Back at the start of the summer I wrote up a brief guide to swimming Toronto's Beaches. Sadly, the all-too-short swimming season is wrapping up, but I've read that winter is the best time for surfers to hit the lake looking to ride some waves. (Apparently Bluffer's Park is one of the most popular surf spots in the city).

With that in mind, here's a YouTube video that was recently posted to the comments of that guide. It's a commercial for a Californian wine called Twin Fin, but there are some funny moments in it. Hopefully the sight of scantily clad, fun-loving Californians scampering about Toronto public spaces will be enough to keep everyone going until the beaches are opened again next summer!

It might be common knowledge that Toronto's shoreline has shifted numerous times since colonists first set foot here, but it isn't often that we're reminded of that fact. Unlike the city's buried ravines and creeks, which are often echoed in commemorative plaques and maps, the lost shoreline of Lake Ontario is only marked by the sudden dip in roads stretching south of Front Street.

A new initiative by the City of Toronto's Culture DIvision hopes to correct that missing tribute at one of the most important sites that used to site on the lake: Fort York. The call for submissions asks that a new art installation should "delineate the original Lake Ontario shoreline and related features, which can be traced along the north side of Fort York Boulevard." I'd love to see this kind of installation later stretched along other significant parts of the original shoreline; the more links we can make to the waterfront the better.

The Culture Division's website doesn't have the details, so I've copied them for interested artists after the jump:

Of the novels set in Toronto that I've read during the last few years, my favourite (for now) is Michael Redhill's Consolation. The story takes place in both late-twentieth and mid-nineteenth century Toronto, and addresses (among other things) the city's amnesia about its past and its inability to preserve or respect its history.

A few days ago Consolation was long-listed for the Man Booker prize, one of the more prestigious prizes in literary circles. Although the story is very much about Toronto, it also addresses several universal themes that might turn the heads of readers outside of the city. The Calgary Herald summed the book up pretty nicely:

"A beautiful and dreamy story, gorgeously written and movingly told, about the myriad ways the past lingers just below the surface of the present and inevitably shapes the future. It is the story of a family, but also the story of Toronto, a city that's constantly recreating itself and, in so doing, constantly shrugging off its awkward past.... Redhill's recreation of old Toronto is so vivid you can almost hear the rumble of carriage wheels on the cobblestones as you turn the pages"

There are some strong contenders for the prize (as there always are), so on behalf of Toronto I wish Mr. Redhill the best of luck!

Image from Random House.

It seems like ages ago DJ Cyber-Rap (remember him?) proclaimed himself "the Toronto Reference Library regular." No doubt he has a few stories to tell about the place, and he's probably not alone. In celebration of its 30th anniversary, the Toronto Reference Library is canvassing the city looking for stories about how it has changed people's lives. Whether you started a business with the small business resources, wrote a paper that launched an academic career, or stumbled into the love of your life between the stacks, the library wants to hear about it.

Projects like [murmur] and the Memory Archive have shown us the degree to which stories can influence (and be influenced by) a public space, so I'm interested to hear the winning stories. Successful submissions will appear in a booklet distributed by the library, and a "snazzy Library travel mug" could also be yours.

Submissions can be handed in electronically, and detailed guidelines can be found on the library's website.

Image by Metrix X of the blogTO flickr pool.

Although it's not as ingrained in our civic mindset as other dishes are in other cities, the Peameal bacon sandwich is one of the more iconic foods in Toronto. At outdoor festivals there's almost always a Peameal bacon sandwich stand, and you can order it at large venues (like the Air Canada Centre) and even some of the city's cultural attractions (like the ROM's Food Studio).

But, as anyone who considers him or herself a Peameal bacon sandwich aficionado knows, the best place to get the real deal is in the St. Lawrence Market. Within its hallowed halls are three Peameal bacon sandwich vendors in hailing distance of each other, and although you might think the simple pork-on-a-bun "recipe" would be hard to vary, each vendor presents it in a slightly different way.

Enlisting the cast-iron stomach of my trusty dining companion, Horse, I set out to learn which vendor sells the best sandwich. Among other lessons, such as repeated reminders of the somewhat wonky hours of operation of the market, we learned the answer to this age-old question. What follows is a scientific analysis of that journey: The Great Canadian Peameal Bacon Sandwich Luncheon.

In the last year or so I've developed a growing interest in the intersection of urban geography and cultural studies. I'm not alone in this interest; the proliferation of public space and urban intervention special-interest groups has made everyone either an activist or a student of the anthropology of city-building. None of this is exactly new news, but the ripples of our urban-obsessions are still being felt in city-building, politics, and literature.

A few weeks ago I went to the launch for Pier Giorgio Di Cicco's Municipal Mind: Manifestos for the Creative City (Mansfield Press). In an evening filled with rousing speeches by Spacing editor Matt Blackett, Mayor David Miller, and the Poet Laureate himself, it was easy to get excited about city-building, particularly in Toronto, which, we were repeatedly reminded, is on the verge of finally "falling in love with itself." (I believe that's in the legitimate sense of the phrase, not the narcissistic way in which Torontonians are often accused of viewing their city).

Since then I've had a chance to read the book: