Niagara Falls By: Dave Bidini

Way back in ancient times, a great hole opened along the Canada–U.S. border, and before you knew it, there were wax museums and tents with bearded ladies and twenty-five cent rides for the kiddies and hotdog stands lining the thoroughfares around the great hole, which saw multitudinous gallons of fresh frothy water poured into it over cliffs where, occasionally, one of our fabulously unhinged stood dressed in hot red or black tie or superhero blue weighing their daredevil's heart before hopefully (and a mite foolishly) plummeting in barrels and other dirigibilia towards the swirling lake below, hoping to avoid the slowly cruising vessel that has appeared in wedding rolls and video since before God was a cowboy—the blue and white Maid of the Mist touring ship—slattern to the unruly eighth wonder of the world and magnet for starry-eyed runaways, Punjabi tourists, misguided touts, and stricken gamblers hoping to rid themselves of those sins of the velvet incurred just blocks away in the gambling emporia that now dominate the cityscape, whereas before there were only the great cascading falls and trees poking perpendicular out of a jagged rockface, which, in the days before neon billboards and circus freaks and superheroes was a good enough reason to seek Lourdes at home, magnificence nearby, the chance to touch the Earth's greatness, if only for an annual heated pool and coloured television weekend, breakfast included.