Whitey And COTU

Remember this? A couple of months back I told you about my trip to *spits* Toronto to visit my brother, Whitey. This is the CN Tower, once the highest structure in the world until 2007. It's kinda like Toronto made a monument to itself, huh?

Well, a couple of weeks back Mrs. Dufus and I made a trip back to *spits* Toronto to visit Whitey in advance of his birthday, or as he likes to call it COTU*. He should know. He lives there.

You may ask yourself "Why does dufus drive to Toronto so often?" Or, you may not. Nevertheless we visit my brother Whitey so often because we read a recent survey that indicated Toronto is the most miserable city in the country. Heck, we feel bad for the guy and just wanna cheer the poor fella up.

We had a great weekend. I blew a small fortune in HMV on Yonge Street, a 3-storey CD store, and substantially enhanced my music collection.

We also spent some time in COTU's* historic Distillery District. Originally a distillery founded in 1832 by brothers-in-law William Gooderman and James Worts, by 1877 it was the world's largest distillery and manufactured Canadian rye whiskey, rum and other spirits.

The 13 acre site was restored in the early to mid 2000s and developed into a pedestrian only arts and cultural district.

The area is chock-full of bistros, restaurants, studios, galleries, shops and condos. We stopped into a cheese shop called "A Taste of Quebec". Being from Quebec, we just had to see how anything in COTU* could associate itself with anything from la belle province. We were pleasantly surprised and bought several great Quebec cheeses for dinner that night. The shop was attached to a gallery that displayed the work of Quebec artists. I loved a couple in particular, each costing about $8,000. I passed. Didn't spend nearly that much in the CD store later, which made Mrs. Dufus happy. They also had a small Group of Seven member A.Y. Jackson piece. It was selling for $150,000 if you're interested.

Outside we came across IT, a forty foot tall sculpture made of 12,000 pounds of steel and inspired by H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. It was originally commissioned for Black Rock City, Nevada's 2006 Burning Man Festival.

Well, all our browsing made us hungry so we stopped in at the Pure Spirits Oyster House and Grill. Nice place. Good food and...

No problem. It was nice to know that if we drank too much it'd be easy to get a lift home.

After a full afternoon of studio browsing, sipping beers and CD buying we retreated to Whitey's place for our daily happy-hour session. Hey, I said we were there to make him feel better. Aren't I a good brother.

*Centre Of The Universe