Comments on: Stray impressions

By: Wodek Szemberg

Wodek Szemberg — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:16:55 +0000

For all of you who would like to know how Toronto is viewed by Canadians living elsewhere:

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1107643814349&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&DPL=IvsNDS/7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

By: gary

gary — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 12:42:06 +0000

Thanks, Grant. I have plot pieces from Time and Again floating in mind’s eye, so somewhere I must have been exposed to it. Or else this is a stray impression of stray impressions.

By: Aleah

Aleah — Sat, 29 Jan 2005 18:22:37 +0000

Wow, what a fantastic post. I am still fairly new to Toronto, so I have no idea what sort of impressions it gave in the 90s. But I have felt something unique happening, a gradual unfolding of small spots that have retained some flavor and pockets of cultural diversity, juxtaposed against aging architecture.

I have several impressions of the American Southwest – powerful and ethereal – definitely Wim Wenders-esque.

Wonderful!

By: Grant

Grant — Sat, 29 Jan 2005 18:02:02 +0000

I didnt think anyone would respond to this one, and two beauties:

Dilys C., well said, lock-step neurology is Canada’s national condition and I would have liked to have been there when you offended local sensibilites with colourful language. No call for that, as Tom Stoppard would say. Thanks, Grant

Gary, thanks, great evocation, have you seen that novel called Time and Again that describes a portal that allows contemporary New Yorkers to find their way back to 1880s New York? Can get you the full ref. Incidentally, Pam and I are were recently remarking that your post this summer about potatoes is the funniest one so far, and I believe fully justifies this blog (when so little else does). Thanks, Grant

By: gary

gary — Sat, 29 Jan 2005 17:29:58 +0000

The nexus of New York temporal leakage for me is the Flatiron building. I feel as if I could walk in the front door, tip the uniformed doorman, nod to the cloche-hatted bobbed-hair girl selling Cremo’s and watch the 1920s unfurl.

By: Dilys C.

Dilys C. — Sat, 29 Jan 2005 11:13:05 +0000

– the internal bricoleur –
As coinage, this is gold.

I’m not sure it’s true that stray impressions are not one of the places from which ideas come unless you’re invoking a Platonic or Kabbalistic-Four-Worlds universe. They are mice escaped from the creative silo, breadcrumbs marking a path out of the forest of lock-step neurology.

I can still remember having personal business in Toronto in the 80′s, and the narrowed eyes at this American’s style–a slant view of the familiar, and to seal the outrage, colorful language.