Quebec تحيا

Vive le Quebec, middle eastern church basement style!

My anticlimactic Saint-Jean post does warrant an update!  Guided by La fête nationale du Québec website (which doesn’t exist in English…?), I found some “celebrations” in our “neighbourhood”.  We like live music and seeing ways people live in this city, so we decided to check out Parc Lahaie, a street corner park with a musical line-up including Fouad Yalaoui, Arezki Grim, and Imane…  The names should’ve been a tip-off.  Sure enough the park was rained out and a crude, hand-drawn sign directed us into a huge church basement hall packed with middle eastern families watching some girls in traditional costumes shimmy to an over-pumped sound system.  Looking for flags to get a hint of their nationality,  fleur-de-lys were the only thing in sight.  Awesome.  This is Quebec!

Apparently there are 100 000 Arabs living in Montreal and I just discovered an Arab World Festival of Montreal, where a troupe called je me souviens 2.0 mixes traditional Quebecois Gigue with the Arabic folk dance, Dabke.  Dear whoever, here is your ethnomusicology thesis. 

We ended up eating Une Crepe and hanging out in a grown-up blanket fort in our friend’s living room… with flamingo lights and jumbo bottles of Blanche de Chambly.

So it turned out that my Saint-Jean-Baptiste was full of surprise Quebec goodness.

La Saint-Jean: C’est quoi ça??

This day has obtained a legendary status in my mind, and what am I doing?  Putting out little cups and precariously balanced glasses to capture rain leaks off the window sills.  Happy Fête nationale!

This day is supposed to be full of epic displays of Quebec nationalism: drunken roudiness? fleur-de-lys costumes? Canadian flag burning?  And here I am in Montreal this time, to witness it all!…

Some things I’ve learned about La Saint-Jean (from staying inside on a rainy day):

1) Though popularly referred to as La Saint-Jean-Baptiste, the celebration day has been completely secularized (of course).  Political ideals of separatism replaced religious ones, each in turn becoming more inclusive and less controversial.
2) The tradition of lighting bonfires on this day is linked to pre-Christian Midsummer solstice celebrations.
3) Early Canadiens just copied St. Patrick’s day.
3) The predecessor to the current Quebec flag had a  bleeding heart in the middle of it!

Pretty sure the Plains of Abraham is the place to be.  I’ll let you know if I go out later…

Testostero-idiots

What I was thinking:

You don’t even vote, and yet you flip and burn cars and beat people and suffer tear gas for nothing (aka. a hockey game).  Are there really so many of you out there that are so angry that your favourite game can make you explode with violent rage?  Isn’t there somewhere more meaningful this energy could be channeled?  I’m sure anticapitalists and anarchists would welcome your skills.  But this way you’re just a pile of useless testostero-idiots.  And the damage was way worse than the G20, but the arrests were far fewer…  Everyone just go get a hug.

I still think most of that, but this (excellent) article adds at the end that hockey is not apolitical.  It’s also just a smart summary.

YouBanana

Yesterday I learned how to use a banana clip thanks to this YouTube video.

Thanks (semi)random YouTube person half my age who wasn’t even born yet when banana clips weren’t ironic.

There you go, folks.  For everyone who lacked the social unit to meet certain educational needs, there’s always YouTube.  YouTube can be your mommy – the collective cyber mommy that can teach you anything you need to know in the most anonymous and nonthreatening way.

PS> I personally never lacked a nonthreatening mommy, FYI. 

Unlikely Bedfellows: a comparitive concert experience

Although this past weekend was full of epic beats and massive light shows at Mutek, I’m actually going to mention two events that happened on a weekend in early May.

First, the St. Lawrence Choir put on a collaborative concert with a junior choir and orchestra, performing the world premiere of a sizeable saga called La Terra Promessa, detailing the evolutionist rise of human life.  The night after, at Usine C, I saw two artists as part of the Elektra 12 digital culture festival, Kangding Ray and Frank Bretschneider.  I enjoy the fact that I experienced these events so close together and I find their similarities entertaining.

Both had a stage and an audience.  Both – dimmed lights, both – performers in black, both – very minimally participatory.  Both contemporary and aligned with industrial high culture, expecting individual contemplation.  Both highly structured.  Both relatively expensive.  Both commanded by one central conductor (a man).  Both long.

And both full of shit that was at least at times very uncomfortable to listen to! 

Then we went to Mutek.  And it was a different kind of pARTy.

Clavisphere

Saw a concert tonight.  It was a date!  Believe me, a date is a precious thing during final exam time.

Veggie spinach lasagna and warmed vegan chocolate cake and Lola Rosa first.  Studenty, mid-priced, solid veg essentials on the menu that were pretty tasty.  Great.  Packed with hipster kids that I should be teaching…

Then Clavisphere.  Piano, percussion, and electronics recital at McGill.  Lots of contemporary blinky-blonky-clank and bwaaaang-tweedly-weedly-bwaaaaah that made us miss melody and rhythm… and meaning.  No matter how much you write about ‘pianistic gesture’, ‘sonic kinespheres’, ‘non-sound objects’, and ‘sonic identity’, it doesn’t make ‘the music itself’ more meaningful to listen to (or does it?).  In any case, there was still also some magic.

Like a concert by pianos alone…  !!  Double take – yep, the keys are moving on their own, two concert grands with not a single human on ‘set’.  Ghostly unreal at first, but gradually took on a surprising organicism.  Of course it wasn’t an actual ‘song’, but little piano animal talk.  It was like watching something uniquely intimate, like witnessing the secret life of pianos in their natural environment.  Watching the keys press and release was like watching the gills of a fish, or something else alive just doing it’s thing.  Then you remind yourself that player pianos are completely old news, and you feel a little silly for your bewilderment. 

Also a zapped up version of Rameau harpsichord that reveals this weirdly appropriate sound connection between that buzzy instrument and some typical electronic effects.  I liked this one too because it still gives you something to hang on to – the familiar Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin – but well-warped.  Maybe I just like that the annoying harpsichord is messed up. 

Finally, a gigantic piece using antique radios, Glenn Gould style contrapuntal interviews, and a story!! to rescue a bunch of blinky-blonky piano smash interludes from their misery.  The point (there was a point!) was that the eventual silence of the radios, which have been background buzz/talk all the way through, represents the death of the storyteller’s mother.  The silence was effectively endowed with a sense of both horror and relief, by far the most complex emotional response all night.

Awesome space.  Awesome date.

GloSpot Swap Shop

This weekend I threw a clothing swap party.  If you’ve never heard of one before and you’re wondering what it is, use your brain: it’s a party… where you swap… clothes.  Apparently the thought of wearing someone else’s second hand clothing was too unfathomable for some to figure out.  But who better to get hand-me-downs from than your own friends??

This is a great idea, and it’s not so much about being cheap.  It’s about reusing instead of consuming, socializing, dressing up (and down…) with friends, and avoiding mainstream shopping.

A google search will get you lots of ‘tips’ on how to host a clothing swap.  Most sites get a little too Martha Stewart for me, so here are some of my counter-tips:

1) INVITE BOYS TOO.  There is no reason that clothing swaps should only be for girls.  Break down the barriers. 
2) The clothes do not have to be displayed nicely.  Make a pile and dig.
3) Disputes over items are not likely to happen.  It usually just fits one person better.
4) You don’t need to serve pink drinks.

A friend once said that you know you’re really friends with someone once you’ve borrowed their clothes.  Clothing swap = friend-maker.    And if you’re lucky it will lead to a lengthy conversation about politics and a spring stroll for Chinese takeout, haha!

Pilot Impression

What I learned on my ‘day off’ of work (besides that drop-in medical clinics in Montreal have a 4-hour wait-time), is that TV pilot episodes like to broach as many taboo subjects as possible.  They say, with painfully shallow brevity, “THIS (*gasp!*) is what we’re going to deal with.  And it will be SEXY.”  But it’s all so real, so it’s great and liberating for viewers.  (Is there an emoticon that indicates sarcasm??).

I don’t really watch TV, so I was just dazedly and digitally summoning up first-ever episodes of whatever TV shows I’d heard of most, in between nose blows.  After watching the very first episode of a variety of popular shows, none of them made me want to give any of them a second shot.

They know you won’t really get the point in the first show, so they just throw in lots of stereotypes and boobs and other ‘irresistable’ stuff, especially simplistic and predictable reference to taboo subjects like drugs, teenage sex, homosexuality, and apparently soccer moms.  This is the problem with trying to say what something’s ‘about’ as quickly and attractively as possible.

I’m sure (am I?) that these shows get better as the season goes on.  The characters and stories gain subtlety and meaning when they’re not so pressed to impress. …And the shows might take a step up once the pilot has achieved its purpose in somehow justifying the expense (aka. funding) of future episodes.  We’ll see what I watch again.

Battle of the (Muppet) Bands

If you’re ever looking for a way to make your life flash before your eyes, get a 9 year-old…

They just might teach you how to waste your life on YouTube even better than you already could.  Ha!

Just kidding.  Having a friend and her kiddo visit us from Toronto for the week, I did learn an unfortunate number of current pop radio lyrics, had to use Cotton Eyed Joe as an alarm clock, and sacrificed my laptop for hours of digital paper-doll dress-up.  But I also got to participate in a doggy pile every night before bed, had advice on what to wear, and got to send scouts to check out some Montreal tourist goodies.

It’s kids’ internet goodies that I’m going to share with you now, also unexpectedly inspired by this ‘favourite band‘ blog post by my histori-cool, smarty-pants PhD student friend.  The first clip contains a kick-ass appearance by Dr.Teeth and the Electric Mayhem – wait for it, it will rock your puppet pants off.  Then I added another classic display of muppet musical ‘gifts’…

Jim Henson = genius.
Muppets = FUNNY.

PS> I also have no idea what my favourite band is.    And I enjoyed having that 9 year-old (and her-mama-my-friend) as part of my little family for a week.  Thanks for pancakes before work.  *hearts*

Catch-Up Notes

What??!?  I blink and a month goes by.*

Fun

• Had a Rock Band marathon with an ‘expert’ from the east coast!
• Dreamt that it was 4:15 and my partner wasn’t home yet.  Then woke up and it was 4:30 and he wasn’t home yet.
• Laika is so hot.  I dig it.
• My Oma turned 75.
• Found out the medical library at work will also let me drink coffee!!  YES!!
• Lovely bonding time with educated arts people involved in When We Play (watch for website…)
• Night in Bromont!  PERFECT town and stay.  Spectacular lunch at Bistro Grignote Café, which is closing at the end of March.  Chocolate museum, antiques, churches, ski hill, Brouemont micro-brew pub.  Outdoor hot tub at the Auberge Chateau-Bromont, where we stayed.
• Awesome party at a close friend’s, full of French, new kindred spirits, wicked dance tunes by DJ Forage, and rice paper spring roles.

PS> Not fun: Had cement sinuses for about a week.

Food

• Le Place Milton is cheap and studenty.  Good for brunch.
• Had maple salmon, salade shirazi, eggplant pasta, shrimp soba noodles, portabello burgers, etc. at home.
• Cuisine Bangkok: excellent bang for your pad thai buck.  Great food can come from a food court…
• Chocolate valentine’s fondu.
• Crammed friends into the Antillese, mom-n’-pop, Jesusy caribbean kitchen, Chez Rose (St.Dominique/des Pins).  Then played Pit and ‘The Game of What?’ to the accompaniment of many laughters.
• Burritoville.  Ideal.  Funky, earth + community conscious.  Excellent food that left us full forever.
• Sausage party: taste-tested 20 different sausages that we got raw at La Vieille Europe.  Guinness flavour, maple, herbs de province, spinach, spicy Italian, white wine…
• Got cupcakes, pizza, donuts, TimBits, and chocolates at work.  It’s not even Christmas.

Stuff

• Dans Ta Bulle has really nice, natural body care products that I may buy when I’m a grown-up ($$).
• Bought my bf some long-johns.
• Bought makeup.  Wah??  The kind that isn’t like paint… and costs plenty moneys.

Movies

• Movie: Them! 50′s sci fi A-bomb radiation paranoia hilarity.
• Heavenly Creatures: surprisingly murderous, diary-based story of imaginary escapism and lesbian infatuation.
• La Haine: lots of fast-talkin’ angry homie French, solid hip hop, and good slice-of-life message.

Music

• My choir director needs a hug…
• Loving John Miller Chernoff’s African Rhythm and African Sensibility.
• My rockstar is mixing the recording of his kick-ass, deep, active, layered, awesome band.
• Had a dramatic, funny-faced, angel-voiced guest conductor.
• Quebec’s LaTourelle Orkestra is fun, talented, and on the right track for party awesome.
• Discovered Baths.
• Psyched about how awesome my choir sounds on a recording of our last concert. 
• Now I have my own Radiohead album.  King of Limbs is the first one that’s come out while I was really listening.
• Woke up one weekend to find Ninja Funk sleeping on my living room floor.  Haha, cute, sleepy band boys.
• Volunteered for the Vancouver Chamber Choir concert, with four other local choirs present (Ensemble vocal Cantivo, L’Ensemble vocal Sainte-Anne, Seraphim, and Tactus).  Amazing concert.  Superb talents, all – especially the young, sexy, and painfully vibrant and precise Seraphim, conducted by Amy Henderson.  Thrive!

Work

• I work with someone who has declared that she loves to make crazy people crazier…
• Played Uno one lunchtime with the technologists that I normally never speak to.
• Had a drumming/music chat with a random hospitality employee.  See?  They’re out there somewhere…
• Training a new guy at work.  It feels like I just got there and I’m already helping train someone.

*the videos are not mine