John Barth in My City

I am deep in the thick of John Barth's "LETTERS," a novel that requires every inch of attention in order to digest. I am completely drawn into its elaborate conceits and the extraordinarily vivid world of its characters...almost TOO vivid. It is, after all, about the delicate line between fiction and reality, inspiration and fabrication. I constantly need to ask myself (much as the characters do): did this really happen? Is this a real place?

Presumably because it's (partially) related to the war of 1812, southern Ontario figures frequently in the book (in particular Ottawa, Niagara Falls, and Toronto), but usually in a sketchy way which implies that Barth didn't really visit during his research. When, on page 200, Lady Amherst writes about travelling to Stratford for the Shakespeare Festival, I got a creeping sensation...this book is getting awfully close to my stomping grounds. My mother and I were in Stratford just three weeks ago.

Then, suddenly:

...I was handed a sealed envelope with my name on it by one of the ushers. I was obliged to sit before I could open it. The note inside, in a handwriting I knew, read: "My darling: Dinner 8 P.M., Wolpert Hotel, Kitchener."

Yes, I LIVE in that city which Barth describes as "in the middle of nowhere." What's more, the "very European old hotel" is no doubt the WALPER Hotel, built in 1893 after a fire destroyed the original 1820's structure. The Walper is a grand old landmark where drag queens such as yours truly have, at various times, performed in "the improbably elegant German dining room on the second floor."

Given the way the book is going, I'm waiting to come across the character of Muffy St. Bernard IV, bastard offspring of Napoleon and Mary Shelley.

I'd Buy Anything By...Bootsy Collins

You need a lot of ingredients to make a genuinely funky stew, and Bootsy Collins provides two of the major ones: a cute/mischievous sense of humour, and a low end that sounds like vicious soul food defecation.

Bootsy's a brilliantly unconventional slap/wow bass player, and over the years he has developed a complex mythology to rival George Clinton's "Star Child" stuff...and at the same time he's managed to be surprisingly down-to-earth and make songs you actually want to LISTEN to. Clowns, aliens, werewolves, Casper, Bootzilla, platforms, star-glasses, and underneath it all a really sweet and approachable guy (so they say).

You can hear Bootsy on the mid-period Parliament and Funkadelic albums -- and he's even lurking around on some of James Browns' classic tracks -- but he's best discovered as a solo artist, particularly on his first two releases. He took the Parliament sound, boosted the Horny Horns, added a snappy "rubber band" quality, made it "friendlier," and even did some memorable ballads. Bootsy, I love you, baby-baba.

Here he is with the classic Rubber Band, coming out of his sheet to do a memorable space-bass solo:

Bootsy's put out some stinkers, that's for sure, but even the BAD stuff is redeemed by his enthusiasm and his eccentricity. Like the rest of the funkateers he manages to pull it all together every few years, update his sound, and release another gem. Case in point: "Play with Bootsy," a terrific song (and video) featuring Kelli Ali (also brilliant, also worth checking out). It's not "Bootsy's Rubber Band" anymore, but it's still Bootsy.

Albums to buy: "Stretchin' Out" and "The Name is Bootsy, Baby!" (his first two releases, both a combination of wild fun and sweet ballads). Albums to avoid: "What's Bootsy Doin'?" (has some good moments but is far too silly). For fans only: "Lord of the Harvest" by Zillatron (Bootsy becomes a sort of werewolf monster, teams up with Buckethead, and takes samples from "The Howling"...very strange but captivating if you stick with it).

Shamus 2

Ah yes, give me a game I can map and I'll be happy for hours. I didn't care much for William Mataga's "Shamus: Case II" back in 1983, but thanks to the joy of emulation -- and the instructions here -- I can finally enjoy the game. And win it. On the Novice level. By saving it an awful lot.

I couldn't find any online maps or spoilers for Shamus 2, so here are mine. I'm sorry the map isn't very pretty (click for a larger version).
And here are the spoilers: there are 38 rooms, the devilish "sliding ladders" start to appear in room 27, and the only way across room 20 is to fall down into the ingenious "hidden room" (17).

Room 38 contains a "detonator." After you've armed it you need to get back to room zero (which you can do in ten moves), at which time you're told that "The Shadow is dead on this level" and you start at the Intermediate level. The instructions say that you actually DO BATTLE with The Shadow, so I assume that eventually you do get to meet him.

It's a nifty game with neat cross-genre appeal, but the real joy for me is the joy of mapping. The higher levels are probably the same, maybe with different obstacles...YOU can find out!

Rudolph, Randolph, and Scamp

I'm sitting on my balcony and reading, waiting for my laundry to dry. Rudolph, the resident black squirrel, climbs down his tree and on to the grass below. He tolerates a bit of yelling from the grey squirrel who lives in a nearby oak, then runs across the lawn and around the corner. Autumn's coming and he's looking for food.

A few minutes later I see an identical black squirrel follow the exact same path. Either Rudolph is a magic squirrel or he's got a friend, who I decide must be Randolph. The names are easily confused but so are the squirrels; they're impossible to tell apart.

Eventually I hear a squeaking noise, the sound of claws on metal, and I see that Rudolph is foraging in the neighbouring building's eavestroughs. I see his tail rushing along, leaves flying out of the tough, and then he looks out. He might be accustomed to finding seeds or insects there. Randolph is on the ground, looking up. He effortlessly scales the brickwork, jumps onto the neighbour's balcony, jumps twice more to a window ledge and then a power line, and takes the powerline highway into the tree. Seconds later he's on the roof with Rudolph. I expect a fight but they work collectively, both of them scraping through the eavestroughs, leaves flying. It's hot outside and Randolph occasionally lies down for a quick rest, but Rudolph keeps him on his toes. I suspect there's some flirting going on here. One of them might be a Dolphina.

A third black squirrel, smaller than the others, jumps out of the tree. They push through the eavestroughs together. This is getting complicated; one will rest, the others will rush forward and backward, they'll look at each other, click sharply in the hot air, run back to search some more. Eventually the three run back to the tree and I decide that the little one is "Scamp."

Back to my reading. All is quiet until I see Rudolph and Randolph jump down onto the powerline again. This line is in a "V" shape, joining my balcony, the tree, and the neighbour's balcony. This time they're coming towards me, closer and closer, looking for the stale bread or crackers I sometimes leave here.

Rudolph makes a terrifying leap and lands on the railing beside me, then -- realizing that I'm there -- jumps OVER MY HEAD and on to the opposite railing where he climbs down and out of sight.

Randolph, however, is more curious. He stands on the railing only a few feet away, shifting east and west, stopping, lifting one paw up in a weight-lifter's stance, oscillating his vocal chords with the shiver of his tail. He is thin but incredibly muscular. I am amazed at the size of his claws, the breadth of his forehead, the strength in his coiled-up body. He isn't built like a rat at all. He is a compact spring, strong, intelligent. I had no idea that squirrels were so powerful; I know that sounds funny but it's true.

He is about three feet away from me, close to where my feet are propped up on the railing. He knows I'm there, even though I'm not moving. I wonder what he wants; he obviously hasn't been trained to beg for food, but does he have an innate understanding of human generosity? Or is he angry? Rabid? His eyes aren't friendly...I realize that squirrels only look cute because they want something or they're far away. I don't know what Randolph wants but his proximity and attention is nerve-wracking.

Then I notice that the other squirrel, Rudolph, is on the opposite railing a few feet to my right. I can't see both of them at once. They are both making that oscillating noise, staring directly at me from either side. This is like a coordinated attack. Scamp is on the powerline too but he isn't coming closer, he's fearful.

I have an overpowering urge to speak to Randolph, but I don't want to scare him. So I go "mmmmmm," without moving my lips. He stops fidgeting and stares. I go "mmmmmm" again. He stares, motionless. Huge eyes and ugly nose.

Rudolph runs away, and Scamp follows the powerline back to the tree they obviously live in. Randolph turns east, turns west, takes one more look into my eyes, and then he's gone too. Down the sheer vertical cliff of my balcony and into the tree.

The Barthathon: "Giles Goat-Boy"

The first time I read John Barth's "Giles Goat-Boy" (1966) I was totally baffled. It seemed like a giant mess of confusing, cyclic plots and satirical references, spelling out a grand and almost transcendent philosophy that I was just too stupid to grasp. The second time -- a few years ago -- I was impatient to "get the point," and I skimmed the dull parts in order to achieve that elusive transcendence. I failed again...but was even MORE intrigued. All of Barth's other books were digestible, after all...why should this one be any different? And if the theme was so complex as to be almost impossible to understand, it must be a REAL piece of wisdom!

Now that I've read the book for the third time -- and very carefully too -- I can say with authority that there's a very good reason why I never understood its philosophical point before: the book is way too long, way too complicated, terribly organized, and an almost complete failure in so many ways. To use one of its own terms -- which makes me a little nauseous to see one more time -- "Giles Goat-Boy" is flunkéd.

I warn you now that I'm going to give it all away. The book's central (hidden, poorly realized) theme is that of paradoxical opposites living together in sort-of-harmony, and the paradox of "Giles Goat-Boy" is that the IDEAS are interesting, but they are too complicated to be interesting to read. So I'll spell them out here (as best as I think I understand them), to at least save you the 800 pages of the book itself.

Oh, the superficial ideas are clever. They're BRILLIANT, in fact. "Giles Goat-Boy" is presented as a computer-generated biographical reconstruction, given to a professor/author whose initials happen to be "J.B.," and then published by a reluctant publishing company. Already we have the traditional Barthian conceit of an unreliable manuscript, pieced together from multiple sources, handed down through a long line of anonymous people, and ending with a suspicious final chapter which may or may not be fraudulent.

So "Giles Goat-Boy" is a sort of New Testament (actually subtitled "The Revised New Syllabus") which tells the story of a hero-to-be, a goat-boy whose life fits the pattern of mythical heroes and prophets...yes, it's that "heroic pattern" that John Barth later explores in "Chimera."

Like Bellerophon from "Chimera," the goat-boy (George) is convinced that he is a prophet, and he tries his best to fit the archetype of the hero/prophet. Also like Bellerophon, this goes poorly, because George himself is no heroic stereotype; he's a flawed human who was raised as a goat, he is just as confused and uncertain as the people around him, and his attempts to "fit the pattern" go horribly awry: how can a REAL person ever fit into an IDEAL?

Besides the "heroic pattern" element, this book's other conceit is that George lives in a world based around a "University" idiom. The countries are all "colleges," the prophets are "tutors," the newspaper reporters are "journalism majors," the wars are "riots." Written in 1966, the major conflict -- the "Quiet Riot" -- is between New Tammany College (America) and the Nikolayan College (the "Student Unionist" USSR). George -- self-styled "Grand Tutor" -- wants to end the Quiet Riot by disarming the technological/war/political machine embodied by a computer called "WESCAC" (and the Nikolayan "EASCAC" counterpart). Then he wants to lead everybody to "Commencement Gate" (enlightenment) by showing them how to "pass" (an uncertain term, sort of "do the correct thing" or "live properly").

The people that he meets -- and tries to "pass" -- are all representations of human ideas and stereotypes: Max, his mentor, a disaffected Jewish ex-Student Unionist obsessed with his own unworthiness; Leonid, a Nikolayan spy who so desires to be selfless that he is potentially selfish; Croaker, a Frumentian (African) savage who is essentially "the body" to Dr. Eirkopf's withered and emotionless "mind"; Stoker, the crass, tempting, and misleading "dean o' flunks" (devil); Peter Greene, the necessarily blind embodiment of all American vice and virtue; Ira Hector, the selfish industrialist; Chancellor Rexford, the man who leads the "campus" with charisma but accomplishes nothing; Dr. Sear, the jaded upper-class professional; and Anastasia...errr, sort of a compendium of female traits, I suppose.

George tries to tutor these people while fending off the threat of Jerome Bray -- a mysterious, inhuman, and truly disturbing co-claimant to Grand Tutorhood -- and carrying out a set of cryptic but typically heroic tasks assigned to him by WESCAC.

The first four hundred pages of the book are LOTS of fun. You get an excellent gloss of world conflict, relgion, and sociology as satirized within the "University" idiom. As an added bonus you also get a lesson in heroic tragedy with "The Tragedy of Taliped Decanus," a hilarious seventy page retelling of "Oedipus Rex" (in rhyming heroic couplets and '60s slang).

Then, having gone through his preliminary obstacles, George begins to tutor. He believes that, to pass, everybody must learn to create firm categories and distinctions: passing is different from failing, good is different from bad, east is different from west, selfishness is different from selflessness, etc. He discusses this idea with each of the people mentioned above, and solves all of his tasks using this method: boundaries must be moved apart, people must remain unyielding in their principles. He is 100% convinced that this is the correct way to "pass"...but he has some tiny doubts now and then that he can't nail down.

We read hundreds of pages of philosophical debate. George debates everybody. He discusses all the ramifications of his theory. He manages to convince everybody (and the reader) that rigid categorization is the way to "pass"...

...and then his solutions fail. Things get worse. His "tutees" are more flunkéd than ever. Barth is, I suppose, criticizing dogmatism.

After an extended period of moping, George realizes that he was wrong: people must FORSAKE all categories: boundaries must CEASE to exist, people must accept ALL principles. Passing IS failing, and vice versa! For another hundred pages he tutors all of the above people again, teaching them this new way to "pass"...despite his tiny doubts. And once again, while sitting through these seemingly endless debates, the reader is convinced that George has finally got it figured out...

...and then his solutions fail. Things get even WORSE. George winds up getting lynched, with a goathorn stuck up his butt, the fate (Barth is telling us) of those who see EVERYTHING in shades of gray, refusing to recognize extremes.

After an extended period of moping, George realizes that he was wrong once again: people must...errr, he knows EXACTLY what they must do! For a third time he tutors everybody, but gives them contradictory advice that doesn't seem to have a purpose.He still has lots of doubts, but those doubts no longer bother him. He engages in a series of very '60s sex/conception/womb moments with Anastasia, briefly short-circuits WESCAC, and finally drives the nightmarish Jerome Bray off campus (maybe).

And what is George's grand philosophy, the one you've read 800 pages to learn? Oh jeez, you better have read close, because Barth does a piss-poor job of explaining it. The best I can understand, George has realized that the world is full of necessary contradictions and paradoxes; fighting against paradoxes is failure, but bringing yourself close enough to the paradoxes so that you can see them clearly -- and yet accept them as unsolvable or irrelevant -- is the only way to pass...which is simultaneously failure, but that's just one of life's paradoxes, that nobody really passes or fails, because we're full of contradictions, and so is the world, etc.

As you can imagine, this is NOT the resolution of a self-help book. The thing is, when you're reading "Giles Goat-Boy," you are anticipating SOME sort of return, but what you get is a concept so complicated, recursive, and difficult to live with that not even the AUTHOR can explain it properly. Since George (and Barth) seem to believe that the concept is impossible to really grasp...well, he literally seems to give up trying. The book falls flat on its face.

Infuriating. Fatally flawed. Passéd and flunkéd...but maybe THAT is the point? ARGH!

Anyway, I'm so exhausted by this book that I can't talk about it anymore, but since this is "The Barthathon," how does it fit into his body of work? This is the first time he really tries (and fails) to understand male-female relationships. The heroic pattern is also explored for the first time (intentionally at least). You've also got twins, agonized impotence, and Zeno's paradoxes (which will come up again in "On With the Story," I believe). Nobody goes to Maryland or sails a ship, and in many ways this is the most "un-Barth" of all the Barth novels, but "Chimera" later gives us both a mythology-distilling computer and "Jerome Bray" (J.B. again?)

Underworld Slang: "Strictly Homelike"

On March 24, 1928, the New Yorker has begun publishing a series of articles written in "underworld slang," supposedly written by a convict named "J.P. Grover." To make things more entertaining, they publish the "slang" version alongside a straight-forward translation. Here's an excerpt:

I get a drive out of casing the mob posing around the lobby. There are a few marks and square-shooters there but not many. Most everyone is a hustler of some kind. On my left chalk are two twists cutting up their daddies. I tin-ear on them and get hip. They are boosters doing it solo. Their daddies are cannons and are working the shorts and this spot is the meet. They rap to a geezer and he flops near them. In his dukes he has some rats and mice and he is practicing a switch. He is a dice hustler waiting for a play. His fiddle and flute speaks for itself. It is that kind. His bottles of booze are keeno. The lean and fat is the real McCoy, and he has a Spanish guitar between the uppers and beneath. He looks Annie Oakley and soon cops a sneak out the grocery store.

Got that, Mr. Lem Kegg? Pop off about it over a little gay and frisky.

Clash of the Titans: Zsa Zsa vs. Penny

Zsa Zsa (my cat) is not a tough girl but she can certainly hold her own. This summer she's managed to scare away all of the fluffier felines in the neighbourhood, simply by groaning and standing very still.

But tonight, when we were sitting outside on the porch, she finally met Penny. The man who used to live in this apartment went out of his way to patronize Penny, a street-smart stray, to the point of actually knocking out his screens so she could have free reign. Penny isn't happy that I'm here but she's gradually accepted that I'll chase her away when she comes to peddle whatever she's peddling.

Tonight, Penny walked halfway to my door and just sat there, staring. Zsa Zsa -- clawless and on her leash -- went into lightning-rod cat-fighter mode, tail bushed up, moaning those low moans that mean "scram, tramp!" She went down the stairs so slowly that it looked like tai-chi, then sat at the bottom, moaning and staring.

Other cats flee when Zsa Zsa does this, but Penny just settled herself down on her side and watched. I couldn't believe her moxie. She was actually TAUNTING my cat, saying "I'm so fearless that I'm just going to chill out on your property, don't mind me." Zsa Zsa's moaning increased. Penny did nothing. It was a very tense moment for all of us.

Then, much to my embarassment, Zsa Zsa began to WAVER. She'd slowly look away, look back, and then finally looked completely away. I encouraged her -- "go get her, girl!" -- but it was obvious that my puss was losing before the fight even started.

This sort of thing can give a cat an inferiority complex.

So I got up and started walking -- slowly -- towards Penny. Zsa Zsa and I stood side-by-side. I hoped I was communicating that I was "in her corner," and perhaps making her feel the way *I* felt when my big sister stood up for me. The two of us walked towards Penny in the deepening twilight. Penny stood up, backed away, sat down again. We continued to walk. Penny began to moan, and the two of them sang a little song of hate.

At the border of Zsa Zsa's world -- where her leash traditionally runs out -- Penny drew the line: she lay down again and mockingly scratched her claws on the grass. She was saying "I have claws and you don't. I could rip you to shreds." Zsa Zsa would go no further.

So I yelled "yah!" and jumped, and Penny ran away. We won but I can't help thinking that we really lost. If Penny brings a thuggish human with her next time, I'm afraid that my cat and I might be reduced to standing at the door, staring, moaning.

"Hairspray" for a New Generation

I have small affection for the original "Hairspray." It took me a long time to see it as something other than a "kid's movie" or a "studio sell-out," and now I recognize it for what it really was: John Waters' affectionate homage to the teenage dance shows he used to love (and, as usual, a love-letter to Baltimore). Even though it had its twin weighty themes of size acceptance and segregation, it was never more than an exuberant cartoon. Those heavy themes were only there to string gags on...and thank goodness, because "Hairspray" -- like all of John Waters' films -- was never more than a cartoon.

I've just seen the new version of "Hairspray." It is most fun when it revels in what it really is: a MUSICAL cartoon. The songs are mostly good, and so is the acting. There is some wonderfully funny slapstick in it, and both Michelle Pfieffer and Amanda Bynes steal the show. They've gone astonishingly far to replicate the look of the original characters (L'il Inez is a REAL timewarp) and to maintain the cheerful exuberance that a musical (and a John Waters adaptation) requires.

It fails terribly, however, when it tries to tackle those two incidental themes of size acceptance and segregation, which come off as both shoe-horned and patronizing. In the original version, the "protest" was obviously out of a suburban teen's fantasy, and it never pretended to be anything more than that. Here, however, they try to actually address the serious issues (or at least make reference to them), which is a big mistake. This movie doesn't have the chops.

The other terrible failure is the notorious "John Travolta in a fat suit." Why? No really, people...WHY? He looks plastic and frightening (as opposed to Divine who was SWEATY and frightening), his accent is awful, and he talks like something crappy is stuck in his mouth.

My biggest fear was that they'd "kiddie" the movie up, removing its nasty edge, but no...instead they simultaneously made it MORE child-friendly AND nastier. One minute everything is sweetness-n-light, and the next minute Corny Collins is telling his teenage female fans that they look like they need a "stiff one." The scriptwriters also, surprisingly, upped the religious fundamentalism of Penny Pingleton's mom...this coupled with Amanda Byne's goofy persona makes for some of the funniest moments in the film.

So "Hairspray 2007" is lots of fun. Weird and disturbed and flippant and too serious and poorly-developed, yes, but fun. And as an added bonus you get John Waters as a flasher during the first musical number.

Happy Holiday!

I want to thank everybody for celebrating "Muffy's Surprise" day, when I traditionally go to work without realizing that I could actually be sleeping in. I hope that next year's celebration will make me feel even more exhausted.

The Ambitious Kitchener/Waterloo BusWalk Tour: Route Two

ROUTE #2 - Forest Hill



Click here to see all the pictures from the tour!

This tour will be different from the last. I'm being accompanied by Colin Hunter (a reporter from the Kitchener/Waterloo Record), and by a photographer who is wearing somewhat fragile footwear.

On the bus to Forest Hill we undertake the difficult task of simultaneously conducting an interview, feeling each other out, trying not to annoy the other people on the bus, and posing for mostly-authentic but still slightly artificial photographs. *I* am just writing a blog entry, so I can afford to take this tour without having anything interesting to report. But this is part of their job: "Look out the bus window, like you're looking at something," says the photographer, occasionally moving Colin's legs out of the shot.

I've done some "BusWalk Soul Searching," partly under the pressure of needing to EXPLAIN my goals, and deciding what exactly I hope to accomplish. I DO want to see different neighbourhoods and become better acquainted with Kitchener/Waterloo, with all its quirks and contrasting personalities (not to mention rich geography), but I recognize that endless rows of identical houses are not fun to walk through, landmarks are only interesting when they're unintentional, and I can only see small strips of each area I explore. I can't walk on every street and poke into every cranny, and I don't intend to visit the same area twice unless I see something REALLY different. That would, in some vague way, violate "the point."

And while the prospect of a dull walk through undistinguished suburbia doesn't daunt ME, I don't want to inflict such a thing on the photographer and the reporter, no matter how "game" they are. It's Friday evening, after all, when most people are gearing up for a good time. But we had to pick a weekday; it's not my fault this route doesn't have a Sunday schedule.

In any case, this time I've done some preparation. I've looked at a satellite map and tried to find areas that promise something unusual (huge parks riddled with trails in particular) and I've tried to chart a sensible route between those areas. I've decided, sort of arbitrarily, that I must see where Victoria Street ends. It's one of Kitchener's major roads and I can't imagine that it actually "ends" anywhere. Thanks, satellite map!

* * *

Maybe the Forest Hill Mall -- our drop-off point -- is unpopular, or maybe we scared everybody away. By the time we arrive the bus is otherwise empty. This mall was once a collection of huge stores but is now a single, mammoth store that appears to contain all the food in the world. We're only looking for water and camera batteries, however, before wandering behind the building to see what we're not supposed to see. We instantly strike it rich: a lush marsh full of dragonflies, bull-rushes, and crickets trying desperately to achieve orbit.

The reporter has insisted that they don't want me to tailor the experience for them, so with some encouragement -- and an offer to go first in case of swamp or quicksand -- I lead them through the marsh to a shy little bike path. Already we're in a curious place I've never seen before, this isolated gravel walkway between bright stream and hill that only locals probably bother with.

Soon we discover how "Forest Hill" probably got its name: a huge hill, right in the middle of the residential area, leads us up and up into forests and to a grand view of the city. The photographer declares that this is a money shot, and he promptly leaves and wishes us a happy journey. We've lost a fellow traveller. He has plans, or he thinks we're crazy.

* * *

If there is a hell for me, it's an endless walk through suburbia on a hot day. I know I want to go in a northwesterly direction, but whenever we find a street that goes that way it loops around and takes us back almost to where we started. We see lots of those portable basketball hoops that I started noticing about five years ago, which blossom in driveways and then quickly rust away where they stand. They seem even lonelier than the ubiquitous abandoned shopping carts. They're insufficient, they didn't deliver their promise of safe, eternal entertainment for the children, and children always grow up and get tired of driveway basketball anyway.

Just a few youngsters are wandering around, looking restless to get away. "Claire, move your f*cking car!" yells one. A hunched-up lady in an orange top pushes a shopping cart downhill. Several of the houses in this area are of a strange "sperm whale" design, with windowless, wood-shingled second storeys jutting forward in a blind, sinister, and frankly ugly way. They're probably cool to live in, and very dark. Neither of us have seen such houses before.

* * *

We cross Highland Road and start the second part of our journey. The "Stop the City" barn used to be out here, a landmark for dismayed anti-expansionists. Now the barn is gone and the city -- of course -- is here. If I needed a lesson about the speed of population growth, I receive it: the satellite photo I studied showed fields and construction sites in this area; now we see houses in every direction. I must learn more about architecture so I can use some distinguishing words instead of just saying "houses" all the time.

But not all residential areas are impersonal and sad; this is a beautiful place, really, built on the rolling hills that I consider distinct to "Southern Ontario." We live in these hills and valleys all the time, but we stop noticing them until we leave home and then come back, or until we need to drive up one of them when it's covered with ice. From the top of the one hill we watch the new roads and houses descend into a valley, then rise up again to our level on the other side.

They haven't killed the forest yet so we decide to enjoy it. We turn left and find ourselves deep inside a woodsy dog-walker's dream. Makeshift trails join and spread out as far as we can see, which isn't very far even though the trees are short on branches and are losing their leaves. The land rises and falls so constantly.

Then, on a random path, we find the hidden gem, the truly magical place that makes every kilometer worthwhile. Between the forest and a row of backyards is an unnatural, stagnant pond, long and narrow, asserting itself against much the stronger forces of construction and earth removal. A frog seeks out dragonflies and other tasty insects. There is an ecosystem here and it appears to be thriving instead of fading away; there's even a miniature wooden pallet here, should you want to sail the small but complex perimeter and have a "Huckleberry Finn adventure," like we are.

This place is touching. It is not for tourists. It is for kids who read Harry Potter and for reluctant cynics who go on BusWalk tours.

We find "the end of Victoria Street." My heart sinks a bit when I see that the street hasn't ended after all; it stretches off to the horizon, newly paved, carving a straight line into the largely unclaimed and unspoiled wedge of farmland that used to be out here. Soon there will be houses, sidewalks, more houses, and power lines here. We'll need to invent more distinguishing, hair-splitting adjectives just to tell them apart.

A row of orange pylons tells us that it's time to go home.

* * *

"Go home" is easier said than done. We are a shockingly long way from the city center, though up here -- in the heights of "Forest Hill" -- you can barely see the taller downtown landmarks.

So we start back. We happen upon a community trail that the reporter vaguely remembers, and we assume that it will eventually join the well-travelled "Iron Horse Trail," which will represent the end of our evening trailblazing.

But there is still a long way to go. Here is one of those streams that has been penned in with concrete; we leave the path and climb down into the channel, where generations of kids practiced bike tricks and sprayed graffiti on the walls. Some of it is surprisingly good. I have an okay appreciation for non-anatomical street art.

I begin to wonder about the health of the water, as my left eye -- closest to the stream -- starts to run uncontrollably. Maybe I touched a pollinating plant and unconsciously rubbed my face. Half blind we pass under roads, through tunnels, on our way home. We keep thinking that the next overpass is the one we'll recognize, the one with the oriental restaurant on it. It never seems to be.

We debate which side of the stream the path will be on when it joins the Iron Horse Trail; the reporter and I have different recollections. I bet my honour that it is on the right-hand side. The path teases us at each overpass, crossing to one side then the other, while we take the straightest route down the concrete channel, descending from far-off Forest Hill.

Eventually, the reporter wins my honour. Three hours after setting out, and now in twilight, we return to familiarity.