Making myself useful

For the locals among you, I’ve posted information about the continuing downtown shutdown over at Metroblogging Montreal.  Be sure to check back periodically for updates.

Also, if anyone feels inspired to add their two cents to my rant about the situation, please feel free.

Grrr

In its ongoing campaign to make this city suck, the City of Montreal has clamped down on the Mile End Cultural Centre for having the wrong permit, which is bureaucratese for being too noisy.  You’ll find my freshly-posted rant on the subject over at Metroblogging Montreal.

Incidentally, if you’ve ever wondered what my dissertation is actually about, you may consider this a clue.

On the Metroblog

As some of you know, there’s been quite a bit of grousing over on Metroblogging Montreal about the upcoming transit strike, which is slated to begin on Tuesday.  Being a pragmatist as well as a union supporter, I’ve put together a list of strike survival strategies that you may find useful: to peruse them, click here. 

Oh, and for anyone who’s thinking about leaving a petulant comment about the inconvenience the strike will cause them, I have not one but two medical appointments to get to on Tuesday and I still think that maintenance workers deserve a living wage, so don’t bother.

On the Metroblog

I’ve been uncharacteristically quiet about the upcoming Quebec election–that is, until now.  In lieu of a rant of my own, I’ve decided to ask the readers of Metroblogging Montreal about the rural/urban divide that has come to define the campaign, and I hope that some of you will join in the fray. 

In the meantime, have a look at the Montreal Gazette article that inspired the post, and, if you can stomach it, the highlights of the ADQ’s political program.

More, I suspect, soon…

On the Metroblog

Today’s word of the day.

Oh, and scroll down if you like the Arcade Fire.

Last stop ’til winter

Originally posted to Metroblogging Montreal, Oct. 5, 2005.

It was an incongruous day. I emerged from my apartment to find the staircase covered in dry, yellow leaves, yet the temperature stood at nearly thirty degrees. As I ran the day’s errands I felt impossibly sad, knowing that this is well and truly the last gasp of summer. There is no turning back now.

It is, as every Montrealer knows, harder to be alone in winter. The whole city retreats indoors, leaving the streets and parks to the snow. Warmth becomes a precious substance, one that is forever leaking out through the cracks in things, which are, suddenly, everywhere. Baseboard heaters struggle audibly, clicking and clanking without discernible effect. On certain days, even the Café is too cold to bear.

In winter, the smallest gestures of physical intimacy are survival techniques: the feet that share warmth under a blanket, the torsos that draw closer in sleep. As the warmest part of the body, the belly is transformed into a fetish object beneath its scratchy layers of wool. Extremities don’t stand a chance.

In sex, we become as modest as Victorians, finding our passions only under a mountain of bedclothes. If we are clever, we arrange ourselves in such a way as to create a hothouse, which recycles the heat of our breath until orgasm or oxygen depletion overcomes. There is simply no other way, as bodily fluids will freeze upon contact with air.

In the absence of sex, a Montreal bed is as cold as a grave. There is no love in this city in winter, only the will to live.

These are the thoughts that were with me today, until I met K. on our favourite terrasse. Defiantly, I drank a glass of sangria, which tasted as sweet to me as honey.

On the Metroblog

Over at the Metroblog, we’ve received orders from head office to expound on our city’s greatest gifts to the world. Feeling mischievous, I decided that my contribution would focus on Montreal’s penchant for drinking, which is, incidentally, how Arit and I whiled away the hours during yesterday’s ice storm. Providing that your power has been restored, you can find the piece here.

I don’t like Mondays

This morning, I read that half of all Canadians fear that they are only one paycheque away from poverty.

This afternoon, I witnessed an altercation between a street kid and the jaywalking police.

This evening, I learned that the Quebec Superior Court will not suspend the smoking ban.

I can’t wait to see what Tuesday will bring.