Lesson to all: get yourself a locker

Loveable punk 80s scenester-pioneer, Ava Rave, a singer who in 1985 led a noble effort to colonize the brutal area near Prefontaine and St. Catherine to a higher state of consciousness with a magazine called Gimme Gimme based at her sprawling cheap apartment at 3070 St. Catherin East. Ave, who once sang a song called I Am a Drag Queen Trapped in the Body of a Woman, moved to England to be with her husband Jet Black, the longtime drummer of the Stranglers.

Before leaving she was living on the ground floor of a St. Urbain street triplex. According to a description the Gaz: "She glued 6,000 beercaps onto the walls of her front hall, made a mosaic of broken mirrors on another wall and combined smashed guitars, silver-coloured hubcaps, old 45s, crucifixes and Buddhas to create bedroom and bathroom designs." Her apartment was featured on a show called Weird Homes. She confessed to being a hoarder.

When she moved to England, the person who took over the apartment did so on the condition that he put up with her boxes and under no circumstacnes should he throw them out. Ava apparently didn't want to fork over the $50 a month to put it in real storage.

So when she turned up back in town her precious memoribilia, had been somehow misplaced. Ava responded by writing up a blistering denunciation of her friend, safe to assume her former friend, and last Nov 27 posted it on her myspace and facebook pages. Consider it a cautionary tale for packrats.

I'm not looking for sympathy or anything...but any sent my way is appreciated anyway..haha...HERE is the incredible VILE tale of the ultimate nerve one has shown to a fellow earthling..a friend no less..This is just not acceptable at ANY level, or for ANY reason!!!!!

I came to montreal from fucking England on Nov 13th, to finally ship all my stuff over there...and the prick who was 'my friend' who took over my apartment...threw everything away...everything!!! He had 7 other rooms to live in, and even now, half of them are empty. WHY did he do it?? It took him a week to come up with his excuse 'I made a mistake'.

ALL my stuff was locked up, padlocked twice in a little room, packed to the cealing, with his promise to just ignore the fact that there WAS even another room...he would 'NEVER EVER touch it, guard it with his life, etc...no matter how many years it took me to come and get it...What was in the room...the word ALL is supposed to cover that...just look around your own home and point at anything...that means ALL.

well..he cleared it out about a year and a half ago....and even all this time, he's always said...'oh..your stuff is safe...don't you worry--nothing will ever happen to your stuff---i remember when he called us up on New Years Eve, telling us how fabulous the apartment looked, including the wall he'd taken the plaster off to expose the brick, where his prized possession, the RATTUS album, the GOLD disc which he bought, that cost him nearly $500, was on the wall that was once my locked room...of course, he never mentioned THAT part...only the wall and how amazing it looked.

'...Even to my face when he was our GUEST in England only 3 weeks ago..he got the VIP treatment, hung out with me and The Stranglers at the hotel, got AAA pass for the big 30th Anniversary Roundhouse Shows, drove with us from Manchester to London...etc..and never let on...kept up the charade...lying thru his teeth while laughing loudly and talking over everybody..

When i told him i was coming to get my stuff...i even tried to get on the same plane as him..he didn't even bat an eye...he said....'GREAT!! we'll have so much fun!!' and I added...'I can't wait to see all my stuff again!!!' etc....and he said 'I'll BET!!'.

Cold as ice...he didn't pick me up at the airport like he said he would and when i got to the apartment---with just the clothes on my back, mind you...no boots, no winter coat, because i had all that stuff in the locked room many times over, and didn't need to bring anything, including toiletries, etc...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

He doesn't say a word about anything until i had my hand on the doornob to go inside...he says 'ok now Ava, don't freak out'

..you can imagine my reaction...and then he continued to lie for over a week telling me the stuff was all brought to his aunt's garage.....which it wasn't...and isn't...or else he's still lying again..and he wouldn't give me her phone number or address or anything...

So...this is what has happened...what a slime ball...you can't imagine doing such a thing to anybody...but hey...slime needs to be wiped out...so do that, I must! hahaha....

He is now trying to wriggle out of even PAYING me money, claiming all the stuff was just junk~!!! for what he did...so he is gonna pay one way or another!!!!!

Steph Ly: the lost interview

Coolopolis interviewed luscious accountant-cum-bikini model Steph Ly 15 months ago. She was flown in to do some modeling in conjunction with an auto show at the Beeg Oh. You'll soon understand why we forgot half our questions. Stick around after the show and click some of the YouTube thumbnail links for an education in bikini-and-lollypop ettiquette.

Celebrating our parking-lot heritage

Jean Dore, the mayor best remembered for the Overdale fiasco, pulled down the last of this grand ol' hotel at the crossroads of St. James and Peel.

Now Major Tremblay plans to do the same thing a few blocks south in the historic neighbourhood of Griffintown. But given the uncertain state of the condo market, his dense plan of uninspired high-rises may well wind up as a world-class spread of parking lots, just like Overdale and ... the Queen's Hotel.

In case you always wanted to wear an electronic ankle bracelet...

No crime you commit in Quebec will result in authorities forcing you to sport an electronic ankle bracelet. Ontario, and Saskatchewan are a different story. Too bad for us, they're the ultimate scofflaw fashion statement. We could see Steve McQueen wearing one. And for women it's been de rigeur since Martha Stewart and Paris Hilton sported one after early release. Some can even detect if you've been drinking. Yet not a single person in Quebec has ever been ordered by a judge to wear one of these. We've don't know why it's not in the punitive mix. Maybe it's that old legend about the badass in the ankle bracelet killing the pizza delivery guy.

But that doesn't mean that nobody wears electronic ankle monitors in Montreal. In fact certain, um, detainees, if you will, are forced to wear them in at least one place. Some have grumbled. Can anybody tell us where in Montreal these devices are mandatory?

Answer: victims of Alzheimers are equipped with these devices at such places as Maimonides.

Quiz whodat Montrealer & why'd she make the world gossip pages?

Err...that was obviously a little too easy. It took some superclever bum about 3 seconds to figure out that it is indeed Jennifer Perzow of dating Ethan Hawke fame. She is again sorta relevant because Ethan just impregnated his new companion, some guy named Ryan Shawhuges. I'm not making this up. Here's a photo. We couldn't get Jen to comment on this, although Chimples randomly phoned 200 local numbers hoping to reach her.

So we've got a replacement quiz. Chimples recently had a heart transplant so let's go gentle here. Who is this Montrealette sitting nude in the lotus position and what is her significance? Answer: Ok, that's enough of this. The woman crossing her legs is none other than Moise "Don't call me a junket whore" Persico associate Nicole Jones, who hosts the Passion for Fashion segment on the locally produced Entertainment Spotlight, a program that helps CFCF fulfil part of its federal TV license requirement at little or no cost. We're thinking that if Ethan Hawke had met her instead he might still be up here.

Montrealers - getting taller all the time

If heightist discrimination were taken seriously - Ontario protects residents from height discrim in its provincial charter - Montreal could become a haven for vertically challenged refugees because short people would presumably more at home in a place where the average height is lower than many other joints in the developed world. Canadians are shorter than non-Latin Europeans - and I've read that Quebec's population is shorter than Canada's (will hopefully add reference to support this).

Some even note that people in the east end of Montreal are considerably less tall than those in the West Island.

One of Montreal's great attractions was the Midgets Palace on Rachel (photo). It has been turned into a gay sauna.

Height matters. Tall people earn more than their shorter bretheren. According to one study, they're also more intelligent on average.

Montreal has become a hot spot for alleged get-tall scams including one in St Laurent. People sell false hope to people who want to get taller.

If you're truly desperate to get taller, you can fly to Russia, have a limb lengthening operation, in which you get your legs broken and put into clamps that separate the bones and lay in bed in excruciating pain for several months while bones grow into the gap and fuse.If your kids are short, you can shoot 'em up with HGH.

A few weeks ago the Quebec government announced that the average height of both men & womenfolk here had grown half an inch between 1987 and 2005, seems true as well, measure Andre Boisclair against Rene Levesque, measure Vinny Lecavalier versus Yvan Cournoyer. We're taller now.

As I mentioned on Team 990 (I do a radio report Monday 10:25 p.m. on the Picard show), this could be a problem, because many newly built homes have low eight foot high ceilings. It means that within a couple of generations your grandchildren might able to touch the ceiling. Makes it easier to change lightbulbs I guess.

Perched above Stanley

August 5, 1953, Benny Fox and wife Betty Fox danced around on an 18 inch platform atop a building on Stanley Street. They were veterans of the sport, having started out doing such stunts on a much larger 24 inch platform during the depression. The stunt was a promo for their act at Belmont Park.

Montreal's most annoying person

Montreal's most annoying celebrity, according to one survey site, has put out another book. We can see why TV fashion critic, or whatever he is, Steven Cojocaru gets under people's skin. In his widely-ignored first autobiography (who does he think he is Winston Churchill? - Chimples) he described his hometown of Montreal as "nowheresville" and "rainy Montreal." But this former Flare Was There Montreal party columnist got into Hollywood reporting by befriending Joan Rivers, purportedly his hero. Chimples has asked us to explain this Joan Rivers business, as his intelligence chip just can't compute that information. Cojocaru has had kidney troubles that were finally solved when his Cote St. Luc residing Jewish Romanian mom gave him hers. His new book apparently deals with this stuff although we don't know if he makes any more unfavourable mentions about his hometown or finally making reference to the fact that he makes Liberace look like Rambo. The survey suggests that his former neck-and-neck competition in the annoying Montrealer department - Celine Dion - is now considered far less annoying as before, so the title appears to be safely his.

Quiz of the day today

What wild political adventure happened here in this building on Queen Mary near Cotes des Neiges a few decades back?

Answer: in 1970 at apartment 12 of this building, FLQ terrorists Paul and Jacques Rose along with Francis Simard hid behind a false wall and eventually fled police through an elaborate backdoor route detailed here here and here.

Doesn't that make you hungry?

The fantastically named Vergina Foods has hit the roads in its own subversive, subliminal way. Wanna eat some Vergina baby?

Age before beauty: Change in the weather for Frankie

We are all deleriously overjoyed to report that Ahuntsic's own lovely and talented Frank Cavallero has been granted his CBC, no-local-anglos-please, iron rice bowl, after earning his walking papers from private TV, as we scooped you last November. Parabens! Francozinho. He'll be doing the local weather for both of the people who watch that massive ratings-grabber, CBC TV.

He bumps (oh don't you wish) lovely weatherwimmin Geeta Nadkarni, who was maybe deemed a hottie too hot for Canadian winters, despite her fresh-scrubbed and genuine charm. She was sort of a Bombay version of 1978's Cheryl Tiegs. At least that's what we found scrawled in the first-floor Coolopolis urinal. Not to worry, her bowl's ferrous, too: she'll be shovelling some of that endless environ-mental "reporting" we've all been clamouring for -- at least till her employment-equity-plus-looks, access-cable-enhanced CV channels her on to bigger, and warmer things -- which is exactly what Montreal weathergirls have a long history of doing.

Painted walls of St. Henry

A sticker for your thoughts

Someone didn't like the glorious signage of this place and had a Quebec Francais sticker handy to express themselves. Better than a brick, sez Chimples.

Opening last year! Proof that time travel is imminent!

Looks like Peter Sergakis missed his deadline in building another motel on St. James west of Cavendish, onetime stomping grounds of the West End gang before they got into adult diapers. A shovel has yet to hit the ground. We suggest someone put a one in front of the 2007 to give him some more time to get his thing done.

Dawson College unveils new theatre

Dawson College's theatre program has moved from the Dome on Notre Dame near the St. Henry metro to the mother house on Atwater. The new 177 seat facility is a huge step forward. Here's the student cast taking bows after the recent version of Picnic at Hanging Rock, which does well in the first half but falters a bit in the second. The usual catcalls and spontaneous cheering when friends and family came on stage seemed absent from this performance, which was always half the fun of attending Dawson shows. It's a ten bucker and on until Sunday.

Pawn tickets: the nexus of evil

From the Quebec Chronicle on this date 100 years ago.

Quiz: Whodat?

Clue: he did something very not-nice on Nov. 13, 1991. (Coolopolis photo). Stumped? here's yer clue. His victim, whom he knew in the most intimate sense, was a Revenue Canada lawyer.

Time's up. This is Colin McGregor, the infamous crossbow killer, a Westmount boy (Selwyn House, Westmount High, Marianopolis) who at 34 walked up to his estranged 31-year-old wife, Patricia Allen, on an Ottawa street in 1991 and shot a razor-tipped bolt into her chest, killing her. He later pleaded not guilty because of an outlandish affliction of "total body herpes." Despite psychiatric testimony that he was schizophrenic, he was convicted of first-degree murder in 1993 and will be cooling his heels in jail, until at least the mid-teens. He grew up on Argyle Street. His father was the prominent owner of McGregor Travel -- then a top-flight concern. His dad, who married the maid after his wife died while their two sons were mere lads, exhausted family resources trying to spare his eldest son, even circulating requests for money to friends to try and get his son off the hook, to little avail. Colin was a bright kid. Valedictorian at WHS. Many thought he would make it to the top of the heap. Somehow, he blew a head gasket after the career of his wife, who was leaving him, started to go into overdrive. If there's a silver lining to the story, it's that Mr. McGregor's actions helped usher in the country's 1993 anti-stalking law. According to the Ottawa Citizen, the crossbow killing was a "case that was instrumental in fuelling demands for the new law. Despite repeated complaints to local police, Colin McGregor, 34, harassed Ms. Allen for months prior to her slaying."

Bring good uniforms back

Every day is like "dress-down Friday" for MTS transit drivers recently. Of course, they're shunning their polyester monkey suits (Enough! -- Chimples) as a pressure tactic because making more than a thousand a week for easy toil is a form of capitalist torture. But if they insist on shucking off their job-proscribed duds, why can't they try to look sharp? Must they really dress up like like Jean-Guy Lavigueur on a bad day? (Get to the point!) There was a time when a cool uniform was just as important as any concession to the collective agreement. Here are a couple of micro-examples from those days. These buttons were plucked from the cold, dead hands of Queen's Hotel and Expo 67 staffers, respectively. The employees were dapper and smart, right up to the moment they died, penniless, on the job. Good uniforms: bring 'em back!

Please remove your #%@$ing beater

Ever notice how many bicycles get abandoned for the Montreal winter? Lying saddle-deep in snow, their chains and gears are seized up with rust and rendered useless by spring. Nobody's coming back for these eyesores, so they just linger, chained to anything solid, until such a time as city workers come haul them away, whenever that is -- usually after weeks of blocking the footpath and snow-removal equipment alike.


But the problem is handled quite differently in Oxford, England, where Coolopolis shot this picture about three weeks ago. Here is the rather elegant text from this laminated note (P.S., if the bike's yours, you've got till Saturday to claim it):

To whom it may concern: This cycle appears to have been out of use for some time and as such is deemed to have been abandoned in these racks. My apologies if this is incorrect but in order to maintain the maximum amount of cycle parking facilities this cycle will be removed and disposed of on: 26/01/2008 Until some body contacts the person below and instructs otherwise. Building & Facilities Manager Computing Laboratory Joe Atherton 01865 273888 joe.atherton@comlab.ox.ac.uk

Guerrilla art menaces swish gallery

It's new, fresh, creative, colourful, expressive, interactive and -- best of all -- free. But despite its impromptu -- let's face it: anarchic -- nature, is the outdoor art gallery at Jean Mance and St. Catherine squeezing the very life out of the Contemporary Art Gallery across the street?

Fact is, more people by far are checking out these installations of surplus consumer items that range from umbrellas and touques to panties and toothbrushes than are traipsing in the high-priced salons under the museum's overtired illuminated lips.

And it's more interactive. Hang around this snowbound display long enough and you'll catch, as we did, passersby actually contributing their own flotsam and jetsam to this al fresco exhibition.
We're not making this up. The unstaged folks in these pictures were adding to this citizens' work-in-progress.

But what makes this outdoor gallery-in-the-snow even more unusual is that needful people feel free to help themselves to the items on display as they need them.

On colder days, you can see street folks reclaiming its hats and gloves and sweaters. We're still looking for a gallery that will let us part with a couple of Vermeers. If we have four words of advice for the gallery, they would be: take the art outdoors!

Top-chopped your Land Rover? Maybe you live here

When they built the La Citadelle apartments on St. Mark Street back in the seventies, even the tough guys were still driving station wagons. (Ahhhh, remember the football field-sized Custom 500?) Obviously, architects weren't having their cards read by JoJo. Now just try to get a Hummer into this five-foot, ten-inch-high garage door after fourteen Slivovices. If you're driving, just switch to beer after thirteen.

Rentinz 4 suckas

Why pay rent? There are still properties on the island that cost under $200,000. And once you buy, it's yours. In a few years you sell it for a profit. No brains required. It's doable. Low interest rates mean low monthly payments. The city of Montreal will give you between $5,500 and $10,000 according to this. These are a few gems well under $200,000, mostly in the Soutwest part of the island.

169 k for this joint near Evelyn and Hickson.







This baby in Lasalle just $139,000. It even comes with shopping cart. R U Kidden me!?





200 k will score you this beaut in Verdun.







This shackalicious heaven in Cote St Paul is a mere $180 k.






Just south of Champlain in Lasalle.








Another Lowerland classic $179,000 with 1,000 square feet plus yard in Cote St. Paul.

Fab Four ghost for sale

George Harrison's ghost was in Montreal. It was somehow captured in a jar and put in an old guy's basement and subsequent went on sale on craigslist on December 9. Not sure who bought it. Harrison was in Montreal in June 2001 for the Formula One Grand Prix. He met up with Bono and Guy Laliberte, whose garden he greatly admired. Harrison agreed to the Cirque de Soleil Love thingy at that time.

Sixty years ago, Catbecor folded

Nowadays, cats get their news by word-word-of-muzzle. But it wasn't always that way. In fact, sixty years ago, it was with a whack of her feline gavel and a unanimous vote of the Catbecor board of directors, that Minouples (1942-1955) called a halt to seven cat years of Catbecor World red ink, leaving a gaping gap in the non-human media industry. If only the Duplessis government had been as ready to prop up a money-losing Quebec industry as the present government has done with Quebecor World, our mediascape might have been infinitely richer. Cats of Montreal, you night! Oh yeah. There was one dissenting vote, after all.

60 years ago, down came the Union Jack*

And up went another banner. Here's a story about why. (*Danilo's correction applied.)

Quebec has its own flag, le Fleurdelyse

Page 4, La Patrie, Thursday 22, January, 1948

Quite a stir was created at the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday afternoon when, at the beginning of the session, the premier stood up to applause from the right to announce that the province of Quebec now has its own flag, the "drapeau fleurdelise" and that it had been flying for the previous few minutes atop the central tower of the assembly.
Said the premier: "This afternoon there was held a meeting of the council of ministers. A ministerial decree was adopted and immediately passed. We have adopted an official flag of the province of Quebec. This flag is now flying from the main tower of parliament."
"Last year," continued Mr. Duplessis, "the chamber voted unanimously in support of a motion seeking the adoption of a flag for the province. Since then, we have received many demands and requests recommending the fleurdelise flag. And that is the flag that is flying atop parliament at this moment.
"We have, meanwhile, placed the lys pointing up straight to the sky, instead of leaving them tilted. This we do to underscore the uprightness and strength of our beliefs. There is on the floor of the chamber a motion from M. Chaloult demanding a specific flag. I believe that it would be appropriate to accept this motion without delay and unanimously." (Zzz. We started nodding off about here. Click the article if you want to read more.)

Scenes from summer

Griffintown's first resident

Moise Beauchamp (b. 1885) - who lived at 240 Murray in 1938 - claimed that his grandfather Jean-Baptiste Beauchamp, who died aged 94 in 1853, was the first to move to Griffintown back in 1771 when it was woods and raging rivers. Jean-Baptiste, who arrived in the Griff at age 12, was a large man, 6 foot six, according to his grandson.

Snake proves unkind to Montreal tamer

In May 1936 Edward Smith was just another snake tamer living with countless serpents at the Alpine Hotel on McGill College when something absolutely thinkable happened. He was hustling to find some mean snakes for a public snake fight - the last one was a flop because, he concluded, the snakes weren't hungry enough - suddenly one of the starvin' Louisiana snakes he'd just received bit him. He figured he was immune to snakebite, but a doctor disagreed and amputated his arm. Smith's lovely assistant Florence Zoda, who liked to fondle his snake, helped the police go in and kill all the snakes.

Witness to a crime

This shot, taken in 1975 at Amherst and St. Catherine shows the shock of a woman whose notorious gangster boyfriend Gilles Roy, was just gunned down in front of her at a restaurant. Her identity is unknown.

Life before refrigeration

Not that long ago teams of brave ice men would go onto the St. Lawrence and other bodies of water and yank ice out for sale for domestic and industrial purposes. On a cold winter they'd get sheets 24 inches thick. These photos taken, I believe in 1941 (will confirm later) show the entire process. The ice harvesters were disappointed because the ice was only 18 inches thick that year.
Step One: find the ice.Step Two: Get cuttin'!Step Three: the big pushoff!
Step Four: Cigarette break. Then divide the icy fields.
Then, hook it up with iron cables and put it on a flatbed truck.

Jam it in a warehouse.

Man gets head crushed by elevator

76 years ago Jacques Goodman got impatient for an elevator on Notre Dame, he stuck his head into the gap to see if it was coming, with predictable results.

206 nudes, still no cure for cancer

Since 1999 local photographer Norm Edwards has been inviting women to strip to the bone & pose tastefully in the nude, carrying just a sheet, in the hopes of raising money for cancer research. The idea is that these photos will be turned into a book or a calendar or something, thus raising money for the cause. But all of his painstaking work in the studio shooting photos of unclad young nymphets - including his girlfriend and daughter - has yet to help cure cancer.

Still no book, still no calendar. If you want to pose or help him find a printer/publisher, you might be on the way to curing cancer.

Meanwhile Chimples is raising funds to battle the tragic epidemic of painful hangnails in chimps and gorillas. He invites all women of 18 and over to their send their panties and a photo to Coolopolies Towers where they'll be resold in vending machines in Tokyo. The Board of Coolopolis Towers Industries has yet to officially approve this initiative.

Tomorrow until January 27 the coldest days in Montreal

Afternoon light is extended by a minute or two every day after about December 20. (just 58 more days until the 7 pm sunset).

But there seems to be no answer to the other - and probably more relevant question - when do the days start, on average, getting warmer?

If we could figure out the coldest day of the year , the days after that would be, presumably, progressively milder.

But nowhere has this exact date been pinpointed. It seems that recorded weather histories show surprising day-to-day variations, the average high temperature for yesterday was minus seven, today minus seven, tomorrow minus six. This rather unconvincing chart from the UK suggests that the week of January 17-23 maintains seven days with the average coldest temperatures of minus 13, making it the coldest week of the year.

Some believe that the coldest week must be this upcoming week based on the logic that it's six months after what one might assume would be the hottest week of the year, mid-July.

Bernard Duguay Meteorological Inquiry Specialist at Environment Canada tells Coolopolis:

Based on long term statistics, the coldest time of the year in Montreal is from January 18 until January 27. During that time, the average maximum temperature is -6.1 and the average minimum is -15.2.

Thankfully it appears that their predictions of a terribly cold winter have not yet taken shape.

French theatre reviewz

Head down to the yellow doors on Fullum across from the Montreal morgue and procure some tickets to Le Plan Americain, a story slapped together by Dan Briere and the prolific and constantly improving Evelyne de la Chenelière. The story is a shiny, high-paced, Ab-Fab, chuckleworthy exploration of parents obsessed with their oh-so-important artsy careers while their kids turn into equally self-obsessed animal rights terrorists. The directors dig deep into their sack of tricks, the TV screen from La Chenliere's Bashir Lazhar is trotted out but this time to brilliant use with a green screened police chase. There's a flashbulb popping scene that looks suspiciously familiar but ends with a clever bit where a laser printer pops out snaps of the mom in distress. Tight, high-paced, effortless, funny and thought provoking.

Review 2- the homeless Theatre Quat Sous (the theatre on Pine, south side east of the Main) is getting rebuilt, so they're putting on plays at the Prospero on Ontario, north side. The current play, Les Mondes Possibles, translated from Possible Worlds, a 1990 Toronto play, is a drab effort. It tells of a morose character able to remember his experience in all of the alternate universes that we live in. He's depressed. He's trying to get along with the same girl and he keeps bouncing around these universes, getting confused and forlorn. Muddy performances and little in the way of pyrotechnics although there's a plexiglass wall full of sand that's pretty clever.

Both plays run till February 2.

Your chance to run the underground city....

Act fast! Last year the tix to Mtl's 5 k underground tunnel race wenter faster than a bag of Kahnawake smokes in the Point. It takes place Feb 24 at 8 am, costs twenty bones.

The demand was so great last year that we urged 'em to triple the price, make two more races and give profits to charity.

Montreal, low-rise livin'

Remember those heady days around the millenium when Mayor Bourque gleefully pointed out that Montreal was finally a net gainer in interprovincial migration for the first time anybody could remember?

Montreal has fallen, and risen, and is falling again.

Our fin-de-siecle vacancy rate was lower than Chimples' knuckles (Stop that! - Chimples) and apartments became scarce and rents shot up. Suddenly the magic dust blew away. Property owners poured remortgage cash into the economy but the city otherwise stagnated. Montrealers - now having to dig to the bottom of their pocket to make their monthly payments - weren't finding Montreal quite as cheap, easylivin' and seductive as it had in its midnight move salad days.

The city started bleeding residents. Wagon trains full of yumpies intensified their migration to the 'burbs in search of cheap bungalows with good parking. Anglos and allos fled to the west, particularly Alberta. An underwhelming crop of immigrants came to Montreal, compensating the double-edged emigration, but the anglo/allo-cizing of the island led to much handwringing about how welcome immigrants should be here.

While other cities grew, on average 5.4 percent between 01-06, Montreal grew a measly 2.3 percent. Montreal gained a laughable 37,000 people over five years. Quebec overall grew 4.3 percent, reflecting the race to the 'burbs.

In 2007, Montreal's vacancy rate had shot back up to over 3 percent with forecasts expecting it to rise further. And yet Montreal private investors - likely inspired by the heady days of low-vacancy circa 2001 - built a whole lot of new apartments anyway.

We built far more apartments in 2007 than either Toronto or Vancouver and a lot more of those that we built were in small buildings.

According to the CMHC, Montreal saw 55,420 buildings sprout up (CHS Rental Market Survey 2007 Table 26 privately initiatied rental apartments by size of structure by metropolitain area 2007) that translates to 475,954 new apartment units here in Montreal in 2007.

In comparison, Vancouver built 3,785 apartment buildings for a total of 104,315 units.

Toronto built 7,981 new apartment buildings, totalling 306,406 apartment units.

Montreal had traditionally been Renterville. Toronto and Vancity undoubtedly had far more condo construction than Montreal.

By why is Montreal an apartment city? The cliche is that Montrealers are foolish and disorganized, enslaved by bad anti-capitalist notions pushed on us by the Catholic Church.

But in fact Montreal has been more partial to apartments because our apartments are unlike those in other cities. Far more of Montreal's apartments are in low-rises than other Canadian cities.

Almost one-in-four of those new apartments in Montreal are in small buildings - six units or less. We built (or "initiated") 107,276 of 'em.

In Toronto that same total is under 3 percent, that's a mere 10,678 new Toronto apartments in small buildings.

Vancouver's total number of apartments built in small buildings was under two percent of their total (total 1,744).

What about high rises?

Just over 20 percent of Montreal's new apartment units were built in buildings of 50 units or more (101,614).

In Toronto, over two-thirds of new apartment units were in buildings with 50 units or more. As for Vancouver, almost half of all apartment units built were in buildings with 50 or more apartments (46,696).

If you want to rent an apartment in Montreal, chances are that you're going to find an apartment that's not in a high rise. That's why we have much-romanticized neighbourhoods that other Canadians swoon over. Our skies aren't scraped by oppressive cement structures.

If you believe James Lorimer's The Developers, (1978) Canadians never wanted to live in high-rises. However developers want to build them and the developers got their way. Montreal, survived these pressures for a variety of reasons explained in his book.

And it seems well-established that high-rise living is less preferable.

According to a study by Robert Gifford:

High rises have been accused of causing many unpleasant outcomes. Among those examined in this paper are fear, dissatisfaction, stress, behavior problems, suicide, poor social relations, reduced helpfulness, and hindered child development. Early studies and reviews concluded that high-rises are, on balance, not beneficial for residents (e.g., Angrist, 1974; Cappon, 1972; Conway, 1977). At the societal level, they are accused of burdening existing services and infrastructure, worsening traffic problems, and damaging the character of neighbourhoods (Broyer, 2002).

To re-shine its apple, Montreal needs to to emphasize that those who move here have a much greater chance of living in humane-sized housing.

Here are some real estate rental charts explaining the changing fortunes of our city.

Qu'est ce qu'il est wrong with this cross?

Answertime: We have another winner; yes, it's the grand pedestal -- it doesn't really exist! This was the planned version, but the project was scaled back. Some trivia: The St. Jean Baptiste Society spent $36,200 to erect it back in 1924 -- about ten grand of that was raised by members of the public. According to the society, the cross was constructed to commerate the cross Jacques Cartier put up near Gaspe, when he claimed Canada on behalf of King Francois I, as well as the cross hauled up Mount Royal by the founder of Montreal, Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve. After it was built, the city took over the maintenance, Hydro-Quebec lit it up, and the SSJB donated it to the city in 2004.

Lies my father told me - Coles notes version

In 1949 David Rome, editor of the Canadian Jewish Congress Bulletin, approached Ted Allan, who was working at a small advertising company. Rome needed a short story desperately in order to fill out his next edition. He asked Allan to write one on the spot, to meet a 6 pm deadline. Allan declined. Rome flattered and cajoled. Allan ended up writing something on the spot and had it in Rome's hand by 5 p.m. It became an Academy Award nominated movie, a quintissential part of the Montreal literary canon (oh shut up - Chimples) and Allan transformed it into a novella. Here's snippets from the original story (albeit slightly edited later by Allan).

I've snipped the bits where the boy gets upset at his dad from making up mocking stories about Grandpa's sick old horse Ferdeleh. The boy considered the father's joking comments a lie. In the story the boy is six years old.

Lies my father told me by Ted Allan

My grandfather stood six feet three in his worn-out bedroom slippers. He had a long grey beard with streaks of white running through it. When he prayed, his voice boomed like a choir as he turned the pages of his prayerbook with one hand and stroked his beard with the other. His hands were bony and looked like tree-roots; they were powerful. My grandpa had been a farmer in the old country. In Montreal he conducted whathe called "a second-hand business."
...
we drove through the dirty lanes of Montreal, skirting the garbage cans, jolting and bouncing through the mud and dust, calling every cat by name and every cat meowing its hello and Granpa and I holding our hands to our ears and shouting out at the top of our luncs, "Regs, Cloze botels! Regs, cloze, botels!"

What a wonderful game that was! I would run up the back stairs and return with all kinds of fascinating things, old dresses, suits, pants, rags, newspapers, all shapes of bottles, all shapes of trash, everything you can think of, unti the wagon was filled.
...
My Sunday rides were the happiest times I spent. Sometimes Grandpa would let me wear his derby hat which came down over my ears, and people would look at me and laugh and I'd feel even happier feeling how happy everyone was one Sunday.
..
When we came to the mountain Grandpa's mood would change and he would take to me of the great land that Canada was, and of the great things the young people growing up were going to do in this great land..

One Sunday on our ride home through the mountain a group of young boys and grisl threw stones at us and shouted in french: "Juif! Juif!..." Grandpa held his strong arm around me, cursed back, muttering "anti-Semites" under his breath. When I asked him what he said, he answered, "It is something I hope you never learn." The boys and girls laughed and got tired of throwing stones. That was the last Sunday we went to the mountain.
...
On weekdays, Grandpa and I rose early, a little after daybreak, and said our morning prayers. I would mimic his sing-song lamentation sounding as if my heart were breaking and wondering why we both had to sound so sad.
...
I didn't like my father. He said things to me like, "For God's sake, you're smart but not as as smart as you think. Nobody is that smart." He was jealous of me and he told me lies.
..
On top of everything, my father had no beard, didn't pray didn't go to the synagogue on the Sabbath, read English books and never read the prayer books, played piano on the Sabbath and sometimes would draw my mother into his villanies by making her sing while he played.
..
One day I told my father, "papa you have foresaken your forfathers." He burst out laughing and kissed me and then my mother kissed me, which infuriated me all the more.
..
One day a man came to the house and said he was from the Board of Health and that the nieghoburs had complained about hte stable. Grandpa and I knew we were beaten then. ...The stable would have to be moved. But where?

As it turned out, Grandpa didn't have to worry about it. The whole matter was taken out of his hands a few weeks later.

Next Sunday the sun shone brightly and I ran to the kitchen to say my prayers with Grandpa. But Grandpa wasn't there. I found my grandmother there instead - weeping. Granpa was in his room ill. He had a sickness they call diabetes and at that time the only thing you could do about diabetes was weep. I fed Ferdeleh and soothed him becaue I knew how disappointed he was.

When I came to the kitchen Sunday morning Grandpa was not there. Ferdeleh was not in the stable. I thought they were playing a joke on me so I rushed to the front of the house expecting to see Grandpa sitting atop the wagon waiting for me.

But there wasn't any wagon. My father came up behind me and put his hand on my head. I looked up questioningly and he said, "Grandpa and Ferdeleh have both gone to heaven."

When he told me they were never coming back, I moved away from him and went to my room. I lay down on my bed and cried, not for Grandpa and Ferdeleh, because I knew they would never do such a thing to me, but about my father, because he had told me such a horrible lie.

The first home video game...1974...

Nice work if you can get it: Vivie-Ann Bakos

Whether ye be riff-raff or mucky-muck, winter is balefully back. But life is one endless, sultry summer for the globe-trotting local deejay Vivie-Ann Bakos, who's enjoying the furnacey funhouse of South America as we speak read type. She has performed in more countries than most of us can flash digits, plus appendages, but Brazil's Florianopolis -- with 42 beaches -- is at the top of her list. Just to get you in the mood for sleeveless living, which is on its way back, here's a wee video of this sultry and sizzling Hapsburgesque Canadian on one of her too-rare-eh forays to home clubs.

Boom Boom Geoffrion's Lounge

Anybody know where this was exactly?

Coolopolis Editorial cartoon

The Journal de Montreal sent this reporter downtown applying for retail jobs pretending she was a unilingual anglophone. This prevaricating press girl was apparently hired at 15 places! You go girl!

Hmm...

Some suggest that the world's best-known corporate logo, first drawn up in 1971, could have been borrowed from this image from Montreal's short lived Continental Football League franchise (1966-67).

The team, which played American rules football at the Autostade, lost a truckload of cash for team owner war-hero/entrepreneur, father of eight, Johnny Newman.

When Newman died at age 65 in 1985, he was declared by Tim Burke to be the city's most prominent anglo for 40 years.

Can you spot the design element that might've been ripped off by the all-time biggest logo? Tip: look at the tail.

Quiz du jour

The Montreal professional athlete that has achieved more athletic success than any other living Montrealer hasn't even celebrated his 18 th birthday yet. He'll be blowing out his 18 candles next month. Who are we talking about?

Clue one to this tricky question: He has a nickname that sounds kinda obscene.

Clue two: He's 5'7" 160 lbs and some will associate him with Park Avenue, just north of Sherbrooke.

Clue three: His brother is dead but quite famous.

Clue four: These are his eyes:





QUIZ REPLY! It is indeed Henri Richard, who was born February 29, 1936, and seeing as February 29 only occurs once every four years, he will only be turning 18 this year.

15 years ago stickers put an end to car theft in Montreal

Fifteen years ago cops on the West Island of Montreal unveiled one of the most progressive, innovative, interesting and downright shtoopid strategies ever devised to prevent car theft. The police started offering fluorescent window stickers for all motorists who promised never to drive between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. If cops saw you driving around between those hours and your car had a sticker on it, boy, would they ever pull you over fast! It would be obvious you're a car thief! Those opting for the car curfew would sign an application and agree to allow cops could pull them over and force them to answer some tough questions if nabbed roading after hours. If you drove a Harley, you could put it ... well not sure, but somewhere. A few of us at Coolopolis Towers were wondering how the cops would prevent thieves from removing the decals when they hotwired the cars, but Chimples suggested that the stickers were made to be invisible to be miscreants. We'd ask Ray Mischook, the cop in charge of the program but he's gone off to retirement in golf heaven.

Committing yourself to never leaving your house after 11 p.m. is a small sacrifice because the alternative - having your wheels stolen - is tantamount to a death sentence in car-culture West Island Montreal.

A small disclaimer - the top photo is not meant as a how-to manual on carjacking. We suggest you hold the gun closer.

Censorship in Mtl before porn...

Quebec Censor Board Sees 5000 films yearly
Montreal Standard 27 August 1949

In case you may share the more or less popular idea that film board censors spend their time seeing movies featuring off color jokes and beautiful ladies in various stages of undress, we may as well tell you right now you are in for a big disappointment.

Screening more than 5,000 full-length features, plus shorts and cartoons every year is a rather tedious job which is shared by three former newwpapermen, a dentist, a lawyer and a member of Montreal's city council.

Headed by rotund, good-humored Alexis Gagnon, one-time Quebec Legislature correspondent of Le Devoir, the six-man boarde of film censors sits in a dingy officein the basement of the Old Court House where government caprenters, plumbers and electricians seem to have a permanent job as far back as anybody can remember.

But in spite of the constant hammering and alterations which are in progress, the Board does manage to get a lot of work done although the regulations governing censorship in the province of Quebec sometimes make their job a ticklish one.

The quorum required to “pass” a picture is three, but the bulk of hte work is accmplished by Chairman Gagnon and another ex-newspaperman, (also of Le Devoir) Lucien Desbiens, who are about the only members of the board who do not have the outside “interests.”

Members of the board, who declined to be quoted individually, say that the job of censoring movies today is comparatively simple becaue the producers themselves conform to the elemntary rules of decency along the formula laid down by the late Will Hayes, one-time czar of the movie industry.

“We can't lay down a rigid set of rules government censorship,” said one board member. “What may be an innocent phrase or gesutre in one picture may be cut in another film simply because of the stress which is given the particular phrase or gesture. It can make all the difference in the world.”

One problem which the Quebec censors are called upon to face frequently is the ban on any mention of divorce in films shown in this province.

“Sometimes the heroine may be shown living with her husband and then she gets a divorce and marries again,” the board member explained. “The next appearance shows her living with another man whihch, to say the least, isn't good. We can't show that she obtained a divorce but the picture cna usually be fixed up to straighten the matter out in a way to satisfy the censorship rules without ruining the continuity of the picture.”

Gabriel Aubry - Laval's beautiful survivor

Montreal's Gabriel Aubry, 31, is usually known as Mr. Halle Berry. He won the genetic lottery that has awarded him a perfect face and physique. However prior to being discovered at a Laval nightclub in 1997, and quickly going on to $20,000 a day appearances modeling, Aubry had a tough road.

Aubry is one of nine kids from a broken home. He lived in five different foster homes starting from age 3 and ending at age 18. If you can survive that, you're more than just genetic royalty. When Aubry turned 18, he moved back with dad and got a job cooking at Laval's East Side Mario's and strumming in a band.

All this according to an interview written up by the Gazette's Eva Friede, March 26, 2000. At the time - prior to meeting Berry, fathering a child with her and opening a New York City restaurant - Aubry was talking glowingly of Gisele Bundchen and mused about buying a big house in Outremont.

Christy Chung - where in Montreal is her family's restaurant?

Few Montrealers have heard of the Asian sensation Christy Chung, who was a huge movie star in China until a few years ago when she had a kid, which is a career killer for Asian film nymphets. The Brossard-born-and-raised Chung got her initial movie kickoff as an extra in Love and Human Remains and then went on to win Miss Chinese Montreal. Meanwhile she was getting hired as a weather person for CBC French TV. She chose to skip the job and take the free trip to Hong Kong to enter the bigger contest. She won that too and went onto a big film career.

During my interview with Chung, she mentioned that her aunt has a restaurant in Montreal. Christy comes frequently to visit her family here in the city she loves. I failed to ask which restaurant Chung's auntie runs. So if anybody knows, pass it along. Here's a couple of photos and a short clip of her doing some nifty fighting in one of her earlier films.

Montreal journalist turns celluloid prankster

If the fine young Montrealer in this photo doesn't immediately appear to be a gay Israeli prince trying to make it in show biz, that's cuz he isn't. Not really anyway. It's the ever-imaginative Ian Halperin, an accomplished local journalist whose latest project is a prank movie called His Highness Hollywood. Ian went to Hollywood pretending to be a goof and elicited much videotape which he's going through now in the aim of putting out a celluloid masterpiece later this year. Halperin has, in the past, done a wide variety of stuff, including play some wicked sax, write biographies of Celine Dion, & James Taylor, neither of whom he particularly likes. He hotly denies the rumour that he has dated the singer Mitsou. But he wrote a book musing about the death of Kurt Cobain and also went undercover as a male model in New York and wrote a book about it. Never a dull moment for this lad. Here's a trailer from Ian's upcoming epic.

Quiz - to whom belongeth these eyes?

This photo of a hugely famous quasi-Montrealer was taken in 1969, it was discovered among a collection of forgotten photos. Can you tell Chimples - (the rest of the Coolopolis staff and interns kicks back Friday afternoon to drink champagne from stilettos) - who this is?

Clue 1: if he looks a bit tired it's cuz he's probably a bit mashed up.

Answer: This is indeed Donald Sutherland, resident of the Eastern Townships, Georgeville, to be precise, on the east (sunny) side of Lake Memphremagog. He's a frequent visitor to Montreal. The clue refers to the film M*A*S*H, in which he starred in 1969, the year that photo was taken here in Montreal. The photos are part of Asa Boxer's new literary tribute to his father Avi Boxer, published by the lovely Simon Dardick, the pimp-daddy/godfather of the massive Vehicule Press.

Asa found a shoebox full of neat photos of his poet dad and amigos. He popped a book together about the old man, a prominent poet in the late 50s back when poetry and jazz music could make you popular with the opposite sex. We know fuzzy dice and muscle cars supplanted that as the ultimate tools of seduction. Still works for us.

God is watching...

... on lower St. Denny.

Salvation Army photo finds

As a reward for doing the gin runs, we brought Chimples to visit his favourite store -- the big Salvation Army thrift shop on Notre Dame near Guy, where he found these dusty old '50s Hawaii tourist slides that didn't look like much at first (see before versions at bottom). But we soon recognized their historical -- O.K., stag night potential and, after giving Chimples a mickey of De Kuypers for them, had our graphical expert fix them up on the computator. The point of all this? Don't scrap your snaps!

Old Longueuil, it's difficult to spell but worth saving.

There's a project coming around the bend just on the other side of the Jack Carter Bridge that would uglify part of the lovely St. Charles Boulevard historic strip with a big grocery store.

It's known as the First Capital Realty-Metro de Grande Surface Project. The local grocery store - Metro Drouin - has long been housed in the modest Verroneau strip mall a few blocks away from the quaint high street, but that store isn't suburban supersized. Verronneau, the crotchety 87 year old owner, who has run a jewelry store on the premises since 1945 has - to his surprise - seen crafty local politicians rezone his mall to be no longer eligible to host a grocery store. They did this under claims that the existing Drouin Metro - taken over in 1994 from Drouin by the Metro chain - was bothering residents with its eight delivery vans.

So the plan is to move the Metro grocery store to soon-to-be demolished GM repair shop right on St. Charles West, a largely residential spot. The mega store would be a Taschereau Boulevard-type feral beast and would bring 166 parking spaces.

It's no secret that the GM warehouse would one day be demolished, but it was zoned residential, under the understanding that new homes would be an excellent replacement. (see photo for one Beaudesign's proposed housing development).

But Mayor Claude Gladu apparently supports the huge grocery store moving to the strip even though it would surely wipe out many of the little shops and Taschereau-ize the strip which currently looks a lot like Old Montreal. Unfortunately the ARRVL, the Old Longueuil residents association, refuses to condemn the plan, which requires a zoning change of the GM site, they point out that the GM site is not technically within the official Heritage Site zone.

And frankly, some residents support the superstore on the quaint main street because it's a bit closer and they want more choice when buying their packs of 48 rolls of toilet paper.

Opposition to the plan is being organized by Longueuil urban planning watchdogs Gisele Hamelin and legendary Montreal architect Michael Fish, who can be reached at HamelinFish at sympatico dot ca.

They don't scrap 'em like this anymore

You are looking at snippets from a Sept. 1973 newspaper ad, facsimiles of the now-desirable cars, and the one-time location of the Laval VW dealership (see map below) -- now in slumburbia.

Quiz: What unforgettable feat did this unforgettable young man accomplish so unforgettably?

Answer: At the tender age of 13, this virile young leftsidetucker named Rosaire Delorme competed in the world's first swimming marathon in 1925 which saw aqua people splash 30 miles from Montreal to Repentigny, an initiative organized by the Excelsoir Enderson Club, of which Joseph Lamarre was president.

Competitors swam off from the Victoria pier and follow the canal and continued a distance of 30 miles. The record was 3 hours and 58 minutes, held by George Young, world champion.

Delorme sported a swimsuit and goggles for the race as well as 7 pounds of wheel grease, not a good idea because as a result he couldn't see. The next year he switched to lanoline oil with better results.

Delorme's nickname was The Smiling Frog, and his managers were Lucien Handfield, Fred Lymburner and Joseph Roy. He came in 3 rd in 1926, at a tender age of 14, in a race won by a woman, the Franco-America Della Hebert-Sullivan of Holyoke, Mass.

The Montreal-Repentigny marathon tradition lasted until 1930, a mere five glorious years after it began. Lack of profits was cited for the cancellation.

Delorme became an administrator for the Montreal swimming pool bureaucracy, and fathered Carmen Delorme b c. 1934 and Robert b c.1936. When the marathon began in 1925 the city's 10 pools were aimed mainly at allowing people to wash their bodies. By the mid 50s, thanks to Delorme and other avid swimmers, the city's 18 pools aimed at helping people get exercise.

(source La Press 8 March 1955 "A 13 ans M. Delorme nagea de Montreal a Repentigny.")

This transfer is so old that they employed sundial technology....

Quiz: what'd they do to earn headlines in the local crime press?

Quiz reply: in early 2003 these "youths" were busted and accused of having committed 47 acts of graffiti vandalism, costing a cool quarter million in damages. They are known as taggers, and their tag was NRK, which is the lazy way of writing anarchy. They just wrote those letters plainly very large on the side of walls as a way of promoting the idea that rules and regulations should be replaced by a system of cooperation among all peoples. In the 80s anarchist graffiti 'artists' would simply draw an A with a circle around it to represent anarchy. (as in the photo to the right). Such graf was all over town. But many onlookers had no idea what it was meant to represent. The anarchist band Crass associated itself with the circled A, leading one mod chick to angrily respond to the circled A: "Crass my ass!"Nobody at Coolopolis Towers knows what sort of verdict or punishment these eight spray paint anarchists got, but we're confident that they didn't get the death penalty.

Lame-but-true 1933 ski report

News, Notes and Reports of Interest to Skiers
Montreal Daily Herald, Page 7, Saturday, January 7, 1933

Attention Skiers!

Starting today, the Herald will publish all latest skiing reports every Saturday in its morning edition. Conditions of the snow and weather reports from points in the Laurentian mountains will be given on this page. News and doings of ski clubs and forthcoming events in the skiing world will also be published every Saturday.

With Pole And Ski
By Tallemark
With the unexpected, but nevertheless excellent ski-ing of last week-end, the eyes of pole and board handlers the city over are turned with anticipation towards the Laurentian Mountains.
Morin Heights, St. Sauveur and Shawbridge appear to be the best bets with cross country ski-ing the most popular in the minds of many. The big hills, old friends of the thrill seekers, at Shawbridge and st. Sauveur are reported to be in excellent condition with a small fall of snow over the fast crust of last week-end's ski-ing. Throughout the North snow has covered hills with a speedy surface that has proved to be most favorable to Stemming and Christieing.

***
Last week-end the most noticeable thing was the perseverence of the ski-iers in mastering the various turns. For hours on end they would practice Stemming, Christieing and Tallemarking until the hills were fairly swept of loose snow. Should that enthusiasm persist during the winter, many new experts will show up for the various meets of the early spring.
***
All those wishing to brush up their turns should take advantage of the combined speed and facility of turning offered by the condition of the Laurentian Hills, before the deep snows of mid-winter makes it more difficult for the pupil.
***
Many old landmarks, so familiar from last winter, have been changed and improved. No longer need the "unturning" ski-ier fear the old fence half way down the big hill on the golf links at Morin Heights. The breach has been widened and it is now possible to climb to the top o' the brow and come all the way down the three inclines with safety and assurance of a good opening.
***

And to prove that there is ski-ing in the Laurentians, thouse 'Doubting Thomases' who insist to the contrary may see a recently made movie in one of the local theatres next week. the movie was made in the Laurentian Mountains and has for its actors many local ski-iers, male and otherwise.
***

Good reports of ski-ing conditions are on hand from Ste. Agathe Des Monts, St. Marguerite and Ste. Jovite. A small fall of snow that fell during the week is expected to improve conditions.
As usual, this ski-ing season is blessed with the usual number of hill climbers who stand in the centre of an opening in a fence half way down a hill and gaze absently -- not up the hill but down.
This is particularly pleasing when the opening of the fence cannot be seen from the top of the hill -- in fact not until the ski-ier madly stemms into the "break" only to find one in a green suit powdering her nose.

A Ski-ing Dog Is New Week-ender
A "skiing" dog has made its appearance this year.It is a large collie as enthusiastic a skier as his master that stands on the back of Tommy Paneton's skis and serenely conquers all the hills with their hazards and tribulations.Exhibiting amazing skill on its four feet -- while most of the lookers-on wish they possessed it on their ownly two -- the dog is quite nonchalant in its self-appointed position as liveryman to Tommy, who hails from one of Montreal's schools.But the jump proved too much even for that four-footed wizard of the snows. His master played him a dirty trick when he swerved into the jump and landed some 20 feet away -- minus the dog."I guess he was too tired of running down the hills after me," Tommy said when he was questioned regarding his dog.

Skiers Sight Deer Near St. Sauveur
Two deer, a buck and a doe were seen in the Laurentians near St. Sauveur yesterday afternoon by two cross-country hikers who were making for Shawbridge.
The deer came out of the brush upon Jack Vallery and Gordon Harrison while they were navigating a Lumber Trail. They were able to stop however and a photograph was obtained fo the animals as they made for the protection of the bush.

Latest Skiing, Snow Reports From Laurentian Mountains
By C.P.R.
Shawbridge. 7 degrees of frost. Hard surface with fast skiing on old trails.Mont Rolland. 7 degrees of frost. Hard and crusty surface.St. Marguerite. 8 degrees of frost. Hard surface.Ste. Agathe. 2 degrees of frost. Two inches of fresh snow yesterday with a hard surface underneath: 15 inches of snow on the old trails and fast skiing is expected.St. Jovite, 11 degrees of frost. Two inches of fresh snow and fast skiing with good control on the old trails.

Montreal design ahead, ahem, of its time

Device for Writing Controlled by Head
Montreal design
The Montreal Star and Herald

Wednesday, January 8, 1958

By DUSTY VINEBERG

A young Montreal designer is busy these days overseeing full-scale production here of a writing device, worn around the head, that can be used by those who do not have the use of their hands or arms.

Joel Barg, a free-lance commercial artist interested in a variety of design problems, invented the device about three years ago for a teen-age polio victim who was totally paralyzed except for her neck muscles. He intends to put all proceeds from sales back into research on other self-help devices for the totally incapacitated.

"The whole thing began with a game of tennis," Mr. Barg recalled today in his McGregor street studio.

"I used to play with a doctor at the Shriners Hospital. One day after a fast set he invited me to the hospital to visit the youngsters. I couldn't get the kids out of my mind -- and I ovvered to lead a class in painting and drawing.

"But through the weeks of the course, one of the youngsters, Brenda, remained sullen and withdrawn. I couldn't get her to participate -- which was hardly surprising since she couldn't move anything except her head."

Brenda's Problem

According to Mr. Barg, Brenda had tried to write by holding a pencil in her mouth but the pencil would slip; it was unsanitary; she developed extreme eye-fatigue; it impeded normal breathing.

"I promised myself -- and Brenda -- that I'd find some way for her to write and paint with the rest of the class," says the young designer.

Then began a long period of experimentation, with no thought of inventing a universal device. All Mr. Barg wanted was an individual solution for Brenda.

"Sometimes in winter -- I was living father away than I do now -- I found it a long, cold walk to the hospital," he says. "But when I got there and saw the crippled childre, it suddenly seemed awfully easy to walk."

He got the hospital to take a cast of Brenda's head and he then devised a long "arm" ending in a clamp for pen or pencil. Both arm and clamp were attached to acircular head-band, designed so that the slightest movement of the head controlled pens, pencils or brushes inserted in the "holder" end of the arm.

The "arm" had to be as long as the normal distance from the eye to paper; otherwise the user might develop eyestrain or cross-eyes as a result of following a pencil too near the end of the nose.

Plastic Model

Armed with the rough idea, Mr. Barg enlisted the aid of Charles Senecal of a Montreal plastics firm who loaned him the space, power tools and facilities wo work with Perspex. This lightweight clear plastic is used in hairbrushes and hundreds of other every-day items.

Working two or three nights a week, he finally produced brenda's first model, a complicated twist of plastic which fitted only her own head.

True to his promise, Brenda could not paint and she improved with practice. Discharged to her New Brunswick home, still totally paralyzed, she wrote:
"Dear Joel, Sorry I'm so late answering your letter but I have been so busy and having so much fun, that I almost forgot all about writing letters."

Inspired by the change in Brenda's attitude to life, Mr. Barg sat down to design an adjustable device that could be mass-produced for seriously incapicated people all over the world. Among those who might find it useful would be persons with arthritis, rheumatism, flaccid hands, frail arms, hand and arm amputations and cerebral palsy.

Unique in World

The device, now being produced by Mr. Senecal's firm, has an easily adjustable head-band and other refinements and has been patented in the United States and Canada. Before granting an Americal patent, the United States conducts a world-wide patent search. Mr. Barg has been informed his device is unique.

American hospitals and physiotherapists and the Canadian Foundation for Poliomyelitis have shown interest in the instrument, which sells for about $35.

Mr. Barg has worked for the National Film Board, taught art and arts-and-crafts, developed his own puppet theatre and designed a non-commercial abstract motion picture. Now at work on another self-help devices, he is unwilling to divulge what exactly they are.

"It's cruel to say anything about them until they are actually developed," he says. "They arouse too much hope in the hearts of incapacitated people who desperately desire to become a little more independent."

Update: Joel Barg, now 75, still lives on Trenholme in NDG. He eventually got a patent on the now-familiar device inspired by a woman from the Maritimes he met on his weekly Friday visits to the Shriners "I made a rash promise to do something for her," he tells Coolopolis. Barg went on to a career in art design, did some more inventing, ran a celebrated puppet theatre and raised a son and daughter here in Montreal. "I was never interested in making a buck off this invention. It served a purpose, it allowed them to function as best they could."

Stole stolen in 1908

The Montreal Herald, January 2, 1908

Quiz - what the fucking fuck is this guy and his horse doing?

This photo from 1941 demonstrates an individual, single stromping young buck who supplied an extremely important service to residents of the St. Michel area of Montreal. If he wasn't doing what he does with his horse and sleigh (evidently this was before the inbenshun of the wheel) Die Volken would be in big trouble. What did he do?

Answer - Roger Charette delivered water to homes in the then farmland of Villeray, leaving from the corner of St. Andre and Faillon and going a few blocks east to homes which still had no running water. He replaced Arthur Vaillancourt, who hauled aqua for 20 years before dying. Charette reported that fewer and fewer homes required water delivery.

Join a Club!

We think you should join a club this year. Here is a list of clubs registered in the city of Montreal. It might be slightly out of date but we are doing our best as we cope with some technical difficulties at Coolopolis Towers which started when certain member of the staff decided he will no longer eat anything but green grapes and green bananas and will not speak unless he can use the voice synthesizer on Shirley Temple mode all the time. Thanks for your understanding.
--
Argyle AAA 9 Feb 1903
L'Harmonie Champlain 9 Feb 1903
The Montreal Police Amateur Atheltic Assocaition 9 Feb 03
Union Sainte-Cecile 11 May 03
Association d'amateur athletique "Le National de Montreal" 13 July 03
The Montreal Tailors Contractors Club 13 July 03
The Manufacturers's Club 13 August 03
Association des Carossier de Montreal 12 October 03
Le Cercle Catholique des Jeunes Gens de St. Jacques 12 Oct 03
Canadian Instalment Protective Assocaition 26 Oct 03
Sons of Poland 26 October 03
Club Viger 2 May 04
Club Athletique L'etoile 14 June 04
The Montreal Military Engineers' Association 17 June 04
The Automobile Club of Canada 18 July 04
L'Association Dramatique de Montreal 28 Nov 04
The Canadian Order of Elkis 16 Jan 05
Institute philotechnique 16 Jan 05
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Physical Cultural Society 27 March 05
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Jewish Butchers' Association 5 March1 906
The Life Underwriters' Association of Montreal 5 March 1906
United Russo-Jewish Immigration Solciety 26 March 106
L'Assistance Publique 17 April 06
Le Cercle Leon XIII 30 April 06
Syrian Union Society 30 April 06
Syrian Orthodox Benefit Society 5 November 06
Disraeli Conservative Club 26 November 06
The Alpha Delta Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Kappa Fraternity 3 Decmeber 06
Cercle Dramatique De Saint Georges 25 Janvier 07
Montreal Oratorio Society 25 Janvier 07
LèAcademie de Billard Marcotte 6 March 07
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Club Belle-Rive 29 April 1907
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The Montreal Bar Association 26 June 07
Mohliver Benefit Association of Montreal 178 July 07
The Greek Benevolent Assocaition Patris 17 July 07
Association symphonique Damateur de Montreal 18 November 07

Norman Olson and the old days of PR

Sunday Express December 22, 1974

Everybody knows what a press agent looks like: He's a balding; middle-aged guy wearing a battered fedora pushed back on his head and a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, right?

Meet Norman Olson, the last of the great Montreal press agents. Olson doesn't smoke, never wears a fedora, has a full head of hair - and is a very young-looking 40 years of age.

In short, Olson looks nothing at all like a press agent, and for that matter, doesn't call himself one. Sitting behind his desk at the offices of Norman Olson Associates on Sherbrooke, Olson is very much the public relations consultant- and that's the title he applies to himself.

"The old 'press agentry' is just one tool of the public relations practitioner to get across a point," he states flatly. "That's only one twentieth of the business."

But that puckish genius that is a mere five per cent of Olson's stock-in-trade has brought to Montreal such old-fashioned, attention-getting stunts as:

Fawzia Amir, "King Farouk's Favorite Belly Dancer," promoter to stardom by Olson by means of a series of service club lectures on such topics as "The Role of the United Nations in Peacekeeping and its Relationship to Bellydancing." Later, when Olson was in charge of promotion for the Austin 1100 automobile, Fawzia marched her camel (borrowed from the Granby Zoo) to the Austin dealership to "trade it in" on a car.

-Marie MacDonald, nick-named "The Body" during the height of her movie career in the 150s, donating said body to science at McGill University.

-A stagecoach manned by midgets picking up mail during a postal strike, and a tightrope act across St. Catherine Street, both to promote the Hamid-Morton strike.

All this may seem rather frothy stuff for a man whose client roster includes Bell Telephone, the National Ballet and the National Film Board of Canada, British Leyland Motors, and several international unions. But there is a method in his mandess.

"The survival rate in the PR business over a 20-year period is less than 10 percent, and one of the reasons I've been able to survive is my experience with nightclus. I was able to instill that kind of feeling into my more sober industrial clients."

When the Montreal and Canadian Stock Exchanges moved from their quarters on St. Francois Xavier Street to Place Victoria, the press agent in Olson decided to stage a parade, complete with brass band, caleches and ticker tape.

"We wanted a ticker tape parade, but all the new buildings had sealed windows and the old ones didn't have ticker tape." Olson recalls. "So I hired a bunch of kids to take rolls of ticker tape into the old buildings with opening windows, and told them to throw the stuff when the parade passed."

"Boy," he chuckles, "did that get coverage!"

That sort of stunt, however, is becoming increasingly rare.

"The public relations business has become tantamount to psychoanalysis of the business world," says Olson, growing serious. "We're professional worriers."

"Take any industry and look at the publics they have to worry about - employees, clients, shareholders if it's a public company, the community, legislators and the press - you have to be objective - you're putting your hand on the public pulse.

"It would be foolish and dishonest - and actually not valuable, if you just tell the public what the president of the company wants them to hear," Olson insists. "People are smart, there are consumer groups. The day of the con is gone."

Heartwarming rags to riches story of the day

Montrealer Bernard De Neeve, who has been calling Greensboro NC home for about 3 years reports that he would occasionally take his Honda Civic into the Crown Honda dealership near his home where a team of young men gave him eager and friendly service. One day Bernard opened a magazine and saw a photo of one of the attendants that frequently served him in an efficient and obedient manner. It turns out the darned attendant had become a huge pop music sensation thanks to American Idol. He had the number one song of 2007. Chris Daughtry could probably roll in his own fleet of Hondas now! Daughtry's music is terrible but we're happy to inspire you with false hope or at the very least lower your seven degrees of Daughtry.

Quiz 2008...let the kwiz begin! Who is dat now notable Montrealer!?

Clue 1: Her upcoming job might entail shopping for shoes at Holt's.



We have a winner! It's Jessica Brownstein, who just got engaged to Brian Mulroney's TV personality son whose name sorta escapes us for the moment. So that means that her children will be Brian Mulroney's grandchildren and Mila's grandchildren and the great grandchildren of that doctor whose name was dropped in the MKULTRA mind control experiments at the Royal Victoria Hospital -- Chimples penned that last bit, he said it's important to keep this stuff newsworthy.