2012/12/22

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  Coin/corner St-Zotique/St-Vallier
  Scènes de Montréal – Montreal Scenes
  

  Above

  Same in summer times (reposted pic).

  

  Four

  Four.

  Like in four days.

  To make a long story short, I’m writing this from my “Home Sweet Home”. The hospital granted me a four-day leave for Christmas. Brother drove me home last evening and I’m returning to the hospital on the evening of the 25th.

  On the way home, we stopped at Marché Jean-Talon and I bought at Capitol some thinly sliced imported from Italy Leoncini mortadella and cooked ham with herbs (rosemary namely). Karma! Capitol used t make their own mortadella (delicious) but inspectors came in and forced them to use “Canadian” production standards and they preferred to stop making it rather than making a bland product. And let me tell you, there’s not much that can top a nice beer on lees (Blonde de Chambly) that has been aging in the fridge since the end of August We also went at the Pain Doré bread shop and I bought a round loaf (miche) of “pain à l’ancienne” (old style bread). I usually never buy it sliced mostly because their slices are too thin, but this time around, I figured it would be less trouble, considering my limitations. I also bought two pastries, a chocolatine (they call this pain au chocolat in France) and a torsade which is a longer than wide pastry using the same flaky pastry as a croissant or a chocolatine but which is twisted on itself and contains fruits, in this case cranberries..

  I have tons of paperwork to do, documents to sort and classify etc, so I have enough to occupy myself, especially that I still have very little endurance and that everything takes twice the time to do with only one hand. There’s also a nurse who comes in daily to replace the bandage on my thoracic window (too long to explain and you don’t want to know). The pill management is also loads of fun like that one I should take at 11h00 because it is one hour before dinner at the hospital and which is labeled “avoid milk products and calcium”. 11h00 is, at home, the time I have breakfast which always includes a bowl of cereal with, of course, milk. Not to mention on top of this that I also have to be very careful about kidnapping eagles. All in all, I must be on the right track of recuperation since my whining function seems to be pretty well up and running again.

  Since I most likely won’t have the time to post again before Christmas, let me wish to all a very

  Happy Christmas !

  and also a zillion thanks to all those who brought me comfort in the past months.

  

  This is an excerpt from my December 23 2010 post. I put it here for no particular reason other than I liked reading and listening to it again.

  Innu

  When I lived in In the first year I was in Sept-Iles, I also lived for one year in my brother’s mobile home which was located right next to Malioténam.

  So, for the ten years I’ve been in Sept-Iles, you can say I was regularly in contact with Montagnais Ameridians. I even had one working with me as a summer student. At this point I should mention that the Montagnais now call themselves Innus, which is their real name in the Innu language. This was part of a general trend in the late seventies and early eighties to give back their original Amerindian names to a myriad of places in the North which had been renamed by the “Whites”. This is how Fort Chimo became “Inukjuak”, Frobisher Bay “Iqaluit”, Poste de la baleine (Great Whale) “Kuujjuarapik”. Another thing to be noted is that the Innu (Montagnais) speak French as their second language, not English. Their cousins the Inuit (formerly known as Eskimos) speak English and live in the northern most part of Quebec, and also elsewhere across this wonderful land of ours . In fact, maybe it would have been better to say “of theirs” since we kind of snatched it from them, but that’s another story. The Innus (Montagnais) are the exact opposite of being bellicose. They are a very peaceful people, which cannot be said of some other Ameridian peoples, like the Mohawks. For some reason I’ll leave to historians and sociologists, the few Amerindian peoples in Quebec who have adopted English are all bellicose towards the French majority in Quebec (except a notable exception, the Inuits), while all those who have adopted French are peaceful nations. I don’t want to pass judgement, it’s just a fact.

  Why I bring all this up is that in my last years in Sept-Iles, a songwriter/singer from Maliotenam, Florent Vollant, was starting to make his way. He had just put up a duo with another Innu who came from another Innu reserve near Schefferville. They were called Kashtin and became a huge success in Québec, and gave many concerts in Europe and elsewhere on the planet.

  Did I mention they only sang in Innu?

  Later on, I don’t remember when, and after having released three CDs, the group disbanded and both continued with separate careers. Florent Vollant, who was the composer and soul of the group, released in 2005 a Christmas album with traditional Christmas (christian) and Innu songs, with some well-known special guests on some songs, Cajun Zachary Richard being one of them.

  The songs are of course sung in Innu.

  From a comment about the CD on Amazon:
  «Nipaiamianan, a naturally meditative album brimming with passion, is a Christmas album, but the songs I love in it do not remind me of Christmas, and can be listened to ALL YEAR round.
  On the other hand, a small number of them are well-known classic Christmas songs and I have a problem with these, since I never really enjoy hearing ‘mainstream’ music that everybody has heard a thousand times ( they are however sung in Innu too, and Florent’s uncomparable voice does give them a new freshness and purity – The title song Nipaiamianan for example is a relatively well-known song, but I did not recognize it for a long time! It is actually among my favourites’ compilation ).

  Florent Vollant (formerly of the duo KASHTIN) is a songwriter, composer and singer, so most of his songs are his, and he sings in his beautiful INNU tongue ( Native American from Subarctic Canada / Northern Quebec & Labrador). He explains that in this album, he has gathered together the seasonal songs he remembers from his childhood, some that were only known to the Innu, and some that we all know, but all are sung in INNU. Marginally contributing are other special artists such as Zachary Richard and Richard Seguin.»

  I did not take me as much time to recognize the title song, Nipaiamianan, which is Minuit Chrétiens, of course, and I don’t mind listening once a year to Christmas songs .

  Florent Vollant released three albums since he’s gone solo. This one is the second.

  Nipaiamianan
  

  Minuenitakuan
  

  

  This is a nice Government of Québec map of all Amerindian nations on its territory (PDF file). The Innus are the silver dots.

  

  White Christmas

  We won’t be dreaming of a white Christmas this year. It snows almost every day. I’m fed up to the hilt of having to clean up the front balcony and the stairs over and over. We’ve had almost as much snow as half of what we got last year for the whole of winter (not scientific, my impression). And we’re not even in January yet. They’re forecasting another big one for next week. I didn’t bother listening more to find out what place/region/hellhole they were talking about. I just don’t want to hear about it.

  I’m sure if Jesus had been born here instead of Nazareth, he surely would have had a good talk with his heavenly Dad upon returning to the Heavens, so as to have this thing fixed.

  [End of excerpt]

  We have much less snow this year but unfortunately what we have has fallen in the last days and is still falling. My upstairs neighbors have left for the week-end so that means I’m alone to clean the outdoors stairs, something too dangerous for me in my current state. Friend is coming to see me tomorrow so maybe he could be of some help in this matter…

  

  • 16:20
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