Sic transit gloria mundane

Screen capture from TheKenContinuum YouTube video - May 16

I picked up a new habit during the past year.  Riding buses and walking.  Virtually.

It started with the YouTube videos of Wanderizm and Walk From Home.  I'm pretty sure they're the same person, or at least working in tandem.  Their graphics are the same.

Wanderizm features (mostly) double-decker bus rides in the Greater London area, although she/he (I think it's a she, but it may be a they) takes the occasional stroll.  Walk from Home (whom I'm pretty sure is a she - I've seen her shadow), like Wanderizm, makes unnarrated journeys throughout London neighbourhoods, and parks, but on foot, of course.  

I think the idea is that you can pretend you're the one strolling or perched in the front seat atop a double-decker.  It's the certainly the attraction for me.  Sometimes, I pull a chair to within a few feet of our bigscreen television to assist the illusion of actually being there. 

Oh, don't look at me like that.

I love the quotidian aspect of it: students returning from school, parents dropping off kids, people striding to work. A large section of my heart is in London, now that elder daughter has made it her home for over half a decade.  I take virtual trips near her flat and work, and scan the surroundings hopefully.  Haven't spotted her yet.

Also, a chunk of my family history and that of the Resident Fan Boy is in London, so I explore those neighbourhoods too.

It's oddly addictive.  The videographers sell the "ambient" aspect it, possibly with ASMR in mind. No tingling for me, I'm afraid.

While never tiring of London - in keeping with Samuel Johnson's view - I have ventured elsewhere, exploring cities I've never visited, such as Amsterdam and New York.

However, I've been particularly drawn to a city in which I have lived -- Toronto.

YouTube has two notable videographers who march around Toronto (or cycle, or take transit), and they've become celebrities, judging from the greetings they get from passers-by:  Johnny Strides and The Ken Continuum.  I'd say they're thirty-somethings, and they're so Canadian, they make me giggle.

Unlike their British counterparts, they provide a running commentary, including what they know (or guess) about the city's history, and snide comments on sidewalk cyclists, and bad driving.

Recently, I was taking a virtual stroll with "KenContinuum" along Broadview Avenue in Toronto, as crowds gathered to watch the sunset at Riverdale Park East, sitting on the grounds that slope toward the Don River on a Victoria Day long weekend.  Apparently, this is a year-round thing.  I'd never heard of this, but I only lived in Toronto for the first year of my marriage, and my observation at that time was that no matter how obscure the niche or interest, you could usually count on a good turn-out, and sunset-watching is hardly an obscure pastime.

This crowd was mostly young and diverse - lot of parents with young kids, and couples on dates.

"The Ken Continuum" eventually wheeled around and headed into the gathering dark, past the old Don Jail, through the Riverside neighbourhood, the eastern end of Toronto's Chinatown, and eventually into the Regent's Park area.

Regent's Park??? I thought. At night?  Is he nuts?

I was a home support worker, while the Resident Fan Boy finished law school at U of T, and my heart would sink when I was assigned Regent's Park -- a grim and impoverished maze of old apartment blocks.  As he walked, "The Ken Continuum's" running commentary included a mention of Regent's Park's old "dodgy reputation". It's now largely rebuilt - apparently with a few grimy remnants to the north - and is a patchwork of new buildings, new shops, lots of green space and recreational areas, including an aquatic centre, glowing in the dusk.

I watch these virtual walks with a gentle pull of nostalgia, but the Toronto I remember is largely gone.  The memories are a young woman's memories.  That bus has departed.  I decided to step out into the evening of my own neighbourhood for a stroll.  I didn't record it.