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Double Double

Click: images that capture the imagination.

Paul and I were on a very crowded bus. We maneuvered our way around a seventeen year old couple towards the door, and I told Paul to grab onto something so he wouldn’t fall. The girl immediately let go of the low bar she was holding. “Here,” she said, “hold onto this.” Paul smiled at her and held the bar. She smiled back, then looked up at the boy next to her. He reached around and touched her flat stomach as tenderly as you would touch a baby bird.

I overheard a teenage girl talking to her friend on the bus.

“Oh my god, I hate her. At lunch she picks up my cellphone when it’s on vibrate and I can’t hear it ringing and pretends to be me. She even pretends to speak Russian when my dad calls, all, ‘Da…da…da…’ ”

I played the Mystery Sound on Thursday, and asked what it made you think of. Heidi said…

I remember a pale green background and the black and white faces of the PBS People scooting across the screen and landing, even spaced. I thought that looked so cool. Balanced and Symmetrical, I guess.

I don’t associate it with any particular show, because I watched a few different ones. Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, The Electric Company.

I thought later and remembered the WGBH sound, which I think they still used. That thought led me to the sound of the intro music of The French Chef, which my dad would watch on Saturdays. He had her cookbooks (and about 300 other ones).

I played the mystery sound for my son. He said that it sounded like he should go watch TV. So it has a TV sound to it for one who knows TV but not that song.

It’s too short to be a jingle. I wonder what the word it. Like the NBC three notes.

About a week ago I came home to the news that a Tim Horton’s in the centre of town had exploded, and a car had crashed somewhere else, shutting down an entire road, screwing up the bus lines and the traffic. (For those of you who live outside of Canada, I’m not sure I can even explain what Tim Horton’s means to this country. It’s a donut and coffee shop that makes more than McDonald’s. It’s part of the national culture and identity. It’s…nice.)

Anyway, for about an hour, we really had no idea if Eeeeeevil Stephen Harper’s puppy-dog quest to make Bush give him Snausages for turning Canadian troops in Afghanistan into killing machines had made Toronto a target. (Be careful with that puppy-dog thing, Harper. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is stepping down, ostensibly for selling peerages, but I’m guessing it’s more like, “Yes, well, how about Bush can be the president of AMERICA BY ITSELF for awhile, and let’s have our very own Prime Minister, right?”) We were scared. We were really scared.

But, ta da! It was just one of those excessively bizarre crimes that Toronto is not known for, but should be. Like the man who buried barbed wire underneath the volleyball courts on the shores of Lake Ontario, or the men who were chasing some poor guys down the street waving nunchuks and a real samurai sword, and a bus driver honked his horn and opened the doors to let the victims in and drove away. Really…slowly. (I am not making that up. It was in the news. The busdriver won an award. Except there is no mention, anywhere, of HOW THIS SCENARIO HAPPENED.)

So. Back to Tim Horton’s. There they were, having their nice donuts and coffee, regular, and saying Eh? a lot, and this man walks in carrying a container of gas and is like, “Hey, can I use the washroom?” and they say, “Oh yes, it’s right back there, completely unsuspicious man carrying a container stinking of gasoline,” and he goes into the washroom and pours it on himself and sets himself on fire, exploding Tim Horton’s but fortunately only killing himself, which, it turns out, was the point.

A Canadian friend of mine said: “See, but that’s what made it credible. The terrorists attacked the States where they’re proudest – in the financial sector. They attacked Britain where they’re proudest – in the subway system. And, well, attacking Canada in a Tim Hortons made sense, in a way.”