I went on an adventure tonight.

I won't describe it in great detail, because it was one of those things that are really only interesting to those who take part, you know? Anyways, we went to the north side to look at a car, and got off the bus too early because someone pulled the cord before they had to and we're the kind of people who don't like to admit to our mistakes or whatever. So we ended up walking for about fifteen minutes through this slightly sketch neighbourhood, and it was like walking on the goddamn moon, because it was fucking cold and windy (which, as an aside, I can haz sunshine?), and there were windrows and ice craters, which are just hazards to balance-challenged people like me.

I felt like a tourist and/or an astronaut, s'what I'm getting at. I hardly go over there, and -- I told this story a couple of times in discussions today -- the first time I really did, they dropped me at the Clareview LRT station only to discover that my friend's friend had had the bumper stolen from his truck; it was so stereotypically north end that I couldn't help but laugh, shitty thing though it was. Today I was meant to serve as "protection" or some such, which...lulz, no. The point here is that I have the same stereotypes that so many others do. And walking through that neighbourhood made me realise again exactly how little of the city I really know outside of my bubble. I feel like a tourist on the north side, the south side, in the satellite towns. When I try to conceptualize them, I end up just filling them in with the places I do know, and (except in the case of the Safeway/TD banks thing everywhere, which is true), it's all wrong. And this is a strange city to be a tourist in (do we even get that many real tourists? Or is Daryl Katz going to give us a new boost in that way, too?), because...really? People want to visit? How odd.

In all seriousness, I think it's good to be a tourist in your own city sometimes, really. Getting out of your comfort zone, seeing things that happen elsewhere, well, isn't that the point of touristing?  I don't know that you can have a full understanding of a place if you haven't seen or experienced as much of it as possible. Degrees and kinds of understanding exist, obviously, but to get the most out of it you need to explore as much as possible. Do what you're interested in. You're a tourist, after all.

It also just occurred to me that Edmonton is two or three cities: what it actually, objectively is -- a city with a million people, thousands of trucks, and a lot of ugly buildings; the way you see it personally; and the way everyone else sees it. All of these combine on some level to create what the city is, overall -- maybe there's no uniformly "Edmonton" thing (and I don't think there is), and how we see it in our own minds and which...oh god, that just cycles back on itself, doesn't it? That'll teach me to try and blog at 1:30 in the morning. I promise it makes sense when you think about it, though. I'd almost say that how we perceive it is the most important thing, really, since perception does shape so much of our understanding.

After all that we ended up in Dairy Queen, having a Blizzard because that's what you do when it's cold and windy, obviously. And that was my fabulous adventure, with all the cute bits left out so you wouldn't vomit, guys.

Pine Point & Dead Cities, pt. one.

This came up on my Tumblr feed earlier today, and it seemed like an appropriate thing to share. It's an interactive documentary about a ghost town in the Northwest Territories called Pine Point -- it closed in the late 1980s and now, twenty years later, there's nothing left. Not even the buildings where the townsite was. I spent a lot of time thinking about this (and a good hour or so just researching ghost towns in Alberta), and I do plan on writing a coherent post, but for now, here's just the link.

Pine Point

take the green belt to your house

First, can I say that I really want to be outside right now? I've spent as much time outdoors in the past few days as possible, barring that miserable miserable snow day (which, oh my fuck, whyyy?) I've got to go buy galoshes this weekend, because all I want to do is spend hours walking around. Drifting, even. That's not what this is about, though.

I used to make-believe a lot when I was little. Faeries and ghosts and magic and Ogopogo and the whole lot -- it was all real. I craved the unknown and the unreal, had to seek out everything hidden (fast forward 10 years and I can hardly watch The Ring. Shut up.) I loved all the little places in my gloriously suburban neighbourhood that didn't quite fit the mold -- the "Spanish villa" at the end of the street, or the string of trees along the pathway that had gone slightly wild. They were more interesting than orderly flowerbeds, anyways. Grownup me doesn't believe in faeries or Ogopogo (ghosts are still up for debate, really), but I haven't really lost my taste for the places that exist outside the norm.

When I go wandering, I love taking back alleys and green belts, crossing fields, using paths instead of walking on the main road -- essentially, anything to avoid using the sidewalk. Partly because it feels like an instant adventure -- probably this is a feeling left over from pretending I was a voyageur -- but also because it's straight up more interesting and usually prettier. There actually aren't many alleys around where I live, but there are a few green belts, and it's weird, because the nature in there is so ordered, trees in straight lines and all that nonsense, but if it's done right (or you're in the right mindset), it really can feel as though you're outside the city. Even with the backyards all around, it's just more peaceful, quieter. We need those spaces, I think. It can't be all urban, all the time. So thank god for gas lines?

The alleys, too. I think I love them because oftentimes what's in there is overgrown from people's yards...it's really just accidental, an afterthought. And it sets off so well against the crushed cigarette boxes, hey?  I've seen everything from daisies to overgrown raspberry bushes in alleys, and really, it's that starkness that makes it appeal to me so much. It doesn't fit. It's rather like in Mike Davis' article, with the post-firebombed places where the flowers would spring up, new and in abundance. Life where you wouldn't expect it, I suppose. There's one in particular, not very far from here or the river, and in the summer it's just utterly filled with wild roses. The gravel on the ground and these beautiful pink flowers just above it...I really like the juxtaposition, I suppose.

Which is really what it comes down to, isn't it? What's really so appealing about all of this is how it contrasts with the ordered nature of our usual existence. It's a little beyond the ordinary, and to use a cliche it's often (literally, even!) off the beaten path. It's freeing in that sense. So go exploring.

I spend roughly three hours a day in transit, depending; as a result, it's where I get a lot of my thinking done  about such important issues as whether Jersey Shore is real or if we're all just being trolled by The Situation, or if I should stop and buy Mini Eggs (the answer is always yes), or how I can convince my manfriend to grow his beard and buy a kilt and answer the call of the Scottish Highlands, which, to my complete surprise, he's not really game for. But no, today I had an "oh shit I still have to blog" moment was thinking about what I'd learned in this class, and it ended up cycling back to the bus.

I'm one of those people who's usually tuned out behind headphones from the moment I leave my house until the moment when I absolutely cannot avoid interacting with someone. It's better this way, trust me. Anyways, a couple of weeks ago my beloved, noise-canceling, "I'm wearing these so you won't try to talk to me" headphones broke (snapped, actually, which...I don't even.) On the bus, of course. It was horrid, and since I didn't have time to get to the mall to exchange them, I spent about 10 days alternately fighting with a pair of Apple's piece of shit iPod earbuds and giving up and paying attention to what was going on around me.

It wasn't awful. I mean, the junior high girls talking about J.Biebz and R.Pattz didn't get any less painful. Otherwise, though -- being forced to pay attention to the people I'd never listen to was sort of a learning experience. The kinds of things people will talk about in public never cease to amaze -- I'm looking at you, girl on the 109 talking about her discharge over the phone. Buses move through communities, but they're also tiny moveable communities themselves, and seeing how they function can be kinda cool sometimes. It's also interesting to see how sound or its absence can shape a place -- I never really minded taking the bus, it was almost peaceful, until my headphones broke and I couldn't hide behind Owen Pallett anymore. But when they're taken away, well. Like I said, buses are interesting. I almost want to spend a few hours taking random routes, and just seeing what the people are like, how the buses change depending on the time of day or the destination.

I guess maybe what I'm getting at -- since it's 5:04 and I'm supposed to be posting this four minutes ago, which, sorrysorry -- is that maybe what I've learned the most in 380 is how to experience places and spaces in new ways, and that I should do it more often. I've got my headphones back, thank you dear baby Jesus, but maybe every so often I'll start leaving them off to see what happens and what I hear. Just not on the junior high bus.

When we exchanged maps, I was partnered with Amber and given a map of supposedly haunted places around campus and Old Strathcona, with a quick trip across the river to the Hotel Macdonald. THIS WAS REALLY GREAT, BY THE WAY. (And Amber, if you see this, I forgot to ask/tell you: are you making it public? Because you totally should.) Seriously, I love ghost walks. I keep wanting to do that one around here that they've got in the summer, but everyone calls me a loser and won't go. ANYWAYS.

What I mean to get at with this is that one of the themes of the map was the idea of places having a "dual history" -- the "official" one that everyone knows, the facts and figures and documented things, as well as the other one, what I want to call the colloquial history, the bits and pieces that aren't official or necessarily really there on record, but the stories and legends that everyone knows. I was thinking about it again today with the discussion of the Rossdale site and the fact that everyone just kept forgetting about -- or maybe in some cases, ignoring -- the history and importance of the place. Why? Going back to the dual history thing, I think sometimes that we forget the importance of the other histories, the off the record versions. And this is really rather terrible, when you think about it (aside: I need a synonym for think. Sorry.) The other versions of history are no lesser just because they're not endorsed by the public or the government or whoever the hell is in charge of writing horrible elementary school texts that pretend like racism doesn't exist...the people who decide what should be on record, in other words. The ghost stories I learned probably aren't on official record anywhere (the gruesome murder of a prostitute at the Strat, for instance? And her bloody figure? Probably not going on that plaque on the outside of the building.) I think Amber got at least a few of her stories from Barbara Smith's book Ghost Stories of Alberta, which is, yes, a collection of stories told by one person or a passed among a few over the years.

I think I'd like to see more things like this, really -- collections of the stuff that everybody knows, but isn't really recorded. Or maybe they exist and I just haven't found them? Either way, it'd be cool. And since we're on the topic -- do you kids know any such stories? I'd like to hear them.

PS. Excuse the lateness, dear hearts? I drafted this yesterday (really) and forgot to publish it, and I've just now gotten to a computer.