Sunday, January 07, 2007

"What is this? The corner of Spadina and Lonsdale?"

I've often tried to paint a portrait of the Village. I hope its been a vivid one. As I've said before the Village it is really constructed of one intersection - the corner of Spadina and Lonsdale. Spaddin and Lonsdale, as the centre of the village, is like the Portage and Main of the Faux Hill; it is the place where Philipino nannies would go riot, the place where a spontaneous show of affection for Lululemon may occur, if the men and women of the Faux weren't so concerned about rising house prices. [ "Did you see what that hole sold for on Vesta? 1.2."]

The corner is also where the youts of the neighbourhood go to hang out. On a typical Friday or Saturday night the benches outside of Royal Bank see more action then Paris Hilton (so sue me if that was an easy joke...). The action isn't really relegated to a particular restaurant or bar or even a coffee shop - people simply stand on the corner, clicking away at their cell phones and shouting at friends and foes across the street.

Anyway, I found myself down in Puerto Vallarta for a week trying to escape my life - while reconnecting, in a big, big way, with Sim Sim Sima and Len. Bold stayed home. [Here's a piece of advice: you wanna escape gay men and jews, don't go to Puerto Vallarta.] Luckily a good friend of mine from high school was also there with her parents and we were each other's sanctuary for the week. A couple of nights her younger sister (who was completely schooled in the Village and thus knows everyone) dragged us out to this tiny hole in the wall bar. Shockingly as I looked around, damn near blinded by copious amounts of Tiffany Jewellery, I realized that the place was mobbed with the denizens of the Faux and York Mills. I hadn't seen that many Jews in one place since my bar-mitzvah. It was the type of seen where boys I went to elementary school climbed outta the wood work. After about an hour of watching people stand around and shout across the street at each other I asked if we were actually going to move to a bar; "why would we do that?" Was the reply.
So I looked around, realized I was spending my night on a street corner, and thought, "what is this? The corner of Spadina and Lonsdale?"

No comments: