Sociology 4038:
Invisible Ottawa Assignment
by Kevin Conway
inspired by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities
“It is not so much by the things that each day are manufactured, sold, bought that you can measure Leonia’s opulence, but rather by the things that each day are thrown out to make room for the new. So you begin to wonder if Leonia’s true passion is really, as they say, the enjoyment of new and different things, and not, instead, the joy of expelling, discarding, cleansing itself of a recurrent impurity… Nobody wonders where, each day, they carry their load of refuse. Outside the city, surely; but each year the city expands, and the street cleaners have to fall farther back. The bulk of the outflow increases and the piles rise higher, become stratified, extend over a wider perimeter… This is the result: the more Leonia expels goods, the more it accumulates them; the scales of its past are soldered into a cuirass that cannot be removed…"
- Continuous Cities 1
What is the purpose
of University life?
Listen: I’ll tell you.
Coffee: nine dif’rent
Locations to grab one on
campus. Need a boost?
Live as a squatter
Living in a wretched haze
Money for nothing.
The quad: reminds me
of the poem by Berkley
proving that God exists.
Oliver’s®: students
come to play, drink and hangout
no philosophy.
Carleton welcomes
High tech investment where is
Intel® in the arts?
Just twenty-seven
thousand dollars a year, your
doctorate worth this?
Write notes to my friend
pay no attention to the
course content being said.
Aramark® sells us
Their “goods”, wilted celery
Worthy of compost.
Students are living
in messianic time their
degree is the end.
Advertisement in
the bathroom. The audience
is captive students.
Only one machine
no one uses cash today
more Interac® please.
Tim Hortons® so far
Wait in line for a fortnight
Without it comes sleep.
Pay up tuition
Never go to your classes
Very worth your time.
Multiethnic foods
Curry, Asian, BAR-B-Q
A&W®.
Everyone used
PowerPoint® presentations
and simply read them.
Single use buildings
Have seasonal affective
disorder, help them.
Connectivity:
Consume information fast
Solitaire® in class.
Low lying towers
inefficient use of space
parking here is shit.
Authority shoes
echo throughout the hallway.
Status in her step.
One more sports complex
Not enough classroom teachers
Hockey® makes the school?
The books are not here
Internet cafes around
Ain’t no library.
Charlatan®: student
run newspaper apparent
source of discussion.
Buy my books for cheap
off of campus at Haven®
Knowledge is not free.
Everything is one
singular being plural
Campus® eats itself.
Parliament of
ideas play with each other
know which are right/wrong.
talk talk talk talk talk
In and out no memory
Repeat the process.
The people come here
punk, goth, rebels of high school.
All become Indie®.
Work for years alone
PhD to get ahead
Work for a pittance.
Scholasticism
Made up of sessionals here
Pay them less than worth.
Mike’s Place® grad lounge a
scary place for undergrads
scowls while reading Swift.
Fixed feature space desks
the room no use to others
single serving friend.
Walking to your class
Down Bronson your sole is thin
Nowhere without waste.
Write these down three times
a murderous rampage on
green spaces and trees.
The chicken is dry
Loeb Café® I hate your smell
Grease everywhere.
A darkened roadway
between Tory and Uni
This is where trash goes.
Walking paths outside
are to be viewed from high up.
Panopticism.
Plastic pop bottles
mindlessly sold here by Coke®
growing mounds of junk.
Love does not exist
so says Nancy look around
and see lips are locked.
New building next to
Loeb not yet finished. Restrict
access lock the gate.
Separation at
the source, throw away paper
in the trash instead.
University
sweaters. Show you've got spirit
mom's money goes here.
Carleton website
search engine does not help me
to find anything.
Burn rubber and fuel
Parking lots pave over grass
A badge of honour.
Five ways to get here:
bus train foot car internet
Live in residence.
This citizenship
four-thousand five-hundred bucks
In return a plaque.
Subway® sandwiches
Only food available
When supper time comes.
Branding® tells me much
who you are to me is that
which you wear outside.
No smoking within
Ten meters (thirty feet) of
Building entrances.
Associations:
CUSA®, takes all my money
and gives me nothing.
The commons: a place
where people can meet others
i pods drown them out.
Roosters® has a place
at the bottom of the stairs
for staff to smoke butts.
Classroom allies help
to combat what they view as
rampant idiocy.
There it is I’ve taught
you all I know about this
place. Come spend your dough.
Copyright 2006 Kevin Conway