Friday, November 21, 2008

Friday night, early winter - some impressions

Tonight was a night of breath clouds and car exhaust clouds where everyone charges up and down sidewalks hunched in the cold like Bob Dylan on that album cover. The air was winter night clear and electric and I was glad to be out in it, if only for a short while.

I love the city at night. I love the crowds of people walking talking gliding from movie houses and coffee houses and off to bars and parties or maybe just to home. At night, the city dances to the rumble of subways underfoot and the whooshing of cars going uptown and down. Bits of conversation fly on the wind.

The pigeons have gone home to roost. The CN Tower is covered in strange light. Steam rises from manhole covers. The sushi joint waiter stands patiently while the last table lingers.

I think of a Cowboy Junkies' song - "When a bum asks for a quarter / you give a dollar / if he's out tonight / he must be truly down" - and would do the same. But there are no bums out tonight, at least not here.

The guy who works in the local video store has great taste in music. On a night like this it's hard to consider any movie that isn't black and white, so I don't. I walk home thinking this night would be perfect, if only there were some stars in the sky.

1 comment:

Barbara Bruederlin said...

What a beautifully evocation post. It almost makes me wish it was more wintry here, or that I could spend the evening in Toronto.