Now I am over there

I have had a blog for a short while over here:

http://lmiall.wordpress.com

Initially started for my studies, it increasingly seems the best place to go on blogging.

As for more psychogeography-related stuff, there is another new site that I've been maintaining in collaboration with others over here:

http://montrealrevolt.wordpress.com

Why does this keep happening to me?

You know when you have a few days that are so amazingly good that you almost shake your head with disbelief afterwards? You say to yourself, "I'm going to remember this for months -- maybe years -- to come." Your senses are heightened to the pleasures of simply living, to your connectedness to others, to the seemingly infinite potential of your own life?

I keep having weekends like that. Over and over again. Last weekend was like that. And I am starting to think that this is going to be a pattern. Meet friends, have drinks, explore the city... Equals recipe for life-affirming and transformative experience.

I went to two gargantuan parties on Saturday night. One was a fancy 20's style ball. The other was a large rockabilly loft party. Both were teeming and heaving and shaking with good people and good music. I danced. I drank. I laughed. I should not go on any more because words almost devalue these kinds of experiences. I took the night bus home at 3:30 in the morning -- it was also teeming with people -- winding through the southern and the western environs of central Montreal, flanked by dark brick buildings, and I had a smile on my face. I have a smile on my face often. I've gone from such a miserable wretch to someone almost POSITIVE a lot of the time. Dare I say it? Positive!

The grass is greener on the other side. Sometimes the change you need is not INSIDE you, it is OUTSIDE you.

Although it is still very, very early in my tenure here in Montreal, I feel more and more like I might flourish here. I dare to dream of future happiness. I dare to plan sinking long-term roots here. I love -- above all -- living somewhere that I love.

I love the way people line up in an orderly fashion for the bus, waiting patiently and courteously. I love how -- in stark contrast -- people then become crazy impatient maniacs the second they are behind the wheel of a car. Why? No matter! Another thriller is the completely daredevil nature of pedestrians. They will jaywalk across the road within centimetres of a truck plummeting towards them... like it is a sport.

I love the music in Guy Concordia metro. Every time. Even when it's music I don't really like. I love that the musicians play with such spiritedness.

I love the way the pigeons gather at the statue of Norman Bethune and erupt into the sky when you approach, flying around in a bewildering pattern. And shit on the very same statue of Norman Bethune.

I love the late crowds on the Verdun bus. They look so scary when you get on. And yet everybody is completely calm.

I love how much the staff at the express Altaib hate their customers! They look at you with such hate that it is almost absurdly funny!

I love that you can walk into a wonderfully classy cafe on one side of Sherbrooke and be treated like royalty by French speaking servers, and go into a bar on the other side of Sherbrooke, still be served in French, but be surrounded by neon and Budweiser signs and trashy women and think, Jesus, this could be Argyll Road, Edmonton! AC/DC forever!

I love that people love people -- genuinely seem to want to be with people -- here. They act like people, talk like people, live life to the fullest as people, just as you would expect from rational people. They do not see you as a means to their own end. They are happy that you just be you.

I love that the future of my life in this city fills me with anxiety/excitement/hope instead of anxiety/dread/pessimism.

It's not always good here... but when it's good, by God, it is very, very good. Joie de vivre? Holy shit yes. That is exactly what it is.

Jesus left, are the spires next?

Down the road from where I live is a church called Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs. Outside the church is a statue of Jesus, arm outstretched with two fingers poised to anoint somebody's forehead. At least I think that is what he is doing. I've not had a chance to further consider his actions for reasons I'm about to reveal.

Just over a week ago, the statue of Jesus disappeared. All that is left is the stone plinth upon which he once stood. Although I rarely give much thought to Jesus these days, I do think about that missing statue. Where has he gone? Will he come back? It's been over three days now!

Over the weekend, I had a dream in which my parents had visited me at my home in Verdun. We were walking out of the metro station and on the verge of beholding the magnificent sight of Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs. But something terrible had happened. I looked up and saw that the spires were gone. The twin spires -- those beautiful white, gleaming fingers of stone in the sky -- gone.

I was shocked and slightly traumatized.

It must mean a lot to me, that church. I think it has come to symbolize the beauty of Montreal and my love for it. The idea of my own parents not being to see it in the state that I have come to know it -- this, apparently, is horrifying to my dreaming self.

Fortunately, when I woke up and finally stepped out of my front door, I could see that the spires were, in fact, still standing tall. Jesus, however, is AWOL to this very day. Any leads as to his whereabouts would be much appreciated.

Montreal's moment

Was forced to consider why I would not live in London, or Paris for that matter. Not that any actual opportunity exists for me in those cities, but I started to wonder why I so intuitively reject the prospect of living elsewhere.

In Paris this August I was reminded how the town feels like a museum. Then my girlfriend pointed out how crowded with expensive shops the streets were. Then I became overwhelmed by the sameness of the Hausmannian planning. I have been looking through photos of old Paris by Eugene Atget. It is striking how much has changed. How varied and messy were the streets of Vieux Paris. It is striking also to consider how different is Paris' role in the world today compared to back in the nineteenth century. Back then, the City of Light was arguably the most important city in the world. London was not far behind, or maybe a little way in front -- I suppose it would depend if you ask that of the French or the English.

Since then it has been an inexorable decline. For sure, London is once again a financial giant, and the streets are hustling and bustling with an urgency that would be alien in Montreal... this is a much sleepier town. And yet, the urgency in the big European capitals is now intensely about making money. The progress that London makes is in becoming more like America.

Montreal also has suffered a decline. It has gone from being Canada's number one city to being squarely relegated to number two behind Toronto. Relics of the industrial past are everywhere. The factories are fenced off and crumbling. The warehouses have broken windows and weeds growing over the bricks.

Can I pause for a second to say how much I love those parts of town? How much I love to see the corpse of a moment in history right in front of me. We should let some of that crumbling splendour stick around. Industrialization was a remarkable and violent process for much of the world. I, for one, don't think we should forget it.

So there we have Montreal's former moment... and now... now where are we? There has been a justice served, of sorts, in restoring French to its rightful place as the dominant language of the city and indeed the province. Is that enough? Is that struggle over? The Parti Quebecois would say no. They have abandoned separatism for now. The new fight is cultural. But it is a fight that seems to have a dwindling army to fight it.

Personally, I have a quiet optimism that the contribution Montreal might make to the world is in expanding the role of the "public sphere" -- a place of conflict between the corporate elite and the rest of us. I hope Montreal will find a way to make the quality of life the main fight, rather than the quantity of economic output. I hope we will have more bike paths, more galleries, more parks, more meeting places. I hope we will show that millions of people with different languages and different races can live happily on one island. And that they can do so sustainably, on modest means, and that they can be less greedy and competitive than their contemporaries.

And I say "we" now consciously. I thought to myself today as I walked on the outskirts of Hochelaga that no matter what, I will stick it out here. I will stick it out here even if when I finish my diploma the only job on offer is down at the depanneur.

Coup de foudre

Another fine weekend. With surprising frequency, I have experiences in town that fill me with such gladness that I feel my chest will break. Sharing dinner with some good people yesterday -- including new Quebecois friends (well, I hope in time they will become friends) -- and discussing the coup de foudre that is common to newcomers to Montreal, then walking outside into the cold night, looking up the length of la rue Beaudoin in the neighbourhood of St. Henri, and in the distance, St. Joseph's Oratory, shining faintly with mellow green light, nestled into the mountain... it was all so beautiful, so beautiful. London and Paris and Vancouver and many other cities I've never seen -- they're all beautiful -- but I don't know if there is any city more beautiful than Montreal. It is achingly beautiful. There is a robustness yet fragility to the quality of life here, and the quality of the architecture, that makes me want to throw my arms around everything and say, You are wonderful, I love you, let's never be apart. It's exactly the same way I feel about my girlfriend. Fate willing, when we make a happy threesome: me, her, Montreal, life will finally come into focus, I will be able to sink roots here, and finally find the stability and contentment that has so long eluded me.

Two months

Has it only been two months since I arrived in Montreal? That hardly seems possible. When I think back to August 6, the last day I was in Edmonton, and all the traveling in between in France, it is a fast-paced blur.

I still hardly know myself. In fact, I wonder sometimes if I am unknowing myself. Is that even a verb?

It is remarkable the extent to which I feel a new city shaping me. I think Montreal is radicalizing me. One of the first things I did shortly after arriving here was stop eating meat. I just didn't see the point in meat. I had increasingly lost my taste for it; moreover, I couldn't really justify it. Factory farming is one of North America's biggest environmental blemishes.

Then I started to think of psychogeography in a different way. Not merely a stroll around the city and a reflection on its effect on us, but more importantly, maybe, a rejection of the very economic forces that come to shape cities. I want to push my own wanderings to the point where they no longer become an observation: they become a participation. They become an attempt to live differently. Instead of hurrying around our cities like ants, transporting consumer goods hither and yon, we should be moving about them with creative purpose -- seeking our identities and those of others, trying to make new situations that have maybe not existed before. Let there be more spontaneous gatherings in our cities. The tamtams in Montreal is one such gathering. I so much enjoyed celebrating my birthday that way: sitting in the park with the tamstams' rhythm in the background, eating with friends, basking in the sunlight. Last weekend was one of the best of my life.

What an autumn it has been.

Now it has returned to a more typical autumn grey and grizzle, the streets are slick and sinuous, and everywhere you can hear the hiss and rush of wheels on wet cement. But still I love it. It was perfect weather for a short afternoon nap. Now, slightly re-energized, I hope to be able to accomplish something before a fresh round of celebrations begin: Halloween!

Up the mountain

It was time for a break, and the sun came out, so I walked up Mont Royal. From the top, there was a striking view of St. Joseph's Oratory. I took a photo and later doctored it quick-and-dirty in iPhoto. If this particular computer had Photoshop, I would've spent longer on it.



I am soon starting a new project, with friends, whereby we will extensively "blog" on Montreal and include photos and film. It is a psychogeographic tribute to the city. I am really looking forward to it.