One step forward, one step back.

This week has been saturated with municipality.

Our own dear Edmonton announced earlier in the week that it was thinking of delaying the opening of the south LRT stations to save themselves a measly $4 or 5 million bucks. My exemplary boyfriend decided to respond to the call of civic duty and write a little letter to the city outlining some of his thoughts on the matter. It was a good letter. I hoped that someone would take notice.

So, it was with this news in mind that I went over to my parents' house for dinner the next night. When I got there, I noticed a rather large set of wicked-witch-of-the-west legs sans the ruby slippers being featured on the front page of the journal. As I picked it up to read the story, my mom filled me in on what she thought was a ridiculous and terrible thing that was going to happen at the new Southgate LRT station. This ridiculous and terrible thing was, in fact, the city's awesome 1% to public art policy gone awfully wrong: a set of GIANT feet and legs set next to the new LRT station.


She was practically livid, which set me laughing pretty hard and telling her that it wasn't so bad because they could use them as a sort of landmark. "Hang a larry at the first intersection after the big legs and follow it around to Malmo Road..."

Her livid-ness (lividity?) drove her to write a missive to the mayor, which was then published in the Journal this week!

More than anything, I was awestruck by the decision to construct giant legs lopped off at the knees at Southgate LRT stop, and it got me thinking about public art. I was trying to think of what I would actually like them to put in that spot.

The first thing that came to mind was Chicago's Cloud Gate, which is beautiful and incredible and really considers the space around it. Google image search it. It is amazing. But I don't know if an LRT stop at Southgate merits such an awesome piece.

I think what irks me is that when I think about the big legs and clogs they are going to put in as public art, I feel fairly certain that they came to the decision via the following dialogue.

Person #1: Hey, we need to get some public art
Person #2: Right, I forgot about that whole 1% thing
Person #3: Hmmm, well, let's just get something really big
Person #1: Okay, like what?
Person #3: Doesn't matter, just make sure it's big
Person #2: Hey, do you guys want to come over tonight and watch "The Wizard of Oz"?

That's my prediction on how they came up with it.

Oh, Edmonton.

The good news is that Joel got a response from a city councillor who says he doesn't think they are going to delay them after all. One step forward, into a future filled with mosaic-tiled clog feet and striped stockings.

A Vicious Act

Joel's labmate Janet made him a big foam fish out of upholstery foam as a gift. He plans to hang it above his desk in the lab. It's all complete, except that Janet didn't have time to get eyes for the fish, so Joel said that he would take care of it. This is what led he and I to drag our sorry strep-throat butts out of bed on Sunday and down to Michael's at South Edmonton Common to buy some eyes.

After much searching, all we could find were googly eyes. We scoured the creepy doll-making aisle, with all of its iron on faces and bags of curly hair, but to no avail. As we were getting ready to give up, I came up with the brilliant plan of going to Value Village and buying a stuffed animal to harvest the eyes from. Joel reluctantly agreed and we headed to the nearest VV. The foam fish is actually huge, so we needed some pretty big eyes to complete it. The only stuffed animal we could find with the right kind of eyes that were big enough was a soft, plushy hippopotamus with a hippo baby clinging to its side.



Joel absolutely could not bear the thought of viciously tearing the eyes out of a momma hippo, so I volunteered, on the condition that I would blog about it and force him to look at the pictures.


I was quite surprised about how bad I actually felt when I started the operation. I mean, it was just a stuffed animal, but the eyes looking at me were so disturbing.

It didn't help much that the intact baby was looking at me with imploring, beady little eyes as it clung to its mother's side.

The result of the operation is below. Further cleanup to follow, and perhaps a picture of the completed foam fish.
Conclusion: eye removal from stuffed animals is not for the faint of heart.