The people of MUNI

These are the people standing on the platform at Powell station at 22:37:

An oriental girl wearing neutral skinny jeans, dulce de leche-colored moccasins and an azure tee. She is leaning heavily on her left foot.

A girl wearing red jeans, black chukka boots and a grey leather jacket. She has a slender face like a jackal, and she is pretty. She holds a tan purse big enough to stow a bowling ball.

A bearded hipster wearing black vans with white laces and skinny black jeans and a dark, dark camo jacket over a black and white horizontally stripped shirt. He is leaning against a pillar and he is also wearing a hat. He hair hasn't been washed in a month; there is little doubt of that.

And older Asian lady with mom-length hair and white running shoes with pale blue accents. She is wearing a dull lime-colored windbreaker and has a canvas grocery bag slung over her shoulder. She looks tired.

Wedge heels and blue jeans and a slender brown leather bag. I can't see her face, just her hair pulled into a neat bun. Brunette. A black leather jacket hides a printed blouse. She seems fun.

An old lady wearing pearl white sneakers and hair to match. Her skin is wrinkled and she complains out loud about the N Judah. I barely notice her large earrings with cats on them, and now I can't look at anything else. She's wearing loose-fitting grey slacks and a black windbreaker.

Light-grey-to-the-point-of-white tights (maybe jeggings) and calf-high black leather boots. An electric red cardigan sweater cinched with a shiny leather belt over a black tee shirt. She is much older than she dresses. Her died black hair is fading at the roots. She is curvy, but not voluptuous.

And old man with white hair and glasses. He doesn't know it but he's monochrome: verdant khakis and a plaid shirt that mixes emerald and forest green. Even his beige shoes are kind of green. He's pulling a pale mint-colored bag and holding an a taupe notebook. His black duffel bag stands out.

Black leather shoes, black tights, shiny black jeans., She's wearing a black nylon jacket and holding black backpack in her lap. She's Asian. Only the shock of her red hooded sweatshirt makes me curious about her.

Patent-leather heels, dark slacks, a grey pullover sweater with a floppy collar. She's holding a canvas bag in her lap, her hair is pulled back in a bun, and she has a round sweet face accented with pearl earrings. She smiles oddly, as I furiously scribble down notes.

Four valentines to the library

1

The fortnightly visit of our town's bookmobile was my favourite childhood memory. The bookmobile was an RV full of paperbacks that drove around the parts of the city not served by a library. It would park for an hour or so, in the parking lots of schools and community centres. Children from throughout the neighbourhood would climb on, clamber all over the worn paperbacks, and then return to whatever it was they were doing. Not me. I would show up prepared with a canvas sack. The bookmobile was also useful to pick up holds, and inter-branch transfers. I liked it. That's not to say it didn't have problems. It was smaller than a bank vault inside and all you could really find in there were Choose Your Own Adventures. Well, that's all I read at any rate. (Ask me about The System.)

2

When I was a little bit older, I undertook weekly pilgramages to the Central Branch on Saturday mornings. This weekly geek-ly was a two bus wonder. These days the thought of redeeming a transfer due to multi-stage transit makes me sad and municipally frustrated. But as a kid, anything is possible. The media section was heaven. CDs, VHS tapes and eventually DVDs. I could "rent" movies and keep them for a week, for free. And more than this, I could rent R rated movies with ease. Only occasionally would a librarian call me out on a Juliette Binoche flick or something directed by Bertolucci. Results weren't always spectacular, viz., Paris, Texas. Recognizing the iconic mask, I once signed out The Phantom of the Opera. It was a potent gateway to the rest of Lloyd Webber, and Kander and Ebb, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Boubil and Schonberg, Maury Yeston, and the rest of the sopping gay world of musicals. Could I out-fag a cum-guzzling Mormon about that shit. Try me.

3

One of my exes hates the library. She had a nose-ring and worked at a used bookshop if that's any indication. She considered a book (a word she emphasized by pressing her crossed arms against her chest) to be a personal artefact. Borrowing a book is like borrowing a sip of water, she once said. This, of course is a dumb and worthless opinion. I actually think collecting books is offensive; you can't really own knowledge so hoarding it seems ridiculous to me. To whomever invited the library, I salute you.

4

I dig the library so much, I have even had sex in one.  Not with the aforementioned ex -- though I suspect she would not object to the concept. Rumour has it that the fifth floor of Weldon was the place, so in my final year of university me and the GF at the time trundled over. It was a Tuesday night in Winter. When we got there, we couldn't find an empty enough space amidst the stacks, so we slid an upholstered chair into the stairwell that connects floors. Though the ultra-sensitive echo, fluorescent lighting and concrete were contrary to both eroticism and the library atmosphere, it was sex all the same. Plus, in terms of altitude we still qualify for inclusion in the almanac. I would think.

Underground

Being underground makes one's brain think in ways it otherwise might not, given that aboveground one has access to the Internet, and TV, and endless distractions and a globe of information. When one is not in that process of receiving information it feels strange; like the tap turned on a filling tub, the sudden quiet is unsettling. The water immediately starts to feel tepid and you long for the rush of the flow once again.

Many books about writing share similar advice about inspiration. "Draw from experience" is a common refrain. "Write what you know." It's equivalent to saying: "Be interesting. Have and absorb experiences worth repeating or reconstituting into a salable narrative."

That statement feels particularly acute in the cold disconnected underground. Shielded even from the radiation of the sun, it feels impossible to write what you know down here. Underground all a writer has are the few artifacts around him. I can only scrape at the grime-covered tile walls, or rub my sole gently against the unyielding terrazzo. Unconnected from everything that is not here, it's feels as though the world might fade to non-existence up those stairs. I lean over the platform and gaze into the darkness of the subway tunnel. Is there anything beyond it?

The layers of rock and dirt looming above me block a billion buzzing signals, responsible for frying my childhood sense of solipsism. How can one believe he's alone when he is endlessly bombarded with novel images, and voices, and ideas, and noise. The world above is too loud. But in the dark underground, in wait for a subway train I can for a moment believe that there is nothing but darkness filling the tunnels around me. And that dimly-lit walls and floor and rail and grime is all mine. The what I know.

A sternly worded letter to GO Transit

Boys,

A few things.

For starters your ticket prices are insane. Six bucks to get to Milton? Most sane people I know would pay twice that to leave that shithole. Please adjust your rates to reflect reality.

And also: everyone knows that your habit of running one train per hour (or fewer) is nothing short of total weaksauce. If you can't step up your game in this department (I'm guessing you don't have the stones or the smarts to pull that off), could you at least have trains run later than two in the morning? That's might be the time people stop purchasing alcohol, but I usually need a moment or two to down my glass. Could you please give drunks a few minutes to get to the station?

Oh, and this might be a long shot, but why not serve some refreshments on the trip? It would be nice if you served alcohol — though this strikes me as too brilliant an idea for you to touch — so I'm not going to insist. Coffee or water could be swell though, and an excellent source of revenue. Think about it.

While we're on the subject, why are there zero cupholders on the train? Is this to dissuade commuters from drinking? If so, I've got some news for your fucks: it doesn't work. There are more people holding drinks than not holding drinks on any morning commute. Give them someplace to rest those motherfuckers. Don't be dicks about it.

And those new TVs you installed? They suck.

That's it for now. Other than that, keep up the mediocre work. I would expect nothing less (and not much more to be honest) from an agency with "Ontario" in its name.

Yours,

Harvey K

Kicking it on the 502

It costs $1,297.80 to charter a TTC streetcar for three hours.  Each additional hour is $306.60  So five (let's say) hours on a streetcar is $1911.00.  With 46 seats, I figure half that amount of people could mingle comfortably.  That's $83.08 per person.  Add the cost of a bottle of hard liquor, it's barely three figures for a person to get shitfaced, on a private streetcar, for an entire evening.

That said, for $3.00 and the cost of a bottle of hard liquor you can do the same thing during rush hour.  But you'll have to be less choosy about your company.

I think the choice is clear: charter a rocket today!

From the archives

13 October 2007

I'm high and out of breath.  I just raced into the bowels of St. Patrick station and it feels like the hardest thing I've ever done.  Buying tokens used all the mental capacity I left the house with this evening.  I was staring at the transfer machine for about four minutes when I heard the rumbling of the train below me.  I sprinted down the escalator with both hands on the rails, in time to see the doors of the southbound close in my face.  I tried to shrug it off like I wasn't really interested in that train anyway, but everyone knew better.

So here I am on the platform trying to catch my breath and waiting for another train.  I figure I might as well document this trip since I have nothing better to do.  Tonight should be a good night.  And by "good" I mean stressful, trying, and awkward.

But I want to mention something quickly. Before I started writing these words, I leafed through this notebook and a rather disturbing realization hit me.  This is a God damn diary.  I feel like a girl admitting this.  And worse, I've whipped it out in public.  An expression of awesome

*    *    *

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!  I am now standing on the Northbound platform having missed my train a second time.  Well, it's the first time missing my train, but the second train I missed tonight.  If that makes any sense.  In my state of being completely baked I attempted to catch, and missed, and subsequently waited for a train I didn't even want to take.

Only after a few minutes of notebook faggotry did I catch the sound of the approaching Northbound train and my synapses snapped to life.  I barely had time to jam my notebook into my pocket and run to the other side before missing the train.  Again.

God, I am so fucking high right now.  I hate first dates.