Montreal!

Xpost: rather than give you a snark filled piece of mind, I'll just link to this

I dunno, me and TO just do not jibe, mostly seems to be a people issue. but then again I might feel the same way as you had I spent the last six+ years in TO instead.

> biked 35 miles around the East Island today. The Quebecoise are indeed a 'distinct society'. Love my city.

would you mind telling me where this East Island is, cause I've never heard of it in my 30-someodd years here. "The Quebecoise?"

East Montreal... semantics. Sorry for the typo.

http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/magnificent-montreal/1

good article that sort of sums up nicely what i <3 about this town

my friend is the guy leading the writer around

haha. yeah it's a great piece. but i want to know more about adam sachs, not adam gollner! :)

what do you want to know

(i dont know anything)

Can I move there? Do they like foreign people?

yes and yes

Spent a week in Montreal (and three days in Quebec City) for our honeymoon. Such a great place.

nice, what did u do?

I dunno, Canadian immigration people have always been the biggest hardasses to me. Sometimes I fly home with Air Canada and have a layover in Toronto and always get GRILLED. Why am I here? Well, I have a flight to catch and will be leaving in 45 minutes, so I don't really think I'm a danger to your country.

It is a VERY great place, and I only really spent something like a day and a half there. Everyone should visit.

well maybe I think you're a danger to my country adam

Well I am a bit messy sometimes.

Still, I like the idea of living in Canada. You never know.

You have to watch out for him, he likes to film things. (Wait, who am I warning against who?)

Stayed at one of those boutique hotels by the water (one with awesome fucking room service), went to a ton of restaurants, bought a ton of records, hit that Miles Davis exhibit at the art museum, saw some sights and witnessed some of the glory that was Canada Day and the boiling heat wave that followed (if it had been any other type of vacation I would have dropped you a line, Slock). Don't recognize most of the places in that article but oddly enough I ordered all three things (foie gras poutine, duck-in-a-can, and seafood platters) mentioned being at Restaurant au Pied de Cochon. Even splitting the poutine and the seafood, this was in hindsight a bit too ambitious.

My only complaint was that I couldn't seem to get the right kind of iced latte and wound up hitting starbucks more than I wanted to.

oh i coulda helped you with that

glad u had a good time and of course i understand you wouldnt exactly want to be like hey new bride, can we take some time on our honeymoon to meet some random bon vivant from the internet

but if u ever come back, lemme know!!

hey new bride, can we take some time on our honeymoon to meet some random bon vivant from the internet

Le Proposal Indecent

How big is Montreal? DO many people live in quaint Olde Worlde apartments with high ceilings above patisseries and such? And ride bicycles in elegantly faded clothes?

They definitely ride bicycles.

but if u ever come back, lemme know!!

definitely!

actually yes

Is Montreal on a river? What is the countryside like outside of Montreal?

it's IN a river

(it's an island)

Wow!

I just don't know much about Montreal. All I know is through s1ocki and rrrobyn and I think there were once some olympics there or something. It sounds nice.

there's some really nice countryside not too far away. the laurentian mountains. the eastern townships (really old settlements). vermont is like 45 minute drive.

The mix of stations in French and English was pretty awesome. Loved little details like Two And A Half Men being called "Mon Oncle Charlie." Also appreciated the French pronunciation of "Jack Donaghy"

hahaha

i love the movie titles too

for some reason the one that always stood out was BOOTY CALL which was called ALLO BABA! (exclamation mark included)

Montreal film title translations vs. Helsinki film title translations.

I love the alt. Twilight titles. So much more appropriate.

i used to enter the movie listings for my paper (worst job ever btw) and so i read all of them

o ya simon i was just chuckling about that today.... eclipse is called TWILIGHT: HESITATION

hahahaha

also came across some kind of candid camera show called something like "droll and sexy" that seemed to mostly be people being squirted with water and topless women walking out of closets in department stores.

xpost was just about to mention the posters for Twilight: Hesitation

that's actually what life is like most of the time

btw mazel tov on the whole getting hitched thing

thanks!

Haha Hesitation

o ya simon i was just chuckling about that today.... eclipse is called TWILIGHT: HESITATION

I saw one of those posters and thought, "Instant improvement."

i mean it sort of cuts to the core doesn't it

I need to see Twilight

How big is Montreal? DO many people live in quaint Olde Worlde apartments with high ceilings above patisseries and such? And ride bicycles in elegantly faded clothes?

The population of the island is ~1.5 million, the metropolitan pop. is ~3.5 million.

Can I move there? Do they like foreign people?

Do you speak French? Then, yes!
Seriously though, if you want to immigrate to Canada and plan to live in Quebec, the province (in addition to the federal government) has to approve your residency there.

I used to speak ok French, I went to school in Paris for a brief while. But it was long ago and my French is embarrassing these days. I'm sure it is all in there somewhere.

Hey I was born in 78 too! Or maybe your name is ref. to 78rpm vinyl records

xpost- I lived there for 7 years and barely spoke any French. I think it matters in the rest of Quebec but almost not at all in Montreal (unless it's a really francophone neighborhood).

curious and full of vivid affections.

<3 <3 <3

Big love to rrrobyn and those close to her, this is sad news

oh no.. that’s awful.. thanks for letting us know sean

thanks sean. this news has brought me back here because I don't really know where else to go. feeling very devastated right now.

I don't think our ilx paths ever crossed, but I'm sorry to hear the news and wish you all well <3

we've been talking about her on the cancer thread and on the rrrobyn thread that is on the noize board today. also if you are a FB friend feel free to post on her wall. or post on my post on her wall. her partner also posted and people have been leaving messages there.

Not thrilled about these results. Electing neoliberals to fix crises caused by neoliberalism — will this ever stop? (tbc: electing fascists to fix crises caused by neoliberalism is also bad)

i don’t really get why people were so fed up with projet montreal tbh. i moved away a few months before valerie plante was elected, and moved back this summer, and… the city is visibly nicer in like a dozen highly salient ways that are directly attributable to their policies? also having spent a couple of my years away in toronto—that place is a dump! i followed the election pretty closely but there didn’t seem to be many things that PM did that were heavily criticized (in the debate i watched, trying to remove an encampment was the one thing both sauvé and soraya pounced on them for), just seems like people got bored/fatigued?

a few things:

1) i agree completely, the Plante tenure is the first time i have lived under a government (at any level) had a clear positive impact on my quality of life. for all its flaws, i was really delighted with the changes the city underwent in the decade!

2) people were bored and it it was a "change" election, yes

3) luc rabouin did not have sufficient charisma (or "change" energy) to make up for this; his Plateau-geared sanctimony did not read well outside of Projet strongholds

4) Transition Montreal successfully siphoned off some of the leftwing energy/enthusiasm, and a relatively significant portion of the votes

5) more than anything, the election results underline just how good Plante was as a campaigner (and governor?). places like the Plateau Mont-Royal still went Projet across the board - what was different this year was how poorly the party did in most of the other boroughs. that was Plante's special gift - to sell her vision outside of the urbanist heart of the city.

xpost!
I completely agree, I think Plante did a fairly good job under difficult circs and has made the city much greener and more pleasant. I moved here when Coderre was mayor, and the idea of going back to his party is deranged (tbf the parties are kind of meaningless, but still).

Ensemble ran primarily on a pro-cars, anti-bike lanes, and pro-cops agenda. People are mad about homelessness and housing (and I guess parking and traffic), but why/how they think some Liberal is going to fix those things is lost on me. She's touting her ability to work with the prov and fed govs to fix the kinds of problems municipal govs are hard-pressed to tackle, but that is laughable w/ Legault and even pretty dubious with Carney imo. Jumping on Rabouin for clearing a homeless encampment is rich too. Obviously she doesn't have a record yet, but the Ensemble guy who won my councilor seat (Ville-Marie; he won by 13 votes ;_;) had a whole plank about "Strengthen the sense of security in streets, parks, and other public spaces."

Worth mentioning that if everyone who voted for Sauvé's ostensibly more leftist party had voted for Projet, they would have squeaked out a win for mayor at least. I say ostensibly because I'd initially assumed I'd vote for him (tax the rich!) as the more ambitious left-y option, but his platform was under-cooked and my Transition councilor candidate seemed very unserious.

you guys are probably correct about change/boredom but ugggh that's so short-sighted it drives me mad

sean otm

totally agree on luc’s lameness as a campaigner and val’s star power. i wonder if she’ll run for something provincial (leader of QS?) or federal (NDP MP?)

it is kind of lame that if you add transition + projet vote you end up with a number that is about 1000 more votes than ensemble. obviously for that to have changed the outcome requires a pretty strong assumption about how and whether transition voters would’ve voted… but still. i quite like some of sauvé’s ideas (not a fan of his tram plan though, i liked them in theory but experiencing the reality of ttc streetcars turned me off) but i didn’t really understand the motivation for that campaign given how little daylight their was between their platform and projet, and how many outsider/inexperienced people they were running

xp rob otm, too

Sauvé left Projet in 2020 (iirc) when past allegations of sexual assault came out, so you could credibly say the motivation is more about himself than any significant political differences.

I suppose that's being harsh, but I was def annoyed to see his rando councilor candidate pulling way more than 13 votes

Sauvé left Projet in 2020 (iirc) when past allegations of sexual assault came out, so you could credibly say the motivation is more about himself than any significant political differences.

i thought this too at first, but after reading craig's reply to a question about it in this reddit ama he did a couple weeks ago, i'm not so sure

ah thanks for that. I genuinely don't want to dislike him — he was my councilor when I lived in St Henri and he was unfailingly responsive on the (v hilarious) St Henri FB group for any issue you might have.

btw welcome back to Montreal!

ty! great to be back :)