Drooling on exciting Montréal, Political rants, Food lust
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Nuit Blanche - Art souterrain/Underground Art - 2012.02.26 Sous/Under Place Victoria - 01h59
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Bless St-Joseph
No I havent' suddenly become a religious person. It's just that the Italians have a tradition surrounding the day he is celebrated in the religious (Catholic) calendar, that is March 19. It's the zeppole, often also named the "zeppole di San Giuseppe". It's some king of very light twirled doughnut filled with, in its most popular version, either a ricotta creme or a crème pâtissière. Since I was in Mexico on March 19, and that it's already six days later, I feared they would have no more in the pastry shops. That pastry is not sold at other times of the year, not in Montreal at least. It's all part of the tradition. So I went to Motta's and luckily they still had some, with both fillings. The lady tending me said that they'll have some until the end of the month because there is a heavy demand. She also told me those they had were fresh from this morning. I took only one, because my fridge is already laden with other similar goodies, and I chose the ricotta version.
There is another Italian pastry nearby, and I think theirs is even better. Maybe I bought some there years ago but I don't remember (I could check my March posts from previous years). It's on Dante Street, across the street from the Madonna della Difesa church, the one that I posted a few times about and where there is a large choir ceiling fresco in which one of the characters is Mussolini riding a horse. I don't pass usually on Dante because it's not on my way, but since I also had to go to Milano to buy a special type of pasta, I came back using Dante which happens to end right in front of it. Well, almost. Passing in front of that other pastry shop, there was a bright yellow sign in the window saying "Sono arrivati" followed by a short list of goodies, topped by "zeppole". I'll put a reminder in my calendar and try to go buy one there tomorrow. I mean, I have a "food slut" reputation to nurture.
I saw in uploading the pic that I already have two zeppole pics on Xanga. Apparently I'm repeating myself. That's ok, I'm getting older, so I'm allowed to.
Retour de voyage - Back from trip
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Above
It was a whopping 26 degrees C the day I came back. Nice day to wash stuff used during the trip, so why not use the clothesline. Downstairs did also. They also told me that the big tree on the right will be cut soon. Some squirrels will lose their home. I'm not really happy about it, because it also means that there won't be any view shield in summer for those living in that ugly box of a building. I hate being stared at by nosey neighbors, especially that in summer I live a lot on my rear balcony. I also will lose lots of afternoon and early evening shade. It will be worse for those upstairs though. They already complain it's a furnace up there on hot summer days, and now they'll have another baby in there. Since they own their floor, they surely are aware of the decision. I won't be butting in, that's for sure. It's one of the advantages of not being an owner.
Gee!
Well, they were 200,000! And not a single skirmish (feared by many, after previous weeks' incidents). It was impressive to see and watch, from my vantage point on the Sherbrooke Street overpass over Berri St (marker C in Google map below). Boarding the metro at around 13h00, I immediately knew it would be a big one. The train was already full. After a few stations, almost no one else could get in if no one got out. I and most of the others got out downtown at the Bonaventure metro station located just under the Place du Canada square where the march was slated to begin, at 13h30. When I got there it was of course full of people. I messed around a bit, taking pictures and videos from the footsteps of the Marie-Reine-du-Monde basilica (that's the one looking like Rome's St-Peters). I knew the march was first to head on Peel St up to nearby Sherbrooke (after crossing Ste-Catherine and DeMaisonneuve, then turn right and head east. Metcalfe street is parallel to Peel so I decided to walk up to Sherbrooke and turn left then down Peel, so as to take pictures or videos of the head of the march that in my mind was to start very shortly. As I was advancing on Metcalfe, I saw by a connecting alley that they were already marching on Peel. Then the same from the next alley. Then another one. When I got to Ste-Catherine, I saw another column of marchers engaging into Metcalfe. I later saw them turning on Ste-Catherine so as to join the first column on Peel. I started to walk more quickly and when I got to Sherbrooke, not only did I realize that the marchers were already there, but that they were also already a long way eastbound. The people filling Place du Canada were not the marchers waiting to start the march, they were new ones constantly coming from the metro and the streets around and waiting to join those already gone. I still wanted to get to the head of the march, so I really speeded up my pace. Finally, I reached it at St-Urbain, a good 1,8 Km from Place du Canada. (marker B on the map). On a planned route published yesterday in a paper, they were supposed to shortly afterwards turn left on St-Laurent, so I waited at the intersection of Sherbrooke and St-Laurent to check out where they were to indeed head to, and also take some pics or videos. They finally continued on Sherbrooke until St-Denis, where they turned left, then right on Roy, to finally head down the long Berri hill. Berri in that area is a large divided street which passes under Sherbrooke which thus becomes an overpass there. That's where I settled down, with a fantastic view of Berri which way down below crosses Ste-Catherine and where are located, for those used to this blog, many outfits I've posted about before: the Berri-UQAM metro hub, the UQAM university, the Place Émilie-Gamelin (last Christmas), the Grande Bibliothèque and the nearby Gay Village. All these are located downhill in the video below, at the farthest that the eye can see.
When I left Place du Canada on Metcalfe, I came across this woman and two student girls and asked them where I could get myself a red square. They told me that there were stands at Place du Canada giving some. I was heading in the other direction and did not feel like returning there. One of the girls then handed me her own one, a red square lapel badge saying "1625$ Ça ne passe pas!" (something like 1625$, No way!). I didn't bother asking what it meant, too hurried to reach the head of the parade. When I got to the overpass on Sherbrooke and found a free spot with a view, I saw two men standing next to me. I asked them if they knew what the badge meant and I was told it was the amount of the tuition fee hike. The one next to me looked at me in the eyes with an enquiring look and looking at him, he also seemed vaguely familiar. I told him, "We know each other, don't we?". After some No! Really! This can't be! exclamations, it turned out he is someone from my hometown whose family lived about a block away from us back then, whom I knew very well, and who went to college and university at the same time and place as me. I knew by my brother some years ago that he lived in Montreal near or in the Gay Village area (he's not gay and has kids) but we had never met in Montreal. And he didn't know I lived here. The last time we had seen each other was in 1968 or 1969. Talk of a coincidence. And this is nothing. When I landed in Puerto Vallarta, my brother who is there for a few months came to meet me at the airport. But he wasn't alone. With him were a brother and a sister. The brother was a friend of mine in the late sixties and early seventies. I hadn't seen him either since those years. He happened to be in the same plane as I was. He said he often went to the bathroom, and by his seat number, he had to pass by mine. Neither of us recognized the other. Maybe I was sleeping... She is also someone I knew well, and the last I heard of her she was married. She now lives with a woman (maritally) who was there with her, both also in Puerto Vallarta for some months. She and her brother were also from my hometown and, believe this or not, the next-door neighbors of that other guy I met on Sherbrooke street on Thursday. Back in 1995, maybe I've mentioned this before, I had landed at the Nice airport and waiting for my luggage, I bumped into another guy and his companion (they're gay) both originally also from my hometown, whom I hadn't seen in years, and who, unbeknowst to me, were also on the same flight as I was. It turned out a nice coincidence for them since they had rented a car and being very early in the morning, their renting agency didn't show up. I had no such problems, having a "achat-rachat" (long to explain) car by Renault, so I could drive them to their rental agency, some kilometers away. But what I'll always remember is what this guy told me when we bumped into each other: «La vie est un long corridor» (Life is a long passageway). Sooner or later, you're bound to bump into someone you know. This guy is the younger brother of my friend who built the castle (previous posts). And yes, they also lived on the same street as all the above, just a little farther, downhill.
I know all this seems unbelievable. What can I say. That's really like it is.
In my previous post, I was joking about my life starting over again. Now I'm wondering if maybe it wasn't a joke at all, in the end. A little unsettling... What if someone else associated this time with a slightly less good karma pops up from nowhere?
This is the route the march took. It did not end where I was. It went way down to Place Jacques-Cartier in the Old Port (marker D on the map). It's slightly shorter, at 5,2 Km, than the one they had talked about in some media and which was 7 Km long. But still, 5,2 Km is already quite a stretch, especially considering that at one point the march must have covered the entire path, since I timed one hour and ten minutes elapsed time between the first marchers' arrival under the overpass and the passage of the last ones. Google Maps estimates the walk between A and D to be one hour and six minutes.
I took 25 minutes of videos. I made a single video of them for a younger brother of mine who lives back east and who is quite interested by these things (he was here for the 2005 march) and which I'll send him a DVD of. I'll try later to make a much smaller version fitting Xanga's limits, although I'm not sure anyone would be interested. It's just that the sound of such events is pretty much a big part of them. Meanwhile I'll just add here a few pics, giving a general idea.
Arrival at the Bonaventure metro station
In the waiting, at Place du Canada
The march was headed officially by that truck with loudspeakers. Many walked ahead of it though, as seen here. Many others behind me. Here on Sherbrooke approaching the intersection with Boulevard St-Laurent. I had caught up with it just before, at St-Urbain.
Rue Berri, barely two minutes before the march started passing under the overpass (14h48). Empty.
Thirteen minutes later (15h01)
Thirty-six minutes later (15h24).
The march continued at the same rate of flow for all of its 70 minute duration, until the last marchers passed under the overpass at about 16h00, about five minutes later than this last pic (15h55), taken from below at stree level and looking in the upcoming direction. Before, I was on the overpass we see in the back, looking in the outgoing direction.
Oh, by the way, if you find that the colors are a little on the bubblegum side, don't worry. It's not because you had a glass of wine too many. It's because I discovered a feature on my camera which makes more colorful pics at night but which must not be used in the daytime. I of course had forgotten to set the camera back to its normal setting.
More Sun
Yesterday I bought a pandoro. I didn't need a pandoro, I've still got three mini-panettones to eat, plus the zillion latino conchas and other breakfastable pastries I keep buying compulsively. I don't remember the last time I bought one, and on top of that I don't have any place to put it on any counter so I have to let it hang in a corner, under a basket of bananas and over some beer bottles. What lured me is that I went to Milano's for other stuff and these were on sale at half price, $4,99 instead of 10,95$. But I don't fool myself. I know that my being a food slut also had lots to do with it.
It says on the box that Domenico Melegatti invented and patented the pandoro in 1894. Invented I'm not that sure, since its origins are more older and varied, passing through Vienna and maybe even before that, France. The invention in question would be more about the "process" to make them industrially. Some pandoros are stuffed with crème Chantilly, chocolate, etc, but the one I bought is the plain, traditional one. The same that was served to me the first time I ever heard about it, when it was offered to me in 1991 as part of a breakfast in a hotel in Prato, about 40 Km northwest of Firenze (Florence). Do I have to add "Italy" I asked the waiter what it was and he said "pandoro". I understood "pan d'oro" and I knew enough Italian at the time to know it meant "golden bread".
Societal implosion
Any society that allows its legislative body to vote laws allowing ordinary citizens to run around with loaded guns and shoot at anyone on the sole basis that they think or feel that another person represents a menace to them is sick to the bone.
Gun-crazed societies (I put this to the plural, as if there was more than one ) end up getting exactly what they asked for: a society where the rule of law is overridden by the rule of Self.
I don't have much sympathy for those who today are outraged by what happened to Trayvor Martin all the while having turned their heads away if not having approved when these type of laws were being voted in their legislatures, a whole bunch of them! [*] As if this outcome was not written in the sky from day one! As the saying goes, if it can happen, it will. It's as valid for Three Mile Island or Tchernobyl as it is for paranoid freaks and zealots like Zimmerman. At some point, it's necessary to set aside Disney movies and become a little more responsible.
Fueled by religious leaders and a lot of politicians, the American psyche is based on fear, fear of God, fear of Communists up to the fear of germs and bacteriae. Now they have moved to fearing each other. Each time such an incident happens. it's being treated as an isolated case. They are not. The last forty years are littered with such incidents, and as the divide between the Haves and the Have-nots increases with no end in sight, more and more so-called "isolated" incidents will happen. The mere fact that there exists "gated communities" in a so-called democratic and free society just boggles the mind of anyone who wants to see. These cases are all presented as isolated because most Americans are not aware, or refuse to consider, that their society, and their way of life based on what we know, is slowly sinking. And as the current Republican race shows eloquently, their political system has become a nauseating vaudeville and the rest of it, with the PACs and the zillions required to get elected, has for some time now made of joke of "We the People". The People are not anymore persons whose opinion is asked for when times come to choose those who will govern, they have become pawns manipulated and conditioned by advertisement firms, counted or discounted for, shoved around on a large chessboard where the players are puppets of gigantic financial interests.
Meanwhile the Latin-Americans are making kids like crazy and the Chinese and the Brazilians and other BRICS or BRICS-to-be are taking economic control of the planet. Under their terms.
Dunno, I'm somewhat glad I'll be dead in 50 years. Hopefully.
The above is my current take on the issue, laden with generalizations I know, but which has been rather constant over the years. I know there's a minority out there which is more enlightened and does not fit in this mold. However, as is the case here, this minority seems to have replaced the silent majority (which is not as silent as they say, it being rather vocal actually these days) by the silent minority, one which prefers not to say what's on its mind by fear of being called intolerants. The real intolerants, them, know this, and act accordingly,
Then again, I could still be dead wrong about parts or all of the above, except for the first paragraph. That one is non negotiable, some principles are at the core of one's personal values. For the rest, if it can be demonstrated to me... On this, I've always been open for business.
The one on the left had a future. The one on the right just got himself a new past. Essentially, both are dead.
p.s. someone knows how this Zimmerman guy ended up with a Jewish name? Or what did I miss? laterz: I found the answer. He's the son of a Latino-Jewish mixed marriage. Not very common. He did look like a Latino to me.
Add-on: Nothing above about the sorry state of democracy in the U.S. is to be understood as if there were not similiar problems here, or in Canada, or elsewhere. It's just worse there.
[*] I first read 31 states the other day, then I heard this morning (from a reliable reporter) that it would be 17 states having passed similar laws. Seventeen still remains a frightening number.
Monument Georges-Étienne Cartier - Parc du Mont-Royal
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Above
This is the monument around which are held the tam-tams every Sunday in summer. This pic is related to a segment below.
Am I here?
It was a beautiful and abnormally hot day for a March 21 (26 C - broke all time records) so I opened the front windows to let some fresh air in (*) . Suddenly I heard two Spanish-speaking latino guys passing in front of my pad down below. I went to look and Latinos indeed they were. For a second there, I thought I was still in Mexico.
(*) so much as city air can be fresh...
When I was there
I had gone outside on my front balcony for a grasp of summer life when a young woman who lives in the second dwelling next to mine came strolling down the sidewalk playing with a hoola-hoop she had around her neck. I asked her if they were coming back into fashion and she said yes. You know you're getting older when your life is starting over again.
Seven
There's a large student movement going on here since a few months, and which has been gaining lots of momentum when I was gone. There are more than 200 000 students on strike (college and university level). I don't know if it's only for this day, but today they are now 300,000 I just heard. It has to do with the government wanting to raise significantly the tuition fees in the four coming years. There is a large demonstration which has been scheduled for some time and which is to be held today March 22. This time some students from the secondary level (high school) are expected to join in. No one knows how it will turn out. Could be around 30,000 like it was in the previous large demonstration last fall, or hit the hundreds of thousands. On radio they talk of a "monster demonstration". They have been staging flash protests here and there. Some days ago when I was still in Mexico, they blocked the Champlain bridge (the busiest bridge in Canada) smack during morning rush hour. Before that, they had blocked the overhead autoroute Métropolitaine. This morning they are also blocking the entry to the port of Montreal. Other demonstrations saw clashes with the police, some more radical political groups taking advantage of the situation. At first some thought all this movement was eventually to die on its own, many colleges and universities not joining in when the first stikes occured. But as time went by, it's the opposite that happened. More and more students joined in and there seems to be other non student organisations (political, social, unions, etc) at least giving them their support. Some student parents are also expected to show up (those who can of course). It's a bit surprising to me. Not that it is happening here, we're in Québec after all, which is in North America and at the same time isn't, but that it is happening now, in 2012. I and others were on the impression that this generation was one which was politically demovitated and only interested by so-called "environmental world issues". Apparently it is not the case. I say apparently because I don't really know exactly what are their motivations. Even with the fee hikes, tuition fees here will still be the lowest in Canada, and by far. I'm not even talking of the U.S. where they are scandalous. This leads me to think that there may be more under this than what the eyes readily see. For some time now, there has been a deep and general "ras-le-bol" (being fed up to the hilt) in Québec about the current government (there sinced 2003) and the generalized corruption and incompetence it is being equated with. It was recently forced, after two years of being asked to do so by every thinking living soul in Quebec besides them, to set up a major enquiry to look into corruption in the construction industry. That is only one of the issues. There are more. Therefore, that other non-student people would join in would not surprise me. All this for now at least exhudes the smells of some kind of mini Mai 68. A younger brother of mine called me yesterday and said that some are talking of a "Québec Spring". I heard the same from a radio reporter a few minutes ago. Maybe they are getting a little overboard. Then again, maybe they're not. This is Quebec, it could go either way.
I haven't followed this story enough to get involved, still as mentioned above not really sure what are their deep motivations, but as a former student leader who was involved in such student uprisings in the late sixties, I cannot not go to this demonstration, at least as a bystander. If asked, I may even wear one of those bright read felt squares they all wear, and which I even saw worn by the Parti Québécois opposition leader in the National Assembly watching the news last evening. We'll see. Like I said, I'd much prefer to know more. But one thing I do know is that like a hefty bunch of Quebecers, I believe that financial restrictions to higher education are unacceptable, education being the key to the betterment of a society, any society, and that restricting it to only those who can afford it is the best way to maintain the social system as is, that is the Haves remaining the Haves, and the Have-Nots remaining the Have-Nots. Being a member of the Haves does not only mean you are richer, it also means thay "you" are in control of society. I am one of those who thinks higher education should ideally be free, or at least accessible to everyone, whatever his or her financial condition. I don't think that student loans correct the distortion. When you start in life with a debt higher than the Himalayas, you are not being treated as fairly as the one whose daddy or mommy paid for everything. Ideally is of course a word meaning what it means. In the meantime before we get there (probably never), the lower the tuition fees, the better it is.
All this reminds me of the February 2003 march when 200 000 Montrealers and Quebecers hit downtown to protest against the upcoming American invasion of Iraq. Although at times it's terribly depressing to see how this city is managed, at other times I'm awfully glad and proud to be a Montrealer.
Accessorily, this also means that other stuff I had planned to do today will have to wait.
Side note: While I was looking for that post about the tam-tams, which dates back to April 16, 2005, I scrolled down the page and was dumbfounded to land on this, posted just a few days earlier, in early April 2005 (April 1 - 8h50 and March 29 - 18h55 segments). How do we forget easily! I had completely forgotten about that other student uprising, involving the same dumbass neo-con government which is still in power with record low polls these days. That time it was about a will of theirs to cut in the bursary part of the student loans program. So much for their current argument about the loans/bursary program compensating for the inequalities they are creating. When you were once caught trying to steal candy in the jar, it's hard to be relied upon to ensure the candy store's security. I see that the red square was already in use back then. It was seven years ago. I'm pretty sure it's not related at all, but today's march will be seven kilometers long, in downtown Montreal. Starts at 13h00. In an hour. Got to go.
Other side note: I don't remember what that "finger burn incident" mentioned at the end of the above link was all about. Also, when I edited that post to change the Mont-Royal cross pic, in the options below with edit, comment, etc, there was also "fix language". My language is fine and does not need fixing. I only use clean and sterilized letters.
No Montreal pic this time around. Self-explanatory.
To paraphrase Jacques Brel, I'm alive and well and currently staying in a tiny place called Barra de Navidad, in the State of Jalisco. Right now however I'm in the town of Melaque which is an hour's walk away by the beach. But since we live in modern times (so we're told) there are also frequent microbuses between the two locations, at a ticket price of 6 pesos. That's about 50 Canadian or American cents (or centavos as they call them here). I don't know how many "centimes" in Euros. The reason I'm in Melaque is that at 12h40 I will take another bus that will bring me to the beach of La Manzanilla a little up north and I elected to use the spare hour to give notice of my still being part of this world. In Barra, the internet cafes are to throw up (the machines). All in Windows XP, with memory chips salvaged from some Egyptian pyramid, and working at about the same speed it took them to be built back then. Already that working with a Spanish teclado (keyboard) is a pain to start with. Smaller pain in English, but in French, with all the accents, it's what you can call cruel punishment. Those in Melaque are much faster. All this to say that a small computer (notebook or the likes with a real keyboard) is top of the list for my next Christmas self-gifts. Even my small posada-hotel at $200 (pesos, divided by twelve, the going exchange rate, that will give you 16$ crisp dollars) they have Wi-Fi. They also have many trees harboring a zillion birds and a few roosters that all wake up at 7h45 (today at least) for a concert performance of a half-hour, but that's another story.
For the above reasons, and also that when I go on the internet I'm faced with informations I don't care at all to know, like Cheney being scared to come to Canada. That doesn't bother me a bit. What does is that some Canadians invited him in the first place. As per Montreal and Quebec news, it's of the same kind of interest to me. So this time around I hardly went on the internet at all. I don't know when I'll internetize again. All I know is that I'm scheduled to land in Montreal just past midnight in the wee hours of March 21, if Air Canada does not go on strike. Air Canada by the way lost my luggage somewhere in Toronto, and I only recovered them the next day in Puerto Vallarta. They could have been lost or stolen, how was I to know! 24 hours of freaking. I did not need that. Thanks Air Canada.
Until further news from my little self, and if you don't mind, I'll take that bus to La Manzanila for an afternoon of unbearable heat and sun...
Palais des Congrès - 2012.02.26 - 00h03
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
A smile is gone
A lot of people here were in mourning this Monday. Chantal Jolis, that French radio host turned Québécoise and of whom I talked about in my June 28, 2009 post, died in the early hours of the morning. She had the Parkinson's disease. She had chosen to live her last years in the Iles-de-la-Madeleine, of which I also talked about recently (February 16) when I recalled that giant storm that left me stranded there, in 1982. There was a lot of special programming on radio and on television, especially on Radio-Canada.
She had a take on life, and death, that was absolutely remarkable. I hope, if ever I'm in a similar situation, to have both her serenity and lucitidy. Radio-Canada's Espace Musique has a blog and on the day she died, they posted a bunch of links to previous radio or television programs she took part in. One of them is centered on intimate interviews held in a train slowly going its way in the countryside. It's in French of course, so unfortunately not to the reach on non-French speakers, but for these latest, if it's available across the ocean, I'd strongly recommend. It was recorded in May of 2010 and she was already three years after her diagnostic. It lasts 17 minutes.
Lucio Dalla died yesterday (Thursday). I played this morning a CD of him which I hadn't listened to in a while, and on which there is of course his all time greatest song, Caruso, which was also sung by Luciano Pavarotti as everyone knows. There are many versions of this song with Dalla on Youtube including one shot in Modena in 1992 featuring both Dalla and Pavarotti. On this day, however, I prefer this one, much slower, more intimate, and more recent (2010). It's from a RAI DUE television show.
On that CD I have, there is another song which I like very much. It's called "4.3.43" which is Lucio Dalla's date of birth, March 4, 1943. This below is a rather special live version, on a very intimate and acoustic mode. I wish I could understand what he is saying when he talks of the Portuguese "fado" and of Janis Joplin.
And this is the version I have on my CD and despite that he hardly pronounces most of the song, it's the one I prefer the most. There's something about it reminiscent of some cozy piano bars at 3h00 in ther morning. Then again, maybe it's because it's the only version I had heard up to now.
These are the lyrics [those in brackets are not sung in the above versions - don't know why]. I tried to understand the general story but I don't think I got it right at all. What I understood is that his mother aged 16, who sang in some bars in the port, met this unknown sailor who knew how and made love to her and after a month, tadah, no periods and here comes Lucio, who became known as Baby Jesus for those living/working at the port. Like I said, I'm probably wrong from A to Z, especially that it does not match his bio on Wikipedia. By the way, whether in French or English, Google translate is a complete failure when it comes to translating Italian.
Dice che era un bell'uomo e veniva, veniva dal mare parlava un'altra lingua pero' sapeva amare e quel giorno lui prese mia madre sopra un bel prato l'ora più dolce prima d'essere ammazzato
[Cosi' lei resto' sola nella stanza, la stanza sul porto con l'unico vestito, ogni giorno più corto e benchè non sapesse il nome e neppure il paese m'aspetto' come un dono d'amore fino dal primo mese]
Compiva sedici anni quel giorno la mia mamma le strofe di taverna le cantò a ninna nanna e stringendomi al petto che sapeva, sapeva di mare giocava a far la donna con il bimbo da fasciare
E forse fu per gioco o forse per amore che mi volle chiamare come nostro Signore Della sua breve vita il ricordo, il ricordo più grosso e' tutto in questo nome che io mi porto addosso
E ancora adesso che gioco a carte e bevo vino per la gente del porto mi chiamo Gesù Bambino E ancora adesso che gioco a carte e bevo vino per la gente del porto io sono Gesu'Bambino
E ancora adesso che gioco a carte e bevo vino per la gente del porto mi chiamo Gesu' Bambino Gesu' Bambino
Monsieur Lazhar
Monsieur Lazhar did not win the Best Film in a Foreign Language Oscar. It was not hoped for but expected. Not that it's not a great film, it's just that if faced an equally great one, from Iran. Monsieur Lazhar still remains a wonderful movie, a must see, imho. Some critics from outside Québec, and from prestigious papers at that, had made it their favorite... goes to say. The film's theme is so very much the movie that I bothered uploading it here. It's available for free download on the composer's site, but here it'll be more permanent.
Down under
Although I was barely recovering from a week of pains and aches here and there due to a nasty winter cold and maybe other stuff doctors continually fail to identify, I decided to head downtown Saturday evening for the Nuit Blanche. When I took the metro it was past 22h00. I resurfaced at the Berri-UQAM metro station then walked west to the Place des Arts/Place des Festivals area, which was this year the focal point of the Nuit Blanche, even if there are also four other sub areas in the city. After a while there, I finished by electing to give it a go for the Art Souterrain contemporary art exhibit, a walking tour of 7 Km in Montreal's underground. It was 23h15 when I started the tour at the Place-des-Arts. I made most of it, but when I got to the Centre Eaton, it was past 3h00 AM and I was too tired to do the last stretch at the neighboring Les Ailes de la Mode shopping building. Besides, I lingered for a while at Centre Eaton because one of the works displayed there was a gigantic thing spread over three floors on part of the atrium's sides, floor, and escalators. When I finished taking pics, it was now 03h30. I could have taken the metro (McGill station) just there (it was open all night for this event) but that meant a transfer at Berri-UQAM, and although it was open, the train frequency was maybe fifteen minutes and with my luck, I'd probably end up at both stations when the train had just left. So instead I walked back to Berri-UQAM using Ste-Catherine St., a walk of about 20 minutes. I finally got home at 04h30. What I found the most annoying was that being dressed for the outside (this is winter, remember ) and never having to go out for the whole Art Souterrain walk, I was in heat all the time and often had to stop, remove some clothes and try to dry out somewhat.
I took many pics and videos but I don't have the time, or energy, to put them together for posting. For now, below is a plan of the Montréal Souterrain (Underground Montreal) with the Art Souterrain path (the orange line). I started at Zone 1 (Place des Arts) and called it a night at Zone 13 (Centre Eaton).
A gato is a cat in Spanish. I only use this term because I'm going to Mexico and I want to make myself sound interesting.
The cat I'm talking about also thinks a lot of himself. He's quite a furry cat, kind of charcoal colored, with long and not very disciplined hair, and has the looks and postures of a bitchy old male stray cat, what he probably is. Why I mention this cat is that I've seen him a few times lately, strolling down the sidewalk on my side of the street, straight as a pole and heading to his business with the same attitude, wandering about like he's the owner of all the buildings and that he's checking things out to make sure everything is ok. I like cats. Contrary to dogs, they don't need us and just tolerate our being around. I like dogs too, but their attachment to us soon turns into an attachment to them and then we're screwed.
Getting the hell out
I'm leaving Tuesday (March 6) for two weeks in Puerto Vallarta (Mexico) or the surrounding area. I'm not at all in the shape required for such a trip. On the other hand, since I had initially wanted to go there for much longer, maybe it's better that way. I do badly need some sun. This winter was rather mild but as per the Sunny days go, we certainly can't talk of overdoing it. Being anxiety prone, and also aching everywhere including some disturbing new little aches in the upper abdominal region, I've been stressed a lot lately which explains my absence from here. I have a zillion good reasons to be anxious. I have an old car which I can't leave on the street while gone because it's winter and it may snow and they may have to clean the street which means moving the car so I have to park it elsewhere which means the airport (about 150$), where although it never happened in nearly 15 trips, the damn parking lot could be full when I get there in the wee hours of the morning so I'd have to find that other private one where the shuttle to the terminal is much less frequent. Then of course, the car which makes strange noises lately could very well die on me between my home and the airport, or better yet not start at all. Then there's the fact that I have to transit via Toronto (change plane there), an airport I hate for all sorts of reasons, and to make it worse, for the first time ever, having to use Air Canada which is the rock bottom pit of no class bad service airlines, and whose pilots, I heard today, just got a strike mandate and whose baggage workers are also in a labor dispute. A cookie with that? Well there is a cookie. I'll also be treated as a second class citizen in my own and officially bilingual country since both Toronto Airport and Air Canada are required, by law, to supply French services, the airport because it's a federal outfit, the airline because it was formerly a state airline and when it was sold to private interests, continued bilingual services was a sine qua non condition of the sale. Everyone knows neither respect these obligations. And for the first time, because I have to take Air Canada, I won't be served a lunch or meal while on board for more than five hours. Worse, to add insult to injury, they will offer me, payable with VISA at a price that can lift the airplane all by itself, a crappy cold "lunch" made with stuff only people outside from Québec in this country of mine would consider food.
Now, with a bit of luck, all this will only have been anxiety. I sure hope so.
Since I bought my ticket somewhat in advance, most of the trip's preparation is over with, so maybe in the next few days I'll be able to post some pics taken during the Nuit Blanche.
Da Food Section
Let's continue this new tradition of endind posts with yummy stuff that can be eaten.
My mother called me the other day for recipe ideas for chicken breasts. Most of those I have are too complicated for her or the ingredients are not readily available where she lives or she'd get stuck with them. For example I use cilantro for other [Latino/Mexican] meals, but not her. She'd have to buy a bunch of it and only use a few sprigs, with having to throw the rest away. But still the same, I'm not even sure supermarkets there carry cilantro (coriander in leaves). I did have this one recipe which I like and since I did have multi-colored bell peppers to pass before they wasted, I did the recipe permitting me to take a pic which I could send to her along with the recipe. It's called «Poulet au trois poivrons» (Three-peppers chicken). Since the pic was taken, I'll maximize its utility by posting it here also. I should have been a businessman.
This is a beer I buy once in while and which I like a lot (and which I may even have mentioned here before - hey, I'm aging, shit happens ). It's Belgian, good point, Trappist style, more good points, but 6,3% alcohol, bad point for me, which is why I don't abuse of it. For pricing comparisons to anyone who would want to compare, it sells here for 3,30$ (dollars, not pesos - I'd bet you didn't know that the symbol for Mexican pesos is also '$'. )
This is simply a weird meal. The rice is Mexican (arroz a la Mexicana) and so is the green sauce which is hot Mexican salsa. The sausages however are not Mexican at all, not even from any of both Americas. They are Slovenian kranjskas (the hotter version). These sausages have a tight texture so it's possible to cut them in two for pan frying. The end result was not bad at all.
Rue Ste-Catherine (Village gai) «If a bullet should pass through my brain, let it break all the closet doors» Harvey Milk [assassinated November 27, 1978 in San Francisco for, among other things, being a Gay activist].
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Music to dance on when bored stiff in a hotel/motel room
ALORS ON DANSE - STROMAE (my translation)
Then we dance (x3)
Who says studies says work Who says job tells you pay Who says money says expenses Who says credit says owing Who says debt tells you bailiff He says sitting in shit Who says love says kids Says always and says divorce Who says relatives tells you mourning Cause problems don't come alone Who says crisis tells you world Tells you famine tells your third world Who says tiredness says wake up Still deaf from the day before So we go out to forget all the problems
Then we dance (x9)
And then you tell yourself that it's over Cause worse than that would be death When you finally think you've overcome When there's no more of it well gee there is more! Is it the music and the problems Or the problems and the music It gets to your guts It gets to your head And then you pray for it to stop But it's your body, it's not heaven And you cover your ears more And then you yell even harder and it continues...
So then we sing Lalalalalala, Lalalalalala, So then we sing Lalalalalala, Lalalalalala,
STROMAE is at the Metropolis in Montreal tomorrow evening. He's Belgian . STROMAE is verlan for maestro.
Add-on: Audio versions of the above.
Mid winter pits
Winter is not my preferred season. Besides all the little pains mentioned in my February 9 post, now I'm stuck with that kind of winter cold which lasts one week when not treated, eight days when it is, and starts with runny eyes and runny noses and travels downwards eventually to generate another type of runs. I could have parted with this nice gift. Furthermore that because I take medication to prevent hypertension, I am not supposed to take those over-the-counter all-in-one day/night medications, because the decongesting ingredient in them uppers the tension, or in other words, anihilates the effects of my pills. The pharmacists says I have to buy a separate medication for each other problem (anhistamine for the running eyes/nose, something for the cough, something for the aches). Fuck it. I'm not a millionnaire and my goal in life is not to keep the pharmaceutical industry afloat, especially that if I buy all those things, they'll all be past due comes next mid winter gift. So I took only one night pill when it was in the worst, and for the rest, I'll just live with it.
Belated Christmas
I went to buy some dishwashing liquid at my corner supermarket and saw small packs of industrial Christmas cakes which were on special, since the Best Before date was stamped as March 23. In fact it was stamped 23MA12. Could be March, could by May. The positions are french (Day-Month-Year) but I'm pretty sure they got mixed up at the store since March is usually MR on these labels, whether in French or English. This is because those who make those label markers don't have a clue there are other languages than English on this planet, and for them MR and MA is just fine and dandy. Simply adding one more letter would permit to use MAR/MAI in French or MAR/MAY in Spanish. Heck, even the Anglos would be all right with MAR/MAY, and even as a bonus, finally be able to clearly use JUN/JUL wiithout any trace of ambiguity caused by picking letters here and there as they do with JN/JL. Ok, it would just shift the problem since the French speakers would now be stuck with JUI/JUI. But all this would mean more expensive markers, thus either less profit or higher selling price, and lower profits brought about by caring for people is, as everyone knows, a sin the magnitude of which no words can express, abbreviated or not. The cake was 2,99$ but really, it's 3,00$ isn't it? I can't believe they still think people fall for this lame marketing trick. I suppose it's because it really works. Some times, when I look at shopping humanoids, I'm not that impressed. Other times too, but as it says, that will be for other times.
This said, I don't expect much of that piece of cake, which probably won't be one, in some way. Not to mention that it's not even Biggles-compatible since I haven't seen anywhere on the package the words rhum or rum. I mean, what can you expect from a fruitcake which does not even pass the Biggles Test, I ask you?
The era that risks never having happened
There was a very interesting column by the "new medias" columnist of my daily today, Tuesday (Fabien Deglise, in Le Devoir). He started by mentioning how Yahoo is apparently considering shutting down its eight-year old Flickr site which contains more than 6 000 000 000 photos. These constitute "the memory" of our times and if Flickr closes down, most of it will be lost forever. The same for all those other "social" sites containing zillions of informations. He also mentions the Megaupload.com site which if it contained illegal material, also contained very legit stuff which is part of the culture of our times, put there by cineasts and others for sharing purposes, and which will be destroyed and lost forever when they will zap its servers indiscriminately. Some of those sites closing down give an advance warning, permitting people to make backups of their material. Others don't.
F. Deglise (translated): «The problem today is that this kind of backup is increasingly difficult because of a new digital ecology where the human yearning for communication produces each day more data than he is able to absorb and also does it in a mobile format. To do this, he must write his present on remote servers in order to have access to it, on his iPhone, no matter where on Earth. We call this "infonuagique" - cloud computing, say the Anglos -, which makes for miniature devices to multiply in people's pockets, with much more limited memory than a computer, and which in turn forces to rely on servers of private enterprises installed in Alaska, California or Asia, to ensure the preservation of what is produced on them.
The thing is practical. But it is not without risk and feeds an amusing paradox that the Chief Librarian of Canada, Daniel J. Caron, highlighted recently at a conference held in Montreal. Basically, the man claims that the current period, in all its mutation, will be one of the least well documented for future generations because, among other things, the privatization of the storage of human activity. A phenomenon rather troubling, indeed, for a time in history that has never so much spoken of itself, which multiplies the traces of this thinking, and that puts every effort into ensuring that in the end nobody remembers.
One commenter mentioned the great fire of the Library of Alexandria, considered until now Humanity's greatest tragedy. I could be we are putting up the next one in place. Those who will suffer from this loss of historical points of reference are those who will be born later, decades or centuries from now.
Another paradox
Internet is supposed to open the gates of worldly knowledge as never before in Man's history. Technically, that is true. But in reality, these knewly opened doors are under constant pressure to be closed back again, but in a very insidious way. More and more, all those programs permitting to intercommunicate are being custom-tailored to match their users, not to better them. What I mean is that people are being served what they already know, therefore confining them in little boxes where they are comfortable but where also they can be manipulated much more easily. Nowadays, to access worlds and cultures which are different, you have to constantly battle to bypass and circumvene those systems. I cannot read anymore any information in Spanish about and coming from Mexico on Google search. I am systematically presented with either Canadian sites and/or sites in French or English. A cookie says my IP's server is located in Canada and that's that. Worse, some articles are bluntly translated in (terrible) French with my barely being advised of it. When I want to know what's going on Mexico, or read what is being said and written in Mexico, I have to squarely either type the Google Mexico URL (www.google.com.mx) in the adress bar (if I know it) or search for "Google Mexico" and follow the link. In both cases, I have to also change the language to Spanish otherwise it will automatically return an indigest bundle of results in either French, or English or some translated to French unreadable lingo of their own. Nowhere in Google is there a place to temporarily change the "user home" from Canada to Mexico, say. So how am I supposed to know what's really going on elsewhere on this planet? Besides relying on second hand information gathered and presented by some local (Canada or U.S.) media which have their own agendas and views on things?
The same goes for sharing sites, like Youtube and the likes. You look for a song. You listen. You like or don't like. Regardless if you did or not, the next time you go to Youtube you are bombarded with a list of videos all related to the videos you have watched recently. Unless you systematically delete your cookies. Then you are presented with a list of those videos most looked at by users of "your country". This you can change by modifiying your "country" for "the world" (there's a fine print thingie in the bottom of the page, glasses recommended). But if people are lazy, like most of us are, they simply let themselves be told what to watch, even if it's not the way it is presented to them. The end result is people turning around in their own goo with other people like them also turning around in their own goo which also happens to be the same goo for both. They pass years watching it, not suspecting a minute that there are other goos out there. Unless some people within their goo watches something from a different goo and it then appears in your own goo's list. They call that 'viral'. I call it 'numbing'. In the end, unless you really want to and do the required efforts, you never get out of your own backyard. A planetary backyard maybe, but a backyard just the same. And fenced. You know there are neighbors out there, but you never see nor hear them and that's just fine and dandy with you. These internet sites don't expand one's mind, culture and knowledge, they just comfort his fright of being all alone out there by telling him that hundreds or thousands are just like him. A God placebo, kind of.
In all cases, the gathering and usage of these personal identification preferences are the collateral and practical application of a system first created to respond to the needs of the adverstisement industry. And if your preferences do not fit within the grand scheme of economic things as defined by profit searchers, they will manage for that to be.
There's another tell-tale (and for me somewhat frightening) indication that everyone paddles in the same very limited goo. Song lyrics, for instance. One single person posts the lyrics of a song and makes an obvious spelling mistake or something, and all, not only a few, but all and every single page of those lyrics in the whole wide world internet carries the very same mistake. Same for the news. Everyone picks up some news from a single source, puts their name on it, and throws it around on the Net. That's ok when the original information is true. But what when it isn't? Wars have started based on less. One day a freak will post some false information on the Net and the machine will start to rev like crazy and Humanity will be over.
Da Food Section
Fauquet mentioned a while ago that he had his veal liver prepared with garlic. I think I replied at the time that I would try it one day, since this preparation mode was new to me. Considering I'm a man of word , this is what I had for supper. Since he told me the 'what' but not the 'how', I went to the Net and found different methods, garlic whole, garlic chopped, garlic from the start, garlic only added in the end, etc. I elected for one which featured slowly cooking whole [but peeled] garlic cloves in butter until tender and golden (a good 10 minutes) then reserved and the liver cooked in that now galic perfumed butter, on a slightly higher stove. It's a recipe to be made with "new" garlic, but since new won't be around for at least 6 months, "old" it had to be and "old" it was. It was good but next time I'll use more garlic cloves so to have more to eat with the meat, and season the meat more prior to cooking (especially pepper).
Afterwards I had some of that industrial fruit cake. It lived up to the expectations, that is not very much. But it could have been worse, I must admit.
Hiver / Winter
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
ADDENDUM Feb 20
Québec's Isabelle Boulay in duo with France's Benjamin Biolay (sigh) singing a song I listened to over and over in the late sixties in my college student residence room. Good times. Entering the summer of my life. The sun was shining in my eyes, back then. Ohh-oh-oh summer wine, indeed.
Le 2-22
I was to explain the story behing that building featured as my previous post's header, but I don't have the time right now. Next post maybe.
Flag? What flag?
In English Canada, yesterday was Flag Day. They are very proud of their flag, you know, the one that had to be forced down their throat by a Parliament Act on February 15, 1965. Back then, they wanted to keep that old red thing with the British thingie in the corner. The CBC had/has lots of coverage about the flag and Canadian pride on its site and in their news. In a diaporama where people splash this pride, all they could find in Quebec was this man [frame #7] from Kirkland in the west island of Montreal, a small anglo-ghetto town where hearing French is as common as hearing Swahili, and whose pastime was to fly little planes in Hawkesbury in nearby Ontario (you know, where they are civilized ) and whose pride was our taming of winter, something uniquely Canadian he says (yeah, go tell that to the Russians, the Norwegians, the Finnish, etc).
In Québec, whether at Radio-Canada or anywhere else, it was «Flag What?» No mention whatsoever, nowhere.
However, this February 15 happened to be the 400th birth anniversary of Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, a devout Catholic who at the age of 30 came here in 1642 to found Montreal, along with Jeanne Mance, with in mind the intention to establish cordial and respectful relationships with the then called "Savages", which at the time was not a derogatory term at all. This anniversary, it, was talked about a little, especially on Radio-Canada's radio. De Maisonneuve did not find what he expected, the Iroquois then being at war with the French and other Amerindian nations, encouraged and armed by the Dutch and English who were already settled more in the south (New England and lower). And he had the governor of Quebec City, founded in 1608, not happy at all with a new settlement being set up in Montreal, since he knew it was a geographically more interesting place, especially as fur trade went. But the spirit of De Maisonneuve and Jeanne Mance endured and still remains today. Nowadays, the Iroquois are spread in the north-eastern United States and Ontario for most, and a small percentage live in Kahnawake, facing Montreal across its south shore, and Akwesasne, on the northern side. Most of the Iroquois now only speak English. Only a few still speak Iroquois, and they are for most those who live in Québec (the intolerant one, remember? ). It was also in Montreal that in 1701 was signed the Great Peace of Montreal of which I talked before, and this 59 years after De Maisonneuve first set foot here. He didn't see in his lifetime what he had come to do becoming a reality, but history remembers.
From the Wikipedia page about the Great Peace (bold is mine):
Commerce and exploratory expeditions quietly resumed in peace after the signing of the treaty. The French explorer Cadillac left Montreal to explore the Great Lakes region, eventually founding the city of Detroit, which had a promising future. Jesuit priests resumed their spiritual mission-based work in the north. The Great Peace of Montreal is a unique diplomatic event in the history of the Americas. The treaty is still valid and recognized as such by the Native American tribes involved.
The French, in negotiating followed their traditional policy in the Americas, where the relationship with the natives was characterized by mutual respect and admiration and based on dialogue and negotiation. According to the 19th century historian Francis Parkman:
"Spanish civilization crushed the Indian; English civilization scorned and neglected him; French civilization embraced and cherished him" —Francis Parkman.[2]
As per their flag, they can shove it. It belongs to those who scorned and neglected [the Amerindians]. I don't need that kind of symbol to create myself an identity as they are lamentably trying to do. I already have one, one whose roots are four centuries old, and of which I certainly am anything but ashamed of. And this goes for both my Acadian and Quebecer identities. Two different peoples, but a common French ancestry, and a common approach towards the first inhabitants of this continent. As per the taming of winter, it's the Amerindians who showed us how to survive here. You should have mentioned that, Mister Proud Canadian from Kirkland, you know, those from which the name Canada itself comes from.
Kissings
Two Thai men broke the record of the world's longest continuous kiss. Times are achangin' aren't they? Oh, by the way, you can kiss my ass, Santorums and assimilated. And after, why not try to kiss everyone goodbye, while you're at it?
The wraths of winter
The Iles-de-la-Madeleine (Magdalen Islands) is a small archipelago populated majorly by Acadians who fled the Deportation of 1755, and which is located smack in the middle of the Gulf of St-Lawrence. Winters there are usually milder than on the continent. However this year, they got showered with a fierce ice storm that left over 230 electricity poles severed or broken, all this with a -30C outside temperature. There is almost no forest on those islands so dwellings are heated by electricity. A lot of inhabitants had to find some shelter among relatives who still had power, or at emergency shelters where they had generators. Hydro-Québec had to import by boat all the poles and equipment and personel to fix the mess.
Diaporama of the storm's aftermath here -> DIAPORAMA
I have been a few times to the Islands. Once in summer, in August, when the temperatures are the most pleasant. It's a long trip, you first have to travel through New Brunswick, then take a ferry to reach Prince Edward Island (then, now there's a bridge), and after crossing the island, take another ferry for a five hour trip to the Magdalen Islands. But I was there also before, in 1982. I was in winter, and back then I was working in Sept-Iles on Québec's north shore, or geographically, on the north end of the Gulf of St-Lawrence. For my work, I had taken the plane for a 24 hour stint, arriving one day and leaving the next, the time to take the inventory of the three or four houses our department had there. Unfortunately for me, and more so for the Islanders, that night coincided with the snow storm of the century.
From Environment Canada's 1982 archives (translated): «A storm hits the gulf of St-Lawrence, paralyzing the region for a week. In the Magdalen Islands, 80 km/h winds transformed the 60 cm of snow that had fallen into 7 meter high snow banks. Aerial and maritime communications stopped, telephone lines were severed, and power failures deprived many of heating. »
For almost one whole week, I was stranded in a hotel, and every passing day there was less and less food available. In the end, it was the same menu, mostly from canned food. We had heat because of the hotel's generators, I suspect, but I don't remember how much. There was no way to communicate with the outside world except by listening to the newly inaugurated community radio, where there were reports about the situation and more so where they supplied information on the whereabouts of people in snowmobiles passing from house to house to pick up the sick and pregnant women about to deliver so as to bring them to the hospital in Cap-aux-Meules (where I was). Some of those villages are quite remote from Cap-aux-Meules. It was impossible to go outside, the storm was raging non stop and besides, to go where? There were no roads anymore. It never snows much in the Islands and the only two snow plows broke in the matter of hours. Where there used to be roads, it was now a continuous snow blanket reaching almost as high as the teleophone poles. After five days, the storm finally diminished. A first plane landed at the airport on that or the next day. But the airport was on another island and the roads leading to it were not reopened yet. Snow removal equipment was arriving by boat at the wharf. My hotel (which still exists) was on a hill overlooking Cap-aux-Meules, with in normal times a fantastic view of Cap-aux-Meules and of its port and the ferry. But these were not normal times. From my room all I saw was snow surrounding us. Eventually, they managed to open some kind of roofless tunnel on the road going downhill, where there was the center of Cap-aux-Meules but more so a brasserie (beer pub) which had just reopened. I probably heard about it on the radio. I strolled down, eerily, between those two massive walls of snow on each side of the tunnel, and entered the pub. In there, some musicians (they are all musicians over there) were playing lively traditional music and everyone was looking at each other, smiling with that kind of blissfull look that you can only see in the eyes of survivors. It took a few days before the road and the bridge leading to Hâvre-aux-Maisons (where is the airport) were reopened and that I could board a plane bringing me back to Sept-Iles. A week I will never forget. And assurely the longest 24 hour trip of my life.
It had all started on a February 17 of 1982, I read in that archive. Thirty years exactly, tomorrow. Talk of a coincidence... I was 31.
The wraths of poverty
Terrible, terrible what happened in Honduras, with those 350 prisoners dead in a prison fire. Social equality is inversely proportional to the size of a society's penitentiary system. That's what makes this tragedy even more tragic. Many of those prisoners should not have been there in the first place.
Who's next?
I am not at all a fan of pop music and am generally ignorant of that milieu, that is both the songs and who sings them. I of course had heard the names of Amy Winehouse or Whitney Houston, but if you had put me in a room and played one of their songs and asked me who it was who was singing, I wouldn't have had a clue. This said, when one of them makes the news, I will read about all I missed. Among those, this excerpt from a column by Marc Cassivi in La Presse (Feb 14): http://www.cyberpresse.ca/chroniqueurs/marc-cassivi/201202/14/01-4495698-lange-dechu.php?utm_categorieinterne=trafficdrivers&utm_contenuinterne=cyberpresse_B13b_marc-cassivi_3259_section_POS1
«From the summit of the rainbow to the depths of the ditches, from the image (created from scratch?) of a balanced young woman to that of a human wreck eaten by her demons, the life of Whitney Houston will have corresponded to the worst cliches of American showbizz. Archtypal Musicography, «from the firmament of stars to the inmost depths of drugs», without redemption at the last chapter.
The story of the long and painful fall, in view of all, of a queen of pop, in an era of ready-to-discard.
Listening to the homage, touching, sober and felt, by Jennifer Hudson to Whitney Houston, Sunday, at the Grammies, I have asked myself how many among the current pop singers - - Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry -, would end up with the same fate as «The Voice». How many of them are condemned to be out of date before hitting 35? To not know how to manage the after-effects of their celebrity? To extinguish themselves like Amy Winehouse?
She is handsome, Adele. She has a rich, textured, exceptional voice. Her ballad Someone Like You, inspired by a broken love relationship, is on its way to become, also, a standard for Star Académie style singing contests (Star Académie is a local tv show). The British woman has known celebrity at the age of 22. Whitney Houston had the same age when she appeared, as a light, on the international pop scene. No one suspected the darkness that was in store for her.»
Monday Celine Dion, in a phone interview for (I think) the television show Good Morning America, said that she was scared shitless (she used other words of course), for herself that is, of that "milieu" laden with booze and drugs (those words, she did say) and that it was the main reason why she did not participate at all in the showbusiness social life, preferring to stay home.
Monday also, it was learned that Houston's record companies didn't wait for her body to get cold before heavily and indecently boosting the price of her albums. And when her golden hearse arrived form the airport in Jersey, lots of people were there already sporting t-shirts with her face on it, with dates of birth/death. Profiterring from human misery. You can find a bastard at almost every street corner on this planet. In some places more than others.
Every day, in Mexico, they find bodies, or parts thereof, scattered here and there, savagely slain by the narcos. When one of those American celebrities dies after having indulged heavily in drugs for years, sometimes I wonder if they asked themselves, if only just once in their lifetime, if they could be the direct cause of this carnage. There's no offer when there's no demand. And everyone knows where the demand comes from.
ADDENDUM (Feb. 18)
Pierre Foglia had this in his column Thurday morning (my translation):
« Speaking of silence...
Is Whitney Houston still going to die for long, you think? As long as Michael Jackson? Mrs Houston died on Saturday, yet, as I write these lines, five days later, she continues to die two or three hours a day on NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS... this is a question addressed to no one in particular: couldn't she just be left alone? Couldn't we stop killing her and rekilling her with a bunch of cliches, of repetitions, of "I will always love you"? Five days later, the tribute acts as a sledge-hammer that flattens the body a little more each time.
Speaking of silence, it is very often mistaken, unfortunately, for oblivion. »
As I write this, it's still Whitney Houston wall-to-wall on CNN. Seven days now... Just how much money can they still extract from her corpse?
Food section
There's a Chilean butcher shop and grocery store on Beaubien St where the sell delicious chicken or beef empanadas, Chili style. Besides the meat and onions, they also put in each one a half hard-boiled egg. ¡Muy sabroso! This one is an "empanada de res", res being beef. The sauce in the salad is mine and has chipotle in it. A recipe I found on some American site.
The other day, I bought at Milano a pack of cheese-stuffed tortellini imported from Italy. They are described as "shelf stable" which means I gather that they don't need to be refrigerated prior to the pack being opened. They are egg pastas, and the cheese is pecorino romano, ricotta, and two hard cheeses. Surprisingly there is a rather short list of conservatives and the likes, considering that they can stay on the shelf. They were pretty good, and the 250g pack made for two meals. They were quite large. Maybe they should be called tortellis. I don't know where they come from exactly in Italy, because they are being imported here by a Canadian company founded by some Dutch people in the 50s, for the initial purpose to import Dutch fish. Eventually the company grew and they created their home brand Emma for some of the products they import from Italy. They don't give more info on the package other than it's made in Italy. The sauce is mine. I call it my "sauce rosée pour pâtes". It's not obvious by the looks, but it contains garlic, onion, red peppers, sugar, red wine, cream, parsley, tomato sauce, olive oil, and some hot peppers (jalapeño or serrano). Not to brag, but it's not bad at all.
Yesterday's merguez with risotto alla Milanese. Not shown on the pic, a dollop of Dijon mustard which I added later near the sausages. Nothing complicated but always quite tasteful.
This evening (well, not very long from now), it's gonna be lobster and potato salad. Lobster (live, I never buy cooked lobster) was on special at Loblaw's so I walked there the day before yesterday and bought two, because they were advertised at 1 to 1¼ pounds. I ended up with 1,3 Kg for both which is near three pounds. I'm not that hungry so I have a cinch one will be enough. We'll see. With lobster we never know. A certain times of the year they change carapace and when this happens they are almost empty inside. And as per meat to carapace ratio goes, the smaller the lobster, the smaller the ratio, aka less meat per overall weight. I cooked them the day I bought them and they were in the fridge since. Loblaw's is a large supermarket chain and the closest to my pad is a 3,6 Km round trip. It's a nice walk, although short of the 5 Km I should be doing daily and just about never do. On the other hand, in my book, 3,6 is better than 0. As they say in business circles, there's no small profit.
And in there somewhere (the evening of the 12th in fact), another batch of my world famous clover and brandy flavored Seville oranges marmalade. It's supposed to be cognac but I don't have any cognac while I do have VSOP brandy and that's because VSOP brandy is three times cheaper than VSOP cognac so brandy it is and that's that. Anyone have complaints just has to send me a cheque for the price differencial and cognac it will be. I don't know how it happened, but I ended up with the equivalent of nine 125ml jars while usually it's more like six and something. I did add a teensy bit more sugar but that's because I included not only the lemon juice this time around, but also some of its peel. But more so, it's probably because I used a different technique to remove the white stuff from the peels (before chopping them into fine pieces) and I maybe left more of it on the peel. I did have to skim a few times, more than usual. This added with the extra lemon peel probably made the difference. (as if anyone cared )
Honky Tonk
Now let's bring a little Cajun sunshine in here.
La Porte d'en arrière - D.L. Menard (English lyrics below) both picked up on the Net.
Moi et la belle on avait été-z-au bal on a passé dans tous les honkytonks s'en a rev'nu le lendemain matin le jour était apres se casser j'ai passé dedans la porte en arriere
l'apres-midi moi j'étais au village et je m'ai saoulé que je pouvais plus marcher ils m'ont ramené back a la maison il y avait de la compagnie, c'était du monde étranger J'ai passé dedans le porte en arriere
mon vieux pere un soir quand j'arrivais il a essayé de changer mon idée j'ai pas écouté, moi j'avais trop la tete dure "un jour a venir, mon neg', tu vas avoir du regret t'as passé dedans la porte en arriere"
j'ai eu un tas des amis tant que j'avais de l'argent asteur j'ai plus d'argent mais ils voulont plus me voir j'ai été dans le village et moi je m'ai mis dans le tracas la loi m'a ramassé, moi je suis parti dans la prison on va passer dedans la porte en arriere =====================================
Me and my girl had gone to the dance we went to all the honky-tonks we came back the next morning the day was breaking I passed in by the back door
that afternoon I was at the village I got so drunk I couldn't walk they brought me back to the house there was company there, some strangers I passed in by the back door
my old father, one evening when I arrived he tried to change my way of looking at things I didn't listen to him, I had too hard a head "a day will come, my friend, you'll be sorry, you passed in by the back door"
I had a lot of friends when I had money now that I don't have any money they won't see me anymore I was in town, I got myself in trouble the law picked me up, and I was put in jail, I'm gonna' pass in through the back door
They translated mon nèg' by my friend. Political correctness I guess. Another site was more true to the lyrics although they obviously feared net censorships since they wrote "my n/i/g/g/e/r". The expression "mon nèg'" in this song, on first glance, is not as derogatory as "my nig'" would be in English. The Cajuns were closer to the Blacks than the other "Whites", which does not mean that some of them in the richer spheres were not slave owners themselves back then. Of what I know, they would be much more to the right than the left, politically.
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.
Le Parterre (Maison Symphonique) - 2011.09.10
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Christmas is over
Yup. Officially, the Christmas season for Catholics ends on February 2, the Day of the Purification. I know this because I was told so in my tender years and religion was very much part of my and everybody's lives back then. I don't remember what is being purified though but I think it revolves around the Virgin. I also remember that my third year teacher (1958) was a nun whose nun name was Soeur-Marie-de-la-Purification and that she was a very nice teacher, although I probably made a scene when I discovered that "Monsieur" was not pronounced "Mon sieur" but "me cieux" and that did not seem logical to me, this discrepancy between the written and the oral. Comes to think of it, it still doesn't. Anyways it explains why I'll never be a poet. I'm too rational. What I do remember however is that for a few weeks afterwards, it is some kind of no man's land in these matters until Ash Wednesday which it will be the start of the Easter season, which ends at the "Pentecôte" (Pentecost), again if my memory is faithful. After, all I remember is that Pentecôte was signaling the end of that long tunnel called the school year, opening on the bliss of bliss, the summer vacations, which we'd enjoy to the hilt and be so ever thankful about on Thanksgiving Day, which signaled that the beginning of a new cycle was in the works, both at school (already started) and at church (to come with Advent). Nowadays, the passing of seasons are mostly visible through a new religion, television series which start and end all at the same time, or just about.
Sports and stuff
Tomorrow (El dia del sol, Sunday for shorts) they will play for the Super Bowl. I tried finding out how to play with mine but besides tossing Caesar's salad, I can't find any other game to play with it.
Trivia: a bowl is "un bol" (masculine) in French but in Québec French, it has also been feminized into "une bolle" meaning someone very bright. You might say "il est la bolle de la classe" for "he's the class whizkid (brightest, etc)", or something like "toute une bolle!" (really very bright). You will also find the adjective "bollé" (someone having a "bolle") like in "Il est bollé" meaning he is very bright, and generally used for the class genius. I don't have a clue where it all comes from, I looked but can't find anything. It rarely if ever has any negative overtones, rather it's said on an admirative tone, like the dog who looks at his master and considers him as a super dog (this is true, I don't invent this) . You can also add degrees to the word, like "super bolle". We're talking about Einstein territory here. And not about those who are scotched to their couch, munching endlessly on crappy snack foods and drinking beer, watching religiously that other "super bol" on TV as if the fate of Humanity was at stake. In some way, maybe it is.
Montreal's Eiffel Tower
This video was sneak-previewed in a comment I left in California. The guy who put it together works in the advertisement field. That's how I explain the otherwise unexplainable appearance of boxes of Barilla pasta in there. Product placement = cash in the pocket? What I still have to figure out is the cameo appearance of the Eiffel Tower. We do have towers here, as San Francisco has its Coit Tower. Ours at the Olympic Stadium is very much slanted so maybe San Francisco's is a pre-coit tower and ours a post-coit one. Which still does not explain the presence of Gustave Eiffel in a video featuring Montreal. Maybe another product placement paid for by the tourism department of the city of Paris ? I doubt however that the Occupiers' tents on Square Victoria that we see at 1:54 would have paid any promotional fees.
It's a new year. Time to re-stock on new coincidences, and speaking of Paris, there was a very nice program on tv this Thursday about all which has to be known about the Alexandre III bridge in Paris, from why it is there, the mountain of constraints that were put on its architects, unobstructed view perspectives and linearity in road width between Les Invalides and Les Champs-Élysées namely, the distribution of forces which required strong anchoring posts which were turned into decorative marvels, the political reasons why it was named such and, something I didn't know, the existence of another bridge in St-Petersburg which was also reciprocally dedicated to the Franco-Russian friendship (having a lot to do with a shared concern of the Gerrmans). They also mentioned how much it appeared frequently in movies (the closing scenes of Midnight in Paris, for one).
The next day, on our Canal Savoir (learning channel), Stephan Bureau was conducting one of his lenghty interviews this time with Joël de Rosnay, who considers himself a humanist technologue and who, long before it became reality, had predicted the current revolution of the interconnected humans. From the program's site (my translation) :«In 1995, the scientist published his seminal work called The Symbiotic Man, presenting the metaphor of cybionte -- which combines cybernetics and biology -- a planetary organism which can be likened to a living organism resulting from the symbiosis between people and machines, living thanks to numerous networks and new forms of communication. Which still the same does not mean a mutant, but a being of flesh connected to various technological systems. ». In other words, not a terminator, but your average iKid these days. Rosnay has worked in American universities, including some time at Boston's MIT. However, for this program, he was working, so to speak, around the Pont Alexandre III since a great part of the interview involved the two of them strolling outside right next to it, on the Place des Invalides.
Later on in the evening, the weekly Radio-Canada public affairs program Une heure sur terre was broadcast from Paris, and its anchor was standing outside right next to... yes, the Pont Alexandre III.
Today, I looked in my bowl and as super as it can be, not a trace of Alexandre III, neither the tsar nor the bridge. I guess coincidences work on the trinity mode.
Playing with matches
Israel would be on the verge of attacking Iran, says the US government, which is not amused. I can understand. Nobody likes irresponsibles who take matters in their own hands, and put the planet at risk by the same token. Because it's the others who will pick up the messy tab.
Irresponsibles are also found right here in the shit hottest country in the world (says they). Our External affairs Minister is in Israel right now where he is running around spreading fuel everywhere, but more so in Palestine. Basically he's telling the Israelis that they can do whatever they want, Canada will unconditionally be behind them like a single man, and this including acting unilaterally like munching more and more on the occupied territories (settlements), on what shoud be a future Palestine country that this way will never exist. Then he goes to see Mahmoud Abbas and tells them that they are bad kids because they don't follow the negotiating process and do unilateral things like going to the U.N. and ask them to make that country come about now. Political analysts here, those with a brain I mean, simpoly don't understand why these people (the Harper government) insists on shitting on the Palestinian's lawn (my assessment). All they can think of is that they are a bunch of Evangelical freaks. With this and other erratic behaviors (finger sendings) on the international scene as of late, it may soon come to the point where it will become scary to travel with a maple leaf on one's luggage.
Food section
I bought this the other day at Motta's. They call it pesto-tomato bread. It's some kind of bread with a brioche texture, and apparently contains only flour, olive oil, basil, salt, yeast, and dried tomatoes. It's of a beautiful orangy color, the dried tomatoes are obviously not only topping it. It's to be heated and served with a drizzle of olive oil, the size of the drizzle being of course to each one's fancy. I cut it in thick slices and heat it in the oven. The exterior becomes crispy (like a toast) but the inside remains very soft and the whole thing is light. I drizzled some of my homemade "picante" oil on the slices when they were hot, it was delicious. Has remnant tastes of pizza. A little messy to eat though. Does not cut well with a knife, better held with the fingers, and olive oil being olive oil...! I will ask them next time if I'm using the right "eating" method.
Both pics are before heating. When heated, it does not really change color, maybe just a little more intense, and a little crusty.
Kate and William at the ITHQ - 2011.07.06 (Institut de tourisme et d'hôtellerie du Québec)
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Above
We may not have the hots for the British monarchy, but we have class. More anyways than those who these days force monarchy down Canadian's throats and found nothing better than to show them how to feed the cattle (way of speaking... or is it?) when they were in Calgary. I'd rather smell a soufflé than a bull's ass, personally, but that's only me .
Dyslexia...
Or whatever is the cause... but I've had to repass a few times after posting the previous post, and all the others before when I was mentioning "Monsieur Lazhar", to correct its spelling. No matter what I do, I always end up by first writing it "Lahzar" or "Lhazar", with a misplaced "h". I think it's my French to English conveyor belt which squeaks a little. If not, it's either because of the Tibetans or the late singer Lhasa de Sela, which amounts to about the same. Incidentally, Lhasa (the city) is written Lhassa in French, most probably because Lhasa would have to be pronounced Lhaza because an "s" between two "a" is pronounced "z" and that's not negotiable. Which brings us back to Monsieur Lazhar which could be written Lazar or Lasar that it would change nothing in its pronunciation. As per the mute "h" in there, I'm sure there must be an historical explanation for its presence. I must confess that right now, roaming into word histories is not my immediate priority. Maybe later, after a second coffee. All that I readily know is that the anglos don't indulge into such brain stormings because they eat their [lazagna] lasagna while reading a book on [lassa] Lhasa and not wondering one single second why it's a "z" in one case and an "s" in the other, both being enclosed between two "a". That's why English has overridden French as the new Lingua Franca on the planet. You learn 200 words and you can get by, and you can pronounce any one of them with a "z" or an "s" sound and no one gives a damn. Listen to Ze French speak English. Case in point.
Passing seasons
In the news yesterday (Monday): three Americans, members of NGO groups promoting democracy, were forbidden from leaving the country by the Egyptian authorities, and have taken refuge in the American embassy in Cairo (from AP). I don't know the exact details, if these people were working undercover for the American secret services or if they were truly an independent NGO engaged in democratic ideals. All I know is that by what we read and hear, the Arab spring seems to have bypassed its summer and is heading straight to a new Egyptian winter.
Newt Gingrich says he wants to build an American base on the Moon. That would be a nice place for him to retire, permanently. His wife has a strange hairdo. Looks like a helmet. She's ready.
I don't get the rationale behind Republican candidates demonstrating to anyone wanting to hear that each other is a lower form of life. I mean, didn't anyone tell them that there will be an election, afterwards?
Anyone explaining to me how super PACs are not the worm in the apple of democracy will have all my admiration.
Romney's campaign slogan is "Believe in America". I suppose it means that he embodies "America" loosely translated in his mind as "Me". He does believe in buying out companies to suck them off before throwing its workers on the streets, so I guess that's what America is all about (in his catechism I mean).
Decepção brasileira (Brazilian deception)
I was wondering if the Brazilian panettone Bauducco, which could be the one talked about recently on an American site of our knowing was available here in Montreal. It seemed strange to me that our Italian shops would carry Brazilian-made Italian food since they already have plentifuls of the original ones made in Italy. However, when I saw the packaging on the internet, it did seem familiar, so I just had to clear out this matter once and for good. Yesterday (Monday) I had to go to Milano's for garlic (long story) and also coffee. With the great sense of organization I'm so renowned about, I decided to combine these purchases with the grand search for the Brazilian panettone Grail.
Upon entering the store, right where they have been for a while piled up in a mesh bin, a stockpile of those famous Bauducci. I think they are in the same bin as were formely the Venezia which I talked about in my November 24 post and whose reputation I shattered to pieces three days later («Dry, brownish, almost no smell»), a no contest with the slightly more expensive Gioia which were going at 1,99$ (on special) while the Venezia was 1,79$. The Bauducco I saw were 1,39$. A priori, it does not mean they are not good. There can be many reasons for a lower price, such as much lower labor costs in Brazil, and probably the same for the ingredients. So it's in total openness of mind that I bought one, for the purpose of comparing it with the Gioia which, it, blessing among blessings, is now selling for 1,49$ because its expiry date is stamped for somewhere in March and they have loads of them in stock.
The verdict? Let's put it in the form of a question: «Can we make something worse than the Venezia?» and to use an Obamaism, «Yes We Can».
Not only was this panettone of a funny beige color, including the orange(?) peel bits and dry, it was more so 'very dry', and also burnt on the bottom. When I tried to remove the side paper, the cake came with it, and the bottom circle of paper was burned-glued to the cake. Terrible. No world-famous orange marmalade can salvage this kind of disaster. It's a lost cause.
The contestants side by side before the great challenge
The Bauducco - no mice have eaten the missing parts - they just stuck to the paper.
For comparison purposes, the Gioia
Accessory evidence, Your Honor! I ate the cake parts that had stuck to the paper (I still remain a food slut, remember?) except on the round piece of paper where what we see is not the paper but the burnt bottom of the panettone which had bonded to it.
I personally don't give much of a damn about the Bauducco, especially that at 1,49$ the Gioia is an outstanding bargain and I will return this week to make myself a little reserve. Expiry dates on those things can be overrun by many months, and push comes to shove, I can always put a few in the freezer. What desolates me, however, is that some others may be left with a wrong impression about what a good panettone looks and tastes like. Now I understand why some wanted to add rum to it. But before that, just making it right would be much more in the order. For starters.
I should have been suspicious when I didn't see any Portuguese on the package, only English and Spanish (there was an added English/French sticker for the Canadian market). But more so, other telltale signs of crapola were readily obvious for the enquiring eye.
First there was the English only sales pitch printed on one side, harboring a seal-like crest saying "America's #1 panettone". THAT ALONE should have been sufficient reason to leave it where it was (don't ask me to explain, except to say that a Big Mac is also America's #1 idea of a great meat burger). Then there was the text itself:
In 1952, in a small confectionery, the Bauducco family began making Panettones using its special recipe directly from Italy. [I don't understand this sentence - what/who was in Brazil and what/who was in Italy and what was being done where and from where? Who stole the verb?]
With great dedication, work and a special talent for baking, the family saw its Panettone become increasingly recognized for its quality and taste. [their appraisal]
Carefully prepared with a traditional natural leavening process, each Bauducco takes more than 50 hours to bake. [so does any panettone]
The delicious combination of the finest ingredients with the world renowned Sun Maid Raisins [since when are Sun Maid Raisins world renowned, and since when a dried raisin is different from another dried raisin, except when a conglomerate pushes its other products], results in a unique sweet flavor and an exquisitely moist texture [please define moist and or exquisite or while we're at it, why not both].
In the past 50 years much has changed [obviously], but the care and dedication in which Bauducco Panettones are made remain the same [not obvious at all]. Quality and tradition made Bauducco the best selling Panettone in the U.S. [bad point] and worldwide [anything made to please the most has by definition been downgraded to the most common denominator - flee].
Enjoy! [Right ]
Then there was the other crest on the package claiming "Moist and ready to eat". It is anything but moist. And it is not ready to eat at all either, unless your idea of fun is choking while eating overly dry food. Unless they mean that you don't have to cook it more?
And then there's the Sun-Maid Raisins being referred to ostensibly. When you use your products as marketing tools to sell other products, it's a telltale indication that your priority is corporate profit, not the quality of what's in the box. Of the almost 100 brands of panettone boxes or packages I've seen, not one of them comercially referred to one of the ingredients. Then again, they were all made in Italy. Which is in Europe. Which also brings me to this young French guy who went on a work intership at the Bauducco factory in Brazil and which he describes such in his blog: «As you must surely know, I am now in intership at the Bauducco company... However do you know the line of work of this unavoidable company in Brazil and nevertheless almost unknown in Europe?» Apparently Europe is not part of "their" world. I can understand why. If you can find crap in Europe's large mega-supermarkets, you can also find anywhere the good version of those products. Which is not the case in some other pastures on this planet. I also noticed that all references by ordinary people (in blogs etc) about the Bauducco company or its panettones more or less were copy-pastes of what the company says, including even at times that strange sentence mentioned above. It reminded me of a past post (or maybe a comment) where I mentioned how nowadays most information we get comes from one or two single sources and repeated, unverified, by all the rest of the medias.
The Bauducco I bought had an expiry date of July 2012, so there's no reason for it being that dry. I also had never heard of that company before. It may be the largest selling panettone in the world (the company's claim, not verified), it also seems to be in 'selected' areas of that world, of which Europe and central Canada don't seem to be a part of.
Why I mention all this? Because very often, we get screwed by our own fault simply because we don't give the necessary attention to things. And also because there's no free ride. If the regular price is cheap, so is the product. For some items, it may be exactly what we are looking for, but knowing about it beforehand is an absolute prerequisite. By the way, that cheap_price/cheap_product ratio also fully applies to the news medias which I mentioned above and who, merger after merger after merger, supposedly to rationalize so as to save money, are bringing us closer and closer to the dreaded (for us, not them) pensée unique which Ignacio Ramonet coined in 1995 in the newspaper Le Monde. The third (and maybe final) world war has a great chance of being started by a false and unverified event report spread instantly over the whole planet by this incestuous mediatic system, and taken literally as truth by some dumbfuck egotistical maniac having access to a nuclear button. I know, it's a long stretch from a mini-panettone to the anihilation of Mankind, but when you look at it real close...
Then again, maybe I'm just an old fart form a rich western country picking on a poor company from an "emerging" country and which is just trying to make ends meet. Buit I doubt it.
Survivors
They had this diaporama in La Presse about some animals (mostly pets) which, contrary to humans, did not flee and stayed behind in the devastated area surrounding the Fukushima nuclear plant. A governental organisation is taking care of them. Here's the link, for those animal lovers out there. The header caption reads: After the catastrophe which hit Japan last March, a 20 kilometer zone around the Fukushima nuclear plant was evacuated. But the animals have stayed! They were not necessarily forgotten or abandoned. The Japanese government just launched an evacuation operation for domestic animals still on the contaminated lands.
(marker B on the map). On a planned route published yesterday in a paper, they were supposed to shortly afterwards turn left on St-Laurent, so I waited at the intersection of Sherbrooke and St-Laurent to check out where they were to indeed head to, and also take some pics or videos. They finally continued on Sherbrooke until St-Denis, where they turned left, then right on Roy, to finally head down the long Berri hill. Berri in that area is a large divided street which passes under Sherbrooke which thus becomes an overpass there. That's where I settled down, with a fantastic view of Berri which way down below crosses Ste-Catherine and where are located, for those used to this blog, many outfits I've posted about before: the Berri-UQAM metro hub, the UQAM university, the Place Émilie-Gamelin (last Christmas), the Grande Bibliothèque and the nearby Gay Village. All these are located downhill in the video below, at the farthest that the eye can see. 
I asked the waiter what it was and he said "pandoro". I understood "pan d'oro" and I knew enough Italian at the time to know it meant "golden bread". 
) end up getting exactly what they asked for: a society where the rule of law is overridden by the rule of Self. 
, posted just a few days earlier, in early April 2005 (April 1 - 8h50 and March 29 - 18h55 segments). How do we forget easily! I had completely forgotten about that other student uprising, involving the same dumbass neo-con government which is still in power with record low polls these days. That time it was about a will of theirs to cut in the bursary part of the student loans program. So much for their current argument about the loans/bursary program compensating for the inequalities they are creating. When you were once caught trying to steal candy in the jar, it's hard to be relied upon to ensure the candy store's security. I see that the red square was already in use back then. It was seven years ago. I'm pretty sure it's not related at all, but today's march will be seven kilometers long, in downtown Montreal. Starts at 13h00. In an hour. Got to go. 
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