Winnipeg: Stuck in the Middle

A couple of days ago I posted a piece trumpeting Winnipeg’s virtues and shortly after this appeared:

https://twitter.com/HolmesDoug/status/525013976028311552

Of course I dove into winnipeglovehate.com, and discovered the book Stuck in the Middle: Dissenting Views of Winnipeg, photographed and written by the dynamic duo of Bryan Scott and Bartley Kives.

Thanks to the miracle of strangers on the internet and a benevolent Husband who made a run to McNally Robinson bookstore before hitting the airport, I had this book in my hands within hours of hearing about it.

Doug Holmes wasn’t kidding when he said the site (and even more so the book) “demonstrates exactly what you discuss.”  Call it synchronicity, a manifestation of the collective unconscious, a case of great minds thinking alike, or, more likely, we three are siblings separated at birth, but the zeitgeist of my 500-word essay – that Winnipeg feels like New York used to feel before it went and got all gentrified – is uncannily similar to that of their book. But enough about me.

Wow, I say to Stuck in the Middle. Double-wow. It’s at once coffee table book, travelogue, history lesson, secret diary, social commentary, treasure map, love story, and Huck Finn adventure drawn from a place that everyone loves to hate. It nails the three things I look for in the finest non-fiction: The text is smart, lively, pointed and funny/mouthy sassy the kind of sassy that might warrant a sock in the jaw in certain kinds of mixed company; the photos are technically and creatively excellent, moving portraits of the uncommonly common; and it fills in knowledge gaps and sends me off in hitherto unknown directions.

Some of the things I discovered as a result of this book (spoiler alert!): feet James Avenue datum; salami shoulder; Tagalog is the second most widely spoken language, behind English, ahead of French; giant stone heads on appliances; the visibility of the high-water mark on buildings; surface parking is both ugly and intimidating; Garbage Hill; the influence of prominent New York architects; and how to win friends and influence people with a stellar grasp of flood-related vocabulary.

Click here for a list of retailers.

Hoping I can convince Bryan and Bartley to swap lunch for a walk around the city next time I’m in town….