Behold the magnificence which is Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan’s River Street.

Often has it been said that Canadians are too literal-minded; most particularly often it has been said to my face, although there’s nothing about my face in particular or in whole which is literal-minded, and indeed quite often the parts migrate at will or vanish altogether and I’ll end up all ears, ferinstance.

Quite embarrassing, especially when they see me writing down everything they say.

But that is neither here nor there. And it’s certainly not in Moose Jaw, which is not all that far from everyone’s favorite Canadian place name: Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump.

So…have you been to Moose Jaw? Have you seen it? It’s not Paris, let me tell you. So, when the city fathers/mothers/foster parents put their heads together and wanted to do something uniquely Moose Jawian, they quite naturally phoned Germany and brought over artist Edgar Muller and his team to turn River Street into a painting of a river, reportedly the world’s largest 3-dimensional painting.

How proud they must be, eh?

So they not only paved Paradise: they gravened themselves an image of it and now walk all over it.