Rue Ste-Catherine - Village - 2012.07.22

Above

At two places in the Village, where the pink balls garlands are hung, they have installed this year observation points (accessorily) but which are really places where you can press on a button and have your pic taken by a camera and posted on a site called Memorama. They call it a post card service. You take that pic and then tell people at home to go on the site for a post card which features you. It's a nice idea, for those who don't mind having their pic out on the internet (which is not my case). You can see the camera (yellow) in the header pic, on top of an aluminm pole on the right, about where that brown bricks building starts. My pics were taken on the 22nd, after coming back from the march/demonstration. There are two other Memorama points with cameras, one at ground level featuring large wooden lounging chairs, and the other featuring throne like seats.

The site MEMORAMA.ME with the daily visitor pics is -> here [oops... link now fixed]. Info on the project (in English) on the Aires Libres site, -> here.

The guy now at the bottom of the stairs in the second pic is trying to photograph the three girls he was with and who were now next to me up there and to whom I had to show the button and what it was for. I was going up when he was going down, so I was where he was in the first pic. They were more the overexcited endlessly giggling teenage type, more interested in having fun than wondering why those stairs were there in the first place. I didn't care to be in his photograph and since I had finished taking my pics, I left shortly afterwards.

The first pic and the header are looking eastbound on Ste-Catherine. they were taken between St-André and St-Timothée streets, almost at the west end of the Village. The second one from the same location is looking westbound, towards downtown (well, the core of). Metro Berri-UQAM and Place Émilie-Gamelin are on the right, just past that big grey building (Place Dupuis), where we see the green of some trees. The west part of Place Dupuis is a hotel and its side facing Place Émilie-Gameliin is where are projected those animations I've posted about last winter. The colored glass panes and the manipulating blocks are gone for the summer and I don't know if they will be back this fall. Animations are still projected on that wall, however.

Numbers

I turned 62 on Thursday, which was the 26th. I don't know if it means anything, that 62 is 26 spelled backwards that is. I'm not very much into magical thinking. I know that when I turned 26 on the 26th in 1976, nothing particular happened for me that year except that it was the first time I both voted in Quebec AND for an independentist Party. We'll be having elections early this fall so the second half will most likely be repeated. But since I read this week that half of Americans say they are ready to vote for Romney, some forms of magical thinking must surely exist. Unless they are dumb. I'll go for the magic for now.

Pits, honey and chips

The Olympics have started. The largest peace time British mobilization ever, with 40,000 people, military, police, security firms, in London and in the country, ensuring order during what is supposed to be a truce in the chaos, I read in my paper. Missile launch pads on residential buildings in the heart of London. Military ships on the Thames. London is not to be blamed for wanting to ensure everything stays on the safe side. It is now the price to pay since 1972 and Munich to stage Olympics. They are also the largest capitalistic sucking up of money in recent history, with 800 restaurants on the Olympic site being forbidden to sell fries (ever eaten mussels and fries with no fries? Friend says that fish and chips apparently got a derogation... I guess there's a limit to obscenity) because McDonalds's got the exclusive rights to sell fries. If corner shops try to sell flower arrangements of the five colors, or make bagels shaped like the O rings, or a granny makes a sweater with the O symbols which she wants to sell 4$ for a chartity, bang, one of the 280 inspectors of the Olympic Delivrance Committee, reminiscent of the Fahrenheit 451 firefighters whose job was to find and burn books, cracks down on them and orders the demolition of the "seditious work". Any profit brought about by the Olympics, however minute, is all funneled to a point of ridicule into the pockets of large corporations. For the ordinary British John Doe, scraps. And even then. The main editorial of my paper Friday started such: «Thanks to the London Olympic Games, to its organisation and in particular to its financial deformities, one understands as never before that Adam Smith, the father of modern economy, and George Orwell, the contemptor of police surveillance, could only be British. One understands especially that it is in England and nowhere else that Karl Marx could have written The Capital. Welcome to London, the capital of stalinian capitalism. At first glance, one could think that what precedes is an n^th journalistic sally lodging under the banner of exaggeration in the most closed-minded sense there is. Nonetheless... We'll give you a first example [..follows a list of which some of the above was taken from]. [..] Among those, any formula using two of these words, "Games, Two thousand twelve, 2012" will be considered an infraction. The combination of one of them with "London, medals, advertisers, summer, gold, silver and bronze" will also be sanctioned. Athtletes who have sweat for years and years, were forbidden to upload audio or video recordings of their own performances. At this game of massacre, of negation of individuality, Facebook and Twitter will participate. Indeed, the e-Holy Grail of the young generations will integrate the Fahrenheit 451 batallion. This frenzied drift has been made possible by the putting into parentheses, for the duration of the Games, of the Rule of Law. Indeed, since Sydney in 2000, the IOC compels, to use the words of The Guardian, the candidate countries to adopt ad hoc legislation to supply a supplementary bundle of legal sanctions for the sole benefit of private enterprises. Obviously, Lord Coe and his accomplices have insulted the memory of a very great British man, John Locke, the conceptor of the Rule of law. 'No comment!' ^[1]

^[1] In English in the text.

Britain is capable of the very best, as we know. It can also be capable of the worst. Of what I read, the opening ceremonies were undoubtedly of the first category. The moral ethics of the Games' organisation would fit in the second one I suppose. As is that awful indecipherable 2012 logo.

I missed most of the opening ceremonies because at the time I was on a scanner table. I saw parts of it later in a re-run, including the flag raising and the long lighting of the torch and the final sizzling fireworks. I missed the Queen doing her debut as an actress and being dumped from an helicopter over the crowd, like Stephen Harper dumps her over the Canadian scene. Speaking of Canadians, they once again chose to show the world that in matters relating to bad taste in Olympic garments, they are the world champions, wearing the drabbest outfit on earth. Kaki pants, for gawd sakes! The job of designing them was apparently given to a large department store chain, Hudson's Bay known as The Bay/La Baie. It shows. All there was missing was a horse-driven cart with the athletes throwing barrels in them and William would have thought he was back in that last year's nightmare all over again. They could have worn a Tim Horton doughnut on their heads but that would have become a problem with the 451 guys I suppose. They also had a large white band across their chest like on prisoner's outfits, with large "CANADA" letters instead of a prisoner number. Mind you, for someone like me, Canada or prison, pretty much the same... That large CANADA band, like a zit in the middle of the face, diverted all the attention away from the athletes themselves (as persons). For a second there, like it was the case for most of their previous outfits, I thought we were in some Jame Bond movie and our athletes were a bunch of Soviets in those days when the USSR was so great and fabulous and fighting the bad Westerners in the great wilderness of the endless white steppes of Siberia! Anyways, I find that this way of spitting out one's country in such large letters is rather tacky if not boldy arrogant. Of an arrogance matching that country's blandness (identity wise). Others apparently are not that hot either about the outfit. I have to agree with them about that 1992 Barcelona one. It was to die for. I mean literally. Or putting a large brown bag on one's head, at the very least. Oh, I forgot, they were also waving some of those mini plastic flags which people are given like candy back home. Maybe leftovers from Canada Day. Yay for Canada. the shit-hottest country on earth. You don't have to bother remembering this. They'll make sure you do.

A Huffington Post Canada article about the outfits and a diaporama of previous years' horrors -> here.

I did catch however that wonderful number with Mr. Bean and the London Symphony and the beach and some nice running people. . Of what I read, most of the ceremonies were loaded with such British humor, one of the top items on the British "best" list. British humor is surely one of the finest ones there is on this planet. When I say fine, I don't only mean very good, I mean fine like in finesse and intelligence. I missed Tubular Bells and Eurytmics but not Sir McCartney who looks more and more like his wax replica at Mme Tussot's.

Update: Woke up this morning hearing on the hourly radio news that mind-boggling story about empty seats at competitions, and especially the reason why. Apparently they have to resort to the army to fill in the seats left empty by corpoarate complimentary tickets given to people who didn't show up. What about the ordinary John Doe who couldn't, him, get a ticket because of this? If what they say is true, it would be a new summit in the corruption of the olympic spirit by financial interests. Coincidentally, about 15 minutes earlier on the program, they were talking about the 1948 London Games and how Britain was instrumental back then in there even still being Olympic Games today. What a downfall. However, this seemingly never-ending rise in the mercharndising and turning into a giant advertisement campaign of the Olympic Games, slyly called 'sponsorships', is not a British invention at all. It all started, if I remember well, in Atlanta in 1996, also head-office of Coca-Cola.

Speaking of British, Friend took me out for supper last evening (Saturday) for my birthday. We couldn't on the day itself because I had to avoid big meals because of the next day scan. And the next day, having had to fast from 09h00 to 15h30 and then more during the three hours of the exam, when I got back home I didn't feel at all like going out to eat. There was this upscale Italian restaurant in old Montreal that popped up as a possible place to go. There was also nearby a British-style fish and chips joint which is considered one of Montreal's best, by that I mean most authentic, and to which we had previously said we just had to go there one day. Once in Old Montreal, it took a while to find a parking space for his motorcycle and once that happened it was almost in front of the fish and chips restaurant. It was more or less me who said hey, why not the fish and chips, for a change (with Friend, you often end up in Italian places). He of course ended up paying about half or even less of what it would have cost at the other place, but the fish and chips and the beer were good so all in all it was a nice supper. The place is mostly filled with long counters and stools but there are also about six two-seater tables and we sat at one of them.

Friend has had for around seven years an Aprilia SR50 50cc scooter (Carlo may know that brand) but has also had for two years now an 800cc BMW motorcycle. He's been pestering me for quite some time to go for a drive on it with him. The last time I've been on a motorcycle was some 40 years ago and the experience was not conclusive, to make it short. It was a big bike which I tried and hardly rode a few seconds before it and me were on the ground. That was the end of it. But today he insisted again, coming this afternoon for an ice-breaking test, just a few blocks around my pad. In the evening we used it to go downtown, which was a much longer ride, needless to say. I wouldn't go for a long distance on that as a passenger. Not really comfortable. It's not the seat, that is pretty comfy enough although I can't get to sit on it if he's already on the bike. Those leg stretching athletic prowesses are out of my reach so I have to get on first, which then complicates things for him to do the same. The problems lies rather in the frequent frontward or backward jolts when the transmission shifts, or at sudden stops or resuming of speed, etc. When someone is holding a handle bar, all those jolts are neutered because the arms restrain the body and absorb the shock, not to mention that person is generally the one initiating them. But when you're a passenger you're like a rag doll. Your hands are used to hold yourself on the bike and you have to be on constant alert to be able in a fraction of a second to stop your body from pitching itself forward or backward after an unexpected jolt (they all are when you're not the driver). That is rather physically stressing after a while. One second of inattention and a jolt happens, chances are you'll end up being thrown off the bike. He's a careful driver however. And from the back seat, the view of what's ahead is total so one can at least anticipate some of those jolts. The view is total because his part of the seat is lower, but also because he's short to start with. Maybe 1m68 (5' 6), I'm not sure. The kind you wonder how they can handle such a big bike.

It happened in the afternoon, and again driving downtown in the evening. We are near an intersection and someone, from a passing car or on the sidewalk, cracks a remark akin to Yay! or something like that. My take is that they thought Friend was my son and he was driving his dad around. Friend is almost 44, but always looked younger than his age and since he's not tall and with a small build, it also helps in that perception. Then again, maybe these people just thought we were an odd couple (in a good way) on a nice motorcycle.

Da food section

Last Wednesday Friend came for supper and I made again a "salade niçoise", my version of it that is. Maybe one egg for the two plates would have been enough... Like that it looks like a merry-go-round. Friend set the table, not his specialty, especially as per placing placemats go.

The day before, I had a second go at the chicken with tarragon and mushrooms in a creamy sauce. This time around I put much more tarragon and it made a world of difference. Great recipe, and quite easy to make. But imo, fresh tarragon is a must. I may try it later on with the dried version, just to prove me right. As I mentioned before we have a large selection of rosé wines especially in summer. This one was a new try and lived up to my expectations. Very pale, just a hint of orangy pink. It's a Domaine Le Pive Gris de Grande Camargue. The Camargue is a large region in southern France where is found the delta of the river Rhônes. This wine is from the protected region appellation (IGP) Sables de Camargue, which means it's grown in that sandy region of the delta which I have had the chance to visit in 1995 and which is a must, with places like Saintes Maries de la mer, Aigues-Mortes, Sète, and all those other places shown on this map. Aigues is a very ancient form of eaux, which means waters. Literally, Aigues-Mortes translates into dead waters, but it means still waters (enclosed I suppose). Check this Google map to see how fabulous this region is, geographically. The Camargue and all the immediate regions around it are loaded with extraordinary vestiges of the Roman empire, the Pont du Gard, the cities of Nîmes and Arles, and much, much more.

Friday, I finished late in the evening by finally gaining some appetite. I have a plant of sage on my balcony which is thriving, and roaming the internet to find recipes using sage (not many), I found this one: a risotto with sage and pancetta, and parmiggiano of course. Not bad tasting but the prescribed method needs fine-tuning. It calls for putting most of the butter right at the start. You can't sizzle onions or brown pancetta if you dump them in a ton of butter. They just boil instead. And although I put three large leaves of sage, seemed to me its presence was not that obvious. The recipe calls, to make it optimal, to add bits of pan-fried salted lard at the end. Next time I'll part with that. There's enough fat in that recipe without adding more, especially that I didn't see too much what it added tastewise, and besides if I always have pancetta on hand, I never have fresh salted lard. This time around it just happened that I had bought a small vacuum-packed piece a week or so before, for no specific reason. I just thought it was a nice way to not having bought it for nothing. Like I said, needs fine tuning. The good news is that I'm willing to try it again so it's not ditched yet.

KINÉGRAF - Grande Place, Complexe Desjardins

Parts of this post were edited yesterday, Sunday.
Parts of this post were edited tomorrow, Tuesday.

Around the gay village in 25 minutes

Last night (Saturday) was France's entry at the fireworks. The show's theme was Jules Verne. A little slow to start, and quite a weird sound track. Given that it's not easy to translate into music and light the adventures found in Jules Verne's books. There was a number though, quite long, which addressed the landing on the moon (including famous sound clips, you know, the "small step for man..." and all that jazz), and which in my case did give me some emotion, maybe because of the woman soprano singing an opera aria I couldn't identify right off the bat. There were a lot of very high exploding bombs, and I mean very high, and often coupled with others at ground level, which made the show to be seen preferably from a distance. I don't know if that 1PYR08 guy filmed that one also, from La Ronde, but if he did he must have gone seasick from moving his camera up and down and up and down all the time. My take is that he'll miss some of the global picture. We'll see. All in all, not a winner in my book but I didn't regret at all having gone to see it. As usual I left home too late and after arriving at Berri-UQAM I had to transfer to another metro line to go to Papineau (two stations away), but when I got to the wharf I missed the train by seconds and there was a seven-minute delay before the next one so I just decided to walk to my vantage point under the bridge, an about 25 minute walk. I would have had to walk somewhat also if I had been to the Papineau station, not to mention the humongous number of people who would have been there in the up-going escalators, preventing any possibility of fast walking out of the station. All in all, I even think I got there faster by walking. And since it was more than 48 hours since that biopsy and that technically the Pfuittt! season was over, I figured that as long as I didn't run... which was not a problem since I never run. I do walk fast though. I only walked a small bit on Ste-Catherine because it was also full of people (I would have had to walk the entire gay village section where there are those overhead pink balls) so I headed south quite early to reach boulevard René-Lévesque and finally Notre-Dame Street, where I was going. If I had the time I'd show on Google Maps where I passed but I don't have the time because today is the 22nd and as has been the case for the last six months, the 22nd is BDD, or Big Demonstration Day. It's organized today by the more militant student organization, the CLASSSÉ, but the other two will be there also. They don't expect a huge crowd for obvious reasons: it's summer, most students are back home, and it's the first week-end of the yearly two-week "vacances de la construction" (construction workers vacations), during which about all the construction workers are on vacations, and by the same token, most companies working in or around that industry, and by the same token still, their family members (spouse, children, whatever) who also schedule their vacations at the same time. I don't know the exact numbers but I'd say that about one third of Québec's population kinds of vanishes elsewhere for those two weeks. It's a little like what happens in France in August, when the whole inside country shuts down and moves near the sea.

All this to say that I'll probably show up downtown to check things out and maybe participate in the demonstration, which will again technically be illegal because they won't advise authorities in advance of its route. This time around, it's not so much for tuition fees, but rather because they said that the march was mostly against neo-liberalism. THAT rings a bell in me.

Laterz, like, say, Monday...

Well, I didn't have the time to post this before leaving for the march, so now I have to add more stuff to this post which already had enough. Oh well. Da food section will have to wait or be bumped to next post.

When I got to Place Émilie-Gamelin, there were some people there, and scattered around at different intersections or locations, like near the Grande Bibliothèque, or Ste-Catherine St which was already closed since the police had to make their little silly showdown, all clad in anti-riot gear, while most people there where elders, young parents with toddlers in carriages, middle-aged people, and students of course. They looked ridiculous holding their tear-gas guns or whatever-they-shoot-with-them. Near them, on the corner of Berri and Ste-Catherine, I ended up chatting with a Belgian who said he was there to try to understand because over in Belgium they ask permission for demonstrations and it's no problem and all generally goes well. I could have told him that everything goes well when the policie forbids you to go to the streets you want to go and your march bothers no one, but I refrained. I did mention that since our law is considered illegitimate and probably illegal, that our Human Rights Commission has just severely condemned it, that we didn't feel compelled to obey to it. When I left I wished him a belated Belgian Fête Nationale.

Among those there, guess who! The unkillable 83-year-old Armand Vaillancourt, sculptor, political activist, painter, multidisciplinary artist, provocateur and what have you. This guy is in shape like a fifty year old. It just boggles the mind. I told him so, later on at the end of the march. Our Premier's name is Charest and he made a wordplay of it with "charette" which is a cart, a wagon. He had put two boxing gloves on his makeshift cart on which he had written "Charette viens te battre" (Charette, come and fight). I don't have a clue what those three red pails stood for though. I mentioned in a post a good while ago that he had invited me to enter in his fenced yard which is loaded with an heteroclit pile of scrap material he may use one day, or not, in a sculpture or an installation.

A few pics of peole waiting for the march to start. It was slated for 14h00 but finally only left at 15h00. It was very sunny and very hot, maybe 32˚C or 33˚C. I made stamps of them for the post. It's a test to see if it will make the page less heavy to load. Larger-sized versions always available on double-click, as usual.

Anyways, it was like I had expected. Maybe a few thousands, if we were lucky. Or so I thought. THIS is what it turned out to be.

Pics taken on Berri Street, just before, under and past the Sherbrooke overpass (or underpass if you're marching).

The woman in a wheelchair was alone downhill, which doesn't show on the pic but is rather steep. That man and his wife offered her to push her chair uphill. She gladfully accepted and from then on she was beaming, using her liberated hands to clap them like there's no tomorrow, joining the others. I realized that a person in a wheelchair can never clap their hands or use them to make any kind of noise if they are moving, hence her being so delighted. It takes so little to bring happiness in this world. The couple was as happy about her as she was. (point B on Google map below)

Before entering the underpass, looking ahead (point B on Google map)

Once in the underpass, looking ahead

Almost at Cherrier St, long past the underpass, looking back. (point C on Google Map)

The improvised route (well, not told to police nor to the marchers) ended up being 4,5 Km (from A to I on the Google map below) and since I walked back to metro Berri-UQAM on foot also (from I to K), it made it a total of 6,1 Km for me, under the sun, and in sandals. I had two 500 ml water bottles and they were put to good use. And despite it felt like it in the end, I developped no blisters under my toes., surprising since those sandals are rather cheap and not very new let's just say.

The route of the march. It ended at point "I" on the map but I walked back to where it had started.

Note: Agrandir le plan means Get this darn thing much bigger.

And this is the route I walked the day before for the fireworks, this one 1,8 Km, one way. Double that because I didn't sleep under the bridge. I'm not there yet. So all in all, I walked 9,7 Km (or roughly 6 miles says a conversion site) in less than 24 hours. Not in shape as Vaillancourt, but could be worse I guess.

Add-on about my encounter with Armand Vaillancourt:

At the end of the march, on McGill College St, I saw Vaillancourt again, close to the wonderful La Foule illuminée sculpture (The Illuminated Crowd) on the esplanade of the BNP tower. He was alone and seemed to be looking for something, an idea maybe? There were some red squares on the characters and I think his imagination was running full spin to try to make something out of it. I approached him and told him that he was 'vraiment increvable' (really unkillable). Then I asked him, «You're eighty what, now?». He replied «83, and I'm just starting». I think that's when the light bulb in his head switched to On. What he was looking for was a way to integrate himself in the movement of that crowd in the statue. I happened to become the key to what he was looking for. He told me «Come, take a pic» and placing himself in front of the statue he pointed his left middle finger in the air for the well-known 'finger' pose. I took a few pics then other marchers in the street noticed him and started to click their cameras too. That only encouraged Vaillancourt who shifted hand and showed again all what he thought of the government. Then he went on to both hands and both middle-fingers, to the delight of the bystanders who were savouring the moment as much as he was. I think he craves attention. Isn't that what all artists do? Anyways I may have been instrumental in fostering that moment, and that's good enough for me. Besides, I'm some kind of old fool also, so...

I read on the wikipedia page that the sculpture is polychromed in such a way to suggest a bright light coming from the front, from a show, from a fire or from an ideal, and whose bright light would project shadows. I may have mentioned this before on this blog, I don't remember, but it may be why this sculpture leaves no one indifferent. And I will definitely go and check it out, this time with new eyes. What I mistook, probably like most, as the sun's shadow, was most likely directly imbedded in the sculpture itself and I find this fascinating.

Da food section

Having more time on my hands, I did my "paupiettes" on Friday. It takes about an hour and a half to prepare, due mostly to having to simmer the paupiettes for about an hour.

There is no English word for paupiettes. They are usually made with veal. It's a thin scalloped (I think this is a pleonasm) piece of veal garnished with what we call in French "chair à saucisse", seasoned ground meat used to make sausages, then bundled together and fastened with a string. Since veal is a very lean meat, the bundled paupiette is also surrounded by strips of lard to make it less dry.

I should have taken a pic before cooking but I didn't so I'll post this pic from Wikipedia instead. Those I had looked exactly like these.

The recipe I did is a variant of the classic "paupiettes de veau aux pleurotes". Pleurotes are a delicate oyster shaped mushroom. This recipe rather uses the more common Paris mushrooms (known in the English world as 'common mushroom', 'white mushroom' etc). I tried to use both but in this particular recipe, pleurotes tend to stick in the pan when I stir-fry them so next time I'll stick to what the recipe asks for. I had both mushrooms because I live near marché Jean-Talon. I can go there and if I want to buy four mushrooms I can buy four mushrooms and I get to choose the ones I want, which is pretty handy especially when one lives alone and doesn't cook for a regiment. Nothing pre-packaged there (fruits and vegetables I mean). It's not a place for hygiene freaks, but that's their problem. Besides people should always wash their vegetables anyways, even if they were pre-packaged, if only to remove chemicals you're almost sure there are on 'store bought' ones.

Later: Oh, I forgot, I have this plant of sage on my balcony which this year is growing like crazy. Sage and veal like each other (ask any Italian about saltimboccas ) so I stuck a leaf at both ends of each paupiette, between the lard and the meat. To be discarded before service time, along with the lard and string needless to say.

Yesterday (Saturday), because of fireworks imperatives, no long recipe. I had left-over flour tortillas, left-over monterey jack cheese, left-over "La roche noire" blue cheese (see a previous post) and a plate. I didn't eat the plate, I used it as a template. I used one of those tricks they show kids in kindergartens. If you want to make a smaller circle from a bigger circle, you put something round and smaller inside the larger circle, and you cut around it. This is how you make medium-sized tortillas from decidedly too large ones. This time around, instead of kalamata, I put in sliced large green olives (pitted of course otherwise it's the pits), but I kept alive that love affair with diced green peppers and thin-sliced pan-fried mushrooms. I forgot the jalapeño but the hot peppered oil came in to the rescue. What I can say though is that this blue cheese does not need to be coaxed to melt. But it adds a wonderful taste. This cheese combined with maybe a little too much Montery Jack made it longer for the tortilla to turn into a crust. But it eventually did, which is all that counts. This one, I took a before pic, before adding the top tortilla that is. Once again, maybe the quantity of stuffing was a little wee bit over exagerrated.

Yesterday also (still Saturday, remember), in the afternoon, I went strolling at Marché Jean-Talon for no particular reason other than I was in the area and had a little "creux" (WordReference says «to feel peckish (familiar) GB, to have the munchies (familiar)»). I saw this cheese at Capitol which I had never heard about before. It's a semi-hard cheese (like Edam) and it was really inexenpensive compared to other cheeses (22$ something a kilo), so I bought the smallest piece they had. Since it was cold, I waited for it to warm up before starting eating it, which finally happened only when I was back home. The cheese is Dutch and called Maasdam. I went on their internet site to get more info about it, and they say «If there is one true cheese country in the world, it has to be Holland. Renowned worldwide for its many famous, classic Dutch cheeses, Holland is the world’s largest cheese exporter. Edam, Maasdam and Gouda are named after old Dutch towns, where they have been sold for centuries.» Now I may be a slow learner or a little picky but this makes three cheeses. France has 800. France is THE cheese country in the world. And it's not really a sccop, let's just say. Everyone knows that, including the Dutch. What they mean(t) I suppose is that they produce a few cheeses but by the tons and the tons (they say hundreds of millions of kilos ), which means strictly nothing. McDonald's burgers are produced by the biliions and it changes nothing to the fact that they are basically crap. I hate it when people try to pull silly word games on me, as if I wasn't intelligent enough to see the difference. Anyways, it's not a bad cheese although rather ordinary (it's not cheap for nothing), its taste is hard to describe, but I wouldn't walk two hours to get some. I don't think I'll buy any of it again, especially that I'm not a heavy (a emphemism) semi-hard cheese user. That won't be very hard since I never saw it sold anywhere else before. People who like Edam will probably like it more than me.

2012.07.12

Note: parts of this post were edited yesterday

Above

My second-door second-floor neighbor is a circus artist. That long blue drape is used to do aerial acts by rolling and unrolling it around the body, in mid air. Montreal is one of the world's circus capitals. There was an annual international festival from July 5 to 15, Montréal complètement cirque with circus artists from everywhere, and many acts in open air across the city, many in the Latin Quarter near the UQAM. Major troups known internationally are based here, starting with the Cirque du Soleil, Les 7 doigts de la main (The Seven Fingers of the Hand), Cirque Éloize, and others. From Wikipedia about Cirque Éloize: «Having created seven original productions so far [since 1993], it has presented more than 3000 performances in more than 375 cities and 30 countries. Éloize means "heat lightning" in Acadian French (éclair de chaleur in Standard French).» It's founder comes from the Magdalen Islands (Iles de la Madeleine) in the Gulf of St-Laurent. The Cirque du Soleil does not need any presentation. They have been premiering their new show, Amaluna, at the Old Port for some months now and until July 14. I had promised myself to go see it but this and thats made it not to be. There are also major circus schools in Montreal, of which L'École nationale du cirque, and facilities like La Tohu, with its circular 900-seater multipurpose hall. Of course, I'm talking contemporary circus, not the Barnum and Bailey type of thing with animals.

Normalcy

Normal life is slowly resuming. The heat wave is over. The worst day was Sunday, when it reached 'officially' 31,6˚C at the airport, which can mean about 4˚ to 5˚ more downtown and an extra 5˚ or 6˚ on my balcony in late day full sun. Purolator delivered yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon the AC/DC adapter and it fixed the problem so I'm back with high speed internet. I was sleeping when they came, they didn't ring the bell, just left the parcel at the doorstep. The reason I was sleeping was because I had to get up at 5h45 in the morning to go to the hospital (downtown) for that biopsy and where I had to pass the whole day until about 15h00, after which I have to avoid physically straining activity for a few days. When I got back home I just felt like laying down (a habit I may have caught in the hospital - I should avoid those places).

Pfffuit!

Did you know that lungs are like balloons and when you puncture them with a needle they can just go pfffuit! and deflate? The things you learn in a hospital these days... But it you're luckcy, the puncture bleeds a little and that seals the hole and the air does not go pfffuit! But it can the next day, for reasons of its own apparently, so as I write this, I may go pfffuit! and have to call 9-1-1 so they can bring me to the hospital (there's one at 4 corners, I could walk for all I care) so they can de-pfffuit! me, that is remove the air having escaped the balloon and lodged between the lungs and the chest (they have a fancy word for that, pneumothorax), so as the balloon (I mean the lung) can reflate itself. It's all very much like a bicycle inner tire tube, finally. I understood that the no-strain idea is to prevent a pfffuit! although it was not explained to me that way. In fact it was not explained to me at all. They just told me about those two situations, the "no strain advice" and the possible "post-pfffuit!" as if they were two isolated things. But I'm quick. I can connect the dots.

Missed opportunities

I had every reason to go downtown Saturday evening. Instead, because of the heat, for most of the day I stayed home and 'chilled' as yougsters say today, which I understand does not mean at all to stay in a cool place but simply to not overheat one's brains. Doing basically nothing apparently has a chilling effect.

Unfortunately since my brain was in the Off position, it failed to remind me that it was fireworks night AND it was the yearly special parade on Ste-Catherine St for the opening of the Just for Laughs Festival, this year called the Terra Karnaval. Last year it was the Pinkarnaval themed by and about Jean-Paul Gaultier, who was himself in the pararde. This year the theme was peace and the environment. Guy Laliberté, the founder of Cirque du Soleil, was a sponsor. I like those parades because they are very non North-American, the parade starting at dusk, it's night when it ends, all street lights are off on the street creating a very special ambiance, and they are full of imagination and creativity, plus most participants being citizens coming from different districts in the city. The parade runs eastbound for a good stretch of Ste-Catherine Street until it reaches Place des Festivals. I found some videos on Youtube, one shot at the intersection with Crescent Street and covering the whole parade. That part of Crescent, between Ste-Catherine and Sherbrooke, is where all the Formula One hooplah takes place in June (cars, bimbos, etc). The other video is mostly excerpts of the arrival of the parade at Place des Festivals and the subsequent show given there, in which there were aerial numbers by the Cirque du Soleil. That one is of great quality, technically, but unfortunately is to shit for visually, being sponsored by a magazine/web television organisation, whose idea of a great video is littering it with opaque self-ads and more so messing around with the camera, making it often slanted as if one of the tripod legs was shorter than the two others, something that they must think is what modern overhyped kids thrive for, but which is annoying like there's no tomorrow (for me anyways).

Below: The parade at the level of Crescent, the street behind the blockade with a view of the mountain in the end. It's not obvious in the video but once past those two corner buildings, it's all but bars and terraces on Crescent, which in non-F1 times is one of the hot spots of Montreal nightlife, this one catering mostly to tourists for some reason (either from Quebec or elsewhere) although it's pretty much angloland. On the other side, south of Ste-Catherine (in the back the cameraman), there are on Crescent some "famed" strip clubs, so maybe that's why. Some people come here just because we have integral nude strip clubs and so-called 'contact' dances.

The other missed opportunity was the fireworks. I'm only half sad because it was Canada's entry, which when it comes to Canadian entries in that competition means essentially Québec, not by chauvinism but that how it is. For some reason, fireworks companies are here. Anyways, the one giving the show last Saturday is the same which took care of the opening and closing fireworks at the Vancouver winter olympics. In my book that can be as bad as a good reference. I'll have to wait and see on the net. I also missed the Greece entry, which was on Tuesday which, for obvious reasons, there's no way I could attend.

But speaking of the net, there is this guy (or company) on Youtube [1PYR08] which makes stunning high definition videos of those fireworks. He posts 'best moments' videos of about 10 minutes, and says he will post the whole shows after the end of the competition, August 3rd. If I mention this it's that he did post excerpts of the Swiss show which included that drone thingie which impressed a lot of people. We see in the video that the color changing from red to green was in fact flashing logos which were changing. Most are recognizable (maple leaf - Canada, lily - Québec) but I'll add that the one with eight arcs and a dot in the middle is Montreal's logo. So of course I'm putting the embedded link here. But before, I'll post another one which gives a better and longer view of the drone part, in the sense that it shows the complete cycle of the drone 'tableau' and looks more like what we spectators saw on the shores, although more from a distance. But when the whole video in HD will be released, needless to say it'll be top of my agenda.

We often get carried away with those fireworks. I did about Switzerland. One guy commented on that 1PYR08's facebook site that he would be surprised if Switzerland made it to the top three. He may be right, but if so that would say a lot about the other ones doesn't it? Among which the Japan entry, the first one this year and which I haven't seen either, and which technically boggles the mind. Really. Chech for yourselves here -> http://youtu.be/7ubrWFPvoR8. However, what I said about the Swiss show (lack of soul), someone said something alike about the Japanese one: technically a perfect 10, but no soul.

Finally, I found this little treasure. It's a 1987 film made by or for Benson and Hedges, the then sponsor who isn't anymore for smoke-related issues , and which confirms that the competition started in 1985, the same year I arrived in Montreal. When I think about it, it's now 27 years that every summer I go see most of those shows, and have yet to be tired of them, as also thousands of Montrealers. Rather special, comes to think of it. And reminds me why I wouldn't want to live elsewhere. They say in the video that in 1987 it was the most important competition of the kind in the world. I don't know if it still is but I do know that for fireworks companies, winning here means a lot. That year, the U.S. had won. The narrator seemed delighted.

Da food section

Once in a while, that happened on July 12, we don't feel like going into too much trouble and elect to make something quick and easy for supper. And not necessarily that healthy but since it's only once in a while, who cares...

For those who will read this in 2356, this is what they called a cheeseburger back then when people didn't have yet three eyes and funny things called trees were still growing everywhere. It's cheese topping a burger, which is a diminutive for hamburger, itself a way to describe meat prepared in the style of Hamburg, a city that used to exist in what used to be Europe. The most interesting part for you surely is the cheese, which is not really cheese, it's some kind of funny product that contains just as funny stuff which in some way is related to your now having three eyes. The rest of the thing is, in the order, the bottom half of a pagnotta, an Italian bread sold at Capitol at the marché Jean-Talon (I know, all these things mean nothing to you, Italy used to be an empire around 2400 years ago), sliced sweet pickles, red ketchup, yellow mustard, red meat turned brown by a process called cooking (the things you will learn here, BwTTZk, you have no idea...), itself containing chopped white onions and green mini things called Provencal herbs (Provence was not an empire, it was a lifestyle) and finally an orange slice of the funny stuff called "singles", maybe because it was sterile and couldn't mate, what do I know... and which is melted by the same process you just learned about and which they called cooking. The placement on top of it all of the upper half of the pagnotta was called in those days depositing. Now you ask me, why would they make such an ornament and isn't it a little unstable to hang on the wall? It's not because things are multi-colored that they are to be hung on the wall, you silly BwTTZk, they are made to be eaten. Oh my, something else I'll have to explain... eating. All they know is pilling. Things were easier back then in 2012. People knew instinctly what to do with a cheeseburger. Stuff themselves with it, and if they had manners, wipe the mess around their mouths afterwards. I'm glad I don't live in 2356. They are so ignorant... They can transmutate and vaporize in ethereal fogs but are clueless about making a basic cheeseburger let alone knowing what it is.

Those who've been here before will remember (I'm not asking that much of an effort, I talked about this barely four days ago ) that I had made myself quesadillas which didn't turn out to be a raging success. I decided to correct this situation. First thing to do was of course to buy flour tortillas, which I did on Wednesday evening. I was in such a hurry to salvage my reputation that I neglected to check the size and ended up with the large rather than the medium ones. Maybe there were no medium ones on display to start with, I don't remember (why would I stash my memory with such useless details, I ask you!). By the way, I found out on the spaghetti that they 'can' be made with corn tortillas, especially in southern Mexico. Nice information but since I have tasted some with corn tortillas, it's gonna be information I will discard.

So yesterday evening, I had the choice between two "paupiettes de veau" (gawd knows what they are called in English), and which all in all would require a good hour and a half of preparation, or going for something else. Friend having dropped by for a while in early evening (he was out of tomato sauce, and I'm the sauce keeper, the jars that is) and also because I had asked if he could pass by to remove a plaster I had in the middle of my back and couldn't remove myself. I kind of excluded asking neighbors to do this. All in all, when he left, and even before he had left, I had already ditched the paupiettes in my mind and decided on making the quesadillas.

There are two ways of doing this. The KISS way (Keep It Simple Stupid) or the CYLS (Complicate Your Life Stupid). I'm not a kisser, so I ended up with a pizza. Almost.

If anyone is interested in what's between those two tortillas, here is:
- generous layer of coarsely grated provolone cheese
- thinly sliced onion
- sliced kalamata olives
- diced green pepper
- thin slices of jalapeño pepper
- very thin slices of tomatoes
- previously pan-fried thin slices of mushrooms
- grated feta non cremoso (hard and dry feta used crumbled by latinos to sprinkle over food, like eggs rancheros, etc)
- generous layer of sliced monterey jack cheese

Some of that monterey jack was in thin slices with which I lined the edges, so when the quesadilla slowly cooked and the cheese melted, I pressed on the edges so as to glue them together and prevent all the stuff from running out. I'll try to remember that trick because it's a mighty effective one.

I could have put more jalapeño but as they say, better be safe than dead. It was not a problem since all I had to do was sprinkle some of my home-made hot olive oil over it at serving time. What was a problem was the size, we're talking here of 25 cm (10 in) diameter and that's a little too much for me, especially stuffed like that (the quesadilla, not me ). Unfortunately for my stomach and the bunch of his friends in the digestive system, it had to do some overtime (with no extra premium, I'm not a business) since I ate all of it except a tiny piece in the end. The food slut won over reason.

Will resume presence here tomorrow (today in fact) July 20. Worked on a post but not finished.

Yesterday, late in the evening, my modem/router started to do free games and I lost my internet connection. I don't own the router, it's rented by the month so I called my provider (Bell Sympatico) and they said it was either the AC/DC adapter or the modem itself. They are sending me an adapter, which I will receive god knows when, not to mention that I'm pretty sure that's it's the modem/router which is at fault, thus more delays to expect. I was very pissed, because I was just about to post a comment on a blog in a local paper, on which I had worked for hours. But more than that, I will pass a good part of Wednesday in a hospital for some biopsy which I don't care to talk about right now but which is serious enough to have me wanting to check on the internet today what it involved.

With the plan I have with them, I am allowed 10 hours a month of free dial-up (by phone) internet. If I remember well, the buck stops there. There is no 'more than 10 hours' for which you can pay, if needed. I have two older computers which I never use, one which has a 33k modem but with Win 98 and a turtle as a processor and no browser that still works. Only good for direct transfers like with FTP. I have another one, with Win XP, a little more up to date but barely, but with no modem and furthermore no old-style slots for that 33K modem in case I'd want to switch it from the very old to the less old. I checked in the paper version of the yellow pages (which I had the hindsight not to throw away in the recycling bin, my first thought when I got it) and found out there is a store on St-Hubert a few minutes from my pad which sells old refurbished computers, Macs etc, so I went there just in case they would have a 56K PCI-slot modem. They did, he found three stashed in some corner. He sold me one, five dollars. After two hours of trying to get it recognized by Windows, I gave up and returned to the shop, and left with the two others, this apparently being no problem to the guy tending shop, who wished me luck. I didn't pay for the extra one, I just told him I'd be back one way or the other, either because both wouldn't work, or one did and I would bring back the other. I installed the one with a brand name on it (GVC) and bingo, instant recognition and configuration. I had nothing to do. I returned to the store with the extra one I didn't need, asked if the second I tried and kept was the same price as the first, he said yes, so it was just an exchange. I was quite happy about the whole situation so I gave him an extra five bucks, also considering he was a real nice guy. A North African, he spoke French fluently.

Happy here is very relative. I did have access to internet, but my XP not being up to date, Opera won't work. Firefox and Internet Explorer do but at 56K in these days where they throw zillions of images which for most we don't give a damn about (ads, ads, and ads) it's like racing on a Formula One circuit with at 1954 Volkswagen Beetle. I tried to upgrade Opera. It took one hour (out of the ten) to download and at the very end, when it was over, it flashed a message about an unrecoverable error. Great! One hour down the drain. Besides Gmail (my Xanga one), the Sympatico and hotmail emails, which both use those mind-boggingly crappy and invasive systems loading everything there's on earth from Messenger to god knows what, are just a mess. At least I can access my Xanga (with lots of patience, I'm picture heavy) and I could google that stuff I mentioned earlier. So until things get back to normal, my presence on the net will have to be at a minimal. I passed the whole day doing nothing but trying to be able to post this little thingy, and tomorrow WILL NOT resemble today, I can guarantee that.

Hotmail and Sympatico keeps bugging me with infos they need "for my security". As if I'm stupid and can't remember my passwords. The only security I need is being away from them. They want an email, I give them one : trou@du.cul (that's like the@ass.hole) I hope they try to reach that account. And they want to know where my mother was born, so I told them: Chez Elle (At Home). And I gave a 514 phone number at random, which may or not exist, I don't care. I mean, give my phone number to Microsoft? For gawd sakes, are some people that stupid?

What's really nice is that they may knock on my door (Purolator, Post Canada, whoever) on Wednesday when I won't be here and I will have to cross town to fetch that parcel they will send me which probably won't even fix the problem to start with.

I'm not in a very good mood. Let's call it negative. It will be better in an hour. I'm making myself quesadillas.

If there are typos in the above, I won't be back to correct them. I have to keep some time for sleeping.

Laterz: I had forgotten you need flour tortillas to make quesadillas, not corn tortillas. And provolone is not Oaxaca cheese. Mozarella would have been better. All in all not a very good day.

2012.07.13 - 19h25

Santé!

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

You BIXI yourself downtown on a hot and sunny day for a medical appointment and you stumble on this afterwards. You'e not happy about the medical appointment but you are darn happy you live in Montreal.

Adam Cohen (fils de / son of Leonard)
(and accessorily uncle to Rufus Wainwright's daughter)
Spectacle de la Fête Nationale du Québec - Parc Maisonneuve - 24 juin 2012
«Je suis Québécois« / «I am Quebecer»

Liza

Nothing but best words in our media for Liza Minnelli following her concert on Thursday. Unfortunately most of those words are in French so not very user-friendly for those not speaking it. However, I did find this one from The Gazette, Montreal's only English-language daily, and it follows the same tune as all the others.

The Huffington Post - Québec has a set of pics, and the TVA site has a one minute video from the concert. I guess others will pop up on Youtube. [laterz: I found this one, quality so and so but Liza top notch as usual, even when she goes in for some French]. She received at the end of the concert the Montreal Jazz Festival Ella Fitzgerald Prize.

Casseroles are not red squares

I mentioned earlier that I thought a break from daily casseroling for the summer seemed to me to be a good idea. I forgot to add that the red square was not included, in my mind. I still continue to wear it but I changed the modus operandi. I used to wear it either on my shirt or attached to the zipper of my day bag (backpack?). It involved a lot of messing around with safety pins so I elected to wear it instead on the cargo shorts I usually wear in summer. I don't change those as often as shirts and I just attach them to one of the pocket flaps.

Roaming the planet

This week, the 'Quebec spring' is frontpage (plus a dossier inside) to the Courrier International. The Courrier International is a great anglophone press discrepancy. It is a magazine whose entire content is made only of articles published in newspapers or magazines all around the world, which are translated in French if needed. Some of the contents is about very current events or relating to current events of the past week, but there are also many dating from a few weeks or months. Not being newsfeeds but in-depth articles, they're just as relevant now as they were when originally published. Since they end up with a humongous bank of articles which they most likely index by subject, they have no problem mounting also a weekly dossier on a specific one, like in this case about our crisis. It's a crying shame, for them, that the English-speaking world does not have an equivalent. Reading an original article in extenso or with large excerpts is not the same at all as being told about a situation by a reporter who sees it with his own culturally tainted eyes. I do measure how privileged we Francos are. I've been quite unfaithful to the Courrier International lately, mostly because I don't have the time to read it. And the reason I don't have the time is that I pass way too much time on the internet. By doing so, I necessarily put myself in the same situation as the one I mention above about anglophones. I of course access sites whose language I understand, mostly French, a few in English. I don't read on the net stuff written in Japanese on Japanese sites, or in Hungarian in Hungarian sites, or in Serbian in a Zagreb paper. I may even miss going on the Mother Jones site, or on the Los Angeles Times site, or even if I can (a little) read Spanish, not go every day on the Reforma site in Mexico City, or read something about buddhism in the Zhongguo XinWen Zhoukan from the province of Xinglong in China, or about the social problems and inequalities in Oriental-Timor (a former Portuguese colony for 400 years) in the Lisbon Público, or read in Cairo's Al-Shourouk how some young Egyptians manage to liberate themselves from the Muslim Brothers (and what it costs them), or something about a gay marriage celebrated in Israel reported in Tel-Aviv's Ha'Aretz. These are just a few of the articles in this week's edition, and to the risk of repeating myself, the most important about them being that they are written by local people, and not from the viewpoint of outsiders. As per what they choose to publish, I have never seen any slant whatsoever in that magazine which is sold for reminders on all five continents. French, along with English, is one of the only two languages spoken on all the five continents. If they'd start pitting a country against another , they wouldn't stay in business for very long.

French ranks third on the Web with 5% of the pages, after English (45%) and German (7%). This means that 43% of the webpages are in a language other than these three. And that number is expanding, not diminishing. Those who forecasted the eventual hegemony of English on the web seem to have bet on the wrong camel. By the way, the immense majority of French speakers live in Africa. They for now are barely present on the Net for obvious poverty reasons. If their economic status betters, and they stick to French as their language, watch out...

This week's cover - «Montreal, Rebel City»

A partial list of their sources for this week's edition. For each, they give additional information about the media in question. (click twice on pic for readable display)

More of the same

Another street sale on the Plaza (a 1 Km commercial stretch on St-Hubert St. where the sidewalks are covered with awnings). From Wednesday to Sunday. There are two each summer. Another one is slated some time in August. It causes traffic slowdowns in adjacent streets not geared for heavy traffic diverted there, of which mine, which brings its lot of honking impatient drivers.

I strolled the street on Friday. Not to buy anything from the outside stands, but for other stuff I needed. Among which a plastic version of Michelin World map number 902. I had a paper version bought years ago and installed on a wall. It was used as a background for weird Christmas trees and the likes, and it was full of pushpin holes, not to mention that being the folded pocket paper version, it was full of said folds, even after decades. Considering the recent repainting of the walls, old map was elected for a trip in folded-for-a-long-time territory, and a brand new plasticized map was to be bought, which is now done. Remains only to put it on the wall where the other one was. [update: done tonight, Sunday, with the help of Friend].

Swiss glitz

The annual fireworks competition started last Saturday. I missed it first because I wasn't aware of it. This Saturday, I promised myself to correct the situation. Of course, as usual, I did everything too late including my supper (which in fact was too early by my standards but too late in the fireworks one), so I ended up finally leaving home at 21h15, barely giving me time to get there before they started, at 22h00. It was way too late for using a BIXI (first finding one, second finding a parking slot for it once there) so I either had to use my own bike which I haven't used in months, or scrap the idea of going all together. The country was Switzerland and for some obscure reason I thought it might not be worth it.

That would have been a huge mistake. When you have been attending a fireworks competition for 25 years and they still manage to surprise you, I mean hey! Their half-hour was themed on motorized aviation. From one of the firm's co-owners: «We revisit the history of aviation, from propeller twin-engines to space rockets, passing by the Second World War and the jet planes from the film Top Gun. [..]. So as to help the public follow the historical evolution of the show, it will be accompanied by music from the soundtracks of many popular films, of which Top Gun and Apollo 13. [note: the founder of this relatively new firm (2004) has a formation in jewelry] Surprisingly, jewelry is not that far away from pyrotechnics. The big difference lies with jewels lasting a long time, while fireworks are ephemeral. I like the idea that people only remember the 'tableaux' they have liked. They become jewels in the mind»

What he last said is so right, I couldn't have said it better myself. The fireworks are lit on the north side of Lac des Dauphins, a small lake on St-Hélène island, with paying public and La Ronde amusement park on the other side of the lake, with the island itself set in the middle of the St-Laurent river. With the Jacques-Bridge just above, closed and all lined up with spectators, and the thousands of others on both shores, it's a dream setting. At one point in the show, they seemed to be in between numbers or something, nothing was apparently happening, at least for all those who were not there on the site, but we were hearing music. Slowly some started to see a very small green light that seemed to hover back and forth and up and down over the lake like a flying saucer (I first thought it was a laser), and some spectators who had seen it were pointing at it and others started to see it too and soon everyone was watching that little unidentified flying object, literally. Slowly, it became a teensy bit brighter and started to alternate between emitting a green and a red light. After more than a minute, it started to have a small tail of sparks like on a comet and it continued its hovering for another minute or two, and eventually it started to blast, one at a time, single balls of multicolored light before eventually, all hell broke loose. I don't know how long it lasted, three or four minutes I'd say, but what I do know is that I had never seen anything like this before. I mean, when you know the scale of this urban setting, having maybe 100,000 people glued on watching that little thingie waltzing around for minutes was really something else. In another set, we started the hear the astronauts of Apollo 13 talking to Ground Control just prior to take-off, and then bright yellow (flame colored, really) fireworks started to spurt from the ground, then narrowing while at the same time becoming much higher and of an incredible fiery brightness, ending up in simulating the famous column of fire we have all seen gushing out of a Saturn rocket after take-off. In another tableau, it was that famous scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind when they try to communicate with Aliens through the use of musical tones and matching boxes of light. The boxes were ground-level puffs of fireworks of different colors, each one's height corresponding to the tone (low to high), all puffing in perfect synchonicity with the tones in the music. And the grand finale, although it had as much fireworks launched at the same time as the other contestants who, for some of them which that I won't name, just seem to pile up their unused yearly supply of anything and just throw a match in it, had all the finesse and intricacy of a fine Swiss watch. Truly a great show. Frequent applauses by spectators also don't lie.

As the guy said, little jewels that stay in the mind. Only downside, if it's really one, and this explaining that, could be the lack of emotion. Like most of the movies it referred to, this type of show is more about awe than soul. It's fantastic to watch, but what remains is not some general state of feeling good, but rather little moments of awe, which he calls jewels. I'm all for jewels, but I also appreciate more seeing them nested in their velvet lined cases.

Bring your vitamins

Yesterday afternoon was the yearly Carifiesta (Caribbean Fiesta) parade on boulevard René-Lévesque. Yesterday was day 3 of the 11 day Montréal Complètement Cirque international circus festival, with free outside shows spead over the city, the main one being at Place Emilie-Gamelin near the Berri-UQAM metro and the Gay Village. Speaking of the Village, I saw last night that the Montréal En Arts festival gave way to two Memorama high wooden booths installed smack in the street, for those who want to touch their balls, maybe. I'm talking of those pink ones hanging over the street. What were you thinking, you perverts! While the Swiss were launching their fireworks, another type of fireworks was lit up by the third major outside event and closing show of the Montreal Jazz Festival (total attendance: 2 million) and the group was Montreal's Chromeo, an electropunk group duo formed in 2004 by two French-speaking guys who sing in English, one Arab (Lebanese-born Patrick Gemayel) and the other a Jew (David Macklovitch who also happens to hold or is about to hold a Doctor's degree in French literature from Columbia University, if Wiki is right). These guys are pretty much Montreal all right. In this video (of theirs) they say 'en français' that everywhere else they say they are from Montreal so in Montreal they can say they are from here. I of course didn't know them. I'm 62 and listened to Georges Brassens and Serge Reggiani when I was their age so I have an excuse. There's also the month-long Zoofest Festival of which I don't know much except it's some kind of eclectic humor festival presented in sixteen different venues, more far out (kinky?) of what I can see than the Juste pour rire/Just for Laughs festival slated for later this month. With all this and the street sales and the other festivals I didn't mention and all those coming up, one has to be built strong to live in this city. Or liking to stay home.

Yesterday in the news, there was this clip of an elated New York middle aged couple being interviewed in the afternoon on the Jazz Festival premises and they were saying that "you could never walk around with a beer in a New York festival". I was surprised. Sometimes it takes a stranger to make you realize that what you take for granted is not necessarily the case everywhere. Makes you appreciate it even more.

Hot and hotter

We're been in a heat wave for some time now. It was worse a few days ago. But ours is nothing compared to what they are having in the American midwest and most of the eastern part of that country.

International tidbits

Some things I garnered here and there in the Courrier International with their accompanying caption (retranslated by me to English when applicable) :

[Mixed up] Csanád Szegedi is an extreme-right Hungarian Euro-MP known for his anti-semitism. He just learned that he himself has Jewish origins. «I don't say that I wasn't surprised» adding that it will take him «a certain time to digest the news» (picked up from Barikád in Budapest). Personally I wouldn't tear my shirt in shock if it would take him a very long time to digest and that in between he would have frequent urges to rush to the toilet.

[Affirmative] Anderson Cooper: «The fact is that I am gay, that I have always been and will always be, and that I am all there is to be happy about, comfortable with myself, and proud» (picked up from The Daily Beast, New York). Anderson Cooper gay? Whodda thought!

[Envious]Jordan Golson, sales clerk in a Salem (New Hamshire) Apple store: «When you see the company's profits and you see your paycheck at the end of the month , it hurts a little» (picked up from the New York Times). I've already mentioned what I think of Apple Inc.

[Boosted] Mikhaïl Khvostov, permanent representative of Bielorussia at the Office of the United Nations in Geneva: «Bielorussia is a democratic country. The state of democracy is, under many aspects, much better in our country than in the other European countries» (picked up from Charter97, Minsk). Yeah, that's what we heard.

Da food section

Thursday: Yeah, I had some extra salmon cubes I had planned to find a way to make brochettes with. Done deed. I found this ridiculously easy recipe on the Net which is so simple to make that finding out how it can be that simple is harder than finding a bosonic god particle in a high speed collider. I'll put you in the secret: marinate fish and vegetables in lemon juice, salt, fresh herbs and paprika. Baste with olive oil at cooking time. That's it. I had put ¼ teaspoon (1,25 ml) of paprika in the marinade (just enough for the quantity of fish I had), plus sprinkled some more before basting the brochettes with oil. Next time, more paprika in the marinade. I added soy sauce to a part of the rice. It was good, but just as good without. Just a variation on a same theme. By the way (this is for Biggles) although it's dark outside usually when I eat, it is not that dark on the table nor on the balcony which is lighted with a ceiling lamp on the bottom of upstairs balcony. I think that my camera detects that rail lamp and darkens the rest of the picture with its automatic thingies.

I am a blue freak. Blue cheese that is. For no particular reason other than it appealed to me and that I didn't know it and wanted to try it, I bought a point of La Roche Noire blue cheese at Capitol's at Marché Jean-Talon. I still had a little place to fill after the brochettes (or maybe I'm just a slut), so I had some of it as a meal ender. What a fantastic cheese! Exactly as they say on their site: «A firm cheese that will melt in your mouth and delight you with its creamy texture. With delicate blue veins of Penicillium roqueforti, it offers a unique and savoury flavour. This scrumptiously strong blue will win the heart of anyone who enjoys cheeses with character.» And it's a raw milk cheese, which explains a lot the above. We have around 300 different cheeses here in Québec and a lot of them are to die for. Taking a day off each week, it would take a year to taste them all, a new one each day.

Friday: some leftovers (the cactus salad, the radishes, the Lebanese cucumber) accompanying that same (well not exactly the same one, one similar) prosciutto and vegetable quiche like the one I had last week. That Spanish wine, Agarena, is surprisingly good for a rather inexpensive wine at 9$ (by Québec's prices). I first bought a tempranillo wine when travelling in Spain, near Saragosa. Fruity but sturdy. I was hooked. This one is mixed with cabernet-sauvignon grapes, a nice marriage.

Saturday: quick meal for someone rushing to not miss the fireworks. Once again, leftovers. Leftover of ham, leftover of a pack of maltagliati egg pasta and leftover of Agarena wine. The garlic, the parsley, the bread, the butter and the olive oil were not leftovers. Those pasta are quite thin, about 1mm. You can almost see through them. And they cook in a jiffy, 2 to 3 minutes which in the circumstances was really appreciated. There are two cloves of chopped garlic in there. If going on a date, try something else, unless both have eaten the same. Garlic is antiseptic. It shuns away germs. Even two-legged ones at times. For remembrance, 'maltagliati' which translates by 'mal taillés' in French, means 'not well cut'. They are lasagna-like pasta but cut in small irregular shapes.

Today, mid-day: This is totally disgusting. I mean, everyone knows that the espresso coffee cup should be on the right side of the placemat, not on the left side. Talk of bad table manners! I did change it after the pic was taken, to my discharge.

It is a makeshift strawberry shortcake made with fresh Québec strawberries and home-whipped heavy cream (35%). They have those yellowish cakes which they sell by the square at the latino grocery store and which contain either peaches or apricots, I'm not sure, but are perfect to use when one can't make himself the real homemade shortcake cake needed to make strawberry shortcakes. I understand myself. Besides I'd have to ask my mother how to make that cake because right off the bat, I wouldn't know the exact recipe. Anyways, that shortcake is also disgusting..... ly good!

Finally, this evening: Mussels with white wine, tomatoes, a bouquet garni and half a ton of garlic. And fries cooked in duck fat. Friend came for supper which explains the wine glass on the left side. He is left-handed. He also puts butter on his bread, something I never do since my first trip to Europe many, many years ago, and where (in France at least) I never saw any butter on the table in restaurants anywhere. The wine used for both the recipe and served at the table is a Léon Beyer Alsace Riesling. Good stuff.

I mentioned to Friend my little adventure with the shrimps turned salmon. When I told him how expensive the shrimps were, he had the kind attention to make me realize I had made a total fool of myself. I erroneously estimated that at 26$ a kilo, the shrimps were selling at the equivalent of 50 some dollars a pound. Looks like my internal conversion gizmo badly needs replacement since in fact it was more like less than half of 26$ for a pound, or roughly 12$. There's 2,2 pounds in a kilo, not 2,2 kilos in a pound. Silly (dyslexic?) me. And maybe not. This just heightens my belief that this imperial measurement system is the dumbest system on earth. Since we moved to the International System of Measurement (called by some the 'metric system') in the late sixties, I try the best I can to only think with this new system and I curse the day I was born in that other idiotic one and left lingering in it for some twenty years before finally accessing a logical system. However, the damage was done, and among the population, there is still a lot of resistance and this is generated a lot by being neighbors to the only country in the world which still measures distances by referring to the length of the foot of someone who died centuries ago and maybe even may never have existed. Being the mightiest country on earth does not preclude being the most retarded on some aspects. What I find the most stupid, on a societal point of view, is that kids are only thought the metric system at school (I'm talking of Québec, elsewhere in Canada I presume it's the same) and have to learn the idiotic system on top of that afterwards because some of their dumbfuck parents lost their key giving access to evolution.

I realized all the stupidity of the Imperial system when I started to measure the areas I wanted to paint in my apartment, trying to add all the bits of walls and ceilings to find out how many square feet they represented, and thus how much paint I needed. Tell me, quick, how much square feet there are in four areas measuring respectively 10 feet 4 inches by 18 feet 3 inches, 3 feet 2 inches by 17 inches, 18 feet 3 inches by 8 feet, six inches by 6 feet. Now try the same with measures in centimeters or meters converted to centimeters (that's a hard one - like how many cents in a dollar? Yup, 100. Same for meters. There's 100 centimeters in a meter). So if your wall is 6,4 meters long or 6 meters 40 centimeters, it's also by magic 640 centimeters. If you learned how to count up to ten and you know the 0 was invented by the Arabs, you're in business. If you measure everything in centimeters, using the same basic formulas (length by width) for each, add them up and then divide by 10,000, what do you get? Gee, square meters. Time of calculation: seconds. Margin of error: none. Frankly it just boggles the mind that some still insist on using the Imperial system. It's either lazyness or stupidity. I go for the first. Lazyness comes easy to the powerful sitting on their power. Same for the weather. I don't remember at all what 84F feels like, and I don't want to be reminded how it felt. I know that if I reach 100C inside I'm going to vaporize and that's good enough for me. Just as I do know that at +1 water is liquid and at -1 it's frozen. I don't remember how cold 0˚F is and what it means (in fact sweet fuckall besides being 32 less than 32) so that one also can stay forever in the dump of my life's garbage.

[Add-on:] I wrote the above late last night and was very tired. I realize I forgot to mention that I don't really care personally what system people use elsewhere, why should I? (I don't understand, but that's something else). After all, it's THEIR business. What angries me is when it messes with MY own life. Examples abound, a dime a dozen. Each a little hassle, but added together they become highly irritant. Like Canadian Tire, a large automotive/general store chain where I bought home-brand spare oil for my car in one litre plastic containers. One day, no more one litre. They suddenly had become 946 ml. What the heck is 946 ml? Well it's an American quart, which is not even the old Canadian quart because a US gallon and an Imperial gallon are not the same, though each contain four quarts. Why all this? Because Canadian Tire was formerly owned by Canadians and now it is owned by American interests (wholly or partially, I don't know and don't care) and they import from the States alreadly packaged oil in of course American sized containers. All they do is stamp another label on it and voilà. On the other hand another company, Castrol, sells in Canada oil packaged in the U.S. and in 1 litre formats. Why they can and the others not? Search me. My take goes for 'profit margin'. Castrol is more expensive but I'm the kind of person to not mind paying more rather than being laughed at by foreigners. Besides, Castrol is better oil to start with so maybe the price differential is not even worth mentioning. This is just one example that can be repeated again and again. Then there's the mental block in English Canada. The "weather" part of the system was implemented the first, in the late sixties. In Québec, it became Celsius and that's that. In English Canada, it took them thirty frickin' years to finally stop always giving both C and F degrees. It's pretty much the same with the other components of the system. But even in Québec, some forces of darkness (in my book) are working hard to stay in the dark. There's a reason for this. In the mid-eighties, a Conservative government was elected in Ottawa and under pressure from English Canada, they started to be laxed about using both the old and the new system, you know, not to bully people and other bullshit reasons like that. It is now to a point that some weeks ago, I went to a fish store at marché Jean-Talon where I bought a fillet not asking how it weighed. When I got at the cash, I realized the label was in pounds only. This is totally illegal in Canada but just try to make a complaint, with the current dinosaur Conservative government... In supermarkets, you have to wear glasses to see the price in kilos (the only official measure I remind) while the price in pounds can be ten times larger. It was not like that before. It slowly came about because the goverment lets do. So I have to fight and argue to be served in the official measure of my own country, and it irritates me one hell of a lot. When you change such a system, you cannot let the old and the new cohabitate. Ask the French when they started using the new Franc. It took decades and decades before people stopped talking in "ancien francs". It's obvious like a zit in the face that changes in mentality only comes when forced to. If the old system is still used, there's no incentive to do so. The first to blame is the Canadian government (the Conservatives essentially) who still today present the metric system as some kind of commie plot forced down their throats by Quebec, purposely ignoring that the metric system is the official system worldwide except in a neighboring place which they asslick like there's no tomorrow. And what pisses me off grand is that I, as a citizen, did the required efforts, and it was not easy and still isn't, while those who sat on their asses got and, more and more, get away with it. And if it still isn't easy, it's that I am confronted in my daily life with constant reminders of the old system, which I used for twenty years, and worse, my twenty first ones, which makes it even harder. I have and always had a huge problem with the cromagnon type of people. And what does all this tell young people? That what they are taught in school is bullshit. And then they wonder why they hit the streets with red squares on their tits.

Tour de l'horloge - Clock Tower - 2012.07.01

All this for that?

Downstairs neighbors left a few days ago and won't be back until Monday. Upstairs neighbors left today for about ten days. So for three of four days I'm all alone in the building. They have asked and I agreed to mind a few things for them. So, this is what living almost sixty-two years is all about: ending up feeding plants and a shrimp.

Da food section

Today's topic: Using capers.

I didn't know what to do for supper last evening but I had a leftover of that pink sauce I had used with tortellinis so I went on the net looking for ideas by searching for images of said sauce. Popped up this one which had shrimps and mushrooms in it. What a good idea this guy thought to himself, easy to make, just what I needed. What I also needed were shrimps. I don't really care for those large shrimps which come from some land of the Thais or whatever place above Australia. As per "gusto fino" goes, nothing beats those small nordic shrimps from the Gulf of St-Lawrence. By gusto fino, I mean it's a delicate taste but which marries well with commercial seafood cocktail sauces (Heinz preferably), in small quantities.

So off I went to the other supermarket close to my pad, this one larger than the corner one near the metro which incidentally is from a chain called Metro but which has nothing to do with the underground metro except this particular one is located right on top of a metro station. Still following me? Good. So that other supermarket had some nordic shrimps left, shelled and prepackaged in small portions of about 200 grams. It was too late in the day to get a specific quantity, the whatever-they-are-called-butchers-for-fish having closed shop and gone to whatever festival was their fancy of the day. Unfortunately, those shrimps were selling for over 26$ a kilo. For a pound that amounts to about 55$. Now, I have lived 10 years in Sept-Iles where we went on the wharf in summer to eat freshly-bought nordic shrimps in the shell and which we paid 5$ a pound, or roughly 2,25$ a kilo. I understand there has been inflation, I understand that there is labor involved in shelling them, I understand they had to be brought to Montreal, but I also understand that I'm no candidate for exploitation, by principle and whatever the size of the package, so the shrimps were thrown out of the shopping list, leaving only on it a 500ml jar of Grey-Poupon white wine Dijon mustard which had nothing to do with my recipe but of which my current jar was dangerously nearing its armageddon. Still following me? Good.

However, next to the shrimps, they had small packages of Atlantic salmon cut in cubes of about 2 cm, around an inch, or a finger as it is called in French (pouce). About ten cubes per pack. That was more than I needed (about five to be cut in half for my recipe which suddenly took a whole new career ) but I thought that maybe I could resort again to the Net and find some easy to do salmon brochette recipe for the following day with the remaining ones. So salmon cubes and Grey-Poupon which they had (not available everywhere, like the Maille is) landed in front of the cashier who let me go with them because I gave her money in exchange. These people really think only about business.

On my way there, and back, I heard some caserolers, not many. They should do like everybody else and take a break. Summer here is so short, it is generally understood by most that it's a period of truce, especially as per political matters go.

On my way back only, it occured to me that capers go well with salmon, if my memory serves me well. I did have capers in the fridge. And then it also occured to me that I have basil growing in my own yard, which is not really a yard, it's a balcony, but let's not make a big fuss about this and settle on the concept that I had fresh basil leaves available on hand and what better addition to a recipe of linguine in a salmon, capers and mushrooms pink sauce than pieces of colorful and oh so aromatic basil leaves. Tadam, a new recipe was born.

I mentioned elsewhere that I am a sauce man. That is not necessarily a quality. It means that I put more sauce than needed at times, and every pasta aficionado knows that pasta must not drown in its own sauce. But I had about 250 ml of the sauce left, and with the other stuff, it became like a little too much for the amount of linguine. I also had forgotten a little addition I had put in that sauce which went well with the tortellinis but not so well with the salmon: the serrano chili. It kind of overwhelmed the salmon. I did the cooking and mixing outside in my er... summer kitchen. Ideally I should have added the sauce to the pan-fried salmon/mushrooms until correct consistency (there would have been less pink sauce) but it would have implied too many pots and pans so I just threw them in the pink sauce instead, and that's that.

Still following me? Well that's a shame, because you won't be able to taste any of that kinky dish stemming out of my twisted mind because there is simply none left. I can't say the same of the second bottle of Mouton-Cadet Bordeaux rosé which I'm getting terribly anxious to finish so I can finally move on to something else. Like another type of rosé.

The end product.

The manufacturing facilities.

Wal who?

I just saw an ad for Walmart on tv. I was sure it was spelled Wal-Mart, with an hyphen. I probably thought this because a) I don't shop at Walmart and stay clear of their stores and b) there was this satire here a few years ago where they called it Wal-Marde (Wal-Shit), with the hyphen. That satire spurred from them closing a store that wanted to unionize, in Jonquière. I checked the pic I had posted at the time and the company ran under the name Wal-Mart, in fact it would rather be Wal*Mart but on the employees' costumes it was an hyphen. It changed in 2008 according to Wikipedia. So many important things happen on this planet and they just pass under the radar for some reason.

Défilé Fête nationale - 2012.06.24

Above

At the end of the parade, they parked the "giants" that were part of it at the same place at the corner of Pie IX and Sherbrooke, near the olympic stadium, pending I don't know what. Last year I had seen them all lined up at Parc Maisonneuve. Or was it the year before? Anyways we see about half of them in the pic. Some are more giant than others, again for reasons I don't have a clue about. Each year they add two or three new ones. These giants are of course a custom directly imported from Europe, a few years ago.

July 4

News tidbits

Read on the Huffington Post - Québec: Gotye is not dead as CNN had reported. As far as I'm concerned he's not even born yet since I don't have a clue who that guy is.

Nicolas Sarkozy is here with family for a few weeks of vacations in a cottage in Morin Heights, a little north of Montreal, invited by his long time friend media mogul Paul Desmarais. It came in handy since just after he left France his home and new office were the object of a police search related to the L'Oréal and Liliane Bettencourt scandal. Apparently he is accompanied by 10 bodyguards. Québec's raccoons can be ferocious. A former prez can never be too cautious.

Al-Jazeera contends that Yasser Arafat died of polonium poisoning, after analysis of personal belongings. His sudden illness and death remained a mystery for the 50some doctors who minded him before he died. Some Palestinians have accused Israel of having poisoned him. We will only know for sure if they exhume his body for further analysis. I happen to think, based on a history of former Mossad interventions, that the Israeli connection is anything but to be discounted. So I hope they do get to check out his remains, so as to get that nasty thought out of my mind.

Da food section

Nothing to wake the king for.

Monday: Chicken with fresh terragon, in a creamy sauce with mushrooms. A new try. A little bland, tastewise and colorwise. Maybe need LOTS of terragon, and more pepper, and... god knows what. I planted some terragon this year but it's in a flowerbed on my balcony, in between a plant of basil and one of mint. It doesn't seem to grow fast so I'll try the recipe again later on in the summer after the plant grows more and can spare a bunch of leaves. For now, this dish is on hold until further evaluation. Could suffer some kind of accompanying stuff. Carrots maybe?

[Add-on: the terragon is in the sauce, the green stuff on the rice is chopped Italian (flat) parlsley.]

[Additional add-on: Fauquet just commented that maybe it should be "tarragon" and not "terragon" and by jove, he is absolutely right! In French it's estragon]

Tuesday: Chipolata sausages with cactus salad, egg pastas and a dallop of Dijon mustard. I though they were Italian and spelled cipolata, but apprently they are French and spelled with an "h". I had this idea because it's in an Italian butcher shop that I find/found them. The cactus (nopales) are supposed to be Mexican but could well come from southern United States, same as the cilantro that's also in the salad. You can't be sure of anything these days. It's not really important since it's Mexican workers who pick them up anyways. For the time they last, that is, considering those new laws they voted in Arizona and other states.