paperandglue.net

I got this little snap-close plastic container with food-shaped erasers at the dollar store yesterday. Specifically, Dollarama. This is the kind of thing Dollarama is importing! I love it.

I had a conversation with the guy at Vintage in the Village (if you’ve ever been there, you know that once you start a conversation with the proprietors, well-meaning as they are, you’d better settle in for at least 15 minutes of discussion! And the only way to end the discussion is to physically walk away) about things that were inexpensive back in the day but are now sought-after by collectors because of their scarcity today. Things that are inexpensive are not preserved and cared for the same way objects that are pre-determined to be collectibles or heirlooms are, thus ensuring their place in the future vintage Hall of Desirability. He pointed in particular to these metallic drinking glasses from the mid-century — I don’t know if they’re made of tin or what, but they’re painted on the outside, and apparently they were the kind of thing you’d pick up at Woolworth’s and have on the patio in the summer. They were especially handy because you could freeze liquids in them (before plastics were ubiquitous). Now, they’re rare, because no one thought to hold on to them. They got dented, they got chipped, they got tossed out. Not like grandmother’s china.

I suggested that in our future, the sheer glut of material objects in our society will mean that fewer objects will hold vintage fascination. He disagreed. He thought that the stuff we get at the dollar store today could be prized by collectors decades from now (and not just because they’ll be scrounging for any and all implements that will allow them to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland).

I’ve found myself more and more surprised by the aesthetic appeal of things you can find at Dollarama, lately. For instance, the notebooks don’t just have garish holographic cartoon animals on the covers, but elegant bird motifs (a motif which is old meme to the design-savvy, of course, but it’s mainstream now, and still pleasing to look at, especially when compared with the alternative).

None of this has anything to do with the food-shaped erasers, which I got because they are just too adorable to pass up. Or use, for that matter. Likely not an heirloom — but one never knows.

Hudson’s Bay Co., Portage Ave. store, July 29, 1929

This Was Winnipeg points out cool history facts every day, and one today is this:

November 18, 1926 – The Portage and Memorial Bay store opens for business at 9:00 am. The ceremony includes George Galt, HBC Board Member, using a golden key to unlock the Portage Avenue doors.

This I have spent a lot of time in this the Bay* downtown over the years, largely because I’ve passed through it on my way home for, oh, eight years or so.

In a post earlier this month, Emma at Winnipeg O’ My Heart mentioned the Bay in a post about Downtown Issues. She writes:

To me, the epitome of this is The Bay. Have you been to The Bay downtown? Structurally, it’s amazing. Stately pillars. Mile-high ceilings. Hardwood floors. The ladies’ bathroom is a snapshot in time: there are banks of little vanities where you can actually sit down on a chair, place your purse on the counter, and fix your hair or lipstick. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect to see in a film set, not in modern day. It’s wonderful. And yet, the store is run down. There seems to be no sense of pride in the gem we have on our hands. (And I was really surprised to see it made the Sun’s list of 100 reasons to love Winnipeg.) This Bay doesn’t seem to be given as much attention as the ones in the malls.

I agree with her take. The Bay Downtown is simultaneously amazing and depressing, especially if you venture beyond the first floor (which is dominated by shiny cosmetics counters staffed by smiling, impeccably-coiffed women). I usually only visit the third floor (women’s wear) and the basement (where there’s a quaint, outdated, but quite serviceable and affordable grocery store, as well as a bizarre assortment of clearance goods).

Bay Basement Grocery photo by Jason Penner (check out his Flickr stream for more great shots from the Bay Basement)

As a shopper and a style-hound, the Bay’s women’s clothing department is an essential stop for me, especially because I don’t have a car and can’t get out to the suburbs’ big box stores very often. Great deals on designer and designer-quality garments can be found there, more often than not in chaotic clearance racks. The deals are easier to find than the staff people. Getting service in the Bay — anywhere in the Bay — is really difficult. I don’t know if it has to do with my age or what.

My friend Cynara is the one who showed me how to shop effectively at the Bay. She was the one who cracked the code for me on the strange layout of the women’s department, pointing out where the plus-size racks were and where extra plus-size garments were seeded elsewhere on the floor. (She taught me a lot about shopping, actually — things like, always try it on, make your decisions on a per-garment basis, not on a brand or store-of-origin basis.)

Cynara in one of her amazing outfits (skirt and shoes sourced at the Bay)

A fun thing about shopping at the Bay is that often the item price when they ring it up will be less than marked, due to a constantly rotating schedule of sales and, I think, the fact that they just don’t get around to updating the tags.

Anyway, when I’m at the Bay, I usually feel like I’m shopping there in spite of the store’s best efforts to turn me off from the whole thing. The thing is, as a car-free urban resident, I rely on the Bay for a lot of my needs, and the case is the same for a wide variety of downtown residents. It’s almost as though the store coasts on the patronage of existing downtown denizens and has given up entirely on drawing clientele from elsewhere in the city.

Back to Cynara — she moved to Vancouver for grad school this fall, and told me that she visited the Bay there, and found it lacking the “charm” of ours. Apparently the plus size and maternity sections were ghettoized in a separate land from the rest of women’s wear (hideous fatties and pregnant ladies must be kept away from the sensitive buying public, I guess), and the selection wasn’t as inspiring. (Then again, Cynara now lives in the same city as Jane Bon Bon, so I think she’ll get over this quickly.)

Photo by Bryan Scott of Winnipeg: Love & Hate

There are always rumours about the University of Winnipeg continuing its colonization of downtown by moving into this majestic building. And, of course, there’s always plenty of doom and gloom about downtown, matched only by boosterism of questionable efficacy.

*For non-Canadians, “the Bay” is short for “the Hudson’s Bay Company,” the oldest commercial corporation in North America (incorporated 1670). It began as a fur trader and now is a general retail conglomerate.

A lovely, sunny weekend has given way to an abysmally cloudy Monday. At least it feals abysmal. Though we really should keep perspective, here, because they’re forecasting high ‘teens for the reast of the week, along with lots of sun. Yesterday was a truly summer-feeling day, a very foreign sensation given that we’ve suffered a bitterly cold and long winter followed by a unseasonably cold and wet spring.

Yesterday I was at the University of Mantioba campus to watch a friend perform at the Manitoba rhythmic gymnastic provincials, and in a shady spot next to a large tyndall stone building remained a significant pile of snow, left over from winter parking-lot clearing. Rebecca and Chantal found it irresistible and made and threw some snowballs at Sabrina. Yes, snowballs in May. That’s Winnipeg. (I was complicit in the attack — I caught it on video and it’ll be in the May video scrapbook, which will appear in roughly seven days!)

Another highlight of the weekend was a trip to a foreign part of the city. Foreign to me, I should qualify. Raised in the south end of the city, I rarely get to the far north corners and so they hold a good amount of novelty and curiosity for me. The occasion in this case was Cynara’s need to return to her homeland of Transcona for a brief bit of banking at her home credit union. I came along for the ride, and on our way back to the city’s centre, where we live, Cynara said, “Look, there’s the butcher with the cows on the roof!” Now, I am definitely unfamiliar with much of the ways and places of Transcona but Sausage Makers I know. I’m not sure how they came to be such fans of the place, but my parents have long been extremely keen on the buckwheat sausage and Kaessler pork chops from there.

So when Cynara mentioned the cows, I was all, “CAN WE GO THERE, PLEASE?” and I called my parents. My dad picked up the phone, and when I asked if he wanted anything, his tone of voice immediately brightened and he said, “Oh! Let me get your mom. Heidi! Do we want anything from Sausage Makers?”

I took their order, and Cynara, Derek and I went inside. It was my first visit to the actual place, and it was hectic! I am very unfamiliar with ordering meats from a butcher directly but I muddled my way through. (“Six Kaessler, please.” “How thick?” “Um… the normal thickness?”)

I also obtained some marzipan, another German staple, and Cynara got some German chocolate-covered gingerbread (I could’ve spent half an hour browsing all the specialty import foods they have in addition to the meat).