In Tuesday's Toronto Star, Martin Knelman raved about two shows in Montreal: The Yves St. Laurent exhibit at the Museum of Fine Art and and the Quebec Triennial show at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montreal.

He promised one would be "dazzled to the point of speechlessness " by the retrospective.

YSL was a brilliant, creative fellow, and his work is definitely emblematic of its various times. But at the same time, many of the garments on display had a dated quality to me. And there's little in the exhibit that puts the work in the full context of the times.

Now, if you want jaw-dropping, there are some outstanding pieces in the Quebec Triennial show.

The Triennial only goes to Sept. 7, while the YSL show goes to Sept. 28. On a prosaic note, you can see the triennial exhibit for only $8, while it's $15 to see YSL.

The YSL exhibit is open later, until 9 p.m.. MACM closes at 6 p.m.

Is number two on the New York Times' most-emailed stories list as I write this:

Toronto Journal: In a cyclist-friendly city, a black hole for bikes.

Several weeks ago, I was on the Queen car. As it passed by Kenk's shop near Strachan, the car fell silent as people turned to look at this now infamous shrine. Then there was a low hub-bub punctuated by "three thousand bikes!"

Addendum

There's a "God loves you" pamphlet tucked into the spokes of a small wheel on Kenk's door.

Various graffitti includes "Bad Bikema" and "Center for Poor Karma and Pain Research."

Addendum - II

Towards the end of August, a new piece of graffitti showed up on Kenk's wall: "Thou shalt not steal," signed by ... "The Vindicator."

MySpace, the Huffington Post and the Politico are going to be some of the new players at the coronation of Barack Obama next week.

The Lakeview Lunch at Dundas and Ossington is up for grabs.

Great atmosphere. Crap food.

I hope whoever takes the joint over does a better job with the chow. But I do hope the decor doesn't get gutted.

Addendum

BlogTO posted on this back on Aug. 12. More deets, pix.