Diane Dufresne
Grand spectacle de la Fête Nationale - Montréal, 24 juin 2013
Québec's Fête Nationale grand show - Montréal, June 24 2013
Above
After singing one song, Diane Dufresne came back a little later (wearing a new attire) to sing three more songs, of which the physically demanding Oxygène, at least the way she used to sing it when she was, like say, younger. 
For this new segment, she was wearing as a vest some kind of mix between a tutu, a science fiction lizard, and the rear end of a late 19th century dress. It was lined in the front with a partially opened zipper. When the song ended, she adressed the crowd and asked them for oxygen, jokingly, in the footsteps of the song, but considering her age, maybe there was a dash of truth in her request. So I guess that's why, when talking to the public, she fully unzipped her vest to catch a bit of fresh air. That's when was revealed her beautiful t-shirt, a real one this time, royal blue studded with those two big white "fleur de lys" on each breast. A huge wink to a record cover of hers from forty years ago. And one which I'm sure she had never done since. That's Dufresne for you. She may be aging, but her imagination has no bounds. I, and those of my age who happen to be a fan of hers, sure recognized that famous paint job photographed in a back alley back then, in the early seventies. But for those attending that concert, 150 000 usually and mostly younger people, how many did? In some way, I took it that it was to us, those who were there in the 70s and who've followed her since, that this wink was being meant for. And maybe it was a way also for her to close the books, who knows?
Needless to say, I had no idea what she would be wearing on Monday when I posted that record cover in my last post. Just another crazy coincidence, to say the least.
Note: Pics above are printscreens from the show produced by Radio-Canada and which is available for some time on the net but for Canadians only. (www.tou.tv).
Strange echoes
I personally didn't attend the show. I'm past the age of finding it "cool" to stand up for three hours in a park along with 150,000 others who, for the most part, see nothing except what's shown on the big screens. Not to mention that it rained like hell in the afternoon and like purgatory for most of the evening. So I watched most of it (the show, not the rain) on a smaller screen, my tv. Midway into the show, I decided to leave and go to the local event which is held yearly on De Castelnau St, near marché Jean-Talon. About a 10 to 15 minute walk. The sky was foggy and it was quite humid. As soon as I got outsisde, I heard music seemingly coming from a street eastbound, where there is a large schoolyard. I figured it came from there, or from the alley longing it, some neighbors maybe having their own Fête Nationale party. The other one, where I was heading to, is westbound, so what I was hearing couldn't be it. So I started to stroll up to Jean-Talon St where I was to turn left. All along the way, and until I did get to De Castelnau, the music kept bouncing from east to west to east until I realized that it were the buildings, some low, some others higher, that kept fooling me. The higher the building, the louder the sound. It was quite eerie, especially that it was around 22h30 and city noise was at a minimum. One thing I know, if I were a visitor and trying to find the party on De Castelnau by following the music, I'd be dead of exhaustion before getting there. Luckily, since I live in the area, I didn't need a GPS. When I got there, I was surprised at the number of people there. A few thousand by my estimates. And for the vast majority, youngsters, in their twenties. There's a large area in front of the church where they install a medium-sized stage, but the closed to traffic area is much larger, spanning on De Castelnau for 3 or 4 streets, but also all connecting intersections. In the daytime, it's more a family-oriented affair, but there's music all day on the stage, and lots of food (and beer) for sale at different stands. When I got there, it was the last group of the day: Bernard Adamus. He is a Polish immigrant who arrived in Montreal with his parents when he was three. His music is eclectic and his musicians, far out. Besides Adamus and his guitar, the drummer had a full set of drums/percussions, the bass was one of those humongously big sousaphones, there was another who only played trombone, and two others were dazzling their fingers on keyboards, which they traded for another trombone and a trumpet at times. They were all shrouded in a sea of that wax smoke that it almost looked like the stage was on fire. In some ways it was. And the crowd also. Including four girls who were dancing on their apartment's balcony overlooking the stage across the street. With the general atmosphere brought about by the foggy skies, and the loudness of the music, just being there fell in the 'feel good' department. The show ended at around 23h20, after two (or three?) curtain calls (so to speak, they were more like beer calls 
). If I remember well, Adamus was also there last year but at the time I didn't know who he was.
Below is a studio session done for a popular Radio-Canada radio show dedicated to 'emerging' music. The first song, 'Diligence' is the one that they were playing soon after I got on the site. The sousaphone here is replaced by an upright cello bass, the drums are minimal, I don't see any keyboards, but the essential is there. Something vaguely East-European. Slightly ROM. And pretty much Montreal, I'd dare to say. In the sense that I don't think this kind of music could sprout elsewhere in Canada. We saw the same with Arcade Fire, and other groups of the kind.
When I first saw them on that stage with that huge sousaphone and playing that music, I thought I had suddenly landed in the middle of a Fellini movie.
I you like trombone and banjo, have a look at the third song (8m13s). It's called Brun [la couleur de l'amour] (Brown [the color of love])
The language of those songs makes them a modern version of what we used to call in French "chansons paillardes" (ribald, bawdy, libertine maybe?)
The usual game
Notwithstanding that if there's an area where heads of states blatantly lie in each other's face without even cracking a smile it sure is the spying business, it still remains that China and Russia probably didn't appreciate at all that the U.S. has been spying at large on their citizens. They won't say it upfront, of course, but there are diplomatic tricks that will get the message across just as effectively. Like suddenly finding some documents to be 'incomplete'. Or refusing to make an exception when there's no extradition treaty in place. On the the other end of this tug-of-war, the message will be very well understood but still the same they will play the offended virgins. Business as usual, in this department.
Balls, balls, balls
I went to Milano's on Thursday and noticed something new in the specialty pastas department (read expensive ). They are little balls the size or peppercorns, and of different colors between light yellow and light brown. I had never seen these things nor did I know if they were pasta or not. Since the were shelved with other fancy pastas of the Rustichella brand, I figured they must be. The price at 7,29$ for 500g was anything but as astounding as this discovery. . I wrote the info on a piece of paper with the firm intention to check it out once back home.
Well, they are a specialty of south-western Sardinia. Do you know someone who comes from south-western Sardinia? I do. 
These pellets are called fregula sarda which means Sardinian fregula. Now what is fregula you may ask? Gee, I asked myself that same question but found it more reliable to ask it to Google who told me that Wikipedia was in the knowing. That's where I learned that this special pasta would have been imported [to Sardinia] by Ligurian immigrants come from the Genoese colony of Tabarka in Tunisia. That's a strange course. Maybe they shipwrecked on their way back to their former home. Before or after, another Genoan sold his services to a Spanish queen and came back, him from the Americas, with tomatoes which incidentally crave to be saucy in the company of fregula pasta and clams.
Wandering mind
While walking to Milano (see previous section) I started to reflect on the abbreviation PM. Which means I'm overly curious or overly bored. For those using a 12 hour clock system, it is widely used to mean "Post Meridiem", or simply put, "afternoon", stretched to its limits up to 23h59. It occured to me that it could, and this covering the same period of time, be also a diminutive for Post Mortem, aka a period of time used to reflect on all which one could have done in the pre-PM period (affectionately called 'morning') and which one neglected to do for a bunch of reasons which we'll conveniently regroup under the designation 'procrastination'.
I always had trouble remembering what procrastination meant. For some reason, I always thought it meant some kind of castration of the mind. Which brings me to a typically Canadian 'other' meaning for PM. It stands for Prime Minister, although that in the current situation, the one holding this job is anything but prime. He's more on the dinausorian side of things. And, to top it off, his almost criminal negation of human-generated climate change and obliteration of those who say otherwise can only be the work of someone having a castrated mind.
Update June 30 - PM
Two extra meanings for PM: Pre-Moving and Post-Moving.
The annual movers' pas de deux has begun. I've seen two or three moving vans close to my place, of them one for the pyromaniac neighbor in the back [*]. Those moving today are the lucky ones. Their new dwelling is ready to occupy, be it another rented apartment or condo, or a freshly constructed new one. Tomorrow will be another story. Quite often, those who move will find that those who lived in their new dwelling have not vacated the premises yet, waiting for their moving apparatus, whether it's a professional company or a friend's trailer. . Or those who lived there have to put their stuff on the sidewalk until their own truck arrives. Or civility kicks in and the new dwellers permit the old dwellers to stash all their stuff in one room, in the meantime (when this happens, you can replace 'mean' here with 'beer'). One way or the other, all this buzzing activity is preferably done on a sunny day rather than a rainy one, needless to say. This year will bring along a little extra fun. The residential contruction industry is currently on strike (since 2 weeks) which means that those newly built condos with a tight delivery schedule may just not be ready for July 1st. In a case like this, the new dwellers have a priority, and the old dwellers just have to find some way to live until their newly built dwelling is delivered.
All I can say is that here on July 1st, if you see someone who is moving and is holding a Canadian flag near his face, it is not at all to kiss it, but more so to wipe away the sweat on his/her face. But this is irrelevant since very few people in Montreal own a Canadian flag. And that's regardless of their political beliefs. As a rule of thumb, Francophones don't have any. Generally, for the Anglophones, those who have a mast in their yard to put it on own one. The others go to the Old Port on Canada Day where the federal government distributes them free, by the ton, and which they discard soon after. All in all, there's about just the immigrants who are willing to buy one with their own money. I exagerate? Maybe, but so little. Really. Viva Can-a-Duh!
Today is sunny, and the same expected tomorrow. That's good news for those moving.
[*] One of the neighbors facing my building in the back was a Latino family, with two very young children. Their rented condo was just above ground level, with a rear patio/balcony which I can directly see from mine, but that dwelling was not that big for a family of four so I guess it's why they moved. The man in that family was the one doing the cooking. And for him, cooking meant BBQ. Almost year-round. And latino style. He used one of those round charcoal briquettes BBQ, the type you light after generously wetting them with lighting fluid. The flame(s) then produced can be one meter high and last a minute or two. This all by itself is dangerous in an urban environment, let alone on a balcony with three others above it. But what made matters worse is that this guy did not think that heavy gusty winds was sufficient reason to make something different for supper. Once, when it was awfully windy, the flames almost kissed the bottom of the balcony above. And the guy was inside, not even watching after his hell machine. --- I see that the new neighbors are already here. You can tell they are probably students: young guys, an elderly white-haired man helping them, and a two-wheel trailer containing basic furniture.
(this is the answer -> no)
I saw in Wikipedia that for some it's another date so make these wishes yours also. 
Recent Comments