Clouds, "Doubting" reviewed, and SMOKE!
May 4, 2007
W ow!!! I don’t know who it was who said all readings of poems or stories are misreadings….but I’d like to send out a huge hug to Ms. Melanie Owen (see Alberta Views May 2007 edition) who read Doubting Yourself to the Bone and got it, understood it, and then wrote a glowing review!!! I tried, I tried, I tried to look at this review with the dispassionate eye of a Buddhist monk, but I couldn’t. I tried to sit there and watch this rave of a review float by like a cloud --oh isn't that a nice cloud--but failed! I am thrilled by this positive cloud!!!.
And my letter about a better-than-downtown alternative for a location for our new arena ran in the Edmonton Journal today, with a huge picture of the Municipal Airport. Gee, I wonder what that alternative location is?
Here’s what the sorbet was going to be today….but it was preempted for a diatribe on love.
smoke
Dark-eyed blond woman in a red Mustang, smoking.I get a glimpse. Think. Gee, that was sexy.
There’s something dangerous about the colour red,
fast car, fast woman, smoking as if she is doing the cigarette
a great favour, she knows smoking is bad for her, yet
she persists. I start imagine lingerie, fetishes, kinkiness,
but she and her little car do not have staying power
in my imagination. Regardless, all of this
equates to wow, that was sexy.
I will have a chat with my therapist about this.
The young woman on 102nd Street, those things plugged into her ears
smoking absently, not conscious of anything,
gobbing, time and time again, on the sidewalk, is repellent.
She sucks on her cigarette, and she gobs again.
Not sexy, I think. No question.
She gives me a look that questions my looking at her.
Well it’s because I think you’re a slob, a pig.
You’re a young, ugly pig – nothing to do with your looks –
My unsolicited advice would be: Quit smoking. Especially
if you can’t do it without gobbing all over my city.
4 Comments
1. Rosemary had this to say: May 04, 2007 ~ 10:26 ~ #
Thomas,
Congrats on being in The Journal today regarding the Downtown arena, but I really don’t think having horse racing in that area is condusive to those of us living by the muni. Those chimes go off loudly at the start of every race which start early. I can already hear the car races clearly and live about 5 miles from there.
The stadium I wouldn’t mind as the noise would be mostly inside but why not just rebuild on the land where the stadium already is? Why do we have to relocate anyhow?
2. Thomas had this to say: May 04, 2007 ~ 11:06 ~ #
That is a good question. There’s nothing wrong with the present location, (The $8 charge for parking is a pain in the ass…It irks me. Northlands rents the land from the city and so charge whatever they want…it’s an ugly, ugly cash cow) though it would be nice to have the arena closer to downtown, which the airport location would solve. Believe me, the sound of a little bell ringing for ten horse races a night wouldn’t even come close the sound of thousands of airplanes taking off and landing every day of the year. And the car race is just three days….It’s just that there is so much room there….Hotels, in-fill housing, businesses and the proposed LRT NAIT station. Thinking, planning ahead, the LRT could run right next to the arena, in fact, it could be built into the arena plan so fans wouldn’t even have to go outside.
There is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come. I’m hoping this one catches on.
No major city in the world has airplanes flying into its downtown core. Isn’t about time we thought big, and acted big!!
3. ink slinger had this to say: May 04, 2007 ~ 17:20 ~ #
Speaking of infill housing projects, I read a magazine article not too long about about a US city (I can’t recall which, but it’s similar in size to Edmonton) that did just that on their old municipal airport. It was an incredibly successful project, and the community was vibrant, in part because it had been properly planned from the beginning.
There was a nice mix of single-family houses, and apartment buildings. A certain percentage of development was dedicated to low income housing, and I believe that they did their best to make the new community as “green” as possible.
After reading that, I wondered why we don’t do the same thing her in Edmonton. It’s an idea whose time has come, and one that I think will help to make Edmonton into a more cosmopolitan city. It’s a shame that it likely won’t happen.
4. Mike had this to say: May 05, 2007 ~ 05:16 ~ #
A relocation of the existing arena is necessary from a geography standpoint. It should be more central, and the existing neighbourhood is, shall we say, “less than ideal”.
I think the Muni idea is a good one. It’s a huge land space that could be put to much better use. I’m sure it’s much easier said than done, however. I’m sure there are major commercial interests there that have some sort of powerful lobby. Still, the idea should be pursued vigorously.