Almost 80 percent of all Canadians today live in urban communities. Yet many of us do not fully grasp the full implications of this new environment. We cling, as we did in 1957, to the notion of a Canada replete with clear streams dammed by pesky but adorable beavers, watched over by caribou and grizzlies stalked by the burly, plaid-shirted outdoorsy types. It's time to dispel the myth! But we don't want you floundering around on your own, having been forced to suddenly face the paved-over truth that is Canada. So here are some important tips to surviving the new urban Canuckopolis.

How to Enhance Your Alienation

With its intimidating press of tall buildings, subways to nowhere and omnipresent crowds of sneering, glamourous hipsters, the city promises alienation and angst, and it delivers exactly that - by the busload.

So why fight it? Embrace the big-city mystique. Learn to cultivate your alienation and angst as building blocks in the construction of a better you - alone and embittered on the dim streets of the dirty metropolis. Here are some quick tips and techniques that'll help you enhance your alienation from every human transaction.

• Refuse to talk to anyone in public. When people talk to you, shake your head and stare at them blankly. If necessary, communicate with a pad and pencil. Dark sunglasses and a portable MP3 player are also helpful in creating that all-important bubble of "personal space".
• Stand perilously close to the subway platform with your head down and your arms slack at your sides. When a train comes, appear agonized, like you can't decide about something. If someone asks you if you are alright, alternate between bursting into tears and laughing in their face.
• Order an expensive coffee replete with all manner of flavours, sprinkles, syrups and whipped creams. As the "baristas" (shouldn't that be "Maquiladoristas?") pass it to you over the counter, drop the beverage. Apologize profusely and accept their offer to make you another free of charge. Repeat.
• Never stop thinking about all the people who are more successful than you.

How to Gracefully Exit A Poetry Reading

The key nugget of information to keep in mind when attempting to extricate oneself from a poetry reading is this: no one really wants to be there, not even (especially not even) the poets who are actually reading. The practical upshot of this is that your exodus will produce either (a) collegial sympathy or (b) the foulest resentment in each person present, according to their various dispositions and current moods.

A few possible scenarios:

(a) reader sucks, audience sympathizes with you. The most likely turn of events. Since poetry readings tend to take place in bars, it is usually possible to pretend that you are an unsuspecting patron who has wandered into the reading inadvertently, in the same way that one might inadvertenly tread in something that a large dog has left in the street.

(b) reader sucks, audience resents your escape attempt. Most likely to occur if you are in the front row of a small, crowded, overheated venue when you decide to leave. Spilling beer or cigarette butts on your neighbours will only make matters worse (though, in dire circumstances, you can always pretend you are about to vomit, which will do wonders in terms of clearing a path). Note: It is entirely possible that some benighted souls in the audience may think the reader does not suck; your departure may be creating a contradiction in their world-view and sense of self large enough for them to do something as extreme as, well, giving you a dirty look.

(c) reader sucks, resents your escape attempt; audience sympathizes with you. Both poets and their audiences are drawn from the ranks of the socially challenged. On occasion, particularly insecure but extroverted poets may, in the middle of their readings, challenge your right to vacate the premises, or even to carry on conversations with your friends sotto voce. If this occurs, don't fight it; the person with the microphone always wins. Instead, recall the single most humiliating thing that has ever happened to you. Burst into tears and run sobbing from the establishment (this will present more of a challenge if you have to wait for your credit card to be approved first.)

(d) reader sucks, but nevertheless sympathizes with you. Not as rare as you might think. Poets are an empathic lot -- even the late, legendary guy's guy Al Purdy claimed to be "a sensitive man." What the hell: take the reader with you. It could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

How to (not) use your Cell Phone

The British have a rule: never use a cell phone anywhere that you wouldn't feel comfortable farting. To clarify, this means don't take or make calls in movie theatres, plays, concerts, sports events, churches, funerals (it happens), restaurants and other public spaces. If you're going to leave your phone on in such environments, learn to use your voicemail, call display and silent ring/vibrate functions, and return crucial calls in hallways, lobbies or other private spaces.

Yuppies: taking calls during meetings will only make people wonder about your priorities. Answering your phone while working out at the gym will only convince the person on the other end that you're a mouth-breathing pervert. Elevators, by the way, drop calls, so avoid looking any dumber than you have to and end the call before you get in. And don't shout. The people around you don't want to be part of your conversation, because you're just not that interesting.

Suburban Britney clones: phones are tools, not accessories. Don't stack your phone and cigarettes on the table in front of you; it not only limits the amount of space that the server has to put your Crantini on, it also confirms the suspicion that the rest of us are harboring that your teeny-tiny little backpacks really aren't good for anything other than strapping to a garden gnome.

Teenage boys and geeks of all ages: no dumb-ass downloaded ring tones. We do not need to hear the theme from the Cantina Band scene in Star Wars any more. Ever. Especially in bleep-boop-bleep form.

Couples: grocery store use of cell phones is permissible only in giant supermarkets and other forms of box stores as a walkie-talkie system with your significant other. As box stores are already irredeemably repugnant, a cell phone call or two can't make matters worse for anyone. (see Box Stores)

Drivers: there are over nine million wireless phones in Canada that are used regularly in motor vehicles. Dr. Don Redelmeier of the University of Toronto published a report in the 1997 New England Journal of Medicine which found that talking on a cellphone while driving quadrupled your risk of an accident. At least 14 countries have banned drivers from using cellphones; British Columbia, Alberta, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Ontario have all considered bans or restrictions on their use.

How to Have Fun at the Urban House Party

The house party is an urban institution. You get the invite, the email, the voice message, and you spread the word around, making sure every friend, acquaintance and known felon on the block is aware of the fact that some fool is opening up their domicile and refrigerator to total strangers.

The result? A packed house or apartment hot as an elephant's ass despite the frigid snowy weather. There's slush in the carpet and piles of ski jackets cover the various drunks passed out in the corners An indecipherable mush of dance music wails over the shouts of pals as they shove their way over to an already-stripped-bare cheese plate meant for 25, not 125.

There's a definite skill set required for surviving these parties. We have it. You don't. (Our credentials: we once survived a summer toga party crammed full of Winnipeg punk rockers that was so successful it only ended due to the arrival of six cop cars, a paddy wagon and a drug-sniffing dog unit.) So listen up. Here are the essential House Party Survival Tips:

• Never bring your own booze. Why bother? There's always some other sucker's beer in the fridge. Grab a generic brand like Ex or Blue so you don't get discovered. (The flipside of this is: If you must bring your own, buy a weird micro-brewery flavour that nobody else will have. That way, if some buttwad borrows one of your brewskis, you can be like - "Excuse me, I believe that is that my Mountain Ox Genuine Belgian Dry Ice Draft Pilsner Cream Ale you're knocking back..." You also may want to consider hiding your beer in the washing machine, unless you expect someone to vomit in it (which is always a possibility).
• Stay away from the stereo. It will be surrounded by Music Nazis -- guys who work in record stores or write zines but lack anything resembling normal social skills or basic hygiene. They not only will control the stereo for the duration of the party, they will attempt to draw you into an impassioned discussion of bands that you've neither heard of nor care about. If cornered, pretend to use American Sign Language and they will immediately lose interest.
• Don't be afraid to explore; you never know what you'll find. If there's a book, CD, or pair of panties you discover, don't hesitate to borrow it. You'll return it next time you come around.
• Watch carefully for anomalous behaviour, such as generosity. At one event from our booze-soaked teenage years, we dimly recall a particularly rodentlike individual lounging against the wall, proffering a handful of salty snacks to passersby. After careful observation, we determined that he wasn't eating any of the snacks himself, though they were being glommed rapidly from his outstretched palm by drunken passersby. Our suspicions were confirmed when we cauight him dipping into the cat kibble for a refill.