2012/02/09

• 
  Le 2-22
  [Ste-Catherine/St-Laurent]
  Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
  

  Lonely at the top

  
  Photo © Jason Reed, REUTERS

  This has to be one of the most fantastic photographs I have seen in ages. This guy, walking at a fast pace on a wet and foggy tarmac towards his heavily-guarded by secret services limousine, is the most powerful man on Earth. And when push comes to shove, he is the only one ultimately who bears the responsibility. I wonder, in moments like these when he is alone with himself, if he thinks about these things.

  I saw this pic topping the front page of section B of my daily this Saturday. Obama was arriving in Romulus, Michigan (a suburb of Detroit), on January 26, 2012. The original pic was more in a 4 x 6 format but my paper cut off the top and bottom to have it fit above the related article, and the result gives it a totally new dimension, the one that really grabbed me. I did the same to the origina I picked up on the netl, since the quality of the printed copy which I had scanned from my daily didn't render it justice.

  By the way, I found numerous copies of these Jason Reed photos in blogs and other places (American sites), without anyone ever giving him any credit. Nice mentality.

  

  Best chocolate-blueberry-raspberry pie in the world ...continued

  There's news on that front, which I opened on my January 22 post. I returned there last week to buy one and, well, they were out of the world's best chocolate-blueberry-raspberry pie. Just my luck. I should have gotten the hint when that chalkboard on the sidewalk mentioned something else. Yesterday (Sunday) I returned in the area, the world's... (ok we'll spare the details from now on ) was back on the chalkboard, so I entered and asked and yes, they had some. Not given, mind you, about 14$. The pie's crust is the crumbled biscuit kind of crust. They sell it in a solid state. For those old enough to remember when electronic lamps were replaced by transistors and integrated circuits in radios and the likes, and this new technology was being called "solid state", this is not at all what I am talking about. It's not an electronic pie, it's a frozen pie. Solidly frozen. And it's not really exactly small, about 30cm (12 inches), so for now it will remain under that state until I either have someone else to eat it with me, or I have an extra surge of food slutness. Friend is a raspberry freak, likes chocolate, and comes from the Saguenay region, Québec's blueberry haven, so that makes him the ideal candiate but like me, he hibernates in winter. So we'll see. The pie, which I forgot to mention is of artisanal fabrication, is made in Baie St-Paul, a small town on the north shore of the St-Laurent river, in the Charlevoix region, one of the most beautiful in eastern Canada. That village is also renowned for its art galleries and cultural activities. My cutie pie electrician of a neighbor, some years ago, also came from there. It's located at about 350 km from Montréal. The guy who was tending shop the day I bought it, only an employee, insisted that if ever I ate a better pie anywhere in the world, I must absolutely return and tell him. His boss must be proud of him. On the other hand, it's probably the only chocolate-raspberry-blueberry pie on the planet, so being the best of its kind remains something quite relative. On the site of the makers of the pie, there is a link to Google maps but that town is not even in Streetview yet.

  

  

  Super Bowl or Super Bol

  I didn't watch the Super Bowl mid game show starring Madonna. I was watching another tv show and when I checked it was already over. It was much talked about here because unbeknownst to the 110 million Americans who watched it, Madonna had asked the Cirque du Soleil to help her stage the show which they did, also supplying by the same token the show's director, who is the same who put up the Cirque's Michael Jackson show in Vegas. Also, all the audiovisual and multimedia effects were the work of a Montreal company, Moment Factory, which has since seen their phone lines buzzing. I don't know who is that M.I.A. girl who sent the finger to someone or something, but she is rather vulgar. Madonna was often outrageous or provocative, but she was never vulgar. The difference is a thin line, and it separates the best from the very ordinary.

  Madonna also has French Canadian roots by her mother I think. So all in all, we'll let it pass this time. But if there's a repeat, maybe we should demand that the show be renamed "Mi-Temps Super Bol", to reflect its artisans.

  

  Physical pains

  I don't know if it's rhumatism, some form of arthritis or maybe that carpian tunnel syndrome due to excessive use of the computer, but lately I'm having pains in muscles and joints in my right arm, in the elbow more so. I will have to use it less (the computer). I'm having pain most everywhere else also but that is not new. It could be winter that is making things worse. I hope so because otherwise... it would mean my body is not in a very good shape for the years to come.

  

  Political pains

  It's becoming more and more painful to live in Canada. In the matter of only one week, this federal Conservative government of ours has managed to reopen both the death penalty and abortion debates, which were settled here. And they do it hypocritically. Then there's a senator (they are not elected here) who wants to give hard criminals in jail the tools to kill themselves. This senator is on a revenge spree, his daughter was abducted and killed some years ago. On Tuesday, it was learned that the government set out a directive last year to our secret services, allowing them to use foreign information gathered by torture, in exceptional cases, which are not defined. Harper is in China selling his "ethical" oil to China which is one of the planet's worst polluters and since last Saturday with that UN veto, also responsible with Russia for the deaths of thousands of Syrians. Meanwhile, contrary to other countries which couldn't stand the stench anymore and recalled their ambassadors from Syria, there is no plan to recall ours. He has to stay there to correctly inform our government, apparently. Inform for what? As if Canada counted for anything in the Syrian problem! This week also, they started distributing 60,000 fancy medals to Canadians, in honor of the Queen's Jubilee. The vast majority of those will go to military and police and the likes. Harper gets hard-ons when he thinks of the military. The plane he uses to go to China is a big dark olive colored thing looking like it comes straight from WWII. We are governed by dangerous and scary lunatics.

  

  Daily off the counter pocket racism

  I went to a specialized fruit and vegetable store at Marché Jean-Talon last week, to buy a half-dozen Seville oranges so as to make another batch of marmalade. I say specialized because you can find there imported produce you can't find anywhere else. There was this man before me at the cash counter, older than me, maybe 70, and who was havng a conversation with the woman serving him about his being retired, she having had asked him the question. After he left and it came to my turn, I told her I was retired too, then she told me she wished she was also, that she had been working in their business for something like 40 or 50 years, I don't remember exactly, and at nearly 70 hours a week. Then from nowhere she mentioned this elderly guy she knew who had a small business and who was audited by an Arab auditor from the revenue department (IRS in the States) and who had to pay a small amount in due taxes (value added tax). She didn't understand how, at his age, and having worked all his life, they could have so little consideration for him. She wasn't saying this about their charging him his due taxes, but the fact that they had sent him an Arab. Needless to say, I didn't expect this at all. I told her that I just happened to be working for the revenue department before, and that auditors are being heavily pressured by their bosses to bring in the more money they can collect, bosses who more often than anything else are of the very White color that this Arab was not. She was surprised. I don't know if it was about my contradicting her in her certitudes, or that she expected me, by my looks, to be naturally thinking just like her. This is what disturbed me the most. I can understand some people having problems with Arabs. As I can understand some Arabs having problems with us. Contrary to other immigrants, Arabs are almost, in some way, from another civilization. Mixing both together is not obvious, and demands an openness of mind from both sides. But it can be done, as many promiment Arabs, who are well integrated into our society, have been and are showing (I'm talking about Quebec, and maybe more so Montreal, elsewhere I don't know). But if that woman expected me to "naturally" be just like her, it would mean that this every day little racism, understood by all but never in the open, is rampant in the grassroot White society. I have no problem believing that, since I've heard similar remarks from members of my own family. I myself am not at ease when I walk on Jean-Talon St a few km from my home, in what they call Le Petit Maghreb. They have little terraces in front of cafés or tea/pastry shops there, and never, I mean never, do you see a woman seated there. A few years ago, after one of the North African countries won a game during the football Mundial, they were hundreds to hit the street to celebrate, blocking the traffic. I have no problem with that at all. This is Montreal. I did have a problem when I noticed that there was not a single woman in that big crowd. What I tell myself is that most of these people are of recent immigration, they were not born here. I try to convince myself that it will be different for their children, who will have attended our schooling system and seen that here, women play an active role in society, not only at home doing the dishes. I'm not convinced that others are willilng to do the same. It does require an effort, and effort these days is not the flavor of the day. One thing though that I consider totally unacceptable is the burqa. I consider it an act of agression against the core values our societies, nothing less. It is also an act of agression against all women of this planet. It has no business in our societies. It has no business anywhere else either.

  All this did not prevent me from going to the Tunisian market (L'Olivier) at Marché Jean-Talon yesterday to buy some Tunisian olive oil (it's cheaper than Italian and just as good - I'm talking of mechanically cold pressed extra virgin) and while I was there I also bought a package of kefta, with which I made myself a hamburger-looking sandwich for supper. Before going to the cash, I had eyed somewhat the pastry counter. The young guy who was tending me asked if I wanted any, pointing with his eyes to the pastry counter behind me. I said no, making a circular sign with hand over my belly hinting that I didn't want to gain weight. He replied, insistingly, that they were not sugary at all (yeah, sure - I never buy north African pastries precisely because they are too sweet, be it with honey or not). I had to reinstate, this time slightly more vigorously, that No, I didn't want any. The thing is, just because he had seen me lurking the pastries, he was now pushing me to buy some. And I wasn't in the mood to have to explain further 'why' I didn't care to buy his pastries. A little more and he would have made me feel guilty or something. That is something very North African. The way they insist so much that you finish by buying something, be it a rug or anything else they sell in their souks, because they make you fell like you're insulting them if you don't. And THAT is something that annoys me a lot and most likely much of my fellow North-Americans also. I've been to that store before, and that guy always acts this way. If I said I didn't want any, it meant I DIDN'T want any, and it should have been the end of it. This is an example of culture clashes. Over there, if someone does not bargain endlessly with a potential customer, his neighbors will think he's sick or something. The thing is we are not over there, we are here. And here, the commercial approach is different. It's not the end of the world. There's worse in life.

  Next time, sometime that is, I'll talk about our panhandlers. Another nice case of damn if you do and damn if you don't.

  

  • 14:56
  • 7 Comments