On Summer In the City

The movie Across the Universe has a scene that is supposed to be the Financial District of New York (Battery area, by the look of things, right near Wall Street). In this scene men, all wearing a black suit dance in step. After I saw the movie my mother, asked me if that reminded me of my normal day job at all? The truth is, it really does. Every morning, I certainly don't dance my way into the office, but - and when I walk in this seems especially true - all of us office grunts grit our teeth, duck our heads and barrel through the core of the city to wherever it is we grind out our daily bread.

In the winter the only people passing through are the office drones like me, but in the summer a new species emerges, (migrates North?) they are often heavier, laden with camera's, children, Hawaiian shirts and, typically, copious body fat. In the downtown area these bizarre creatures are often called tourists, and their job, appears to be to take rigorous photographic documentation of thoroughly mundane sites. Today at lunch was no exception.

As I walked south on Bay Street to meet Lesley for lunch I encountered one of these tourists photographing the words "Bank of Nova Scotia" embossed in metal on the side of a building who's principal occupant was none other than Scotia Bank. Just a little further south, at King Street a different tourist was scrutinizing a map, perhaps trying to find the TSE? (He'd have more luck finding it here on The Internet than at Bay and King.) A group of tourists past through the food court at BCE place as we were eating, no doubt where they come from food courts are an exotic locale.

As I write this, it occurs to me I must sound horribly arrogant, I certainly do not mean to. It just seems absurd to me, the reactions people take to new surroundings. It does not help that I am a city rat, born and raised in the concrete jungle, but when I travel I certainly do not get excited by the site of the corporate headquarters of say, Citibank, now the US Capitol on the other hand, that is a site to behold. I guess that forces the natural question, am I any better than the tourists who come here? I guess not, but at least I can have a little fun observing them can't I?

On a totally unrelated note, the survey for Next President of the United States (if you are reading an archived copy of this post the current survey is who should be the next President) closes in six days. Here is a big hint, it's a bit of a trick question, depending on your politics. I will explain after the survey ends, but go ahead and answer, the truth is all options are reasonable, except for John McCain who is not a natural born citizen - therefore the constitutionality of his presidency is debatable at best and no, that's not the trick.