There goes the neighbourhood

Elgin and Nepean

Photo: D'Arcy McDonell

Successful-looking guys on spiffy bicycles...

...even if they are impeccably turned out in natty, freshly-pressed office clothes, and even if they are riding one of those tall English limousine numbers, should probably consider not talking on their cell phones whilst they're riding up Elgin Street. During rush hour. With no hands. Through a red light.

While they do get minimal points for at least having the sense to wear a helmet during all of the above, I had to cover my eyes with my paws for a minute there. Us coyotes only enjoy anticipating violence of our own makin'.

I'm just saying...

Image: Courtesy Ski-Epic's Amsterdam Bicycles

999 Posts Later...

...do you love us just the same?

And I thought there was no 5th anniversary.

Shannon Tweed vs. Jesus

It's the Big Day folks. She's been hobnobbing around her old haunts the past 48 hours. Hubby has got the big show tonight. He's assured us that his wife has no hard feelings about the proclamation fiasco. As he put it: Not everyone loved Jesus either.

Given Ms. Tweed was a regular staple around the Elgin Street scene of her day, having lived on Frank Street as well as working at the former Peppers, I think she would have made a great Muse for the Irregulars. In her honour, I suggest this day and Ms. Tweed be proclaimed the ESI's Honourary Muse Day.

Getting back to the comparison to Jesus point, lets take stock of these two celebrities and see where the chips fall:

Jesus: Started with 12 followers which evolved into millions
Shannon: Crowned Miss Ottawa Valley 1977 and went on to Playboy
Point: Tie

Jesus: Can walk on water
Shannon: Can walk in 6 inch heels
Point: Jesus (by a margin)

Jesus: 1965 New York Times declared his father dead
Shannon: Playboys 1982 Pet of the Year
Point: Shannon

Jesus: Never once lived in Ottawa yet every Sunday is His day
Shannon: Lived in Ottawa for 4 years but never has had her day
Point: Jesus

Jesus: Died on the cross for our sins
Shannon: Two words: Hef and Gene
Point: Shannon (no one likes a martyr)

Gone baby gone

We see a number of new condo towers going up in Centretown and I'm of two minds about this.

On the one hand, anything that injects some life and people into the core is good. On the other, I wonder where all these folks are going to eat, shop, stroll and generally enjoy life?

Too many downtown bookshops, cafes, cinemas, grocery stores and restaurants to count have disappeared over the last decade or so. And the only things that seem to spring up in their place are condominiums, office towers and chain-sponsored coffee shops.

Five places I miss:

1. The Canadian Tire store at Kent and Laurier, torn down in 2002. A veritable urban oasis of tools, home supplies, paint and sporting goods. Apparently the smallish outlet did not fit with the corporation's vision of suburban megastores.

2. The Bay Street Guest House. Once a quaint bed-and-breakfast on Bay near Gloucester, it has been a graffiti-strewn wreck for years, endlessly waiting to be demolished along with several other adjacent houses so Richcraft Homes can put up a honkin' big condo building.

3. The Elgin cinema on our beloved boulevard, where Audrey, ESI Cultural Affairs Officer, once toiled as an usherette. Little-known fact: it was the first theatre in North America to have two screens. This foreshadowed the multiplex trend that eventually sent The Elgin to the big box office in the sky.

4. The little cafe just inside the Rideau Centre, across from the magazine shop. It quietly served fine, fresh-brewed coffee, delicious pasta and tasty sandwiches. A perfect place to steel oneself for an afternoon of mall-bound Christmas shopping. I can't even remember its name. But maybe that's a good thing, as I do know the replacement is a Starbucks.

5. There's no fifth thing. It's already long gone.

Image: http://www.magma.ca/~hra/travia.htm

The Politics of Elgin Street

Sure, we all know Ottawa Centre was won by the NDP in the last two elections, and that before that Mac Harb represented the Liberals for a few rounds of Parliament. And you probably even know by how many votes each won by, so that even in this first-past-the-post system, you could get a sense of how strong of a mandate the winner had. For Ottawa Centre, Paul Dewer got 37% of the vote in the last election, beating out his next best rival, Richard Mahoney (two-time loser? Ouch) by almost 8 percentage points. You might have also known that the Greens did not do too shabbily in the last election. David Chernushenko got over 10% of the popular vote in Ottawa Centre, making it among the best performances for a Green Party candidate in any riding.

But here at the ESI, we really could care less about the 90,000 odd electorate of Ottawa Centre. We are far more parochial about our political interests. Even Dwarfie thinks you might as well live in Kanata if you move west of Preston St. That being said, I would like to present, with thanks to folks at Elections Canada, some analysis of the results of Elgin Street from the last election:

Zoom and click on the google map below to get the results for each highlighted poll.

View Larger Map

Poll 116 – Lower Elgin Street, east side

Analysis: The NDP had few problems capturing almost half the votes here. The remaining votes were almost evenly split between the Liberals and the Conservatives.

Strategy: It’s clear that being so close to the police station, these voters have become complacent. They feel safe and secure. The “tough on crime” agenda that usually follows the Conservatives is not working. For the Conservatives, I would suggest things need to be stirred up in this part of town. Home invasions are usually good to scare the odd voter. Maybe those guys you send around to put signs on our lawns could do some double-duty, if you get my drift.

Poll 115 – Lower Elgin, west side

Analysis: The Green’s had their best performance on this part of Elgin Street, getting about 13% of the vote. This is clearly because most of the voters were the homeless people that live on the green space around the Museum of Nature. They have a vested interest in making sure there is grass to sleep on and shrubs close by for other activities.

Strategy: For the Conservatives it’s easy: Pave paradise and put up a parking lot.

Poll 113 – Middle Elgin, west side

Analysis: The NDP got about the same number of votes as the combined Liberals and Conservatives.

Strategy: The western side of the Elgin Strip can definitely be a ‘swing’ poll what with all the clubs and bars located there. I think in this instance, the Liberals and the Conservatives have to combine forces to put pressure on the NDP. That is probably best done at pep rallies with the assistance of some of the (ahem) capable serving staff from any of these fine establishments. Also, they may try keeping those Dippers that drink at the Manx from getting out to vote.

Poll 103 and 104 – Maclaren & Elgin, east side / St. Moritz Apts.

Analysis: The Liberals make huge inroads on this part of Elgin Street getting about 36% of the popular vote.

Strategy: Paul Dewer is going to have his work cut out for him trying to win back these polls. Pool sharks (Maclaren’s Pub) and retired old ladies (St. Moritz Apts) who probably once escorted Mackenzie King to his séances are not easily swayed by NDP-style social justice. However, if the Conservatives can get John Baird and Laureen Harper to knock on a few doors, those old ladies may wax romantically about days of yor.

Poll 102 – Maclaren & Elgin, west side

Analysis: The NDP get strong results here at 40% of the popular vote.

Strategy: This side of the street clashes with its east-side counterpart and probably represents well-entrenched political positions. It looks too Northern Ireland / Palestine for my liking. Best we put up a wall down the middle of Elgin Street from Somerset to Gilmour. It can be are own little Berlin. Years from now, when things settle down, we can tare it down and sell it to tourists to help pay down our city’s debt from the Siemens lawsuits and unfinished transit tunnels.

Poll 94 – Elgin Street, upper east side

Analysis: Liberals edged out the NDP by only 1% point.

Strategy: Maybe it’s the similarity between Belgian waffles at the Mayflower to Liberal policy that gives them the edge on this part of Elgin Street. Maybe it’s the closer proximity to Parliament Hill for Canada’s natural governing party. Either way, the NDP could get the jump here with a few key moves. The former Goldsteins grocery store is vacant and must have some possibilities for buying votes from the electorate. How about a platform of returning it to its former glory, but this time employ the panhandlers from the neighbourhood as check-out cashiers. For once, they would be giving us some change.

Call her first, she may be in curlers...

From the Chair's inbox:

Public events for September 7, 2008

5 September 2008

Ottawa, Ontario

Public event for Prime Minister Stephen Harper for Sunday, September 7th is:

Ottawa

8:05 a.m. – Prime Minister Stephen Harper will leave 24 Sussex en route to Rideau Hall to meet with Governor General Michaëlle Jean to ask her to dissolve the 39th Parliament for an election call October 14th, 2008.

24 Sussex
Ottawa, Ontario

* Open to Media *

Coming soon: The Chair's Guide to the Federal Election

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

I am reliably informed that Reykjavík, Iceland, is the world's northernmost national capital. I am rather less reliably informed that a whole buncha Scandinavian countries (Both Helsinki and Stockholm f'rinstance - and this, people, is the gosh-darn problem with wikis...) appear to claim that distinction for mainland Europe.

Therefore, we in Ottawa are mere pikers. Pissants. Poltroons. Hell, there's still half a continent north of our latitude. Which isn't to say we don't get a little winter once in awhile.

Take today. Media weather types are all a-tizzy. Not sure why. As another blog so recently noted, approximately: "It's Canada. It's winter. Suck it up." Amen.

After last month's string of cranky eco-rants, I promised myself I wouldn't go all David Suzuki on your asses anymore, at least for awhile. But hey. Our federal environment minister? The one that had his face rubbed in it? Severely? By the world in general? In Bali? Last week? He's still doing his gosh-darn twisted-boy-scout best to speed up global warming. Enjoy this great weather while you can.

Say it ain't so, Pho. . .

Oh my... chagrin (deep) and despondency (utter). How could they? Post-last-call gourmets, gourmands and fur-bearin' varmints alike among the ESIs demand to know the meaning of this! For goodness' sake!

After we waxed all exuberant about Mr Pho on Elgin Street's felicitously diverse menu, they deleted poutine from the sign.

If this was the other side of the Ottawa River, perhaps we could see the twitchy hands of the infamous Language Police. But those particular officious bureaucratic twits do not patrol here. Yet. We have plenty of others.

And anyhoo, if I recall my colonial-era geopolitics correctly, Viet Nam and France once had a close relationship, such that decades later, the (heh...) lingua franca of that country is still pretty much French. It's a French Fact.

So why is there not room on Mr Pho's shiny new sign for peaceful coexistence, a diplomatic detente for the two great solitudes of Pho and Poutine? Tasty, tasty solitudes.... I digress.

One hesitates, in these benighted times and in this context, to stir up the currently-loaded term 'reasonable accommodation'. Yet it seems to my dust-glazed approximately-amber prairie eyes that, indeed, nothing on that sign replaces the deliciousity that is poutine. Except, well, a sad, sad blank space, pretty much exactly the right size for the word 'poutine'...

Why can't they all just get along again? I mean, it's not like the remaining Pho (...well, 'noodle soup'...), Pad Thai and Shawarma are exactly kissin' culinary cousins. So what happened? Enquiring minds need to pho... ummm, know...

Elgin Street, 11 o'clock A.M.

The Long Road Back to Elgin Street

Umm, so, here I am in the interestin' position of shotgunnin' in 4th Dwarf's primo ride, on the way back from the ESI Beachfront Timeshare™. (Don'cha just love WiFi?)

Unfortunately, we've been stuck in permanent gridlock on the Decarie Expressway in Montreal for days now. Something about a subway collapse downtown rerouting all the traffic out here in the 'burbs. And, oh, maybe the fact that the navigator is a teensy bit bad with maps.

Lookit, I work mostly by smell, for cripes' sake.

While I can handle the gnashing teeth and sotto voce cussing (Hey. I'm the one doin' it, after all...) I am becoming increasingly nervous when the Short Guy starts muttering darkly about "cracking the taps on the liquid oxygen tanks and torching off the retro boosters to get the f*ck outta here". 'Specially since all I can see back there is a two-horsepower Evinrude and a coupla leftover propane cartridges....

We'll make it back eventually, I keep telling him. We'll be fine. Hell, we have Jerky Treats™ up the wazoo in this thing. But all he does is moan about the perfection of the fries at The Usual Spot on Elgin Street, and how long it's been since he's had any, and droolin' in a most unseemly way. Frankly, I fear for his sanity. And maybe mine...

Wondering about the Anarchists

Have you noticed that the anarchists are recruiting? I've been meaning to go to one of their meetings to see if they plan to do anything about the Irish conspiriacy. I imagine that like any group, the Anarchists have their difficulties, but you can see that back in April they were ready to deal with them face on:

The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the problems with anarchist organizing in Ottawa and attempt to come up with concrete proposals on how to organize better both within and between our groups.

I'd like to see a copy of the flip chart paper from that meeting. My guess is that it looked something like this:

Key Problems

• We're all freaking anarchists
• ...
  

Kthxbye. . .

Ottawa Senators
2006 - 2007 Stanley Cup Finalists:

Daniel Alfredsson, Mike Comrie, Joseph Corvo, Patrick Eaves, Ray Emery, Mike Fisher, Martin Gerber, Dany Heatley, Chris Kelly, Dean McAmmond, Andrej Meszaros, Chris Neil, Chris Phillips, Tom Preissing, Wade Redden, Oleg Saprykin, Peter Schaefer, Christoph Schubert, Jason Spezza, Antoine Vermette, Anton Volchenkov.

We don't usually do sports, so watching that was just exhausting. Can't imagine how it felt to play it. Thanks, guys. There's always next year.

...and a tip of the magic dog's pointy ears to The Independent Observer for a fine running game of Word Jumble...

Sign o' the times...

And after...

Hours before game time, hope abounds..

Sorry, Oscar, but even in 1882 it was all about us

This week marks the 125th anniversary of one Oscar Wilde's visit to our fair town, part of the witty wordsmith's cross-country tour aimed at civilizing the colonies.

In 1882, Ottawa was a bustling burgh of 30,000 brave, muddy souls, including at least a few forebears of the ESIs. The national hockey trophy was but a gleam in Lord Frederick Stanley's eye. And John Turmel had completed just two unsuccessful runs at elected office.

Wilde rolled into town on Tuesday, May 16, 1882, settling in at the fine Russell House Hotel, later demolished to make way for Confederation Square.

Then as now, the Ottawa Daily Citizen couldn't break a story even by hurling it from a second-storey window (buildings were shorter then). Behold, the paper's May 17 coverage of Wilde's presence in the capital:

Mr. Oscar Wilde arrived in the city yesterday and is staying at the Russell House.

A perusal of the 19th-century Petfinder shows the paper was more interested in the fact some louts were rowing up and down the canal at night, causing a mighty ruckus.

In fairness, our 27-year-old visitor was a dozen years away from penning his best-known plays. A poet of some repute and a leading advocate of the Aesthetic movement, Wilde delivered a lecture at the since disappeared Grand Opera House (Albert and O'Connor streets), waxing on about stuff like why it's not a good idea to wallpaper your ceiling and the reason rows of pictures should be hung asymmetrically.

His talk was rather poorly attended, competing with a city council meeting, the University of Ottawa's annual athletic banquet, the imminent end of the parliamentary session, carriage rides, tea-drinking and church-going.

Wilde apparently had dinner with then-prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald and his wife, though details are sketchy. He was snubbed by the Governor General, the Marquess of Lorne, who somehow managed to find time for two rounds of golf the day Wilde arrived.

Wilde lamented the sawdust that wafted over the city from the local lumber mills. He admired the natural scenery around Ottawa. And whatever his companionship preferences, Wilde attracted plenty of babes, according to the Citizen report of May 18:

Local News, Mr. Oscar Wilde

This gentleman had a large number of callers during his stay in the city. A number of lady admirers of the apostle of aestheticism sent him their albums for the purpose of having his autograph written therein.

But the paper, despite ignoring his lecture, couldn't resist poking fun at the fact Wilde recommended sunflower seed as some sort of decorative adornment:

It is very fattening, so if you are served with lean chickens at your country boarding home this summer you may thank Mr. Wilde and the more important demand he has created for the seed as a feast for the eyes.

Wilde's time in Ottawa was not a total loss. He met painter Frances Richards, headmistress of the Ottawa School of Art, who would make a portrait of him in London five years later. Upon seeing the results, Wilde said, "What a tragic thing it is. This portrait will never grow older, and I shall." So was planted the idea for The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1890.

Wilde left town on the overnight train for Quebec City, soon blazing a trail for bands like April Wine with stops in Belleville, Moncton and Charlottetown.

So, let's see: during his brief sojourn in Ottawa our boy hung out on Elgin Street, was overlooked by the media elite and did his best, under trying conditions, to liven up Bytown.

Truly, Oscar Wilde was the original ESI.

Photos: (left) Himself, (right) As represented in the forthcoming ESI: The Sock Puppet Movie (licensing arrangements to be confirmed)

(Sources: Oscar Wilde in Canada: An Apostle for the Arts, by Kevin O'Brien; the Ottawa Sun; the Ottawa Daily Citizen; Wikipedia)

In lieu of Conch Shell's Thursday post...

Our favourite street...

Urban bubbles

I'm fascinated by the hordes who run about Centretown in virtual bubbles, disappearing into imagined invisibility. Those with cars have used 'em as private domains for years. Just pick out all the drivers pickin' their noses, troweling on makeup, or making unknowing spectacles of themselves to the beats of spectacularly uncool music, oblivious to the fact that all of us see into their bubbles. But many bubbles are much more compact these days.

Coyotes run close enough to the ground that our noses rub in reality pretty constantly. Aggie might say we live 'in-the-moment'. Yet I see virtual bubbles that alter reality everywhere. Devices like cell phones wrap their users in tiny individual universes, light-years from this one. So that they can hold excruciatingly loud personal conversations about their herpes test results with their unsympathetic significant others. And me. I am even less sympathetic. (Extra bubble points to lame-asses who think they, unlike the hoi-polloi, can drive and phone at the same time. You drive exceedingly badly. All of you. You're just so far out of it that you never see your own wakes of catastrophic near-misses. Lucky for you -- and my bushy tail -- that we coyotes are nimble leapers. I digress.)

Or the besuited Blackberry brigades that ricochet blindly off others as they walk, eyes downcast and texting thumbs excitedly a-quiver. (Again, extra bubble points to idiots who think they can do this whilst driving. See above.)

And the somewhat more benign legions of Pod People, ears filled to overflowing with tiny stylish white headphones, eyes fixed on some inscrutable far distance. Owners of these devices use them to magically manufacture their own worlds. (And we semi-mythical coyotes know from magic....)

At the other end of the urban bubble spectrum are the shopping cart people. Sounds like a non-sequitur, but work with me: any given day, numbers of rather grubby men (a few women, but mostly men) trail each other on their self-appointed rounds, wheeling liberated free-range shopping carts full of cans and bottles between highrise recycling bins, tossing 'em for a few bucks' worth of glass, aluminum or plastic.

Shopping carts, of course, differ from i/berries. People with small stylish devices tend to use 'em to make their own virtual bubbles. The rest of us have no choice but to deal with their sometimes-profound lack of physical focus as they bob, weave and stutter their ways down the street. But most straight citizens - even those not jacked into somethin' - seem to deal with the can collectors and bottle pickers through an act of collective will that creates bubbles to make others disappear, instead of themselves. It's odd. Eccentric and colorful as they may be, very few really see shopping cart people at their business. As an oft-unnoticed urban coyote, I feel a certain kinship.

And I hafta say, I have never yet seen anybody with a cartful of salvage, wearing an iPod....

image: Rappensuncle, under Creative Commons 2.0

If dogs run free...

Speaking of Ottawa and silly walks, I have a beef with park planners. City, National Capital Commission, doesn't matter -- they all like to draw designs that they think look pretty in aerial photos, insteada planning functional spaces. Take Confederation Park, at the corner of Elgin and Laurier, f'rinstance. Please. Nice space (we coyotes always approve of open green space dotted with lotsa hiding places), dumb pedestrian plan.

Contrary to what some might say, we coyotes walk and think in fairly straight lines. But here, some well-papered plannerly type thought long and hard, then drew a long, carefully arced sidewalk from the entrance just across the street from city hall, to the stairs that take you up to the Mackenzie King Bridge. Then them pesky pedestrians ignored this pretty sidewalk and walked on the grass, bee-lining straight from entrance to stairs, because they could see their destination, and the un-curved distance was shorter. Imagine that.

What the NCC's control freaks did next, rather than admit its planners are less than demigods, was plant a buncha unsightly shrubs across either end of this straight line, to try to passively force people back onto the sidewalk. Didn't work. Bipeds continued to wear a long, straight path through the shrubs, across the grass. Imagine that. Since that proved unsatisfactory, the NCC planted even more unsightly snow fences in the middle of the two shrub beds to make 'em harder to traverse. From my lurking lair I still see people stomp down snow fences on occasion. Imagine that.

One of the smartest park planners I ever ran across had no fancy planning degree, but a lotta horse sense. Entrusted with a big new park, he seeded it to grass, and left it that way for a summer. In fall, he looked at where walkers had worn the heaviest paths in the grass, and had all his sidewalks put right there, along the lines that people were walking anyway! Then they all pretty much stayed on the sidewalks, unless they were playing pick-up frisbee. With coyotes they thought were just plain ol' domestic dogs. Imagine that...!