En Passant

"there were bookshops with racks of magazines printed without capital letters or the bourgeois disturbance of full stops" - the buddha of suburbia

let me turn on some sonic youth (circa daydream nation) to help me create the required zen for this post

okay that's better

now let me paint a picture:

a coquette - elegantly poised, meticulously adding salad dressing to her ready-made salad, that she must have purchased only minutes ago from some cornerstore

me - watching from a couple rows away, drinking in the sights and sounds of a city abuzz with vibrant energy that has only just gone under the dark embrace of the night

we are on the streetcar that is carrying us away from the harsh and oppressive heat of the heart of chinatown towards the more plaintive and sullen harbourfront

the day has only left its ruins along the road
vendors are collecting their livelihood and closing up for the night
chinese neon signs still offer me their fried goods and their banking services
I watch it all in a blur
flitting images

back to our coquette; she indulges now in her salad, from time to time adding a dab more of dressing
while asobi seksu that is blaring in my eardrums from my mp3 player lays on pounds more of jarring guitars and beautiful ebullient vocals that steer me carefully into the abyss

Circa July

I'm hesitant today.

I've been waiting for the right moment to bring my blog back into the daylight. It's become akin to a low-budget indie movie that has the critics rattling in their cages and cafés, waiting for the next self-acclaimed scantimonious prick out of paris to declare their new, 6 minute, black and white, silent movie, worthy of the palm d'or.

Well I knew the timing would never be anywhere near perfect to launch my coup de grace (for all the illiterate plebians that read my blog that's the french term for a death blow), but the weather today had me thinking.

Toronto seemed to have been covered in a deathly pall of oppressive humidity, an incubus of grimy heat, foreshadowing the looming disaster that my day would turn out to be. It had me thinking of the story "Death in Venice". Especially since the last few days, a certain putrid smell had filled the hallways on my floor; probably from the garbage not being emptied. Mr. Venezuela must have been attending his son's wedding down in el paso?!

Anyhow, this stench dominated the air and impregnated it with a sort of impending doom. I was weary to leave my room and it was thus that I spent most of the hours of the day locked up in my abode, reminiscing on the past or debating on the future; which brought me to think how closely this situation mirrored that of the man in the aforementioned book (minus the fact that he was lusting over a young boy). His condition and his final death followed that of the city's slow demise (after the introduction of a plague into the venician canals).
Was the foul smell in the hallways and the humid cocoon of air that had beset Toronto a sign of things to come?

to be continued...