Pelts and pelting past

Maxi Boyd’s living room art gallery in residential Riverdale (87 Sparkhall Ave.) has been in haute Halloween mode for the past few weekends but, naturally, an exhibition titled Pet Cemetery will be open tonight from 6 to 9:30 p.m. for trick and/or treat purposes. The mixed media tributes to deceased felines and canines (and budgies and ladybugs) can also be viewed in person Friday nights and Saturday and Sunday afternoons through November 13 – or glanced at on the Maxi Boyd blog gallery. The contributions from around the world include two envelopes, via France and Australia, saluting the mostly deceased Ramones, whose "Pet Sematary" song is the only thing remembered from the film version of Stephen King’s book. Meanwhile, the annual car-free cavalcade of costumes on Church St. allows ample room for rubbernecking. It was 25 years ago tonight that police kept an annual mob of folks ideologically opposed to drag queens from assembling outside the St. Charles Tavern: "Not a single egg was thrown", claims this timeline. While the Yonge St. bar shut in 1987, those ’70s hecklers can take pride in the fact that the former firehall has been a garish eyesore ever since.