I have now lived in the largest city in Canada for five years, one fifth of my life. The rest of it was spent in Newfoundland, a Canadian island in the Atlantic Ocean. My time in the city was dominated by routine: take the train eastbound, change lines, go to the laundromat, the same grocery store, follow the same networks, and continue the same routines. I also became familiar with spectacles, things that I would never come in contact with in a rural setting, things that felt distinctly urban. At a certain point, spectacular moments seemed expected and they fell in line with mundane procedures. This collision of the mundane and spectacular was something tangible that I could latch onto in an environment that felt overloaded with stimuli.
