I was going to write a review of The Galindez File, but first I’m going to complain about the strike. I’m not complaining about the strike itself – although I have some criticisms about how it’s going to play out for CUPE 416 – but about people’s reactions. It’s only the first day today and the major problem is garbage collection. Except on the first day the problem shouldn’t be garbage collection. Garbage collection shouldn’t be a problem for another week. Residents of Toronto knew that a strike was likely a week ago, and even if the strike weren’t on, garbage would not be collected today anyways. I don’t understand how residents are already visiting trash collection sites (in front of which workers are picketing) to yell at picketing workers with tons of trash to dispose of. How can you generate that much trash over the course of a single weekend?! Geeze. How can you already be angry that you have too much trash stinking up your household?! It’s because you’ve generated so much garbage!
So yea… much more sympathetic to the parents whose kids are out of day care than with massive generators of garbage. It’s such garbage. I hope the city fines all the people dumping illegally.
Filed under: Current events, Travels | Tags: Farine Five Roses, High Speed Rail Canada, Monte Paulsen, Montreal, Off the Rails, Redpath Sugar, Seat 61, The Walrus, Toronto, Turbo, Union Station, VIA Rail
I pulled into Montreal by train this evening for the last time of my undergraduate residence in this city. For the last time of these four years, I passed the neon Farine Five Roses sign which you can see if you sit on the right-hand side of the train. It looks most brilliant at night.
It was one of the first markers I noticed in the Montreal skyline when I began to take VIA’s Montreal/Toronto trains. There was also Redpath Sugar at both destinations, connecting the two industrial cities of early 20th century (Upper and Lower) Canada, but I haven’t been able to spot it my last few trips (or maybe I just didn’t notice). I’m going to miss it. I’m going to miss the sites and sights in between Montreal and Toronto. I’m going to miss having coffee with my mom at Union Station where the baristas at Second Cup always scald the milk. I’m going to miss dozing and catching up on films without the distraction of the internet. I’m going to miss meeting random people like that woman who asked me what my menstrual cycle was like less than five minutes into conversation, or most recently that really cool YA writer (hi!) whose work I still have to check out. I’m going to miss train operators who depart late but manage to make it on time anyays (I have better experience than some friends who always complain, maybe they just like me better). I’m going to miss Redpath Sugar and Farine Five Roses.
♥ trains
There’s a great article in the Walrus this month by Monte Paulsen on rail progress (and subsequently, regression) in Canada, with particular interest in the Edmonton-Calgary and Toronto-Montreal (a.k.a. the Quebec-Windsor Corridor) routes. (more…)
Filed under: Current events, Tangents | Tags: A Little Princess, Alfonso Cuarón, area studies, Blindness, Concordia University Bookstore, diasporic literature, diasporic studies, Dominican Republic, Dominican-American, El misterio Galíndez, Galíndez, Gerardo Herrero, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, immigration studies, Jesús de Galíndez, Jose Saramago, Julia Alvarez, Junot Díaz, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Migration studies, Patrick Doyle, Philippe Lioret, Rafael Trujillo, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Welcome
I am reading a book of fiction for no one but myself that I sincerely and realistically expect to finish, for the first time in way more than a year. I was reading Blindness last summer, by José Saramago, in anticipation of its film adaptation. I had started it just before the antecedent Christmas (does that sound awkward) and had made it more halfway through. Halfway through was horrific though, and I couldn’t actually get any further. I ended up lending it to Tony – who finished it – and hearing moderate spoilers from him in the end. I never watched the movie either. In fall semester, I read several whole and partial translations from late 19th and 20th century Chinese lit (finishing with scar literature), and while I enjoyed a good deal of it, as coursework it cannot be considered reading for me and me alone.
Everything finds its way. And weirdly, a lot of it has to do with A Little Princess.
A Little Princess (1995, dir. Alfonso Cuarón) → Patrick Doyle → El misterio Galíndez (2003, dir. Gerardo Herrero) → Galíndez (1991, by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán) → Jesús de Galíndez (1915-1956?) → (more…)
Filed under: Attempts, Consumerism, Current events, Motion picture, Uni | Tags: Abdul Nabi Isstaif, Adrienne Clarkson, Fake Horses Plan Real Park, Golden the Ponyboy, La grande Braderie de mode québécoise, La Paryse, Norman Bethune, Soïa & Kyo, Summer employment, The Science of Sleep, Zac Posen
I handed in all my finals on Tuesday. I’m pretty sure I aced anthro because I’ve gotten As on both exams and the presentation. I hope I do well on my thesis since it’s absorbed so much of my life these past two months. I’m not so sure about art history, because I did that thing where I have not enough time and end up not really following instructions. But it’s over. And so I’m glad.
Filed under: Attempts, Current events | Tags: accessibility, Actions: What You Can Do With the City, Cafe Myriade, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Cities, Earth Day, Enrique Peñalosa, La Paryse, Montreal, Noy Thrupkaew, Radio Netherlands, Sheep and Lambs Eat City Parks, Sidewalks, Urban spaces
I was feeling dehydrated and slightly nauseus when I got off the Sherbrooke 24 at St-Marc but by the time I was strolling through Actions, I’m not sure I felt anything else other than sure I could live happy with no other aspirations in life other than to be forever a city girl. Today I went to the Centre Canadien d’Architecture (CCA) for the first time, the first of many (*fingers crossed*) Montreal fieldtrips for my last month and a half in this city. I’m glad I got out. Yesterday I barely left the apartment, over ate, and woke up this morning still uncomfortably full: not a great set of feelings.
Actions: What You Can Do with the City exhibited for the last day today at the CCA (1920 rue Baile). Entrance is usually free to students but today it was free for all (Happy Earth Day!). It was wonderful and only heightened my appreciation of cities. I have an incredibly tattered copy of “The Next City,” from last summer’s New York Times Magazine’s Architecture Issue (8 June 2008) that I keep because cities are wonderful. Most of Actions concerned the opening up of city spaces for residents’ use: including guerilla gardening, the reclaimation of half-constructed sites, and the return to community parks, among others. It reminded me of an interview in that issue of NYTM with Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogotá (1998-2001).
In developing-world cities, the majority of people don’t have cars, so I will say, when you construct a good sidewalk, you are constructing democracy. A sidewalk is a symbol of equality.
