Night Falls on the City

  Well, now that this weekend's paint crisis and temper tantrums are over, I got back to the business of painting.  What I was feeling tonight was cities.  Granted, I live in a tiny city, really a town by international standards, and a small one at that, but I have always loved spending time in cities, visiting them, living as the locals do, walking the streets, breathing the urban air.  And by cities, I mean the real thing, not the suburban  sprawl of cookie cutter development houses with manicured lawns as far as the eye can see, gentrified, sanitized and smacking of an eerie Stepford  or Orwellian vibe.  I mean the city, the nitty gritty, the down and dirty, crowded,  apartments on top of laundromats,  people yelling across the street to their neighbours, "Hey, Sally, can you watch the kids, I gotta run to the store?"  That sense of community, where no one really has much, but what they do have, they'll share to see  that no one goes without.  There's a vibrancy, a liveliness about it, people in the streets, heading to and fro as the night begins to fall.   The air has that distinct smell, a mix of roasting chicken and exhaust and is punctuated by the sound of children playing and distant sirens.  Romantic? Maybe, but then again, I'm just a romantic soul.

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