Guelph By The Thingies: Off The Shelf, The Bookshelf Newspaper

This is The Bookshelf (courtesy of Google Images.) Explaining it to Outlanders was one of my most difficult tasks while living in Montreal. I could make it through "local independent bookstore" - Oh, that's great! - "it's pretty much the only one in town" - Cute! - "and sometimes it feels like it has a Medici-like stranglehold on local arts and culture" - which would then earn a disbelieving look. Alright, I exaggerate just a bit, but it's a complex containing a bookstore, restaurant, café and art cinema, so unless $5 popcorn and Avatar is your thing, it's where you'll probably end up in Guelph.


It also publishes its own bimonthly newsletter, complete with cinema listings, book reviews and ads for local therapists and life coaches. A lot of them. Eleven out of forty one ads, if you include Irish spirit wheel workshops, which I do.

At first, I wanted to make fun of that hilariously high percentage, and how living in Guelph sometimes feels like you're stuck in a Dykes To Watch Out For comic strip. Or a historical village dedicated to the 1970s,with very intense interpreters. However, I can't say I would change a thing. There's something comforting, and positively Guelphian (in both senses) in all the therapy media. It's not that this newsletter is saying you must be a better person, or that you will be a better person. It just seems to think, that with enough work, you can be a better person. All problems can be solved, all sexual dysfunctions put to work and all Irish spirit wheels turning as long as you just find the right person with the right credentials.

In this case, Jungian psychoanalysis seems to have the advantage. Two out of eleven ads, for three therapists.

Here's a breakdown of the rest of the ads, just in case you were interested. Me? I just like making pie charts.