S4E59: Walk, Don't Brunch with Shawn Micallef - a podcast by Colin Marshall

In Toronto's Church-Wellesley Village, Colin Marshall talks to Shawn Micallef, editor and co-owner of Spacing magazine, Toronto Star columnist, and author of such books as Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto and The Trouble with Brunch. They discuss his first "long, deliberate" walk in Toronto, which happened by accident; what, exactly, caused this trouble with brunch; his youth in Windsor and his discovery of the middle class in Toronto, which brunches routinely; the death threats his anti-brunch stance has drawn; the difficulty of knowing what class you fit into in the 21st century; choosing flights over children; how Oz-like Toronto looked from back in Windsor; those who stayed behind for the "good money," and what potential they may not have realized as a result; how he began "unpeeling the layers" of Toronto, and how he discovered that infinite peelability defines a great city; the "magical lightness" he discovered upon leaving his car at home; how Toronto doesn't quite know what it has, thinking of itself as a midwestern city more along the lines of Indianapolis; how he developed his obsession with Los Angeles (and how Toronto's 401 freeway surpassed any of Los Angeles' for congestion); why Torontonians insist upon Toronto's and "do not own their Toronto-ness"; Toronto and Los Angeles as cities without stories written in stone, because their people write them even now; the ten-year project behind Stroll; why he finds strip malls the most interesting places in the city, and what drove "actual multiculturalism" out to them; Rob Ford as the "kick in the ass" Toronto may have needed; what you learn when you explore a city at walking speed; and his personal mission to get to know his hometown again, not by car, but on foot.

 

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