Hamish sez, "Norman Elder, explorer and exotic animal owner and one of Toronto's legitimate eccentrics, died in 2003 of an undisclosed cause. I knew Norm on and off from the time I was 12, as he lived around the corner and I was a kid on a CCM exploring the neighborhood. I helped with his 'From Polar Bears to Penguins' Saturday morning class at Dufferin Collegiate, and later on I lived in his gigantic museum/rooming house in the Annex when I was in my early 20's – along with four or five of my friends. I visited his house last year as it was being gutted (!) to make way for a Yuppie family to move in – the pictures are here… since then, I have received a few emails from people who lived at Norm's over the years asking for info on what happened to him, etc… I don't have the answers. What I do know is my site is the only link to him on the web at the moment, and I want to assemble a site devoted to remembrances of him, collecting pictures from people's files, etc. I don't know how far the project will go but the first step is to ask for help and see who's out there and who has what. Pictures are most important to begin with. I can be contacted at bigdaddyhame@gmail.com. Thanks for your help."
(Thanks, Hamish!)
Update: Jeremy sez, "You or the readers may be interested to know that many of the interior
shots in the movie Naked Lunch were filmed in Norman Elder's house. What appears to be a very strange place with large bird cages and freaky
stuffed animals wasn't manufactured on a sound stage but was in fact
exactly how his house looked every day! Just another example of the
eccentricity of one of Toronto's most unusual residents."
