(90) Andrew Pyper on Poorkdale

As we type these lines with the POWcityblog bunker kitchen door open we can hear a "mentally vexed" woman on the other side of the tree line expressing disappointment with her domestic partner. She is a poor replacement for the drumming and chanting that used to come from a now-closed First Nations college student residence. We've heard her so often, the globally warmed summer of 2005 was a particularly shriekful one in Poorkdale, we don't really notice her much anymore.

In any case, we stole "mentally vexed" from an essay in today's Toryonto Stir, the city's daily paper of record. Particularly, we stole it from a sweet article by Poorkdale's very own Andrew Pyper, a writer who recently wrote about a writer living in Parkdale, a normally pointless task we can claim some familiarity with.

The Toryonto Stir has been commissioning writers to share their feelings and impressions about well-known places in a series of essays. Excellent! Pyper is a psychogeographer even if he does not label himself one. This is the best kind of psychogeographer! Now, like all men who want to get something done Pyper makes a laundry list first. Then he works his way through it: ARTIST, ADDICT, SEDUCTRESS, GHOST. The result is a nice little profile of Queen West centred on Queen & Bathurst. We could hardly have done a better job than the black-clothes-and-rectangular-glasses-wearing Pyper ourselves.

We recommend.

editor's note: the sky has been totally awesome today & for much of the summer almost maritime in its cloud varieties, colourations and storminess.