Yo…
I enjoy post-apocalyptic thrillers. (There’s a solid icebreaker for a first date. “Hey baby…do you like darkness and end days, too?”)
Often a common scene that naturally creates dread is iconic locations absent of humans.
Walking Dead’s Rick Grimes riding a horse through a desolate Atlanta.
The solitary London scene that opens 28 Days Later. There’s almost 9 million people in London…the idea that you can walk past Big Ben and nobody around is deeply unsettling. (That’s way scarier than the reason why there’s no more Brits.)
Will Smith zooming around a Times Square wasteland in a Ford Shelby Mustang GT500. All the humans in I Am Legend are largely replaced by trees and bushes and other literal wildlife.
What’s fascinating about the I Am Legend scene is…the billboards are still up. This is still Times Square. The store are still…there.
The typical suburban landscape often marred by corporations and marketing is still intact. But it has no value. Will Smith is all that’s left. And he’s not gonna shop at Staples or attend a Broadway musical and purchase that play’s merch. All the consumers have been…consumed.
Recently, we saw those empty city street photos during COVID. We put our lives on hold to ensure we would still have lives to lead when it was finally all over.
As you watch the I Am Legend Times Square scene…just over a minute in Will Smith takes a hard left. The camera lingers like a ghost in a haunted house as the Mustang muscles its way forward.
Sly movies viewers can read a street scene response to the awful predicament the vanishing humans find themselves in: “God Still Love Us.”
(And above the graffitied plea for God’s help is a butterfly. Barely 5 minutes into the movie yet soon you’ll come to know a butterfly in that world is a powerful symbol of hope and resilience. The streets are always talking but not everyone is listening.)
We did that, too in real life. That was a loud COVID response.
Just like in I Am Legend we took to the streets…writing on public walls, green rusty dumpsters and construction fences with "Sharp…ie" opinions about vaccines. (Some pro, some anti. There’s no such thing as consensus, anymore.)
Toronto photographer Henry VanderSpek shot a number of these urban emotional displays to assemble Urban Scrawl. His exhibition is part of the Contact Photography Festival.
Henry writes: “Urban Scrawl features images of messages that I encountered on the streets of Toronto over the past 12+ years. Some are about activism, some are humourous, some deeply heartfelt and many are inspirational.”
All of the Urban Scrawl photos are messages and cultural expressions written on Toronto’s streets. Like Summer Changed U on a notice a condo building is going up in that hood. Is it about the hood? It is about romance? What does it mean to you?
In Urban Scrawl there’s COVID reactions, poetic phrases, even anti-capitalism attitudes. And there’s love and there’s hope.
If you want to know what’s going on in Toronto, learn to see and read the streets like a crystal ball.
All of the standard emotions we go through living in a large metropolis.
(The streets are always talking but not everyone is listening.)
I’ve seen a sneak peek of Urban Scrawl and I gotta say it is fascinating.
Like the ominous V for Vendetta spray-paint circle V logo. (One of my all-time favourite movies. Also not a first date reveal. “War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you.” Preach V!!)
This is how Toronto speaks: we write messages in the streets. Whose streets? Our streets.
It’s charming people still treat the city like a blank canvas to write emotional chefs-d’œuvre like Summer Changed U or The Opposite of Love Is Indifference.
You know, you have email.
You have social media.
You have countless websites like Reddit where you can freely write posts.
You have unlimited forms of communication.
And yet…you also have train tracks and a white permanent marker.
It’s all like when strangers have gathered at an NBA game and suddenly one of em appears on the jumbotron. Thousands watch a dude lose his cool.
You can go live…literally right now…go live on YouTube. But 5 seconds on the jumbotron and most folks are like “yo: I made it!” That’s an accomplishment which is so…fleeting. Usually, there’s no record of it.
It’s like we haven’t progressed.
All this technology and all these outlets and all these platforms…many of them for free. And yet fun folks are out here saying thanks but no thanks: I’m just gonna write my feelings out on a Foo Fighters poster in the middle of a busy downtown Toronto street.
As you’ll hear in this episode I quote Joan Didion (which…ugh, that sounds so pretentious. It’s the price I willingly paid to be well-read.):
“In many ways, writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It’s an aggressive, even a hostile act.
You can disguise its aggressiveness all you want with veils of subordinate clauses and qualifiers and tentative subjunctives, with ellipses and evasions—with the whole manner of intimating rather than claiming, of alluding rather than stating—but there’s no getting around the fact that setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully, an invasion, an imposition of the writer’s sensibility on the reader’s most private space.”
~ Joan Didion, Let Me Tell You What I Mean: An Essay Collection
I dropped Joan because a) she’s dope! and 2) this line is powerful: “In many ways writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It’s an aggressive, even a hostile act.”
That’s why I opened talking about post-apocalyptic thrillers like I Am Legend and mentioned dystopian thrillers like V for Vendetta: the graffiti in those movies is a hostile act.
The writer is hijacking attention:
Reflect on this.
Laugh at this.
Reject this.
In short: Look At This.
Hijacking attention is deftly captured in Henry’s Urban Scrawl photos.
We need basic income…it’s something Canada shoulda done years ago. That writer is correct. Where’s the loud #ElbowsUp leadership for that? By now that should be a Canadian choir chorus not a solo.
And technically the opposite of love is fear but yeah, sure…indifference works. I ain’t indifferent to that position.
These graffiti writers are disrupting the corporate flow all around us from store windows (buy now!) to billboards (buy now!) and offering us an emotional respite (chill now!).
What’s the common expression everyone uses these days? Read The Room. More like…read the city. Your city. Urban Scrawl invites you to read and engage in your city.
Attached is the My Summer Lair interview with photographer Henry VanderSpek.
You’ll learn about his F Stop Philosophy, the lens through which he views the world, details on his Urban Scrawl exhibition and perhaps…insights on what it all says about Toronto. (And it all starts with…chili cheese fries. I mean how else would you start this conversation?)
I’ve been richly blessed to know Henry for many years now. (I’ve known his lovely wife Suzi even longer. There’s a comforting beauty connecting with someone over decades. Somewhere along the way they’ve decided just to love you even after knowing way too much about you. That’s a fiery hope in a dark world.)
Often, Henry’s freshtastic photos show up in numerous My Pal Sammys. He magically makes me look good and cool even though I’m just a left handed podcaster who openly despises pants. (There’s a line from an Oasis song: “Coming in a mess, going out in style.” That’s what Henry impressively pulls off when he shoots me. I come in a mess and thanks to his patience I go out in style. Thank you Henry for applying the super fox filter.)
I’m still stunned by his distinguished eye; with his camera he actively seeks majesty as consistently as the sun rises. Famous photographer Bill Cunningham said: “Those who seek beauty will find it.” Henry’s joyful passion is like a watermark in all of his photos because he seeks beauty.
Gratefully, Henry and I have fallen into a curiosity routine…we pick a city, throw our cameras into a bag and explore.
We’ve hit up Montreal, Detroit, New York City, Buffalo, Mexico City, Seattle and more.
Henry talks to strangers. He hears their stories and he shoots their smiles.
I’m tasked with finding the cool hoods…record shops, sneaker stores, sweet speakeasys and more.
Henry focuses on characters and I focus on areas brimming with character. Characteristically, it fits with who we are and what our values are.
I appreciate Henry and his photography skills. (I live a great life. I could fill out pages in a Gratitude Journal.)
Come to Urban Scrawl and meet Toronto.
Prepare to see a dynamic city (your city!) that is struggling, frustrated, hopeful, witty and full of love.
#PantsWorthy: Urban Scrawl by Henry VanderSpek
Urban Scrawl’s #PantsWorthy opening reception:
Wednesday April 16th from 6:30 - 9:00 p.m.
(I’ll be there. Not sure if that’s a selling point…)
Click here to register for the reception via Eventbrite.
Daniels Spectrum Main Floor Hallway Gallery
585 Dundas St E (map link)
Urban Scrawl runs until May 5th.
If you can’t make the opening night jam, please stop by before then.
Daniels Spectrum official hours:
Mon - Fri 9 AM - 9 PM
Sat 9 AM - 6 PM
My Summer Lair Spotted On Spotify
Last month at Toronto Comicon the benevolent Canadian Podcast Awards team gave me a few hours to host their booth on Sunday morning.
As I introduced neat nerds and sensational strangers to my quality program 60 brand new BFFs followed me on Spotify. Are you cereal?!
I was blown away…like a goon in an ‘80s action movie. That was so radically kind.
If you want to join the Sagacious 60 here is MSL’s subscribe button on Spotify.
(Think we can top 60 with this PSA? Like preventing forest fires, it’s up to you.)
As a reward for subscribing on Spotify you can enjoy the Urban Scrawl playlist I’ve been tasked with assembling for the opening night reception.
Henry provided a couple of guide tracks and the rest was up to me.
Over 50 songs that echo and reflect the tone of the photography exhibition.
That’ll be the soundtrack for the opening night reception on Wednesday April 16.
For me an Urban Scrawl is when I lay down and spread out to take a long nap…
Sammy Younan
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Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair podcast: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.
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