The title is a reference to an Edmonton band by the name of Shout Out Out Out Out. I'm hoping at least a few have been introduced to the synthesized bliss of their catalogue, or the seismic energy of one of their live shows on the feebly supported Starlite Room floor.
Miniscule in size, but close-knit at heart, the local arts scene - whether it's local musicians, Varscona improv, or Citadel theatre - is what separates Edmonton from the rest. The various artistic endeavours of my fellow Edmontonians are essentially the only thing that brings me out of my house on the cold nights.
I've noticed that not a whole lot of artists make it out of Edmonton. What is created here, stays here. It's our lack of international (or even national) attention that creates a cohesive group of like-minded artists who do their best to bring art to the land of the dead.
Oddly, the place that I spend the most time is also the place I spend the least time. During the day, my travels always find me going through downtown. To get anywhere through public transit, one must go through downtown, and I love it down there. The beautiful squares are welcoming and the shopping isn't that bad, but it pales in comparison to bigger cities. In the Torontos and Vancouvers and Montreals, their downtown doesn't die at night. I wish I could spend my nights downtown, but when the office workers go home, the city goes to sleep.
So I spend my nights in the houses of my friends; those who are stuck in the same city as me; the city that sprawls for miles in every direction. I like to think of Edmonton as a city by the sea. On one side, we've got mountains. On the other, the brutal(ly boring) prairies are like a vast body of water that nobody wants to sail across to get to the Eastern provinces -- the provinces that are alive.
We are of a like mind, you and I. I work in the downtown in the summers and love being there most of the time; but lets face it, you're right - when the office shuts down, so does the downtown. There are tons of great places to just hang out like in Rice Howard Way, Churchill Square, and Beaver Hills park to name a few. I would love to go to these places and enjoy them after 5 o'clock if it weren't for the lack of activity at night and the vagrants/crackheads/drunks wandering around after dark. The city feels like it hasn't quite embraced the true essence of, or at the very least missed the mark on, what a "'big city' downtown" is supposed to be. For example, Rice Howard Way reminds me of a 500 meter long miniaturization of these amazing areas in Ottawa or Montreal so why can't we have more areas like that and a night life to go along with it? But those are my thoughts, anyone else feel differently?
ReplyDeleteFirst, I love Shout Out Out Out Out, though I've somehow managed -- seriously, I have no f-ing clue how -- to never see them live, to my great shame. (Finally fixing that at Freezing Man next weekend, though, so hurrah.)
ReplyDeleteI don't know that for having people take notice...I think it's our mindset as much as anything else (ie, the fact that we're in the middle of a barren wasteland.) Edmontonians always strike me as being kind of quiet and humble; we can be proud of our scene, we know it's awesome, but it's...hard to share, I guess? Maybe we should try harder to jump on the obsessive compulsive "Edmonton is a world class city and we're going to show you, bitches" train other aspects of the city have going on. I don't know. I could be totally wrong. I just know that it makes me slightly sad that if you *do* want recognition, you're probably gonna have to leave.
(also, I hope you're not including Churchill in the "welcoming squares" bit. that concrete wasteland pretty much sums up how I feel about the city as a whole.)