Thursday, March 29, 2007

Urban Foibles: Ghost World

Just as I started a campaign of virulent hatred against the pigeons of Nathan Philip Square, I saw these two having a moment in the setting sun.

I hate doing or saying anything about this, and hate even more what this might say about our baser instincts, but hating on something as a collective act of solidarity often bring people closer together than anything else might.

I was on the crowded west bound platform of Bloor Station today, standing really close to a stock type of downtown westend -- black blazer, ironic cap, girl-jeans-worn-by-a-guy, the works -- as uncomfortably as I do when I have to stand that close to anyone, let alone a walking cliche of a human being. The train arrived, doors popped open; we rushed in and settled across from each other, which was when I caught a whif of library musk. I turned around, and saw an elderly man with a beret, reading, or rather liberally sniffing, a yellowing pocket-sized romance, his porous nose forcing its way into the binding.

Bizarre things seem to happen a lot around me, and in any case I'm often the only one who finds it funny. I jerked my head the other way, came face to face to a stern woman in her 50s, and played contortionist gymnastics with my facial muscles as I tried really hard to pretend that nothing was happening and I was not crazy. Then I noticed the westender with a smirk on his face, gazing through his aviators (pretty atrocious eh?) at the old man; then glancing in my direction, his faint suggestion of a smile broke into something altogether more tangible.

Thus is how we bonded for a moment, two people unlikely to have liked each other and to like each other in the future, accomplices in hatred and contempt; I was Thora Birch to his ScarJo. Meanwhile the old man sniffed on, unaware of his role in this meaningful moment.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Urban Foibles: Cannibalism Next Door

Toronto, you've given me more and more reasons to love you.
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Those who think that Toronto is merely a more vanilla New York City--a 110% correct assessment--should nevertheless heed this human interest story from the Star, the sheer grotesqueness of which earned it the top spot on the website's GTA page. Wincing and feigning disgust aside, more than a few of us are secretly elated that Toronto is finally breeding its own crop of passive-agressive psychos par excellence, instead of the much more mundane variety that haunts Spadina and Bloor in search of people willing to buy his dreamcatchers. It's a rite of passage for this young city of ours, no?
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This story also confirms my long-held suspicion that cannibalistic pigeons are a greater threat to North American civilization than Iranian nukes or governmental ineptitude. The Mad Pigeon Disease shall no longer be the bane of the Land of Horse Manure, but will instead strike the heart of civilization, Eaton Centre.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Here Is What I Did This Weekend: Got Jeans, and Almost Famous


Shopping is something that either evokes fond memories of American Apparel trysts and insults-disguised-as-mockery (when I shop with mostly female friends and the odd few gays ones) or boundless trepidation (when I shop by myself). I've struggled to come to terms with this strange dichotomy, and have made the following self-discoveries:

One, I don't really care that much about fashion, and consequently am not very fashionable. Up till three years ago I thought Old Navies was an acceptable expression of one's individuality; I completely missed the point about polka dots; and I still don't get these palestinian scarves. The best I've managed to pull off is to be tasteful: that is, to wear the bland looking jeans and the inconspicuous chucks and sweat-shop-free grey t-shirts that just screams "university student", "the Guardian reader" and "passive consumer of culture" (whatever that means). Standing by the wall I might as well just be the wall.

Two, my problem with shopping alone is a result of conflicting psychological undercurrents. This I figured out as soon as I entered the Gap at Bay and Bloor this past Saturday to seriously shop for jeans, my only pair having just ripped in certain vital areas.

Now is as good a time as any to freely admit that I have an inferiority complex at clothing stores, especially at the snootier ones where you are expected to know what you are talking about. Now Gap usually doesn't rank that high on snootiness, but this being Bay and Bloor, the wage-slave-cum-sales-associate descended on me like vultures that just smelt rotten meat.

Very preppy, sexually ambiguous male in his mid-20s: Can I help you?

Me: ummm...I've just taking a look around really.

I spent 10 minutes literally looking around before realizing it was the women's floor. More nerve racking was the somewhat morbid looking "wall of jeans" laid out for men upstairs.

Me: umm..."boot cut", wonder what that is. "Slim fit"? I can't tell the difference.

Black? Navy? Pre-stressed? Easy fit? I forked over everything like my life depended on it. On top of that, I can't remember my size--it's been THAT long since I shopped for pants.

I hunted down an attractive 50-year-old sale associate with a Yorkville Drawl and asked her if the 32 in "32X30" referred to the waist size; she noticably paused a second to suppress a snigger before asking me what I wanted so she could find it for me. I just died little inside.

The thing is that normally I wouldn't even waste my time feeling bad about these people, but just then I felt as never before the need to justify my existence to this tanned and attractively turned-out fashion horde (lowly fashion hordes at that; see Holt Renfrew): I read goddamnit! I can talk hours on end about why the Raj failed and why Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed. I can tell you about Baron Haussman's Paris and Man Ray's Paris. I can recite Manhattan's movie script backwards if I had the inclination, eh? Eh?

I was lucid enough to realize that these people have no time for the Raj and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

I did end up finding the ideal pair of jeans though, and paid for it. At $100 it is like the most expensive piece of clothing I own--I've paid my dues to hang out with my more glamourous friends.

p.s. one of my photos from flickr got featured in Torontoist's weekly roundup of good photos. That got me really excited for like, three seconds. http://siqister.blogspot.com