I JUST ABOUT wrapped up my final exam for my undergrad course (Soci 325, Intro to Deviance and Control; 244 students, which is a small section of that course for me, believe it or not) this morning and decided to go and check out the celebration for the Stampeders (who won the CFL Grey Cup on Sunday, humiliating the hometown Montreal Alouettes) at Olympic Plaza, but I never made it. Lunch at Ruan Thai, which I hadn’t visited in weeks (summer is REALLY over!), then a long and interesting chat at Kawa happened instead.
We talked about my blog comments issues (first thing I hear on entering, from Les: “VOT ARE YOU DOINK ABOUT DAT GUY?!?!”) and relatedly about how much Calgarians, and Canadians in general, love to complain and about how angry and defensive they get when reminded about how amazingly good we actually have it here.
Fuck, I love this country. And I love this overgrown baby of a city.
So on the way home from Kawa I thought it would neat to snap a few pics of what “Canada” and “Calgary” mean to me… what makes this country this country, and this city this city, and believe it or not I got a few nice examples.
As “Canadiana” goes, I have to think in terms of things you’d never see in my home country, which is of course the US. And I stumbled on this as I was buying a magazine:
And this:
Canadians coast to coast to coast will find these unexceptional; the little barrels of candy you will find on any convenience store (especially independent ones, or, on this case, an indie magazine shop) counter. The candy is cheap and unwrapped.
Unimaginable in the US. Impossible. Unwrapped candy? TRUST? Never gonna happen. This is one of those daily miracles that are what Canada is about, and we (Canadians) rarely notice it. We are fabulous.
And what of Calgary? Well, it was our collective luck that yet another chinook was blowing through and, like ones over the last few days bathing us in warm-for-November temps, this one was picture perfect. THIS is what a chinook looks like:
And a couple things that make this city special… first, smiling Sammy inside his fantastic Donair/Shawerma shop about two blocks east of our house:
I didn’t realize Sammy was standing there until I got home and downloaded this one!
Next, across the street, Calgary’s Priape, a gay club/fetish/underwear and porn/toys shop, the third to open in Canada about five years ago and the first to be out, loud and proud with a proper streetside storefront with nothing to hide:
Not ghettoized, not hidden, and gay gay gay but still very much part of a diverse community. Priape is pretty much me as a retail store.
Congrats, Stamps!
