by CORIANDER NEUMANEIMANAYMANEEMAMANN, Alternate Reality News Service Urban Issues Writer
These days, if you walk through Yonge/Dundas Square you could be taking your sanity in your hands. I…I’m not sure how that metaphor would actually work in the real world, but I’m sure it would be messy. Very, very messy.
Before you’ve even made it up the steps of the subway, a young man wearing a smart Polo shirt playing a loop of a video for Mother Hubbard’s Adult Diapers (“When you cannot control accidentally voiding your bladder/Mother Hubbard will help you from getting sadder!) steps in front of you. The video offends you (nobody ever thinks they’re old enough to need adult diapers), so you try to walk around him. However, he always moves in front of you, saying things like, “You can proceed on your way in 15 seconds,” or, “This sidewalk will be available to you once the video is complete.”
When the dancing diapers have made their final turn, you manage to get two steps into the Square when a man in a t-shirt with a blue check mark walks up to you. The man has bags under his eyes and thinning hair; the belly of his t-shirt bulges with intimations of a future heart attack. “Hi!” he shouts. “I’m Molly Jong-Fast, and I’d like to tell you what an utter idiot I am!”
“I’m pretty sure you’re not Molly Jong-Fast,” you evenly respond.
“Of course I’m Molly Jong-Fast!” the man replies, pointing to the blue check on his t-shirt. “This blue check means I’ve paid 20 dollars a month to wear the Polo shirt that carries this blue check. What more proof do you need that I’m Molly Jong-Fast?”
Shaking your head (how did those cobwebs suddenly get in there?), you mutter something about being late, being late for a very important date, deke left and walk around the man on the right. You manage to get all of seven steps away before a young man with more muscles than brain cells (check his last brain scan if you don’t believe me) gets in your face and shouts: “Why did you have to be so mean to Molly‽”
“I – I – I wasn’t being mean,” you stammer. “I was just -“
“Listen to me you limp-dicked libtard!” the man screams so loud, you’re certain that “Molly” behind you is being hit with spittle. “Climate change isn’t happening – what you think of as forest fires are actually ‘freedom fires!’ There was no such thing as COVID – mask mandates were developed because crypto-fasco-antifa-anarchist…tards hate beauty! AND! THAT! WAS! MOLLY FERKING JONG-FAST!”
You can be forgiven for rushing back to the sanctuary of the subway. That job interview can always be rescheduled.
What happened to Yonge/Dundas Square? Elon Musk bought the city of Toronto. That’s what happened to Yonge-Dundas Square.
“It was a steal at only $44 billion,” Musk wrote on Twitter. “And, honestly, I realized pretty early on that the digital public square had…limitations. Now, I have a real one! With concrete benches and a bandshell and everything!”
“Wait, what?” former Mayor John Tory responded when he heard the news. “I – that makes no sense. The public square is owned by the public. It’s right there in the phrase. If somebody owns the square, it’s no longer public.”
“I know, right?” Musk wrote, probably not in response to what the former Mayor had said because who ever listens to former Mayors? (Okay, many Americans listened to Rudy Giuliani after he stopped being Mayor of New York; look at how well that turned out!) “I had to buy the whole city to get the parts I wanted. I mean, what am I supposed to do with a Gardner Expressway?”
You (who probably has a name, but you’ve been anonymous so far so why spoil a good thing?) object to Musk’s conception of the public square. Before he bought it, Yonge/Dundas Square was a place of fashion demonstrations, human rights protests and art shows by students at nearby X University. Now, it’s just a cesspool of promotion and personal punishment.
“Look,” Musk bade us look, “you either believe in my conception of freedom of speech or you don’t. And if you don’t, you can always find a public square in a different city.”
A lot of people are doing just that. Of course, skyrocketing housing costs might be contributing to that. And the overpolicing of communities of people of colour. And the disappearance of the city’s green spaces. But the coarsening of the public square is undoubtedly a contributing factor. A big one.
Not surprisingly, with the city emptying out at a rapid pace, Musk’s investment has plummeted in value. “Not to worry,” he wrote. “I have a plan.”
You roll your eyes.