ACCOZZAGLIA

A year ago today, if going by day of week (Wednesday), I was flat on my back in ER, while a team of physicians was handling triage. This was the day when I was broadsided by a car running a red light, hitting me as I was cycling through the intersection. Even though the week’s forecast was to be rainy and cloudy, today is remarkably sunny and feels identical to that really crappy morning involving three broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and the emotional trauma which has solidly kept me off two wheels so long as my feet are stuck in Montréal.

On the bright side: this weekend, not only will I be back home in Toronto, but there’s the Ryuichi Sakamoto piano performance on Sunday night. My excitement is off the scale. I have four rolls of the freshest, very last batch of Kodachrome 200 produced — expiry July 2008 — a small manual SLR, and two fast lenses to go with it. My hope is that I can grab shots of him during applause. I will not be shooting while he is performing. Not least of which is rude to people sitting adjacent to me, but I’m sort of sitting front row and centre. I may have one of the closest seats in the house. This is no assurance that the view will be great, but otherwise, what would be the attraction of front row?

Toronto plus Sakamoto are awesome things to look forward to for sure. There are a ton of people I want to see in a super-short span of time. But the return to this city will come with that rotten sinking of the heart and soul experienced the last four times I returned here from elsewhere — be it Seattle (twice) or Toronto (also twice).

What to look forward to next isn’t as clear: I’m equivocating on whether I want to apply for a post-masters stream for next year, or give myself adequate time to prepare a solid foundation and apply the following year. The advantages of waiting inform the quality of how I pitch the Kodachrome Toronto project, but on the downside, it means hoping that I will immediately segue into a decently paying gig to handle the triple-threat of the usual life expenses, immigration paperwork expenses, and paying down student loans that will be coming due. Undoubtedly, as graduation nears, I will apply for the three-year work permit available to graduates of Canadian institutions, which will buy time for the permanent residency. My return home to Toronto is a given. Beyond that, everything is a lot looser. For my Ph.D. proposal, I will almost certainly apply to the UofT and York. Ryerson doesn’t seem to have much in the way of doctoral options, but at the same time, I don’t think of Ryerson when asked, “Toronto urban history?”

As for Montréal, this city is so badly damaged at its social core that shy of its overhaul, this city will continue to languish in a kind of purgatory where neither decline nor growth will be the order of its agenda. Culture does not originate here; culture comes here. To retire and grow greyer. Civic reputations abroad tend to be 20–30 years out of date for most anywhere — idealistic and romantic perceptions of cities tend to reflect a past time which any current resident would tell you is no longer the case today. For Montréal, people still believe this is Canada’s “cultural city”, while Toronto is all stiff upper lip, English, white, etc. It’s as absurd as still calling Austin a live music capital of the world, or Seattle is home to flannel, grunge, and shotguns used for suicides.

Oh, yes, I did just go there.

No. Montréal has been the biggest letdown of any city I thought about beforehand, then moved to later on. Previously, my scapegoat was Austin for the above reasons plus the myth that it was a “progressive” place to be. *snicker* No, the Ville de cent clochers is the greater disappointment. I didn’t expect to come to such a socially and culturally paralysed place. In that sense, Montréal is very conservative: it reached a certain point in its evolution and — I’d argue, 1977, year of Bill 101 — just stayed there.

OK. No proper conclusion to this brain vomit. I have to return to some readings. I just needed a chance to reflect a bit. Navelgazing done with.