Jardin Chinois / Chinese Garden - 2011.10.31
Le bateau de pierre / The Stone Boat

Above

From http://www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/jardin/en/chine/bateau.htm

"The Stone Boat is a much smaller version of the marble boat built at the Summer Palace in Beijing for the Empress Cixi, a powerful political figure in the late Qing dynasty (1644-1911). The small terrace in the "bow" is the ideal spot from which to admire the water lilies on the surface of Lotus Pond, while the upper "deck" in the "stern" is delightfully cool during the hot summer months."

Other pics of the "Stone Boat" pavilion - all taken between 21h00 and 22h00. Water is an integral part of the Chinese Garden.

Clarification: I had read somewhere that Montreal's Chinese Garden was the second most important one outside China, after London's, something that I have mentioned here. I can't find where I had read this, and despite a lot of research on the net, I can't find any evidence either that there would be a Chinese Garden in London. There's a tall pagoda in one garden but that's it. So until further notice, I'll take it that my previous belief was right about ours being the most important. There is a smaller but interesting one in Vancouver, despite being located in a terrible urban environment. I saw on the net that there's also one in Seattle which is in the works and appears to be very promising. Another good reason to visit the west coast some day (I'm talking of Seattle and more so Oregon, Vancouver I couldn't care less).

¿Americano? ¿Que pasa?

I guess you have to live in Montreal to have access to what is "the" real chili con carne. We have this weekly program adressing food issues, called L'Épicerie, 'épicerie' being either a grocery store or the groceries themselves (purchases) depending on the context. This week they had a segment about the chili con carne, which as everyone knows has nothing to do with Mexico but all to do with Texas, where it is apparently the official state dish. It was invented, purely by necessity, by the first American cattle growers having come to Texas (formerly part of Mexico) in the mid nineteenth century, using what they had on hand, and not costing much. To show us how it should be done, the program invited a restaurant chef who is a true-blood cross-my-heart Texan. He showed us a recipe which he claims to be his mother's and his grandmother's, and in which, he told us, that adding beans like we do here is an absolute No-No. I was delighted (and kind of proud in a silly way) to find out that not only did I know all the ingredients he was showing us, but furthermore that I had all of them right here in my kitchen cupboards, except maybe for the mulato pepper (and the poblano which must be fresh) which I'll have to check if I have and buy if not, because of course a food-slut me just can't wait to make a (much smaller) batch of it. I even have dried epazote, which is a kind of central american oregano. Fresh epazote is available also at my nearby latino grocery store, but not needed in this recipe. Addendum: I was at that store yesterday to buy some stuff with sugar in it, like locally made biscuits and doughnuts. Since I was there I bought a small pack of mulato peppers, being pretty sure I didn't have any. Today I checked and indeed I was right. Unfortunately, I also noticed that I only have one measly (small) ancho pepper, so I will have to go back to buy anchos. When I say unfortunately, it is of course a figure of style. Even if I don't need anything, I never walk by this grocery store without entering. Besides the myriad of stuff they have there (dry goods, meats, drinks) and of which there's many I don't have a clue what they are, it's just a feast for the eyes, not mentioning for a brief moment feeling like I was down there, where all these products and people come from. Traveling for cheap.

Below is the program's segment about chili con carne. Everything is in French, needless to say. This video will be almost useless to most everyone, first for non French speakers for obvious reasons, or for French speakers living in Europe, because the chances they can get a hold of all those ingredients are not readily obvious. But, if I may, this is for everyone a very rare opportunity to listen to a real Texas-born guy speaking some delicious Montreal "street" French. Priceless. The guy with the blue shirt in the beginning is a local food critic. The Texan comes in later, in his restaurant. His name is Nick Hodge. He seems very homely and says in the video that when you put that to cook for like eight hours, it's a good time to start drinking the three other beers left on the counter. I can relate to that!

This is the link to the video, providing it still works outside this land of mine. In there, if anyone wants the recipe, there's the link "Chili Texan" on the page, or just click here. Chili con carne means of course chili peppers with meat. That's the basic thing. Many varieties with add-ons, like cheese etc.

Monsieur Lazhar

I went to see a wonderful film Friday afternoon. It won the Best Canadian Film award at the recent TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) and will be Canada's entry in the next Oscars under Best Foreign Language Film. Yup, it's a Québec film, yet another in the long list of Québec films ending up at the Oscars. Of course, they all become "Canadian" films when they cross the border. This film also won awards in Locarno, where it premiered in August, and in Namur (Belgium) in October. Only a few weeks after its premiere, distribution rights had already been sold for 15 countries, of which France, Switzerland, Japan, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Spain, the United States, Luxemburg, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Portugal.

The action takes place in a Montreal elementary school, in a class of sixth graders (11 to 12 years old). The film opens in the schoolyard, it's a sunny winter morning and the kids are outside playing, awaiting the signal to enter the school. It happens to be one of the kids' turn to distribute the daily milk to his classroom, so he is allowed to enter the school before the others, goes to the large refrigerator to fetch the required number of cartons for his class and heads to the classroom where he finds the door locked. He looks inside through the door's narrow window and sees their teacher hanging from a ceiling pipe. The school's director, besides having to manage this terrible event, has no one on a call list to quickly replace the dead teacher. Up comes an Algerian man who tells her that he's a recent immigrant with permanent residency and that he has teached 19 years in Algiers and that he is readily available. He seems quite credible and the school's director goes for it.

The film, Monsieur Lazhar, is based on a successful one character play named by the main character: Bachir Lazhar. The acting is remarkable, by all involved starting with the title role played by Algerian-born French actor and stand-up comedian, Fellag, the two main child roles, stunning performances, and all the other secondary roles, the other children, the parents, the other teachers, etc. As they say or hint in all the reviews, Philippe Falardeau, the film's director, has a lot to do with it. Film after film, he is more and more becoming one the the greastest of Québécois (and Canadian by the same token) filmmakers. And the film's original music is just superb.

The rest is best described by these reviews:

From Martin Bilodeau, a TIFF programmer and formerly cinema critic for my daily Le Devoir:

«From Festival favorite Philippe Falardeau and the producers of last year’s Academy Award®–nominated Incendies comes Monsieur Lazhar, one of the most gripping Québécois films of the last decade. Expanded from a one-character play by Evelyne de la Chenelière, this complex character study speaks of loss, innocence and imposture in an eloquent yet simple manner.

The screenplay’s line of questioning — how should we speak to children about death? — could have led to a very dark and dry film. Monsieur Lazhar is just the opposite: a luminous and tender tale about the lessons we learn from one another, regardless of age. Bachir has much to gain from his pupils, and so do we.»

This other one from the Montreal Gazette and linked on the film's site goes further in explaining (and praising) the film. My French-speaking readers may prefer reading French reviews also linked on that same site, here. In French, my preferred review is from Odile Tremblay from my daily which I can't link because it's locked for non-subscribers, but I made a pic of it for anyone interested. Click here.

Below is the official trailer, this one with English subtitles. That's always a little tricky. For example, when the other teacher asks him if he wants "un lift", they translate his reply as "Pardon me?" while it should have been "A what?" It's not that he didn't hear what she was saying, it's that he didn't have a clue what a "lift" meant. In the film, she then tells him what it is, using French words. I suppose I'm nitpicking, and maybe with that subsequent sequence which I don't know how it was subtitled, the general sense passes through for English viewers... then again, maybe not. But in the absence of linguistic knowledge, sub is better than none of course.

I don't know who this next Mike is, probably a critic known in English Canada's or Toronto's media, but his review all the while saying nothing about the plot says everything about what this movie is about.

Needless to say, I wholeheartedly agree with him. If it comes in your neighborhood, don't miss it. For anything. And be warned. A kleenex or two may turn out to come handy. This film is full of underlying stories, never taking precedence but always there in the background, like the weird and constantly being reviewed pedagogical methods we have here compared to Europe, the quasi total absence of men (and therefore role models for boys) in elementary schools, the way teachers cannot touch children in any way anymore, not even to help them or express love to them, control-freak parents (some), kids who become in school the loudspeakers of what they hear at home by their parents, the plight of being an immigrant in exile fleeing horrors in his country, the personal pains and horrors that some of them have in their luggage, the bureaucratic nightmare they often have to endure to finally become accepted as refugees or permanent resident, what it means trying to grasp a totally new and different culture than one's own, the multicultural societies we now live in, and so on and so on...

This is a very interesting and inspiring interview that Philippe Falardeau, the film's director, gave when he was in Namur for the festival. It's in French. After all, it's a festival about French-language films.

WARNING: The following is a huge spoiler - Anyone wanting to see the film may elect to not read it.

BEGINNING OF SPOILER ==========================

Mister [Bachir] Lazhar had never teached of his life. He was a restaurateur who lived in Algiers and who arrived in Canada shortly before the film starts, without any immigration papers and asking for refugee status upon landing. He was currently appearing before the Immigration Tribunal with a lawyer to have this status granted, and where they initally didn't believe what he was saying, that if it was dangerous for him and his family in Algeria, then why had he left them behind, him replying that he had come first to be accepted, then having them come join him. The judge looked at him and told him: why don't you just tell us the truth? Despite his lawyer disapproving, he decides to spill it out: in fact, his wife, a teacher, had written a book condemning the Islamist terrorists and things has gotten so sour and dangerous for them that they had organized a way to flee to Tunisia. Somehow, their plan was stooled upon by someone and the night before they were to leave, the building where they lived was purposely set on fire and his wife and two children and all the other people living in that building burned to death. Mister Lazhar told nothing of this to anyone at the school, although some suspected something, including one of the teachers who liked him a lot and who tried to engage in a relationship with him, which he did not get into. Trying to mend things up for the kids after the suicide of their teachar, he was dealing himself with trying to mend his own life after that terrible tragedy. Then, there's the two young protagonists, who used to be close friends until the teacher suicided. She was adored by the kids of the class, and for some reason, one time the little boy had rejected her or something by pushing her away when she was trying to cuddle him, and had made some kind of complaint which turned against him instead, he passing to be asocial and the likes. His girl friend then started to have great animosity towards him, and finally told him one day that he was responsible for the teacher's death. Meanwhile, the boy endured this and passed his anger and frustration by having a somewhat violent attitude with others, so much that there was talk of banishing him from the school. Mister Lazhar and some other teachers opposed this move. Not long after, Mister Lazhar arranged for some kind of discussion to spur in his class, saying that if kids had something on their mind, they should let it out. Some spoke of this and that, and eventually it came to a confrontation between the two former friends, the girl pushing the boy into the corners, yelling at him to finally admit to all, that he was responsible, by his rejecting attitude and the complaint he had made, for the beloved teacher's suicide. That's when the boy couldn't take it anymore, and it all came out, in the midst of cries and yells and tears, explaining to stunned comrades and Mister Lazhar that the teacher knew when it was him who was bringing in the milk, always alone before the other kids got into the classroom, and that she was always there systematically in the class on those days and that she was all over him, embracing him hard, that she was trying to play mother with him, and that he just couldn't take it any more... in short she was kind of abusing him. The scene we see in the trailer is just after he finished spitting it out, crushed and in shreads. Powerful scene. And incredible acting for a kid that age. We later learn that the dead teacher had a history of being emotionally unstable, this known by everyone in the school's staff but hushed and tabooed by all. Soon after, it became known to the school's director that Bachir was only a refugee (he had meanwhile won his case to be granted that status) but not a permanent resident yet, a basic requirement to be allowed to teach, the parents were furious about what was happening at the school, they managed to get the school's director fired and she in turn fired Monsieur Lazhar. She had been allowed to stay on the job until the school year's end, but she was not in the mood to grant the same to Bachir. She had had enough. He pleaded to her for a last class with the kids, saying that we should never leave without saying goodbye, that this was what the dead teacher had done. His wish was granted. Some days earlier, since the kids hated dictations, he had proposed and they had agreed that if they wrote a composition, he would write one too and that they were to correct his as he corrected theirs. That's what they did on that last class, correcting his while he was reading it. And this is why I will have to go see the film again. Because what he said in his I don't remember, but I think it had something to do with a book the girl had given him some time before, to help him connect more with our North American ways, and with the kids, something more appropriate than Balzac, let's just say. That's how I explain for now the very last scene of the film, when all the children are gone, (I suppose knowing he was leaving but we see none of this so maybe that composition was itself a hidden farewell message) and the girl walks by in the school's corridor (or returned purposely), enters the classroom and hugs Mister Lazhar who in turn hugs her and the film ends there. To say the truth, at some point I may have missed some important clues near the end, because my eyes we burning like hell and I couldn't concentrate on the film at all. As I said, maybe I missed other stuff too, before that, the film being very smooth but heavily loaded, so like I said, I'll have to see it again.

There's a short but emotional scene somewhere in there and which we see parts of in the trailer. Monsieur Lazhar is alone in the classroom at the end of the school day, it's dark outside (it's winter), his mind wanders and music from his home Algeria starts to invade his mind, music we also hear by the magic of cinema, and very slowly, he gets into this traditional Kabyle dance which starts by first extending the arms, then the fingers start to tremble and then it ripples all along the arms up to the body, where it maybe evolves into something looking like what we see in this video, or this one or even this, kind of derviche inspired, since he was turning on himself in that sequence. You could not see it, but you could just imagine what was in his mind right then, his beloved wife and kids, the beloved white and blue city of Algiers which he was forced to leave, happy times gone forever. Coincidentally, we are in the last days of Montreal's 11th Festival du Monde Arabe (English language link here) which I had promised myself last year to attend and which as usual passed under my radar. As it often happens with other events of this nature, they talk about the different concerts "after" the critic has attended "that fabulous concert", except that for someone not familiar with those other cultures, it's totally useless to hear about it after. "Before" is what's needed. And if one coincidence is not enough, there was a segment this morning on Radio-Canada's Sunday morning radio show, where it was extensively talked about Arab music. All we don't know about that music, which roots back to milleniums ago, its myriad of varieties, and its universal spiritual overtones (the purpose of derviche dances is to attain transe) just boggles the mind. We are so ignorant at times... I wish I could easily overlook that bothering trait of Arab cultures where women are totally absent from public life, so as to be able to see all the rest, which is of an immense richness.

END OF SPOILER =================

Free bonus

A Vava Inouva is an old Berber (Kabyle) traditional tale put into lyrics by Algerian poet Mohamed Benhamadouche (Ben Mohamed in short) and into music by Algerian singer/composer Idir. A later version of the song was done for Idir's record Identités (1999) which I have, a string of duos in which he sings this song with Scottish singer Karen Matheson. This is the version we hear in this video, with photos from different locations in Algeria. Assuredly one of the most beautiful songs coming from that part of the world. The lyrics are in Berberian, not Arab, so finding a good translation is not easy (Google does not support Berber translations, it's more of a dialect). I found this one in a forum, so I take them as is. If it's a bad translation, don't fatwa me .

1- "I ask you Father Inouva, open the door
O daughter Ghriba, shake your bracelets
I fear the monster of the forest father Inouva
O daughter Ghriba, I fear him too

3- The snow pushes up against the door
the stew in the large cooking pot
the elders begin dreaming of springtime
the moon and the stars being the canopy
the oak tree replaces the view
the family gathers together
ready to listen to the story"

This other acoustic and live version with Idir alone has this particularity of giving us a nice insight into that culture, namely that weird (for us) sound that women make with their hands in front of their mouths.

Place des Festivals - 2011.11.05

Arrivederci Silvio!

Well, ok, it's not done yet, it could be another one of his tricks. But this time around, it does seem that his end is near. Good riddance.

Caption (fable excerpt): "No hasty lender is the Ant; it's her finest virtue by a lot..."
Ant Merkel: «And what did you do in the warmer days, Silvio?»
From Jean de La Fontaine's fable 'The cicada and the ant'.
Cartoon © Garnotte - Le Devoir

Other cartoonists joining the bandwagon:

Caption: Berlusconi preparing his bags
Cartoon © Chapleau - La Presse

Berlusconi: «Mission accomplished .. I screwed the whole of Italy»
Cartoon © Bado - Le Droit

Thou shalt not lie...

From AFP, Reuters and other sources (my translation)

Nicolas Sarkozy called the Israeli prime-minister Benyamin Nétanyahou a «liar» during a private conversation with Barack Obama, on November 3rd at the G20 in Cannes, who replied having to «deal with him every day». «I can't stand seeing him anymore, he's a liar» complained the French president. «You are fed up with him, but me, I have to deal with him daily!» replied his American counterpart [..]

This of course is no scoop. I've been saying it for years. And not only Netanyahou, but also all those before him in the last decades, at least. It's just nice to know that this appraisal is universal (besides dumbolts like our current Canadian Prime Minister).

Brain dead

Brain dead is most likely what you can call a Canadian Conservative Party Member of Parliament who wants to replace the beaver with the polar bear as the country's animal symbol, when polar bears are currently on the fast-track of extinction because of policies and conditions which the current Conservative government (hers) is itself creating, and which also denies the very existence of any problems related to climate changes, to start with.

A northern version of some Republicans, kind of.

Frida for sale

A local auctioneer announced that they'll be auctioning next week a special dyptic by Frida Kahlo. In fact it's a hardbook on which she painted the front and rear covers. From my paper: «It is an oil on book, one of those famous mirror image autoportraits, signed and dated (1939) and painted on the cover of a copy of "Traité théorique et pratique de l'art des accouchements" a book by Pierre Cazeaux (1808-1802) about the theory and practical art of delivering babies. » This Kahlo 'work' would be a gift from Diego Rivera to David Alfaro Siqueiros after Kahlo's death, who himself sold it to an art books collector and friend, who would have given it to its current owner, a private collector. I don't know any of these people besides Rivera of course (although I surely saw some of Siqueiros works when I was in Mexico), but I do know that if I would be rich, I would be there on the 15th and try to buy it. The book will be on display from the 11th to the 15th, so I'll try to find out if anyone can just go and see it without having registered for the auction (it's an internet auction apparently - I didn't know these existed). If so I may do so, why not. Besides, for other reasons, I wouldn't mind at all being in Coyoacan (in Mexico City) these days... furthermore that I didn't get to visit the Casa Azul (Frida's home, now a museum) when I was there a decade ago.

Now, howand more so why Frida Kahlo got to paint the covers of that book, I have no idea. The kind of life she had, and that terrible accident which most certainly left her unable to bear children, may have something to do with it.

Both images © IEGOR Hôtel des encans

Hollywood gossip

Eddie Murphy slammed the door on his hosting the next Oscars, this one day after Brett Ratner, the chosen tv director for that show and a close friend of Murphy, had also quit because of homophobic sounding remarks he had made earlier in a press conference about his latest film, Tower Heist, which also features Murphy, saying something like he's not very much into rehearsals, because «rehearsals, it's for fags». He apologized but the damage was done.

Now what do you know! I remember reading in a gay magazine (which I may still have), back in the early eighties, an article where they reported Murphy as having said that if he'd learn his son was gay, he'd "beat the shit out of him". Can I say that these two being friends does not come as a surprise to me?

I used to like Eddie Murphy a lot, when he was on Saturday Night Live. Since that article, it keeps popping to my mind every time I see his face. That's life I guess.

Nice words

I don't know where the word "ecoblanchiment" was coined, but I like it. Maybe it was in Québec, maybe in France. There was talk about it on the radio this morning, about how better it is than using "greenwashing" which is not French at all, and not being a very good description of what it is to start with.

We are talking here of course of those companies that falsely claim that their products are environmentally friendly because for example they would lack one nasty ingredient, while it's either full of other damaging crap, or damaging by the very process of their manufacturing, or in the worst cases as far as intellectual integrity goes, products that could not even contain the ingredient tagged as not being in the product. It's not greenwashing per se, but when potato chips outfits claim theirs have no cholesterol, it's what you call screwing the public. For chips to have cholesterol, they would have to be cooked in animal fat, and NO commercial chips are cooked in animal fat. None whatsoever.

Blanchiment in French is mostly used in the expression "blanchiment d'argent", money laundering, which is exactly what we're talking about here. Making something pass for what it isn't. The prefix "Eco" comes from the greek oikos (house, habitat, aka our living environment).

If I had my say, I'd dump "greenwashing" in English to replace it with "ecolaundering" or something similar. "Green" has been used and abused so much that it doesn't mean anything anymore. Besides, how did "green" get to become synonym with "environmentally friendly" is something I don't quite understand. Leaves are green (when they are healthy and not dead like in the fall), but skies are blue (when they are clean) and stay that way year round. Why not use blue, then? Besides, blue is also associated with clean to start with (detergents, soaps, whatever). So down with green! And welcome eco, now that it's out of the blue.

Jardin de Chine - 2011.10.31

Trouble lurking in occupied territories

I'm not talking about Palestine. I'm talking of the Indignants and the spaces they occupy in big city squares. In Canada, that supposedly open-minded country, so much that they let Islamists come here and kill their women, at least three cities are on the brink to dismantle (forcibly if necessary) those improvised camps: Vancouver, Victoria (both in British Columbia), and Québec City. They invoke flimsy reasons like security and the likes. In Vancouver, one protester had the bad idea of dying from a drug overdose. Vancouver is often in the list of cities in the world with the highest quality of life, all the while sporting apartment rents and house prices higher than the American deficit and being the junkie capital of Canada. I'm glad I don't need that high a quality of life . Québec City and its area is the "conservative" haven of Québec. Victoria is its name. A nice city culturally preserved in 19th century moth balls. In short, I'm not surprised that those cities would be the first to crack down on the occupiers.

For now, the City of Montreal is more tolerant. The mayor only asks the occupants of Square Victoria (where is the stock exchange tower) to "respect public peace and security rules". I was there Saturday night, or Sunday morning rather since it was almost 01h00 AM, and as per peace was concerned, they were either all asleep or all gone somewhere else. It was as tranquil as a blackened London night during WWII. Anyways, Montreal (I mean by this the population) is rather tolerant on these things, compared to other cities. When you think of all the streets or parts of that are closed for a zillion events, especially from Spring to Fall... But a regrettable event could change this, I suppose.

In the end however, in our northern countries, maybe it's the cold that will have reason of the occupiers. A story to be followed, as they say....

This is a pic taken in daytime.

Photo © Pedro Ruiz, Le Devoir

These others are some I took Sunday night. Square Victoria has two sections. The statue of Victoria is in the northern end of the southern section. I think they put her a white mask. The statue itself is black, if I remember well.

Streetview of Square Victoria. For anyone remembering, the northern part (straight ahead on that street, where is the Metro sign) is where's the nice Guimard metro entrance, a gift from the city of Paris. Right now it's surrounded by tents.

Freedoms

There is a vacant lot on the corner of Ste-Catherine and Wolfe, in the [Gay] Village, which has been used for some years now as the location for temporary art installations. The project is financed by a bank. This year, the installation was called "Le Manifeste" and was quite playful so it was rather appreciated by locals and visitors alike. They announced recently that it will remain there for the winter.

The installation is a series of rows of red posts topped, for some of them, with the illuminated-at-night letters of the last sentence of a manifesto (The Village Manifesto) which reads in French as «Il y aura une place pour chacune des libertés que vous voudrez bien vous accorder" which they have translated in English as «A time will come where you can express yourself freely», which I don't like at all. IMO, a more literal translation would have been better, such as «There will be a place for each of the freedoms you will want to make yours» or even «Each freedom you'll want ot make yours will find its place». The Spanish one was better.

The letters however were not aligned, like for instance for a given word, the first letter may be on the third row, the second on the first row, the third on the same of another one of these two rows, and so on. There was only one viewpoint angle, on Wolfe Street, where the three dimensional effect was not affecting the reading. Elsewhere, it all seemed like gibberish (charabia in French). They had put there a small stand with a viewing square, as some kind of peekaboo window into another dimension.

There's also another video about the "making of".

I posted prior to this some pics of the installation. without getting into the details, on (July 18, Oct. 21, and Oct 30)

Below are three which I took on June 1st, when I just happened to be passing by just before and then during the official inauguration ceremony (city and bank brass were attending). There's something vaguely European in the first one. We can see the reflections of the overhanging pink balls on the asphalt, in the third one. I liked that enclosing effect. Some kind of virtual but open tunnel.

This is my translation of what's written on the above column:
[..]
Planted in the heart of Montreal's gay Village, this installation can only be discovered and can only be deciphered from a certain viewpoint. To read it, one must therefore move to Wolfe St, find the right angle. But to enjoy it, one can at leisure penetrate its verticalities, worm around in between the luminous letter-bearing tubes. Night and day, this installation reminds us that essential thoughts often surround us without our noticing and that a simple change of perspective will suddenly bring them back smack in our face, as an evidence. And if at times the tree hides the forest, the tree tops of this forest reveal a message of hope.

This last one, at night, on July 9. This was a Saturday, and on Saturdays the Village is swarmed, literally, by people coming back from the fireworks. It's fun to watch them strolling by on Ste-Catherine St, kids and all. It sure adds to demystify gays. In summer in downtown Montreal, despite many bike parking areas, it's very hard to find a parking meter post without one of two bicycles attached to it, already that most are equipped with a ring conceived for that very purpose. This post makes no exception (if you can see it). It's as problematic to park a bike in the city core than it is to park a car. That's one of the reasons I appreciate the BIXI so much. One less hassle.

Bacterial acid?

I don't know if it's acid rain or some bacterial tree sickness, but these leaves I picked up near my pad don't spell good news as per what's in store for the future of this planet. The leaves back in the East had the same black spots. I thought it was because, contrary to us in Montreal, they had had the wettest season in years. They are a day's car ride from here and we've had the exact opposite weather-wise. So out goes bacteria, and in comes the acid shit... er, I mean rain. Unless someone comes up with a better answer.

Serenity

At the end of my visit to the Chinese Garden, I stopped at a boutique where I bought this card sporting my Chinese sign, the Tiger. Inside the card was a Chinese symbol (which I didn't ask what it was but presumed it was the calligraphy for "tiger") and the old Chinese man who was tending shop said he'd draw my name under it, if I so cared. So he took out his Chinese pen, dipped it in Chinese ink and wrote down those two Chinese characters. I'm not too sure how my name can be written in Chinese, since it does not really refer to any concept like "the beautiful white butterfly landing on a waterlily", so I had to take the guy's word for it. His also elderly wife was there too. The boutique was rather small, part of one of the Chinese pavilions, the woman was seating at a desk, doing something looking like it was something she had been doing since eternity, the man who was tending to me was moving around with slow and soft gestures. Both seemed like they were coming from another age. It was past closing time at the Botanical Gardens, there were very few people left, it was all very calm, hardly any noise except for some soothing Chinese music we could hear coming from somewhere in the distance, and this quite elderly couple seeming like they had lived there all their life, that it was their little and only world. The atmosphere was the same in the other pavilions. I could have stayed there forever.

Halloween 2011

Above

Those are called citrouilles in French. It's pronounced like see-through-yee (don't push on the ee). The above are indeed see-throughs. I'm not sure about the "ee". They look more like eek! to me.

Free trivia - the sound "ll" in French is called "un l mouillé", a wet letter "l". I don't know why they call it wet. That would mean a single letter "l" would be dry, which is just as weird, not to mention that "l sec" sounds even weirder.

Traveling to Chile for 3$ (dollars, not pesos)

Yesterday, I went to a Latino grocery store (this one on Beaubien street) for some bacon and while there, I also bought two Chilean empanadas. One beef, one chicken. Although I knew what they were, I had never eaten any. There are many versions of these, depending on the country, but in the Chilean version, there is a piece of hard-boiled egg inside, and onions, and the meat, and flavourings. I say inside, because it's a sealed pocket type of thing.

Today, I was downtown and passing in front of my old workplace when I came face to face with an ex-colleague of mine who was outside having his cigarette fix, which is quite anecdotal I'll easily concede to you but who, much more interestingly, just so happens to be Chilean. Of course, after the howdoyoudo-watzups, I swiftly moved to the topic of interest, that is all one should know about Chilean empanadas. Well, as it turns out, there is not much to know about a Chilean empanada besides warming it and eating it with your hands, like a snack or as an entree. After I told him I had had one last night accompanied with fries and some green Mexican salsa on the side for the empanada, he looked at me with that smile that says "cute but weird". He says they can eat three as an entrée down there. Either they are much smaller than the one I bought, or they have a mighty appetite...

I hate you, you hate me, but we highly respect each other

There was a fine documentary on PBS last evening about Steve Jobs and, somehow also, about Bill Gates. Both are computer geeks who revolutionized our way of doing things, in some way. Maybe you have heard about them.

It was centered around a televised interview they gave together (the only one ever) to a reputed American journalist whose name I don't recall. Lots of flying knives and subsequent licking the other's wounds to ease the pain. Bloodiest interview I've seen in years.

In the Fall, things do fall

I rained rain today. Soon, in a few days, it will rain leaves. I posted a video about this phenomenom some years ago. I don't know how it happens, maybe after a very cold night (below freezing point), but that day the leaves all start to fall at once. In a matter of a few hours, they have almost all fallen. I'm talking about the maple in front of my pad. I don't know about other trees. They are not in front of my apartment's windows so I'm not warned when they do, or not do, their thing.

The good news is that after this rain of leaves, a lot more light gets into the apartment. The bad news is that the days shortening more and more every day, that new light is also scarcer by the day. There's no free ride as they say, or as I'd say, damn do I hate winter.

Modern sewing adventures

I tried to find a thimble (dé à coudre) today, for some repair work which I have to do on a typical nowadays product made as cheap as they can and whose sewn parts are cut so short beforehand (to save a few cents) that you wonder how they can remain stitched. Of course, you wonder for a good reason because they don't. Now, you'd think that such a simple thing as a thimble would be easy to find. Well, no, it isn't anymore. I was told in a place where they sell all things sewing, a Singer store not to name it, that people don't do this activity anymore. From what I gather, either they have it done by cobblers, or they throw the item away and buy a new one. Well, mine is almost new and I'm pretty sure that the only cobbler that I know would either not be interested or charge me a bundle or do a lousy job. It's a daypack, and one of the straps is tearing out of where it is stitched to the bag itself. The existing seam is quite thick and there's no way to push a needle through just using bare fingers. I did find a pack of three thimbles at a dollar store, but they were made for fairy fingers. Hey, I heard those giggles! I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about real fairies, those that have fingers the size of a pencil. Besides, at 3 for a dollar, my bet is that the needle would go right through the thin metal on the first try. Here again, el cheapo is king. I'll find a way, though. Dunno. Maybe a hammer with a slightly opened vise, with the stitched to be part just over the needle waiting opening. Imagination is the mother of invention, it is said. I still have a few crates of that (imagination).

Can I get a rain check?

I wondered today, in the footsteps of Foglia's column which I posted recently, what would happen if I were to live to be 100. This would mean that I would still have the equivalent of 66% of my current elapsed life still in front of me. Freaky. Can we just dump those years into another future life?

Let's get real, here

That 20 year-old California woman who says Justin Bieber (then 16) made her pregnant after a 30-second relationship is not the brightest kid on the block. Even in the very remote possibility that Bieber would not be a eunuch, at his age and by the age of his looks, he'd never last 30 seconds to start with.

Musée d'art contemporain
La Triennale Québécoise - édition 2008

Just off the press: Is Papandreou completely nuts or something? What's wrong with him, he's out of Ouzo?

Above

Pre-Place des Festivals days. This triannual art exhibit organized by the Museum of contemporary art is back this year, but is now slated in the fall. I mention it because there's a light show being part of it, of which I'll try to get a pic or two before it ends on November 6.

Hallowe'en

It almost didn't get to be, but I did go to the last day of the Chinese Lanterns at the Jardin de Chine (Chinese garden) of the Botanical Gardens last evening. Fantastic, both for the lanterns and the garden itself, which I had visited in the daytime about twenty years ago, and which at night delivered maybe even more of its beauty and atmosphere. Pics to come.

H?N?

I'm going for my seasonal flu vaccine later today. It's free for some categories, among which older farts (60+ ) I don't know what is the virus' name this year. I don't think it's very important not to know. Besides, I don't care much to know this virus better either. Viruses are not that friendly to start with.

Laterz: I did go for my seasonal flu vaccine. I did not get the vaccine. When I got there, there were over 25 people waiting, some sitting on the floor by lack of chairs in the waiting room. I don't need this in my life just right now. They were serving number 16. The doors had opened at noon. That equates to serving five persons an hour, unless they hadn't started at number 00. One way or the other, it was now past 15h00 and they were closing at 18h00, so I just left. It was the first day, and they had talked about it in the media (usual annual fear campaign), so maybe it explains the heavy turnout. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow, trying to be there when the doors open at noon. I'll see. Theses "shooting sessions" are held five days in one instituations then another location farther from my place. After, the vaccine will still be available but by appointment only. There's no rush, in the end.

Even more laterz, like the next day, say: This time around I made sure I would be there by opening time, noon that is. So I jumped on a Bixi (jump here is a figure of style, at my age and the shape I'm in, jumping is not even on the radar) and after five minutes I was at the corner of Boyer and Jarry, from where I had to walk five minutes to the nearby Centre Local de Services Communautaires (CLSC). That is a Quebec health system creature offering proximity health services, like vaccines, blood samplings, and the likes. So at 11h50 I was in the waiting room. I mean what I thought yesterday was the waiting room. The real one is inside, not very visible from the door leading to it and the one where they call your number. That's the one that opens at noon. The one I mistook for it is most probably an overflow area and, unbeknowst to me, the people I saw there yesterday were most likely in good part those who had already been vaccinated, and doing their "15 minute adverse reaction" waiting period before leaving, permitting the non vaccinated to have a seat in the real waiting room. Anyways, when they started to call people, the counter was set at number 14. I had number 31. By 12h30, I was vaccinated and, after the 15 minute wait, at 12h45, I was gone. I'm not a maths wizkid but I calculate 34 needled geezers per hour or about 2 minutes a head, whatever's your fancy. So they really had things rolling. Two nurses were taking the personal info (of which the health card number, very important the health card number), then later another one dispatched each registered person to one of the two needling nurses. And they were all smiling and good natured, which in today's world is not neccessarily a given commodity.

What's to make of all this? First, never, never presume. I don't how many times I've said that to myself after having wrongly misjudged people or situations. I guess I (we?) just never learn.

More before and after

On Sunday, I prepared this:

It turned out like this:

Meet newborn recipe #198. Because this time around, the test was passed with flying colors. On all counts.

Men

The fine Italian film Il ladro di bambini (literally, The robber of children) was brought back to my mind recently, especially because of its final scene. As I mentioned once in another post, I have in store a draft for an eventual post about it, but this never materialized. I may get to it again. However, this reminiscing also brought back to my mind that it's in this film that I discovered Italian rock star Gianna Nannini. There were two of her songs in the film, Fotoromanza, but more so the so beautiful I Maschi (Men). They were from the early 80's, and also found on a compilation record called Bomboloni, a record which was mine in a matter of days. I also have another one, more recent, Cuore [1998].

In Rome in 1993, a concert for immigrants it says in the video. She was and is still, I think, quite involved in political protests and the likes. On the right side of things, needless to say. The video quality is not the best on the lot, it's most likely the end of the concert, she's all sweats, but it's the video in which she is the most stunningly beautiful, I mean by this, authentic:

A great artist. And an incredible voice. One of Europe's best kept secrets. Then again, as they mention in her French-language Wikipedia page, she started her career on the hub caps with her third album, California [1979] featuring the hit America (an hymn to masturbation they say on Wiki), and whose album cover was the Statue of Liberty holding a star-spangled vibro-massager instead of a torch This is not mentioned on the English-language Wiki, maybe this explaining that, although I don't think there was anything anti-american in the song. The little I understood, it would be the contrary. I did know this song, but I didn't know about this "particularity", I don't try systematically to translate Italian songs, my Italian not even being basic. Heck, I don't even try to translate English songs which, when they are not crystal clear like Simon and Garfunkel for instance, I barely understand a word of.

All I know is that this song is also a favorite of mine. Not because of the lyrics of which, as mentioned above, I understand only a few words here and there ^[1] but because I like rock, real rock, what they used to call rock'n'roll when it 'was' rock and roll. And boy does this one roll...! Nowadays, rock is a diluted word meaning everything and its contrary.

Photo retreived from www.technodisco.net

^[1] - Well, at least I think I do. Like for example "Fammi l'amore" which, in my head, would mean "fais-moi l'amour", "make love to me", but in every translation Google gives, in French, English, Spanish, it's the equivalent of "Permit me love" which I'm sure is wrong. Maybe some Italian of our knowing could shed some light on this (my preferred lighting would be to say I'm right, of course. )

Gianna made the news again in 2010, giving birth to a little girl at 54. Qualcuno gli ha fatto l'amore!

An order of fumes, please... no ketchup

So we are 7 billion since yesterday. I can't wait for when all these people will want to have their own cars like us.

What can you do with a screwdriver? Bond a relationship.

It's been a while since I have translated one of Pierre Foglia's columns, but this one is about long-standing couples. Here it's about him and his female life companion, but it can apply to anyone else, siblings, long-time friends, work colleagues, who have share together a hefty slice of life. It's also in a second part about the slow disappearance of the world's beauty.

From Friday's La Presse (Oct. 29). My translation, as usual, with the help of Google.

HALLOWEEN

My call to all has nothing to do with it, but a little still, so here, for a probable future story, I'm trying to get in contact with parents, or friends, brothers, sisters, of people who were killed on the road by little assholes. By little assholes, I mean those who were racing with others, who were stoned or drunk, who drove at speeds that are crazy and who maybe died themselves in the accident, but them, I don't give a damn . It's their victims whose final hours I want to tell. If I had my way, I'd title this series: Assassinations.

^[1] - "un air de gueuserie" in the text
^[2] - Foglia was born in France (Romilly-sur-Seine, Champagne region, in 1940) from just immigrated Italian parents. He left for California at 18, where he met a Québécois girl from St-Jean-sur-Richelieu with whom he eventually moved to Québec, in the sixties. As I mentioned before, there was a tunnel between Québec and California, in those days. Maybe still.

Village - 2011 - Rue Ste-Catherine/Rue Wolfe
Installation artistique éphémère/ Temporary art installation

Soups and stuff

This post is like a minestrone. A [hopefully] tasteful and somewhat liquidish mixture of a bunch of this and thats.

*

I bought an about 10cm square (4 inch) piece of date squares at my corner supermarket the other day, good for four servings. I like date squares but rarely make any because it's messy but more so because one recipe is way too much for me and I end up bored stiff eating them when it gets to the last pieces. I never buy pastries in supermarkets, even those supposedly "prepared on location" because just reading the ingredient list requires to have a lot of free times on one's hands and once you finish reading them, you wonder why you didn't continue in biology back then. If I wanted to eat a bunch of chemicals, I'd go to a biology lab with my fork and spoon and ask them where they keep their garbage. But this one, for some reason I don't know, had a label looking cheap compared to all the other ones, mainly because the list of ingredients was a trickle in comparison: dates, brown sugar, water, margarine, oat flakes, non whitened flour, salt. That's it. I like trickles when it comes to pastries.

*

Going out yesterday, I found two small pumpkins in the outside stairs, all set and ready for candle lighting with eyes, nose and mouth carved out and equipped with removable tops to permit lighting the candle. The neighbors upstairs, who share those stairs with me, have a 1½ year old little girl. She's a little young for Hallowe'en but I guess they must talk about Hallowe'en at the day care center so the parents have to play the game I suppose.

In Montreal, maybe it's the same elsewhere, you let it be known you're open for business on Hallowe'en evening by sending a subliminal message, like putting some kind of Hallowe'en decoration somewhere near your door. And putting your outside lighting in the "ON" position. Some keep their front door open, but this last method is of course dependent on the weather. The last time I played the role of candy pimp was in the mid nineties. Friend had been living here temporarily and we had decided to give it a go, for old times sakes. It was to be the last time. Things have changed since I was a kid. Nowadays, the most eerie thing is not the kids' costumes, but the parents you can see in the distance on the sidewalks, making sure their offspring is not being sucked into some kind of infernal ring run by some perverted misfit. Besides, horror stories about Hallowe'en are mostly just that. Stories. Then there are the costumes. We used to make those ourselves, or with the help of our parents, buying only some kind of horrifying mask to hide our faces. In some cases, those masks WERE the costume. Nowadays, costumes are bought in stores. It's to whom will have the most elaborate outfit. Their parents flash their pools and high-tech BBQs, the kids flash the costumes paid for by their parents. It's all about image. I asked one of those kids who had an elaborate one if he had done that costume himself. Bad question. He looked at me as if I came from Mars. Only losers (read poor, lower class, whatever) make their own costumes these days. It was like asking a kid who's plugged on music earphones and texting on his iphone if he has a pencil. Then there's the choice of treat. In my younger days, candy was expected and candy we got. Of course, some misfit adults may have given us apples and other uninteresting fruits and stuff. Those were swiftly given to parents to make whatever jam they wanted to do with them, and said misfit adult was just as swiftly put on the "to avoid" "don't bother" "weird people" list of houses not to bother ringing the doorbell comes next Hallowe'en. However, in those days, altough internet and cellphones were still not even imagined, it was surprising how fast news traveled. I'm sure many of those apple misfits were wondering how come after a regular turnout in the beginning, prospective Halloweeners seemed to dwindle as the evening progressed. And others who delivered the right thing, suddenly were swarmed by the same kids. Today, the candy bag is emptied not by the kids but by the parents, to be followed by an inspection the extent of which would make our overzealous Canadian or American customs inspectors (the bottom of the barrel in that domain) feel like they chose the wrong career. And for many, anything reputed good by kids but bad by granola parents, like chips, chocolate, toffee, and the likes, is swiftly removed from circulation and set aside to be redistributed to their kids on a healthy basis, like one chip a week, and so on. Then there's those who knock at the door and are taller than you, and obviously old enough to have sex with. When was the word "kid" redefined? I know, sometimes they are mentally handicapped who are still kids up there, but when that's the case, one can tell, if only by talking with them. I'm not talking about them, of course. And I haven't even mentioned yet the beef of the bone: what and how much to buy to give. When someone is a regular, he knows about the fluctuating demographics and has, in his mind at least, accumulated statistics over the years about these things. But when it's been 15 years and you don't want to remain stuck with half a ton of undistributed chips or candy, it can become an anxiety problem. Or the opposite: having to tell a distraught kid that you failed on him because you underestimated the number of fine kids like him who would come knocking at your door, and seeing in his eyes that he strongly feels that it's just no excuse: adults are 'supposed' to know, they always say that they know better and blah blah. To make a long story short, I can't stand the aseptized Hallowe'en of these days which is screwing up kids to match their parents cluelessness and I find that the whole thing has turned to be way too complicated. However, the demography of my stretch of street has changed a lot. Between both north and south intersections (200 meters), there used to be one single kid when I moved here in 1985, of my knowing at least. Today, there are more infants than sidewalk squares to draw with chalk on. That includes one above (and another in the works), two downstairs, one in the house on the left, and so on for most of the rest of the street. In other words, I'm doomed. Either I re-integrate the Hallowe'en world, or I'll have to find some way of disappearing from circulation before 15h30 to at least 21h00. Monday (the 31st) is the last day, I think, for the Chinese lanterns. That might be an option. Besides, I still have a big plastic pumpkin face poster made to be hung on the front door and on which the label says it glows in the dark (parts of it). I checked, it doesn't. Or it doesn't anymore. Whatever. What's important is that there's no way I'll hang that non-glowing glowing face on my door, only to end up being the laughing stock of all the kids living on my street, and maybe even some beyond.

*

Yesterday I made this.

It ended up looking like this.

I don't know if it's the beer I used (an apple-flavoured beer on lees), or that my fresh herbs had seen better summer days, or the cut of chicken (upper thighs), but it was rather bland (not very tasteful) and the meat did not detach itself well from the bones although it was very well cooked. I'll try it again before ditching the recipe. For now, it hasn't earned it's own number in my recipe book. I have another similar recipe which tastes a lot better, it's made with Jerez (sherry) instead of beer.

*

I recondomized my air conditioner. It's in my bedroom's window and the cold air flows right through in winter if it's not covered, especially that my balcony is very gusty and more so in the cold season. I had made one some years ago with pink fiberglass insulation but it was starting to fall apart. So I bought an 8-foot piece of insulating styrofoam and fiddled a new one (it reminded me how nice it is to have a car you never use but is there when you 'do' need it). It took a few hours but this one is much better than the old one. The red tape I used is a special tape for that purpose and supposedly unaffected by UV rays and cold weather. It better be, at 10$ a roll! The condom (or cover ) fits real snugly and it does not need at all that extra ribbon to hold it in place. It's just a remnant from the former fiberglass one. I tend to stick to old things, even if they become somewhat obsolete. Like myself, for instance.. I know, the window frame needs a paint job. I've been postponing it for a few years now, more because I forget than anything else. And when I remember about it, it's too late in the season, like now. Besides, it's the landlord's responsibility but he's not really motivated about these things.

*

Xanga wants to remove the footprints. The reasons they give are ridiculous. I think their site is not progressing and they are on panic mode, and willing to try anything. It's all about money. I had prepared a long comment/reply to their post asking our opinion, but I didn't send it. I don't want to attract too much attention to my blog (I'm not sure it they can detect that ad thingie and some music is, well, you know...). I like the footprints. As I mentioned in that non-sent comment, it permits me among others things to know if my trusted readers are still alive.

*

Heard and read today and in recent days: NATO was instrumental in handing Libya to an Islamist who happened to be the Justice minister under Kadhafi and who was the prosecutor against those nuns they wanted to execute some years ago and who says the Charia will be the law of the land and that anything not in accordance with the Coran will be persona non grata and that he'll reinstate polygamy and a bunch of other delicacies equating to saying that women are a pile of shit.

Apparently, France and philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, who were quite instrumental in NATO intervening to overthrow Kadhafi, are in hot water. No chance that our own Stephen Harper feel any heat. He likes going to war (not him, but his soldiers) like others like to shoot needles in their arms.

*

In Calgary, as in many other cities, local city officials are starting to not be amused with the occupations. They want them to move to another location. Less bothersome no doubt. Hello? You don't regulate occupations. They are civil disobedience by nature.

«Mr Obama, can I speak to you for a minute?»
cartoon © André-Philippe Côté - Le Soleil

*

I used a BIXI this afternoon going to and fro a small shopping center at the corner of Pie IX and Jean-Talon. It's a 3 Km ride and took me about 16 minutes each way. I elected to use St-Zotique St because there's a bicyle path for most of the area I was to cross. Since it's just next to the sidewalk, there were many mounds of fallen leaves on the path, especially under maples which have larger leaves than other trees. A few thoughts that crossed my mind then:

• Dashing into a pile of maple leaves with a bicyle brings back the kid in me.
• What is a "Californian breakfast"? (seen on a restaurant).
• Why do dogs try to destroy the lawn with their hind legs after they do "their thing"?
• Cats are whores - especially beautiful shiny black cats who start to follow you on the sidewalk just because you stopped and told them how beautiful they were
• I like using the BIXI, however cold it is, and dread the day they will remove them for winter

*

Heard on a program dedicated to pork and bacon: "Bacon fat is to Americans what olive oil is to Italians". I agree. And it's very unfortunate. I think I mentioned once a stopover of a few hours at the old Detroit airport where it took all my loose change not to have my stomach turned just by the ambient smell.

*

Heard the obscene word "SNOW" twice today in the media. Where are the bleeps when you need them.

*

Since I now consider myself a Québécois, this makes me a "pea-souper" I suppose, since that's how the Anglos called Quebecers in the good old days (for them) when we were kept in poverty and in hard-working rural areas and they had the kindness to manage our economy and money for us. Since I never made any pea soup (soupe aux pois) and haven't eaten any in ages (the "s" here is fully warranted), I suppose it puts me in an awkward position. Therefore I have started preliminary investigations as to how to make the basic Québec-style "soupe aux pois" which, most likely, I will mess around with, like replacing, or adding, the conventional pork lard with maybe Slovenian Kransjska sausages, or something of the likes. First item on the list: buy some dried yellow peas. Second item on the list: find out if it's whole or split peas. They are not the same color. The split ones are more yellow. Maybe because they are jealous of the whole ones, what do I know?

*

Pedro is back inside for the winter. He's not getting any younger. I had posted a pic back then in 2009. That year, it was November 14 before his winterizing started.

Biodôme
ex-Vélodrome

Alignment of the stars

It doesn't happen often but at times and for very short periods, the pieces of the giant puzzle which is life seem to all fit together easily and seamlessly.

Last week I was cleaning up a cafeteria-style tray which I have on a kitchen counter and holding among other things a good variety of liquids used for cooking: white vermouth, vinegars (xeres, balsamic, raspberry, cider, red wine), Xerez wine, Port, Madeira and finally Marsala wine. The tray is also home to my coffee grinder and another large jar containing a bunch of torture instruments commonly referred to as cooking utensils.

Seeing the Marsala bottle, I was reminded that it had been some time since I had prepared something with it. Of course, what first popped to my mind was veal scallops in Marsala, what is called in Italian Scaloppini di vitello al Marsala. It's a recipe probably originating from Sicily since it's based on Marsala wine which is as Sicilian as real pizza is reportedly Neapolitan. In my recipe book, it's also called simply "Number 157".

A few days later, I had to partly empty my high but narrow cupboard where I stash all my dried pastas, because I had to access the electrical panel (open its door) which is in there, because a breaker had tripped off (long story of no postable value). That's when I noticed that I had some leftovers, small quantities some barely enough for one person of a few types of tagliatelle, among which some Garofalo taglietelle nido (or nests) as thin tagliatelle is often presented. I don't like throwing them away when I have only such small quantities left, but on the other hand I rarely remember I have them when planning a meal so they can stay there for quite a long time.

The same day, I had also noticed in the fridge a small piece of vacuum-packed prosciutto. I always keep a small piece of prosciutto for Basque type recipes. They sell small pieces of the end part of the leg, which are too small for the usual fancy prosciutto presentations, but just fine for any recipes requiring prosciutto cut in cubes or where looks are not important. Besides, these smaller parts are sold at a much lower price, good prosciutto being quite expensive. Incidentally, there was also not far away another vacuum-packed thingie, a niece piece of salt-dried and boneless cod. Since I also had bell peppers in there, it didn't take my mind much wasted time to figure out that the next evening, it was going to be "Morue salée basquaise" which equates to something like pan-fried rehydrated salted cod which is then put into the oven on a bed of previously prepared ratatouille-like mixture containing cubes of prosciutto. It had to be the next evening at the earliest since salted cod must be rehydrated in water for a whole night before being used. Unless of course one likes salt very, very, very, very much and also likes fish very chewy. Cod it was the next day, and since it only required parts of the prosciutto for this recipe, I put the rest back in its wrapper and in the fridge.

These three events could have remained unconnected and inconsequential on the long ribbon constituting my life, not mentioning being mind-bogginly boring for anyone still reading this, but that was discounting what in French we call "le hasard", a concept with no English equivalent word but which, for the current purposes, we'll simply refer to as "a bout of chance", even if "le hasard" can indiscriminately lead to anything between very negative to very positive (the French "hasard" has nothing to do with the English "hazard", btw). In this case, it was positive, and «le hasard»'s daily pick took the form of a visit to Carlo's site where there was talk of the superlicious tiramisu dessert which traditionally is flavored with Marsala. This was it. It was 20h00, I was in bad need of an idea for supper, and once again the scaloppini popped to my mind. I forfeited.

So it was straight to number 157 to check out if this Marsala craze could materialize. For the veal, I would have to go fetch some at the corner supermarket, but what about the rest? I started the inventory:

• mushrooms
• onions
• maybe shallots instead of onions
• flour
• olive oil
• Marsala
• butter
• veal stock (demi-glace)
• tagliatelle (my recipe's accompaniment)

However, reading the method, I found it somewhat complicated (I had done a lousy job editing it and it seemed more like a work in progress). Back to the internet to see if I couldn't find another simpler one. After a few youtube videos from American chefs with lots of imagination (too much maybe?) I landed on one which was both simple and obviously very close to the real thing, as per preparation goes. In the meantime I had found another written recipe whose ingredients were similar to mine but which also added, in the very last stages, bits of prosciutto (well, what do you know, I just happened to have some), chopped fresh sage leaves (well,what do you know, I just happened to have a sage plant on my balcony which is not dead yet and have never used of the summer), and a bit of light cream (a fridge with no cream is a Hollywood actor with no teeth - unthinkable) . New inventory update:

• prosciutto
• fresh sage
• cream (ok, 35% not 15%, but hey, a little water can do miracles)

After a quick analysis, it did appear to me that I had everything I needed, classical or with the add-ons, except the scaloppini. So off to the corner market I went. I already knew that if they wouldn't have veal scaloppini (it was Sunday evening after all, and only a little more than an hour before closing time), I would elect to buy two tournedos instead. It's a far cry from the real thing, but they are surprisingly good cooked this way. But I had worried for nothing. Not only did they have packs of scaloppini, they had lots of them, and one containing just the quantity I needed. And guess what? They were on special. When I say that all the pieces fit together!! As per the added prosciutto and sage, well, on final analysis after trial, it turned out that the dish would be just as good without. A nice add-on for those bored with the original recipe, but then again, how can someone get bored with well-prepared Scaloppini di vitello al Marsala?

Now, for those from the Italian persuasion, maybe they will find a quick answer to this question: What do you do when veal scaloppini is on special and that you have at home some leftover prosciutto, fresh sage leaves, wine to suit that day's current fancy, like say Marsala, why not, and toothpicks? If you think «saltimbocca», you're a grand prize winner. I don't have any grand prize to give however, but maybe this would be a good day to buy lottery tickets. Azzardo may be knocking on your door, who knows!.

Update:

After editing the above, I had elected to indeed prepare myself some saltimbocca, which happened two days later. I had three small scaloppini already prepared when Friend called, at around 19h30. Since I had more veal in the fridge and he hadn't had supper yet, and it had previously been talked about that he'd pass some day this week, it was yet another puzzle whose pieces seem to all fit together, so even if it was already 19h30 we agreed I'd wait for him and have saltimbocca for two. So he took his scooter and was here at 20h15 which didn't bother me a bit since I had just opened a beer when he called and wasn't that hungry just yet. Like for the vitello al marsala, the old recipe I had (this one number 041) hadn't left me with unforgettable souvenirs the last time I had tried it. It was one which I had picked up from a TV5 program a very long time ago, originally broadcasted on the TSR (Télévisions Suisse Romande) and featuring a Belgian chef living in Switzerland and who had some good recipes but others kind of weird. His name was Jacques Montandon and since he had been up and running for some time already back then in 1966, I presume he is dead now. I found the tape of the program where he had prepared saltimbocca and after viewing it again I saw no reason not to go on a Youtube rampage in the hope of finding a better one, which I did, this one by an authentic Italian woman doing what I think is the authentic Roman saltimbocca. The only thing I changed is that I removed the meat from the pan temporarily the time to stir fry a few sliced mushrooms, then I deglazed with a dallop of Marsala before adding the white wine and putting back the scaloppini in the pan. It was and will definitely be my "new" number 157. I would have liked to serve them with pan fried potatoes as the woman in the video does, looks very yummy, but it would have been too complicated so I used instead another tagliatelle leftover, this time Delverde tagliatelle al huevo uovo (I keep mixing up Spanish and Italian words), and of which I had three nests, just enough for two. Buttered and sprinkled with some freshly ground "pepe" and chopped Italian parsley, it was a very good marriage.

So all in all, I got to make myself two Marsala flavoured dishes, got rid of my leftover prosciutto, and of leftover mushrooms, and two remains of tagliatelle. Now I have all the place I need to buy another piece of prosciutto, another pack of some tagliatelle and maybe I'll throw a portabello somewhere in there.

And I got Friend to actually eat some of the sage leaves (I think). I caught him tossing the first ones on the side of the dish and told him how they were an essential part of the taste threesome of this dish (veal, crude ham, sage). I shrewdly pretended not to look but I think he did eat some of the others (there were 2 per scaloppini, 6 leaves in all per person) since he said having found the meal very good. Basic notions of psychology always come in handy.

Addendum: Oops.... I think I have sinned by lack of clarity. The 1966 video was only there to show that already in 1966 Montandon was not that young any more. The recipe he was doing there is not saltimbocca, but "matelote à la Namuroise", a recipe involving freshwater fish prepared Namur style, Namur being of course a Belgian city in its French-speaking part (Wallonie) (a matelot is a sailor). His way of preparing saltimbocca and which I saw and had taped dates to about 20 years later, in the mid eighties. I didn't find it on the TSR site but they had this other one from 1981, from another series and with another assistant and now in color, and which is the series where the saltimbocca were made, a few years later (1985-86?). Besides this one, only two other programs of that series are available in their archives and all three are from 1981. It has a very recognizable music and animation at the beginning. That show was called "Les petits plats dans l'écran" (the [good] little meals on the screen) which is I think a wordplay on the French expression "Mettre les petits plats dans les grands" which means going out of one's way in honor of someone. I say "think" because this expression is not used at all on this side of the Atlantic. I found it under "plat" in the Le Robert dictionary. I first thought it was a wordplay on "les pieds dans les plats" which means the situation of being in trouble usually by one's own fault.

In that 1981 program where he makes pineapple crepes, he looks sixty or probably more, that's why I say there's a good chance he is with the angels today. His programs were on the very limit of being unbearable to watch, at least for a North American like me, so much he talked and talked and talked. And also the way he talked to his women assistants as if they were clods. This blabbing seems to be a common trait amongst French-speaking Europeans, maybe more in France: on some tv shows, the interviewer will ask a never-ending question and the interviewed person will start his/her answer by repeating the whole question before going on with his answer. We get used to it after a while, well, not really used to it, let's just say we expect it so it hurts less. After all, cultural differences are what make this planet interesting. In North America, we are much more direct to the point. New vs Old worlds I guess. Besides, they have much more cultural programs than we do, where they may talk a lot but at least they say something interesting. And that's a big plus. On this side, they talk less, and when they do, it's often boring generalities. But still the same, in that 1966 program, it took them a full 2m05s of blabbering before finally telling us, the viewers, what the hell they would prepare on that show.

There's also something that bugged me about Montandon. He served his saltimbocca with safron risotto (at least he didn't say "alla milanese" because obviously it wasn't), and I suspect that if Carlo would see how he prepared that risotto, he would cry heresy. Unless I really missed something on the long path of my life, you don't premeasure exactly the liquid you'll need, you just make sure you'll have enough (between 2 and 3 times the volume of rice), and you especially don't throw in all the liquid at once at the beginning, but rather add it little by little, waiting each time for the rice to absorb it before adding more. Although he did add chopped shallots in the beginning, he added no butter nor cheese at the end. He said it's the way it's made in the Italian part of Switzerland (Tessin) and in northern Italy, where at times, says he, it's still almost liquidish (more liquid than simply creamy) at serving time. Maybe. I take his word for it. But still, strange.

Excerpt from that program which I have on VHS tape. Poor quality is a) because it's VHS and b) because programs originating from Europe (PAL system) have to be transcoded into NTSC for viewing in North America and it implies a certain loss of quality, maybe more in the eighties when this technology was just starting to be used on a large scale here (with TV5 notably).

Moonries

In French, "être dans la lune" translates into English by "having one's head in the clouds" but literally it means being on the Moon or having one's mind like on the moon. I have this quip which I use at times when I go to a store (usually a supermarket) and after having paid I realize I forgot to buy something like a lottery ticket. To excuse myself for butting in again before the next customer who's waiting in line, I'll say half-jokingly "Excusez-moi, j'étais dans la lune -- c'est un bel endroit mais il ne faut pas trop s'y attarder", roughly translatable by "Excuse me, I was in the Moon - It's a nice place but one must not linger there too long". It usually brings a smile, either because they find it spiritual, or they think I'm nuts. In either case, I get my lottery ticket and that's good enough for me.

Village - Été/Summer 2011

Kad - take 2

In the footsteps of Fauquet's comment in the previous post, I also am not very at ease with the way Kadhafi's capture and death has been handled, and the lurid pics that the medias have circulated. When a tyrant dies, especially in this way, it prevents a necessary healing process the preferred vector of which is a trial in good and due form. The same thing happened in Romania, when the Ceaucescus were overthrown. A mockery of trial and bang bang in the kisser.

Mikael Gorbatchev was in Montreal this Friday, to give a conference. He also voiced his uneasiness. Brian Mulroney, a former Conservative Prime Minister in the eighties who was kuddos with Reagan, didn't see much problem, saying such things must be expected when a tyrant downfalls. Expected, yes. But unavoidable? Not so sure.

Munching on the Apple

The more time passes by, the more Steve Jobs' statue unbolts from its pedestal. I haven't read the still unreleased book (the biography - and I won't read it when it is), so it's hearsay, but reports from articles in the New York Times and the Huffington Post portray someone who had a rather high opinion of himself. He would have almost declined an invitation for dinner at the White House because he wanted Obama himself to call him. Then there's that rather bizarre thing about his Syrian biological father, whom he met without knowing it was him, and arranged for this man never to know he was his son, arguing that (this and following quotes retranslated) «I had become rich, and I feared that he would blackmail me or alert the press». Dunno, wasn't the father the one who would have passed for the vilain in such a case? And of what could the press have been alerted? That his father, and therefore himself, was Syrian? That he would refuse to give money to someone who had ditched him as a child? Then there's his criticism of the Obama administration for not doing enough for big business, setting as an example China where it's easier to build manufactures «without regulations or unnecessary costs», which leaves us pensive. Or his contention that Obama's David Axelrod didn't show him enough deference when he offered his help in the 2008 campaign. Or his stance about the education system of which he says that «as long as the teachers' unions are not broken, there is no hope to reform it». In the world of the 99%, unions are what make the difference between workers being treated as cattle or not. All this added to his propension to have his employees wear the company brand clothing (a little hot iron branding with that?) which I mentioned in a previous post does not make him a sympathetic person to me.

However, there is one subject on which I'm on the very same track as him: «Bill [Gates] is fundamentally without imagination and has never invented anything, that's why in my opinion he is more comfortable now in philantropy than in technology. All he was doing was shamelessly stealing other people's ideas». I've been saying the same for two decades. I cannot list here the dozens of fine utility programs I've used at my job or at home and which one day were sold (forcibly or not remains to be elucidated) to Microsoft which turned them into crap before integrating them in Windows. Basically he did the same as Hollywood does with the remakes of foreign films. On this, in the American big business psyche, Jobs was more of a UFO than Gates, or the Big Three who are to Windows what foreign cars are to Apple products. I don't know if things have changed, but when I was a student back in the sixties, when you wanted something badly designed and less expensive, you bought American, and when you wanted something a little more expensive but finely designed (with people in mind), you bought European or soon after Japanese. I'll never forget that quintessential example of this with a model of the Buick Skylark, in the early seventies. which had a slanted dashboard with the narrow part on the bottom, and whose cigar lighter popped right on your knees when it was hot and ready. There are zillions of other examples of this "design before practicality" approach which nearly sent all three US car manufacturers bankrupt some years ago. That one just stuck in my mind, I don't know why.

The guiding light

My mind works like the internet. A single spark and then the wick starts burning in frenzy from one barrel to another in the long chain of universal knowledge. All this to say that Mr. Bigglesworth got himself a religious candle with a prayer to Saint Michael printed on it. The Archangel Michael is some kind of light-bearer I found out. I remembered that Mass for the Dead recording done in the Oratoire St-Joseph in 1972 and which I posted about earlier, where the music was composed and played by the rock group Offenbach, and with the celebrant also taking part as a solo singer . That mass was sung mostly in its original Latin version, and I wondered if maybe that prayer would have been part of it. I checked on the CD. It wasn't. But another song mentioned Saint Michael (the lyrics were included), the Domine Jesu Christe, which is sung during the Offertory. I only did one year of Latin back then in the sixties so the meaning of the lyrics were not that obvious to me. Trying to find out their real meaning was not an easy task. I tried using Google's translation tool. The French and English translations were so and so and ambiguous. To make it short, they were lousy. Then I tried Spanish, and this was the best one to date. At least with this one I understood the general idea. There was only one small section that remained fuzzy to me. Eventually, I found a site in French which had both the Latin and what they contend to be the French version. Using this and the other four versions, I finally concocted an English version which I hope reflects the prayer's intentions. Mind you, if I would be going to church, I may have known the French version of the prayer, but I'm not, so that's that. If anyone reading this is versed in Latin, any corrections are welcome.

These are is the Latin lyrics (well, the prayer, rather).

Domine Jesu Christi,, Rex gloriae, libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis inferni, et de profundo lacu: libera eas de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum; sed signifer sanctus Michael repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam: Quam olim Ahrahae promisisti et semini ejus.

And this is what I came up with. I hope I found the light.

O Lord Jesus Christ, glorious King, deliver the souls of all the departed faithful from the pains of hell and from the abyss: deliver them from the mouth of the lion, lest they be swallowed by Tartarus, lest they fall into oblivion, but let Saint Michael the light-bearer include them into the holy light, as You promised back then to Abraham and his descendants.

And it just so happens that I had already uploaded this particular song/prayer from the allbum for the previously mentioned post, so why not put it here again. I personally like it a lot. I think that if Jesus-Christ would have been born in this era, he would have liked it. And now that I know what the lyrics mean, the music composed by Gerry Boulet sounds to me to be very befitting. The quality is not the best on the market but keep in mind that this was a once-in-a-lifetime live musical and public event held in a very unlikely place and that the recording had to be remastered.

From that post:
«This number from the CD is not the most "rocking" one, but it puts forward the beautiful raunchy voice of Gerry Boulet and some fantastic electric guitar. I don't usually concentrate on a single instrument when I listen to music, I kind of naturally listen to it as a whole. But preparing this, I stopped to listen to that electric guitar, especially in the second part when it picks up after Gerry stops singing, and my oh my! Offenbach was not a cult rock group for nothing...»

In those days, some people found the light more by rolling funny cigarettes than by lighting candles in church. And long hair was a statement. Maybe it still is.

From the album's leaflet.