Why-Oh-Why, Edmonton, has thou forsaken me?  I wanted a grocery store and you gave me the West Edmonton Mall.  I wanted Tim Horton and you gave me Wayne Gretsky.  I wanted a walk in the sun and you gave me 40 below.  I wanted Johnny Cash, but K D Lang emerged from the snow.

At least there's a Starbucks to seduce our nerve endings.

MORE IS COMING.  DAMN! BE PATIENCE!

The Wall of Eyes is located in a nondescript elbow of scenic downtown Edmonton.  It's across the street from a Police Station - somewhere between Big Buildings and Eternal Skating Rinks.

An inspiring and lucrative theme, despite its naivety.  A pondering question-mark placed at the "doorway to the soul".

KStar25, at left, flaunts his hotmail, so here it be.  Drop him an offering, perhaps some coffee to warm those numb stumps on a February day.

The theme of EYES is more than fascinating.  Ever stand in a lineup at Safeway and notice that no one looks in anyone else's eyes, except for brief moments?  Try this: silence your internal dialogue and look into someone's eyes in silence for 10 minutes.

Tell me what you feel.

Oh, for a different city, oh for a new season.  Oh for eyes that looked somewhere else, except at me.  Except through me.  Except deeply into my private alleyway of pains & fears and distrust.  I pretend so hopelessly on the surface that I am "real".  I pretend to "belong" to god-knows-who and god-knows-what.

I don't belong to myself.  That is the fear of eyes-looking-into-eyes-looking-into-eyes.

Shall we change the subject, my nervous little Poodles?

It's a town of slim pickings at the best of times. You gotta live the prairies to know the prairies, and it ain't not instant gratification.  It's a slow season of growing children, playing monopoly, staring at the moon thru triple-glazed windows.

More about People than it is art, the flatlands demand a decade of cultivation before the desert crocus croaks.  Music is here, but you gotta burrow.

Murals count, even if they're Sally-Anne Murals. The great waste-basket of day-old goods, the Sally rarely gets the respect it deserves.  Countless others have helped countless others in the humble intestines of these factories of servitude. Their artwork, although pedestrian in nature illustrates a rarely-found quality in this age of self-serving styrofoam: generosity and giving.  Think about it next time you look in someone's eyes.