So Vogue Magazine has named a section of Queen Street West in Toronto the second coolest neighbourhood in the world.

Yessirree, bob. You heard that right. The world.

First place is somewhere in Japan.

This blows my tiny mind. Not because the ‘hood isn’t a cool one, but because, well, you know, it’s Queen Street. I mean is there nothing ‘cooler’ (and by the way, ‘cool’  is Vogue’s word, not mine. I don’t use ‘cool’, even when I mean ‘cool’, in which case I will tend to use the less cool ‘groovy’) in New York or Paris or Montreal or Sydney or Milan or Vancouver or Reykjavik… than the stretch between Gladstone Avenue and Bathurst Street…??

But I’m not one to judge these things. I like sand.

Still, there I am the other day, strolling these recently hallowed blocks in my beach-loving Birks (which, it turns out, are currently trending with hipsters and I do hope the trend stops soon because these are my shoes and the hipsters have so many of their own)…

And what I find is that there is indeed much happening of a cool/groovy nature on this bit of pavement.

No lack of cool/groovy temptations…
in these hipsterville blocks…
not to mention roads less travelled within them.
There is free, exquisite reading material,
and free fashion counselling.
A stretch of road where economics are no small thing…
and creative minds are rampant.
Where the insults are relatively mild,
and the love is coffee scented.
A stretch of coolness where there’s never not a place to sit,

or stock up on dry goods.
Where, really, there’s something for almost everyone…

And yet.

For me, from where I stand, toes exposed to the air… there remain some glaring omissions.

There is no sand.

No cackling gulls.

No tide.

My Birks and me, we love us a tide. We would give up all manner of cigars and quiche and onesie alerts, for cackling gulls.

And that, dear Queen Street West between Gladstone and Bathurst—despite your charms—is very possibly what kept you from making #1.

FYI.

And you’re welcome.