Briques du Neige

How to express "you should" versus "you must" in french

2009-05-27T16:31:00.004-04:00

Learned an awesome and subtle new french tip today.

In english, we say "you should do something" which is a step down in severity from "you have to do something" or "you are supposed to do something".

In french, the verb for those two states is encompassed by "devoir".

You make the distinction with tenses!

For the case where you are suggesting something, you use the conditional tense.

For the case where you are demanding something, you use the present tense.

So the girlfriend of 2 months would say to you "tu devrais te trouver une job".

(you should get a job)

Whereas the girlfriend of two years would say "tu doit te trouver une job!"

(you must get a job!)

[Note: "une job" is not proper french. Worse, I just found out that in Québec it's "une job" and in France it's "un job"!!]

My response to Alberta's $1 billion dollar budget deficit

2009-02-25T09:46:00.003-05:00

EDMONTON and CALGARY -- Alberta, long the envy of the nation with its vast energy resources and overflowing treasury, is about to post a stunning financial setback - an estimated $1-billion deficit, one of the largest budget shortfalls of any province this fiscal year.

Albertans learned for the first time yesterday how dire their economic situation has suddenly become after Finance Minister Iris Evans announced the debt-free province has entered a "sharp period of recession."

She said Alberta, which hasn't posted a deficit in 15 years, is expected to shed 15,000 jobs in coming months as its economy shrinks by 2 per cent.

Read the rest of the fun here.

Um, I told you so?

I mean, come on, everybody and his dog with any brains was pointing out how obviously overheated the Alberta economy was and that efforts should have been made to both cool it down, so it would last longer and to put down money for when it ended. The response of the government and the majority of Albertans was that the rest of the country was jealous, that finally it was time for "Western" values to be listened to in Ottawa, blah blah blah.

Now normally, I don't like to make fun of governments and regions being in debt. It's always the poor and the people who are already struggling who suffer in these situations. What is so infuriating about Alberta is that it wasn't just a case of a bunch of greedy, short-sighted assholes signing away the future of the province to a bunch of multinational oil companies and taking a huge personal cut on the side. No, this was happening during the height of neo-con cultural indoctrination and propaganda. So now instead of simple lying and prevaricating, the Albertan government and all the people making out like bandits got to walk around acting like they were actually part of some political philosophy and what they were doing was morally correct and to the benefit of society overall.

It still blows my mind how these "conservatives" have abandoned entirely the fundamentals of conservative financial behaviour. Spend wisely. Save your money for a rainy day. Balance risk and security appropriate to your future needs. Husband your resources. And so on. All that stuff has been tossed out the window. They are decadent, wasteful and greedy but at the same time get to act all righteous about social issues, as if they themselves are living some morally superior lifestyle. I think that if you are holding a credit card debt that you are not able to pay off that month, you should not be allowed to have any socially conservative viewpoints. How can you rail against abortion, immigration or gun control when you can't even afford to pay off your home and you are driving around in a new pickup truck that you don't need and don't own. This goes from the individual level right up to the government itself.

When things get really bad, and you want to complain and whine, take it to the big oil companies to whom you gave all your profits in the first place. Maybe they'll lend you some money to get through the hard times.

The wet snow/freezing night trap - Avoided!

2009-02-21T16:05:00.004-05:00

We had a decent little snow fall overnight Wednesday. This was going on top of basically clear streets, sidewalks and stairs. We woke up to around 8-10 cm and it was supposed to drop another 5 cm or so throughout the day. It stayed quite warm though, making it a slightly wet and heavy snow, perfect for snowballs and making snowmen and other snow sculptures. It's very easy to clear this kind of snow from smooth surfaces, like car rooves. It clumps together and slides, so you can knock huge sections off with sliding motions. It can't stick to the sides either. In general there was very little work for drivers.

On stairs with rough carpets, it's a little tougher, but really not too bad. It's just heavier to move. I gave myself plenty of time in the morning to clear the stairs properly. The real danger with this kind of wet snow is that it melts down into the fibres of the stair carpet. When the temperature drops overnight, the melted snow freezes right down to the bottom of the carpet and clings, making it almost impossible to get off without using salt or the Sun God's own powerful rays.

We had a dinner date that night and I went directly there from work. By the time we got back home, the air was already much colder and the slush on the sidewalk had hardened into ice. Seeing all my lame neighbours stairs now covered in solidified and tenacious ice, in slippery, uneven clumps, I was quite worried about our own stairs. I knew it had snowed a bit during the day and I was worried that that was enough to leave a thin layer of icey death on our stairs, reducing my status significantly in the neighbourhood.

I was relieved to see that our stairs were even cleaner than when I had left them. I guess the wind and the warmth had overcome the falling snow and everything had melted or blown away, leaving just the lightest dusting on the carpet. There was one chunk of ice at the top of the stairs where the balcony above had deposited its own melting snow. The video below will show you the difficulty in getting this off.

Imagine if that was the entire stairs, like many of my neighbours! I like to mock them, but it could have easily been me, had I just said to myself, oh I'll do the stairs when I get home from work. The lesson is, always clear the snow sooner rather than later, even if there is more snow to come. Get on it, son!

Below you can see how clean my stairs are, other than the blemishes from the balcony above.

Obama pimpslaps Harper

2009-02-18T15:55:00.009-05:00

Here is how it's going to go down tomorrow in the PM's office when President Obama comes to visit Harper for the first time:

[intro music "Big Poppa" by Edwin Starr from the Hell up in Harlem soundtrack]

Obama, sitting in Harper's chair, smoking a cigarette, using a framed picture of the Harpers as an ashtray, his feet on the desk. Harper is in the smaller chair on the other side.

"I don't give a shit about your goddamn "trade relations", mister Har-perr. I'm going to run it down for you one time, you dig? You are going to clean up your motherfucking dirty-ass oil and you are going to get it to me and my people. But that shit better be clean, you here? None of this jive-ass, stepped-on, carbon-producing garbage you been peddling around your neighborhood. I want you to pretend like that shit is my jelly sandwich that I take to the beach. If I bite into and it's got some sand gristle in there that I'm going to hurt my teeth on, I'm going to send my man Arnold up here to shove that sandwich up your ass and take a 50% discount. You with me?"

"Um, er, well—"

Grabbing his tie and yanking his face close in, "I can't hear you, honky! Let me tell you right now the only reason I haven't already slapped you hard upside the head is because I don't want to get whatever keeps your hair in that funky-ass shape on my hands. Now one more time. Are. You. With. Me?"

"Um, yes, I'm with you."

"I'm with you, who?!"

"I'm with you, President Obama."

Releasing him so he stumbles backwards, Obama leans back into the chair, takes a long drag. "That's better. We've got be clear in these kinds of relationships. Now, one more thing, about Guantanamo."

"Yes, I understand you are going to close it down."

"Not going to, motherfucker. That shit is already closed. Past tense. Shut down. Finito. And that means my Muslim brother Omar Khadr is a free man. He's going to need to chill out for a while, try and get his shit back together, you know? And he's going to be doing that here, in Canada, his nation. So you are going to make sure that happens. I want a nice crib, stereo system, ladies, all that good shit. And no trouble from the man. If any of your faggot-ass mounties with their gay redcoats get up in his mix, I'll come here personally and you know you don't want that."

"No, I really don't."

"You really don't who?"

"No, I really don't, President Obama."

"Yeah, that's right. You're getting it now. Oh shit! That reminds me, where can I get some weed? I know you all got some dynamite weed up in here."

Harper stammers, dumbfounded.

"Oh forget you. I can tell just by looking at your hair that you don't know where the weed is at. What about Iggy? He's one of them professor types. He can probably hook me up. All right, I'm done here. Remember what I said. Peace out."

Obama gets, up puts his cigarette in his mouth, does up his jacket and walks around the desk. Harper jumps up and then awkwardly reaches in the air for a high five.

"um, peace out, my brother."

Obama punches him viciously in the stomach. Harper crumbles to the floor. "I initiate the daps around here, mofo! You got that? You just concentrate on getting me that clean oil and we'll be straight. Now clean yourself up and go meet the press. I gotta go see if I can get my hands on some of that good island weed."

He steps over Harper's curled up body and walks out to the flash of lights.

[cue "Easin' in" from the same album.]

The Back Gate - you've got to be vigilant!

2009-02-14T14:48:00.006-05:00

So we've got a wonderful back gate that leads out into our pretty good alley (the really kickass alleys are farther to the north up in Mile End; but I'm pretty happy with ours overall). I like to have at least two exits from any of my dwellings. The ground floor neighbour to the south of us has a wonderful Golden Retriever'ish mutt named Charlie and she uses the back gate to take her out for walks or at least to let her run up and down the alley. Finally, the back gate is supposed to be an emergency exit for the whole sixplex. By last summer, the gate had sunk a bit and was leaning and I was the only one who could lock it or unlock it (and that was with a lot of struggling), so my neighbour on the ground floor underneath me hired a guy to come and fix it (I really have pretty good neighbours). My point is there has been a decent amount of attention paid to the back gate.

In the winter, the problem is that there is bare ground on the inside where the gate opens. The gate is really tight against the ground. It blocks really easily, for many reasons. In the spring, when the ground gets wet, it expands upwards and jams the gate. In the winter, when the snow gets packed down, it's hard to open. Any melting and then freezing makes it stick as well and the water seems to accumulate on the base of the gate.

We had an early melt this winter and we weren't vigilant. It froze, and then snowed a lot. I went at it with a shovel, clearing out all the snow and making a path to the gate. The dog-owning neighbour went at the thin ice with a pick and got the gate opened about 10 degrees. I really went at it the next day (had a good podcast to listen to) and chipped away enough ice so that the gate opened far enough for man, woman and/or dog to get through.

We put down a crazy carpet right up against the edge, so that we could just yank it up the next time it snowed.

Well we slacked during this last thaw and now I'm afraid it's a doozy. I don't think man or woman power is going to get this gate open. That crazy carpet is embedded!

That's possibly an inch of solid ice. I think the real solution will be to raise up the bottom of the gate, putting a little frame at the foot, maybe 6 inches off the ground. It'll be a bit of a hassle if you are bringing things in with a hand-truck, but at least it will open easily in these kind of situations.

Finally, here is a look into Charlie's backyard. She runs around here, terrorizes the cats, takes her shits (note, the single mom with two kids has trained her children to clean up after the dog and they do it quite responsibly). As you can see, there is a lot of ice here so I don't think Charlie will be very happy until we get a good snow again.

(note: you can click on all these images to get a nice high-res look at the ice action.)

Climate Change hits home

2009-02-14T14:34:00.004-05:00

The recent abrupt fluctuations in the temperature have had an immediate impact on the snow fort, whose upkeep has now been neglected by its capricious early 20-something builders.

As you can see, the materials and construction techniques were not of the highest calibre. Perhaps the natives were so accustomed to living in a consistently cold climate that they never needed to develop the skills necessary to keep a building upright in above-freezing temperatures.

Climate change is real, people. Cut down your impact today!

Well that was a decent cleansing

2009-02-13T13:49:00.003-05:00

It turned out that the rain that was supposed to happen Wednesday night and didn't, ended up coming down all day Thursday. That was supposed to turn into snow by the end of the day, but it never did. So we got some major melting and then a nice dry, cold night that evaporated most of the thin ice off the sidewalks, leaving them much cleaner (except for the buckshot melting no-slip gravel that is everywhere). Some (all right, most) households did not take advantage of this glorious opportunity to chop and clear their sidewalks, so now they have little ice hillocks on either side, making walking difficult and giving a generally untidy appearance. I think I'll get drunk tonight and go up and down the block painting a red X on the doors of all those whose sidewalks are unacceptably icy.

Today is sunny and comfortably cold (like -6), with little wind and a much cleaner atmosphere thanks to the air-scrubbing rain and a lack of woodstove use over the warm days. It's definitely winter again (we'll be in the -4/-11 range for the next 5 days) but you can see the concrete, a lot of the dogshit was swept away and the birds are singing. We'll probably get some good snow again, but the worst of winter is over I'd say and there is hope again.

I am the crazy shovel man

2009-02-12T17:54:00.003-05:00

I really just need to let go of all my inhibitions about clearing the snow. Really, it's my lazy neighbours who are the insane ones. I'm perfectly sane, standing outside at 8:30 in the morning, just when everyone is going off to work, slicing off the ice stuck to the sidewalk with a metal shovel that makes a sharp clanging sound everytime it hits. Why do I feel self-conscious about wanting to ensure that all the ice is cleared right up to the dirt square where the tree is planted? If I had my way, I'd go much farther up and down the block. Hell, I'd carry my shovel with me to work and randomly clear parts of the sidewalk that need it. There is one spot, where a fire hydrant narrows the sidewalk, so that it never gets cleared by the plow. It can become quite a dangerous little hill, especially when it is icy. Even after a good melting day, there is still a bulwark of ice on either side, narrowing it down to single file only. If not many people are around, I'll try to kick some of it free with my boot. Even doing that makes me feel like they'll come by with the van and the straightjacket any moment. If I had a shovel, I could clear it right out in 10 minutes, but I just feel too self-conscious to be cleaning sidewalks that are nowhere near my property. Maybe I should steal a municipal employee safety vest and just throw that on, pretend I'm a col bleu and carry my shovel with freedom and pride (well not too much pride or everybody would know I'm not really a col bleu).

The other thing is if you are out on your sidewalk whaling away with a rusted metal shovel looking like a crazy man, dog-walkers will almost for sure pick up after their dogs if they happen to lay a turd within your field of vision.

After Thaw Report

2009-02-10T16:30:00.003-05:00

Well, it turned out that there was little work to be done. It didn't really start getting warm until Saturday evening and then it melted impressively all night. The two foot high pyramids of snow on my back-balcony planters were effectively gone by the morning, just puddles with small icebergs floating in them. The sidewalks basically cleared themselves, though a lot of quantity still remains on the edges and yards.

My cats took advantage and were quite psyched to go outside. I imagine there is a lot more stuff for them to sniff when the snow melts away. The younger, more intrepid one made his way across the neighbour's backyard, which was covered in wet snow. Every step of the way, he shook his paw, but doggedly (or cattedly) continued on to the far side, out of my view, to whatever his important destination.

It actually felt a bit like Spring. And this is a dangerous trap to fall into. Interestingly, the temperature will again be going up into the single digit positives tomorrow (though with a lot more precipitation). I suspect that we still have a ways to go before spring, but it is possible that Winter's back is broken and we won't see anymore continuous super-cold periods.

The other bad thing that comes with Spring is the dogshit. I'll try not to rant and rave too much, but if there is one reason I would like to win the Lottery it is so I could then spend all my time monitoring the streets and capturing and punishing dog owners who don't pick up after their animals. It's just so selfish and lazy. I'd love to have a crack team of turtling ninjas who could follow those owners home, sneak into their residences and take a big, steaming turd in the middle of their living room floor.

Melting Day Coming, Montreal! Let's get to work!

2009-02-06T15:32:00.003-05:00

Okay, we are supposed to reach 2 degrees celsius tomorrow and possibly right up to 5 degrees on Sunday. Excellent opportunity to get rid of snow!

However, this is going to be a tricky one. They are calling for freezing rain for Saturday and wet flurries on Sunday. What this means is that if you don't get out there and shovel and sweep, you may have a serious ice problem as the weather gets down to normal on Monday (-9 predicted). Especially difficult on a Monday.

The more snow and slush we can clear during the weekend, the less work the cols bleus have to do during the week. It will take pressure off the city's budget, cut down on fuel consumed and pollution created and maybe make the streets a little safer for old people.

Here's what you do. Get out at the height of the melting, when the temperature is above zero. Shovel and clear your property and the sidewalk in front (everybody has their own pattern, so I won't dictate to you your specific approach, though if anybody needs help with personal snow removal strategies, I'm always available for a free consultation). The trick is to throw the snow into the middle of the street. The warm weather, combined with the cars driving over it, will melt it where it will run into the gutter and then eventually down the drain. You may have to unblock the gutter from time to time, as ice can build up.

So don't be lame! Get into it! All that water flowing is snow that won't have to be picked up, gas that won't be consumed. Such a good feeling! Plus, you'll get some exercise and be out in the fresh air.

Fermeture d'eau

2009-02-04T18:15:00.004-05:00

Monday morning while getting ready to go to work, I hear the needling siren that usually accompanies the mass tow-truck attach that goes on just before they do the street cleaning. When a block is targeted for snow removal, the city workers come by and put these orange signs up on all the parking sign poles (they have special hooks just for them) as well as paper signs on posts stuck in the snow. They indicate when the street will be closed. It's a 12 hour period and you usually have about half a day at least before they begin. If you don't get your car, the tow-trucks come. They blast their siren a few times up and down the street, giving everyone a final warning, then they start towing. They don't have the time or the space to take them to any special city yard. They just park them wherever they can, so you may get another ticket for being parked illegally, assuming you can find your car in the first place!

I'm going to go into more detail about the snow removal process here later. The thing was, on this monday morning, the snow had all already been removed. Also, I don't have a car, so the siren for me is usually an exciting announcement, like the circus is coming! As my longtime readers know, I love the snow removal process. So I went out to see what was up and this single truck with the words "Fermeture d'eau" in a big sign on the side was going up our street slowly. The driver saw me on my porch and rolled down the window. He yelled out to me that the water main was going to be closed on our block for at least half the day. I could barely hear him over his engine and the sound of the machines working at the bottom of the block. It was all very old school and untechnological. Thoroughly enjoyable. I was able to catch a quick video of him going up the block to warn the other residents who were still at home.

I went in, filled up the kettle and a couple of big pots just in case. I also warned the upstairs neighbours, who are visitors from New Zealand participating in an apartment swap. Howdeldy-doodledy, neighbour!

Fire on Mont-Royal

2009-01-28T16:48:00.004-05:00

Man, there are a lot of fires in Montreal, especially in the winter. It seems that not a week goes by where you don't hear about some building burning down. It's often a plex building with several apartments and a storefront. They usually tend to happen to the north or east of us yuppies here in the Plateau, but last night the building that housed the Pitt shoe store caught on fire. It's on Mont-Royal and St. Dominique, about 3 blocks from our place. The firemen here kick some ass and respond really quickly, but it still seems worrisome with all these attached units and so many of them being so old. I think the age is part of the reason there are so many fires, but I've heard also that a lot of them are started by people supplementing their heat with space heaters. A dangerous practice!

I'm not normally too sympathetic a person, but my heart really goes out to those poor souls who lose their home, all their stuff and their warmth and comfort in the middle of friggin' winter. That must be just terrible. I renewed my home insurance this week, but I seriously think we should get some fire extinguishers for our place.

This picture doesn't really capture it because the street was closed off around it and we're in the middle of a snowfall, but this is a very busy, commercial part of town, with shops and restaurants up and down the street. The shoe store was one of those that sells all new cheap non-brand name shoes, mostly made in China. I bought my nephew some Winnie-the-Pooh snow boots there once which his mother detested. But the kid needed some boots! There must have been a lot of burning vinyl in the air last night.

Bonus snow lion picture!

"I will protect you and your kind. But for god's sake keep those batteries in your smoke alarms charged!"

I do enjoy my job!

2009-01-23T15:20:00.007-05:00

The building I work in is actually the presbytère of one of Montréal's grand old Catholic churches. The presbytère is the building where the nuns and priests used to live and I imagine it was once bustling with church activity. As the role of the church in Québec society declined, so did the need for staff and this building eventually got transitioned over to be rented out to non-profit organizations. When I first started working here, there was one locked door on our floor that I eventually learned led to an apartment where a single remaining priest was living. He accessed his apartment through a side entrance. I never saw him and he finally moved out (or died) and his apartment was opened up to some other organizations.

The building is old and beautiful. There has been some minor renovations (like a hideous, grimy linoleum in the hallway, white paint everywhere, lead windows) but not enough to ruin the spaciousness and patina of age that makes it such a pleasant place to work. I've spoken of all this before and taken some pictures which, if you are so interested, you may read about by following this link.

I wanted to recount a little adventure I had today that makes me really enjoy my job. Mostly, I keep the computers and equipment running and make sure all the employees are physically happy in their workspaces. A certain part of my job is low level handiwork, like fixing tables, hanging pictures and lights, building shelves, etc. These are often a pleasant diversion that get me away from my desk and the computer.

We have a cool attic here where we store a lot of our action equipment. It has a trap door on the roof, a 2' x 2' framed square lined on the outside with metal flashing. The thing is pretty heavy, maybe about 30 pounds, but not heavy enough to withstand the big gusts of wind we sometimes get here in the winter. I went up to the attic earlier in the week and noticed it had blown off again. Unfortunately, it must have happened before the big snowfall of two weeks ago because I couldn't see it anywhere on the flat plain of snow that is our roof. I had to go back down, get my boots and toque and a big pole and then go on the roof and poke around like an explorer looking for crevasses. I checked immediately around the hatch, but it wasn't there, so I walked in ever outward-increasing concentric circles, poking with the pole until I found it. Fortunately, it didn't take too long and it's a great vista from the roof, which I will share with you below.

I've worked in many different jobs in my life. The majority of my working years took place in an office. I've never had the need (or right) to go on the roof of the building and poke around in the snow with a pole before. It's pleasant.

Looking south towards the river (with downtown peeking on the right):

If you look closely at the bottom you can see the disturbed snow where I found the hatch cover.

Looking Southwest towards Mont-Royal:

And the hatch cover in question:

Snow Fort!

2009-01-15T10:41:00.005-05:00

There was a flurry of activity coming from the downstairs neighbours around 1 in the morning a couple of nights ago. They are a mother and her college-age son (though not currently attending college; he is seeking direction) and I think the mother has been away since the holidays. Things have been pretty quiet downstairs, but I guess in a fit of winter productivity, the son decided to build a snow fort. They spent one night building the base structure, which was a rough teepee-like affair, using cardboard boxes as the frame. Two days later, just before the big freeze, they went for the expansion, building it outwards and making the entrance way a narrow tunnel. It lacks a chimney. I would also suggest that they pour water over it, to get a nice hard case on the outside.

My girlfriend thinks they built it in order to get up to nefarious activities, ones they aren't allowed to do in the house. I think it might have just been a fun project. Either way, this is a project which gets my full stamp of approval. They do something productive with the mass of snow filling our backyard (the problem which inspired the title of this blog in the first place). It looks cool and the cats are totally psyched, can't stop checking it out and inspecting it. Even at -20 and below, when they won't go out, they still stare at it out the window. I do worry that they may be encouraged to use it as a litterbox, so when it warms up, I'll tell the guys they should put a grate up or something. I'd hate to see them sitting in their snow fort, up to "no good" when they realize it smells awfully uriney in there.

Cold Snap!

2009-01-14T12:59:00.003-05:00

Here it comes! Like the freezing, invisible (except for its effects), rolling wave of cold from The Day After Tomorrow, we have been enveloped by a cold bubble. It went from a balmy -1 degrees celsius yesterday evening to -21 this morning. I did not let the cats go outside last night for fear they would get caught by it and rightly so, for what did I see outside my window this morning? A small song bird, frozen in mid-flight, suspended in the air, its wings halfway through the upswing. It must have been trying to make it to its nest under the hood of the electricity junction on my roof and left it just a little too late.

I survived my 10-minute walk to work, though my nose was in a lot of pain by the time I got there. Now I look out my windows and see a bright, still day with a thin blue sky. Steam, smoke and vapour pouring from rooftops in thicker clouds than usual is the only indication of the cold. This thing is supposed to last at least through Saturday, so I worry a bit about the state of our building. The differential between the inside and the outside could become so great that I envision windows exploding, concrete flaking off in great sheets, beams cracking.

I'll try to keep posting but I'm hearing that in the eastern parts of the city, where the pipes aren't well insulated, the internet has frozen down to the point where it's like using a 14.4k modem.

And for God's sake, don't lick anything!

My response to the Vancouver Olympic budget crisis

2009-01-13T14:47:00.002-05:00

Okay, it's a bit cruel of me. It's going to be the taxpayers and the city who will end up paying the costs for this debacle, but I can't help but ask how the hell the last city council (and the provincial Liberals) got voted in in the first place. I love how the natives and the lefties fighting the Olympics and all the accelerated and subsidized development around them were marginalized by the politicians and the media from the get-go as a bunch of negative has-beens who hate progress and economic development on principle. No, instead, let's make deals with developers where they get to reap all the potential economic benefit, but the government is on the hook if things don't work out. How could anyone make such a deal? How are these guys not in the stocks in front of the court house for daily floggings? Oh yeah, it's B.C., where everyone walks around acting all righteous and protestant, until they think there's a chance they might be able to get their snout in the trough. Yes, B.C., wannabe Los Angeles sitting on 200 years of short-term greed, cheapness and and unfettered resource exploitation. Most of you voted for those scumbags and criminals because you thought you might get a job building some piece of shit concrete monstrosity and accrue some false pride for living in a "world-class" city. Clearly nothing was learned from Expo 86.

Sorry Toronto, Liane Balaban is sleeping in our bed now

2009-01-12T09:45:00.004-05:00

Up and coming Canadian arthouse actress Liane Balaban is getting some press this week, thanks to the release of Last Chance Harvey, starring Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson.

She has a cover piece on last week's Hour(one of 4 free weeklies in Montreal) and was also on the front page of the Review section of this weekend's Globe and Mail.

Check the pull quote from the Globe and Mail article:

It's not every day you wind up on a film set with Dustin Hoffman as your personal tutor. Then again, Toronto's Liane Balaban isn't your everyday kind of actress, Gayle MacDonald writes:

"Toronto's Liane Balaban"? (In the article, they also refer to her as the "the 28-year-old Toronto actress".) Um, sorry dudes. Read on:

Balaban, who grew up in the Toronto suburb of North York, went to high school at Lawrence Park Collegiate, and now lives in Montreal...

Toronto's and Toronto actress imply that she is currently living in Toronto. That's how it works. You could have said "Toronto native" or "originally from Toronto". The article is already pathetic enough. Who gives a shit about Dustin Hoffman? He's been mailing it in for years. Why do you have to use this is a lead to make the story worthwhile? She's a succesful Canadian actress. Isn't that enough? (To be fair, Melora Koepke does the same thing in the Hour piece.) Not only do you have to start the article sucking up to Hollywood fame but you also have to lie and suggest that she is living in Toronto.

No, she is not living in Toronto and we all know why. Because Toronto sucks. I mean it's a great city if you want to run around and pretend like you are all important and busy and wish you lived in New York. But for a young and hot actress like Liane Balaban, it's going to be Montreal all the way. You may have made out with her in high school, Toronto, but she's sleeping in our bed now!

thumbs-up to the cols bleus!

2009-01-09T11:21:00.003-05:00

We had a decent little snowfall in the middle of this week. It reached around 30 cm. In typing that sentence, I almost wrote "snowstorm" because this is the term that the media uses, even in french (une tempête de neige), but a storm means terrible winds, crazy stuff happening. If this precipitation had been rain, it would not have been called a rainstorm. This manipulation of language is just another example of the continuing alarmism and excessive spassiness around the weather that we must fight against constantly and vigilantly.

The snow itself is beautiful. Just the right combo of density and fluffiness. Very easy to sweep and shovel, as it stayed in big, but not too heavy, chunks. I have kept my stairs competitively clean during the last two days.

The city as well, really got off the mark this time. I suspect they were stung a bit by the criticism from the last two snowfalls, where they didn't do such a good job. Both the street-cleaning teams and public transport have done an excellent job so far. Where during the last storm, I waited 40 minutes for a bus, this time, two came one after the other. The sidewalk plows were going all day yesterday on all the side streets. And the main roads are already mostly cleared, even for parking.

It's true that the last two snowfalls involved a lot more ice, so the clearing is harder and the effects on the citizens way worse. Nevertheless, it's nice to see the city on top of it's game. Well done!

Northern Conscription

2009-01-08T09:58:00.003-05:00

In responding to the flood of comments I received in response to my Thaw Day post, I came up with an excellent new idea. Canada should have a mandatory one or two-year public service in the north, similar to the military conscription they have in Israel and many European countries. It could have a nominal military facade, such as "defending our arctic sovereignty" (otherwise known as throwing rocks at Finns while the Russians and Americans cruise back and forth between us in their subs and oil tankers), but most of the work would be of a more social and economic nature: teaching, building houses and community structures, maintaining infrastructures.

You would involve the leadership of the territories and the native communities at a very high level, so that their input would really drive the direction of things. There would be barracks and bases, but the conscripts would also spend a certain amount of time billeting with local families and dedicating a certain amount of time helping them with their daily work. This would give both sides an opportunity to get to know each other and create future connections (so if a kid from the North wanted to come to the big city and look for opportunities).

Most importantly, it would train our youth to learn to live and deal in a truly cold environment. This would occur when they are at their most stupid and lazy and annoying and instead of moping around all day or walking around with ripped jeans (like a character I saw today on the way to work; big holes in his now red knees, trying to look like he wasn't freezing his ass off), they would be working hard in a disciplined structure.

However, despite the denial of certain comforts, there would be a huge incentive for the conscripts. It would be a giant partying opportunity. It will be totally co-educational, of course and there would be facilities set up for hanging out. From what I hear, tons of hooking up goes on during the mandatory military services in other countries.

This would of course further cultural cross-pollination and provide great fodder for Canadian cinema. You can already see the star-crossed love between cute Jewish girl from Forest Hills who instead of spending two years at McGill talking on the cell phone goes to the north, learns how to work and live and meets a cute Inuit boy who is struggling against his situation. They fall in love, the families are against it (scenes of each visiting the other's family), laughter and tears ensue. We learn about the meaning of the North.

I got off track. The main social benefit would be generations of winter-trained youth, who would be more open to the idea of living outside the major metropolitan areas and who were ready to deal with a bit of snow. It would be a start on the road to Canadians actually living up to their reputation as being a winter people.

Thaw Day

2009-01-05T16:11:00.004-05:00

Twice now, since winter began, we've had a decent quantity of snow and then a day where the temperature goes well above freezing. The result of this, when there is enough of a base of snow, is that you get some melting, but not enough and when the temperature freezes again, all that snow becomes ice and the streets and sidewalks become incredibly slippery. My understanding from old-time Montrealers is that the increased frequency of this is relatively new. It used to stay cold here all winter.

It's very frustrating for me, because what could be an awesome opportunity to work collectively and clear the streets and sidewalks, becomes instead another burden for the city. It's just another example of how as a society we have become less and less self-reliant, less and less socially aware and more and more dependent on the government (about whom we all complain).

The thing about those thaw days is that the snow becomes incredibly easy to move. It breaks off of concrete easily and can be scraped (or broken if it's ice) and swept off to the side. It's much easier to handle than when it is just piles of cold snow. Furthermore, the warm weather is actively melting it, doing a lot of work for you.

What I do on these days is to clear off my stairs and the walk around my house, throwing the snow towards the sidewalk and curb. Then I do the sidewalk, pushing the snow and ice out into the street. Not just into the curb, but into the lanes of the street. As the cars go over it, they break it up and increase the melting rate. The water flows into the curb and then the drains. The job takes me no more than hour for my classic Plateau triplex and the sidewalk that runs its width.

Since Montreal is mainly multi-unit dwellings, almost every building has at least one person physically capable of doing this. Of course, other than me and the old Portuguese guys, nobody does anything. Instead, they just wait for the city to come by and drop gravel on it. Then they all bitch and complain about how slippery it is.

The city's primary expense for snow removal, I imagine, is fuel (with labour a close second). So it's really a question of how much volume they have to cart out. It pains me to see so much snow and ice still sitting on the ground the day after it reached 6 degrees celsius. Think how much fuel could have been saved if we all went out and did our part, throwing the sidewalk snow out into the street and getting it to melt? An hours work, which will give fatties some much-needed exercise, as well as some social camaraderie with your neighbours, is all it would take.

Then maybe the city could save a bit of money, moving it into public transport, to get more cars off the street in the winter.

Here's a great post by Alanah Heffez in SpacingMontreal critiquing our negative approach to winter. Great stuff.

In the land of the Puppetmaster

2008-12-05T09:59:00.007-05:00

Harper's fear-based anti-Bloc strategy and the reaction of many Canadians living outside Quebec (and especially in the west) has demonstrated to me that I've been living in a bit of an over-optimistic bubble for a while now. I had forgotten how stupid, ill-informed and prejudicial some of my fellow anglophones can be. During a national staff meeting at my job, a guy from the Toronto office expressed his concerns about Duceppe being the "Puppetmaster, pulling the strings from behind the scenes." I work for a very lefty organization, with everyone supporting the coalition. I can tell you the people here in the Montreal office were flipping out when they heard that. I was pretty shocked as well.

Let me be clear on my own position first. I am a federalist and a proud Canadian. I believe in a strong central government that actively communicates and responds to the regions. I am also proud of my anglophone culture and heritage and enjoy many aspects of it. I don't really truly feel at home anywhere, but the closest I come to feeling that way is when I'm in a small B.C. town like Golden (and that may strike those of you who know from way back as pretty ironic).

But when I hear the kind of idiotic comments coming from western politicians, media commentators and the public in the west that talk about the Bloc the same way George Bush talks about Al-Qaeda, it makes me furious.

First, let's argue against the position. Yes the Bloc's baseline policy is to separate Québec from the rest of Canada. (Note: this is not the same thing as "tearing apart the federation" as the Conservatives would have it; we would still be a nation, just a smaller one.) However, that is a small part of an overall political platform, one that represents the social, economic and health needs of Quebecers. It is no different from that of any other federal party, except that it is regionalized. Furthermore, with the question of sovereignty of the table for quite a while now, the Bloc has basically ignored questions of separation since the Liberals lost power.

I will give you a concrete example. My office is in Bernard Bigras' riding. He is a Bloc MP. We received his quarterly Parliamentary report yesterday. It is six pages long and the entire thing is dedicated to the Bloc's strategy for a green economic initiative. There are some really interesting ideas there, including strategies for further minimizing Québec's dependence on fossil fuels, abolishing tax incentives for industries that produce them and replacing those incentives with ones to new enterprises promoting new energy technology (I heard some guy called Obama was pursuing policies like this down south). Now you may be stupid enough to not support these kinds of environmental initiatives, but my main point is that nowhere in any of this propaganda is there a single mention of sovereignty or separation. Take a look at the list of issues on the front page of his website. It's not even on the table.

This is what most Quebecers see when they think of their Bloc MP. It's someone who is pushing values they are concerned about in the Parliament. Most of these people consider themselves Quebecers first, whether or not they believe strongly in independence. So when you have perverted (I went to high school with this guy) scumbags like Jason Kenney treating the Bloc as if their only goal in life is to destroy the country, you are basically telling monsieur et madame tout le monde in Québec that their voice is not valid in the Federal government.

And then when that kind of rhetoric whips up the naturally angry (either the stupid poor in the rural areas or the stupid or evil rich in the urban areas) in the west, then you get, from the Quebec perspective, a wave of hate coming from the west. Which does exactly what you'd expect: makes Quebecers feel more isolated and separate from Canada and thus more inclined to want to support a separatist cause.

Which in turn demonstrates exactly how much priority Harper and his neo-con cronies put on national unity versus their social and economic agenda.

In your face, Obama!

2008-12-03T10:14:00.005-05:00

We've just one-upped the U.S. in terms of progressive politics. They may have elected a black man as president, but we currently have a black woman in charge of the future of our nation!

And she is hot!

Sure it won't last long, but since we've lost almost everything else that made our country cooler than the U.S., let's bask in it while it lasts!

Now the big question is will she side with the Cons in their attempt to prorogue the government or will she allow the coalition to take the reins of power?

On the one hand, she has to protect her own future and reputation and she has demonstrated thoughtfulness for most of her career and definitely as Governor-General, so I don't see her doing anything radical. On the other hand, she is a Quebecer (despite the disrespect and even hate with which she is treated here by much of the media and many of the people) and comes from the arts community. I can't imagine she supports much of Harper's neo-con ideology.

The wild card, I think, as usual, is sex. Power is attractive and there has always been some kind of frisson going on between Jean and Harper. Is it possible he has used his Satanic powers to burrow deep into her soul (and her bed chamber) just enough to influence her to side with him?

We'll be watching! Excellent material for a CBC mini-series already.

Why don't you want Quebec to separate?

2008-12-01T20:21:00.000-05:00

This question was posed to me by one of my francophone friends: why do anglophones, who seem so angry at Quebec and Bloc, want her to stay in Canada?

It's really an excellent question. Now, she specifically excluded anglophones who live in Quebec and those who appreciate the culture of Quebec (a larger group than one might realize) from the question. In those cases, the answers are clear.

In light of today's coalition of the NDP, Liberals and Bloc to (we hope) bring down Harper's government and the freaked-out comments of the right over on the cbc website (it's amazing, the comments there sound like they came from Fox News; I mean I know we had some right-wing people living here, but I didn't realize they were as paranoid and stupid as their brethren down south), this question kept popping up in my head. A lot of those people are ranting about how this coalition is basically selling out to the Bloc and going to cause the disintegration of Canada.

Let's see. You are completely ignorant of the culture of Quebec. You hate the Bloc with the passion of a thousand suns (a party that represents the wishes of the majority of Quebecers) and everything they stand for. You consider separatists to be traitors. But you want them to stay. Why? Is it because of some vague, nationalistic idea of Canada as a nation? Geographic size? (This one is important to me; if only Russia had truly fallen to pieces, we would be the biggest!) Domination of a people we sort of defeated in a war? Fear for the economy?

I mean why does some guy in the suburbs of Calgary care if Quebec becomes an independent nation?

I'm honestly curious.

Alarm bells and what sets them off

2008-11-18T11:37:00.004-05:00

There is another element in the distinction between Quebec and the rest of Canada and that is the general public approach to the involvement of government in our daily lives. There is a lot more of it here and it seems generally accepted. I'm not the best person to make this kind of analysis, because I rally against all bureaucracy, be it government, corporate or personal. Also, I lived half my life in the States where there is a much greater tendency to complain as a citizen and consumer.

Nevertheless, it seems that in Quebec the government asks a lot more of its citizens. And there are laws ensuring that you do what is asked. These laws seem, in principle, to be in direct violation of the individual freedoms I hold precious as a member of a free society. When I question the laws, the people act like I'm a little crazy.

Here is an example. I recently got a notice to renew my health card. Everyone in Quebec has to have a health card. It's probably more important as an identifier of who you are than your driver's license. The requirements for proving your residency are much harder for the health card than the driver's license, for instance.

With the notice was a flyer explaining the Quebec prescription drug plan. Everyone in Quebec must be covered by a prescription drug plan. If your employer doesn't provide you with one, you must indicate this and pay it in your taxes. If you are below a certain income level, you don't have to pay the taxes. Now personally, I think this is a good thing and this isn't the violation of freedom I am going to talk about.

When I called to renew my health card, I also said that I had a prescription drug plan provided by my employer. She started asking me all these questions. Exactly when did I get it? Why do you want to know? I asked. Am I going to be reimbursed for the money I unnecessarily paid in the last two years? She seemed miffed that I would ask such a question. Her answer was that it was the law. Then she started asking me about my conjointe's medical plan. I told her that I am not privy to that information. She said that it was also the law that I reveal how long my conjointe has had a prescription plan. When I kept pushing back on her with more questions, she did say that all of this info was held in the strictest confidence and that other branches of the government did not have access to it.

These kinds of questions struck me as being invasive of my privacy. I know they aren't a big deal and I ended up giving them the data they wanted. It's probably just to get their databases up to date, a motivation with which I am familiar and sympathetic.

It's the tone of the discourse that sets my alarm bells off. The way she just assumed that I would know to give her this info and the way any questions about it are brushed off with "it's the law." This sets my anglophone alarm bells ringing and I think it's the same for the old school anglophone minority here in Quebec. They see the kind of laws that came out of Bill 101, laws that restrict how you can express yourself, laws that go across private property (albeit commercial property) and they get alarmed.

And why do we get alarmed? I think you can take this all the way back to the Protestant/Catholic divide. The British are the champions of the kind of mercantilist liberty, whereas the French, though strong believers in liberty as well, have always been more comfortable with a healthy dose of government intervention. We North American anglophones moved even farther away from the British and the idea of things like nationwide school exams would be unthinkable here.

It's also important to remember that a strong portion of the anglophone minority in Quebec are Jewish. They are a people who will never forget where a few slightly invasive laws can lead.

So once again, trying to bridge the divide, I think it's important for francophones to understand some of the culture behind the aggressive reactions to the Quebec government's attempts to shore up the french culture and language here. It's not just that it's french and different and not ours. It's also the way it is applied. Personally, I am very supportive of the work that has been done in the last 40 years to keep the culture of Quebec strong, but when I hear some of Pauline Marois measures, such as forcing immigrants to sign a paper declaring they will follow the values here, I react strongly. My reaction is one of anger, which comes from fear (which leads to hate, and we all know where that leads). Yes, teach the language and the culture. Spend tons of state money on encouraging immigrants to embrace all that Quebec has to offer and to help it proliferate. But never let it not be a choice for me.

On the other hand, I think us anglophones must understand that there is also a lot of fear in the francophone community. The commercial power of english is so pervasive and subtle. Things in the majority always are. More and more in downtown Montreal one is approached by store employees in english. That sets off alarm bells in many francophones and it is natural for them to look to laws to prevent such a phenomenon from spreading. It seems like the only solution in the short term. As an anglophone here, though locally we are in the minority, we are, strangely, a minority, inside another minority, surrounded by our majority. You shouldn't forget that.

In general, we should all drop our reactive, defensive stances and work positively to encourage the adoption of french among immigrants and the acceptance of all minority groups here in Quebec.

Harmonium

2008-11-17T19:21:00.005-05:00

One of the guys was listening to Harmonium on Friday in the office. I had heard about them (they are mentioned in Michel Rabagliati's Paul Has a Summer Job) but never actually listened to them. He lent me the CD. It was the second of their entire three-album oeuvre (plus a fourth live album) called Si on avait besoin d'une cinquième saison ("If we needed a fifth season") and was released in 1975.

I don't fully comprehend the significance of Harmonium in Quebec culture, but it is huge. They were the first band in Quebec to have songs that were longer than 3 minutes and really the only prog rock band to come out of the province. They had a huge following and grew steadily more popular, culminating their career with a world wide tour backing up SuperTramp. They were also closely aligned with the political movements of the René Lévesque era and la Revolution tranquille. I didn't find this confirmed anywhere, but the guy who lent me the CD told me that they were offered big bucks to sing in english and refused.

It's not just that these guys were big in Quebec in the '70s. They are still big! I think most Quebec kids go through a Harmonium phase. The webmaster in our office, who is in her early '20s and is always singing with her headphones on, told me which was her favourite album and sang tunes from some of the songs. She said she listened to it all the time when she was younger. I think Harmonium may be a bit akin to Jim Hendrix or the Doors or other '60s bands that young people keep rediscovering. The difference is that here in Quebec, most of the kids probably discover this stuff at home (although come to think of it, that's where I first heard Reggae music).

So I listened to the album and I apologize to my Quebec friends, but I didn't much enjoy it. I did appreciate it, and I especially appreciated the psychedelic album inside cover art. This album was like really pleasant, layered and professionaly played folk rock. If you are a fan of The Grateful Dead and Fish (or is it Phish?) then you probably will like this album. Personally, I've never understood the connection between LSD and folk music. The first time I heard the Dead, I was contemptuously disappointed. It sounded like bad country to me and I could not understand how so many of my college friends found their music to be psychedelic and mind-blowing. I think the same disconnect is happening here for me with Harmonium.

The difference, though, is that Quebec is a very musical culture. Everybody here sings and they love lyrics and melody and the intertwining of those things. So music that sounds poppy and banal to me can still be fun if you know all the lyrics and can sing it. It's even more powerful if those lyrics and the singing of the song are wrapped up in your childhood and cultural identity.

The third Harmonium album, L'Heptade is about the seven stages of a human life and is supposed to be a lot heavier and darker. I'll give it a whirl and let you know my feelings.