What I wouldn’t give for a frosty Kirin and a bowl of Oyaji’s best on a night like this.

This may prove useful in my 1B studio project, which requires the design of a prefabricated dwelling nestled somewhere on an island beneath the CPR rail bridge crossing the Grand River in Cambridge. We have to deal with the risk of +/- 5m of flooding, which is to say that houses on this site will have something in common with post-Katrina construction in New Orleans. Most people will probably end up with tall houses. Some folks are being clever and making floating houses, and Victor is being very clever (albeit a huge trespasser) and building in the bridge trusses.

I am half-tempted to join him. I am also half-tempted to throw cleverness out the window and go straight for audacity. Submarine house?

As well, where the Soviet cars were mechanically simple and utilitarian, the DS spoke of sophistication. As Roland Barthes put it the automobile was the modern equivalent of the cathedral and the DS is a great example of this: from the time of its introduction it has been thought of as more than the sum of its parts, an object of fetishistic yearning. The AvtoVAZ and Ladas I’m posting this week- while desirable at the time because few other cars were available to citizens of communist countries- have only really become desirable with a postmodern re-imagining of them.

So, at any rate, I was talking about some kind of fantasy world in my last post and here it is. My fancy neighbours, off to listen to see an Edith Piaf show or something. Small cars and the luxury of style, not of opulence.

The car’s name is interesting in that when pronounced in French, DS sounds like déesse, or “goddess.” There was a version of the car called the DS Pallas- as in Pallas Athene. The goddess of practical wisdom, of cunning, cleverness, and victory would probably have approved.

I have to say that I love these cars in a completely unironic way. I wish there was a world populated by cars like this and Citroen DSes and Alfa Romeo Giulias and all kinds of other small, old and smartly styled European cars. Nobody drinks shitty bargain beer, nobody shouts in the street except to say hello and everybody does long lunches on terrace cafes.

Not sure what it is. A Fiat 124 derivative built by one of the Soviet carmakers? Either way it looks supercool with some whitewalls, glossy paint and a luggage rack. I’d love to put on a fur hat and roll up at Toronto’s PRAVDA vodka bar in one of these.

5dmkii HD upload test from sean jay on Vimeo.