2013/05/22

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  Tunnel Champ-de-Mars – ­2013.05.14
  Scènes de Montréal – Montreal Scenes
  

  Above

  Beginning of the pedestrian tunnel joining the Champ-de-Mars metro station (the one with a stained glass artwork) to the actual Champ-de-Mars behind City Hall. It passes under Autoroute Ville-Marie (720) and rue St-Antoine (for which there is an exit mid-way into the tunnel).

  

  Lack of something…

  Gee, no post since May 12. I’m not sick or anything. I’m just tired all the time and occupied by other stuff which I always put off to later which in turn stresses and tires me. It’s what we call here the Hygrade syndrome, a wiener sausage tv ad slogan which incrusted itself in everybody’s mind: More people eat them because they are more fresh; they are more fresh because more people eat them. That can be applied to just about anything. Found in an article from my paper on the net: More people leave Montréal because taxes are too high. Taxes are too high because more people leave Montreal.

  I have no idea if this slogan was used and settled as a popular expression in English Canada, but in Québec, anyone over 25 or 30 knows what you are talking about when you mention the “syndrome Hygrade”. Maybe some of the younger ones too.

  UPDATE: I found a video of one of the ads, from 1982.

  

  Reminder

  It’s mentioned in the header, but just in case, I’ll remind that the pics I take with my camera are available in a larger version than the one displayed. Being way too large, I start by saving them in half their original format. This takes less bandwidth for those with slower connections. This new format still the same remains large enough to fill an average screen so I post it in a smaller display. The larger one remains available by clicking on the picture, once, or twice if a (+) is then displayed. I mention all this in case one would like to see parts of a pic in more detail and didn’t know the above.

  

  Incongruity

  A former city on the island of Montreal and now one of its boroughs since 2002, Verdun, issued a permit last week for the opening of a beer outlet, some kind of pub producing its own beer. Yeah, so? Verdun was a dry city. No bars whatsoever, and since like forever. Something quite strange for a city located at a stone’s throw from downtown Montreal which during the American prohibition was the mecca for those of them who were thirsty of both alcohol and skimpy dressed girls. It is even more strange for me that in Wikipedia they say that Verdun harbors the largest concentration of “Madelinots”, that is people coming from the Iles-de-la-Madeleine (Magdalen Islands) located in the Gulf of St-Laurent (Lawrence). For having had some of them as classmates in university and having been there myself a couple of times, I can say without the shadow of a doubt that, as most islanders, they have no stiffness whatsoever in the elbow as far as alcoholic beverages go.

  By the way, Verdun has nothing to do with the 1916 Verdun Battle (WWI). It was named such in 1671 by Zacharie Dupuis who was conceded a bit of territory which he named Verdun in remembrance of his native town of Saverdun, in the Ariège region of southern France.

  

  Dry city – Take 2

  Two-thirds of those living on the island of Montreal, roughly 1,3 million people, learned this morning that for at least 24 hours they had to boil their tap water for one minute before drinking it. That is for those where the water was still clear. For example, in forementioned Verdun, it was looking more like liquid mud. The thing is, they did this morning some major upgrade work on one of the two main Montreal pumping stations, which incidentally is located in Verdun. They were supposed to lower the water level in one large reservoir but something (or someone) screwed-up and the basin was emptied much more than it should and all the crap (they call these ‘deposits’ ) lying in the bottom was granted a new life, so to speak. Needless to say, it didn’t take long before finding bottled water in a store became a space oddity. Hospitals, child care centers and the likes didn’t find it funny.

  

  Defacedbook

  After going at the hospital for blood samples last week, since it was very nice outside, I elected to go for a stroll in Old Montreal rather than returning home. I stumbled on an ex-colleague who was outside for his afternoon break. He’s got a Twitter and a Facebook account. I checked his Twitter. Opened in 2010. Same trajectory as a North Korean rocket. Smashing start, one tweet after the other, then slow fall down until early 2013 with a single tweet a month. None yet in May. I read somewhere a few days ago that Facebook stock market shares are still valued at 31% less than their start value. Some people must be biting their nails (I won’t cry). I don’t understand those companies that spend lots of dough to open and manage a Facebook account while neglecting the corporate website approach. I’m convinced Facebook is doomed sooner or later. Teeny boppers who posted pics of their asses for the world to see have now grown and realize that what they posted back then, and now, is in Facebook’s hands for eternity. They will leave. Advertisers will also flock to better pastures when they find out that most of the new potential users work for a dollar a day in Bangladesh. On the other hand, Twitter of what I hear and read, would have a promising future, for different reasons.

  

  Monkeying with Twitter

  Somebody knows what happened to Justin Bieber’s monkey?

  note: this section is Twitter compatible [55 characters]. Hey, I’m practicing…

  

  Alexandre [le Bienheureux] is back

  Somebody heard about that Sardinian postman who had 400 kg of undelivered mail stashed in his garage? People of his village of Mores in northern Sardinia don’t think he’s a bad person:

  «He is a good person. Even if at times he came back late and drank a little too much» told Fidel, owner of an hotel in Mores. And, according to the village’s hairdresser, the postman was not trying to control their lives: «I think that he is simply lazy.»

  I like people who put their priorities at the right place.

  AFP story (en français) here.

  

  Another freak

  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/18/pete-santilli-hillary-clinton_n_3299247.html

  Some days I think that American-style democracy SHOULD NOT be exported. There are limits to free speech.

  

  Georges Moustaki 1934 – 2013 – In Memoriam

  

  
  © Uncredited in Youtube – Video however was shot on Ile Ste-Hélène facing Montreal.

  IL Y AVAIT UN JARDIN (There was a garden).
  Georges Moustaki

  This is a song for children
  Born and living between steel
  And bitumen between concrete and asphalt
  And who may never know
  That Earth was a garden

  There was a garden we called Earth
  It shone in the sun like a forbidden fruit
  No it was not paradise or hell
  Or anything already seen or heard

  There was a garden, a house, trees
  With a bed of moss to make love
  And a small stream running without a wave
  Came to cool it before pursuing its course.

  There was a garden large as a valley
  Where we could find food in all seasons
  On the burning ground or the frozen grass
  And discover flowers that had no name.

  There was a garden called Earth
  It was large enough for thousands of children
  It was once inhabited by our grandfathers
  Who themselves got it from their grandparents.

  Where is it this garden where we could have been born
  Where we could have lived carefree and naked
  Where is that house all doors open
  Which I’m still looking for and find no more.

  

  • 23:35
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