When you’re driving after dinner along Queen West in Toronto with friends from out of town,
and the whole time they are so excited
about showing you a music video supposedly shot in New York but which is really Toronto because look there… look!   they say (more exclaim than say).
And they point to a dot on the screen where there’s a flash of orange Beck taxicab— they go back a few frames in case you missed it
and then a building,  See that building?  They rewind again and you turn again to face the backseat, you squint at the screen and they say, all kinds of proud, that they recognized it as Toronto the first time they saw the video.

The very first time.

They say again how much they love Toronto. They just love it.
The cab comes up in the video again and then a hotel interior — is it the King Eddy, they ask. The Royal York? It looks like an oldy worldy hotel hallway. We shrug, we have no idea. We sleep in our house.
And so it goes, for the entire journey along Queen amid all that hum and drang, sturm and thrum night time light show… past a million faces and a full moon… all you’re looking at is this tiny screen with recurring flashes of Beck taxi fender… and that building… the one that isn’t in New York…

Because they love Toronto!

And isn’t that what you love to hear.

All of this to say…
that none of these pictures were taken on Queen Street.