Antigeist mentions my previous mini-rant about the Globe and Mail article. I was going to leave a comment on her entry, but it was getting a bit long-winded so I thought it might deserve space here (yeah, I know- Like something's gotta be really important to warrant space here).
Antigeist correctly agrees with the reporter that a fast ferry between Rochester and Toronto is ill-concieved and will do little for Rochester except give its denizens a quicker way out.
My beef with the article was the way the "journalist" characterized the entire city based on a very limited exposure. It also seems obvious that she had an agenda before she ever came here, and any observations she may have made that didn't coincide with her preconception were left out of her article.
If our intrepid (hardly) reporter can honestly tell me that there aren't areas of Toronto in which she would not walk alone at night, then I will happily send a bouquet of roses to her hospital bed or a nice wreath to her funeral.
She seems to mention the great George Eastman House only so that she can bring up Eastman's suicide. How the fact that Eastman decided, as his suicide note revealed, that his "work is done" reflects negatively on present-day Rochester is beyond me, but it was the apparently the only interesting aspect of the museum in her eyes. If she wasn't impressed with it, maybe proud G.E. House supporters Martin Scorcese, Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, Robert Forster, etc. etc. can enlighten her.
The article kept harping on the food she had at a local institution, Nick Tahou's. Nick Tahou's is what we Americans refer to non-derogitorily as a greasy spoon. If the two-bit wordslut that wrote this sloppy hatchet job doesn't like greasy food, she should stay out of greasy spoons. Which they have in Toronto as well, but they're not as good. I have yet to eat in a Toronto establishment where they got cole slaw right. How do you fuck up cole slaw?
I don't want to bash Toronto- it's a fine, if somewhat soul-less, city. But it's basically one giant glass house, so watch where you're throwing those rocks, bee-otch!
If you'd like to see a little of the cooler side of Rochester, go here.
Posted by monk at 03.12.03 12:00"She seems to mention the great George Eastman House only so that she can bring up Eastman's suicide."
I thought the same thing, or how she didn't mention that part of the function of the GE house is to vault the original film cans of every major work of cinema, ever. The originals groups like the film preservation society painstakingly restore frame by frame so future generations will be able to enjoy The Wizard of Oz, or the Marx Brothers, or Casablanca, or Scarface...I'm surprised she didn't mention how it's widely accepted that he was also gay, and that his marriage (to his first cousin) was for appearances and heirs only.
I'll be the first to agree with an article that calls Rochester the economically-depressed Flint-bound nightmare that it is, or that make big tee-hees at renewal projects like a domeless outdoor sports stadium in a town that sees like six precipitation free days a year, (or a high speed ferry), but to make that point by quoting crime figures and attempting to diminish the rich history and importance of who and what came from that region (what the heck, I'll include the Garbage Plate in there)...is just plain bad reporting.
The ferry idea is old. I can remember my freshman year social studies teacher talking about it in 1984....that's the year not the book..and as a chess king wearing McQ frosh I dreamed of gliding across those poluted waters to a foriegn land where everyone had a mullet and wore an izod and listened to the thompson twins and heaven 17. A magical place where Doug Henning campaigns for president and 15 loonies can get you a pack of smokes.
They love the mullet in Toronto.
Everyone knows mullets are dumb and stupid.
Therefore, Rochester rules and Toronto is filled with a bunch of turd-hustling, ass-packaged jack-lordish dick-nuggets.
I choked on my coffee at "jack-lordish", it made it's way out my nose with "dick-nuggets".
Dick nuggets is officially my new favorite term.
Posted by: antigeist at 04.12.03 10:59