“You Never Looked So Simulating,” a poem presented at the In(ter)ventions conference in Banff, February 2010, and first published in West Coast LINE.

The next stop was Edmonton
where I got lost in the Fantasyland
Mall on the way to one of the demi-
keynotes at the International Association
for Philosophy and Literature
“Thinking Between Poetry &Philosophy” convention & so missed
most of the lecture on the “The Ineluctable
Split of Poetry’s Unsayable Name: Reading
Derrida through Nietzsche’s Unknowable
Answer to Celan’s Joyce (A Response to
Benjamin).” Many of the conventioneers
noted that the “Bourbon Street” food
mall was a perfect example of “simulation” —
a view I have trouble understanding
(not unusual for me)
since the patrons of the food court
seem to enjoy the fact that
“Bourbon Street” is ineluctably in
the West Edmonton Mall & the designers
of the street seemed to go
out of their way to emphasize this fact,
making it look like a plaster cast
sketch of a picture of a New Orleans street
& not like the “real thing” at
all; the only ones fooled were
we conventioneers having our
dinner as we chatted about the
breakdown of reality and simulacra
(or simusoy for the lactose
intolerant). & talk about authentically
local as you might, the Buffalo
wings on Bourbon Street
in the West Edmonton Mall
never tasted so real
or would have. I had trout.