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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

LORINC: I come to bury the Gardiner, not to praise it

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Based on the speech by character Mark Antony in “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare.

Friends, Torontonians, 905ers, lend me your cars;
I come to bury the Gardiner, not to praise it;
The traffic that men cause lives after them,
The smog is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with the Gardiner … The noble Tory
Hath told you, Gardiner was congested:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Gardiner answered it …
Here, under leave of Tory and the rest,
(For Tory is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men and women)
Come I to speak at Gardiner’s funeral …
It was my road, faithful and fast, for me:
But Tory says it was congested;
And Tory is an honourable man….
It hath brought many suburbanites from home to work,
Whose salaries did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Gardiner seem ambitious?
Yet when the commuters did commute, Gardiner hath crumbled:
Highways should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Tory says it was congested;
And Tory is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the DVP
I thrice presented him a special HOV lane,
Which it did thrice refuse: was this congestion?
Yet Tory says it was congested;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Tory spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did drive it once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for it?
O judgement! thou art fled to leftist beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My heart is on the boulevard instead of the Gardiner,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

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2 comments

  1. Excellent! I will be waiting for your take on Hamlet’s speech to Tory’s skull, or Tory’s “St. Crispen’s Day Speech” to council, depending on how the various battles go… the possibilities are endless with Shakespeare!