Indian Summer Afternoon
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Tag Archives: Montreal
Truth is Relative
Barney’s Version by Mordecai Richler ★★★★
Barney Panofsky is an aging Jewish businessman from Montreal who’s made the bulk of his fortune producing schlock Canadian television programs. He decides to write a memoir relating his own version of events when an old acquaintance from his time spent in Paris as a young man publishes a book which features unflattering mentions about him. What’s clear from the beginning is that Barney is an unpleasant old coot who takes pride in offending people and their various sensibilities, and also that he has a faltering memory (he calls one of his sons in London when he needs help remembering the names of the seven dwarves), which makes him a delightfully unreliable narrator. We also quickly learn that Barney is a heavy drinker who enjoys his Macallan single malt scotch with plenty of cigars, morning, noon and night. The novel is divided into three parts which are ostensibly dedicated to his three former wives, and we eventually learn the details of how he came to be married to them and how the marriages have ended, although Barney’s storytelling is far from linear and tends to jump all over the place, so there are anecdotes aplenty. Barney may or may not have killed his best friend, the talented writer Bernard “Boogie” Moscovitch, who has disappeared without a trace, and he aims to redeem himself and come clean once and for all about the events which led to his arrest for that alleged murder, but as he progresses in his storytelling, his lapses in memory become more and more frequent until he can no longer be certain of what had taken place on that fateful day.
I must admit it took me a good 100 pages or so before I began to enjoy this book and very nearly decided to drop it because Barney jumps into a bunch of jumbled-up stories, naming places and individuals and incidents big and small and skipping through time willy-nilly from the very beginning, which made it hard to figure out what was going on. But as I progressed, I began to see that there was some kind of method in the madness and the story that does emerge is well-worth the initial confusion. All told, a great way to start the year with a masterful novel that doesn’t lack in originality. The book was a Christmas present from my dad and we’ve already agreed to go see the movie adaptation together, which is due out in cinemas on January 14th.
A Cozy, Homey Boxing Day
Here’s a little photo gallery of pictures I took today (click on the thumbnails to view them full-size). I hadn’t seen my collection of Christmas decorations in quite a few years, and took them out just in time for my dad and I to enjoy them on Christmas day. We had Cherry Clafoutis which was quite delicious, followed by a gift exchange and then quiet time chatting while I played around with some paint. I gave him a framed watercolour (you can see it here), and I got a giant bar of Swiss chocolate to satisfy my chocolate cravings for quite some time, along with a couple of great books; Barney’s Version by Mordecai Richler, a born and bred Mile Ender who had plenty of admirers and detractors alike and who often said that one of his goals was to write at least one book that would
be read after his death. I’m sure his wish has been fulfilled many times over since his passing in 2001. As it happens, I’ve never read him and wanted to discover his writing through this very book. I don’t know if he ever wished for movie rights too, but the soon-to-be released movie version is coming out in theatres, probably in a week or two. I also got Super Sad True Love Story which came out to glowing reviews this year. It’s written by Gary Shteyngart, another author I’ve been wanting to read for some time now.
Of course I couldn’t resist taking pictures of my kidz too. I dressed up Coco as the gift he’s truly been, since this was our very first Christmas together. He put up with our little impromptu session without grumbling although I wouldn’t say he had a ball exactly. Mimi refused to pose for me altogether, a very rare occurrence, and Ezra was just being his grumpy old self, an occurrence which is not rare in the least.
Like this:
Booties
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It’s been raining quite a bit the past couple of days. I don’t mind the rain and Coco hardly seems to notice it, so of course this weather has been perfect to break in Coco’s new booties. He was walking funny when I had him try them on at home which gave me a good laugh, but pretty soon he was trotting around like an old pro. I never thought I’d be one of these people who dresses up a small dog (or a dog of any size, come to think of it), but there you have it, the temptation is just too strong to resist!
In other Coco-related news, I got myself a new bicycle last week and outfitted it with a basket so doggie and me can enjoy rides together. It’s so much fun and Coco looks like he’s done it before, though of course I can’t help but worry about the bike getting stolen (bike theft is really bad in Montreal) or that I’ll stumble on a rock and that we’ll both go flying. Guess I’ll have to shop around for a bike helmet for the little one. I wonder if they make them that small?
Pics by Smiler
Speaking of Activism…
This is just a placeholder for now since it’s very late and I’m about to crash after a very (too?) good day. I just happened to be walking down Peel street around lunchtime today. It was a beautiful day and everybody was out and the downtown area was positively buzzing. I heard the protest before I saw it when walked by the Mexican Consulate. Of course the Spanish-speaking person on the loudspeaker caught my attention what with the super cool getup. I know it’s typically Mexican, but we don’t get to see a lot of that here in Montreal. I spoke to one of the organizers and got some info about what they were protesting about—snapped a bunch more pics on my iPhone too—will be posting more about this event soon.
Pic by Smiler
Elvis
As soon as I saw him, I figured his name has to be Elvis. I mean… look at the hairdo on him, he’s even got the sideburns and everything! Maybe I should call the tabloids, tell them there’s been an Elvis sighting on rue Souvenir right here in Montreal and by the way, he’s reincarnated as a cat. I’m sure that would make a great front page story. Warm thanks to Elvis himself for giving me something to blog about tonight.
Sweet dreams Elvis!
Pics by Smiler
Shot on my iPhone
Along the Way
I try to vary my route when I walk home from the hospital. Having lived in this city for so long it’s kind of exciting when I discover previously undiscovered areas. Especially when they also happen to be interesting, well cared for places like Baile street. It’s smack in the middle of downtown with the highway entrance and tenement housing on one end, and the beautiful CCA (Canandian Centre of Architecture) taking up the whole length of the street on the South side. People take pride in their well-kept greystones and front gardens. The architecture made me feel as though I’d just landed somewhere in London. Judging by a couple of signs posted among the flowers and one local homeowner’s say-so, flower and plant thieves abound and have no qualms about stealing a flower shrub in it’s entirety. I won’t get started on what kind of fate I think should be reserved for these shameless lowlives. All things considered I felt pretty sure nobody would mind me stealing a few shots.
A Lazy Jazzy Kind of Day
(To activate the soundtrack, scroll down and press “play” now)
Today was a full-on spring-to-summer day with temperatures around 26-28ºC. To celebrate, I spent the better part of the afternoon on my balcony which faces the alleyway and all the other neighbours doing the very same. Unlike my next door neighbour, whom I decided to hate many years ago because she’s perpetually tan and skinny, I was NOT wearing a swimsuit—but it was nice to be able to go out in just shorts and a t-shirt. I made some headway on my Paul Auster Novel, then gave myself a manicure/pedicure while watching over Mimi who was dying to escape beyond the boundaries I set for her. Here we refer to this kind of activity as “balconville” which literally means “balcony city” but actually refers to a whole city block or neighborhood of people who more or less live on their balconies on warm sunny days; sunning themselves, yapping loudly with the neighbours, screaming at barking dogs and kids, painting their toe-nails while wearing curlers-type-thing and of course making good use of the BBQ so they hardly need to go inside, other than the occasional trip to the toilet and to fill up on cold Pepsi family-sized bottles—the lifestyle of the poor and anonymous as seen right here in St-Henri*.
If there’d been a soundrack for the day, it definitely would have featured plenty of great jazz standards. As it happens, I’ve been growing my Jazz collection thanks to iTunes lately and (re)discovering some of the great Jazz masters who made their mark in the 50’s. I’ve been a fan of Miles Davis and John Coltrane for quite some time now, though I can’t say I like all their work; the young cats-chasing-balls-of-yarn sound… not so much to my liking. I like my jazz with a melody—so tonight Clifford Brown with Strings should do nicely. Would have been nice to post Joy Spring in keeping with the seasonal theme, but this double programme with Yesterdays and Memories of You should do nicely too.
* I’ve taken artistic license here. Many of my neighbours are actually young yuppie families and various professionals, so there’s not so much yapping and screeching going on across the alleyway, but I’m sure that a little further West from here, where all the really poor people-on-welfare are, you’ll find the exact same scene I’ve describe here, sweaty, burned, overexposed bodies and all.
Metric Contd.
Had I gone to the Metric concert this evening, I would have had something worth blogging about right now, but the fact is I didn’t, for all the reasons I’ve listed before and a few others I’ll keep to myself. So this is my post for tonight. The experimental shots were taken on my iPone while I was taking a walk one evening. It was about a month ago while there was still a little bit of snow on the ground.
Pics by Smiler
Found Object (actual size)
I didn’t need to go searching very far for this one. There it was right in front of my stairwell as I was coming back home from my therapy+shopping afternoon (always a great combo) today. I was wearing open sandals since it was a pleasantly warm day and I remember what a strange sensation on my bare skin it was to walk though a bunch of leaves—something I’d never experienced before. My sense of time has always been very skewed and of course being on my own strange schedule for all this time has exacerbated that. I hadn’t seen the summer go by—not having participated in it all that much this year—and I was just warming up to the idea of taking advantage of the season when fall was announced. It seemed like an abstract concept for a while but now all those fallen leaves serve as visual and tangible reminders and while it sure is a pretty sight, I just wish it didn’t mean the trees will be completely bare in a short while. I think the absence of greenery is one of the hardest aspects of winter here. That and the fact that it gets inhumanely cold of course, but everybody says that, so I thought I’d point out something people rarely think about mentioning.
