Once upon a time, I published a post about
JUXTAPOSITION
a word which has come to mean the vivid, visual disorientation of viewing two, very different things, beside, or near each other. The examples I gave, were a tiara on a pig, and a Rembrandt, hanging in a Port-A-Potty. I was recently exposed to a Canadian case in point.
I had to take the wife to an Oral Surgery and Maxillofacial Clinic, 75 miles away, in Canada’s dark, dirty, dingy, rough and none-too-ready steel city. When we finally arrived, after navigating the bewildering downtown maze of one-way streets, I was suitably impressed with the magnificent little edifice.
It was relatively brand-new – perhaps 5 years old. It was clean, and neat, with swaths of well-polished glass, shiny stainless steel trim, and Carrera marble. You’ll have to take my word for it, because I could not locate any online external images of the place. It’s almost as if they are ashamed of their neighborhood, and don’t want to scare off any potential customers.
I can’t say that it’s in a ‘Bad Neighborhood.’ It’s about normal for this place. The street in front looks feels like it’s maintained by the Ukrainian Paving Company. Cheek by jowl with, and across the street from it, are an ‘Adult Theater’, tattoo parlor, Payday Loan Company, cannabis dispensary, Moe’s Cavern dive bar, and Bob’s Pizza (Hiring delivery drivers.)
I stayed at a motel in a neighborhood like this, north of Detroit, and it had an armed security guard, but this is Canada, where guns are banned – except for criminals – and muggers have to say please, thank you, and sorry.
Ten years from now – or twenty – gentrification will have set in, and it will be surrounded by doctors’ offices, and spas, and tony salons, but right now, it sticks out like the only unsore thumb.
***
(continue last year’s anti-Festival Of Conspicuous Consumption Christmas rant here)
Canada’s celebration of Yuletide commercial excess continues to match, and even exceed, the USA. Local radio stations and store Muzak play-lists switched to All Christmas All The Time back at Thanksgiving – but that’s CANADIAN Thanksgiving, in late October.
I was recently in a store where I heard Driving Home For Christmas, and thought, “It’s your own damned fault. If you hadn’t got yourself on a terrorist watch, and No-Fly list, you wouldn’t have to drive.”
Archon's Den 