A matter of perspective

The cat in the following photo looked rather forlorn and lovable when I passed it. But when I looked at the photo afterwards, the same cat looked like it might be possessed.



The camera has altered my perspective on this furry fellow.

A while back, someone wrote to me, surprisingly disconcerted about the entire concept of psychogeography. He had read my Edmonton Journal article about it. I think he thought there was a club of pretentious fools in Edmonton, wandering the streets and giving fancy names to the things they do. I informed him that there is no such club. Toronto has a psychogeography club, but having talked to one of their most active members, I wouldn't say that their club suits the picture painted by this correspondent. In fact, the T.O. folks walked for a long while before even stumbling across the word psychogeography, and applied it as a bit of a joke.

My correspondent was also disconcerted by the thought of treating a mere walk as an "epic adventure."

But again, it's simply a matter of perspective. Personally, I think it enlivens a walk considerably to treat it as an epic adventure. And to tongue-in-cheek label it "psychogeography" after the fact. Why not? And if psychogeography encourages people to walk more and observe more, then, well, hurrah! It's all in good fun. Much like me pretending that this cat is silently conjuring a curse on all passersby.

Now to see if psychogeography will work from the road. Tomorrow, I start my drive to Montreal.

Crime File

Meanwhile, here is some news from today's Edmonton Sun:

Five people, including two women and two girls, face charges after a 39-year-old man was swarmed, beaten with his own golf club and slashed with a razor blade in an alley behind his north Edmonton home yesterday, police say. And if not for the quick actions of a neighbour, the victim may not have made it.

"It could have ended up in a homicide situation," said Edmonton police staff Sgt. Gail Denys, crediting a neighbour who came to the man's aid in the alley behind 118 Avenue and 87 Street shortly after the vicious 12:30 a.m. attack.

The victim had been inside his home when he heard the sounds of people hooting and hollering outside. Denys said he armed himself with a three wood and went outside to investigate. He ended up confronting five people.

"They basically swarmed him," said Denys. "They punched and kicked him" and clobbered him over the head with the club.

Once his attackers got him down, they sliced him with a razor blade from his right ear to his chin and slashed his head, Denys said.

A neighbour rushed out and pulled the man to safety. Police nabbed the group a couple of blocks away after they wandered nonchalantly from the bloody scene, Denys said. The neighbour who rushed out to the victim didn't want to speak with Sun Media, saying he feared retribution.

Others said they were surprised by the number of females, including two teen girls, involved in the attack.

"They're tough," said Kerry Surgeoner, 48.

"Women are tough."

His roommate, Bob Carlson, went even further.

"They're probably more violent than guys," he said. "The girls around here, they got that look in their eye. You say something to them, and they'll punch you out."

Naming things

A few posts ago, I claimed to have encountered cherry blossoms on the walk to work. I strolled past the same tree over the weekend, and my girlfriend informed me that it was, in fact, a lilac tree.



But I reckon there are some cherry trees around here! In fact, I think I've found some blossoming up the road in the same garden as the tulips:



It has become increasingly important to me to be able to name things that I see while I am going for walks. These things didn't trouble me much when I was younger. But now, especially given that I like to write about what I see, my poor grasp on these details frustrates me. It still frustrates me that I can't even be sure, one hundred percent, that those trees above are cherry trees. I've even researched this on the Interwebnet! They might be Evans cherry trees, which thrive locally, but I wouldn't put money on it.

It's sad that I can name dozens of cars, and I know the names for all sorts of technological appliances around my home and office, and I can rattle off names of film stars whom I've never seen in the flesh, and yet I can walk outside and see a tree, and 90 per cent of the time, have no idea what to call it.

This detachment from our natural world is, in my opinion, a mild disorder, and one to correct.

Edmonton's Fists

Some time late last week, a young and affluent man with a sporty car believed himself to have been cut off by the truck in front. He got out and confronted the truck driver, who was a small and frail man of about fifty years of age. The young man punched the older man in the face, smashing his glasses, and lodging fragments of glass into his eyelid. The older man went to ER for stitches.

This true story is taken from the life of my girlfriend's building caretaker. He is a Buddhist, although I don't really know if that really alters the meaning of the story. Seems to make it even more sad, to my mind.

I watched FUBAR for about the third time last night, an Alberta-made film that this time around seemed not just a comedy, but also a penetrating insight into the dark and violent Alberta psyche. It is funny but also rather chilling how nihilistic the main characters, Terry and Dean are. It's sad how often nights of revelry end up in violence, either man-on-man, or man-on-inanimate-obect, i.e. bus shelter. The scene in High River is particularly unnerving: a bunch of drunk locals essentially so bored that duking it out with their fists is a major form of entertainment.

In any case, those extremes aside, it is an ongoing irritation how a thin veneer of hostility smooths over most of the interactions between the citizens of this city -- especially the male citizens. It's why this time of year must truly be lived to its fullest, because it's one of the few times where I can routinely get outside and enjoy community pastimes such as soccer that rekindle a bit of hope in the local human spirit!

Tulips

I passed these on my walk to work this morning. I used my new Canon Powershot A570 to capture them. Now they are mine!



I also like this friendly neighbourhood cat. He came and said hello.

A few observations

1. “City losing pothole battle, little relief in sight” – Edmonton Sun front-page story
Visitors to Edmonton might be surprised to find the surface of our streets pockmarked with large holes. Some are so big that they can and will damage your vehicle. Especially if it’s a small vehicle. Maybe that’s why so many Edmontonians choose to drive trucks, which increasingly resemble the kind of vehicle you expect NASA to use for a Mars landing.

2. Nice Posse
There is a billboard on 109 Street, an advert for a western-themed bar called the Ranch. On the billboard is a woman with a cowboy hat, breasts that are clearly enhanced with implants, an exposed navel, and a big ol’ belt buckle. Cleverly emblazoned above her crotch are the words, “Nice Posse.” Somebody, thank God, has already written to the local See Magazine about this one, pointing out for the edification of most locals who probably merely guffawed and went on their way, that this is woman-hating, objectifying, crass garbage. A bar with a large advertising budget can buy a lot of space in our city. What it cannot buy is any sense of class, dignity or taste.

3. Cherry Blossoms
On my walk along 84 Avenue, there is what I believe to be a cherry tree, and just this week, it has burst into white blossoms. You detect the fragrance from twenty steps away. The memory of this makes 1 and 2 a little easier to take.

Drug Deals

Over the weekend, I watched what I’m fairly sure was a drug deal going down in the parking lot by my girlfriend’s apartment.

A man I’ll call the Smoking Man had been lingering outside the apartment building in his truck, doing nothing more than smoking a cigarette. Then a van showed up in the pay parking lot adjacent. The Smoking Man pulled out of the stall and advanced up the alleyway, now electing to park illegally in the alleyway behind Chapters. He turned off his engine, got out of his truck, and approached the van. I later saw the van drive down the alleyway eastwards. I assume the Smoking Man was inside it, buying drugs, but the tinted windows prevented a good view.

While he was gone, a security guard approached the Smoking Man’s truck, now vacant, and jotted down its license plate. About thirty seconds later, Smoking Man reappeared, running up the alleyway from the same direction in which the van had headed earlier. He gave a rueful smile to the security guard, then jumped into his truck and sped away – not without, of course, adding that delightful touch of machismo that grows in popularity daily – that spin of the wheels along the gritty pavement as you accelerate as fast as you can.

These elaborate manoeuvres are sure signs of suspicious – i.e. illegal! – activity. I like to think I’ve got a trained eye for these kinds of things in light of my three years’ residence just east of China Town. That neighbourhood, while at first glance seeming fairly innocuous, was nevertheless a Mecca for prostitutes and crack dealers. My friend Matt and I would occasionally sit on my balcony with a six-pack of beer and just watch the deals go down. It was a really good time.

You don’t get the flavour of a place only by walking around it; sometimes it is enough just to sit still and let the place move around you.

Canada Geese

Yesterday afternoon, crossing the High Level Bridge on the way back from work, I heard some strange hooting and honking. I looked in the sky in vain for the source of the noise. Then I looked down to the river. Finally I found the source of the avian articulations.

It was a pair of Canada geese, sitting on top of a supporting pillar of the light rail transit bridge.

Calluses

Our dealings with the physical world shape our own physiques. For example, I discovered this weekend that my soft bureaucrat's hands become sore after not even one hour of shovelling dirt. I was working in the EcoHouse garden at the university, helping with seeding and weeding, and also researching an article I'll be writing for the Edmonton Journal. I must say, I am better suited to writing than gardening.

These white hands of mine need to become callused.

When you look at the hands of the homeless people at George Spady shelter, you see the effects of their toil. From picking through dumpsters as well as from temp manual work in factories and construction, most of the clients' hands are rough, with dirt worn into the palms and dirt under the nails. A surprising number are missing entire fingers. Many have cuts and scars.

Life on the street can leave an indelible mark. A year, two years -- I'm not sure how long it takes, and maybe it's different for different people -- but after an indeterminate period of time, a person's physical state deterioriates towards being irreversible. The skin is so worn, the premature wrinkles so deep, the scars so numerous, that the street will likely keep its grip on that person even if he or she eventually finds a home. It seems that the greatest effort to help must be made for the youngest clients, or those who are only newly impoverished.

This weekend I met a woman who had been a high school teacher for thirty years. She took up crack cocaine when she was about sixty, after retiring. She had never done anything besides smoke cigarettes before. Then her husband died, and her crack use intensified. She used it every day for two years.

She had never seen the George Spady centre before this weekend. She was determined to get into treatment so that she would never have to see it again. Apparently, her psychiatrist recommended she spend a night there. Maybe that's what they call shock treatment.

And she witnessed one of the peaceful nights! No punch-ups, seizures, vomiting, urinating or shitting.

Crime File

Meanwhile, I feel compelled to include a few parapraphs from today's Edmonton Sun, about the sheer insanity going on at a north-end Edmonton bar early Sunday (or should I say late Saturday?)

The drama at the Belvedere nightspot at 13610 – 58 St., began about 3 a.m., when a man and his common-law wife – both in their early twenties – got into an argument, said EPS staff Sgt. Marc Cochlin. The domestic dispute spilled into the parking lot and escalated to the point where the husband brandished a knife, Cochlin told Sun Media. The wife suffered minor cuts to her hands in an apparent attempt to wrestle the knife away from her husband, Cochlin said, adding she had grabbed the blade but didn't require hospitalization.

As the couple fought outside, at least two men came to the woman's aid and got into a scuffle with her husband, Cochlin said. The husband is facing charges of assault with a weapon, assault and possession of a weapon. Around the same time, a brawl erupted nearby between "numerous people," Cochlin added. During that chaotic scene, a passing motorist parked his vehicle and offered "to lend assistance" - only to have his vehicle stolen by an unknown thief, Cochlin said. And while all that was happening, a man entered the bar and turned over a loaded .22-calibre handgun to a bartender, Cochlin said, adding no shots were fired. The man, who had been carrying the firearm in his boxer shorts, claimed his nephew was chasing him and asked the bartender to hang onto the gun.

Suburban living is clearly too boring for some of our citizens. They need to liven things up with some knife-wielding, gun-toting, and brawling.

A few hours after this, there was yet another incident for the crime file. Edmonton recorded its 12th homicide of 2007: the execution-style shooting of an as-yet unnamed victim in an urban style clothing store.

No Walking Anywhere

When it is so dismal outside, you don't feel that illness is making you miss much.

When you lie awake in bed for hours on end, even a Sealy Posturepedic mattress starts to feel like a slab of granite.

I remember like a distant dream the pleasant sun of Monday afternoon. Three big rabbits were hunched in the quadrangle of the university. They have turned from winter white to a sort of mottled grey.

The rabbits, or should I say hares, are one of Edmonton's delights. You see them everywhere nowadays.