CCA continued...

There are so many photos from my time in Montreal and my internship at the CCA that I have yet to share/won't be able to use in my school presentation this fall. Lucky you, I've decided to post a whole bunch here!

Sidenote: Right now I am listening to an old Smashing Pumpkins album that used to be a staple for me in the 8th and 9th grade. It makes me smile (and feel a little old) uploading these photos while reflecting upon those angst filled years. Le sigh.

Daguerreotype of an unidentified architect at his desk

Inscription on the verso of a daguerreotype

American Confederate soldiers


Verso of a James Beard daguerreotype

Le cottage

Just got back from a weekend up north with some friends. Swimming in a lake never gets old. My clothes and towels from the weekend smell like a campfire and I've lost my voice completely. I took most of my photos with my 35mm which I have yet to develop.

Air conditionnningg

It is sweltering outside but thanks to our new-fangled air conditioning I am only sweating a small amount right now. Tomorrow night I'm leaving to go up north to a friend's cottage I haven't visited in about 5 years. I'm going to wear my bathing suit in the car and jump into the lake upon arrival. I can't wait for corn on the cob, canoe rides, roasted marshmallows, hearty laughter, acting like children and waking up on the lake. This city makes it hard to breathe sometimes (literally and figuratively).

Granny

I've been working on a crocheted granny square quilt for about a year and it has been coming along very, very slowly. Most of the squares I made were complete crap with the exception of this one...

So I decided on a new granny square pattern that is a bit easier (considering this is my first crochet project) and the squares are a bit bigger too. So I tore up all my bad squares from the first quilt, which is something Kyle always cringes at.

"You made about 1000 loops with a little hook and now you're tearing up all your work?"



Ummm, yes.









So this is my new pattern.



And my new granny squares. Now I have about 150 more to make.

Georgian Bay

Toronto < Rochester

Last week I went Rochester with my Mum and Aunt Shirley in the hopes of finding a nice place to live for school this fall. After a long day of driving and looking at crappy places I decided to take the first place we saw which is a little coach house around the corner from the GEH. I've signed the lease and paid first and last so now it's just a matter of getting my visa sorted and I will be on my way to the States to live as an American for a year. After spending the better part of a day in Rochester it seems as though it isn't the small town I thought it would be, there are cafes and pubs and tons of younger people wandering around (in a good way). To be honest, I'm kind of excited to get out of a big city for awhile. I've come to realize that Torontonians are kind of self-righteous jerks and the fact that this city has been stinking like garbage for the past month (more stinking than usual) has not made me feel better about living here.

I can't get over this

"We're clocks, Abelard. Nothing more."

pg. 236

St Lawrence Market Find

Baking and making

I've been busy and despite the heat wave we had last week I have done a lot of baking. Since the last post I have:

- made butter from whipping cream (in my kitchenaid, easy stuff)
- baked sour cherry coffee cake
- preserved green beans
- baked zucchini bread
- baked a cherry pie
- roasted a whole chicken
- made a few batches of plum preserve

I tried to document all of this but decided to snack instead.

Guess what? It's hot.

My apartment is a sauna which didn't really stop me from baking a cherry pie the other night. This was not the smartest move but I felt pressured to take advantage of the sour cherries that are now in season and popping up at markets all along Roncesvalles. The pie is pretty good and well worth the oven being on at 425 degrees for 45 minutes. The heat is so nasty that I've given up on trying to be remotely fashionable or presentable in public and I will soon venture out onto the streets wearing cut offs and a t-shirt I purchased in high school that has the exclamation "CLOWNS!" printed on the front. It's not a classy day, not at all.

The aforementioned shirt in all it's glory. Go easy on me, we had just been camping for 3 days and the campground showers were infested with earwigs.

Happy Cat

I woke up yesterday to find that my cat had left a happy face in her food bowl.
Strange.

Gloria Stuart, I'm Sorry

During a game of Trivial Pursuit (the 90's Edition) a question came up in which the answer was the name of the actress who played the old lady in Titanic. My extremely classy answer was "that old bitch", which I blame solely on the wine and whiskey I had consumed that evening. Turns out that old bitch's name is Gloria Stuart and she just turned 100, pretty impressive stuff. It also appears that she was a total babe back in the day. So in an attempt to make up for calling this seemingly nice old lady an "old bitch" I thought I would throw up some pictures of her as a way of apologizing, or something. She was a babe and these pictures are great, end of story.

Aldo Rossi Polaroids

Let's talk about Aldo Rossi, an Italian architect born in 1931 and who died in 1997. These are a few of his polaroids that the CCA has in their collection that I got to work with for a few days. My job was basically to re-house these and make a nice little box for them all to be stored in (there are almost 200 in total).

Find more info about Rossi here:
http://www.cca.qc.ca/en/collection/541-aldo-rossi-archive

I found these on the Need and Supply Co. website.
Tacky, but I want them.