to crochet your own at King’s Etsy shop, for only $6.66 Cdn.)

As a good news story, it’s not much of a counterweight to our long-term care crisis, but it’ll have to do.

Not to worry. We’ll get back to regular Uncultured programming later this week.

See you then.

When I get enough responses I hope to put together some sort of mixtape for Uncultured subscribers.

Name that tune!