Normal City?

The original idea from this post comes from a comment by a friend of mine, @tburts. It was one of those sound bites that blindsides you in any idle conversation you might be having. It catches you off guard. It sticks, like gum on your left converse. I remember the conversation, there's a photo of it burned into my brain. This blog then is that metaphorical stick with which I'll release myself of this stage 5 clinger.

So it was like this, posted up, the corner in site, when Tyler blurted it out. Why does Kingston make so much noise about wanting to be a normal city. There was no such thing as a normal city, our good friend declared.

I immediately liked what I heard. It was refreshing in a few ways. Just having finished orchestrating the entirety of Orientation week, including some verbose and harsh disputes with Kingston city council members I had been feeling fairly disenchanted with the town in which we resided, which I had come to call home. More importantly though, the brief audio-blurb resonated with me at a frequency that seemed fundamentally more sound.

When I think about it, it makes sense. Ottawa is different from Toronto, for reasons that are glaringly obvious to me (make up you're own local example. I'm sure if you are even only a little bit objective you'll see it to be true, I don't feel like explaining). And both Ontario cities are far diverged from Montreal, let alone Vancouver. The evolutions of our cities and their populations are complex, and not easily remedied with a few teaspoons of your favourite elixir. Moving to Bratislava has further atrophied the proposed notion that Kingston's desire to be neatly arranged in the "normal city" category is completely asinine. If Kingston considers itself atypical then I honestly don't know what to call this post communist hilarity I now occupy. Life's all about the angles.

Allow me to be bold and extrapolate for my boy TBURTS. In thinking about his statement I have more or less reached that a city is like any other organism. It's made up of it's composite parts, for better or for worse. Sure, the city has activities analogous to eating well and exercising, but it's still a product of it's past and a reflection of it's composite parts. It might be matured, young or somewhere in between. Whether or not that's what Tyler had in mind remains untold, he probably thought of something more clever.

Also, can you believe this guy??

Also, there's a stranger sleeping on my couch...More to come on that