Being within the University institution has left me mostly out of the loop, but have been reading and writing lots with thought, which is now slower than ever before. but perhaps worth it. but I question my sanity and its relevance.
have been collaborating on a directed reading course on edmonton as model for mid size urban n. american cities, and the product of this research is looking like a creative non fiction manuscript.
thinking about urban identities in terms of social ecology, a city's sprawl is the social ecological equivalent of human obesity.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
maybe it was hitting a car on my bike one day, then getting hit by a car while on my back the next day.
maybe it is the 2 elections going on in North America.
maybe it is losing my Grandma and my Father within months
whatever it is the world seems closer to chaos to me than ever before- in order to fend off the feeling of empending doom I went for a walk one morning.
These photos are from that walk, during which I realized that it had been months since I actually connected with the cement of my city. Walking around downtown Edmonton with my camera was something I once did all the time. I miss those days and the feeling of ownership and pride I had back then.
Looking at these photos a few days later I can see that no matter what is on the horizon- be it doom worthy or not- change is upon us.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Waxing gibbous moon
the evening started at latitude 53's last patio of the season. a perfect night for martinis, wine, i even wanted a beer, sitting around with good friends and pretty flowers, the day's work done.
you don't get nights like this too often, and the second we got home i was out in it again, walking. i saw a woman standing in her nightgown on her balcony, heavy and backlit by the small apartment behind her. at the polish daycare around the corner, all the little tricycles, strollers and dayglo plastic ride-ons were lined up silently next to the fence, the streetlight bouncing dully off molded conformity. the school next to it, one of those 50s elementary schools, built when the world still believed in glass brick and curves, stood formal and majestic. i saw i saw the glow of cigarettes, brighter, dimmer, and brighter again. i saw sheets hung as curtains, sweet homemade landscapes, chip bags made magical by the moon.
mostly quiet, the neighbourhood peeled back for motorcycles. i heard the murmuring of couples sitting on front stoops, the quiet laughter of my neighbours entertaining on the back deck. when i stopped at a 7/11, eyes crazed by fluorescence, the vendor laughed and said, in a thick jamaican accent, "joo got to enjoy de weather now, before da man come again -- old man winter." small dogs, startled by me, registered their alarm. a cat named lexie rubbed against my legs. some night flower wafted by, fleetingly.
you could live a whole life in a night like this, all of it unfolding, lotuslike, under a waxing gibbous moon.
you don't get nights like this too often, and the second we got home i was out in it again, walking. i saw a woman standing in her nightgown on her balcony, heavy and backlit by the small apartment behind her. at the polish daycare around the corner, all the little tricycles, strollers and dayglo plastic ride-ons were lined up silently next to the fence, the streetlight bouncing dully off molded conformity. the school next to it, one of those 50s elementary schools, built when the world still believed in glass brick and curves, stood formal and majestic. i saw i saw the glow of cigarettes, brighter, dimmer, and brighter again. i saw sheets hung as curtains, sweet homemade landscapes, chip bags made magical by the moon.
mostly quiet, the neighbourhood peeled back for motorcycles. i heard the murmuring of couples sitting on front stoops, the quiet laughter of my neighbours entertaining on the back deck. when i stopped at a 7/11, eyes crazed by fluorescence, the vendor laughed and said, in a thick jamaican accent, "joo got to enjoy de weather now, before da man come again -- old man winter." small dogs, startled by me, registered their alarm. a cat named lexie rubbed against my legs. some night flower wafted by, fleetingly.
you could live a whole life in a night like this, all of it unfolding, lotuslike, under a waxing gibbous moon.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Summer Blues
Surviving the winter and spring mold with no problem this year, summer has been filled with down times. Is there such a thing as August Blues--a symptom or damage done from at least twelve years of structured seasons? The extreme cold replaced by heat waves, always one end of the spectrum. Festivals have taken over every weekend, with everyone at Folk this weekend and Heritage last, a festival city mentality, which someone recently aligned to our boom and bust reality. All or nothing. Concentrated good times to off balance hard living? I found it hilarious when recent artists summed up their week long residence at a brand new downtown housing complex as comparable to a women's prison. Institutional in its uniformity, bare walls, oppression of imagination with no regard for aesthetics, there's not much pretty to view, but you get a lot of work done.
View from 102nd St parkade, one of the best viewing spots in the city. Any higher and you just see flat, from WEM to the concrete and chemical refineries, small lumps jutting from a flat line all so far, far away.
View from 102nd St parkade, one of the best viewing spots in the city. Any higher and you just see flat, from WEM to the concrete and chemical refineries, small lumps jutting from a flat line all so far, far away.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Someone please tell me why Edmonton is worth staying in?
From a chorus of discussions over this past week culminating to a quiet corner conversation tonight at Martini's, I have come to a semi conclusion: Edmonton has no heart. People leave, come and go, and it's simply expected. Transient city. No heartbreaks. Shallow ties. Unstable roots and unable to grow.
Talking with Shawna Dempsey this past week, a Winnipegger all the way (from Scarborough), I couldn't help but try and compare Edmonton and Winnipeg as similarities accumulated: both midsized prairie towns, murder capitals of Canada rank #1 and #2, blue collar, unwalkable, frigidly cold. Arts wise, there are opportunities in both cities, where with enough gumption, you can live however you like and curate shows about the city you live in in a major public gallery . . . Only Winnipeg is Edmonton with heart. When people leave, it is heart breaking. People leave Edmonton and rarely look back. People leave Winnipeg fondly thinking of the city in their hearts. Maybe not always, but they stay for heart, not money.
The main difference is the mentality of money. There is money here, meaning potential, prosperity, a boom, that will be eventually followed by a bust. People are attracted by wealth, and a few of them stay after it dries up, having invested time and perhaps property. It's a cash grab, like that vacuum on that old game show where bills swirl and the participant tries to grab as many bills as they can, before time is up and they vacate their hollow tube. There are no foundations in place for real development. I am again thinking of arts, such as real art schools, film schools, contemporary galleries, and an audience that thinks this is some place to be, to grow and spread from the ground up.
I used to believe that in order to stay, you had to leave. Often. As the opposite seems ridiculous: that once you leave, you visit. Often. So why stay at all? I have been fighting the urge to leave for years, resisting the collective push to think elsewhere has to be better than here. I still don't think elsewhere is better; it is simply elsewhere.
It is a beautiful summer and the people are always solid, yet, I continue to question why I remain still and what I anticipate to come of this next year.
Talking with Shawna Dempsey this past week, a Winnipegger all the way (from Scarborough), I couldn't help but try and compare Edmonton and Winnipeg as similarities accumulated: both midsized prairie towns, murder capitals of Canada rank #1 and #2, blue collar, unwalkable, frigidly cold. Arts wise, there are opportunities in both cities, where with enough gumption, you can live however you like and curate shows about the city you live in in a major public gallery . . . Only Winnipeg is Edmonton with heart. When people leave, it is heart breaking. People leave Edmonton and rarely look back. People leave Winnipeg fondly thinking of the city in their hearts. Maybe not always, but they stay for heart, not money.
The main difference is the mentality of money. There is money here, meaning potential, prosperity, a boom, that will be eventually followed by a bust. People are attracted by wealth, and a few of them stay after it dries up, having invested time and perhaps property. It's a cash grab, like that vacuum on that old game show where bills swirl and the participant tries to grab as many bills as they can, before time is up and they vacate their hollow tube. There are no foundations in place for real development. I am again thinking of arts, such as real art schools, film schools, contemporary galleries, and an audience that thinks this is some place to be, to grow and spread from the ground up.
I used to believe that in order to stay, you had to leave. Often. As the opposite seems ridiculous: that once you leave, you visit. Often. So why stay at all? I have been fighting the urge to leave for years, resisting the collective push to think elsewhere has to be better than here. I still don't think elsewhere is better; it is simply elsewhere.
It is a beautiful summer and the people are always solid, yet, I continue to question why I remain still and what I anticipate to come of this next year.
Friday, July 25, 2008
seeing what i need to hear
“Any closer, any wiser and you would be dangerous” he said to his daughter- a tiny bald baby in a car seat.
I wanted to hit him but since I was another car and not driving I couldn’t.
Nor could I be sure that is what he said but while we were both sitting there, waiting for the light to turn green, green against the grey sky of summer weather, a rain storm to disrupt barbeques and baseball games I thought I could read his lips. I thought I could sense what asinine things he would be saying to her, her whom I assumed was his baby.
When the light changed and my friend started driving again I said to her, “Did you hear that?” to which like a sensible person she replied, “heard what?” We were in a silent car with not much noise coming in from the outside. Anything for the most part that our ears were picking up was urban white noise and not much to notice. “Well I guess you couldn’t hear it, “ I said “but that father in the car next to us was already berating his baby daughter with sexist remarks”.
By the time I got the sentence out of me and it hit her ears I was over it and pretty sure I was wrong. Now my mind was wondering and I was thinking about an old dollar store I use to go to in a mall I once worked in. the Dollar Store was near a tailor shop where the owners had a photo up of them with Elvis Presley. It was an enlarged photocopy of the photo really that it its self had already gone yellow and flakey but still it was exciting and provided a good prompt for small talk while the foreign workers who worked for the tailors would collect the repaired garments.
It was one of many dollar stores that existed in the mall. 1 of 3 actually at the time. Now it along with the other two are closed and in its place is another one, a mega one with seemly countless isles with product placed together with no rhyme or no reason.
At first when it opened I was glad for it. Before when there was more than one store I use to have to go to all 3 to get everything that you wanted and even though they were called dollar stores they all carried things at slightly different prices- the cheekiest among them, a family run dollar store use to charge as much as $9 for things.
The mega dollar in the food court changed all that. Now there was one stop where everything was a dollar.
A friend of mine who I always mean to call says that dollar stores are a sign of a blue-collar community and sinking economy. He says a lot of smart things because he is smart but more than that he is a reader, and understander and a thinker so when he says something I am not afraid that I am hearing recycled ideas I am hearing the real deal from the horses mouth. When it comes to his theory of dollar stores I agree.
Across the street from me was a dollar store in the new urban strip mall that was actually a perimeter of 1-story buildings that surrounded a parking lot. Aside from the grocery store that had good cheese buns, the best cheese buns there was also a great dollar store that for me replaced the 3 dollar stores in the mall long before they closed and the mega dollar store opened up. It was all-cheap, though not all a dollar didn’t smell like cheap candles (wasn’t open long enough to) and had everything I needed.
Soon after I mover into the neighborhood and begun taking the place for granted it shut down. For the longest time the space it once took up stood empty and I took it as a sign that if the area couldn’t even sustain a dollar store than it would never make it.
Not soon after that thought came the new business that would take over the space- Marble Slab- an overpriced ice cream shop that caters to those who think they deserve to treat themselves.
While the dollar store was never busy the ice cream shop was never really dead- even in the winter when it was too cold to be outside people would wait in their cars and stare into the shop not going in until there was enough to form the line inside and not outside like the summer.
It was during the winter and witnessing all the idiots idling for ice cream while I schlepped my groceries home that maybe my friend was wrong. Maybe dollar stores are just markers of a time. Maybe the truth was the area couldn’t sustain a dollar store because it thought it was better than cheap Chinese made goods. Maybe the neighborhood wanted overpriced empty calories in stead. Not having to pay for bad choices was the providence of the rich so I guess my area was moving on up
In the summer the ice cream place is such a hot spot that people park their trucks and cars backwards and treat the parking lot like a park, which is sad because there is a park right behind the ice cream place but people either didn’t know or care about it or want to be by their cars.
I guess a season after realizing that my neighborhood was changing I realized that I was becoming disenfranchised with it. I use to feel like I lived alone in the area, like woman in Wigginstien’s mistress who thinks that she is the last woman on earth and basically writes that on the streets in front of the Louver in Paris.
Seeing people hang out in parking lots made me realize that whether or not I liked it I belonged in the neighborhood because by being- even if I was never acknowledged or liked or thought of I still existed in the same space and there for still was a part of…
Full parking lots typified the overall dissatisfaction I was having of no longer being able to convince myself that I was all-alone. While I use to actually love parking lots because their emptiness as proof of man gave me hope, seeing them filled with lard chomping idiots filled me with doom.
Same thing happened when all the cranes on main street disappeared and where once stood derelict buildings and then gaping holes with cranes emerging now stood forgettable impenetrable buildings of banality lacking in imagination and humanness- not to mention humor.
I stayed here for so long because I thought it was going to become something that I could believe in. I thought because I had spent so much time scaling its walls and traipsing through its streets it might in the smallest and most magical of ways reflect me or at least on some level serve me but it doesn’t and it hasn’t and it won’t.
Getting out of the car as my friend drops me off I feel bad for spending our last few minutes in the car daydreaming about how miserable I am, acting like a disappointed hippy father whose kid grows up to be a model or politician walking around begrudging my own youth, wondering where all the time went and craving the dirty past that probably never existed the way I wanted it to.
Ted
I wanted to hit him but since I was another car and not driving I couldn’t.
Nor could I be sure that is what he said but while we were both sitting there, waiting for the light to turn green, green against the grey sky of summer weather, a rain storm to disrupt barbeques and baseball games I thought I could read his lips. I thought I could sense what asinine things he would be saying to her, her whom I assumed was his baby.
When the light changed and my friend started driving again I said to her, “Did you hear that?” to which like a sensible person she replied, “heard what?” We were in a silent car with not much noise coming in from the outside. Anything for the most part that our ears were picking up was urban white noise and not much to notice. “Well I guess you couldn’t hear it, “ I said “but that father in the car next to us was already berating his baby daughter with sexist remarks”.
By the time I got the sentence out of me and it hit her ears I was over it and pretty sure I was wrong. Now my mind was wondering and I was thinking about an old dollar store I use to go to in a mall I once worked in. the Dollar Store was near a tailor shop where the owners had a photo up of them with Elvis Presley. It was an enlarged photocopy of the photo really that it its self had already gone yellow and flakey but still it was exciting and provided a good prompt for small talk while the foreign workers who worked for the tailors would collect the repaired garments.
It was one of many dollar stores that existed in the mall. 1 of 3 actually at the time. Now it along with the other two are closed and in its place is another one, a mega one with seemly countless isles with product placed together with no rhyme or no reason.
At first when it opened I was glad for it. Before when there was more than one store I use to have to go to all 3 to get everything that you wanted and even though they were called dollar stores they all carried things at slightly different prices- the cheekiest among them, a family run dollar store use to charge as much as $9 for things.
The mega dollar in the food court changed all that. Now there was one stop where everything was a dollar.
A friend of mine who I always mean to call says that dollar stores are a sign of a blue-collar community and sinking economy. He says a lot of smart things because he is smart but more than that he is a reader, and understander and a thinker so when he says something I am not afraid that I am hearing recycled ideas I am hearing the real deal from the horses mouth. When it comes to his theory of dollar stores I agree.
Across the street from me was a dollar store in the new urban strip mall that was actually a perimeter of 1-story buildings that surrounded a parking lot. Aside from the grocery store that had good cheese buns, the best cheese buns there was also a great dollar store that for me replaced the 3 dollar stores in the mall long before they closed and the mega dollar store opened up. It was all-cheap, though not all a dollar didn’t smell like cheap candles (wasn’t open long enough to) and had everything I needed.
Soon after I mover into the neighborhood and begun taking the place for granted it shut down. For the longest time the space it once took up stood empty and I took it as a sign that if the area couldn’t even sustain a dollar store than it would never make it.
Not soon after that thought came the new business that would take over the space- Marble Slab- an overpriced ice cream shop that caters to those who think they deserve to treat themselves.
While the dollar store was never busy the ice cream shop was never really dead- even in the winter when it was too cold to be outside people would wait in their cars and stare into the shop not going in until there was enough to form the line inside and not outside like the summer.
It was during the winter and witnessing all the idiots idling for ice cream while I schlepped my groceries home that maybe my friend was wrong. Maybe dollar stores are just markers of a time. Maybe the truth was the area couldn’t sustain a dollar store because it thought it was better than cheap Chinese made goods. Maybe the neighborhood wanted overpriced empty calories in stead. Not having to pay for bad choices was the providence of the rich so I guess my area was moving on up
In the summer the ice cream place is such a hot spot that people park their trucks and cars backwards and treat the parking lot like a park, which is sad because there is a park right behind the ice cream place but people either didn’t know or care about it or want to be by their cars.
I guess a season after realizing that my neighborhood was changing I realized that I was becoming disenfranchised with it. I use to feel like I lived alone in the area, like woman in Wigginstien’s mistress who thinks that she is the last woman on earth and basically writes that on the streets in front of the Louver in Paris.
Seeing people hang out in parking lots made me realize that whether or not I liked it I belonged in the neighborhood because by being- even if I was never acknowledged or liked or thought of I still existed in the same space and there for still was a part of…
Full parking lots typified the overall dissatisfaction I was having of no longer being able to convince myself that I was all-alone. While I use to actually love parking lots because their emptiness as proof of man gave me hope, seeing them filled with lard chomping idiots filled me with doom.
Same thing happened when all the cranes on main street disappeared and where once stood derelict buildings and then gaping holes with cranes emerging now stood forgettable impenetrable buildings of banality lacking in imagination and humanness- not to mention humor.
I stayed here for so long because I thought it was going to become something that I could believe in. I thought because I had spent so much time scaling its walls and traipsing through its streets it might in the smallest and most magical of ways reflect me or at least on some level serve me but it doesn’t and it hasn’t and it won’t.
Getting out of the car as my friend drops me off I feel bad for spending our last few minutes in the car daydreaming about how miserable I am, acting like a disappointed hippy father whose kid grows up to be a model or politician walking around begrudging my own youth, wondering where all the time went and craving the dirty past that probably never existed the way I wanted it to.
Ted
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Riding Towards Myself or Picking Streets
Riding my bike from Commerce Place to the Royal Alexander Hospital I took 97th instead of 101st. Something about 101 makes me feel competitive with buses and fast cars whereas 97th makes me feel apart of a chaos and not a potential victim of it.
On the way I was thinking how much of how people turn out in life is a result of their parents and how much they do or don’t want to be like them. I have always understood that about myself but it was on my way to see my Dad in the hospital for the first time since he had been diagnosed with esophagus cancer that I realized in this very moment I was becoming exactly who my dad was the minute he first disappointed me.
At the age of four he left me at the hospital to be collected by social welfare. It was not a conscious decision on his part but a series of poor choices he made stemming from his own poor mental health. Here we were 24 years later and the table had turned. He was in the hospital and I couldn’t bring myself to be there for him.
Having not been to the Royal Alexander in a long time I was surprised at its post apocalypse feel. The obvious newer external renovations making the blight of the internal of the hospital seem that much more bleak. By the time I got up to the 5th floor I felt as thought maybe I was an extra in Vietnam era film Coming Home.
As soon as I got off the elevator I heard my mother’s voice say my name but I couldn’t see her. I looked around in the 3 directions where her voice could be coming from. Amid the chaos of a functioning hospital nothing took root for a few seconds after coming off the elevator. It wasn’t until my Mom was right in front of me that I saw her. My parents are not particularly close so seeing the profound stillness and sadness in my mom’s eyes clued me in that my Dad was not getting out today as expected.
We walked around for about 4 seconds when finally she just stopped, moved closer to the wall and looked at me for a second before launching to telling me new secrets that neither she nor my dad were ready to share yet. New secrets that could wait until after my cousin’s wedding that was happening in the coming weekend. I am glad she confided in me or else the cancer that I am sure lingers in her would have been watered by the suppression and been allowed to grow. I ingested their secrets letting them become mine.
My Mom and I walked down the narrow halls littered with chairs, walkers and IVs and busy with slow patients and nurses. When we got to his room his bed was empty. We looked to his roommate for an explanation. “X-rays” he said.
My mom and I sat down in front of his bed. Looking at the empty bed was harrowing. My dad is a large man but through my mother and my brother and sister I had heard that because he wasn’t keeping food down he had lost a lot of weight. I tried to imagine before he came in to the room what he would look like in the bed. How much space he might take up now.
After a few minutes of catch-up conversation to establish a sense of normalcy my Dad was wheeled in. He was smaller. His skin looked like his own Dad’s skin did not many months early before he died. His nose was redder. He was weaker. He made his way to the bed, a nurse came in and unknowingly flirted in the way young women who don’t know how precious their young female energy do. Through barley veiled questions my dad tried to find out if I knew any secrets. I am good at keeping secrets from him so he was satisfied and none the wiser.
Sadly and mercifully I shine in times of awkward conversations. I am good at avoiding the elephant in the room, I am good at diverting attention- I think it is a skill people who realize they are different at a young age pick up early with earnest.
My dad feigned tiredness and pretended to fall asleep, easier than avoiding the elephant. My Mom and I got and started to leave. She touched his foot and said good by- a touching moment that almost made me loose it for the first time since I found out he had cancer. I followed suit and touched his foot- one of the first times I had made physical contact with him in years. He opened his eyes and said, “I am sorry we didn’t talk”. “That’s okay” I said, “We’ll talk next time” He closed his eyes.
Once out of the hospital while I waited for the bus with my Mom, my bike in hand, she said “you know what this means” to which I said “What?” waiting for a cliché yet truism roll off her tongue and down my back. “That we will have to have a family meeting to plan how we are going to deal with this.” Not coming to the hospital, not hearing the secrets, not seeing my shrunken Dad had given me anywhere near the same pit in the stomach reaction that I had after what she just said.
As I found myself somehow biking down 101st street this time going towards Commerce Place I found myself once again thinking about the action connections between my Dad and I. In reaction to the idea of family, togetherness, accountability, familia vulnerability I flinched, balked, and attempted to rationalize away. It was in this moment that my Dad’s cancer seemed so unfair to me, too much for me to handle. It was here at this moment when my family needed me and I wanted to abandon them, wanted to flee, look out for myself first that I become most like my father.
After grabbing a coffee and cookie I sat down in the Commerce Place atrium watching all the people go by and began to wonder what I could do differently than my father did.
Ted
On the way I was thinking how much of how people turn out in life is a result of their parents and how much they do or don’t want to be like them. I have always understood that about myself but it was on my way to see my Dad in the hospital for the first time since he had been diagnosed with esophagus cancer that I realized in this very moment I was becoming exactly who my dad was the minute he first disappointed me.
At the age of four he left me at the hospital to be collected by social welfare. It was not a conscious decision on his part but a series of poor choices he made stemming from his own poor mental health. Here we were 24 years later and the table had turned. He was in the hospital and I couldn’t bring myself to be there for him.
Having not been to the Royal Alexander in a long time I was surprised at its post apocalypse feel. The obvious newer external renovations making the blight of the internal of the hospital seem that much more bleak. By the time I got up to the 5th floor I felt as thought maybe I was an extra in Vietnam era film Coming Home.
As soon as I got off the elevator I heard my mother’s voice say my name but I couldn’t see her. I looked around in the 3 directions where her voice could be coming from. Amid the chaos of a functioning hospital nothing took root for a few seconds after coming off the elevator. It wasn’t until my Mom was right in front of me that I saw her. My parents are not particularly close so seeing the profound stillness and sadness in my mom’s eyes clued me in that my Dad was not getting out today as expected.
We walked around for about 4 seconds when finally she just stopped, moved closer to the wall and looked at me for a second before launching to telling me new secrets that neither she nor my dad were ready to share yet. New secrets that could wait until after my cousin’s wedding that was happening in the coming weekend. I am glad she confided in me or else the cancer that I am sure lingers in her would have been watered by the suppression and been allowed to grow. I ingested their secrets letting them become mine.
My Mom and I walked down the narrow halls littered with chairs, walkers and IVs and busy with slow patients and nurses. When we got to his room his bed was empty. We looked to his roommate for an explanation. “X-rays” he said.
My mom and I sat down in front of his bed. Looking at the empty bed was harrowing. My dad is a large man but through my mother and my brother and sister I had heard that because he wasn’t keeping food down he had lost a lot of weight. I tried to imagine before he came in to the room what he would look like in the bed. How much space he might take up now.
After a few minutes of catch-up conversation to establish a sense of normalcy my Dad was wheeled in. He was smaller. His skin looked like his own Dad’s skin did not many months early before he died. His nose was redder. He was weaker. He made his way to the bed, a nurse came in and unknowingly flirted in the way young women who don’t know how precious their young female energy do. Through barley veiled questions my dad tried to find out if I knew any secrets. I am good at keeping secrets from him so he was satisfied and none the wiser.
Sadly and mercifully I shine in times of awkward conversations. I am good at avoiding the elephant in the room, I am good at diverting attention- I think it is a skill people who realize they are different at a young age pick up early with earnest.
My dad feigned tiredness and pretended to fall asleep, easier than avoiding the elephant. My Mom and I got and started to leave. She touched his foot and said good by- a touching moment that almost made me loose it for the first time since I found out he had cancer. I followed suit and touched his foot- one of the first times I had made physical contact with him in years. He opened his eyes and said, “I am sorry we didn’t talk”. “That’s okay” I said, “We’ll talk next time” He closed his eyes.
Once out of the hospital while I waited for the bus with my Mom, my bike in hand, she said “you know what this means” to which I said “What?” waiting for a cliché yet truism roll off her tongue and down my back. “That we will have to have a family meeting to plan how we are going to deal with this.” Not coming to the hospital, not hearing the secrets, not seeing my shrunken Dad had given me anywhere near the same pit in the stomach reaction that I had after what she just said.
As I found myself somehow biking down 101st street this time going towards Commerce Place I found myself once again thinking about the action connections between my Dad and I. In reaction to the idea of family, togetherness, accountability, familia vulnerability I flinched, balked, and attempted to rationalize away. It was in this moment that my Dad’s cancer seemed so unfair to me, too much for me to handle. It was here at this moment when my family needed me and I wanted to abandon them, wanted to flee, look out for myself first that I become most like my father.
After grabbing a coffee and cookie I sat down in the Commerce Place atrium watching all the people go by and began to wonder what I could do differently than my father did.
Ted
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Hood by hood
where should we live if we move to edmonton? that was the question i got in an email from two potential new colleagues the other day. no fool, i could see immediately the procrastinatory potential in a city tour, so i stepped right up as colleague of the year and offered to ferry IS and MW about e-town.
first i dispensed with the obvious neighbourhoods. parkallen i see as a grid whose main feature, affordability, has been gutted by the recent market craziness here (though i admitted it would permit you to walk to a bar or 30). belgravia/mckernan: lovely little area, the kind you could show off to your parents. windsor park, where faculty used to buy, is gorgeous -- if your idea of gorgeous is rotting away in a showy piece of real estate you'll never pay off in this lifetime. if you're into the package deal, buy in garneau, and it'll be like the ghermezians said when they finished phase 2 of the mall: "you never need to go to europe again!" i didn't even mention strathcona.
our tour started with mill creek, my single concession to south-side living. i pulled into an avenue -- i'm not even sure which one now -- and parked in a keyhole. "let's get out, and i can show you how beautiful the river valley is here." then i promptly got us lost in said nature. i honestly didn't intend to; it's just that the river valley is so very wild and complex there that it's hard to get your bearings. i walked us unwittingly into someone's backyard. "oops," i said. "is that someone's backyard?," they asked. "incredible!"
we found the car just before a huge thunderstorm took over, but i think they got a decent view of Thunderhead Obscuring the High Level Bridge. i can't be sure, though, since i could hardly see the road. i yelled to the passenger seat, "it's like this in alberta." my would-be colleague yelled back, "what?" rossdale shows well even in the rain, and how can you not be impressed by a 30-minute commute through the woods? oliver advertises itself, those stately old houses on 99th and 100th aves, and although even strangers roll their eyes at the "westmount architectural heritage area" moniker, the neighbourhood is pretty nice. "wow," my companions said, "edmonton architecture is much more diverse than we'd expected." it is? "and it has a lot of designated bike lanes." it does? i will say that 124th street is intriguingly weird, what with its corsets and longboards, greek orthodox churches and money marts, art galleries and worrying numbers of prosethesis stores. (my personal favorite: karl hager limb and brace.)
i had to blindfold my colleagues to drive 111 ave until we got to norwood. the italian centre! zocalo! lotus soul gym! all the yuppie treats, with the barbershops and mustard seed church keepin' it real. what i love best about norwood: all the other report-a-john neighbourhoods "do not tolerate prostitution," but norwood "does not tolerate exploitation." there's a sentiment i can get behind.
finally, the highlands gem, its modest post-war bungalows to the east, ada boulevard mansions to the west. ada boulevard is the most honest high-end real estate in any city, what with its views of refineries and sunsets: cause and consequence in one sweeping vista. and i love the highlands strip. even though rob buttery sold collectiv to move to winnipeg with his filmmaker wife renee baril (incidentally, my next door neighbour in the very last '60s -- no kidding), sabrina butterfly set up shop in his old space. angela's closing swish to sell on ebay, since her landlord jacked the rent, but bacon is full all the time. mandolin books deserves a citizenship medal for sharon's openness to local art, and if i knitted -- right, i was going to take that up as a hobby, what happened to that plan? -- i'd shop at that little yarn store right there.
anyway, i told them, that's my edmonton. you can live in any of those neighbourhoods and be my colleague.
first i dispensed with the obvious neighbourhoods. parkallen i see as a grid whose main feature, affordability, has been gutted by the recent market craziness here (though i admitted it would permit you to walk to a bar or 30). belgravia/mckernan: lovely little area, the kind you could show off to your parents. windsor park, where faculty used to buy, is gorgeous -- if your idea of gorgeous is rotting away in a showy piece of real estate you'll never pay off in this lifetime. if you're into the package deal, buy in garneau, and it'll be like the ghermezians said when they finished phase 2 of the mall: "you never need to go to europe again!" i didn't even mention strathcona.
our tour started with mill creek, my single concession to south-side living. i pulled into an avenue -- i'm not even sure which one now -- and parked in a keyhole. "let's get out, and i can show you how beautiful the river valley is here." then i promptly got us lost in said nature. i honestly didn't intend to; it's just that the river valley is so very wild and complex there that it's hard to get your bearings. i walked us unwittingly into someone's backyard. "oops," i said. "is that someone's backyard?," they asked. "incredible!"
we found the car just before a huge thunderstorm took over, but i think they got a decent view of Thunderhead Obscuring the High Level Bridge. i can't be sure, though, since i could hardly see the road. i yelled to the passenger seat, "it's like this in alberta." my would-be colleague yelled back, "what?" rossdale shows well even in the rain, and how can you not be impressed by a 30-minute commute through the woods? oliver advertises itself, those stately old houses on 99th and 100th aves, and although even strangers roll their eyes at the "westmount architectural heritage area" moniker, the neighbourhood is pretty nice. "wow," my companions said, "edmonton architecture is much more diverse than we'd expected." it is? "and it has a lot of designated bike lanes." it does? i will say that 124th street is intriguingly weird, what with its corsets and longboards, greek orthodox churches and money marts, art galleries and worrying numbers of prosethesis stores. (my personal favorite: karl hager limb and brace.)
i had to blindfold my colleagues to drive 111 ave until we got to norwood. the italian centre! zocalo! lotus soul gym! all the yuppie treats, with the barbershops and mustard seed church keepin' it real. what i love best about norwood: all the other report-a-john neighbourhoods "do not tolerate prostitution," but norwood "does not tolerate exploitation." there's a sentiment i can get behind.
finally, the highlands gem, its modest post-war bungalows to the east, ada boulevard mansions to the west. ada boulevard is the most honest high-end real estate in any city, what with its views of refineries and sunsets: cause and consequence in one sweeping vista. and i love the highlands strip. even though rob buttery sold collectiv to move to winnipeg with his filmmaker wife renee baril (incidentally, my next door neighbour in the very last '60s -- no kidding), sabrina butterfly set up shop in his old space. angela's closing swish to sell on ebay, since her landlord jacked the rent, but bacon is full all the time. mandolin books deserves a citizenship medal for sharon's openness to local art, and if i knitted -- right, i was going to take that up as a hobby, what happened to that plan? -- i'd shop at that little yarn store right there.
anyway, i told them, that's my edmonton. you can live in any of those neighbourhoods and be my colleague.
Pulling out all the stops
uranium has a shorter half-life than sibling rivalry. i didn't get my dad a father's day gift, which isn't exactly unusual, but when i heard my sister offer to take him for lunch, i figured i better get my act together.
that's how i ended up at the winspear centre for the free concert on the davis organ. of course i've been to the winspear plenty of times; the pipes have become a familiar backdrop. and of course i'm familiar with all the hoopla: the two millon dollar gift, the five semis to get it here, the "world-class" sound -- but there's something so off-putting, so aggressively yet vacuously optimistic, about the adjective "world-class" that i've never made the time to actually hear it.
my bad. because this instrument is magnificent.
they roll what i think of as "the organ" onto the middle of the stage. the players face the pipes, which means they have their backs to the audience. this surprised me, but then i realized it's because that way you get to see the organ itself: all four hand keyboards and the foot keyboard -- "manual" and "pedal" keyboards, i should say -- the 96 stops and the little while buttons that might or might not be the 122 ranks. it is so complicated that i still have no idea how it works, even though my dad explained it all. i'm so flat-footed where these things are concerned that i just wanted to know things like, "where do they hide the rest of the 6551 pipes?" and "how is the organ connected to the pipes?" "oh," said dad, breezily, "it's all electronic."
when marnie giesbrecht and joachim segger started to play a piece by bedard, a canadian composer whose sinfonietta shows off everything this baby can do, i had the terrible epiphany that i have reached the age where i'd probably like to listen to wagner. there's just nothing like that low, low hum, the one you feel in your crotch, the tone so low you can count the vibrations per minute. there it is, augmented by a fifth, then a sixth, harmonics jarring so off kilter that you think nothing will ever be right again in the world, and it's just getting louder and louder, worse and worse -- okay, you want to say, you win! i cannot stand undismayed! -- until the chord resolves and everything is amen and hallelujah and you wonder how you could ever have worried.
as the show went on, i realized that an organ can have a sense of humor, too. barrie cabena takes you from bach to scooby-doo in one unforgivable variation. and, come on: organ duets? who writes a composition for a dozen bellows, four hands and four feet? it's funny just to watch their bums jostle for space on the bench.
the show is part of a summer series of freebies celebrating the year of the organ. (who knew?) once you add up the performers, the copyright fees, the tech, and the front of house, you realize it's a not-inconsiderable gift. especially by my father's day standards.
that's how i ended up at the winspear centre for the free concert on the davis organ. of course i've been to the winspear plenty of times; the pipes have become a familiar backdrop. and of course i'm familiar with all the hoopla: the two millon dollar gift, the five semis to get it here, the "world-class" sound -- but there's something so off-putting, so aggressively yet vacuously optimistic, about the adjective "world-class" that i've never made the time to actually hear it.
my bad. because this instrument is magnificent.
they roll what i think of as "the organ" onto the middle of the stage. the players face the pipes, which means they have their backs to the audience. this surprised me, but then i realized it's because that way you get to see the organ itself: all four hand keyboards and the foot keyboard -- "manual" and "pedal" keyboards, i should say -- the 96 stops and the little while buttons that might or might not be the 122 ranks. it is so complicated that i still have no idea how it works, even though my dad explained it all. i'm so flat-footed where these things are concerned that i just wanted to know things like, "where do they hide the rest of the 6551 pipes?" and "how is the organ connected to the pipes?" "oh," said dad, breezily, "it's all electronic."
when marnie giesbrecht and joachim segger started to play a piece by bedard, a canadian composer whose sinfonietta shows off everything this baby can do, i had the terrible epiphany that i have reached the age where i'd probably like to listen to wagner. there's just nothing like that low, low hum, the one you feel in your crotch, the tone so low you can count the vibrations per minute. there it is, augmented by a fifth, then a sixth, harmonics jarring so off kilter that you think nothing will ever be right again in the world, and it's just getting louder and louder, worse and worse -- okay, you want to say, you win! i cannot stand undismayed! -- until the chord resolves and everything is amen and hallelujah and you wonder how you could ever have worried.
as the show went on, i realized that an organ can have a sense of humor, too. barrie cabena takes you from bach to scooby-doo in one unforgivable variation. and, come on: organ duets? who writes a composition for a dozen bellows, four hands and four feet? it's funny just to watch their bums jostle for space on the bench.
the show is part of a summer series of freebies celebrating the year of the organ. (who knew?) once you add up the performers, the copyright fees, the tech, and the front of house, you realize it's a not-inconsiderable gift. especially by my father's day standards.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Summer Drop-Bys
The summer drop-bys are starting again and on the first day of a supposedly productive week. This Monday afternoon, Sarah Patterson rings from the VV down the street and pops by soon there after with a synthesized LP and Thin Lizzy woven leather shoes. As another twenty-something retiree, we actually have become ladies of leisure for at least one more summer. Wanting an adventure, or at least a cheap sandwich, but with too many things to do, I summon a field trip out of errands and we're soon on Princess Elizabeth Rd and heading towards downtown.
First stop: Vue Weekly to pick up gift certificates I won in some sort of lottery. Posing as my intern for the day, Patterson picked up an envelope filled with Fiore Cantina gift certificates. But before a complimentary lunch could be had, we drove by the still-burnt out Arlington where security cameras and lights are now fixated on the North/West side of the building. "Who's watching?" I wondered. Clearly no one as this lot is downright shameful. But we pass as I had to drop things off at the Elizabeth Fry Foundation, a provincial or perhaps national NFP that aids the reintegration of women back into society who's coming directly out of the justice system. Getting a tip from Pamela Anthony that they took donations, especially things such as work clothes for job interviews, I had lots of "office" clothes I've accumulated over the years that outlasted many of the jobs they were bought for. Embracing that I should never have an office job again, these items have yet to see their best days.
Next was lunch, and heading down 106 St hill, I had confused Fiore for Chianti, which I wasn't wild about either, but as neither of us had ever eaten at Fiore, this had to be tried. Strange I had never been even through university, living in Grandin, and just simply walking by it on a weekly basis. But after a mediocre bit of surf, bit of turf lunch, there remained no further reasons to return--except to finish off the remaining certificates.
Okay, one reason: a cantina sized drink, which is 3 oz, but oddly enough in a regular sized martini glass, hits you slowly, but firmly. Shopping at Superstore became an overwhelming task. Patterson tried on swimming suits and I seriously considered rhinestone sunglasses. But eventually standing in line to buy detergent, I was again taken aback as to why the shelves behind the customer service counters are completely empty or covered. The 'out of sight/out of mind' approach to tobacco products is probably the smartest move this government has made in a very long time, but I can't help but speculate what they will fill that prime sightline with next.
Next up was the Antique Mall on Gateway Blvd in search of a new kitchen chair. Finding a white chrome table that has made the entire kitchen much lighter, I needed a single chair to match. Going through the various rooms of compacted old farmhouses, I fondly recalled Saskatchewan, where Saskatoon was first painted as the Paris of the Prairies, but then does that make Edmonton the Moscow of the Prairies? Picking up a light wooden chair that I would sand and paint white if I ever felt like doing that sort of thing, we headed back downtown and up 101 St. Stopped at a light with a real assortment of people crossing the street, Patterson couldn't help but ask aloud if "You'd ever see a more rag-tag downtown than this?"
It's true, our downtown just looks like the biggest small town you'd ever seen, and it doesn't look like it's going to change any time soon. We have an informal rating system of Edmonton fashion that varies from a) Going camping b) Just came back from camping c) Still camping. Until this system fails, we'll know Edmonton is still the Dirt City we know and sometimes like.
Stopping last at the Sprucewood library to pick up items I ordered, and doing a bit of weeding before an evening of work, which involves possibly transplanting some vines and investing into the future, it never ceases to surprise me how much easier it is if you just do instead of think.
First stop: Vue Weekly to pick up gift certificates I won in some sort of lottery. Posing as my intern for the day, Patterson picked up an envelope filled with Fiore Cantina gift certificates. But before a complimentary lunch could be had, we drove by the still-burnt out Arlington where security cameras and lights are now fixated on the North/West side of the building. "Who's watching?" I wondered. Clearly no one as this lot is downright shameful. But we pass as I had to drop things off at the Elizabeth Fry Foundation, a provincial or perhaps national NFP that aids the reintegration of women back into society who's coming directly out of the justice system. Getting a tip from Pamela Anthony that they took donations, especially things such as work clothes for job interviews, I had lots of "office" clothes I've accumulated over the years that outlasted many of the jobs they were bought for. Embracing that I should never have an office job again, these items have yet to see their best days.
Next was lunch, and heading down 106 St hill, I had confused Fiore for Chianti, which I wasn't wild about either, but as neither of us had ever eaten at Fiore, this had to be tried. Strange I had never been even through university, living in Grandin, and just simply walking by it on a weekly basis. But after a mediocre bit of surf, bit of turf lunch, there remained no further reasons to return--except to finish off the remaining certificates.
Okay, one reason: a cantina sized drink, which is 3 oz, but oddly enough in a regular sized martini glass, hits you slowly, but firmly. Shopping at Superstore became an overwhelming task. Patterson tried on swimming suits and I seriously considered rhinestone sunglasses. But eventually standing in line to buy detergent, I was again taken aback as to why the shelves behind the customer service counters are completely empty or covered. The 'out of sight/out of mind' approach to tobacco products is probably the smartest move this government has made in a very long time, but I can't help but speculate what they will fill that prime sightline with next.
Next up was the Antique Mall on Gateway Blvd in search of a new kitchen chair. Finding a white chrome table that has made the entire kitchen much lighter, I needed a single chair to match. Going through the various rooms of compacted old farmhouses, I fondly recalled Saskatchewan, where Saskatoon was first painted as the Paris of the Prairies, but then does that make Edmonton the Moscow of the Prairies? Picking up a light wooden chair that I would sand and paint white if I ever felt like doing that sort of thing, we headed back downtown and up 101 St. Stopped at a light with a real assortment of people crossing the street, Patterson couldn't help but ask aloud if "You'd ever see a more rag-tag downtown than this?"
It's true, our downtown just looks like the biggest small town you'd ever seen, and it doesn't look like it's going to change any time soon. We have an informal rating system of Edmonton fashion that varies from a) Going camping b) Just came back from camping c) Still camping. Until this system fails, we'll know Edmonton is still the Dirt City we know and sometimes like.
Stopping last at the Sprucewood library to pick up items I ordered, and doing a bit of weeding before an evening of work, which involves possibly transplanting some vines and investing into the future, it never ceases to surprise me how much easier it is if you just do instead of think.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Revamping Walking in The City
So the last few messages have been admittedly cranky, and as summer peaks and the fall grows increasingly more real, this site will be going through some content changes.
Aiming to look at Edmonton through the eyes of a few who are interested/intrigued/invested in the construct of this city through various capacities, Walking in The City will now be a shared document between myself, Amy Fung along with Heather Zwicker, Ted Kerr, and possibly additional authors.
A brief primer:
I started this site in 2006 because of this photo*:
You can't really see it, but this was (I think) taken in the fall of 2006 of friends Daniel and Thea walking ahead as we cut through the Legislature. As two of the best people to discuss writing with--and not so coincidentally--to walk with, I grew very fond of this moment frozen in a flash that captured a very significant moment for me as an individual living in this city. D being a vagabond roamer of the city who slept on random roof tops and knew every ridge and fact about Edmonton; and T being a flaneur at heart who was also writing her thesis on the very subject, the two had probably never hung out before or again after this night, but I felt that this deserved a record beyond my own memory bank. Of the night, I surmise that D and I were walking Thea to the foot of the bridge before I crashed on the floor of his then-apartment down on the flats. Fleeting and forgettable, I wanted to begin tracking these transient tales for better or for worse. At the time, these two were always writing short stories about moments in Edmonton, but I was more interested in just tracking the raw unedited versions of what has just transpired.
*(A notable mention must also go to ACD, who started it all with 90 Avenue, but has since quietly moved on.)
However, a couple of years before this photo, Heather taught the first Edmonton undergraduate course at the U of A. On a whim I registered in the course and four years later has decided to extend the basis into a directed reading graduate course. Heather will once again be teaching the undergraduate course in the winter term and will be directing my course in the fall. This site will most likely be a catch all of ideas from the course, but will hopefully stay more public than academic (a balance that frighteningly remains theoretical).
I left the city after school and returned indefinitely to Hong Kong (where I'm originally from, but wasn't sure if I belonged there anymore). Estranged and alienated in my "home" country, I began wondering more about the sentiment of identity and place. After returning and resuming freelance writing for local newspapers, I began getting involved specifically in the arts and exploring how Edmonton was being construed and memorialized through its contemporary arts. (See Prairie Artsters for my ongoing investigation)
At the same time I started this blog, I met Ted who quickly became a frequent collaborator and continues to be a source of inspiration as an engaging artist/writer/curator/activist/producer etc. As the very definition of "community" through his many manifestations, Ted brings heart and wit to everything he does and is a seemingly limitless individual of action and generosity. Many of my previous posts have involved Mr. Kerr in one form or another, and between the three of us, I look forward to seeing the different views unfold.
Aiming to look at Edmonton through the eyes of a few who are interested/intrigued/invested in the construct of this city through various capacities, Walking in The City will now be a shared document between myself, Amy Fung along with Heather Zwicker, Ted Kerr, and possibly additional authors.
A brief primer:
I started this site in 2006 because of this photo*:
You can't really see it, but this was (I think) taken in the fall of 2006 of friends Daniel and Thea walking ahead as we cut through the Legislature. As two of the best people to discuss writing with--and not so coincidentally--to walk with, I grew very fond of this moment frozen in a flash that captured a very significant moment for me as an individual living in this city. D being a vagabond roamer of the city who slept on random roof tops and knew every ridge and fact about Edmonton; and T being a flaneur at heart who was also writing her thesis on the very subject, the two had probably never hung out before or again after this night, but I felt that this deserved a record beyond my own memory bank. Of the night, I surmise that D and I were walking Thea to the foot of the bridge before I crashed on the floor of his then-apartment down on the flats. Fleeting and forgettable, I wanted to begin tracking these transient tales for better or for worse. At the time, these two were always writing short stories about moments in Edmonton, but I was more interested in just tracking the raw unedited versions of what has just transpired.
*(A notable mention must also go to ACD, who started it all with 90 Avenue, but has since quietly moved on.)
However, a couple of years before this photo, Heather taught the first Edmonton undergraduate course at the U of A. On a whim I registered in the course and four years later has decided to extend the basis into a directed reading graduate course. Heather will once again be teaching the undergraduate course in the winter term and will be directing my course in the fall. This site will most likely be a catch all of ideas from the course, but will hopefully stay more public than academic (a balance that frighteningly remains theoretical).
I left the city after school and returned indefinitely to Hong Kong (where I'm originally from, but wasn't sure if I belonged there anymore). Estranged and alienated in my "home" country, I began wondering more about the sentiment of identity and place. After returning and resuming freelance writing for local newspapers, I began getting involved specifically in the arts and exploring how Edmonton was being construed and memorialized through its contemporary arts. (See Prairie Artsters for my ongoing investigation)
At the same time I started this blog, I met Ted who quickly became a frequent collaborator and continues to be a source of inspiration as an engaging artist/writer/curator/activist/producer etc. As the very definition of "community" through his many manifestations, Ted brings heart and wit to everything he does and is a seemingly limitless individual of action and generosity. Many of my previous posts have involved Mr. Kerr in one form or another, and between the three of us, I look forward to seeing the different views unfold.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Go East?
The notion that most North American cities have their lower income zones on their east side because of the direction of the wind carrying the pollution from each centre's industrial areas seems like an interesting fact at first, but if continued to be mulled over, the idea starts to fall more like trivia about a hierarchy that doesn't matter anymore.
Due to idling, big box stores, and urban sprawl in all four directions (but most heavily west and south), the increasingly privileged unsustainable car-friendly zones seem to have it worse than a bit of shared air pollution.
Forced to drive to even the closest necessities like a grocery store, where thanks to poor urban planning it would take 5 minutes to drive, 30 minutes to walk, and an hour by bus, to purchase trucked in produce whose costs are soaring because of the precious oil in every facet of our lives, so that you can keep your oversized fridge stocked in an oversized house where your utilities are also skyrocketing to pay to heat and light up space that you don't really use all that much.
Formerly a resident of a deep west end neighborhood, where walking became the most lonely and often dangerous activity alongside endlessly curving blocks and sidewalkless roads filled with speeding SUVs and sports cars, the isolation is a real defining experience of the city. It gets easier central, but even in downtown after the end of the business day, though there are certainly more people and activity on the streets these days, the presence of pedestrians is quite sparse relative to the amount of space there is.
. . .
Not entirely unrelated, but having lunch with Kristy Trinier, Public Art Director for Edmonton Arts Council, she tried to convince me that East Berlin is a lot like Edmonton. She's lived there, I've only been there, but I certainly didn't buy the statement. She connects the two through their shared sense of having the image of being an industrial wasteland, but I maintain that the priorities are just too different. I did however bring up the statement the next evening with a friend who lived there for the past year and has returned indefinitely. Claire, who despises everything about this city, and lives in Millwoods, thought about the comparison and said she could agree, but only about very specific parts of East Berlin. There is one area that everyone knows about, as from the train to the airport it is just a stretch of barren wasteland filled with abandoned industrial zones that everyone there thinks is a shithole. Walking through the area one day by herself, self defense kicked in about the sudden isolation she felt about navigating empty streets. This sudden thought that she could be jumped at any point came into her head for the first time in her travels and it reminded her of home.
As most everyone who stays in Edmonton leaves often to connect to the rest of the world, what will happen as our gas-dependency will soon make frequent traveling obsolete for most individuals? Has the last fifty years of lived-in global cultural exchange coming to an end? And will cities like this one be able to continue as a place people settle for good?
Due to idling, big box stores, and urban sprawl in all four directions (but most heavily west and south), the increasingly privileged unsustainable car-friendly zones seem to have it worse than a bit of shared air pollution.
Forced to drive to even the closest necessities like a grocery store, where thanks to poor urban planning it would take 5 minutes to drive, 30 minutes to walk, and an hour by bus, to purchase trucked in produce whose costs are soaring because of the precious oil in every facet of our lives, so that you can keep your oversized fridge stocked in an oversized house where your utilities are also skyrocketing to pay to heat and light up space that you don't really use all that much.
Formerly a resident of a deep west end neighborhood, where walking became the most lonely and often dangerous activity alongside endlessly curving blocks and sidewalkless roads filled with speeding SUVs and sports cars, the isolation is a real defining experience of the city. It gets easier central, but even in downtown after the end of the business day, though there are certainly more people and activity on the streets these days, the presence of pedestrians is quite sparse relative to the amount of space there is.
. . .
Not entirely unrelated, but having lunch with Kristy Trinier, Public Art Director for Edmonton Arts Council, she tried to convince me that East Berlin is a lot like Edmonton. She's lived there, I've only been there, but I certainly didn't buy the statement. She connects the two through their shared sense of having the image of being an industrial wasteland, but I maintain that the priorities are just too different. I did however bring up the statement the next evening with a friend who lived there for the past year and has returned indefinitely. Claire, who despises everything about this city, and lives in Millwoods, thought about the comparison and said she could agree, but only about very specific parts of East Berlin. There is one area that everyone knows about, as from the train to the airport it is just a stretch of barren wasteland filled with abandoned industrial zones that everyone there thinks is a shithole. Walking through the area one day by herself, self defense kicked in about the sudden isolation she felt about navigating empty streets. This sudden thought that she could be jumped at any point came into her head for the first time in her travels and it reminded her of home.
As most everyone who stays in Edmonton leaves often to connect to the rest of the world, what will happen as our gas-dependency will soon make frequent traveling obsolete for most individuals? Has the last fifty years of lived-in global cultural exchange coming to an end? And will cities like this one be able to continue as a place people settle for good?
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Eating, Not Walking
Strange phenomenon to have to leave your house, get in a car, drive to a restaurant, circle for parking, eat, and then get back in your car, and drive home to sit down once again. Strange as it's so unnatural--and poor for digestion and your overall experience of life.
finding myself circling this rainy city in between procrastinations, I stop for a mid afternoon meal, in a strip mall on the very north side. stepping out of the car there was a used rolled up diaper discarded in the parking lot. with no sidewalk leading up to the restaurant, or garbage cans, just road and parking, I splashed my way inside, ate an unappealing meal that was lukewarm, while staring into another strip mall across the street, got back into my car next to the used diaper, and drove home, thinking all the while about the lack of confidence this seems to emanate. no pride or value put into place, how else are we going to connect and relate but through disregard?
Looking out my window, just north of 118 Avenue, I see people walking by, most often if not always, looking straight down at the broken ground before them. No one is looking up, looking around, seeing if there is anything worth seeing. I am still foolish enough to be looking around, trying to see what I want to see, instead of what's simply there.
finding myself circling this rainy city in between procrastinations, I stop for a mid afternoon meal, in a strip mall on the very north side. stepping out of the car there was a used rolled up diaper discarded in the parking lot. with no sidewalk leading up to the restaurant, or garbage cans, just road and parking, I splashed my way inside, ate an unappealing meal that was lukewarm, while staring into another strip mall across the street, got back into my car next to the used diaper, and drove home, thinking all the while about the lack of confidence this seems to emanate. no pride or value put into place, how else are we going to connect and relate but through disregard?
Looking out my window, just north of 118 Avenue, I see people walking by, most often if not always, looking straight down at the broken ground before them. No one is looking up, looking around, seeing if there is anything worth seeing. I am still foolish enough to be looking around, trying to see what I want to see, instead of what's simply there.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Jasper Avenue, Saturday night, 2008
It's been Whyte Avenue that the sensible have been avoiding, between Thursday and Saturday, sidestepping the drunken bravados, fist fights, stabbings, gropings, and the overall unbridled debauchery and excessive public urination.
Only it's been creeping up to the north side of the river, slowly taking over with the strongest concentration between 109 St. and 106. Spilling out mostly from the Oil City Roadhouse, a monster in itself, its clientele takes over the entire block of sidewalks, pandering in groups or trying to find one another on their cellphones. Past the point of coherent drunk and raucous in groups, the air is thick with the tension of a fight ready to break at any moment.
Walking by last night shortly before 2 a.m., a couple of cops on bikes stand still nearby. A young man in a white shirt turns around and you can see that he is covered in blood. A small group are slumped in a corner, where usually a homeless person sits or sleeps, and they are now waving toxic swizzle sticks and serenading a birthday pal. Turning the corner two more cops jaunt by on foot, coming from the alley where the cruiser lights are ricocheting down the lane. Somebody yells, a man, or more probably a boy, and I'm warned that there are more cops on this block ticketing jaywalkers more than ever. Because that's the real problem. Pedestrians avoiding fights by crossing the street instead of the establishments incubating this behavior. The aggression on the street is palpable when you walk through it, less so then when you just drive by. Walking through a haze of the delirious, the only sound is traffic and sirens.
Crowds and density are not the problem, as I feel more on guard walking in Edmonton than I do amidst the busiest intersections in the world; the problem is the purpose of density. Density in Edmonton manifests two ways.
- In one, it is in traffic, specifically the arteries of the Yellowhead, Whitemud, and soon enough Anthony Henday that swings thousands of people and tonnes of goods along with burning gallons of gasoline every single day. It is a density-in-transition, something fitting for this gateway nexus, and its transient energy cuts through to how citizens may live and try to navigate this place.
- The second density correlates with the first. Edmonton is a transient stop, the "big" city with over half a dozen satellite cities and counties, whose young and restless blow into town with the sole purpose of getting absolutely trashed on their big night out. Concentrated, destructive, they disperse again leaving downtown and Strathcona sticky and stained. Of course residents frequent these areas too on the weekend, but the overwhelming majority are not. Edmonton is shedding its 'big city with a small town mentality' image with a much more dismal notion of being a small town with big city problems.
Only it's been creeping up to the north side of the river, slowly taking over with the strongest concentration between 109 St. and 106. Spilling out mostly from the Oil City Roadhouse, a monster in itself, its clientele takes over the entire block of sidewalks, pandering in groups or trying to find one another on their cellphones. Past the point of coherent drunk and raucous in groups, the air is thick with the tension of a fight ready to break at any moment.
Walking by last night shortly before 2 a.m., a couple of cops on bikes stand still nearby. A young man in a white shirt turns around and you can see that he is covered in blood. A small group are slumped in a corner, where usually a homeless person sits or sleeps, and they are now waving toxic swizzle sticks and serenading a birthday pal. Turning the corner two more cops jaunt by on foot, coming from the alley where the cruiser lights are ricocheting down the lane. Somebody yells, a man, or more probably a boy, and I'm warned that there are more cops on this block ticketing jaywalkers more than ever. Because that's the real problem. Pedestrians avoiding fights by crossing the street instead of the establishments incubating this behavior. The aggression on the street is palpable when you walk through it, less so then when you just drive by. Walking through a haze of the delirious, the only sound is traffic and sirens.
Crowds and density are not the problem, as I feel more on guard walking in Edmonton than I do amidst the busiest intersections in the world; the problem is the purpose of density. Density in Edmonton manifests two ways.
- In one, it is in traffic, specifically the arteries of the Yellowhead, Whitemud, and soon enough Anthony Henday that swings thousands of people and tonnes of goods along with burning gallons of gasoline every single day. It is a density-in-transition, something fitting for this gateway nexus, and its transient energy cuts through to how citizens may live and try to navigate this place.
- The second density correlates with the first. Edmonton is a transient stop, the "big" city with over half a dozen satellite cities and counties, whose young and restless blow into town with the sole purpose of getting absolutely trashed on their big night out. Concentrated, destructive, they disperse again leaving downtown and Strathcona sticky and stained. Of course residents frequent these areas too on the weekend, but the overwhelming majority are not. Edmonton is shedding its 'big city with a small town mentality' image with a much more dismal notion of being a small town with big city problems.
Then again
this morning mo and i attended the mayor's pride brunch. we were at michael phair's table, and so was doug iveson, one of the recently elected city councilors. ben henderson and laurie blakeman were at the next table over, with the dean of education and the mayor himself. to be transparent about this, mo and i lucked into our tickets when michael found himself with some extras. all the official speakers were full of enthusiasm for downtown, queers and youth. the mayor went so far as to publicly dis joel kotkin, upcoming speaker at the edmonton chamber of commerce later this week and proponent of single-family homes and suburban "nerdistans." as i listened to enthusiast after enthusiast, it was hard to stay unmoved. in what other city in the world right now could you buy access to the movers and shakers for a $40 brunch ticket?
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Pride 2008
if there's a nicer crowd than the one at pride every year, i don't know it. disco and beer unite everybody in a glowy feel-good afternoon: greens, queens and the NDP, organic grocers and leathermen, cops, anarchists, sissies, butches and bears. even the MCs aren't very bitchy.
i feel conflicted about pride. every year i'm undone by the "i love my gay daughter" t-shirts, and i resent it. i am moved by the old queers, who were fighting for recognition years before it even occurred to me to kiss a girl, and i love them. then i see someone in his teens and i realize, god, i'm closer to the old folks than the young studs. the HIV banners always make me cry, reminding me as they do of the late 1980s in san francisco, when pride "parades" were actually endless funeral marches. and i don't know what to think about the hordes of queer teenagers chanting "we love gay camp! we love gay camp!"
i feel ambivalent, i should say, about edmonton pride. i've done pride in a bunch of other cities, and i'm full of untainted, sentimental memories. my first pride was san francisco 1988, shortly after i came out. my security-guard girlfriend and i rode helmetless (and me, shirtless) in the dykes on bikes contingent: i was 24 years old, sporting a skirt and a flat-top. in london for a conference a few years back, i took myself to pride, which wound around and around the old city, everybody getting drunker by the block. toronto 1996, shortly after mo and i got together, and were staying at her ex's place: i wore a leather dress and bought mo some big black boots. at vancouver pride one year we ran into rob, whom we hadn't been able to reach by phone, and then adam, his freshly-ex-boyfriend. dublin pride 1998: just when i thought i would die of loneliness, a few lesbians took me out for a pint. stonewall 25, 1994, new york: we walked with the ACT-UP counter-march (who can remember, now, the dispute), and so arrived at central park in time to watch the mile-long rainbow flag wend its way in.
there's a familiar sense of sincerity and warmth at all these pride events: it's a pride thing, to set aside your reservations for the day and feel the love. so i don't exactly know why i am ambivalent about edmonton's pride. it's not that it's small; i actually liked edmonton pride when it was even smaller, a few dozen of us risking harassment walking around the block in old strathcona. and it's not that it's quiet, though it is that. (note to floats: music! play music! especially if you run a radio station or own a bar!) it's not even that the floats are always a little disappointing, though, again, the floats are usually a little disappointing. and i can look past the insulting fact that edmonton schedules pride here to accommodate toronto's, which will happen next week.
as best as i can tell, it's that edmonton's can-do love makes me feel chary. i want edmonton pride to be better -- bigger! louder! more fabulous! -- but it feels downright mean to want that when everybody is clearly doing their best. on a day characterized above all by non-judgmental warmth and generosity, who am i to stand back and sniff about new york 1994, corporate toronto glitz, or the feisty irish?
in this way, pride is continuous with every other aspect of edmonton. criticizing the city is a no-win prospect. the response is either, "oh, but you're not from here, are you" or "oh, but you're from here." let me come clean: i use both of these responses myself, regularly. we're suspicious of people who choose to stay here. "but why?," i've asked, bewildered, imagining that even a refugee would choose detroit's mean streets over edmonton's soft landing. on the other hand: don't tell me there's no culture here; you just don't know how to look for it. and then, on the third hand, i worry that we're used to being second-rate, and so we expect to be second-rate, and so we accept being second-rate.
my hope is that this blog will help me develop a critical take on the city that's not just critical. i hope it will help me see this place more clearly. if we're lucky, "walking in the city" will become a site for other edmontonians to stop in and speak their minds. in this way, it might become part of the cultural fabric of this place.
so i'll close with two of this year's surprising sights: first, the quakers. yeah, that's right: quakers marching along in the parade, holding a banner advertising quakers in support of same-sex something-or-other. second, a group protesting L ron hubbard's homophobia. they stood in a small group on churchill square and handed out flyers denouncing dianetics' approach to human sexuality in general and to homosexuality in particular. now, you don't see that in vancouver.
(do you?)
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Heading Down to Camrose
ACD and I took one last road trip before her impending departure, and once again, it was a D related trip. Last time Morinville, this time Camrose, where D and Sandy and little Daphne exist in their cozy 70+ year old house, standing strong just a couple of small town blocks from Camrose's historic downtown. The new family is looking good, quiet and away from it all. A glass of wine led to a short field trip to burgers and ice cream at the old Tim Horton's, which has expanded and moved up the street. A blaring drive around the periphery of Camrose, listening to everything from nouveau German pop to the Log Driver's Waltz, and it may be years again until this trio cruises carefree like this down an empty paved road. A quick O.V. at the Windsor Pub, where it was karaoke night and the old timers took it with unlikely gems like 'Barbie Girl' and 'Grease Lighting super remix.' Rounding out with 'On the Road,' we headed back out, towards the twinkling nights of the chemical refineries until we were back in the hood of Edmonton.
Going in and coming out, good talks sped us along the way as soon as the traffic thinned and the horizon appeared. Leaving Alberta for an indefinite period of time, not for ever, but quite possibly for good, ACD and co. pack up and leave on Monday, like far too many people I know right now. The reasons vary, but it all boils down to how unlivable it is here. Yes, you can grind down and bare through it, but is that how we have to live? Not just the winters, which break down our roads and sidewalks that are overused and disconnected, respectively. Not just the lack of a proper public transportation system where you don't have to walk for 10 minutes to a bus stop, wait up to 40 minutes, and still be just half way to where you need to be. It's also not just the lack of dignity rampant in the streets, breaking our hearts collectively. Mixed with the soaring costs of living in a place that already had a pretty high standard of living (especially relative to what you're paying for), and adding it all up, increment by increment, over the years, the weight is palpable.
Even Camrose, a charming little town, with generic big houses spreading like wild fire from the centre, big box stores opening up along the way to the highways, where it's impossible now to look and admire without thinking about the devastation to the land to fuel our consumption, a consumption not at all based on need, but profits that will drain this land dry. If you hate this place, you will hate it until it destroys itself. But if you love this place, can you bare to witness its own self disintegration?
Going in and coming out, good talks sped us along the way as soon as the traffic thinned and the horizon appeared. Leaving Alberta for an indefinite period of time, not for ever, but quite possibly for good, ACD and co. pack up and leave on Monday, like far too many people I know right now. The reasons vary, but it all boils down to how unlivable it is here. Yes, you can grind down and bare through it, but is that how we have to live? Not just the winters, which break down our roads and sidewalks that are overused and disconnected, respectively. Not just the lack of a proper public transportation system where you don't have to walk for 10 minutes to a bus stop, wait up to 40 minutes, and still be just half way to where you need to be. It's also not just the lack of dignity rampant in the streets, breaking our hearts collectively. Mixed with the soaring costs of living in a place that already had a pretty high standard of living (especially relative to what you're paying for), and adding it all up, increment by increment, over the years, the weight is palpable.
Even Camrose, a charming little town, with generic big houses spreading like wild fire from the centre, big box stores opening up along the way to the highways, where it's impossible now to look and admire without thinking about the devastation to the land to fuel our consumption, a consumption not at all based on need, but profits that will drain this land dry. If you hate this place, you will hate it until it destroys itself. But if you love this place, can you bare to witness its own self disintegration?
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