Wrote this for the Globe and Mail recently -- an editor there said they were doing a spread on basements and wanted a first-person take. He knew I had lived in one. These are the easiest writing assignments -- I mean who would ever think 'I'm going to write something about basements'? Some years ago, in New Orleans, a friend and I helped jump-start a stranded pink Cadillac. Afterwards the grateful owner -- a Rockabilly hipster with slicked back pompadour and aviation shades -- told us to come visit him at his bar. "I'm Dungeon people,"_ he said, chewing on a wooden toothpick. The Dungeon turned out to be the perfect namesake -- the bar was dark and narrow in parts, with sweaty brick walls and furtive patrons. Over tumblers of courtesy bourbon, our new friend told us that, although above ground, his bar was really for "basement types."_ Basement types, he said, "lived below the water line."_ At the time I assumed the man was talking about underground culture or some other stylish scene of which I was oblivious, so I just nodded and kept drinking. But his words stayed with me, and over the years they've taken on a more existential -- if literal -- cast. Because now I think he was just talking about basements -- the kind found under homes -- and what it means to dwell in them. Basement apartments -- at least the ones in Toronto -- do not have good reputations, despite attempts