Bad Little Habits

Lost cities of the internet

I should be writing a review of Four Letter Word: Original Love Letters, which is lovely but seems a tad precious on such a chilly and miserable day (it's a blizzard out there!).  Instead, I'm procrastinating here in the depths of the Web. I'm attempting to lessen my guilt and assure myself of my own productivity by (mis)spending my time on 'important' or least 'interesting' sites and avoiding obvious black holes of ambition like TMZ or Dlisted; during the course of this glorified time wastage I found (via Fictional Cities) Left London , a site promoting a book of the same name. LL has a wonderful premise: photos of London England's abandoned buildings presented in all their broken-down ugliness as an attempt to "reveal an otherwise unseen side of city life." It's worth a look.

At this point, a little pictorial love for my adopted city seems appropriate. Here are some shots of underused buildings taken from Higgins, Main and in Chinatown, Winnipeg.

Taking this further:

Urban Decay's Winnipeg page. UD's Detroit site is also something to see: dozens of gorgeous abandoned Tudor and Victorian-style buildings left to fade with the decline of Michigan's auto sector. They're beautiful even as crack houses and pigeon coops. More on Detroit's "fabulous ruins" here.

Some folks don't just take photos, they trespass. New Bedlam Mental Patients Hospital Alumni lovingly explores abandoned Manitoba. New Bedlam is an amazing site curated by Winnipeg's own Curious George, who is kind enough to document urban spelunking in Saskatchewan and several US states as well.

For folks back West, here are the drains of Edmonton (not exactly Clive Holden material, but there you have it).

Now, from rot back to love...

Winter Gladness

   

Winnipeg winters are legendary. I probably don't need to tell you. They're the stuff of jokes—remember the airline commercial in which a family is erroneously put on a plane to Winnipeg instead of Honolulu? That one hurt!—of wind chill advisories and expanding waistlines.

They inspire stories of frostbitten bravery:

...I waited for the number ten bus for 45 minutes when it was -42. I made it on time for my shift at Chicken Chef, but I lost the tips of both my baby toes. Wanna see?

...My eyelashes froze together between Safeway and the vendor. My vision was obscured and I walked right in front of a Co-op Taxi. But it wasn't givin' er, so I made it to Toewes's social. The DJ played Bon Jovi. It was awesome.

And basement suite depression, only to be told on warm summer patios:

...Last January I slept for 23 hours straight and missed my grandpa's birthday party. He doesn't remember me anyhow, so it was okay. My mom still won't speak to me, though.

...Yeah, that was the week Penny broke up with me. I remember the morning she leftI had to dig my car out of a pile of snow because the city'd cleared the street overnight.

But today is different. It's beautiful (-7 Celsius!). I'm going to walk with with my mitts in my purse. I am going to put my hood down. I am going to absorb Vitamin D the way a dry kitchen sponge sops up Sunny Delight.

All together now: ahhhhh...

Photo: Jim Johansson - Albert Street, Winter 2004