This past Friday night, I was at the corner of Granville and West Georgia and came across a vehicle that, if not for its license plate, might well have driven straight out of 1967. I know that back East, the standard Vancouver stereotype is that it's populated by granola-munching hippies; still, encountering something that matches that stereotype is almost shaking. That limp flag the microbus is flying, by the by, is of a peace sign.
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For a while, I've been buying and reading old science fiction magazines - Astounding, Galaxy, If and so on, partially because they reflect the stages through which writers' sensibilities have passed. Even reading something from the 1970s gives me some insight as to how styles, assumptions, and modes of thought have changed in the subsequent decades, and I think that helps me improve as a writer. Still, it also means I find things fairly often that annoy me, and which I can't explain.
Things like the commercial break.
Okay, that's not what it's actually called - I call it that not only because I have no idea what term is appropriately applied to it, but because that's what the thing feels like. I'll be reading through a story, generally be in the middle of a conversation between two people, when the author will toss this my way:
#
That, in standard manuscript format, indicates a line break, and line breaks are generally used to separate scenes. What really gets me, what really grinds my gears and so on, is when it feels like that line break is misused - when it's jammed in the middle of a conversation for absolutely no reason. I was always of the impression that a scene should end on a conflict, an unresolved question, or a potential sticky situation in order to encourage the reader to keep going on. What I tend to find more often in these twentieth-century stories are line breaks inserted seemingly for the sake of line breaks. There's no scene transition - when they're misused, things pick up after the break exactly where they left off, and it's not even a natural break.
Let me illustrate what I'm talking about - here are a couple of paragraphs from my short story The Platinum Desolation, very slightly modified to accord with what I'm complaining about.
"Then it's a betfair that Lady Luna didn't start potshotting their ride until they were long after gone," Sujatmi said, ensconced in their own rumbling rover. "Question is, why haven't they come back? No one's filed any recent missing reports. The rover's listed as surplus out of Yutu, thirty years old. They rent them out to tourists, I've heard."
#
"Goddamn idiot earthworms," Christine stood and sighed. It figured she'd have been led there when the beacon needed quick fixing, lest some hauler wander off the trail and end up paying an unscheduled visit to Neil Armstrong's grave. "Don't know the first thing about their own security. They'd take off their own helmets on the surface if they could."
That break seems a bit out of place, doesn't it? I mean, nothing's changed. The situation is exactly the same as it was before, the characters are doing the same thing, and the break feels as artificial as a shoehorned TV commercial break. There's no reason for it to be there.
Maybe this was some kind of style back in the day. I don't know. All I know is that it's distracting; the way I see it, scenes should be separated because they're different scenes, not because separate scenes are just something that's done.
For some time now, work has been underway on a replacement for the Port Mann Bridge, a 1960s near-twin of the Pattullo Bridge that connects Surrey to Coquitlam. Yesterday, the BC government announced that construction on the new bridge, which rather resembles the SkyBridge in renderings I've seen, has officially passed fifty percent completion. What I find interesting about the new Port Mann Bridge is that its design included reservations for a rapid transit line to be added at some point in the future. That in itself is good news; whether or not we need more bridges across the Fraser, in another couple of decades Surrey will definitely need another rapid transit connection to the Burrard Peninsula.
I got this shot from Coquitlam, right on the edge of Colony Farm Regional Park south of Lougheed Highway.
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When it comes to transit, not everyone thinks the same way I do. I can understand the arguments people make in favor of their cars - it's quicker, more comfortable, and they don't have to wedge themselves into the press of humanity that is an Expo Line SkyTrain no matter what time of day it is - but they're not for me. All I ever ask is that those people reciprocate; all I want is a wider understanding of people like me, people who choose public transit before private. Both modes are going to be an integral part of our transportation network for a long time to come, and creating an "us versus them" dichotomy serves no one.
It serves no one, at least, but it's advantageous to people who are peddling a particular political philosophy. Look east, to Toronto: last year Rob Ford was swept into office as the beneficiary years of media rhetoric that presumed the existence of a "war on cars" - a war that, at one point, the Toronto Sun defined as including speed bumps. Today, the city of Vancouver is gearing up for an election, and while it fortunately doesn't have to worry about the car-centric suburbs getting a vote, I can hear the same wheels spinning as were spun in Toronto last year - but they're not so much "spinning" as they are "furiously grinding, sending off a crazy shower of sparks."
My evidence: a Tuesday editorial in The Province - readable here on the Price Tags blog, as I have no desire to send extra traffic to that paper - which takes TransLink to task for... its ridership being at an all-time high? I remember writing about this the other day; I recall casting it as a good thing, meaning that more and more people in Metro Vancouver were considering transit a serious alternative for their getting-around needs, and that such a demand is necessary for TransLink to continue expanding its transit network, rather than be stuck with an ineffective, crumbling system as Toronto is.
The Province has another idea. You want to know why there are transit problems? Because of "the overpaid social engineers at TransLink, on various municipal councils, and various taxpayer funded institutions such as Simon Fraser University" - and because it's striving to keep expanding its network. According to those paragons of sentience at The Province, TransLink's ridership record "can largely be blamed" - blamed, mind you, in case any of you foolish sorts thought more people on transit was a good thing - "on the organization and its backers' constant attack on drivers." Aside from taxes, the paper blames "a failure to upgrade the road system leading to congestion" as forcing people onto public transit.
It is only the lack of grammatical errors that leads me to conclude that this editorial was not, in fact, written on Bizarro World.
Taking advantage of quick, efficient, inexpensive public transit to and from the airport? HOW DARE YOU!
When the weather's warm and the TTC isn't on strike, there's a place out on the lake where plenty of Torontonians go to cool down and get away - the Toronto Islands. It's not far at all from the lakeshore to the islands, only four hundred meters at the Western Gap where the airport is, but the ferries are pretty much the only way to get there. In this photo from September 2009, the ferry Ongiara is making for the Centre Island Docks, I think - the tall ship isn't usually around. But it sure looks nice.
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For more than a year now, off and on, I've been testing my skills at Starcraft II against other people with strange handles, and I've still yet to arrive at the point where I can win more often than not. Having thought about it, I've concluded it's down to my playing philosophy - I will advance my capabilities to a certain extent, but stop somewhat short of the top of the game's technological tree, subconsciously assuming that my opponent is doing the same thing or is slower than I am. Subsequently, I am obliterated by advanced units that I am incapable of turning away with the army I've managed to slap together.
It's common to encounter the same sort of problems in a public transit system... or, rather, a lot of the common problems suffered by public transit systems spring from similar lines of thinking as to what leads me to lose in Starcraft again and again. There's a temptation for cities to rest on their laurels, to decide that their transit system is "good enough," and put off necessary expansions time after time until it's been left behind, and can no longer cope with the demands placed upon it.
Earlier this week, TransLink put out a press release reporting that ridership across Metro Vancouver's transit system - bus, SeaBus, and SkyTrain - is approaching new highs, on track to shatter the 2010 record of 211.3 million passengers over the course of the year. Though TransLink apparently is on a sufficiently stable keel, financially, that it's able to keep the current system in a state of good repair without overstretching itself, that's just not good enough for a system that's consistently being used by more and more people. Thankfully, TransLink recognizes that, and is well aware of the need to expand the system - both to keep up with the demands being placed upon it, and to ensure that ridership continues to increase by making it more worthwhile to use.
Too bad TransLink doesn't have a sufficiently stable keel to embark on a major expansion program. Right now, the only serious plan on the books is the Evergreen Line, still planned for 2014 - and they'd better start building soon if they want to make that schedule; construction of the Millennium Line took four years, from 1998 to the end of 2001, and it's slightly less than twice as long as the Evergreen is planned to be. Beyond that, the Evergreen Line is only the closest-to-realization of an array of projects, many of which have barely even been conceived, that will be necessary to keep Metro Vancouver moving in the decades ahead.
An unfinished portion of the streetcar right-of-way on Toronto's St. Clair Avenue West, as of November 2009.
This is 817 Granville Street, a City of Vancouver Heritage Building at the corner of Granville and Robson. Known as Power Block, its internal structure dates back to 1888, making it one of the oldest buildings in Vancouver; the outside was renovated in 1929 into its present Art Deco styling, something that's not too common in here even though Art Deco was all the rage when the city was new. Now, though, the site faces redevelopment - and while the presence of the Art Deco facade on the heritage registry means it will be retained when a new five-storey building goes up on the site, that's all that will be retained. The 1922 building next door, which isn't a listed heritage property, will of course be completely razed.
I suppose it could be worse, though - I suppose they could just demolish it. Coming from Toronto, I'm accustomed to cities bulldozing their pasts.
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If you haven't read Jack Layton's last letter, I encourage you to do so. Even if you didn't agree with the man or his politics, I believe that the thrust of his letter is such that it's valuable across the political spectrum. Like Layton himself, the letter represents a fundamentally optimistic view, that "we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don't let them tell you it can't be done."
There's no recourse to fear in it, which is only natural - even during the election, the NDP's campaign materials hewed toward the hopeful side of the spectrum, while it was the Conservatives that aimed straight for the fear centers with rhetoric like "Canada is an island in a sea of chaos." That's important today, I think, more so than it's been for a while. Because these aren't only trying times, but times have been trying for so long that people are starting to buckle with the strain. Rips in the social fabric are becoming more and more prominent.
"Love is better than anger," Layton wrote. "Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair." He's right... but what he doesn't say is that hope is harder than fear, and optimism is more difficult than despair. Sometimes it seems that pessimism comes naturally to humanity, which isn't all that shocking, when you consider that hundreds of thousands of years ago, pessimism - or, at the least, a disinclination to sit back and be assured that the world would deliver what was needed - could have been a survival trait. Within reason.
In recent years, though, I feel as if a profound sense of pessimism has sunk into mainstream culture - and by "recent years" I mean the entirety of the twenty-first century thus far. The last time I can remember a general cultural agreement that things were just awesome and would continue to do so was early 2000, before the dot-com crash and ensuing recession. A year later, the September 11 attacks, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the steadily creeping security focus of Western governments precluded any significant renaissance of optimism. The economic crash made pessimism more of a fact of life, and with today's headlines filled with stories of panicky herds of sheep-like investors and speculation about another recession - because, you know, the last one wasn't enough - there's no sense that things are going to get better any time soon.
Ducks are also better than despair.
The news is travelling fast - Jack Layton, head of the New Democratic Party and leader of the Official Opposition, died of cancer this morning. Nobody expected it, really; people fight renewed bouts of cancer all the time, but there are always reminders like this that people don't always win.
I only saw him live twice - once in December 2008, during the freezing demonstration outside of Toronto City Hall against the first prorogation of Parliament, and then again in May, in the final big British Columbia rally in Burnaby a couple of days before the last election. He had an inspiring fire - more so than what you'd expect from an average politician, I think. He carried a sense of energy, of optimism, telling us in not so many words that there were great things we could do together.
Not many people such as him come around in any given time. I know he'll be sorely missed from one end of this country to the other.
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Aside from a few inferences I've been able to pick up from television, film, and literature here and there, I'm not all that sure what North American city living was like eighty years ago. I suspect it can't have met the desires of everyone, though, considering the suburban exodus that began in the years after the Second World War - an exodus that still echoes today; look no farther than Toronto for the influence that a suburban emphasis can have on the political sphere, for instance. At the same time, I think it's highly reflective of how vast the cultural differences are between the 1950s and the 2010s.
The other day I encountered a 1950s television ad, "Two Ford Freedom," via the Seattle Transit Blog. It's an unintentional time capsule of '50s sensibilities, filled with such earnestness and innocence that at first it was hard for me to believe it was real - so syrupy sweet that I have to wonder if there was an unspoken cultural agreement not to look behind certain things, because the alternative was just too darn unpleasant.
There are a lot of deep problems hiding behind the superficial happiness of that commercial. So, in that respect, it's actually perfectly reflective of the 1950s!
"When he was gone, I was practically a prisoner in my own home," the nameless housewife says. "I couldn't get out to see my friends, couldn't take part in PTA activities - I couldn't even shop when I wanted to." With advertising like that, I can understand why people were just jumping at the chance to get a suburban house of their very own, surrounded by identical houses and isolated from all the services that improve quality of life! I tell you, cities of the '40s and '50s must have been something - either that, or the privations of the Depression and the war were such that having a house was the Important Thing, More Important Than All Other Important Things.
As someone who grew up in a suburban setting - admittedly, the very inner fringe of a suburb, but still - the housewife's complaints ring familiar, to a degree. If I wanted to go anywhere and couldn't bug Mom to give me a lift, I would have to take my bike, negotiate the intricate complexities of Barrie Transit, or just not go. The advantage of the 1990s is that those alternatives existed - not so in the 1950s suburban paradise.
Across the United States and Canada, public transit systems were under incredible strain from the explosive growth of suburbanization, the disappearance of significant portions of their ridership, and the conflicting demands of motorists. New suburbs just didn't have public transit, and commuter rail is out there either - aside from the Long Island Rail Road and the South Shore Line, I don't believe any of the present commuter rail systems in North America had begun service in the '50s. The bicycle, which in the nineteenth century was hailed as a means to liberate women, had by the 1950s become effectively a child's toy in mainstream North American culture - it wasn't until the '70s that bikes really started taking off for adults.
The solution is, of course, absolutely '50s. Rather than strive for a life that doesn't reduce people to prisoners in their own homes, just buy another car! Don't try to put any effort into the underlying problems that are evident in your society, don't even acknowledge them - just surrender to the Man and get behind that wheel. Just make sure it's a Ford!
After all, as she says - or as I expected her to say - "why be stuck with one expensive car, when you can be stuck with two?"
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