All Good Things

Tuesday night was the last show for Dwayne Gretzky after a 3-month residency at The Dakota Tavern. As usual, a local band opened up for them. This time around it was Hands & Teeth, a 5-member indie pop band. They specialize in 4-part harmony songs. As an nod to cover night, half of their set were Beatles cover including a long version of I Want You/She's So Heavy. They have a good sound and catchy tunes.

For the last show, Dwayne Gretzky played all the "Greatest Hits" including Be My Baby and My Best Friend's Girl. Yet even at the tail end, they still include newer songs in the set such as Thunder Road and even a brand new tune: Just A Girl (No Doubt). There were plenty of guests including the all-girl country band Ladies of The Canyon doing Dreams (Fleetwood Mac). Lots of crowd participation including an exhortation to go wild on the last song of the set.

Unfortunately, I had to leave once again after the 1st set at 12:45 am. But the twitter-verse tells me that apparently they kept at it until 3:30 am.

Up In The Air

Before heading over to Dufferin Grove Park for some Circus In the Park fun in the sunshine, I passed by Kensington Market for a bit of Pedestrian Sunday. In front of Wanda's Pie In the Sky cafe, Mr. Rick and the Biscuits entertained the crowd with some rockabilly.

The Circus In The Park group has grown since it started. The circus performers with their silks and trapeze, and the acro-yogis with their mats are now joined by the University of Toronto Engineering Juggling Club (although not everyone is a U of T student or member). They are quite good, better than most buskers. While I can only manage 3 balls for a short period, they are tossing up to 5 balls , clubs, rings, and even partner exchanges. Most are also proficient at contact juggling. Even better, they have slack-lines.

As the end of summer draws to a close, I'm happy to note I am now a slack-liner, if only a beginner. A light-bulb went off this afternoon, and I can finally balance on the line. I don't last more than 10 secs and can take at most 3-4 steps, but finally some progress. It's a shame the season is over, I'm tempted to get my own to get a bit more practice before the snow arrives.

Ham It Up

For the official CD release of their 2nd CD, Tosta Mista, Hooded Fang had their concert not in a bar but outside in the courtyard of Academy of Lions, a kettle bells, rings, truck tires, back-to-basics gym on Dundas St. near Dovercourt. Two port-a-potties were set-up, Mill St. beer was available, funky arts dotted the space, and Luce Libre movies were projected onto the wall of the adjacent building.

First up was Wio-K, a 3-member rap group. They had a old school style going, though it was hard for them to engage the young hipster crowd. Odonis Odonis, a fuzzy surf punk group, had more success. The odd thing was that their drummer was using synth drum pads (for reasons of cost?) So the backing to their ragged garage-band playing was a thumpety-thump sound straight from the 80s.

The crowd had filled up by the time Hooded Fang took to the stage. The under-powered speakers were actually a benefit, allowing the multi-part harmonies and quieter instruments like the glockenspiel to shine through. Two go-go dancers wearing Luce Libre masks joined them for a couple of songs, appropriate for their 60s-inspired CD. The drummer broke his snare drum twice and the whole thing ended at 10:45 pm because of the local noise by-law. Photos here.

This meant that I was able to go home at a reasonable hour. But not before I ducked into the gym area and got me a tosta mista (Portuguese ham-and-cheese sandwich) from caterer Sky Blue Sky, a sandwich shop above Joons in Koreatown, for the walk home.

Children of the Corn

There is a Vietnamese sticky rice dish called xoi bap consisting of glutinous rice, fried shallot, crushed mung bean, sugar and corn. It wasn't until recently that I found out the corn is hominy or nixtamalized maize kernel. Searching reveals that it is also used in pozole, a Latin American stew.

It turns out pozole is served at my local bodega, Tierra Azteca. This "small" bowl ($5) came with hard-shelled tacos. It's a filling dish and the pork was tender, though there were pieces that were overly fatty. The tacos didn't soak up enough of the stew and their saltiness made the everything too salty. I think the stew would have gone well with some blander bread or baguette. I didn't taste much of the hominy except for the texture. All in all, a good stew to have as the weather turns cooler.

Of course, corn is one of the New World staples that spread throughout the world. But it is interesting to ponder how hominy made its way East. To bring things full-circle anecdotally, I learned from my Mom that when Vietnamese people arrived in the U.S. primarily after the war (circa 1975), they settled for corn in their xoi bap. It wasn't until they chanced upon Latin American stores that they found hominy. This knowledge then spread through the community, in this case to my grand-mother when she visited Orange County to see friends. Even today, you'll need to go to specialty stores to find it.