Honest Ed's is a sprawling old store down the street from arguably, Canada's best museum, the Royal Ontario Museum. It has to be the absolute antithesis of the pristine, superbly thought out organization of the ROM's exhibits, and yet, it manages to capture in its haphazard meandering way what arts and culture really is for the average Canadian. Here are the movie posters, the autographed photos of singers and actors, the remnants of zany advertising campaigns, hundreds of faces of past pop culture stars and if there is a thread of reason as to how it's all displayed then I missed it. But that's the beauty of it really, we don't consume culture in an orderly or logical fashion. Most of us listen to our music or watch television and movies, on a whim, based on moods and whatever moves us and we do it while we wash the dishes, laze in bed, or tidy the house. The products that allow you to complete those tasks seem oddly enough at home besides these remnants of a century of entertainment, that were tacked up with no more care than an average teenager uses in decorating their room. The quality of the wares serves the common denominator, there's nothing too fancy and nothing that jumps out as unique and there is such a huge assortment a person would be hard pressed not to find something they use. And that too in a way is capturing a slice of who we are just as well as any museum. It is much like the old general stores our pioneering founders would recognize and it is one of those few examples of when it is the things that make this crazy store not perfect that are exactly what makes it such a treasure. It is living history at its very best. May all those bargain hunters out there keep this oddball store with it's beautiful hand painted signs open.
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