Toronto is a city full of exceptional digital storytellers. Among us walk a vast mélange of romantics, technologists, artists and players with common threads limited to a penchant for journaling, a loving respect for shared spaces and no small amounts of narcissism, exhibitionism or altruism. These are my Top-10 Toronto weblogs.
- Sam Javanrouh's Daily Dose of Imagery
http://wvs.topleftpixel.com
An extraordinarily artistic photoblog that Javanrouh calls "a simple view of my day to day visual experience" in Toronto. "I started my photoblog to challenge myself for creating a decent photo on a daily basis and share the experience with other people," he says. He often gives visitors reason to pause and reflect as his artwork transcends the routine point-and-click digital camera photographs that are the weblog norm. - Zoilus.com
http://www.zoilus.com
Zoilus.com is the brainchild of Globe and Mail music critic Carl Wilson. He regularly posts the stories behind his stories, as well as other fascinating points about music and culture. When asked why he started blogging, he says that blogs are where the critical-thinking action is and that they "have the kind of energy that I associate with rock writing of the 1970s or Internet e-mail discussion lists a decade ago." Wilson is a great writer who is obviously passionate about music in a beautiful, sophisticated and refreshingly uncynical way. He says that "Zoilus was a way for me to maintain a connection with my readers in between my weekly columns and, I hoped, to expand that readership and deepen our mutual relationship."Noteworthy Interview Excerpt (Carl Wilson):Q: Why do you blog?
A: I began blogging about a year ago for two main reasons:
First, I'd become an avid reader of blogs, especially music blogs, and they seemed to be where the critical-thinking action was at, to have the kind of energy that I associate with rock writing of the 1970s or Internet e-mail discussion lists a decade ago. Precious few magazines and certainly damn few newspaper critics have the same sense of dynamic interaction with their readership, and I wanted in. Unfortunately in 2004, as MP3 blogs began to eclipse text-based ones, passive listening began to replace scrappy back-and-forth shouting among the music bloggerati and their readers. Did I miss the golden age? Maybe, but there's still juice in this pomegranate and I plan to keep chewing at it till I start to suck.
Second, working in print is often very isolating. Feedback is sparse and slow. Zoilus was a way for me to maintain a connection with my readers in between my weekly columns and, I hoped, to expand that readership and deepen our mutual relationship. That part has worked amazingly well. And an element I didn't consider much - a far bigger network of contacts and conversations with other writers on music and with musicians far and wide - has proved to be the very most exciting thing about blogging.
- BoingBoing.net
http://www.boingboing.net
The technologist in me is particularly enamoured with BoingBoing.net, one of the most popular meta-weblogs on the Internet. It is an interesting, educational and sometimes ironic look at the evolution and daily state of technology in society, and it is co-written by Cory Doctorow, a Toronto native now living in London, UK. "I consume, digest, and excrete information for a living" says Doctorow. "The blog I co-edit is a means for me to keep track of all the factoids that comprise my life, and it's better than a traditional commonplace book in that it grows through reader suggestion. Best of all, there's no editorial intervention, so I can write about what I want in the way I want. BoingBoing is among the most influential blogs in the blogosphere and receives more than 200,000 unique visitors per day.Noteworthy Interview Excerpt (Cory Doctorow):Q: Why do you blog?
A: I wrote an article on this here
The blog I co-edit is a means for me to keep track of all the factoids that comprise my life, and it's better than a traditional commonplace book in that it grows through reader suggestion. Best of all, there's no editorial intervention, so I can write about what I want in the way I want.
I consume, digest, and excrete information for a living. Whether I'm writing science fiction, editorials, columns, or tech books, whether I'm speaking from a podium or yammering down the phone at some poor reporter, my success depends on my ability to cite and connect disparate factoids at just the right moment.
As a committed infovore, I need to eat roughly six times my weight in information every day or my brain starts to starve and atrophy. I gather information from many sources: print, radio, television, conversation, the Web, RSS feeds, email, chance, and serendipity. I used to bookmark this stuff, but I just ended up with a million bookmarks that I never revisited and could never find anything in.
- DavidAkin.com
http://davidakin.blogware.com
CTV News national business and technology correspondent David Akin's blog is always enjoyable because of his knowledgeable reporting about technology and its impact on our world. "I find that I'm a better technology reporter if I'm also a user of new computing and communication technologies and a participant in various online communities," says Akin. "Firing up a blog was a natural way of continuing to be able to report, with some intelligence, about the things I'm supposed to be reporting on." - Better Living Centre
http://www.betterlivingcentre.ca
Writer Marc Weisblott runs this blog with artist Brett Lamb (known for his comics in the Annex Gleaner). It is about "flipping the script, shattering the state, shaking the foundation," says Weisblott when asked about why he blogs. He's been "a mostly-frustrated professional media type for the last few years," which is why he's trying to create "the best local example of a certain flavor of blogging ideal." However, he admits that "that perspective has mostly turned me into a raving lunatic anarchist." And THAT certainly makes for interesting reading.Noteworthy Interview Excerpt (Marc Weisblott):Q: Why do you blog?
A: simply because this is where *all* the visceral action is in the media game today ...
it's flipping the script, shattering the state, shaking the foundation--any dreadful situationist cliche certainly applies ... the barrier to participation has been lowered--whether through starting one's own blog, via email or comments--to degrees that seemed unimaginable not long ago ...
that said, not everyone who knows how to turn on a computer is deserving of such a pulpit; i'd imagine that lots of people imagine doing weblogs and fiddle around with them for a day or three, but to have the kind of tenacity and original voice worthy of getting noticed is a different matter ...
there are *maybe* a dozen people in toronto who've consistently displayed an effective kind of dilettante approach to the medium (would be happy to give you a list), in a manner that would not necessarily translate in print or broadcast ... that's not to put down the 100 or so local bloggers who've done a good job chronicling the intimate details of their lives online, posting great photos, writing witty observations about the world ... there are a few toronto-based tech ones as well, or dedicated to a very specific trade ... but with the BLC site we're trying to be the best local example of a certain flavor of blogging ideal, the one that interfaces most with the mainstream media ...
i've been a mostly-frustrated professional media type for the last few years ... seems a little silly to try and catch a fresh break any *other* way, but so far holding that perspective has mostly turned me into a raving lunatic anarchist ...
i know brett via his blog but also his comix in the annex gleaner, when i first met him he said something like "i don't think i've even started to figure out the potential of what blogging can be" ... i'd been devouring these sites for the entire 2002 and was already getting sick of them because it was mostly drowned out by american bush-licking warbloggers berating british newspaper columnists who were against the iraq war ... then nick denton started gawker and the tide began to shift a bit ... i was blogging about quote-unquote entertainment media a year before anyone else got around to packaging it professionally, though ...
... but the turning point comes when you realize you'd rather be 10 years younger than 10 years older ... we're inherently grumpy hyper-literate guys, arrested adolescents in our mid-30s, doing this thing ... kind of caught between the baby boomer media elites and the 18-24 age group they're obsessed with trying to "target" ... this is residual generation X angst or something (and it's not just me, many of the blogeurs who've made a name for themselves via this format in the u.s.a also fit into that demographic)
- PhotoJunkie
http://www.photojunkie.ca
Rannie Turingan has been photographing local Indie bands and the city in which they play for more than a decade. He's taken his addiction for photojournalling our culture and his life onto the web. Turingan's recent photos of Kensington Market and the Distillery District are remarkable. - Community Blogs
Turingan is also a prolific contributor to the Toronto blogosphere in general - he is a founder of both Toronto Area Photoblogs (http://toronto.photobloggers.org) and GTA Bloggers (http://www.gtabloggers.com), blog collectives from the Greater Toronto Area. - A Journey Through Time
http://www.ajourneythroughtime.org
For a more inward-looking perspective, A Journey Through Time, subtitled A Fresh Look at (mostly) 20th Century History, is updated almost daily by Greg. He's a great writer and I look forward to seeing what he does post-graduation. - Marmalade.ca
http://www.marmalade.ca
Marmalade.ca is brought to you by the letter K, from a cute, knitting, cooking girl who likes cats and clothes and so many other things that I can't relate to on any level. Still, I like reading what she has to say. - Infiltration.org
http://www.infiltration.org
As always, my all-time favourite resource for information about the seedy underbelly of Toronto is Infiltration.org. Though updated infrequently, the blog is a fascinating look into adventures which many of us have always wanted yet only few of us have had the courage to take.
Honourable Mentions
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The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century (http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog) is also worthy of praise, as is Loopy Superstring's Manifold (http://individual.utoronto.ca/superstring/blogger.html) and culture blog Ghost of a Flea (http://www.ghostofaflea.com). I'm also a big fan of The Flink (http://www.flinknet.com/theflink/) from ex-Torontonian Miriam Verburg (now living in Montreal) and Jay Pinkerton (http://www.jaypinkerton.com/blog/), who just moved to LA from Toronto to become managing editor of Natonal Lampoon's website.