A disclaimer: this is a poorly organized and haphazard blog. When I started blogging years ago, I didn’t know much about tags or categories or building online communities or what have you. Not to mention keyword density! These things are all very important. A sensible and savvy blogger will become familiar with and use all the numerous handy tools out there to generate conversation and boost traffic.

However.

Sometimes one yearns for being idiosyncratic and totally pointless. I know I do! Results-driven and traffic-obsessed web practices are well and good. But so is sheer self indulgence! When blogs started, I thought they were going to be a way for everyone to just confess their dirty secrets in public. A way to be embarrassingly candid. But clearly, that is not entirely the way all — or most — blogs have gone.

I very much admire this blog. Michael talks about whatever the hell he wants, and it’s always interesting. And it appears he’s getting more and more traffic!

Anyway, at this particular moment, I just want to declare that potatoes are becoming my favourite starch, and then take a totally different train of thought for a ride, such as my current poll:

And now I’d like to return to the subject of food, albeit briefly, and declare enthusiastically that the new halloumi, aubergine and cheese tart that I made yesterday for my girlfriend and I was a genuine success! Are many people writing about halloumi cheese these days? If not, they should! It’s from Cyprus (or Lebanon, so said the folks at the Jean Talon market) but you can find a very reasonably priced local version of it made right here in Quebec. Halloumi cheese is very salty, but combine it with sun dried tomatoes and aubergines and you have a taste explosion on your tongue. It is not a fatal explosion, but it is to die for!

Want the recipe?

In 2009, life will resemble an action-adventure movie more than ever. There will be lots of death, calamity, and major obstacles to overcome. If we - humanity - are the protagonists of this narrative, then we are really going to have search deep within ourselves to find a way out of our current predicament. The future will be many things, but it will not be boring!

The future does not belong to suburbia, or to any economy beholden to fossil fuels. Since that describes almost all of North America, I think we’re in for some very challenging times! The neighbourhood from which I write this - Blue Quill, Edmonton, Alberta - is imperilled. Soon, the way people live in such neighbourhoods will seem like a museum curiosity. Each family with two cars, a front and back yard, and big screen TVs?

Edmonton, like many places, is nevertheless putting on a brave face for the future. Construction workers scramble to extend the subway line down to the southern flank of the city. Will public transit supplant the massive reliance on the private automobile? Twice this week, I took a bus from Century Park to Southgate Mall, and was shocked to find myself one of only TWO people on board. This, surely, is not cost effective. Looking out of the window, I saw not a single pedestrian on the pavement.

But this is becoming a tiresome refrain and I expect 2009 to be anything but tiresome. 2009 is going to be brilliant, enthused with passion, and hours of hard but productive work.

The biggest struggle of all will be the age-old struggle of our race: the struggle for survival. Anyone not part of this vast struggle in 2009 is in hibernation! The struggle is for a new way of life: a friendlier, smaller, cheaper, more modest way of life. Will people of my generation be poorer than our parents? Let us hope so! The earth depends on it.

How much of the earth’s resources are each man, woman and child entitled to? Somehow, in our search for a new way of life, we must find an answer to that question. And it can’t just suit us prosperous and pampered westerners; it must accommodate every one of the seven billion people on this teeming but fragile planet.

One thing is for sure: the rich will always feel entitled to have more of everything than anyone else. Unless our civilization summons the courage to confront the rich and their disproportionate consumption of everything, we will almost surely find our way of life coming to a lurching halt faster than we ever imagined.

In 2009, it’s time to rise up against CEOs of companies like Exxon and Shell, who think salaries of $460 million are fair and just. It’s time for the bankers who suck at the taxpayers’ teat to get out of their air-conditioned boardrooms and do something useful for a change. It’s time to lock away war criminals like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, because a real democracy lets no person get away with murder and torture. In 2009, it’s time to tax pollution and reward energy efficiency. In 2009, it’s time to do work that improves the human spirit and the fortunes of our planet. In 2009, it’s time to melt down all the Hummers and the SUVs of the world and turn them into beautiful and bizarre sculptures.

I begin this year with more optimism and appetite for what is to come than ever before. I want to work harder than ever before, love deeper than ever before, create more than ever before, live more meaningfully than ever before, and find myself a year from now saying, “2009 - that was one hell of a year!”

Modern life in North America often seems like a Faustian bargain: in exchange for material comforts we must give up a sense of community, social cohesion, and genuine contentment. Most modern North American towns bear witness to this awful trade-off. Edmonton, Alberta is no exception.

Today I drove to Edmonton’s downtown and discovered that the historic Arlington Apartments have been demolished. Once a proud edifice just a stone’s throw from Jasper Avenue, the Arlington Apartments had an interesting and lively past. The building itself was an exemplar of elegant early twentieth century architecture. Between 1994 and 1995, I lived there with two roommates for about six eventful months. I remember once preparing myself chilli con carne with week-old ground beef and, after eating it, going into a 24-hour delirium, interrupted every hour by violent vomiting. The climax of my stay at the Arlington was when the upstairs apartment flooded ours with sewage.

A couple of years ago, a fire ripped through the Arlington and destroyed most of it. Nevertheless, the facade overlooking the street remained, and many people believed that the building could and should be rebuilt. Clearly, these voices have been ignored. In between the black-glass office tower on one side and the ugly green home of the Fresh Start education centre on the other, is a gaping hole. The hole where my home once stood.

What does it do to the human spirit to see the places of one’s past torn down and replaced with condominiums or parking lots or strip malls? During my relatively brief sojourn in Edmonton, I witnessed the destruction of the old Edmonton Journal building, a grain elevator, city hall, the lieutenant governor general’s house… There was even talk at one time of tearing down the Hotel MacDonald.

I remember when I was fourteen, and the Journal building was coming down, I asked my peers, “Why are they doing this?” The general consensus was that the building was “too old” and that a “better one” was needed. In Edmonton, people generally think that history is something that happens elsewhere - i.e. in Europe, or possibly eastern Canada. People rarely think how history is something that happens everywhere, and that we all have a part in creating it and preserving it.

The other day, reading the Edmonton Journal, I discovered that many councillors at Edmonton’s intrepid city hall are “outraged” at the prospect of spending $50,000 to restore an historic Edmonton area barn. Thinking like this has prevailed throughout most of Edmonton’s history, and the result is that the city now has the feeling of utter abandonment. To travel around the place on a brisk day like today is like visiting the scene of some violent catastrophe that has killed most humans and condemned those that survive to huddling in temporary box-like structures. I stood in the heart of downtown and there was not a single soul on the sidewalk. In Edmonton, this is normal. This is what passes for city living.

People move around Edmonton looking miserable and rather shell-shocked. They seem suspicious and nervous of each other. I first noticed this general surliness when I returned to the city for Christmas 2007. This Christmas, my girlfriend noticed the exact same phenomenon.

Is it any wonder that Edmontonians look so miserable when the city itself is hell-bent on replacing everything old and unique with garish new warehouses that promote mass-market brands such as McDonalds and Boston Pizza and IKEA? Most of Edmonton is a perfect example of what author Howard Kunstler calls “the geography of nowhere.” How does it feel to live somewhere that looks like everywhere else, or in other words, like nowhere at all? Perhaps, after living in “nowhere” for long enough, people might end up feeling like a bunch of nobodies.

Is there any real difference between Blue Quill, Duggan, Clareview, or Riverbend? Beyond the size of the houses, as befits Edmonton’s varying social classes, do any of these neighbourhoods actually have a story to tell? I can’t think of many neighbourhoods in Edmonton that have a defined centre - i.e. a main street, a social hub, an historic core. All you get as you move from one part of the city to the other is the incessant voice of the commodity culture imploring you to buy buy buy.

I have immensely enjoyed many things about my festive season in Edmonton. The company of my wonderful girlfriend, her family, and the numerous stalwart friends that I’ve had a chance to see here -it’s been splendid. But boy am I glad to live somewhere else.

While I was in NYC, Mother Nature made sure that my neighbourhood, Villeray, would look suitably festive for Christmas. She dumped many inches of snow upon our streets and sidewalks, and now the drifts pile up around cars and decorate the steps of walk-up apartments. When I walk down the residential streets at night, the snow radiates in the glow of Christmas lights. It is still a beautiful novelty for now. The snow will probably seem less delightful by March, but that’s an update for another day, another season!

And here comes Banchi, jumping onto my lap to say hello, and now climbing onto the printer, from where she has a vantage point to look over the street. Yesterday, she briefly went out onto the balcony and played in the snow. She doesn’t drive a car, so the snow has few downsides for her. Merry Christmas, Banchi! I will say it now, since on the day itself, I will be thousands of miles away in Edmonton, and will not get a chance to say it in person.

There have been some small dramas this week here in Villeray. On Monday, I received a visit from crack-smokin’ Pierre who lives with his mother in the downstairs apartment. He said that water had trickled from my apartment into his. I went down to see what was up. Pierre’s mother, Francine, was doing the dishes, and when I said “Salut, Francine!” she did not look up from her task. I think she was very grumpy. Regular blog readers will recall that this is the second time my apartment has leaked water into hers. Upon looking closely at the ceiling and the wall, there was a thin but long trail of discoloured water making its way downwards. So Pierre and I returned upstairs to see what was causing it. Pierre, after some sleuthing around, isolated the source of the leak to my kitchen sink.

Thereupon I phoned the landlord, Monsieur Armand Ouellet. He told me that a plumber would arrive the very next day. And lo, so he was, punctual as Big Ben. The kitchen tap was apparently not in place properly, and a five-minute fix was all it took to prevent any future leaking. No more need to wash my dishes in the bathtub. Thank goodness for that.

The remaining drama of the week was the small jubilation at the news that my new communications company, Villeray Communications, started in partnership with Matt, will embark on its third contract soon… Combined with a contract for me at the National Film Board of Canada, starting in January, it looks as though 2009 will bring more work than ever before.

What could be better than the kind of work that builds your own business, tests your skills, and forges new ones? Bring on 2009, I say. Early signs are that it will be a gooder. I am grateful.

Last, but certainly not least, from everyone here at this blog, namely Banchi and me, the best of the holiday season to you all.

I am in New York City and a week has passed in a seeming whirlwind of travel and rain and cold and drink and interviews and more drink and meagre food rations. New York City always seems big, and the more time I spend here, it just seems to get bigger. I’ve been in Queens and Brooklyn and also out to Long Island. The distances seem vast. But New York City is like a cosy village when it comes to the instant warmth of people once you talk to them. There is not much of the polite and polished veneer that makes relations smoother in Canada, but also makes things more distant.

Yesterday I saw rats in the subway. How they seem to like the subway, those furry beasts.

Today I saw two kittens walking around in a Queens car sales lot. Weird. Abandoned kitties? I thought of Banchi and wanted to adopt two new companions for her, but thought better of it.

I will really welcome being home again. It’s good to know that New York City is never that far away, but it’s far enough to start missing home pretty soon. I want a nice dinner with my girlfriend and a big lazy breakfast the morning after.

Canada’s government seems set to crumble mere days after it kicked off a new parliament. At first, I was enthused by the idea. Even at around noon, yesterday, I sent an email to everyone I know, encouraging them to rally to the defence of a potential NDP-Liberal coalition (propped up by the separatist Bloc Québecois). Now, I admit, I’m not so sure.

The fact is, a three-headed coalition government is going to expose Canada’s regional fault-lines like never before. The West is going to go berserk! They’re already apoplectic out there at the very idea that Stephane Dion, a colossal failure in the election, might replace their man, Stephen Harper. And to an extent, I can see their point.

But the scariest part of a coalition is making concessions to the Bloc Québecois. It’s a sign of Canada’s current dysfunction that its second largest province has seemingly embraced a party that wants to flee Canada at the first opportunity, and meanwhile, will extract every last entitlement that it can out of federal coffers.

How to get any clarity in this current quagmire?

The ideologue in me - that profoundly disliked Harper from the get-go - relishes the prospect of him getting his ass kicked for the monumental stupidity of last week. What was he thinking? Trying to bankrupt the opposition by removing federal financing? It’s not only a slap in the face to the opposition, it’s a slap in the face to me and all the millions of other Canadians who embraced this system - who knew that our vote would mean just under two bucks in funding for our chosen party. No matter how ruthless Chrétien was in his day, he never tried to destroy the other parties.

Nevertheless, the pragmatist in me - that wants Canada to stay as strong as possible - is balking at the idea of Stephane Dion seizing the helm. Rationally, it doesn’t make sense. It goes against the country’s best interests. I mean, I agreed with Dion and the Green Shift - tax the hell out of pollution, that’s what I say. But it must be conceded that most Canadians did not embrace Dion or his platform. So to appoint him leader now is going to strike millions of Canadians as a bit of farce, not to mention, undemocratic. Granted - there is parliamentary precedent for it, indeed, Harper suggested exactly the same power-sharing arrangement in 2004, but just because Harper thought of it first certainly doesn’t make it right.

In the long term, I think there is only one way of saving Canada. We have to reform our democracy and introduce a form of proportional representation. It’s the only way a country as vast as this one can mitigate the regional differences. The Bloc is not as popular in Québec as their seat-count in parliament would suggest. Moreover, the Conservatives (or Stephen Harper) are not as popular out West as their seat-count would suggest. Both are benefitting from a first-past-the-post system that rewards the racking up of big regional victories instead of appealing to Canadians from coast to coast. If the Bloc Québecois were awarded seats on the basis of their support among Canadians, how many seats would they have right now? Thirty at most? And thirty seats seems about appropriate to their status as a purely provincial party with only narrow and selfish interests.

The vast majority of Canadians prefer centre-left parties. That is what recent history is proving. What unites the Liberals, NDP and the Bloc is that they reject the deference to Big Oil and pure individualism; in this time of economic crisis, they believe more help for struggling Canadians is needed. If we could somehow remove the toxic poison of separatism from this mix, I believe we’d get the government we need at this time.

It’s time for proportional representation!

Through Alberta Eyes, the article Cyrus and I co-wrote about the Quebec election was published today in the Edmonton Journal. Enjoy!

Yesterday, I witnessed what I would call a public space intervention at the Royal Bank on Sherbrooke, close to McGill University. When I say banking, I mean an exercise rather like sticking one’s finger in the dyke; depositing a few dollars into an account in an attempt to avoid getting washed away in a sea of debt. I was sitting waiting my turn, when in walked a slim man wearing a suit and an incongruous pair of clunky walking boots. Accompanying him was Mr. Monopoly - as in the bespectacled, moustachioed, top-hat-wearing man who represents the world-famous board game.

The slim man starts shouting at the sleepy crowd of bank clients, in English.

Slim man: Excuse me! Can anyone lend us $25,000? Can anyone give Mr. Monopoly $25,000 for the limousine ride home?

At this point, I think the performance is quite amusing. I attempt to catch the slim man’s eye with my sheepish smile - wanting to convey that I am too broke to lend even a nickel. But the slim man is not really looking to interact with the crowd. No, he’s up to something entirely different. He thereupon bursts into French, which is clearly his first language.

Slim man: I want you all to know that today is Black Friday - the darkest day of the whole shopping year. Canadians will spend more money on Christmas today than on any other day of the year. So withdraw as much money as you can, spend as much money as you can. Get out there and spend all your money! Think about it!

And having hectored the rather confused crowd this way, the slim man departs, accompanied by Mr. Monopoly. Afterwards, a confused Anglophone in line asks, what was that guy talking about? An equally confused woman says she thinks it’s something about going out and shopping. I think of adding my two cents on what it was about, but opt for silent brooding instead. I like silent brooding!

I have been thinking about public space a lot in the last week - how those magic words “public space” can be invoked in order to lend gravitas to whatever an activist or artist is attempting to do. I think the general idea of many public space interventions is to try and reclaim our streets, sidewalks, malls and other gathering places from the purely profit-seeking imperative of corporations, and at the same time, to deliver a “wake-up” call to the supposedly unaware consuming citizens that are sleepwalking through their lives.

But often, public space interventions are totally pretentious, silly, and self-righteous! When an individual sets himself up as the appointed one for delivering a wake-up call to society, he (or she!) places himself outside of society. He is saying that he knows something that society doesn’t know but needs to hear. As with Mr. Monopoly and his agent, he adopts a lecturing tone with his audience - treating a group of individuals as if they are no more than a herd. He demeans the individuality of everyone in the crowd, by making vast assumptions about their behaviour and motivations.

I wasn’t in the bank trying to withdraw thousands of dollars to go on some mad Christmas spending spree! I was paying in the very first deposit for my new business partnership - Villeray Communications - which one day, hopefully, will pay me enough to eat, pay rent, heat my apartment, etc. Nevertheless, I felt the condescension for me dripping from every word of Slim Man, the agent for Mr. Monopoly. I was relieved when the dopey duo exited the building. Nobody needed them there in the first place — not even on Black Friday!

Having soundly bashed Québec politics yesterday, let me recant a little today. I watched the first hour and ten minutes of the debate last night, and I was impressed with what I saw, especially from Jean Charest. I saw a level of articulacy and knowledge of the issues that is not always present even in federal debates - let alone debates in other provinces (Alberta you’ll remain nameless!) Despite the often heated rhetoric, I thought the format was managed well, allowing everyone to at least be heard, but also allowing the rough-and-tumble of argumentation which I believe is a critical part of our parliamentary system. Québec politics suffers, of course, from preoccupations with language and culture, but did not suffer so much yesterday, thank God.

Or maybe they just all fooled me with their sophisticated French.

The article Cyrus and I wrote about Québec politics will be out on Sunday in the Edmonton Journal. I’ll have it available under Publications just as soon as I can.

There is an article that I co-wrote with my buddy Cyrus coming out in The Edmonton Journal. It’s about the Québec election, taking place December 8. More news on that soon.

While I am a big believer in the necessity of voting, I honestly might not vote in this election. I love Montreal, but I am pretty unimpressed with Québec politics. No party deserves my vote. Not a single party has the courage to admit that Canada is a great place and that Québec has mostly been well served by the federal government as well as the generosity and understanding of English Canada. Instead, all Québec parties adopt either one of the following stances vis-à-vis Canada:

- Liberal Party of Québec: acknowledges Canada exists, won’t separate from it, but views the country as nothing more than a never-ending source of money. Also, the ruling Liberals negotiated a trade deal with France this fall making it easier for French citizens to work in Québec than other Canadians. Read more about it here. Also, French citizens pay lower tuition in Québec than other Canadians. What a slap in the face. That’s Québec politics for you! Only in Canada can you pour billions upon billions into one province, only to be told that you never give enough, and moreover, that they’re going to discriminate against you and hate you regardless.

- Parti Québecois: hate Canada, would separate at the first opportunity, but nevertheless demand as much money out of Canada as possible. Really amazing to see a party claiming that Québec can stand proudly on its own two feet, but at every opportunity attempts to raid Canada’s coffers. Did you know that Pauline Marois, PQ leader, launched her election campaign by asking the feds to give Québec $435 million that is apparently owed from the 1998 ice storm? That’s Québec politics for you!

- Action Démocratique du Québec: has ditched its overt bid for separation from Canada in the last few years, trading the policy in for an even more insulting one. Rather than separating from Canada in a fair and square sovereignty referendum, it will act as if separation has already been achieved. That’s basically what its “autonomy” platform means. Oh, and let’s not forget that it is the ADQ that stoked the fires of racism last year, leading eventually to Québec’s deplorable reasonable accommodation debate, wherein this “fair and open” society talked about all the ways that immigrants must conform to Québec values.

Between successive Liberal and Parti Québecois governments, this province has accumulated a debt of over $100 billion. This would not trouble me so much were it not for the fact that the roads and highways are falling apart and, by all reports, healthcare is about the worst in Canada. What exactly has Québec been doing with the rest of the country’s money?

To see the gazillion infrastructure projects currently underway here, you might think that Québec is finally serious about fixing the place up. I’m not convinced. A preferred tactic of maintenance crews in Montreal is to put up a bunch of orange cones on a street, then leave them there for the next few weeks and month, and do next to nothing. Exhibit 1: the large hole dug on my buddy Cyrus’ street this July, now languishing, untended, as we approach the end of November. Another favourite tactic is conducting a massive dig-up of a street, disrupting traffic for months - even years - eventually finishing the job, then repeating the entire process. Exhibit 2: the corner of de Maisonneuve and Guy, which by my count, has been dug up and re-surfaced at least four times in a year. And let’s not forget the great St. Laurent botch job, which must have lasted close to two years.

About a year ago, a huge investigation into the collapse of a bridge to Laval concluded that most of Québec’s elevated highways and bridges built in the 1960s had been constructed with substandard materials and subsequently neglected by pretty much every government ever since. But do we see anyone advocating a massive recruitment of qualified engineers and an emergency investment in roads and highways? Nope. It’s pretty much impossible to get a job as an engineer here. Or do we see anyone acknowledging that the highway system is within a decade or two of total collapse and the advocacy of other modes of transport? Nope again.

I’ve never been one for wild-eyed conspiracy theories, but I’m increasingly convinced that a large amount of our tax dollars are simply funnelled straight into the pockets of the mafia, for whom infrastructure crews are mainly a front.

Let’s also not overlook Québec’s unbeatable talent for creating vast bureaucracies that cost millions but mainly do nothing. I could cite the Office de la Langue Française, but an even better example might be our local transportation system. Beyond a doubt, the bus and metro here beat, say, Edmonton’s. They go more places and run more frequently. But STM, who runs the show, deserves a prize for the most disorganized gong show around. Try figuring out something as simple as how to buy a student bus pass. This is a conundrum that my girlfriend and I have been puzzling over for almost three months. Of course, I didn’t face this challenge when I was myself a student, because STM decides that if you’re over 25, you no longer qualify for a student pass.

For Monika, however, the Quest for a Student Bus Pass, has been an absolute Cirque du Soleil of Stupidity on behalf of everyone from Concordia University and STM. And the quest, sadly, has ended in utter failure. Apparently, despite being under 25, despite being enrolled in as many classes as the university will allow her to take, she still doesn’t qualify for a student bus pass. Nope! For reaons beyond anyone’s comprehension, she must wait until January.

Next, stay tuned for a post that won’t be so dire. Or maybe not. We’ll have to see how this province and city treat us over the next few days and months!