ThePlagueYears: We need homes, they give us streets

The phone woke me from a not-quite-dead sleep at five this morning. I listened befuddled to a drunk at the other end, babbling incomprehensibly. Finally, I snapped and said, 'Who the fuck is this?'

It sounded like he said, 'Jorvik,' but that can't be right. (Jorvik is the Viking name for York - and today the name of a popular tourist attraction that tells the story of the Vikings in that English city.) Maybe he said, 'Geordie.' In any case, he then said, quite clearly, 'I'm trying to get into unit 1104.'

At that point, I hung up.

When I told Karen about it in the morning, the first thing she said was, 'Probably a homeless person trying to get into the building.' And I thought, yeah, quite likely. A few minutes later, she called out, 'Omigod, it's minus twenty out there!'

And I put the two things together: it's minus twenty now at 7:30, likely colder two hours ago, and I possibly stopped a homeless person from getting in out of the killing cold.

This afternoon, I went for a walk and as I came back along Dundas Street I came to a boarded-up low-rise business building just west of Colborne. In the alley along side, a homeless person was lying, completely covered, on an air vent, boots placed neatly at his head.

And when I came level with one of the picture windows on the building front, this is what I saw.

'We need homes, they give us streets.'

In an entranceway way to the building next door, two more homeless were sleeping, all bundled up. In the little parkette half a block along, a homeless person - or group - had set up a large tent. And another half block along sat a police cruiser, motor running, the officer just staring out the window.

I know I'm late to the party on this. And I know this is a really tough problem. But shouldn't this be absolutely the highest priority for our cities? If nobody died from the cold last night in London, it's only the purest good fortune.

The rest of the walk was less...freighted. I continued collecting street art. This one is in a laneway just off King St. between Richmond and Clarence.

I call this one 'Icicle booger'

I walked along York St. for a change - a bit of a wasteland - past the London Free Press building, which I understand is mostly empty these days. I dropped down to the tracks on Colborne to see if there were any railroad shots worth trying for. There weren't.

But I did continue with my attempts to pay homage to Harry Callahan, one of my favourite photographers. I'm getting a little closer to the Callahan aesthetic, I think, though these are still in colour and Harry only used black and white in the period when he was making weed-in-snow shots.

And then on the last of the return leg, I saw a way to photograph the relief sculptures on the front of the Toronto Dominion bank building at Clarence and Dundas. I've tried before, but never been satisfied. This one, of the reliefs reflected in the mirrored windows of the building across the street, I quite like.

I think the theme is exploration and settlement. There's a factory worker on left, a sailing ship, a farm vehicle and what looks to be a cowboy. I'm sure I could find more information about them somewhere...

What was left of the morning, after a Portal call with Caitlin and Louis and my run in the gloriously sunny weather, was given over to Montpellier, 2015.