Early in May I received an email from a woman who’d bought the duplex in which I’d grown up the first 18 years of my life. It’s at the corner of Avenue Road and Lonsdale across from the front gates of Upper Canada College. “As you know,” she wrote somewhat portentously, “215 Lonsdale Road was my home for many years. I thought you might be interested in what will transpire at this site. Please try to join me (although I know it is a difficult long weekend) on Friday, _____ (1 p.m. to 6 p.m.) which will be a catered reception at 215 Lonsdale Road.” In 2006, the site had been designated by the city as a “heritage property,” mostly on account of its being “a representative example of Tudor Revival styling with a high degree of craftsmanship.” Whatever. Just as no man is a hero to his valet neither is the house you grew up in any great shakes. You remember the teenage horror of parents keeping you imprisoned in a sort of Alcatraz of the mind; the house no matter how splendid is forever marked by those less than splendiferous recollections. At any rate, I was curious to see what was happening. I’d heard rumours that the house was in some sort of condo peril despite the city’s heritage designation. Plus ‘catered’ usually means free food which is music to any hack’s ear. What I saw on the day was strange, and given the brittle psychology involved, disconcerting. The reputed “heritage” house had been transformed into the anchor for a giant canary yellow 40-foot high canvas billboard that was bolted to the faade on three sides. The inside of the house was completely gutted and replaced by a “presentation gallery” illustrating what was to come in the new highrise condo. I had known the woman only slightly while growing up in Toronto’s Waspier enclaves. She greeted me as though we were long lost cousins, with air kisses along side the cheek, a familiarity I found bordering on the unseemly (particularly since this catered event was essentially a sales pitch for the condo paid for by the developers Minto). That said I was willing to eat the free food; so, my hypocrisy notwithstanding, I stuck around. The crowd was the standard-issue, pearl-and-sweater-loafer-and-blazer crowd. Everyone munched on canaps and sipped white wine while flipping through the thick-stock pages of a fancy brochure. The cover of the brochure, under the title The AvenDale byminto (sic), featured an illustrated swallow in full flight with a crown floating over the bird’s head. Beneath the bird the underline read “Naturally Forest Hill.” The grammatical challenges of this phrase notwithstanding, one assumes that the theme or sensibility the condo developers seek to promulgate has something to do with the idea that Forest Hill is some sort of nature preserve in the midst of an otherwise unrelenting concrete cacophony. As I flipped through its pages I was transfixed by the language and meter of the high-end condo sales pitch. The sections of the book were set off by all-cap headlines in gold type. The first reprised the cover’s “Naturally Forest Hill” and added the grace note “Absolutely Minto.” Subsequent chapters declared: Step into perfection, Ownership has its privileges, A Forest Hill state of mind, and Picturing the picturesque. I’m not really sure what these titles are meant to define, illustrate or sum up and really, I couldn’t care less. But what I did find interesting (the same way gawkers can’t take their eyes of a particularly gruesome highway accident) were the blocks of text that comprised the “chapters.” The AvenDale promised a “boutique approach to condominium living,” one that “redefines elegant Yorkville living at the very gateway to exclusive Forest Hill.” (Neat trick that, two neighbourhoods for the price of one!) The opening sentence of “Step into perfection” contains an adjectival phrase that challenges the very fundamentals of the English language: “The lobby lounge at the AvenDale byminto (sic) is your perfect ‘first impressions count’ moment of home.” What’s amazing here is the extent to which the authors feel obliged to brutalize the language in order to massage the client into buying their condo. (To wit: “Your staff will be specifically trained to receive deliveries; make dinner and theater reservations; arrange limos, flowers for your home, and dog walking. In short cater to your every whim.”) Obviously, the brochure isn’t the crucial element in selling the condo. That’s down to the location and specs. But the bumf must play a role (or else why bother) and you figure the developers have this stuff down to a science. Hence that “’first impressions count’ moment of home.” The idea here – which one assumes cannot be rendered in anything approaching conventional English (too plebeian?) – is that in order to feel welcome any prospective condo owner at The AvenDale must be the subject of a “perfect” first impression. Imagine the pressure on the doorman, the concierge, even the guy sweeping the lobby. And not just the first time either. Because the first impression is critical to this guy/gal feeling ‘at home’ he/she has to be provided a greeting worthy of the Sun King/Queen every freaking time he steps in the door. Or at least that’s the promise held out by the promo bumf. If this manner of expression were deserving of a separate category in the history of literary expression let it be so labeled “extreme unctuousness.” (Genus: abjectus suckholis.) You don’t want to read too much into this but the most expensive digs in the place run just south of $2.2 million and that’s chicken feed compared to the $28 million somebody forked over for the top floor at The Four Seasons. Can you imagine? If that sales brochure doesn’t stand up on its hind legs and sing “God Save the Queen” every time you walk in the room, I’ll eat my hat.
