Archival Duties

For the CSL component of this course, I volunteered with APIRG to help expand their library, which essentially fulfills the requirement of this post since we made a directory of Edmonton literature and stuff. However, it was WAY HARDER than I thought it would be, simply because there is too much good stuff! Therefore I don't know if I can, or even want to, pick a mere 5 things that represent Edmonton. Also, to give objects that much meaning, although objects definitely can and do take on meaning(s), seems to be asking too much of them. For instance, if I said that The Garneau Block is the be all and end all of Edmonton literature, then everyone reads it (assuming I have any sort of major influence...which I don't but let's pretend I do) and ignores every other piece of literature. Something similar has happened with canonical, classic lit; everyone heaps significance on these texts that may or may not be more relevant, or even worse, than some newer literature. So I'm not going to make a mini-archive of Edmonton literature, art, objects or people and instead I'm going to encourage everyone to keep their eyes peeled for everything that Edmonton has to offer rather than limiting your view of it. And I'm going to direct you to the APIRG Edmonton Literature Directory, which is by no means complete yet, but got started off by Jamin, Sarah and me. Check it out!https://sites.google.com/site/edmontonliteraturedirectory/home

A Tour of My Roads

Ok, so I didn't quite finish my post from last week about my perspective, but I mentioned that buses give a unique view of Edmonton's streets, with small, specific focuses that reminded me of a child's view. However, I'm not a child anymore, and when I need to get somewhere far away in Edmonton that's not accessible by LRT, I usually drive since it's so much faster and more convenient. So this is a map of my driving habits!


View Rollin' in a larger map

My Own Unique Perspective on Edmonton

When I was a kid, Edmonton seemed ENORMOUS!!! Like, gigantically enormous. But now that I'm older it seems to have shrunk, and also now that I can drive it seems teeny! It really doesn't take very long to get from one side to the other, especially with the Henday. But I took the bus for the first time in a while today (I usually take the train) and it's so different. It really expands and  specifies Edmonton into regions and smaller places. With the constant stopping, you can observe what's actually happening on the streets, between people or squirrels or cars. This specificity really reminded me of a child's perspective, or even a tourist's, on Edmonton. Ok, it's bedtime so I will finish this later! :)

Nature?

When I think of Edmonton, I don't necessarily think of nature. I know that we have lots of trees and parks and everything, but they're only green for a few months, so I usually think of Edmonton as just white with snow. While reading the Davis text I thought about how cool Edmonton would be if it was uninhabited by people after a crazy apocalypse. The picture above makes me think of how Jasper Ave might look after a bit of time. But I also wondered what it would be like if people had never touched the landscape. It would be interesting to see an overlay map of Edmonton like on the Hypercities website we looked at in class. Because one thing we've learned in this class is that Edmonton has a long history, as long as any other place on earth, except most of that history doesn't involve people as much as Rome did thousands of years ago. Therefore the history of Edmonton features nature more prominently than anything else and it would be really awesome to see a representation of that.

Learning about Edmonton

It's been really interesting learning some of Edmonton's history that I had never ever heard of before. Seriously, I knew nothing, and had fallen into the trap of thinking Edmonton was only 100 years young. But the past two weeks, and especially the poems, have made me think of Edmonton as olllldddd. And made me wanna know more. Instead of just wikipedia-ing (Jarrod :P), I tried to find some books through the uni's library databases, and the first twenty(!) things that came up when I typed "Edmonton" into the NEOS search engine were: fatality reports for Alberta Employment and Immigration. Ummm...not quite what I was looking for. Creepy and weird. So I changed my search to "Edmonton History" and the first hit was Polish (lol awesome) and the second was about great cities of Christendom from 1500-1600, and the third was about New Brunswick. What? Where is my Edmonton history? I'm not even wikipedia-ing! Ok, after the tenth hit it got better. Here are some of the interesting and relevant books for those of you too lazy to look:

 

Looking back: child saving in the City of Edmonton, 1900-1971

Reichwein, Baldwin P.

 

When Edmonton was young,Cashman, Tony

Edmonton Horticultural Society 1909-2009 celebrates a century of gardening in Edmonton

Edmonton Horticultural Society.

Edmonton's musical pathways : a study in narrative and emplacement

Turner, Toscha Lorene.

A tribute to Peter Oliver / edited by Jim Phillips, R. Roy McMurtry and John T. Saywell

Phillips, Jim, 1954-

Old Strathcona before the Great Depression

Monto, Tom, 1961-

River lot 5 : a home for the university, June 7, 1907

University of Alberta. Learning Services.

Capital modern : a guide to Edmonton architecture & urban design, 1940-1969

Boddy, Trevor, 1953-

Forever champions

Brignall, Richard.

Fallen empires : lost theatres of Edmonton, 1881-1914

Orrell, John, 1934-

Bloody Falls of the Coppermine : madness and murder in the Arctic barren lands  Random House Trade Pbk. ed.

Jenkins, McKay, 1963-

Then, now & next : 100 years of Edmonton labour

Edmonton Trades and Labour Council.

The meeting place at the bend in the river : an examination of the Fort Edmonton cemetery/Aboriginal burial ground, Edmonton, Alberta

Cunningham, Pamela Marie.

Kidmonton : true stories of River City kids

Goyette, Linda, 1955-

Castles to forts : a true history of Edmonton  1st ed.

Coutu, Phillip R., 1953-

 

And of course there are more, though not all (even on this list) are available at UofA and will need to be requested from other places. I will be checking some of these out!

 

Inspired by Maps Again

This reminded me of the art maps we looked at really early on in class, and I thought it was cute. I hope everyone had fun with other people's map projects! I know I did. I had Jamie's map of the LRT line with music included, showing how the stations represent or misrepresent Edmonton. I thought the concept was really interesting and I got to hear some cool new songs :)

Hey guys, check this out!

http://www.forbidden-places.net/explo1.php

Learning and Exploring

This class has been really awesome so far; it's gotten me to do some things that I never do normally and think about my city in a way that I, and most inhabitants of any city they live in, rarely think about. The CSL assignment has been especially boundary-breaking. We're trying to build up a directory of local literature (or other texts) for APRIG and then recommend that the APIRG library buy some of them. The search for local lit and other cool stuff has led me to cool websites, the I-week poetry slam, and then just last night to Rouge Lounge (Rose Bowl) on Jasper for their poetry night, led by the Breath In Poetry Collective (breathinpoetry.com).  I had to walk down Jasper from Corona at like 9 in the freezing cold, and it's waaaay down Jasper on 117st, so that was an unusual thing for me just in itself, and then I was in a strange environment with a bunch of awesome local poets and hiphop artists. It was really fun and worth going to, so you should go! Every Tuesday at 9(ish...they started quite late, more like 9:30 haha).
To finish off, I've had lots of trouble thinking up a map idea, so even though I have a couple preliminary thoughts now, wish me luck!! Or offer me your super good ideas...whatever floats your boat. ;)

Art in Edmonton

I went to the art gallery on Sunday, which was their first year anniversary, and one of their new exhibits was a huge three piece installation by Canadian artist Brian Jungen. And the craziest thing was, you're allowed to take pictures!!! So I actually took this picture with my crappy camera phone. Pretty cool; I love the idea of art as collective property. Although we weren't allowed to climb his very very climbable piece made from garbage bins. Oh, I forgot to mention the piece above is made from lawn chairs. WOW.

My trip to AGA got me thinking about local art and being more involved in it, and what better week to start than International Week? There are all sorts of movies and fun things, and I think I'm definitely going to go to Beats without Borders: An International Poetry Jam at Telus 145 on Thursday from 9-11 am. Maybe I will see some of you there!

Map time

I've been thinking about Edmonton maps, and wondering why there weren't awesome maps like we looked at in class for our city, when I realized there are very few maps that I've ever looked at for Edmonton, since I live here. Then I realized that when I need to go somewhere in the city I either look at a) the lrt "map" b)a bus route "map" or c) google maps. So I'd like to talk about these maps and how they affect my life.

Well mostly I just want to talk about the lrt map, which is located in the actual train itself and at the stations on the walls; it's sooo silly. For those who don't know, it's a perfectly straight line representing the trajectory the train follows, with blue dots for the stations which are labelled. Um...that's it. There are good and bad things about its simplicity. It's easy to read, I suppose, and tells you basically how many stops til yours and the order of the stations, but it leaves out so much. The line it follows certainly isn't straight, it gives a very inaccurate depiction of distance between stops and it gives you no indication as to where you'll be coming out above ground (except for obviously named stations like "University"). It's really very little help, which is scary and interesting. How would non-Edmontonians read this map?

My Edmonton

Hi everyone :) Edmonton, to me, has always been "the city." As a kid, from ages 5 to 8, I lived in Griesbach, which was an area where military families lived and there was even a K-12 school. It was recently converted into a nice little civilian neighbourhood, but my old house is still there. Edmonton is the first city I remember moving to; before then I had moved around a lot but didn't really remember it. When I was 8 we moved to a new subdivision, Skyview, which is not far from Griesbach and everything around there was just developing then (right off 137 ave, near North ed Cineplex).

Then six months later I moved to Wainwright, which is quite a small town two hours south of here. This turned Edmonton into "the city" I think, since it was pretty much the closest big city, and people from Wainwright would go there for shopping, WEM, etc. I mostly remember coming back to go to Ikea lol. Then when I was twelve my family moved to St. Albert. This didn't really change my perception of Edmonton as "the city" because for most of my teen years I didn't really leave St. Albert that much. Edmonton, however, was where I went anytime I had a concert, ballet, play, opera or festival to go to with family or friends. My high school choir often performed in Edmonton. So music is really tied to Edmonton's identity for me.

As for my limits within Edmonton, I've always stayed mostly on the North end. Griesbach, Skyview, St. Albert and Clareview (where I currently live) are all here, and I pretty much never go South. Since being in university I've also inhabited Whyte, Jasper and downtown a lot more, and since I learned to drive (about a year and a half ago...lol) that has also really expanded my movements in and around and even out of Edmonton. I hope this class helps me to really get to know and own Edmonton.