-Perhaps Montreal's best loved low-cost Italian joint is the Rotisserie Italien on St Catherine, around St. Mark. Well you'll be glad to learn that it is now no longer owned by an Italian. The new owner is Chinese. He has, however, maintained the staff. Egg roll on pasta anybody?
-A beggar downtown has trained his dog to hold his cup and nod when you put a quarter in it. He stands furtively a few feet away. So a dog has become one of the city's biggest characters. Along with the Westmount garbage collector who leaps about like Spiderman, complete with full face cover, we might be in for a new golden age of public weirdos. So I would not cry if the Spoonman quitely disappeared.
-Montreal should become a world-center for randomcasting. Here's one way to randomcast: next time you finish a drink, pop a little note inside. It could be any sort of note, a little limerick, or personal wisdom. Someone will read it. This might complicate recycling but so does the Corona bottle and nobody complains about that. Extra points for tossing it into the ocean. There's too little randomcasting going on. (Yes, I invented the term, think broadcasting, narrowcasting, and now randomcasting). I guess book crossing (leaving a book out on the street is a form of narrowcasting) as is graffiti I suppose and maybe chatroulette, which I have never tried and maybe fortune cookies.
- Montrealers usually die of heart disease or cancer or some other ailment. Some get killed by other people. But a very tiny minority get killed by Montreal. That is to say the city geography actually kills them. Montreal's most lethal weapon of murder is the Lachine Canal. Many people have wanted to discuss with me the sad story of the young man named Besner who died there recently. But he's far from the first to drown in the Lachine Canal. It has killed dozens and every story is such a sad one. I will post something a complete file one day but it's a very depressing subject.
-A beggar downtown has trained his dog to hold his cup and nod when you put a quarter in it. He stands furtively a few feet away. So a dog has become one of the city's biggest characters. Along with the Westmount garbage collector who leaps about like Spiderman, complete with full face cover, we might be in for a new golden age of public weirdos. So I would not cry if the Spoonman quitely disappeared.
-Montreal should become a world-center for randomcasting. Here's one way to randomcast: next time you finish a drink, pop a little note inside. It could be any sort of note, a little limerick, or personal wisdom. Someone will read it. This might complicate recycling but so does the Corona bottle and nobody complains about that. Extra points for tossing it into the ocean. There's too little randomcasting going on. (Yes, I invented the term, think broadcasting, narrowcasting, and now randomcasting). I guess book crossing (leaving a book out on the street is a form of narrowcasting) as is graffiti I suppose and maybe chatroulette, which I have never tried and maybe fortune cookies.
- Montrealers usually die of heart disease or cancer or some other ailment. Some get killed by other people. But a very tiny minority get killed by Montreal. That is to say the city geography actually kills them. Montreal's most lethal weapon of murder is the Lachine Canal. Many people have wanted to discuss with me the sad story of the young man named Besner who died there recently. But he's far from the first to drown in the Lachine Canal. It has killed dozens and every story is such a sad one. I will post something a complete file one day but it's a very depressing subject.
Once I was passing by the lachine canal near George Etienne Cartier park. They were filming some tv show there, and I saw a Police boat in the water. They were obviously dredging the canal....I thought it was part of the tv show! later I saw on the news that they had found the remains of a young woman who had been missing for over a year (I can't recall her name... Melanie something I think).
ReplyDeleteMy mother had lots of gruesome experience with the Lachine Canal because she grew up and later worked nearby. She told me there was a black truck that would be driven over there to haul bodies away, honking some sort of siren, and it was considered an interesting spectacle by the tougher Point denizens who would gather to watch the canal being dragged and the body hauled out.
ReplyDeleteThe father of a friend of hers was in a bad industrial accident and lost both hands, and after a year or two of serious depression he threw himself into it. I don't think she knew anyone else personally who died in the canal.
Another story she used to tell: even people in the Point had to feel superior to somebody, and the people they felt superior to was the folks from Goose Village. In the summer, the Goose Village boys had their heads shaved (to avoid lice) and went around barefoot. Once a year in summertime the canal was completely drained to clean it, and at that time these Goose Village boys would show up with baskets and bags and scavenge the bed of the canal for coal that had rolled in off the edges of barges: their families found it difficult to pay for coal and this was one way they could get some for free.
You need to get over your hatred of pitbulls! Ban the deed not the breed! I own an 8 year old pitbull who has never harmed another person or animal. Her best friends include a chihuahua and a cat.
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