I must confess that I have long enjoyed the odd and often insalubrious appeal of the back alleys of cities. Vancouver, Paris, Madrid, Genoa and Calgary. Yes, Calgary. Nearly 25 years ago, we opened Metrovino in a location described forebodingly and dismissively as “a back alley”. Predictions of our commercial fate were not universally positive…
The snow falls deep into April, and days that would have been considered pretty in December are now unwelcome, if not oppressive. I stare out the window and think about how atypically unsavory weather can be rendered irrelevant by exciting prospects. I suppose that in its own way, the authoritative instruction to assume that every fellow human that you see is almost certainly a vampire is mildly exciting.
It was back in the days when people travelled; you know, those bygone times when you could eat in restaurants while travelling... It seems like a million years ago, but it was actually mid-February. I was sitting in a Scandinavian-influenced breakfast place in Portland at 8 am, enjoying a drink and wondering why Calgary's bylaws prohibit the service of alcohol at such a beautiful hour for imbibing.
At this very moment, Time must be seized, and in a less tentative, much more lusty way than the solid advice of Carpe Diem. Day after day, the grounds shifts and we must do what humans have proven themselves capable of doing over millennia: adapt to survive. But we are creatures that need nourishment of the mind and spirit as well.
So seize the moment to work from home if you can, walk down the now quiet streets, safely wandering into the previously forbidden lanes of the automobile. Listen to sounds that come out of a quieted city; you may not have ever heard them before.
“It is Time to get drunk! If you are not to be the martyred slaves of Time, be perpetually drunk! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please.”
Charles Baudelaire
If this pandemic continues long enough to exhaust useful Baudelaire quotes, we're all in serious trouble. 150 years after they were written, his words resound with wisdom; although as much as we all love poetry, we've noticed that it takes a considerable amount to achieve drunkenness. In idle, isolated times, and while fleeing the tyrannical pursuit of one's thoughts, wine is an indispensable ally.
