| Did you know that in 1901, Billy Cochrane drove the first automobile in Calgary, a steam-powered "Locomobile" steered by a tiller rather than a wheel? Or that in 1820, a lost pig entered the Bank of Montreal on St. James Street in Montreal?
These and hundreds of other "context-free miscellaneous historical" factoids are found in The Original Canadian City Dweller’s Almanac: Facts, Rants, Anecdotes and Unsupported Assertions for Urban Residents.
Hal Niedzviecki and Darren Wershler-Henry are the two urban hipsters with the cozy commission of assembling the almanac, and they both come with fine independent culture pedigree. Niedzviecki, 31, is editor of the zine brokenpencil.com and author of the deep dark novel Ditch and the cultural commentary We Want Some Too: Underground Desire and the Reinvention of Mass Culture. Wershler-Henry, 36, is the author of the organic mind-bending poetry loop the tapeworm foundry, as well as an editor at the small press Coach House Books. He has written several books on technology, including the recent FREE as in speech and beer, which is an excellent primer on open source and copyleft principles of Web and new media worlds.
The Original Canadian City Dweller’s Almanac is full of ephemera. "We’re fountains of useless information," says Niedzviecki during a recent trip to Calgary. Quick to warm to a Cowtown rant, he continues, "My only regret about the almanac is that we don’t have something on Calgary’s stunted little tower and its utter lameness."
Wershler-Henry, temporarily the straight-man, jumps in, "Calgarians take their culture seriously." (Hmmm, I think, do we really?) "Calgary has been a great place to be a writer for the past decade."
It’s hard to slow Niedzviecki down, though, and he’s off listing the various merits of the almanac – the Chinese food restaurants, bike routes, cell phone first aid, all-night convenience stores, turntablism, and heavy metal arcana. "We wanted to spread the joy around – the almanac is an equal opportunity mockery," he says.
Mockery is a big part of The Original Canadian City Dweller’s Almanac, which is structured thematically rather than regionally. Instead of chapters on Calgary, Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver, the almanac covers Arts and Entertainment, Attractions and Shopping, as well as user-friendly sections on Tools, Transportation, Food and Real Estate. A number of Calgary places or products are listed, including Megatunes (Indie Record Stores), Pages On Kensington (Bookstores) and Waydowntown (Movies).
The authors happily jump in on any of these subjects. Wershler-Henry recommends Guy Maddin and the Winnipeg filmmakers group over "that pretender, Atom Egoyan." Niedzviecki despairs at the utterly bleak state of the mainstream media in Canada. In Montreal, a newspaper writer complained that there wasn’t enough about Montreal in the almanac. Niedzviecki’s rebuttal? Write more about Montreal yourself and maybe we’d know what’s going on there.
Ultimately, The Original Canadian City Dweller’s Almanac is an impudent plea for independent culture. Must our cities be monocultures of suburban sprawl, soft rock radio nausea, and Southam-endorsed editorials? The authors slide in these and other barbs, amidst this seemingly superfluous collection of everyday life. |
