Last night of treacherous March

March is ending unlike it started. This last week has been warm every day. Borderline hot, even. Now today, all of a sudden, the temperature dropped suddenly. It was dark, cold, when I went out to buy the bare necessities of life, I was wearing my Liverpool coat. I didn't want to wear the Berghaus, but it would have been better: the Liverpool coat is just not warm enough, whatever nostalgic attachment I have towards it. And tomorrow is April, by far the most treacherous month there is in the year. This is why I don't trust spring: it has the two worst months of the year in it. Sometimes you think summer is here, other days like today, winter is back.

So for the rest of the night, I will wrap myself in a comfortable blanket and I will read a lot and watch some DVDs (I let you guess what exactly: here is a clue). Cold temperatures make for comfortable evenings at home, when you have the proper blanket. This one you see on the picture above is not here, unfortunately I will not be wrapped in it. The tartan blanket is older than me, my parents used to wrap me up in it when I was a baby, then I inherited it. I took the picture when I was in Chicoutimi. I still use it when I visit. For me this blanket is the quintessential comfort item for a cold night.

Le sacre québécois

J'ai lu avec intérêt la chronique de Patrick Lagacé sur les sacres québécois. Je suis un peu désolé d'apprendre que les anglicismes commencent déjà à prendre le pas, pour la jeune génération, sur nos bons vieux sacres issus de la liturgie catholique, l'hostie devenue un stie interjectif, le Christ devenu un crisse bien sifflé et le fameux tabarnak qui est sans doute le plus connu hors Québec. J'espère que ce dernier ne sera pas perdu. Je tiens à ce qu'on garde ces grossièretés bien de chez nous pour deux raisons simples: 1)on n'éliminera pas l'existence des jurons dans quelque culture que ce soit, autant en avoir des distincts 2)les sacres québécois sont un pied de nez au catholicisme, qu'il désacralise et à l'Église catholique, dont il défie l'autorité. On me dira que l'Église catholique n'a plus vraiment d'influence au Québec. Ce n'est malheureusement pas vrai: certains peuvent encore sévir. Alors qu'on leur rappelle leur insignifiance, la profonde stupidité de leur pompe, de par un sacre bien senti, c'est non seulement nécessaire, c'est essentiel.

Friday treats (the usual)

Quick blog post about what I had for lunch, because it is now a weekly tradition. I am not being very original here or very adventurous. But I go for what is safe, especially since it was a rough Friday (end of the week, end of the month), so I needed tried and trusted comfort food. I had the usual, like every single working Friday: smoked salmon baguette, horseradish sauce, lettuce, red onion, tomatoes, salt and pepper, lemon juice of course. On the side, cashew nuts and Coca Cola. This Friday was busy, tiresome, the day was sunny but cooler than this week, enough to feel it. I really enjoyed my lunch.

La bière du vendredi soir

Je suis en train de boire une Roasted Nuts de Rebellion Brewery, la brasserie locale. Je commence ma fin de semaine du bon pied, avec une bière de qualité. Elle est un peu anachronique: c'est une bière d'hiver, quoique la température commence à devenir de plus en plus froide. Je suis gâté ici en tant qu'amateur de bières: en plus de la brasserie locale il y a une douzaine de microbrasseries (j'exagère, mais à peine) tout autour qui fournissent une aussi importante variété de produits. Cela dit, je m'ennuie des bières québécoises. Les produits des Brasseurs du Nord ne sont pas mes préférés. Cela dit, une bonne Boréale rousse bien honnête en apéro, avec disons un roast beef ou une fondue chinoise comme souper, bien ce serait très plaisant. Je sais que ce billet est d'une ineptie affligeante, mais c'est ça qui est ça.

Man with Harmonica

Twice in a row, in an English blog post, I upload music. Well, sometimes I am in a musical mood. Maybe it is because I have been thinking about Italy recently. It was hot today. I was wearing my summer cold when I went outside for a walk. A black, thin, long summer coat which the pocket broke down stupidly two years ago and which I sewed myself. I don't know why, but it reminded me of the spaghetti westerns I used to watch, especially those of Sergio Leone. Well, actually, they are the only ones I watched back to back, over and over again (which reminds me: I need to watch more of them). And I had in mind the great music of Ennio Morricone. I have been wanting to upload some on this blog for a while. I actually wonder why I didn't, in four years of blogging. So now is as good a time as any. It is beautiful and operatic and it deserves to be listened to. So here is Man with Harmonica from Once Upon a Time in the West. Italians know how to be truly epic, in their movies and in their music.

Question existentielle (119)

Une question existentielle profondément nombriliste:

-Qu'est-ce qui distingue les gens du Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean des autres Québécois?

Et je suis curieux d'entendre les réponses tant des Bleuets que des Québécois (ou non-Québécois) qui les connaissent.

Way Down in the Hole

I know I blogged about this song before, but that was almost three years ago. And I know I often blog about The Wire (last time I mentioned was not even a week ago), but it is such a great show and its music is haunting me. So I have decided to upload on Vraie Fiction Way Down in the Hole by Tom Waits, because I keep listening to it. And well, Lent is nearly over, soon it will be Good Friday and Easter and this song mentions Jesus plenty and Satan, although in a sarcastic, even cynical tone. I am wondering a lot about the meaning of the song. I don't know much about Tom Waits as an artist, know zilch about his beliefs or disbeliefs, but I think Way Down in the Hole is about the human condition, about the threats we face and the precarious nature of our situation. Life is a constant struggle against unknown, terrible menaces, often against our own demons.

Brocéliande sur ses chemins de légendes

J'ai décidé de ploguer un bouquin acheté lors de mon dernier séjour en Bretagne: Brocéliande sur ses chemins de légendes. Je l'ai acheté à l'état neuf pour une bouchée de pain dans une librairie usagée. Ah, les trésors que l'on peut trouver parfois dans les librairies usagées! Bon, je sais, ce n'est pas un grand livre, mais c'est un beau livre, qui parle bien sûr des légendes et des lieux de Bretagne, par le biais d'une excursion texte et images dans la forêt de Brocéliande. Les photos sont absolument superbes. Le paysage s'y prête, bien sûr.

Je lis le livre sporadiquement et depuis que je l'ai acheté en août 2011 je n'en suis qu'à un peu moins de la moitié. Et je crois que ce genre de livre se lit mieux à l'automne et l'hiver. Surtout à l'automne en fait. L'auteure fait d'ailleurs commencer la "promenade" à l'Halloween, fête celtique par excellence. Beaucoup de photos sont automnales. Alors je lis Brocéliande à très petites doses, en espérant qu'il m'en restera un peu à l'automne prochain. Cela dit, je vous recommande de jeter un oeil dessus, ne serait-ce que pour les photos.

Et j'ai conscience que la photo de la couverture jure un peu avec le mois de mars et ce printemps. Mais je ne voulais pas attendre six mois avant de bloguer sur le bouquin.

An anecdote about Arvida and Bergamo

I finished reading Arvida today, on the journey back from work. As my francophone readers know, it was written by my cousin, who is apparently planning an Arvida 2. Arvida is in fact a town, where my mother and his father were born and grew up. I spent many weekends there and family reunions. And today, as I was walking home in the heat of a spring day that is starting to feel suspiciously like summer, thinking about my the next book I would read, an Italian crime novel (translated in French), I just remembered an anecdote about Arvida.

It was during my time in Italy, I was spending the night at a friend's house in Bergamo (the town that gave me my Italian name and incidentally my favourite town in Italy). It was a large old house, where there was a large living room with old furniture, an old record player (I listened to Mozart I think) and an old, very old globe. I spent one morning there, it was late in August or early in September and it was very hot. I checked the globe out of curiosity, all those places in the world with Italian names. And I obviously checked Québec out of curiosity, and especially where I was from, the Saguenay region. There was no mention of Chicoutimi or Jonquière, even they were much bigger places. Especially Chicoutimi, which is actually a city, not merely a cathedral. But right at the center of my region, there was Arvida, marked with the same thick spot as Quebec City or Montreal, as if it was the center of Saguenay, or even of Québec. I found it very singular, that my friend had this terrestrial globe and that Arvida was literally on the map, that it existed for Italian eyes to see.

La page 306 d'Arvida

Je viens de finir Arvida, écrit par mon cousin. J'y suis mentionné, avec mes frères, à la page 306. Une brève mention comme ça, presqu'anonyme, mais tout de même. Je ne dis pas dans quel contexte, vous devrez le lire (et acheter le bouquin). Je me contenterai de dire qu'il s'agit bien sûr d'un véridique souvenir d'enfance, je peux en témoigner.

The beginning of The Kingdom of the Wicked

"I take my title from the name the Jews have traditionally given to the Roman Empire. You may expect to meet all manners of wickedness in what follows-pork-eating, lechery, adultery, bigamy, sodomy, bestiality, the most ingenious varieties of cruelty, assassination, the worship of false gods and the sin of being uncircumcised. So you may lick your lips in anticipation of being, as it were, vicariously corrupted at the hand of your author. It is all too possible that the practice of literature is a mode of depravity rightly to be condemned. But, as is well known, literature ceases to be literature when it commits itself to moral uplift: it becomes moral philospophy or such dull thing. Let us then, in the interest of allaying the boredom of this our life, agree to our complementary damnations. My damnation is, of course, greater than yours, since I am the initiator and you are merely the receptor of evil recordings. Moreover, you may throw this book into the fire if your disgust becomes too great; I am committed to writing it. Take another cup of wine and accept that we human beings are a bad lot."

The Kingdom of the Wicked, Anthony Burgess

It is a very long quote and I think I could have typed the whole book here. I think I didn't forget anything. It is Lent, Easter is coming soon and this book is about the early years of Christianity, so it is fitting that I quote it. It was also written alongside the script of this movie/miniseries. Which I have not seen anywhere and only read mixed reviews. But it is a great novel, mainly because it is a deconstruction of Christian myths, an account of Christianity's early life written by a sceptical Roman civil servant, who himself shows an uncanny godly omniscience. It is a novel about literature, about the narrative and the narrator. It is also a pessimistic picture of ideals, spiritual or secular. The godless and the faithful both failing to find any kind of peace. Anyway, it is difficult to find, but a great read if you are lucky enough to get your hands on a copy. 

Allons tous à Jérusalem

Oui! Enfin! Hallelujah! J,ai trouvé sur YouTube des extraits d'Allons tous à Jérusalem de Marc Labrèche, chanson sacrée née et immortalisée dans La fin du monde est à 7 heures. C'est le Carême, Pâques s'en vient, l'Église catholique a un nouveau sinistre ensoutané à Montréal, alors cette parodie de chanson dévote, qui sonne exactement comme les chanson niaises que chantait/composait mon animateur de pastorale au secondaire, sera du plus bel effet sur ce blogue. Je voulais en fait mettre cette version, sauf qu'avec l'image qui va avec la musique... Enfin bref, je me suis rabattu sur une version franchement moins bonne, avec un enregistrement très ordinaire, tiré d'Un grand blond avec un show sournois:

The Montreal Connection

This picture was taken in the Old Montreal, back in 2010. I am not sure why I uploaded it here for this post. Maybe I should have taken one of the Court House. it would have been more appropriate. But back in 2010, I obviously didn't know I was about to blog this post. I am reading this book (well, the French original), which I blogged about before. I was recently mentioning Donnie Brasco here, a movie about the infiltration of FBI agent Joe Pistone, aka Donnie Brasco, into the Bonnano Family. I watched it two or three times, enjoyed it quite a lot, but I now want to watch it again. Because I discovered through the book that one of the massacre pictured in the movie was in fact perpetrated by a team of murderers from Montreal, which was only discovered years later. The Montreal mafia has been historically under the authority of the Bonnanos, so both cities are closely connected when it comes to organised crime.

And there is of course The French Connection, which I watched again on the plane going to Montreal. The real, historical French Connection was stopping at Montreal before going to the States. This is all very sinister, yet I cannot help but being fascinated. I feel that we have been robbed of our crime history, and by extension, of our crime fiction.

Fumées printannières

Le printemps est précoce ces temps-ci, à un point tel qu'on dirait parfois l'été. Depuis deux semaines au moins, je remarque un phénomène assez singulier: il y a parfois de la fumée partout. Ca a commencé il y a deux semaines, je sortais de chez moi un dimanche de fin d'après-midi et je voyais des volutes de fumée venant je crois de la campagne. Ca sentait assez fort. Mais il n'y avait pas de trace d'incendie. Ensuite quelques jours en sortant du travail, en me rendant à la gare, je pouvais sentir de la fumée. Je me demande si c'est le temps sec, ou si, ici comme parfois au Québec, certaines personnes font brûler des feuilles et des branches dans des feux de printemps.

Mozart's "new" composition

These things happen sometimes and when they do they never cease to amaze me. In fact, it is almost beyond belief. They found a "new", unknown piece of work from Mozart. You can read more about it and listen to it on this BBC News link. He probably composed this one when he was ten. I listened to it and I had goosebumps. And it sounds like Mozart. That is the most amazing thing: it does not sound like the laborious work of some struggling child learning music, it sounds like Mozart.

Le changement d'heure

C'est ce soir que nous passons à l'heure avancée/l'heure d'été. J'aime bien passer de l'heure d'été à celle d'hiver (j'ai blogué au moins une fois à ce sujet), mais j'avoue que j'aime beaucoup moins le contraire: l'heure avancée, ça veut dire une heure de moins de sommeil cette nuit, d'abord, ce qui est toujours déplaisant, ensuite il fera jour plus tôt, ce que je trouve difficile, surtout que de ma chambre les rideaux ne bloquent pas la lumière, alors dès qu'il fait jour... Bien dès qu'il fait jour, il fait jour. Un pur calvaire. Alors j'ai très peu hâte au changement d'heure, lequel est imminent.

A look at the Abyss

I hope I grabbed my reader's attention with the title of this post. I was looking for something that fitted the subject. It is utterly and shamelessly melodramatic, but look at this picture. I found it in an old folder, from the trip to Quebec in Easter 2010. It was taken from the top of Montmorency Falls. It is quite a sight. Earth, water, air, all clashing together, and the light rising from it in a rainbow. I wonder why I didn't blog this picture before, but thought it is better late than never. There is not much to say really, I just wanted to upload it.

Pâques bientôt

Tiens, ça m'est venu à l'esprit aujourd'hui: nous sommes en plein milieu du Carême. J'en ai fait peu de cas sur le blogue. Enfin, je dis "en plein milieu", mais en fait Pâques arrive à grands pas. Ce qui veut dire que je dois me trouver du chocolat de Pâques. Pas du Eddy Laurent comme sur la photo, on n'en trouve pas ici, mais de toute façon je veux quelque chose de plus simple. Idéalement, j'aimerais avoir du Lulu, ça me manque. Je voulais illustrer ce billet par une photo d'un animal en chocolat Lulu, mais n'en ai malheureusement pas trouvé. Donc je dois me contenter de cette photo de lapin Eddy Laurent. Petite observation comme ça:les animaux de Lulu sont en général plus réalistes. Celui-ci a l'air de Bugs Bunny, comme ceux que l'on vend en Angleterre d'ailleurs.

Ah oui, et je vais sans doute m'acheter un lapin, parce que c'est l'animal en chocolat le plus approprié pour Pâques, voir ce billet si vous êtes sceptiques.

Friday treats

I had Friday off today. I had treats yesterday, but I decided to treat myself today too. There is a sandwich shop which I used to go to when I was unemployed or working in the town I live. I bough what I used to buy: chicken sandwich with real, authentic mayonnaise (read: no Miracle Whip), some carrots with dips to go with it and a Coca Cola for the drink. I had it very late, at nearly 4 o'clock, watching The Wire. Which I had been watching all day. Then in the early evening, I went to the local pub, where I used to go to when I was unemployed, and I had some real ales (two half pints). Now I am going to watch more of The Wire. This is pretty much a perfect, blissful Friday.

Ne pas se découvrir d'un fil?

"En avril, ne te découvre pas d'un fil", dit le proverbe, me disait ma mère dès que le printemps arrivait quand j'étais petit et me dis-je encore parfois. Or, on est toujours en mars, et il commence à faire sérieusement chaud! Par cela je veux dire: je dois porter au plus mon manteau d'été, parce que le manteau Berghaus que je porte est hivernal, ou à tout le moins conçu pour un hiver anglais. Le proverbe parle d'avril, mais aujourd'hui il n'a pas la vie facile. Je veux bien suivre les conseils de ma mère, mais on s'habille comme le temps nous permet, et je porte déjà bien trop de fils comme ça.