if I didn't have a headache this post would have a title

To really fall in love with something, you have to know it.

I don't know Edmonton any better than I used to. I haven't had a chance to experience more of it yet. But my sense of the city, my feelings towards it? Different.

Studying texts of Edmonton and Edmonton-as-a-text have opened up the city to the possibility of signification. It's not like the city ever refused to signify. It's not artful enough for that. I just couldn't see it saying or being anything interesting, so I never tried to read it.

But now, the accumulation of texts around the referent of Edmonton intrigue me. I think of the concept of palimpsest, of multilayered, superimposed histories and memories, written over again and again but never quite erased, there to be read if you're willing to be patient, and squint a little. My main experience of an Edmonton text, before this course, was the Edmonton Journal: dry in the way that news reporting often is; on occasion kind of cheesy. But now I see the poetic dimension of Edmonton. This city can be home to vibrant subcultures, à la The Edmonton Queen. This city's history can be poeticised, the commonplace and the parochial overlaid with the grandiosity of Roman founding myths (see: Alice Major). I see the possibility of mythology and haunting in the everyday, which once seemed banal beyond rescue.

All of our creative cartography projects have got me thinking about maps, specifically about that Borges fable, Garret's favourite -- the map precedes the territory. I feel like my textual experience of Edmonton will soon outpace and supersede my actual experience of it, entering into the real of unmoored signifiers, of Baudrillardian simulation. Of course, it's not quite so literary and abstract and dire. All I need to do is revisit the referent.

And thanks to the course, now I have a map for how to do that. I want to see good drag, as recommended by Darrin Hagen. I want to explore shopping locally -- well, window-shopping locally, if I want to respect my bank account. I want to walk across the High-Level Bridge and try to give it a fair re-experience, after seeing Erica's map; I want to go hipster hunting (I don't really know how to extend that metaphor, but no hipsters will be harmed, I promise) on Whyte Avenue, thanks to Katie's.

So my plan for summer, basically, is this: I've stalked Edmonton for a couple of months. Now I'm going to date it.


I'll abuse crowdsourcing and end with an open question. Any more suggestions for things to do, places to see? Anything's welcome. Events? Your favourite spots? Places you think I might like? Places you think that everyone should like?