Updates from November, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 19:02 on 2020-11-18 Permalink | Reply  

    QMI gives us a resumé of recent linguistic controversies including Valérie Plante giving a brief speech in English in 2018, which rocked Quebec for a few days.

    Steve Faguy has a Twitter thread on l’affaire Lambropoulos. “The House of Commons has unanimously adopted a motion “recognizing” that French use in Quebec is declining. Whether that’s actually true is a matter of debate, but of course whether it is true is not relevant here because politics.”

    The Bloc wants candidates for citizenship to have to pass a mandatory French exam.

    Lise Ravary writes in the Gazette about how Quebec must become independent so French can be properly protected. Tough room.

    Sorry about all these language links. I half suspect this language fuss is a form of anxiety substitution avoidance over Covid.

     

    • Kevin 21:59 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

      The only saving grace is that in the real world, nobody cares.

    • Douglas 22:30 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

      They lost the referendum twice on this issue already and haven’t gotten over it yet.

    • Azrhey 22:48 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

      “ The Bloc wants candidates for citizenship to have to pass a mandatory French exam.”

      Yeah but a lot of francophone countries are also full of Brown and Black people…. and I doubt the Bloc wants that either…

    • Douglas 00:34 on 2020-11-19 Permalink

      I guess there’s too many “ethnics” (Ty Mr. Parizeau) that don’t speak Quebec French ruining it for the natives.

    • dhomas 06:53 on 2020-11-19 Permalink

      I’m an Anglophone and, not to toot my own horn, I can almost guarantee that my written French is better than 90% of Québecois “de souche” (you know, those folks who ask me where I’m from and, even though I was born here, still consider me as one of the “vous autres”). Instead of focusing on “the other” with citizenship tests, maybe invest a little bit more in education so your base doesn’t look stupid writing “sa” instead of “ça” on their Facebook posts about protecting the French language. Or is the population kept intentionally ignorant so they’ll continue to fall for these dumb identity politics EVERY TIME?
      /rant over

    • DeWolf 12:50 on 2020-11-19 Permalink

      I think Kate’s right about “anxiety substitution avoidance.” First it was les ostis d’piss cyclab… now we’re back to something more traditional.

  • Kate 18:52 on 2020-11-18 Permalink | Reply  

    I don’t know how many metro stations still have photo booths (I can only clearly recall the one at Peel) but now they will all be going away.

     

    • Jebediah Pallindrome 18:59 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

      I love the photo with the fresh squeezed OJ booth… because when you want Florida-fresh orange juice, you instinctively think “Peel Metro station, mezzanine level’

    • CE 19:25 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

      The CBC ran this bizarrely in-depth article a while ago about the decline of photo booths. Apparently the one in Place-des-Arts station is the last analogue booth left in Quebec and only one of six in all of Canada.

    • Blork 22:04 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

      The original selfies.

    • Michael Black 22:08 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

      But I recall using them for photos for my passes to Expo 67 and Man and his World. I think for some other things.

      But student passes for the bus, I can’t remember, but I thought they took the photo.

      Now you have to go to a drugstore to get a medicare photo.

    • Kate 22:19 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

      Michael Black, as I recall, you had to get a form from your school, then go to Berri-UQÀM and be photographed. There were long lines and long waits, and then God help you if you lost your pass.

    • Michael Black 23:16 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

      When we went in grade 7, we went as a group. And either we were given the wrong time, or there was a delay because we ended up killing time. But I don’t remember the photo, other than there must have been a reason we had to go down there.

      Maybe I got a pass the next year, but that was it. Too much work. I used student tickets until one day a bus driver demanded adult fair. I guess it helped that I rarely used public transit.

    • JS 23:52 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

      At some point about 30+ years ago I started noticing that all the sample pictures on photo booths everywhere in Montreal were of the same people, but not the same pictures. Over the years they would update the machines with new pictures of the same people and from time to time add new people and drop some. This went on until they put in the new-fangled ones that used different models. I was always tempted to call the number on the machines to find out more but never did. For awhile the photobooth in the basement of the Biodome near the lockers had really old pics, but I think they eventually ditched it. Too bad. It was a neat mystery.

    • Raymond Lutz 10:12 on 2020-11-19 Permalink

      Kid, I loved listening with the ear pressed against the booth wall all the gurgling sounds it made during the mechanized photographic development process. Looking at displayed photo strips too was fun…

  • Kate 15:59 on 2020-11-18 Permalink | Reply  

    The Camillien-Houde will be closed to motor vehicles for weeks while work is done on overhanging cliffs judged likely to fall. Cyclists and pedestrians are still allowed to use the road.

     

    • Jack 18:12 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

      Thanks Valerie !

    • Kate 18:47 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

      I was expecting remarks on how odd it is that it’s OK if a cyclist or runner gets brained by a piece of falling rock, but not OK for a car or bus to be damaged.

    • Blork 18:57 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

      I suspect it’s a matter of road access while they’re doing the work. It’s no big deal to make a few pedestrians and cyclists wait a few minutes while the workers do their stuff and then pause for a minute to let that one cyclist through or whatever, but it’s another thing to have to install an access control system for hundreds of cars that get very impatient while waiting. Easier to just ban all cars than to have them lined up for a hundred metres each way and end up taking twice as long to do the job because of all the breaks you have to take to let all the cars through.

  • Kate 14:50 on 2020-11-18 Permalink | Reply  

    The man noted a few days ago as having failed to return to his parole halfway house, where he’s serving out time for an attack on a woman in NDG, has been apprehended.

     

    • Kate 12:53 on 2020-11-18 Permalink | Reply  

      Wednesday Quebec chalked up 1179 new cases of Covid and 35 more deaths, but the government is saying that some gatherings of 250 people are OK even in red zones – if they’re judged “essential.”

      Update: So apparently this isn’t true despite being reported as fact all day.

       

      • Kate 12:48 on 2020-11-18 Permalink | Reply  

        A new bookstore specializing in genre paperbacks in English and French has just opened. Article says it’s in NDG, but gives no address.

        It’s at 5574 Upper Lachine Road, next door to Momesso’s.

         

        • Michael Black 14:08 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

          They have a website, https://librairiesaga.ca/en

          So it seems to be an actual new book bookstore. So much talk.about “independent bookstores” is about used book stores.

          But related, “Nearly New Books” in NDG moved to a bigger location across the street in July, and changed its name to Phoenix Books. It’s a used bookstore, and its roots go back over forty years to NDG Paperback.

        • Kate 19:39 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

          There was a time when all I would’ve wanted to do is go there, buy a couple of paperbacks, and then go next door and sit in Momesso’s and read them and drink espresso.

          This is not that time.

        • walkerp 20:49 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

          Very cool! It sounds a lot like Bakka Books in Toronto. I will be providing them with my custom. Also, thanks for the note on Phoenix Books. I did not know about them. So few used bookstores left in town, each new discovery is a small miracle. I will also be checking them out in the near future.

        • Mark Côté 21:28 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

          Encore Books is just down the road from Phoenix and is one of my favourite bookstores.

        • MarcG 12:30 on 2020-11-19 Permalink

          Does anyone remember the name of the used book store that used to be near the corner of Girouard and Sherbrooke on the SW side, run by a mother and son, had red, white and blue sign, and moved westward on Sherbrooke some years ago? https://goo.gl/maps/JZoKVrG5VnnxT1bz6

        • Michael Black 12:52 on 2020-11-19 Permalink

          That was NDG Paperback. I was first in there abiut 1976 or 77. They were on the upper side of Sherbrooke around Clifton or Regent. It moved around a few times, to near Girouard, and then back to almost the same address near Clifton, though the block had been redeveloped by then. It did eventually change it’s name.

          I was unceetain about the continuity,until I read something a couple of years ago.

          Then a couple of women bought the store, I think it took me a while before I realized it gad a new owner. So it was “Nearly New Boojs” until July.

          In the eighties there was a used bookstore across from the park, but I can’t remember the name.

          SW Welch used to be on Sherbrooke across from where Encore is. It was their second location, originally on Decarie, I can’t remember how far up, on the second floor. I think they were there only a couple of years. After Sherbrooke, it was St. lawrence Blvd.

          Encore had a second location about Grey for a few years, which had been Diamond Books for decades, uner different owners.

        • MarcG 13:02 on 2020-11-19 Permalink

          Thanks, Michael, it was Nearly New Books that I was trying to remember. I recalled the name being funny, or a play on words of some kind, and after Googling I found an image of the sign which has the French translation as “Presque 9”. Har. They still have an old website up here. https://sites.google.com/site/montrealusedbooks/home

      • Kate 12:17 on 2020-11-18 Permalink | Reply  

        A car fell off the Lachine lighthouse pier into Lac St-Louis early in October, and the two occupants who drowned were students from India. One had just bought the used car the same day.

         

        • Kate 12:15 on 2020-11-18 Permalink | Reply  

          Shane Maloney, leaving a Quebec prison for a new life in British Columbia, says the West End Gang is dead.

           

          • Kate 10:49 on 2020-11-18 Permalink | Reply  

            Kraft Heinz is set to start making ketchup here again, after a six-year absence – only after Quebec bribed them with $2 million. How long was it till someone wrote the headline L’affaire est ketchup?

            Not only is Quebec making this huge US conglomerate a present of $2 million – the tomatoes it will use will be American ones.

             

            • Ephraim 11:10 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              It lost a significant market to French’s, which uses Canadian tomatoes. First at a US plant, but now at a Canadian plant. There are at least 3 brands of Canadian ketchup now, Primo, President’s Choice and French’s. But only two are Canadian companies. It’s not easy marking “product of Canada” anymore. It actually needs to be made here!

            • Blork 11:22 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              The report I read said that initially they will use US tomatoes because of existing supply contracts but once those contracts expire (no indication when that will be) they will switch to Canadian tomatoes.

              I don’t know if I will switch back. French’s tastes just fine to me, and I generally prefer to root for the underdog. I’m also not a big fan of the whole prodigal son scenario that Heinz is playing.

              OTOH, if you want to eat local… does a bottle of ketchup from Montreal have a significantly smaller ecological footprint than a bottle of ketchup from Ontario? (100-mile ketchup diet!) Given that I go through all of a bottle and a half of ketchup a year I doubt it makes any difference.

            • Kate 11:28 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              I think it’s more about what brand of ketchup chain restaurants will buy, no?

              I never use the stuff. Now if Huy Fong started making sriracha sauce here…

            • CE 11:42 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              @Kate, it would depend on supply chains and how many hands it goes through before getting to you. It very well could work out that the bottle made in Montreal gets shipped to a warehouse in Ontario and then shipped back to Montreal and the one made in Ontario gets shipped to the same place then shipped to Montreal. It’s crazy how much stuff moves around before getting on a store shelf!

            • Su 12:18 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              They should be required to ditch the plastic squirt bottles before we let them in.

            • Kate 12:21 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              Excellent point, Su. Quebec’s got to put its big talk about green plans to work, in every kind of detail.

            • Su 12:53 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              No doubt they are allready considering this sustainable exemplary move given that they are dedicated signatories to the U.N Global Compact. https://www.unglobalcompact.org/what-is-gc/participants/141100-The-Kraft-Heinz-Company

            • Michael Black 14:10 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              So we go back to glass bottles for ketchup? Heinz themselves used to have ads about it, waiting for the ketchup to come out.

            • Blork 14:27 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              True story: last March I went to buy French’s ketchup at Provigo. The 750ml bottle was $3.99. The 1-litre bottle was… $3.99. So of course I bought the larger bottle. A couple of weeks ago it was time to re-up again. I went over to the condiments aisle and the 750ml bottle was $3.99 and the 1-litre bottle was still $3.99. So it was not even a temporary pricing glitch. This time I bought the smaller bottle because I’m tired of that bottle of ketchup taking up so much room in the fridge and the difference adds up to about a buck-and-a-half a year so I don’t give AF about getting the better price.

            • Kevin 14:44 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              I hated the glass bottles because they were heavy and ineffective at their job. Their plastic bottles are the ne plus ultra.

            • Michael Black 15:12 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              I remember 2L glass soda bottles. Those could explode. There’s also the matter of transport, to the store but even bringing it home. Glass is heavy.

              The trick is to buy a small bottle, then refill it from a large bottle.

            • Clément 17:16 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              Canadian ketchup, made in Canada (Chicoutimi) with Canadian ingredients by a Canadian owned company: Canada Sauce. They make ketchup, relish and mustard.
              They even have a refill service at my local zéro-déchet in-bulk store.
              https://canadasauce.com/

            • Blork 18:09 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              Nice! Although it occurs to me that for the small amount I use I could actually just make my own. I’m just not sure homemade ketchup keeps for 8 months in the fridge…

            • MarcG 18:22 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              Traditional lacto-fermented ketchup would last a long time in the fridge.

            • Blork 18:39 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              Regular tomato ketchup isn’t fermented. The pickled condiment often containing fruit that is known in Quebec as “ketchup maison” is, but that’s not what we’re talking about. (It’s like comparing vinaigrette to mayonnaise; they’re completely different things although some people might call them both “salad dressing.”)

            • Kate 18:49 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              Clément, that Canada sauce looks great, especially as it’s “sans conservateurs”!

            • MarcG 19:08 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              @Blork I’m talking about the tomato ketchup you know and love before it became a commercial product. Although I can’t find a historical recipe where it’s lacto-fermented – perhaps it was the acidity from the tomatoes that preserved it, or as in the wikipedia entry, Brandy. 🙂 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup#Tomato_ketchup.

            • MarcG 19:09 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              Actually, I made a mistake, the 2nd step in that recipe “let them rest for 3 days” is the fermentation period.

            • MarcG 19:25 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              Also I think you’d be hard pressed to find a “ketchup maison” for sale that didn’t use commercial vinegar instead of naturally produced lactic acid.

            • Blork 21:52 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              @MarcG, I have to admit that recipe for “Tomata Catsup” looks pretty interesting. But salty AF! A pound of salt for a gallon of “tomatas?” Yo, there goes my blood pressure!

            • Blork 21:59 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              …that said, I’m happy enough with commercial ketchup since the only things I use it for are (1) on Blork’s World Famous Roast Potatoes (usually with a dab of sriracha added) and (2) as a shortcut when making BBQ sauce.

              Hmm. Checking my recipes I see I also use it in my reverse-engineered Taco del Rey chipotle sauce and Huli Huli chicken, but I don’t make either of those very often.

            • MarcG 10:22 on 2020-11-19 Permalink

              Part of the purpose of the salt is to pull the water out of the tomatas, which you then remove (most modern recipes start with tomato paste instead of whole tomatoes), so I think the final product would probably be averagely salty but also impossible to measure if you are watching your sodium intake.

          • Kate 00:30 on 2020-11-18 Permalink | Reply  

            Spokesman for a new building going up in Park Ex says he thinks it’s reasonable to pay $1400 monthly for a studio apartment and as much as $2950 for a 5½ in the project, which began before the new law about social housing inclusion.

             

            • MtlWeb 09:51 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              Includes internet, hydro, and appliances, surprised he didn’t claim close metro access as the promoter’s doing….grew up in Park Ex, parents still there; who can afford to live in these residences….perhaps 6-7-8 university students splitting the rent?

            • Ephraim 11:11 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              It’s a marketplace. The prices will change if they are empty.

            • DeWolf 13:11 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              Given that you can still find a nice 5 1/2 for less than $2,000 (and sometimes less than $1,500) in Mile End, Outremont, Rosemont, Villeray and of course Park Ex, I really wonder who the target market for this project is. Gentrification enthusiasts?

            • Blork 14:35 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              Trying not to sound like a grumpy old man here, but supposedly there are many among the younger generations who grew up very coddled and helicoptered and who cannot handle the idea of living in a place that might not have all brand-new everything, or might need a repair now and then, or might have the occasional spider or (horrors!) cockroach or centipede stroll through. Such people pay extra for “shiny.” Also: soundproofing.

            • Uatu 14:45 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              Yeah and those are the kids who’ll get help with the down payment from Mom and Dad

            • CE 19:30 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              There are definitely people out there who absolutely must have a brand new apartment/house and are willing to pay for it.

            • Kate 22:28 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              That’s so odd. I love living in an older building. I once rummaged through the Lovell directories to find out who else had lived in my current apartment. Lovell used to list a person’s occupation and sometimes their employer (at least, for the man of the house). There was a guy who worked as a shipper at Eaton’s, then for some years a guy who worked security up north of Cremazie for the transit commission, which has had land there for a long time, and then a printer.

              One day I heard some people talking outside, and there was a family group with an older man who told me he used to live in the other flat on the ground floor (this is a double triplex). When he was a kid he knew the security guy and was totally impressed the guy was allowed to have a gun!

              Where I lived in the Plateau the building was even older, 1880s or so. One day the doorbell rings and it’s two old ladies, a man and a teenage boy. The women were sisters and had lived in my flat in the 1940s when the neighbourhood was mostly Jewish. The man and boy were kind of embarrassed but the old ladies were all giggly.

              Makes you think – these flats, which seem seem about the right size for me, the computer, the books and the cat, were originally intended for, and lived in by, entire families.

              You can’t get this stuff with a new building.

            • Blork 22:40 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

              In the old days this was referred to as “the generation gap.” Now it’s just “goddamn millennials!” (said while shaking fist at the sky).

          • Kate 00:28 on 2020-11-18 Permalink | Reply  

            Montreal has struck a deal with St-Lambert over noise from the Parc Jean-Drapeau, but some St‑Lambertois say the deal doesn’t go far enough.

             

            • Kate 00:25 on 2020-11-18 Permalink | Reply  

              City council adopted a motion Tuesday declaring Louis Riel not guilty of high treason.

               

              • Michael Black 15:28 on 2020-11-18 Permalink

                But what if we don’t want him pardoned?

                The Metis National Council is against it. They add that the family is against it. We didn’t do anything wrong.

                The organization behind this is small, though somehow they got the BC Metis Federation on board..

                I can’t help but think this passed because people don’t really know the story, and don’t pay enough attention to see this doesn’t have a lot of followers. A lot of crank ideas can get through because most people don’t have the depth to question it. Marie-Josée Parent is a great example.

                I also fear this passed because of Metis ideals, but because cousin Louis is presented as a French Canadian hero. He wanted a place for everyone of mixed race. There is a suggestion that Annie Bannatyne’s horsewhipping of Charles Mair in Feb 1869 was a pulse that got Louis to act.

                Annie was a neighbor and relative (it’s she that connects my family to Louis) in Red River, the same age as my great, great grandmother Henrietta. The Resistance was about a place for all of us.

                I simply hadn’t got around to emailing Marvin.

            c
            Compose new post
            j
            Next post/Next comment
            k
            Previous post/Previous comment
            r
            Reply
            e
            Edit
            o
            Show/Hide comments
            t
            Go to top
            l
            Go to login
            h
            Show/Hide help
            shift + esc
            Cancel