Drooling on exciting Montréal, Political rants, Food lust
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Place Émilie-Gamelin - 2011.12.16 (Métro Berri-UQAM)
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Organic melodies
Yesterday morning I attended a concert of contemporary music. They put you in some suntanning-looking machine and then they play some eclectic music sounding like a bunch of hyperactive toddlers having just fallen into a stockpile of different-sized kitchen pots, complete with wooden spoons to bang on them. A good half hour of this. I like many kinds of music, but this one is not one of my favorites. In fact, I only got a ticket for this concert because I house my liver, who was the object of all the attention. I had no choice but to accompany him to the event.
The concerto's title was "Magnetic Resonance Imaging For Liver And Very Deep Breaths". They can say that again. It almost takes your breath away. Literally. The concerto's composer has long been forgotten by the general public, but I'm sure he's mentioned somewhere in Wikipedia. I attended a similar concerto five or six years ago. That one, also from an anonymous composer, was titled "Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Cervical Vertebra C6". I think that now they have upgraded their musical instruments, because that previous one sounded like there were a lot more kids, or maybe that the pots were much larger. Anyways, it seemed to me that this recent one was music to my ears in comparison, which is a feat in itself in the circumstances.
Copy cats
I hear they are going to make an American version of Millenium, for the big screen. The Swedes made a wonderful three part television series of it which we could see here dubbed in French earlier this year. Americans should have stuck to that, imho. Or at least have "started" with that. This mania or redoing everything with American actors and scriptors is not good for the general image Americans send of themselves abroad, nor is it good to stop thinking elsewhere does not exist, since its never seen.
Crap or gold, who wins it? Havel? No. Jong does.
One of the greatest political figures of the 20th century died a few days ago. He was a poet, a playwright, a writer and, most of all, a superb human being, a member of the rare breed of liberators of People. One of the worst political figures of the 20th century also died a few days agao. He was a piece of shit, a liberty terminator, a bastard motherfucker who was responsible, among others, for the famine of millions. This bastard, and his bastardito, are top of the news in the media. The other one gets a mention. So goes Humankind. Dumb as always. Celebrating its misfits, ignoring its best. Pityful.
Tomorrow I'm going to have a Christmas dinner with former colleagues from my old workplace. Not the last workplace downtown, the one before that, the 1992-2008 one. My former supervisor invited me, so I'm going. I was invited last year also, but last year I was technically still an employee. Now I'm officially retired. I have a bunch of things to do tomorrow afternoon, but I know by experience that coming back from there, I won't feel like doing them at all. We'll see if the spell can be broken.
On the move
This year again, for the I don't remember how many times, a decade maybe, I'm staging a "réveillon" at my place during the December 24 to 25 night. It will still be the same gang of four. Preparing that (the food, the gifts, the food, the decorations, the food - oh! I forgot to mention the food didn't I? ) will take a lot of my time so in the coming days I don't know if, when, and to what extent I will be able to come on Xanga. I also have some emails I want to send here and there (in lieu of Christmas cards) to some people I've kept in contact with over the years, which of course needs time to edit. It will all therefore depend on my ability to organize myself, something I don't take for granted at all, by past years' experience, still.
? ? ? Art gallery on St-Hubert
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Deflated balls
Finally, that film I was talking about in a previous post (Le sapin a des boules - The Christmas tree has balls) is rather named "Le sapin a les boules" (The Christmas tree has the balls) and its original name has nothing to do with either Christmas trees nor balls, since it is called "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". For those who don't know (in Europe maybe) National Lampoon was (maybe still is I don't know) a humor magazine, containing some comic strips. Nothing to do with balls, therefore. Ok, one could argue about it containing odd balls, but they are a very different kind of balls, even if they also often come in pairs.
Who's who
One of the accusations against soldier and suspected Wikileaks informer Bradley Manning, hero or foe depending on who you're talking to, is to have supplied information "to the enemy". So now the American people is "the enemy"? Gosh, I hadn't seen it quite that way. I guess they hadn't either.
Bow, bow and bow
There was this woman whose first language is obviously English and who was singing a Christmas song on the radio, in which there was a reference to bows of holly, the decoration. I always thought these were pronouced like in "row". She pronounced it like in "now", or like that other bow, which is not always done in front of respectable people. So how (?) am I supposed to know (?) ?
Same with tea and tea. In French, tea is thé. And tea is also tisane. Thé is black or green (this one usually asian). It's to finish nicely a meal, or make believe your life is not worhtless when you realize at 5 o'clock that you're surrouned by a bunch of middle-aged women who chat about nothing. Drinking thé has a ceremonial, the most obvious to bystanders being the "upheld pinky". This has to be the one from the hand holding the cup, otherwise it could mean you're in a bad need for a tisane. Tisane is any other tea taken to fix something, be it in one's head or one's belly. All this to say that if not properly put in context, us French speakers do not know what tea is that tea.
Christening of a Sandwich
In French and I guess so also in English, when someone or something comes out of the lot in such a way that it becomes unique, we tend to turn it into a substantive, with or without a capital leading letter (depending on the circumstances). This is how Édith Piaf, born Édith Gassion, became "La Piaf". It's an example, but it can be applied to lesser knowns. Like a sandwich, say.
I had last evening another instalment of a scrumptious sandwich bearing the name of the one who made it known to me, the "Sandwich Biggles", appearing under that name in my recipe book (recipe #136). I may have "adapted" it a little, but barely. However, I think the time is ripe to move to the big league as per naming conventions go, and drop the "sandwich" word altogether and simply rename it "Le [something]". Seems easy, but it isn't. Not at all. Putting a "ggl" in French is like trying to create a Chinese pizza, or a Neapolitan dim sun, taken the other way. A pile of neologisms crossed my mind, like Biguelien (with or without a mute middle 'e', Biguëlien (that means both the u and e are pronounced), Bigglesien (terrible sound), and a bunch of others which were just not it. Finally I think I will settle with "Le Bigglien". I agree it's not 100% correct French to put two "gg"s in a row, but that would only be a problem here. In France, any new word, if it's in English, gets a free ticket to join the vocabulary band wagon. Italians wouldn't think the "gl" is an Italian "gl" because trying to pronounce a "g" immediately followed by the "gl" sound is just, like, well, try it, you'll see. And cherry on the sunday, this one could even easily become "The Bigglian" in English (franchise opportunities here? ).
For remembrance, what I'm talking about is this: Pan-fried thick slices of portobello mushrooms seasoned with oregano, tarragon, salt and pepper, set on the bottom part of a sliced elongated multi-grain mini bread (here an Italian nonna or at least that's the way they call it at Capitol) which has been previously oven-preheated lined with a layer of white melting cheese (Montery Jack, Mozarella..), then over the mushrooms a layer of pan-warmed red roasted sweet peppers (pimentos), then a layer of lettuce and finally the mayonnaise-covered upper layer of the mini bread, it also lightly toasted. The origin is a seaside restaurant in California, it traveled up to here on the Biggles Airlines, and got its immigration papers seconds after it passed my customs taste test. Since it was for the essential given to me, I don't think it would be right to claim ownership on it, so I guess you can ditch those franchise ops after all).
Yesterday's treat (Friday)
Der Weihnachtskuchen - The Christmas cake
I don't know about you, but some days I'm tempted to start believing in God. I won't, because it would be for the wrong reasons. Namely what follows.
Yesterday, Carlo corrected a typo from a previous comment of his, and where the corrected word was «stollen». Do you know what is a stollen? Maybe if you have German origins, dunno. But I for one didn't have the slightest clue, besides Carlo mentioning it was as good as a panettone, but cheaper. So I did what I usually do when I'm clueless (er... anyways I think you know what I mean) I went on an internet rampage to find more about this new discovery. A pic is one of the first things I found.
Needless to say, it was appealing enough to warrant further research into the matter. What I found is that it's a German cake, a Christmas tradition for them. Calling it just a cake would be somewhat reductive. A delicacy, maybe? Anyways, a crazy idea rushed into my mind: maybe this cake is sold here, in these Americas, somewhere in this often vast wasteland. From my first results, I had to conclude that the "stollen" was widely unknown on this side of the big dip, except maybe in German families. I did find an American site which sold all kinds of food items but what they sold as stollen, I had a hard time to recognize from all those pics in Google/images. Besides, for some reason I don't know why it is and which was told to me and many others by the Frugal Gourmet on one of his shows (where he had his hands 'over' the table - oops, slight disgression here ), there's something wrong about American flour and this is why the only good pasta made in North America is made in Canada. Looking at the pics from that site, I can't argue against that. Terrible looking pastries. Then there was this result about some kind of restaurant in the West Island of Montreal, in Pierrefonds. It seemed more like a café than anything else. I takes about an hour to get there by car, it's in the middle of nowhere suburbia, so I didn't feel like bothering to go have a look. Then out of nowhere, there was this place that popped up where not only did they serve stollen, but they sold it. Even for export. They had a site about themselves which spoke just about only of the stollen, very informative, complete with an order form with shipment possible anywhere in Canada and the United States. Gee, I thought to myself, seems like I've found "THE" place I was looking for. Now, how strange that this place would be running under the name "La Mie Matinale", which is a word play on "l'amie matinale", the morning friend. Mie is the soft white interior of bread (crumb?). Anyhow, sounded pretty French to me. In my mind, it could only be in New York, or come on, you're pulling me on, right here in Montreal? Well, boys and girls, you'll never believe this. La Mie Matinale is a bread shop located on Ste-Catherine St, in the heart of Montreal's gay Village, at a stone's throw from the 'gay' metro station Beaudry and also, of Friend's pad.
On their site, they mentioned to order one's Stollen in time to get it for Christmas. Being the impatient person I am, I took the phone and called. Yes they had some in stock. Two formats. And yes they were opened until 19h30 that evening. It was around 18h00. No sooner said than done. One metro ticket later, I was entering La Mie Matinale. The guy I had talked to on the phone and who tended me is from Alsace (part of Germany for periods of time - and where the food is very German-like). But it's the or one of the cooks who is German and had this crazy idea some years ago to make and sell the stollen. I bought the smaller one, it cost 18$ plus tax, and he gave me a leaflet, stamped with a real engraving seal, where the stollen is all explained, from its origins over half a millenium ago, so as to inform my guests, he said. I then left, and joined Friend whom I had previously called, we both went to the wine store on the other side of the street where I bought an imported Belgian "blanche", and then to his place where I had a nice beer while I relished inside on how much I'm glad to be a Montrealer at times.
On their site (and in the leaftlet) they mention all what's in the stollen and how it's made. Like other cakes of the same nature, the more it macerates, the better it is. And never put in the fridge, the guy told me. All I know is that its shape and exterior appearance are exactly as those in the Google pics. What's inside, we'll discover. Site in English or en français.
Light up my world
Coming back home, I walked past the first metro entrance I got to, because I had heard that this year's putting into lights in the Quartier des Spectacles had been inaugurated for two locations out of three, the Place Émilie-Gamelin right of top of the largest metro hub station Berri-UQAM, and another on the premises of the St-Laurent station (which is between Berri-UQAM and Place des Arts. That one was not on my route of course. The third and largest apparatus is for the Place des Festivals next to Place des Arts, but this one is being delayed since apparently snow is required to make it work. These are part of what the Quartier des Spectacles calls Luminotherapy, a wintery colorful fest of lights, to shy away winter blues (my add ). It's usually operational until the Lights Festival and the Nuit Blanche, somewhere between mid-February and early March usually.
However, there is a much larger ongoing project involving 20 cultural locations where site (building and/or surroundings) will be lighted permanently. I can think of three or four already operational but there may be more. This year, the Grande Bibliothèque joins the "done" group. Since it's right next to the Place Émilie-Gamelin, I had a look at it by the same token. There is also the UQAM steeple on which they were working last night and which I don't know if it's to be temporary (most likely) or permanent.
I found out that videos from my new camera, since they are in full HD, are much larger (bytes). I'll have to adjust because Xanga is limited to 100 Meg I think and Youtube, well I don't remember about Youtube. I think that if you're not "commercial" your allowable space is also not that large, by today's standards I mean.
The Quartier des spectacles has a set of beautiful pics (it's always more beautiful in their pics than in real life, often because ordinary nobodys like me can't go on roofs and take dazzlinig pics ) of this year's and former years illuminations, most of which I have posted about with pics or videos in recent years. I'm not sure I ever mentioned this but Quartier des spectacles would translate somewhat as "Show business district" in English.
I took a few videos, trying out the camera, like the zoom in video mode which is new for me. I also see that files shrink a lot if I save the edited video in "portable" format, losing not too much in quality. I'll post a few of those tests in different formats if only to see what remains of them once processed by the compressing tools of Xanga.
They were making tests with the illumination of the steeple integrated in one of the UQAM buildings, on rue St-Denis. We can see in the background the illuminated hotel which it faces Place Émilie Gamelin and is part of its illumination. The music is not part of the installation. They are just street musicians. I don't know if the one clanging the metro sign pole is part of the band or a passerby who cared to join in, but it sounds great as percussion goes.
Place Émilie-Gamelin. The three fountain-sculptures were green when I got there but turned red before I did the video. I don't know if I mentioned this before but all those illuminations scattered here and there in the Quartier des spectables are not static. Most of them move and change all the time.
The Grande Bibliothèque and its new permanent illumination. 480 x 392
Idem 600 x 490
(notes for my info - UQAM: Portable Windows Media 1Meg 681M ->39M; Gamelin: DVD 3 Meg. 405M->69M; Grde Biblio: 260M->Qualité optimale (29M) Erreur - DVD3 (43M) OK)
BTW it was night and raining lightly hence the droplets of rain in the gallery's window.
Épices Anatol - Anatol spices Boulevard St-Laurent - Piccola Italia
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
A last rant (yeah, sure! )
«The government is placing a ban on face coverings such as niqabs for people swearing their oath of citizenship, [Canadian] Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Monday [today]. The ban takes effect immediately.» (from a news outfit)
This means that it's been done before, doesn't it! It just boggles the mind. I think some in English Canada, from what I've read on the CBC site, are waking up about Canadian-style multiculturalism. It's about time. If some people can't or won't accept that men and women are equal in this country, they just don't have any business applying for our citizenship. It's as simple as that. This principle supersedes any religious or cultural custom promoting the contrary. Religious beliefs in Canadian multiculturalism (these can be anything, rock bottom) have been falsely interpreted by our judges as being more important than our other core values, and governments still fail to establish clear across-the-board rules on the matter, which is why we are now in this mess. Each incident is settled on a per case basis and the end result is growing intolerance. When I say we, I mean Canada. In Quebec, our governments have opposed this kind of interpretation, like last year when they banned burkas for anyone dealing with [Québec] government services. And that includes voting (contrary to federal elections where they are ok - but some over there are thinking about doing like us). This columnist in Toronto sees straight on this. But our government just as the federal one still has not initiated omnibus basic changes applying to all the other laws, like clarifying our charters of rights (I say 'our' because Quebec also has its own Charter of Rights, which is even older than the Canadian one - we don't really have any lessons to receive from them, furthermore that ours bans gay discrimination, and theirs (Canada's) not).
Obesity failure
I don't understand how come I don't get fat after all the sweets I eat. Saturday, I retreived from the fridge's freezer a Bauli mini-panettone I had bought last summer, completely forgetting I had bought another Gioia just days before, while they were still on special, and sitting there in the kitchen for all to see (all = me). A few hours later, I had errands to do at Marché Jean-Talon and, as I always do, I stopped on my way and entered the Latino grocery store, where, now forgetting completely about the 'two' panettone, I bought one of those big sugar doughnuts and a just as thick piece of jelly roll cake. Once at the Marché, I passed by Motta's to get myself a piece of pizza for supper. When I came near the cashiers, there was this half-size piece of blueberry brioche-style cake, something delicious for breakfast. Since it was at the very friendly price of 1,49$ and there was indeed a breakfast coming up the next day, I did the same as I do when I travel: buy now and figure later about the rest. It is now late afternoon on Monday and the only thing left is the Gioia. This afternoon, I almost bought two sesame bagels with cream cheese for tomorrow's breakfast, but this time around I put a stop to this nonsense.
For remembrance, a souvenir from my November 24 post. Things are not improving.
Brown?
I still wonder why that Santa in front of the Capitol butcher shop/all things Italian wears brown clothing (a previous header). It's not a night light effect. It is really brown. I could ask someone at the shop but I'll probably end up looking silly because there may be no particular reason why it is brown, besides it being a fancy of the person who designed it. So many things unanswered!
Still kickin'... for now
I'm talking about my hair, which I had cut today, which is now Tuesday. I dread the day that I will have lost so much that I won't be able to attach them in the back (a ponytail I guess it's called), which is how I wear it all the time since at least two decades. Every three months or so, I go for a haircut session at my corner hairdresser who comes from France, northwest of Lyon, which is very anecdotical I agree, but who each time says to me that I'm not losing as much on the top as I say or think I am. I know she's wrong. Even if I would lose it all up there, it would not prevent attaching them in the back, since that concerns more the hair from the sides. Attaching them is more relevant to the thickness of the hair which it, also, is shying away. It's just that I see people on tv who have that type of arrangement: thin ponytail and no hair on top, and I don't like seeing it at all. I must say though that in most cases, they wear their pony tail quite long, which is not my case. Anyhow, I know all this must be terribly boring but I wanted to talk for once of something less boring than Canadian politics, a subject which like candy and pastries, can finish by upsetting your stomach when you have too much of it in too short a lapse of time. I'm pretty sure talking of my hair won't upset anyone's stomach, but on the other hand I'm pretty sure it can make them fall asleep in a jiffy.
Addy: When I was at the hairdresser, she kind of rounded off both corners when the hair was hanging loose in the back, something she never does to my recollection. "Then" she asked me if I sometimes wore my hair loose and I said "No". She replied "that's what I wanted to know". What she was really saying is "Oops!". Doing this means those strands of hair, for some time, won't be long enough to stay inside the pony tail attachment (don't know how it's called) and will constantly fall loose, behind the ears. She's been cutting my hair four times a year for about fifteen years, so WTF?
Unlogging pains
I hate unlogging from Xanga. I always end up on a "Today's Top Blogs" page which is littered with posts from so-called Christians and so-called Atheists, engaged in a stupid battle of words. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty damn sure that 100% of those posters are Americans and I don't think there is another country in the world, except maybe in those propagandic islamist Mid-eastern countries, where the primary concerns of people revolve around these things, in the public arena. Speaking of "boring", they really coin the term. Can't they just get a life of their own, I mean "now" and on "this" planet? And stop blowing their current one in other people's faces in the meantime?
Christmas balls
I've read twice this week about a film (I thought it was a joke but apparently it does exist) called in French "Le sapin a des boules" and probably in English "The Christmas Tree Has Balls". Next time I'm stuck in a situation requiring a machissimo intervention, I'll call the closest Christmas tree, promise! Olé!
Canadian armageddon?
Former Canadian Prime-Minister Jean Chrétien warned Canadians, in a fund-raising letter sent to his party's [Liberal] members, that the current federal Conservative government could very well reinstate the death penalty, abolish the gay marriage act and mess around with the right for women to get abortions. Some say it's all political hype to put back on its feet the badly faltering Liberal Party. Yes, it probably is. They say that it exaggerates the menace stemming from this government. Oh, really? I'm not so sure about that. There are only two countries in the world who currently wipe totally and officially their ass with any environmental treaty. One is the U.S. The other one is Canada. The rest of this government's actions comes from the same mold.
These Conservatives are capable of anything and everything. They have no morals whatsover. They are currently paying a survey firm which calls voters in the Montrel Mont-Royal riding held by Liberals like since forever, it was even the late Pierre Trudeau' riding, and asking them how they will vote in the by-election. There is no by-election. When the people ask the surveyors what it's all the fuck about, they say that the current Member of Parliament is expected to resign. The current Member of Parliament has no intention to resign, having just been reelected for the n'th time on May 2nd. He is a top lawyer, a highly respected person, is a former Canadian Justice Minister, and an MP for quite some time. The Conservative guy whom he beat in the last May 2 elections has been named to a post close to the federal cabinet, and runs around the riding acting as if "he" was the member of parliament, arranging connections, meetings, and the likes, or having some dossiers put on a fast track, between the people and high government officials. I don't know if this kind of slimy gutter politics goes on in other countries, but here it's very well pretty much 'nouveau'. And shows that there is not gutter deep enough to stop those Conservatives from getting their preys.
Chrétien may be trying to give a helping hand to his party. But on the underlying basics, he's dead right.
Before leaving this segment, a few words about Angelo Persichilli. Angelo is a fine man. He emigrated from Italy to Canada in 1975. So he's been here for, let's say, about 36 years. Enough to be familiar with the country and its history, assuredly. Mr Persichilli gave an interesting interview which surprisedly I could read most of it hands free (no dictionary) to a free Italian magazine I picked up exiting Milano this afternoon. Asked what he 'absorbed' from the Canadian 'culture' (there is such a thing?) he replied "the respect of one's neighbor" (in the fellow human meaning of the word). That is very interesting. Respecting the neighbor, I mean.
See, Mister Persichilli has recently been named Director of Communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. If we were in the United States, that would be called the White House Press Secretary. In French speaking countries, they sometimes call it "attaché de presse". It's a very important job because that person is a senior offiicial whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the government administration. These communications, as we know, are relayed to the public through the Press.
Having lived all his life in Toronto, Mr Persichilly is fully bilingual. He speaks his native Italian, and he is fluent in English. Hey, he may even speak some of that Molise Croatian dialect, where he comes from. On the other hand, Mister Persichilly, however competent he may be, lacks one the most important competence a federal Director of Communications must possess: being able to speak both of the two official languages of Canada. Mr Persichilly does not speak French. He cannot understand nor answer any question put to him in French by journalists, for the benefit of French-speaking Canadians, many of whom are, like their English speaking counterparts, unilingual. And what Mr Persichilly says when he speaks for the government cannot be relayed to the French media as is. It has to be either dubbed, voiced over by the reporter, or just ignored. If you are unilingual French in this officially bilingual country (at the federal government's level), you don't have access to the same information as if you were unilingual English. This is called double-standards citizenship in my book. He was appointed to this post by Stephen Harper in full knowledge of this.
Mr Persichilly sees no problem with this. He says he's going to learn French. Yeah, like you can learn to be fluent in French, enough to answer questions, after a few week-ends of immersion. Outrage was enough, we don't need insult on top of it. Mr Harper sees no problem with this either. He knows he can now rule without Quebec, and the matter is settled for him. But I do. I don't accept to be treated as a second-class citizen in my own country.
Ask me again what the Canadian flag means to me. I may answer. Or not. Read above.
Shelved, for now
There was a section here about a new Quebec beer. After doing some research about it, I landed in a fascinating historical story of which I only scratched bits and pieces and which is worthy of a post all by its own. So either I find time to prepare said post (aka get to the end of all the threads I've found up to now including one involving my late grandmother on my father's side) or I don't and it'll be the end of it.
SM
That's not for sado-maso, it's for S Mazerati.
A comment by Fauquet reminded me of the Citroën SM, an early seventies car which was in my eyes the road equivalent of the Concorde. A fantastic machine technically, equipped with a Maserati engine and with a unique futuristic style all of its own. What dazzled me the most about that car was its front-end lighting system. There were three lights on each side. Some had a self-leveling system that also swiveled with the steering so they always lighted the road, not the sky, in hills, and the road ahead, not the field in front of you, in curves. And they were square lamps with repleacable bulbs, a system I had on my 1971 Renault 12 and which I know by experience is highly more effective than the traditional round sealed beams that were used here. Already in those tender years of mine, I had a grudge against Americana since they, for stupid chest-thumping reasons explaining that today most cars sold in the U.S. are developed and designed elsewhere and that Detroit fell to a population of 800,000 from its former 2,000,000, made it mandatory to use sealed beams. My car could not have been sold in the U.S. at the time, for this reason. But what really pissed me about this cretinism is that for the SM to be sold in the States, Citroën had to ditch that extraordinary lighting system and replace it with two ridiculously looking round sealed beams. This is like buying a Rolls-Royce or Lincoln Continental Mark IV and riding around with a fox tail attached to the radio's antenna. Nowadays, they wised up (but only since 1983). As they also did eventually with the front-wheel drive which in Europe was used since the 1930s. But boy does it take them time to get in pace with the rest of the world, or evolution, however one looks at it. Speaking of evolution, I guess Creationism which is as American as the sealed beam headlamp, shows the way with the same outdated kind of lighting.
I have never read Proust. There was yesterday (Tuesday) on TV5 a two-hour (part 1) French 2010 film about his life, with part 2 scheduled for next week, same time. It really caught my interest. I should finally start to read the saga. Maybe on the beach in Mexico? I don't know if it's the kind of book (or books in this case) tailored for this. I guess the intelligent way to know would be to start reading it "before" any such trip. Another entry on the "to do" list.
Tintin (the movie) opened here last week, in Québec that is, two weeks before the rest of North America. This is highly unusual (a first in fact) since Canada including Québec is considered domestic market by the American "majors". The reason is of course that Tintin is a household name in French Canada (and a large chunk of the world for that matter), while he is a virtual unknown in the English speaking North America, be it that 'other' Canada or the United States.
«Tintin is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. Tintin is the protagonist of the series, a reporter and adventurer who travels around the world with his dog Snowy.» (from Wikipedia). An adventurer who travels around the world - maybe that's why he's not very well known by some people for whom the only world they are interested in is the one which ends where the water begins. Maybe I'm wrong about this, I don't know. All I know is that your average 12-year old in Tintin-friendly countries already knows what is Tibet, Congo, Peru, the Sahara, the oily Arab deserts, the Mayas, their pyramids, their sacrifices, Ancient Egypt, its momias and pyramids, French castles, aristocracy, Slavonic people, dictatorships and revolutions, South American banana republics, Australia, nerdy scientists, communism, science and its good or bad overtones or possibilities, drug trafficking, opium, maharadjahs, opera, flukes, melon hats, and a big bunch of other things pertaining to Mankind, maybe not in depth, but enough to make someone as interested in other cultures as he is in his own. And maybe even learn where his own comes from by the same token.
It has now cooled down a bit, but for more than a week it was Tintin wall-to-wall in the media. The most often heard critic about the film was its Indiana Jones style, with too much action going on and too fast, especially in the second half. But besides this, critics were generally positive. And the technological aspect of the animation is lauded by everyone. It's in 3D. I'm not crazy about having to wear those funny glasses, so...
Bad karma
Charles and Camilla will be visiting Canada next year. Again! The last time they came, in 2009 I think, they paid a short visit to Montreal. They had to flee by the back door, literally. I don't think they will come here again.
Good karma
They are forecasting a whopping 9C degrees tomorrow in Montreal. Rain most probably also, but 9C still the same. And snow on the ground still a distant nightmare-to-be (for me). Yay!
Boucherie Capitol - Marché Jean-Talon Père Noël(?) brun - Brown Santa Claus(?)
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Warning: long post.
Of Americana, Canadiana and a Haitian exile
Dany Laferrière (1953-) is a prolific Haitian-born author who emigrated to Montreal in 1976, fleeing the Duvalier dictatorship. He published his first novel in 1985, a smashing entry in Quebec's literature first and foremost because of its title: Comment faire l'amour avec un Nègre sans se fatiguer (How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired) but also eventuallly because of its literary quality, followed by many other books, most autobiographic. I talked about Laferrière a few times in the past.
First published in 1993, but written some years before when he lived in a crappy apartment on rue St-Denis near Carré St-Louis, this other novel I'm about to talk about caught me like rarely a book has. The minute I finished reading the book, I immediately started to read it back all over again. Just to say. It's loaded with small chapters which can all be read independently from one another. When he first wrote the book, he was dreaming America from his apartment. Later on, he moved to Miami where he lived part-time. During those years, he traveled extensively in the United States, what they call America down there, collecting experiences and observations of ordinary people in their ordinary, and at times not so ordinary, lives. On the road so to speak, like some kind of Canado-Haitian Jack Kerouac. In 2002, back in Montreal, he virtually re-wrote the book, adding so much that it doubled in size. This is the edition which I read. I'd like to put my hands on the first edition, for many reasons, one of which is that in between the two editions, there was 9/11. You'll understand what I mean in one of the excerpts below, which I translated the best I could.
At this point, it must be said for English speakers that in French, the word "grenade" describes both the hand-held minibomb, and the fruit they call pomegranate in English and some other languages.
The book's title is Cette grenade dans la main du jeune Nègre est-elle une arme ou un fruit? (Is That Grenade In The Hand Of The Young Negro An Arm Or A Fruit?). The capital "N" in Québec is important. It signals that the word Nègre describes here a "Negro", "un Noir", someone from the Black race. With a small "n", it would mean either a phantom writer who writes a book for somebody else (just about only used in French-speaking Europe under this meaning, almost never here), or a very derogative term for Black people. There is no equivalent in French, here or in Europe, for the American "nigger". They do have the derogative "bougnoule" in Europe, but it's not heavily loaded with slavery as "nigger" is. In France also, nègre does not have the very derogatory meaning it has in Québec (and French-Canada). Some books of Laferrière have been translated but not this one.
When Laferrière went to Paris for this book, a clip was made for a regular but short program which TV5 viewers are accustomed of seeing. You can see in it that the European edition of the book, which Laferrière holds in his hands, uses the small "n", indicating that over there, the word nègre does not have the derogatory possibility it has here. My guess is that it's because we are the neighbors of the U.S. and that we both had our own slaves in the early colony, before Canada later on became an exile haven for American slaves fleeing slavery. The subject is more sensitive here than it is in Europe.
«I write this book with notes taken a little everywhere in North America, in a train, going to Vancouver, with this large woman facing me and who never stopped staring at me for the whole trip, believing I was making her portrait, which was true for that matter; in a bus heading south, Key West, on a sunny Friday and the sea terribly blue on both sides of that never-ending bridge; in the toilets of the Shed Café, a hip Montreal bar on boulevard St-Laurent, patronized by young female actors with metallic breasts throwing at you lasered winks, with this green-haired girl who was whining because she couldn't find the right vein to shoot herself all the shit in the body. In America, we are constantly on the move. The American space is an invitation for speed.» Just like in the book. Candy.
I first wanted to simply post a few of those segments, the smaller ones, just for themselves. But I found too much relation with current events to not resist the temptation to add my little word. The end result is a very long post but that's that. Even if it's not read, I do it for myself also. Because it implies research on my part, and being less dumb on anything is not an idea that I find unappealing. Someone other than a Quebecer or French-Canadian would probably have used the more positive form «is an idea that I find appealing», but you can't gum away centuries of history just like that. For crediting purposes, I'll give the page numbers of the 2002 Quebec edition where those extracts are found. For French readers, I have included at the end below the original French text.
A FOREST OF FLAGS (pages 110-111)
For a long time, I was wondering what was hiding behind that forest of small flags that Americans were constantly waving with a smile pinned on their face. Was it to show the rest of the world that they are always the strongest? A primary expression of their triumph? Happy champions? The healthy joy that a well deserved victory can provide? To say the truth, it's rather the opposite. The United States, one must know, forms a vast country where is found one of the planet's least cultured peasantry. Very limited folklore (cow-boy, turkey, Halloween, a few dances). To understand the small town mentality, one would need to return to Norman Rockwell's paintings. And especially to not forget that the comic strip character (popular culture) the most appreciated in America is a loser: Charlie Brown. It's because life revolves around the church, the playground, the school, the general store. You are going to tell me it's the same everywhere. Yes, but we imagined America different from the others. These folks who live in a world so isolated and who pass the best of their time damning Washington and the federal government are far from thinking that they could have some kind on influence on the lives of the other inhabitants of this planet. The system is made in such a way that their vision cannot go beyond the town limits. Beyond the railroad. Elsewhere does not exist. The idea of Europe, of Africa, of Asia is therefore more amazing to them than the idea of America to the contemporaries of Christopher Columbus. The universe only exists for tiny countries and those old colonizing nations (the third world and Europe). The power of the time needs to be narrow-minded (in fact, very few Americans own a passport). Any refinement leads to decadence. Therefore, every morning, America wakes up, all happy to still be there. And waves a little flag. It knows that any blow could be fatal. Some countries can continue living after having killed their dream. The United States, no. And Americans know it. Only the gold medal. It is such that they build their mental system. Under this perspective, they are now in the process of elaborating something quite new: the war without victims on the American side. Each American soldier fallen on the front forecasts the possible (or future) defeat. America ensnared in its own trap. All we have to do is look carefully at the fixed smile of that woman in her fifties, wearing impeccable make-up, frantically waving her little flag, to understand that she is suspecting something. Her tensed smile (everything is in the smile) breaks my heart. Americans go to sleep telling themselves that one morming someone, a mad person certainly, will have the boldness to take their word literally. An attack, therefore, on the American soil. And it will be, they deeply know it, the beginning of the end. That moment which erases all that has existed before. Because, as the American saying goes (posted in most of the offices of that country), you never can make twice a first impression.
The same could be said of many English-Canadian John Doe's. They are also, as of late, frantically waving their little flags, handed to them by the tens of thousands by the federal government. But contrary to the Americans whose military actions abroad are always linked and/or justified, in people's minds at least, to and by homeland security, in Canada they are now immensely proud to send their kids to be killed in Afghanistan or elsewhere because it's their way of asserting their existence to themselves and to the rest of the world. War has become a nation building tool. From a highly respected peace-making country, these Conservatives now in power in Ottawa have turned it, in the matter of only five years, into a military, belligerent and rogue State. Last week, they staged in Ottawa a giant parade with planes and everything to celebrate the return of the troops that had been sent within the framework of the Libyan war, and where they didn't even land on Libyan soil. What will it be when the Afghan mission ends? A national holiday? This kind of machistic glorification of the military for propaganda purposes had not been seen since the glorious years of the communist regimes.
Meanwhile, in a show of inborn stupidity rarely seen, this government led by this Harper guy who likes to play soldier and stage aerial parades for nation building purposes, finds nothing better to do to build his "nation" than to celebrate with millions the upcoming 60th Jubilee of the Queen of England (accessorily also Queen of Canada which shows how politically immature those Canadians can be), and put back after 40 years the "Royal" in our armed forces names, (with the millions it implies if only to replace all the stationery, building signs, etc), and bump famed Canadian artists' works from official government buildings to replace them with pictures of the Queen of England. A memo has been sent to all Canada government embassies, consulates and other offices worldwide to make very sure they have pictures of said Queen on very prominent display. A few days ago, I learned that we will be able to order by mail free 14 x 17 pics (maximum 5) of Her Majesty, or Her Majesty with husband, or husband alone. To celebrate the jubilee, I gather. Can we talk here of severe synaptic failure, or in simpler words, a congenital failure to connect the dots. Harper is a freak, a control freak mainly, a religious one accessorily, quite intelligent but screwed up, and holds absolute power. That's why he's a dangerous man.
The title says "The Queen offered for free to Canadians". Has a funny (awkward?) sound to it. The article starts with «Canadians will now be able to imitate Stephen Harper's government, and have, them also, the portrait of Her Majesty the Queen in their entrance hallway.»
Quebecers in general have nothing against Elizabeth II, in fact most highly respect and like her as a person. But they don't consider her their Queen, that's all. Quebecers are much more Canadian than the so-called "Canadians". Our federal government is, however, turning her into a matter of ridicule. It's a crying shame, especially that they are too stupid to realize it. It would be nice for all those other Canadians out there who come from all over this planet and to whom the Queen of England also means nothing, to rise up and have this ridicule stopped, if only for Her Majesty's sake. For some reason, they stay shut like an oyster, and things never change. The only explanation I can find is Canadian multiculturalism. This system makes it so that newcomers here think it's a former Brits thing and does not concern them. I've mentioned before all the bad I and many Quebecers think of multiculturalism "à la Canadian". A nice patchwork but no plan, each patch minding primarily its own business, oblivious of a grander scheme of things. The exact opposite result of, using the same ingredients, the American melting pot. We can say all the bad we want about it, but at least Americans, wherever they came from initially, consider themselves first and foremost as Americans. Over there, you will never hear, like I did during the FIFA world cup, a youngster of Italian origin but born here of a second or third generation, yell "I'm so proud of my country" after Italy had won a game.
I never thought I would one day be caught standing up for the Queen of England!
Canada, which was also a world leader in the promotion of environment-protection issues, has now turned into one of its worst foes. It has renegated its signature on the Kyoto accord, and intends to do all it can to kill any effort to either renew or replace it with a similar one after it ends in 2012. It blames large countries such as the United States, China and others from the BRIC for not doing their share, but when China moves in that direction like we've heard in Durban (climate conference, South Africa), they tell China that it won't change anything. Bad faith arrogantly expressed and fully assumed. Canada now receives carloads of infamous environment related prizes, like the daily Fossil of the Day Award, given by the Climate Action Network (CAN) uniting some 700 NGO of more than 90 different countries, to the country which does its best to prevent any progress in the negotiations (for the renewal of Kyoto protocol). Contrary to other countries which don't particularly appreciate being targeted like this, Canada shares with Saudi Arabia the dubious honor of not giving a damn. Contrary to the rest of Canada, the government of Québec, the only province to do so, is in the process of setting up a system of limits and exchange of carbon credits, even if this means riding alone with California on this (in North America). With the price that will come with it.
While Harper's Canada is putting all its eggs in the American basket, all other countries in the Americas besides these two are setting up a new organisation, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CLACS) whose goal is clearly to get rid of the U.S. invasive control of the current Organisation of American States (OAS) which, it, stupidly does not include Cuba. A bright kid in Ottawa, strictly on an economic point of view, would decipher that the OAS is a dead duck, and do all it could to not make it seem it was an American asslicker and asslick the OAS instead. Harper is mesmerized for being a member of the G8, an historic error which happened only because the U.S. insisted on Canada's presence, or put in other words, that it indeed considered Canada as its asslicker, something Harper just doesn't get. You can see him walking around during those summits, acting and talking as if Canada was considered for more than a nose turd in those circles. Pathetic.
Canada being hated is something new for us. Some of us, anyways. It has now become synonymous in most of the world, I mean for those who know where is Canada or some of its main cities, something which too many Canadians overestimate the numbers hugely, as the country which selfishly wants to make bundles selling its tar sand dirty oil, to the detriment of future generations, and no matter what. Québec is on a head-on collision with Ottawa on this, being resolutely in favor of attaining by 2012 the reduction goals set up by Kyoto, but as with everything else in this country, it is being isolated and discarded as a troublemaker. I can understand why Canada acts this way. In turn, it will have to understand that many won't necessarily want to be identified to it. And if it does not understand, it changes nothing.
Meanwhile, at home, despite undisputable statistics showing that the crime rate in Canada has been decreasing steadily for the last twenty years, this government is nearing the final votes on a sweeping package of measures consisting in stiffening prison terms, restricting liberation for good behavior, creating now prison sentences for people caught with marijuana, and a lot of other measures the worst of which is lowering the age for judging kids in adult tribunals. This latest caused an uproar in Quebec because here we have, contrary to the rest of Canada, put the accent on rehabilitating kids, not sending them in prisons where they are sure to learn how to become real criminals. There is a direct link between this and the fact that Quebec has the lowest rate, and by very far, of criminal recurrence among that clientele, while in other provinces where they apply a repressive approach, it's the exact opposite. Simply put, these new laws will "create" new criminals, or in other words increase the crime rate. Furthermore, the application of criminal law in Canada is a provincial responsibility, which means it is them who will have to pay for most of this increase in the number of prisoners (more prisons needed, and longer terms costing necessarily more), plus the cost of nasty social side effects mentioned above and which will only pop up in the future. In a report made public this week, the IRIS, an institute specialized in research and socio-economic informations, advanced the number of 19$ Billion as to what applying these new laws will cost, all governments included. That report, only available in French here, is loaded with graphic charts about how crime steadily declines here, and what it will now cost (in pure loss, my add). There's also a bunch of outside references, one pertaining to this: «In the same way, the Canadian government could take lesson from the experience garnered by the State of Texas which, after years of severe correctional measures, chose to reconsider such choices. This had for effect to decrease the number of incarcerations and the crime rate by the same token». When you're being considered more backwards than Texas on these issues, you're not flying very high (this reference is available in English, it's a recent CBC report by Terry Milewski, available here). This gutter level politics is doubly confirmed by this comment by Canada's federal Justice Minister who declared «We do not govern on the basis of the last statistics, we govern on the base of what is right to better protect the victims.»
This declaration itself is enough to be scared shitless, when you learn that for a whole government, facts are irrelevant. Creationist politics? And the federal government denies any new costs offhandedly, witout any explanation whatsovever. The IRIS report is not the only study to come up with the conclusion that this government is totally wrong. Countless studies say the same and a multitude of organisations have condemned the move in the past months. The government, it, has come up with not even one little study supporting its position (because there is none). And don't feel compelled to do so at all either. They know what is good (by divine intervention?), and they have absolute power in Parliament, and that's good enough for them.
What makes it all worse in Québec is that this government is a no show here after the last elections, therefore most of its government members are outsiders or don't speak French, so they use the toy they got themselves a few years ago, for that purpose. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu lived a tragedy some years ago. His daughter was kidnapped and killed. After that he decided to become a strong advocate for victims rights, which he claimed justly or wrongly that they were not taken care of by the justice system. His problem is that he is obnubilated by his cause and is steadily turning into a patented but dangerous asshole. What we hear from him is that any measure reputed to be «severe» is automatically «good for the victims», and that any criticism is automatically done «for the criminals». Last year, when Statistics Canada published its annual study on criminality in the country, numbers were not to his liking. Once again criminality had diminished. He immediately denouced criminologists and those in favor or rehabilitation. These people «justify their jobs» and someone «manipulates the numbers» was his comment. He of course never brings any study of his own to support his charges. I'll stop here because there's much worse and this could go on and on . As a columnist mentioned, the silliness of this discourse would not be that terrible if it came from a pressure group. But senator Boisvenu is not heading a pressure group anymore. He votes laws.
Because, yes, Mr Boivenu is a Canadian senator. He was appointed by Stephen Harper a few years back, knowing exactly what he was doing. For remembrance, senators in Canada are not elected, neitheir by the people, nor by parliament. They are named, purely and simply, by the reigning Prime-Minister. Some are there for good reasons (exemplary life in some domain), to keep up appearances. But a big bunch of them are only there because they served well "the party", or will be useful to do such eventually, if you know what I mean. Senators, not elected, can block any law voted in Parliament, it elected. It can even initiate laws by its own initiative. So this guy, who obviously does not have the necessary hindsight to make objective decisions on these matters, and who was elected by no one, is 'the' federal government spokesman in Quebec on these issues, and speaks as if "he" was the duly elected government, contending that "he" is speaking for the people. I'm not sure that there is any other country besides Canada where such a thing can happen, with impunity. As for Boisvenu, either he knows he is Harper's puppet, in which case he's a slimy person, or he doesn't and he's a naive idiot.
End of addendum ---------------
In a different but related story, a few days ago this Conservative federal government voted on third reading to dismantle a huge section of the Canadian arms control register, the part pertaining mostly to those shoulder arms used for hunting, etc. This register cost more than a billion dollars over the years, and was set up in the footsteps of the 1989 Polytechnique massacre in Montreal. Seeing this, some provinces, of which Québec, have made public their intention to continue with a registry of their own, on their territory. For this, however, they would have needed the federal government to transfer to them the existing data, data which for the record has been paid for by all their citizens. The answer was a blunt NO. The data accumulated over more than a decade will be destroyed, period, and they make no secret that it's purposely to prevent other governments to create their own registry. Surprisingly, the police (most of them, except some red necks from the west, what a surprise!) were strongly in favor of maintaining the register, which they consulted thousands of times every day. The main reason is quite simple: every time they are called to intervene, namely in family dramas or the likes, they always check beforehand if one of the persons involved owns a firearm, so that they can calibrate their intervention accordingly. To this the Conservatives reply that the police should always act as if the person had fire arms. Well yes, that does seem at first glance to be full of common sense. However, I for one don't want to live in a society where the police shoots first then asks question after, which is what happens when the "as if" becomes the norm and the police finish by thinking it's reality. This brings me to another "americana" story by Laferrière.
THE DIALLO AFFAIR (pages 188-189)
«A young African (he has only been in New York for a year and a half) is returning to his apartment. Just as he is about to fetch his keys, four police officers, lurking in the shadow, shoot at him, without warning, forty-one bullets in the back. Nineteen hit him. Dead on the spot. One of the officers approaches the individual lying on the ground to recover the firearm which he was still holding in the hand. The tangible proof that they were facing a dangerous criminal and that their life, therefore, was threatened. It's because of this arm that they shot so swiftly ("41 shots", says singer Bruce Springsteen), thinking they were in a state of legitimate self-defense.
-- Oh shit, said the officer, shit, shit, shit...
It was not a revolver, but a wallet.
The four police officers (Edward McMellon, sixteen bullets; Sean Carroll, sixteen bullets; Richard Murphy, four bullets balles; Kenneth Boss, five bullets) were found not guilty, by a tribunal in Albany, one hundred and forty miles north of New York, of the forty-one charges laid against them.
Sean Carroll, the first to have shot on Amadou Diallo, asked to meet Kadiatou Diallo, the young man's mother, so as to present his excuses. A reflex coming from a good protestant education. I can well imagine the mother of the younger Sean Carroll:
-- Sean, you have done harm to your little comrade, go excuse yourself.
Sixteen bullets in the back.»
After having seen the God In America series on PBS, I saw the end of this little story under a new light.
Some days later, the Conservative government signed a deal with the United States whose purpose is to facilitate commerce between the two countries, by making border controls less complicated. In that package, the counterpart is the transfer to the U.S. of all the information available about the people entering or leaving Canada. The Conservatives see no problem apparently in surrendering both its sovereingty and it's citizens' privacy to our great friend the United States who in the past were as friendly as to send some Canadians to be tortured in some Middle East prisons, and to put no one knows how much of Canadians on a so-called "dangerous people list", the overwhelming majority of which for not reason at all, except sheer bureaucratic blunders (mixed up names and such) or simply dumbness (at times paranoia-induced).
To put it all in a few words, everything that has been tested and which failed miserably in the United States in the last three or four decades, to the point they are now admitting it, is exactly what this government of ideologues and religious freaks (some of its Ministers are Creationists) is trying to implement in Canada. They are not just dumb, they are total irresponsibles. They base their decisions on their own feelings, rejecting off hand and very publicly any scientific study or document proving they are wrong. This makes them also very dangerous. As one person wrote to the editor in my daily this week: (my translation) «Staggered, as everyone, by the intransigence of the Conservative government as well as by its total lack of attentiveness towards the provinces and the population, I told myself, watching him [Harper] admire his nice planes flying above: "This here guy could one day imprison me because of my ideas". The principle is not to know if I'm right, I don't really know. Neither if I am paranoid, I don't think so. The question is that Stephen Harper is the first politician, in forty years of tranquility, to have generated in me the germ of fear with regards to my liberty, to the exercise of my fundamental rights.»
Welcome to Harperland.
What the Americans fear the most by having flukes like the Tea Party take control of their country, we already have here in Canada, since May 2, 2011. Since 2006, they had been a minority government, they could be restrained. Now they have a majority (of seats, not of popular vote) which means that under the British parliamentary system we have here, it is the equivalent of a dictatorship. In normal circumstances and with normal people, it's not supposed to turn out to be one because that system, like the Common Law, is based on the unwritten assumption that those in power are apparently in good faith although they can indeed screw the people, but it must not be overly obvious, which forces them to use at least a minimum of internal diplomacy, with the other parties or with social actors. But when you have in power a government of ideologues which doesn't give a damn about what anyone else thinks, be they its citizens or foreign governments, and does only what it wants because they know that they can do it under this system, it turns into a democratic disaster.
These days, it's not people who abide by the British fairplay that rule this country. It's people like this guy below, who had just voted in second reading, along with his fellow Conservatives, to abolish the gun register. Bang! Bang! you're dead! That where we're at in Canada. Cowboys and Injuns. Schoolyard politics. Bullies included. Don't ask me if I'm depressed...
Interestingly, the letters XPig (Xceptional pig?) are part of this video's URL address. Maybe there's a hidden justice after all...
Durban, where is/was held this international conference on climate, is in South Africa. I remember back in early summer 1990 when Nelson Mandela, then just liberated but still persona non grata in the United States, came to Montreal and there was this huge rally for him on the Champ-de-Mars, behind city hall, and which I attended. I even have a pic of it which made full page in the Paris Match. Canada was very instrumental in having Mandela released from his 27 years in jail and for the fall of the despicable apartheid regime. Nowadays, with our current government, he would probably be left to rot in jail while our government would continue business as usual with the exploiters of the South African people. And they want me to wet my pants when I hear the word Canada? I may be a lot of things, but one thing I am not is a flaming idiot.
I never put a Canadian flag pin on my backpack or my luggage when I travel. Why should I? Except in Quebec, I'm most often treated as a second-class citizen in this country. Before, I did this small gesture strictly for political reasons. Now it's also because I don't want people, in foreign kitchens, to piss in my soup. I will, however, continue to proudly sport a small Quebec pin on my things. And make sure when I travel, as I have always done in the past, that the people I meet don't mix up one for the other.
[note: this paragraph updated Dec 11] For remembrance, Quebec voted massively (83,5%) against Harper and his Conservatives on May 2nd. He is not 'our' creature. He is theirs. It's what you could call the 'Canadian divide'. Harper only got 39,6% of the popular vote across Canada and only 3 provinces give him more than 50%, not surprisingly western ones: Manitoba 53,5%, Saskatchewan 56,3% and Alberta, Harper's oily yard, a whopping 66,8%. What made the difference for him were two traditionally more 'political center' provinces and which this time around gave him 94 seats, British Columbia 21 seats with 45,5% and especially Ontario, with 73 seats and 44,4%. These two are the most significant sign that Canada (besides Quebec) is heading straight to the 'Right'. Québec on the other hand voted like never before for the 'Left' New Democratic Party, giving it 59 of its 103 national seats, making it the official opposition for the first time in its history. They got 42,9% of the Québec vote, compared to 16,5% for the Conservatives. As I've mentioned earlier, the Canadian divide. This country is not normal. And not about to be either. There is only one cure, an independent Québec, but for now a majority of Quebecers still don't want it. Some call it wiseness, I call it immaturity. To each his own assessment. You can pretend all your life that it does not snow in winter, by staying inside all the time. It changes nothing to the fact that it does snow in winter, and that in the meantime you are imprisoned in your own home.
*********************************************************** These are the original excerpts from the book, in French (with punctuation 'as is').
Pendant longemps, je me suis demandé ce que cachait cette forêt de petits drapeaux que les Américans ne cessaient d'agiter avec un sourire épinglé au visage. Etait-ce pour montrer au reste du monde qu'ils sont toujours les plus forts? Une manifestation primaire de leur triomphe? Des champions heureux? La joie saine que peut procurer une victoire bien méritée? En réalité, c'est plutôt le contraire. Les États-Unis, il faut le savoir, forment un vaste pays où l'on trouve l'une des paysanneries les moins cultivées de la planètre. Folklore très restreint (cow-boy, dinde, Halloween, quelques danses). Pour comprendre la mentalité des petites villes, il faudrait retourner aux tableaux de Norman Rockwell. Et surtout ne pas oublier que le personnage de bande dessinée (culture populaire) le plus apprécié en Amérique est un perdant: Charlie Brown. C'est que la vie se passe autour de l'église, du terrain de jeu, de l'école, du magasin général. Vous allez me dire que c'est partout ainsi. Oui, mais on imaginait l'Amérique différente des autres. Ces gens qui vivent dans un monde si cloisonné et qui passent le plus clair de leur temps à maudire Washington et le gouvernement féféral sont loin d'imaginer qu'ils pourraient exercer une certaine influence sur la vie des autres habitants de cette planète. Le système est ainsi fait que leur vision ne puisse aller au-delà des limites de la ville. Au-delà de la voie ferrée. Ailleurs n'existe pas. L'idée de l'Europe, de l'Afrique, de l'Asie leur est alors plus étonnante que l'idée de l'Amérique pour les contemporains de Christophe Colomb. L'univers n'existe que pour les pays minuscules et les anciennes nations colonisatrices (le tiers-monde et l'Europe). La puissance du moment se doit d'être bornée (en effet, très peu d'Américains possèdent un passeport). Tout raffinement conduit à la décadence. Donc, chaque matin, l'Amérique se réveille, tout heureuse d'être encore là. Et agite un petit drapeau. Elle sait que le moindre coup peut lui être mortel. Certains pays peuvent continuer à vivre après avoir tué leur rêve. Les États-Unis, non. Et les Américains le savent. Uniquement la médaille d'or. C'est ainsi qu'ils ont construit leur système mental. Dans cette perspective, ils sont en train d'élaborer quelque chose d'assez nouveau: la guerre sans victimes du côté américain. Chaque soldat américain tombé au front annonce la défaite possible (ou future). L'Amérique prise à son propre piège. On n'a qu'à regarder attentivement le sourire figé de cette femme d'une cinquantaine d'années, impeccablement maquillée, agitant frénétiquemenet son petit drapeau, pour comprendre qu'elle se doute de quelque chose. Son sourire crispé (tout est dans le sourire) me fend le coeur. Les Américains dorment en se disant qu'un matin quelqu'un, un fou sûrement, aura l'audace de les prendre au mot. Une attaque, donc, sur le sol américain. Et ce sera, ils le savent profondément, le début de la fin. Ce moment qui efface tout ce qui a existé avant. Car, comme dit le dicton américain (affiché dans la plupart des bureaux de ce pays), il n'est pas possible de faire deux fois une première impression.
L'AFFAIRE DIALLO
Un jeune Africain (il n'est à New York que depuis un an et demi) rentre chez lui. Au moment où il s'apprête à sortir ses clés, quatre policiers, tapis dans l'ombre, lui tirent, sans sommation, quarante et une balles dans le dos. Dix-neuf l'atteignent. Mort sur le coup. Un des policiers s'approche de l'individu couché par terre afin de récupérer l'arme que celui-ci tenait encore à la main. La preuve tangible qu'ils avaient affaire à un dangereux malfaiteur et que leur vie, de ce fait, était menacée. C'est à cause de cette arme que ceux-ci ont tiré si promptement ("41 shots", dit le chanteur Bruce Springsteen), se pensant en état de légitime défense. -- Oh, merde, dit le policier, merde, merde, merde... Ce n'était pas un revolver, mais un portefeuille. Les quatre policiers (Edward McMellon, seize balles; Sean Carroll, seize balles; Richard Murphy, quatre balles; Kenneth Boss, cinq balles) furent trouvés innocents, par un tribunal d'Albany, à cent quarante milles au nord de New York, des vingt-quatre chefs d'accusation retenus contre eux. Sean Carroll, le premier à avoir tiré sur Amadou Diallo, a demandé à rencontrer Kadiatou Diallo, la mère du jeune homme, afin de s'excuser. Un réflexe issu d'une bonne éducation protestante. J'imagine bien la mère du petit Sean Carroll: -- Sean, tu as fait mal à ton petit copain, va t'excuser. Seize balles dans le dos.
Rue St-Hubert (Plaza) 2011.12.05
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
This and thats
Can people get circus indigestion? I hope not because the Cirque du Soleil has currently six permaments shows going on in Las Vegas: KÀ, O, Zumanity, Believe, LOVE (the Beatles show) and Mystère. They have also staged the Michael Jackson THE IMMORTAL World Tour which just opened in Vegas also, and is slated to become permanent in 2013.
On top of this, Madonna has also hired the Cirque du Soleil for the Super Bowl XLVI mid-game show she will give in January. They in turn have asked a specialized Montreal firm to take care of the audio/video and multimedia part. The show will be directed by Jamie King, who directed the Cirque du Soleil's Michael Jackson show that I mentioned above, and a Madonna favorite since he was artistic director for her Sticky&Sweet (2008) et Confessions (2006) tours. We're talking of the cream of the crop here.
Oh, and Céline Dion is back there also, to the relief of Las Vegas city brass who almost consider her return as the first good news for Vegas since the recession.
I wonder how come no one thanks us Quebecers for saving Nevada. .
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I've always had a slight case of dyslexia. When I was a kid in elementary school, I used to constantly mix up the letters "p" and "q". It was terribly obvious since, for those old enough to remember, we learned to write in block letters. In my last post, I wrote «After valiantly trying five or sings times». "Sings", for god sakes! Dunno, maybe it would have been less demoralizing if I had misspelled it "sex" instead of "sings".
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Monday it was 8 Celsius outside (for those using a weird system, that would be 46 plus a few peanuts of them F thingies). Can I say that in December this is a welcome rarity in Montreal? So much that I elected to install the outside Christmas lights, on my front balcony. Usually I prefer waiting when it's nearer to Chrismas, and it's also usually a giant pain, literally, since there's no way to install these things with gloves on and it's usually much colder. So when an 8 C pops its smiling face up, you install the damn things, even if it means only lighting them up later on in the month. I'm of the old generation for whom the commercial aspect of Christmas is sickening, and who thinks that Christmas decorations should only be put up like a week before, or ten days, no more.
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I went to that Christmas concert at Église St-Édouard (see previous post) on Saturday. It was so and so. In fact it was more so than so. Ok, let's be more precise: it was boring. For some reason, the director had this idea that when the tempo sleeps on the switch, it's all for the better. Well, it isn't. Singing «Les anges dans nos campagnes» or «Jingle Bells» as you would sing «Silent Night» doesn't seem appropriate to me. I don't mind some slow moving songs, but an hour and a half of them? To make matters even less enjoyable, I had in the bench in front of me three adults, two men and a woman, who were accompanying two very young boys (one obviously in diapers, something that at one point could be smelled, and heard with the kid yelling caca! caca! ) and who were obviously living at home and everywhere else apparently under a regime where kids can do anything they want, including blabbing around loudly during a whole concert, including during songs like «Minuit Chrétiens» (O Holy Night). Personally, I don't think that putting too much restraints on kids' creativity is a good thing. On the other hand, I am a staunch believer that people who bring toddlers to concerts and ruin the evening of over three hundred people are themselves loaded up to their eyeballs with acute selfishness and totally lack respect for both the choir and those others there who bothered to come and pay to listen to them, whatever tempo is being used.
The church however is quite nice. Gothic interior. It has a Casavant organ. Casavant was and still is a world-renowned Quebec organ manufacturer. [other link, the company itself, here -> http://www.casavant.ca/] On Wikipedia (the French one) they say «Casavant Frères is a Quebec organ building house established in 1879 by brothers Joseph-Claver (1855-1933) et Samuel Casavant (1859-1929).[..]It is recognized as being one of the world's top five organ builders. It has realized nearly four thousand instruments up to now everywhere on the planet: Canada, United States, Japan, Australia, and Mexico namely; many recent intruments were installed in China.»
I recognized a man from my former workplace in the choir. He's someone who took an early retirement some months before me and whom I bump into very occasionally, like at marché Jean-Talon and the likes. I don't know his name, he's kind of weird, a loner, no friends by his own acknowledgement, goes around on a bicycle in season (wears a helmet) and always has a daypack. He must not have a huge pension because he had a lot less years of service than me and left before being eligible for full pension. I went to say hi to him after the concert. He was with another man from the choir who looked as gay as gay could be. He too didn't seem to have tons of people in his life since he, like the other one, were unstoppable blabbers with me. Anyways they were both obviously glad that I went to talk to them. I didn't mention anything about the tempo. Some things are better kept to oneself. The choir members were all dressed in black with some accessory, plus their partitions, in flashing red. It was nice.
I took some pics with my new camera. Under poor lighting, it is day and night compared to my old Canon (this one is a Nikon). Keep in mind that this is only a neigborhood church! In Montreal, that means about one of these per square kilometer, in my area. They are not all as flamboyant as this one, but as a rule of thumb they are all justa as large. Witnesses of a time long gone, when families were very large (over 10 kids was not uncommon) and religion was a major actor in social life. Now they are almost empty most of the time.
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According to a recent report by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OCDE in French) the gap between rich and poor in OECD countries has reached its highest level for over 30 years, and governments must act quickly to tackle inequality. These are some of their key findings pertaining to Canada:
· The richest 1% of Canadians saw their share of total income increase from 8.1% in 1980 to 13.3% in 2007 [Table9.1]. Moreover, that of the richest 0.1% more than doubled, from 2% to 5.3%. At the same time, the top federal marginal income tax rates saw a marked decline: dropping from 43% in 1981 to 29% in 2010. · The divide in hours worked between higher- and lower-wage earners in Canada is growing, confirming a trend seen in most OECD countries. Since the mid-1980s, annual hours of low-wage workers fell from 1300 to 1100 hours, while those of higher-wage workers fell by less, from 2200 to 2100 hours. [Table4.A1.2] · In Canada, increased earnings inequality was also driven by a rise in self-employment, as on the whole the self-employed earn less than full-time workers. This explains more than one-quarter of the increase. · Societal changes, such as more single parent families and people living alone, and people marrying within similar earnings classes, contributed little to inequality. At the same time, higher employment rates for women helped reduce household earnings inequality by around the same amount. The rising gap between men’s earnings remains the main driver, explaining more than 40% of the increase. · Prior to the mid-1990s, the Canadian tax-benefit system was as effective as those in the Nordic countries in stabilising inequality, offsetting more than 70% of the rise in market income inequality. The effect of redistribution has declined since then: taxes and benefits only offset less than 40% of the rise in inequality. · This downward trend in redistribution was largely driven by the reduced role of means-tested transfers: benefit rates fell and benefits became less targeted. Changes in income tax rates played less of a role. · Social spending in Canada relies more on public services (education, health, etc.) than on cash transfers, such as unemployment and family benefits. Only Korea, Mexico and Iceland put a higher weight on services (Figure). Overall, services cut inequality by the same amount than do cash transfers: some 20%.
[in other words the rich are richer and also pay much less taxes, while the social redistribution dives to oblivion and families only have ends meet by more women having to work.]
-> Note to those who considered moving here eventually because life would reputedly be better: Do it NOW. Tomorrow will be too late. Especially with the federal government we now have, one can expect the drop to be exponential.
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Ann Coulter made an ass of herself during a CBC interview (in 2005), available on Youtube, claiming Canada had sent troops to Viêt-Nam. The journalist told her it was not the case. She said something meaning he was full of bull and that she would be back to him on this. She never did.
Later she said somewhere else that she was the one who was right since ten thousand Canadians went to fight in Viêt-Nam with the Americans, and repeated something to the effect that the Canadian reporter was full of bull.
What she was talking about were of course mercenaries. Under her reasoning, since thousands of American draft-dodgers fled to Canada during the Viêt-Nam years, some of which I have known personally, that would mean that the U.S. supported draft dodging, or at the very least supported people being against the Viet-Nam war.
Coulter is not the brightest kid on the block. This is not the description I had in mind but I don't want feminists lacking second-level word decyphering to be on my back.
I know it's been six years, but Ann Coulter, Fox News management, and Bill O'Reilly, all have not yet been committed to mental institutions, what should be their natural habitat, so since they are still out there polluting the mediatic scenery with their feces, it remains in the order to expose them for what they are. Gee, can I yell like the kid: caca!! caca!!
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As forecasted by at least Radio-Canada's reporter based in Washington, and many others assuredly, Newt "take a bath" Gingrich is December's flavor of the month in the Republican race. It does not make him anywhere more palatable though. A Republicans remains a republican. Someone who basically cares only about himself.
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Speaking of those draft dodgers, one of them was a customer of ours. That was around 1970. He had an old Peugeot, and a wife just as friendly as he was. In a normal life, he should not have been the customer of a French-speaking Acadian in that shitty New Brunswick town where I lived. I guess that as a draft dodger, he had the required sensitivity to quickly notice how Acadians were treated as second-class citizens, and decided to side with them. He even tried to speak a few words of French, something the Anglo and controlling majority over there never bothered to do, for the vast majority of them. Some even still today. When you're an adult and pretend you don't know what "Bonjour" means, it's because you're constipated at both ends.
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There's another American I knew in those early seventies. This one was our next door neighbor. He had a very fat wife who dressed like a bum, and some brat kids who ran around naked outside most of the day. I think they espoused those funny education methods that were popular in certain circles in those days. He was a teacher, like the other one for that matter. I don't know if he was also a draft-dodger, I'm not sure. What I do know is that this one sided with the Anglos. In those days, that meant working undercover to make sure that anything new, or spent by any level of government, went first and foremost to the anglos, starting with schools and the likes. We knew, when they had visitors parked in the street in the evening and that the blinds were closed, that some kind of meeting was taking place. The only problem with this guy was that he was naive and dumb. The Anglos did with him what they do with everybody else: they used him, and when they didn't need him anymore, they dumped him as if he was an old rag. I felt sorry for him but hey, I couldn't go and hold his trousers for him. Canadian Anglos, those from British Isles descent, have a history of acting this way. They did the same with some Amerindian tribes, used by them against the French. They used them, but never, I mean never, did they mix with them. The exact opposite of the French who mingled so much with the Amerindians that nowadays hardly none can be found with no trace of Amerindian blood.
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To sum it up, I learned early in life that there were two kinds of Americans. One of those kinds is much scarcer than the other one, but I had the chance to meet one of them long ago, when I was still young. And later, much later, I also had the chance to meet some more of them, this time through the virtues of the internet.
Nowadays, if an American draft dodger came knocking on Canada's door, he'd be unceremoniously sent back to where he came from. Draft dodgers are of no use to military-loving war mongering over-testosteronized people like Stephen Harper.
Jardin de Chine Pavillon de l'amitié / Friendship pavilion
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Voyage in kid-dom
St-Hubert is a street that runs through the whole of the island of Montreal, on a south to north axis (somewhat, Montreal is offset) and even continues northbound across the river Des Prairies, in Laval. There is a stretch of it, roughly one kilometer long between the streets of Bellechasse and Jean-Talon, which is a commercial strip called Plaza St-Hubert, and where the sidewalks were covered in the early eighties with strange marquees that protect from almost nothing. Every year, the Plaza's merchants association stages a Christmas parade at the end of November, although it's not a commercial showcase per se. The participants are mostly amateurs and are not there to peddle the merchants' stuff. There is a much larger parade on Ste-Catherine street, downtown, and which I never attended, but since the Plaza is in my neighborhood, I rarely miss this one. It's a wholesome affair, and very much of the stuff you can call the "Montreal spirit": originality, friendliness and fun. This year, the temperature was gorgeous, for a second year the parade was held at night, and coupled to the fact that this neighborhood is being swarmed as of late with young couples having young children, all was in place for a good time. One I was deprived of when I was that age, living in small city in nowhere land where nothing ever happened, especially not a Chrismas parade for kids. So I go every year to reclaim parts of my lost childhood.
Speaking of kids, I had two hyperactive ones (a euphemism ) standing just in front of me and who were really something else. Now I understand why they say that teachers in elementary schools these days should be elevated to the rank of sainthood. Anyhow, they seemed to be having a jolly good time, just as many of the grown-ups for that matter, including yours truly.
These are probably my last videos shot with my old camera. The new one should be much better for when it's dark outside. I hope, anyways. But as these two are concerned, even without good lighting, we can still get "the feel" which is very much Montreal, and why I like so much living here.
The song we hear in the videos, 23 Décembre (December 23rd), is from a Québec cult group from the mid seventies to early eighties, Beau Dommage, who probably made the most beautiful songs ever about living in Montreal. This particular song has rapidly become a Christmas classic here. I include the lyrics below, with important annotations, notably about the Fée des Étoiles (Stars Fairy, Fairy of the Stars, hard to translate), whom I didn't have a clue who she was before moving to Montreal, and who is some kind of broker between the kids and Santa Claus.
I never paid attention to this, but I realized doing this video that Quebecers not only can create their own original Christmas songs, but also created their own Christmas mythology. I mean, hey! I'm not saying this for those who read this, I'm saying it for all those kids today to whom no one teaches their history or anything else about who and where they come from, and are on the fast-track to cultural assimilation in the global world magma (a fancy word for americanity), all the while remaining clueless of the incredible richness their own culture fostered and still fosters, for the time it will last. There's something terribly wrong with this country called Canada, where those whose truly original creativity represents most of what makes Canada different than the United States, are being led by [expletive deleted] to believe that their culture is worthless or next to. The day a Canadian flag will be found near or inside my pad will be the day I won't be living in that dwelling anymore. Now back to the street, where people don't ruin their evening thinking about that kind of stuff.
23 DÉCEMBRE by former group Beau Dommage (1974) Lyrics: Pierre Huet Music: Michel Rivard
I've got in mind an old Christmas tree, a crèche under A Saint Joseph with a rubber cane It was badly made, and I was cold When I came back after three hours in an igloo We had made, two or three guys, at Guy Rondou's
My eyes get to see, when I'm happy, a kind of game A gift we got, some kind of stable with bulls The same year I had passed The Holidays, a hockey tuque on my head, 'Cause I wanted to look like Doug Harvey
«December 23rd! Merry Christmas, Mister Côté!» «Goodbye, kid[1], see us back on the 7th!»
I'm resentful 'bout a New Year's when my parents Thinking well had dressed me as a communicant. [2] At my grandmother's it was my father Who dressed up as Santa Claus, to make believe All the gifts didn't come from Dupuis Frères [3]
«December 23rd! Merry Christmas, Mister Côté!» «Goodbye, kid, see us back on the 7th!»
At times I feel like going and talk to her «Stars Fairy[4], can I get another hockey stick I lost mine, clueless me I swapped it for pics where nothing's to see A girl from the back hiding her cheeks with her hands.»
«December 23rd! Merry Christmas, Mister Côté!» «So long, kid, see us back on the 7th!»
[1]"Ti-cul" in the original lyrics - a Québécois untranslatable. Literally, "little ass", it's something between "kid" and an affectionate "brat" or "l'il snot". A ti-cul is never timid, no more a child but not yet a full-fledged teen, full of character, maybe obnoxious, rarely lazy, but generally loveable. The Mister Côté in the song could well be the owner of a corner "dépanneur" (neighborhood convenience store) like there are hundreds and hundreds in Montreal, and the "ti-cul" a kid doing home deliveries for him on bicycle, to make a few spare bucks.
[2] Catholic lingo: person receiving communion, here in the sense of the "first communion" event.
[3] Dupuis Frères was a large multi-story department store, with a postal catalogue and everything. At its peak it employed 1500 people. It was also the only one in Montreal owned by French-Canadians. It closed down in 1978 after labor and financial problems. The buildings it occupied are now Place Dupuis, a shopping/office building/hotel complex at the beginning of the Gay Village on Ste-Catherine.
[4]"La Fée des étoiles" - an unknown figure in the anglo-saxon world, maybe even anywhere outside Québec, this Fairy of Stars works with (for?) Santa Claus and is the one relaying to him the kid's wishes. In a way, she is the real undertaker, Señor Claus only being the one in charge of having the toys made and delivered. Señora Claus is a no show in Quebec folklore. Mind you, she was a no show also in my native Acadia. Some say that the Fée des étoiles would be instrumental in supplying Rudolf with the stuff needed to make his nose get tipsy red, but I'm sure it's all hearsay. For the record, coming from Canada (in the sense of outside Québec) I had never heard about this Fairy before coming here. And even then, I only realized doing some research about this here post that she was the one sitting in that glitzy horse-driven carriage of whice we only see a glimpse in my video. I would not be surprised if that fairy would have existed long before Santa Claus, in Quebec. After all, this Claus guy is not at all part, historically, of our culture, or of any other non anglo-saxon one for that matter. In christian countries, it was St-Nicholas, but he got bumped by Coca-Cola's guy. Duh! Heck, maybe the same happened to the Fée des Étoiles, who is now, as St-Nick, a secondary figure in this parade. Some days I develop a grudge against imperialistic cultures, which are such not necessarily on purpose, but more by ignorance. However, ignorance can be curtailed. It only takes the will.
ADDENDUM:
As requested by Fauquet, the original French-language lyrics. Don't pass these in a spelling corrector, they are in "Québécois" vernacular french. The group's name (literally Nice Damage) is an old Québécois expression, maybe even more Montreal than anything else, I don't know for sure, and meaning something like "you bet" or "why not", "of course", "naturally!", "absolutely!", depending on the context. I personally have never heard it said by anyone and only learned about it when I first knew the group. I fail to see any relation between the words Beau Dommage and the meanings, but that's only me .
After valiantly trying five or sings six times (dyslexia ) to upload this song in my audio section, I abandoned. At first it worked for a little while then it just stopped working and all subsequent tries to reupload failed. I've been having troubles uploading audio in the last months. Don't know why. However I found this video on Youtube with a montage of pics which pretty much reflect what is being said in the song so maybe it's even better. (as if anyone cared )
23 DÉCEMBRE - (BEAU DOMMAGE)
J'ai dans la tête un vieux sapin, une crêche en d'ssous Un Saint-Joseph avec une canne en caoutchouc Était mal faite pis j'avais frette Quand je r'venais d'passer trois heures dans un igloo Qu'on avait fait, deux ou trois gars, chez Guy Rondou
J'ai d'vant les yeux, quand j'suis heureux, une sorte de jeu Qu'on avait eu, une sorte de grange avec des bœufs La même année où j'ai passé Le temps des fêtes avec su'a tête une tuque d'hockey Parce que j'voulais me faire passer pour Doug Harvey
Vingt-trois décembre, Joyeux Noël, Monsieur Côté Salut ti-cul, on se r'verra, le sept janvier
J'ai sur le cœur un jour de l'an où mes parents Pensant bien faire, m'avaient habillé en communiant Chez ma grand-mère c'était mon père Qui s'déguisait en Père Noël pour faire accroire Que les cadeaux ça v'nait pas tout de Dupuis Frères
Vingt-trois décembre, Joyeux Noël, Monsieur Côté Salut ti-cul, on se r'verra, le sept janvier
Ça m'tente des fois d'aller la voir puis d'y parler "Fée des étoiles, j'peux-tu avoir un autre hockey? J'ai perdu l'mien, beau sans-dessein J'l'ai échangé contre des photos où on voit rien Une fille de dos qui s'cache les fesses avec les mains"
Vingt-trois décembre, Joyeux Noël, Monsieur Côté Salut ti-cul, on se r'verra, le sept janvier
EVEN MORE ADDENDA - WOW!
Fallen into the cracks
I had prepared this next section on November 28 (last Monday) and for reasons I don't remember or even know, I kind of forgot to post it. So here it is.
Québec in België
Michel-Marc Bouchard was on a radio show this morning, just back from Antwerpen in Belgium (Flanders) where his play Les Feluettes was made into a musical, with the lyrics in Flemmish and the music by a Flemmish composer, and which premiered a few days ago. Bouchard is a very successful Québec playwright. This particular play, Les Feluettes (The Lilies in English, Lelies in Flemmish it seems) was first created here in Montreal in 1987. A «feluette» is, in Québec slang, the equivalent in English of "wuss", "weakling", "no character", (always with regards to a male person), or by extension "gay". It's a derogatory term.
The original play has 12 characters, 10 male and 2 females, all to be played by eight male actors, and this is the storyline: In 1952, under the direction of Simon who was convicted of murder forty years earlier and took pretext of a confession to get bishop Jean Bilodeau to come see him, a group of ex-prisoners hold the bishop prisoner and replay before him the events which happened in 1912, when the younger Simon and Bilodeau were students at Saint-Sebastian College in Roberval [1]. Simon was in love with young count Vallier de Tilly, a ruined French aristocrat, living in exile with his mother having lost her reason waiting endlessly for the return of her husband and the fall of the French Third Republic, which would have signaled the return to monarchy. The re-enactment show put up by the ex-prisoners, which tells about the troubled love between Vallier and Simon and the attempts by Bilodeau to interfere between them, had the purpose of forcing bishop Bilodeau to admit to the real circumstances of Vallier's violent death, for which Simon was unjustly convicted. Both situations (1912 and 1952) are staged simultaneously, with a younger Simon and the elderly Simon on the stage at the same time.
I saw this play in 1988 I think, at the Théàtre du Nouveau Monde, near Place des Arts. It was directed by André Brassard, probably Québec's greatest living stage director. And it was just awesome. It has since been played in many countries (55 productions) and in ten different languages (a short list here). It is also in the permament repertory of three companies, one in Mexico City and one in Tokyo. The author mentioned that not all those productions were good, some he hated completely because they had turned the play into some kind of Cage aux Folles thing, with sequins and everything. This is not what I have seen, and it is not at all what Bouchard has seen in Antwerp. About what he saw, he's ecstatic. He said he felt the same emotion as when the play originally premiered in the eighties, adding that this musical premiere was a very big thing, with dozens of photo reporters, television, and standing ovations. When told by the show's host that this musical must absolutely come here, Bouchard said that it could be, eventually.
Anyways, looks like the Flemmish did a really fine job. The music is indeed beautiful, and if the rest of the musical is of the same quality, we're really in for something! I've heard that Antwerp was a very cultural city. One which a certain Montrealer of my knowing should eventually put on a to-visit list, I guess.
The vintage photo seen in the video is the old Hotel Roberval, circa 1900, where some of the action of the play has been set in. In reality, this luxury hotel (catering a lot to Americans) burned down accidentally four years earlier, in 1908 (I had to search a heck on the net to find this up). «Guests to the hotel came mostly from the north-eastern American States but also from England, France, Scotland and other Canadian provinces, as a visitor's list for the 1895 season indicates». In those days, French-speaking Quebecers were more likely to be found in the kitchens or in the stables rather than taking sunshine on the hotel verandas, if you know what I mean, if not, they were what Pierre Vallières called in his book of the same name, The White Niggers of America (Les Nègres blancs d'Amérique). Things have changed a lot since then, especially in the sixties.
There are other excerpts, done live during what looks like a press conference announcing the musical, in October -> here.
Oh, and I forgot, this play was also made into a movie in 1996, called Lilies in its original English version, but translated into other languages. There are excerpts of it (in German) in the "short list" link I mentioned above. The play's long title, translated in English, would be "Lilies, The Repeat of a Romantic Drama".
[1]Roberval is in Québec's Lac St-Jean region (Google Maps link). There is an international swimming event held there each year, the crossing of Lac St-Jean, link, a 32 km open water swimming race (20 miles). Michel-Marc Bouchard comes from that region, where there are more Bouchards and Tremblays per square kilometer than there are stars in the sky.
Speaking of Belgium
It was announced this week that Montreal's upcoming annual winter festival Montréal en lumière will be themed in part on Belgium for its cultural and gastronomical segments. It's going to be more Wallonie than Flanders, because of linguistic family ties I suppose.
Jardin de Chine - 2011.10.31
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Pumpkin blues
Why do people put live pumpkins in stairways for Halloween and leave them there long after they've died away? I ask because I can't find my DWNIS [Dealing With Neighbors Instruction Manual] and I want to get a hold of the answer before I get SWP [SomeWhat Pissed]. It's already a pain that I am the one who very often has to clean the steps for the mailman in winter...
Tales of an iceberg, or how a small story may hide a much larger one
I went to a Latino grocery store about 20 to 25 minutes (walking) from my pad this afternoon, to buy bacon. Yes, that's where I am in my life: I have a dedicated store for every item I eat. It's either pathetic or karmanastic, I haven't figured out yet. I also buy an Argentinian herbal digestive tea mix there (Taragui brand - Mezcla de hierbas digestivas, it's called). Today, I also bought a small container of home-made (I've never seen it not home-made in Montreal) chimichurri. It's a seasoning sauce based mainly on parsley, garlic and the usual, oil and vinegar, and some peppers. It is almost always a nice green and liquidish, although very rarely it can be red. That's why Wikipedia chose to show only the red and thick one, I suppose. Can I utter a big DUH!
Now to be frank, I didn't walk to that store only because of the bacon, which I and my general health don't really need in any urgent matter. I just happened to be near that area and decided to add some mileage by making a detour via boulevard St-Laurent because the steps/a/day program is nearing bankruptcy. It's been raining too much to my walking liking these last days, which is bad for those statistics.
And why was I in that area? Because I needed a battery charger, that's why.
Of course, when one needs a battery charger, it's usually because he's got a battery to charge, or maybe, even, two.
Hum... this is getting mysterious, or boring to death, depending on one's state of awareness.
Let's try to untangle this before some accident happpens. I do need a battery charger for the reason that I've got a new type of batteries which need a special type of charger. Did I buy those batteries because I needed something to spice up my life? Yes and No. No because those batteries per se are only accessory to the spice in question, and taken alone are not spicy at all. However, and here is the bang-shabam-omg-revelation that explains it all, these batteries, far from being orphaned, come hand in hand with a brand new parent whose name is plastered on the black box they both came in: Nikon Coolpix P300. I decided that since in Texas, people settle the Christmas gift thing in late November, there was no technical reason why I wouldn't be able to do the same for my moi-myself, especially is said prospected self-gift happens to be on special. So that's what I did. I shamelessly contributed to this world (well, more our) global mess that we call consumerism. But it was for a good cause: me. Using a car analogy for comparison purposes, I'd say this new camera would be a 2009 BMW and my formerly current Powershot A75 a 1955 Studebaker. I paid roughly the same price for both cameras, which says a lot about a lot of things, but on which I don't care to expand more than mentioning it, which is now done. La di da! With a bit of luck, I'll be able to make videos that are up to this century's standards... and with even more luck, I'll be able to understand how the camera works before Chrismas Day.
While at the Latinos, I saw some tortillas which were just the right size and thickness for cut-in-four-wedges quesadillas, and which could be available down there where they make nice music programs in their city limits on PBS and elect serial killers as Governor. The brand is Nuevo Leon and they are made in a state called "IN" which I gather must be Indiana, and on the package it's marked with big letters "Burrito" and under in smaller ones, "for fajitas". What I don't get is why import fresh tortillas from so far when they make them right here. Another unsolved mystery of civilization.
On my way back, I stopped at Milano, to buy a Gioia mini-panettone. It looks like there's a lot of people who will have a nice panettone under their Christmas tree this year because there were a lot less on display than when I was last there, barely a week ago. The missing (presumed sold) are mostly the high end expensive ones.
Tales of icebergs, take 2
Speaking of icebergs, I bought last week an iceberg lettuce, something I hadn't done in ages. They haven't changed much. Still as crisp and colorless as they are bland and tasteless. I don't remember for what exactly I bought it. It will come back to me if I stop thinking about it.
[space reserved for when thought will pop up]
Jardin de Chine - 2011.10.31 Qin Shi Huangdi (c.-259, Sept -210) et sa cour/and his court
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Above
This year's and 19th "The Magic of Lanterns" theme was “The First Emperor's Procession”. From the Botanical Garden's site: «with close to 200 thematic lanterns paying tribute to China’s first Emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, and his impressive cavalry. Various elements inspired by this larger-than-life individual (a section of the Great Wall and several musical instruments) will introduce visitors to the story of this Emperor – avid for both power and honours, but also an admirer of beauty and poetry.» Recall: all these figures are made with paper covered with a special waterproofing coating. Plastic only came up much later in China's long history.
Black Friday for American business, Red Friday for Americans
I was reading a column in La Presse, referring to another one from the Wall Street Journal, where they say that since the second trimester of 2009, sales of goods in the U.S. have progressed by 9,1% (adjusted for inflation), while expenditures for discretionary services (dinner at a restaurant, haircut, car repairs, whatever) only progressed by 2,8% in the same period.
Put in other words, it means that those people lining up at Walmart (or other) cash registers with overloaded shopping carts are sending their money in droves to the Chinese, except maybe for a tiny portion going to the people working in the transportation business and who bring to the U.S. those goods made elsewhere by people living elsewhere and holding jobs elsewhere, all the while spending almost nothing on those services which are the ones creating jobs at home. And even then, most steamship lines hire people from third or fourth-world countries.
To paraphrase that other saying, reports about the death of the 2008 crisis have been greatly exagerated. Not only is it not dead, it's pretty much alive and well and at this rate, will be for many years to come. I don't even mention the long-term stupidity of basing a whole economy on consumerism, with a system designed to create new needs rather than satisfy the real ones, frivolous things like having a planet clean enough to sustain life on it, say. You can create more jobs inventing ways to tackle new energy sources but don't tell that to tar-sands-loving primary minds like Stephen Harper or the average Republican candidate in the States. Unbriddled capitalism breeds its own destruction.
The mini-panettone face-off
This morning I ate that Venezia panettone I talked about earlier. I hadn't even started to cut it in slices that I knew it was a no contest. Dry, brownish, almost no smell, it just wasn't in the race. The Gioia may be a little more expensive, but it's worth it without the shadow of a doubt.
Quesadilla For Dummies
I don't have any particular dummy in mind just right now. I only borrowed this title from the highly successful "How-to" series of books destined to newbies in any particular field of human activity. In French those books are called "[domain] pour les Nuls".
Anyways, I tried some quesadillas the other day, stuffed with tomatillos and chipotle peppers, plus the cheese of course. It was something I wanted to try. The result was so and so, tastewise. Not bad, but nothing to bother a Mayan priest during a ritual sacrifice. But since I can be at times a little on the philanthropic side, I took on me to take a few pictures, in the most improbable case someone somewhere might be interested in the procedure.
So here goes. I'm not as cute and talented as the kid in a certain video, so you'll excuse the absence of any personal appearance of my person in this demonstration.
What's needed: two tortillas, 1 tomatillo, chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, melting white cheese (oaxaca, monterey jack [here industrial store brand], mozarella even), a grater, a knife (he was late for the pic), a stovetop pan (will show up later) and it's longtime companion, a heat source (could be a stove, for all I care).
The slaughter: the tomatillo is cut in very thin slices. Removing the husk beforehand and cleaning the tomatillo under tap water to remove the sticky stuff is considered a great idea. The chipotles are cut in two lengthwise, and the seeds and veins are removed. The seeds and veins are the furnace of hot peppers. The knife can be used for this, optimizing its role in this whole procedure. The cheese is grated unmercifully.
Setting up the offerings to the gods. In that order, tortilla, cheese, tomatillo, chipotle. The size of the chipotle pieces is inversely proportional to the size of one's dumminess with regards to hot peppers. I am rather lectured in this domain so the pieces reflect this literacy of mine. Others, new in this business, may elect to use less and cut them into smaller pieces.
Covering the whole thing with more cheese will have the extra benefit of gluing the upper tortilla to its friends underneath.
It is now time to put a lid (literally) on the whole thing by adding the second tortilla. Doing this with a debonaire attitude, as cute kid future actor did in previously mentioned video, will add nothing to the taste but adds a touch of spectacular to an otherwise not very exciting operation.
It's then on to the sacrifice altar. After 3 to 5 minutes of cruel torment on medium heat and no grease in the pan, the cruelty will attain its paroxysm by turning the sacrificed on itself in the pan and letting it go through another similar instalment of torture. What's important is to check the heat. The gods prefer long and slow torture, in part because they worship a ball of fire called the Sun and its warm rays. They are not into cold microwaves at all. A crisp outside and melty inside victim is better than a burnt and uncooked inside one. So say the gods, in which I have total trust and confidence.
In the end, the sacrified will have lost any will to resist, and will just let itself fall in the kind of crispiness that the gods appreciate so much.
Epilogue: Now that you have mastered the basics, try it again but this time replace the tomatillo/chipotle combo with a green onion singlo. Simply sprinkle the first layer of cheese with one green onion (or scallion, or spring onion, or whatever it's called in your patch of land), cut in small sections. It will taste just as good, maybe even better and be much less trouble, not mentioning the absence of any messy slaughterings.
Bonus track: Chipotle in adobo are sold in little cans (with or without Bisphenol A, I don't know). Once open and transferred in a glass container covered with plastic film, they can remain in the fridge for a very long time. That's pretty handy because we rarely need more than a couple of them at a time. Unless one knows the fire extinguishing tricks of the trade and has in his fridge all what it takes. A jar of yogourt, maybe... or sour cream. And is a culinary pyromaniac also, kind of.
Como lo me siento hoy
Ruelle entre/Back-alley between Plaza St-Hubert et/and Ave de Châteaubriand "I spend therefore I am"
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Going to church
Unless something comes up, I should be going to church next Saturday. Wait... before celebrating the salvation of my soul, what I really meant is that I will go to "a" church. I was handed a leaflet this afternoon at Marché Jean-Talon, which I've mentioned before is the largest open-air market in North America (free touristic plug I won't charge the city for), about a concert at the St-Édouard church given by a local choir, all to the benefit of a food-and-stuff-sharing store catering to the less privileged (financially). I had to ask a confirmation about where the church was located, because Montreal is not called the city of a hundred steeples for nothing. Apparently this was coined by Mark Twain when he visited here in 1881 (I just read this on Wikipedia). In the historically French part of the city, there's a church every four or five blocks and each one is the size of a cathedral. The St-Édouard church is the one located next to the Beaubien metro station, I was told. I've never been inside any of the churches in my neighborhood except the closest one, St-Arsène, the one with the steeple in the shape of a penis. It's a handy landmark when I give indications to visitors on how to get to my place. In reality, I think those who built the church wanted more to symbolize joined hands in a praying position, but those were other days. If it wouldn't be for the Latino newcomers who use it for their parish (St-Maron), it would maybe have been turned into condos already. The guy who gave me the leaflet says St-Édouard is beautiful inside. We'll see, but if the exterior is any indication, we're far from the small chapel type of thing. I took pretext of this to add ring-a-lings (about 2600) in my daily steps bank by going there to take some pics, and some videos it also turned out.
This is the program. The organist-to-be will be from another church/parish, St-Jean-Berchmans, more eastbound. La Petite-Patrie is the colloquial name of the district where I live in. Since the city mergers of 2001, it's now part of the Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie borough. If you ask me why my area is called La Petite-Patrie (The Small-Homeland), I didn't have a clue until I read on Wikipedia that it would indeed originate from the novel turned successful weekly televion series back in the 70s by author Claude Jasmin and bearing the same name. Could be. All I know for sure is that it had that name when I moved here in 1985. And that where Jasmin lived and talked about in his novels is just north of Jean-Talon St, which technically is not today part of La Petite Patrie but of Villeray, of which La Petite Patrie was formerly part of, and that both of these were formerly in the town of St-Michel before it was annexed to Montreal somewhere in the early 20th century and that in those days St-Michel was a nest of Anglos, as my former and now dead neighbor, Mrs Spence, told me (not in those words, of course). The whole thing is a little confusing and mildly interesting for outsiders, let alone current residents. Finding out more could be a nice project for the long winter evenings to come.
This is the St-Édouard church, front and rear.
And this is the same, gone on a bell spell. I saw no one entering or leaving the church except one lone woman so I doubt there was a service going on. It was about 16h00 and the belling lasted a good five minutes. This video is only if you really have nothing better to do in life just right now and, very importantly, you are not currently experiencing a wrenching headache . If you qualify, at the end you will understand why it is so convenient to live (and die) in a big city: if you're stupid enough to go in the middle of the street to take a pic of oncoming traffic and you end up kind of dead because of this, no problem, there is a funeral home right there, then they'll stage you a funeral in the church on the other side of the street after which they will bring you back again on the opposite side and bury you in a community garden just next to the funeral parlor. Ain't city life just great or what?
This is St-Arsène. I'm sure I posted pics of it before, besides it's in one of my videos.
Oh really?
Heard in an alley at Marché Jean Talon, from one Anglo speaking to another, most likely a visitor from out of town, when they passed in front of a butcher shop: «French people eat horse.»
Yeah. So?
«We also kick ass!»[1] I should have butted in (hoofed in? ).
Besides, it was never explained whatever happened to those other horses of that "One Horse Open Sleigh" song which, curiously, became with time "Jingle Bells". A cover up?? Duh! I'd bet anything they eat horses too but pretend not to.
[1] For Europeans not familiar with this expression, it means being great, formidable.
Jardin de Chine - 2011.10.31 Le Pavillon où se figent les nuages empourprés - The Tower of Condensing Clouds
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Celebrating
Happy Thanksgiving Day to all Americans!
Walking
We had our first dump of snow yesterday morning. Winter is not made for cities, especially not cities like Montreal where it can snow one day then melt two days later then freeze again. All it spells is trouble. I hate it because first we have to dress up like artichokes to go outside. Then we have to constantly, and I really mean constantly, watch where we are walking, so as to not slip on a patch of ice or packed snow and break a hip. Broken hips for seniors means trouble for the rest of their lives. That alone makes any walk extremely tiring. Then there's melted (returned to liquid state) snow at almost every street corner, garnering in ponds often too large to totally avoid walking into, furthermore that they often prolong as long wet slushy rivers alongside the adjoining street curbs. Then there's the instant cecity when entering a warmer place, store, metro, whatever, with eyeglasses covering up with an opaque fog. And there's the gloves or tuque you will inevitably forget one day on some counter because you have to remove those, especially the gloves, to do any dexterity action, like paying for something, say, or simply not wanting to turn into a walking sauna. Or the coat and scarf which it is almost imperative to remove in the metro during busy hours because it's not air conditioned and in winter, it's the suburb of hell as per temperature goes. Of course, if you buy something fragile like flowers or lettuce, it'll be dead before you turn your front door coming back from that nice walk to where you bought them. I surely miss some other things on that annoyances list (like having to shovel stairs that other neighbors leave intact going to work) but I think you get the point. Winter is for people who like skiing in the mountains, or those who like to sit near a window and write poems watching snow fall on life. For the others like me who think that wearing anything more than sandals and a shorts/t-shirt combination is being overdressed, winter is a humongous pain where the back loses its name.
This said, I went to Milano's just the same, for the sake of my new 10 000 steps a day program. Milano is only worth 5 000 steps, but it's better than nothing. I checked the price of the mozzarella di bufala (they had about 5 or 6 different brands). One 250g pack was 13,49$. And I'm not even sure that weight does not include the water it bathes in. Most of that price must be for air transportation, since these cheeses have to be eaten very fresh. As per moi is concerned, it's not tomorrow that I'll buy any. I'll pick a few bocconcini instead. A lot more cheaper and I probably won't see the difference. I also checked the panettones (the 's' here is the English one). Of those, the larger 1 kg ones, they have about 100 different brands and varieties (I exaggerate but barely), ranging from about 5$ (el cheapo) to 20 or 30$ or even more (el richo ). Some come in nice cans which you can recycle as... well I don't know in what you can recycle them in, certainly not to store candies, or nails, or anything of the likes because they are way too big, but they sure are pretty. The mini one I bought the day before weighs 80g. It was not the best panettone I ever ate but it was palatable. Now, without being a Nobel-prized mathematician, I figure there's about 12 of those mini panettones in one ordinary 1000g panettone. Since it went (on special) at 1,99$, the equivalent would be 24$ for a larger one, on special still. Now, when you pay 24$ for a panettone, you're in the upper leagues, that's the least you can say. For a large one of the same quality of that mini one, one would expect to pay between 9$ and 13$, in the very most. Of course, the commodity of having smaller individually wrapped ones is surely handy and must come with a price, but me thinks the price here is way too much for what you get. The drawback is that when you live alone, buying a 1 000g panettone means you will be eating on it for two weeks, and get bored stiff of it until eternity or when they stop making them, whichever comes first. In other words, I'm screwed. It's a damn if I do (more $$$) or damn if I don't (less pleasure). Or the other way around. Or even, as one would say, wasting valuable time writing a whole paragraph on an issue of no importance whatsoever. Because, let's be frank here, if you can come up with something more tasty for breakfast than a good panettone served with home-made orange marmalade, you've got to be a magician, or very fussy. Why don't they make them in 300 grams? Oh, I also bought pecorino, as mentioned yesterday. I bought the pecorino romano lupa, which was slightly more expensive than the ordinary pecorino romano, but this last one was cut too big and I would have lost some of it eventually, so lupa I took. Came in handy since I had spaghetti for supper.
Anyways, this is the mini I had. I was glad to find out that there was more than one piece (or trace) of candied orange peel in it. I wouldn't bet my last hairs on it, but I'd say at least five or six.
Update: I returned today at Milano's, mostly for the daily instalment of steps. Once there, I started to count the different large panettones they had and I stopped at 64. Maybe there were three of four that I missed, but not much more. There is also a big bunch of them hanging from the ceiling on garlands but I think those were also found at ground level, so to speak. The most expensive ones were around 39$, wrapped in fancy heavy paper and ribbons. One of these days, I'll make a folly and buy one. Just for the kick. There was another mini on special, the Venezia, this one at 1,69$ and which I have bought before. I'll compare it with the Gioia but I'm pretty sure the Gioia is better. A work in progress, for now. I also bought two of their small breads, not very good, just for the sake of change. Exiting Milano's, a bottle of Argentinian wine (malbec/tempranillo grapes) kind of found its way in my recyclable bag, at the next corner's wine store. On my way to Milano, I had previously stopped at the Latinos and bought three pastries, one of which a sugar doughnut. I am not reasonable at all. Now, I do suspect that some inquiring mind[s] will have thought: well, I don't recall his having mentioned those two little tarts in his boring account and which we distinctly can see in that pic he posts below. And they would be absolutely right. There was no mention of them because they have nothing to do with the account. Those two portuguese natas (or pasteis de nata for the purists) [pronounced "pahsh-tay-ish day nah-tah, aka cream pastries) are two delicacies I had previously retreived from the freezer this afternoon and which I totally forgot about having done so when I entered that damn Latino grocery store. Now I'm stuck with more pastries than a decent human being can eat without sending his glucose level to stratospheric levels. When I say I am not reasonable, I "mean" I am not reasonable.
I posted some time ago about Ryan Larkin, that animated film genius who ended up panhandling in front of Schwartz's on boulevard St-Laurent. This 1968 film of his is called "Walking". I think it was in nomination for the Oscars under Best Animated Film.
Pissing
In winter, a different seasonal form of graffiti can be seen here and there: people who urinate in the snow and try to write their name or something else by the same token. Anyone remembers this 1984 issue of MAD Magazine, of which I have a copy stashed somewhere in my apartment?
This fall, I did something like that, except it was some kind of "pissing in the sky".
For a whole month, within the framework of the Triennale (triennial contemporary art event) organised by the Montreal Contemporary Art Museum, one of the artworks was an exterior and aerial interactive light show by artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. It consisted of roughly 20 high intensity blue light projectors in constant movement, aiming randomly towards the sky. I could see them, or rather their reflections in the sky or on the clouds, from my home. In fact the beams of light could be seen even farther than the island of Montreal itself, up to 15 km. Some people even thought they were UFOs and filed in reports. The projectors were all located on or near the Place des Festivals. However, those located on the Place des Festivals itself were benefitting from a very special type of randomness: the cluelessness of people like me. Those projectors, contrary to those on rooftops and elsewhere, were not activated by automatic motors, but by very non automatic handles that bystanders like me took hold of to direct themselves the beams. This is where is becomes the same as pissing in the snow. Even better still, since the unique personal ballet of light we were doing in the sky could be seen live by thousands of people.
I have pics many of which, like those I took at the Jardin de Chine, are useless because it was nighttime and I don't have the proper equipment and methods (read talent) to take pics in those conditions. This site however compensates by having very nice still pics showing what it was like, both on location and from a distance. The artwork was called "Intersection articulée" and as I mentioned above, lasted for a full month, seven days a week.
I did take this one which came out not too bad. I was there very late on November 5. In fact, half of the pics I took were taken past midnight, already the 6th. The fountains were not in operation that night, as in the video below, they were probably closed for winter.
For those who prefer when things are moving, this video by someone else pretty much sums it up.
I did manage however to film "my" projector and its beam while I was messing around with its handle like some excited kid, as the child we see somewhere in the video above. Video quality is pityful, but it was "my" ray.
Spraying urine or spraying light, what's the difference, as long as 'you' are the one in control of the hose?
) will take a lot of my time so in the coming days I don't know if, when, and to what extent I will be able to come on Xanga. I also have some emails I want to send here and there (in lieu of Christmas cards) to some people I've kept in contact with over the years, which of course needs time to edit. It will all therefore depend on my ability to organize myself, something I don't take for granted at all, by past years' experience, still.
). 
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Oh, I also bought pecorino, as mentioned yesterday. I bought the pecorino romano lupa, which was slightly more expensive than the ordinary pecorino romano, but this last one was cut too big and I would have lost some of it eventually, so lupa I took. Came in handy since I had spaghetti for supper.
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