Category Archives: My articles

Blork Blork Blork

Ed Hawco’s Blork Blog (coolest name ever!) is the subject of this week’s blog profile. I figured it was about time since the interview I had with him via email happened way back in January.

There’s also an article on the same page (B2, no link because apparently nobody uploaded it to their website) about art in the metro from Expo 67. It features a picture of Metrodemontreal.com’s Matthew McLauchlin (and trust me, he looks absolutely adorable in that picture) in front of paintings at Berri-UQAM that were featured at Expo’s opening.

Never trust a student politician

I’m afraid you’ll have to take my word for the fact that I have two more articles in the paper today, as neither is online (If you have the newsprint version, they’re on Page B2).

The first is a Justify Your Existence piece on Concordia Student Union president-elect Angelica Novoa, who has been under attack by her political opponents for being incompetent. Anyone want to take a wager on which side of this political magnet will be outraged with it first?

The other is the third in my series on Quebec bloggers-turned-authors: Mère Indigne, who unfortunately put her blog on hiatus mere days after I interviewed her. On the plus side, this means starting next week I can go back to featuring English blogs, some of which have been in my bank ready-to-write for four months now.

I should be ok for the next few weeks, but if anyone has suggestions for interesting local blogs that are updated regularly, let me know.

Bark bark. Bark bark bark. Growl.

In today’s paper comes the second in my three-part blogger-author series, about Lucie le chien (which is on hiatus in blog form) and its author Sophie Bienvenu (whose personal blog is still running).

Meanwhile, please don’t blame me for this laudatory piece about Geek Squad. I know all about Geek Squad’s many many many many many (alleged) problems, including this piece I read last night.

Ségolène who?

I admit it, I haven’t been following the French presidential election as closely as I should be. Replacing Jacques Chirac after 12 years is a tall order, especially after all the country has been through recently.

So yesterday, as I followed a group of local French ex-pat bloggers (who knew there were so many of them here?) for a story in today’s Gazette (Page A3), I had to quickly familiarize myself with the playing field: Royal, Sarkozy, Le Pen, Bayrou.

The result came in the moment the polls closed. An online stream from France 24 (they had originally planned to watch it on TV5, but Café Méliès had cable problems) showed a countdown to polls closing, and they immediately called the election for the two expected front-runners.

Making the situation even more anti-climactic was that non-French news sources (Belgian and Swiss news websites and blogs) were posting exit polls hours earlier (and seeing their servers melt with the traffic). Everyone knew the result before the TV announced it.

So without anything interesting happening, I had to come up with a story. I talked to Laurent and Philippe, both of whom voted despite not having lived in France for quite a while, and both of whom had plenty to say about the election. (One thing I like about interviewing bloggers is they always have something to say.)

At 4 p.m. Montreal time, two hours after everything was decided, the group began packing it in, only to get a waiter walking over to say CTV was on its way to interview them. They stuck around for another 15 minutes while reporter Tania Krywiak asked them what they thought of the election.

Consensus seems to be that Sarkozy will take a narrow victory on May 6. But some (like Philippe) think Royal can take enough of centrist Bayrou’s supporters to steal the election, if Bayrou decides to support her.

In 15 days, we’ll know who was right.

Tivijournal – Ça manque de rigueur, rigueur, rigueur!

(WARNING: French content ahead)

There’s a story in The Gazette today by me (you’ll have to take my word for that, since my byline accidentally disappeared during editing — my editor has promised alcohol as compensation).

Tivijournal

It’s about Tivijournal, a group of young journalists who poke fun at Quebec media and politicians in a monthly satire show. I interviewed them last month as they were preparing their March episode of post-election humour. Pictured above is Félix B. Desfossés, the charismatic host who looks far more confident than he is in his trademark pink shirt and exposed chest hair.

Continue reading

Crazy weekend tell-all

I have another page to myself in today’s paper:

Some extra tidbits not included in those articles:

Metro Party

  • One woman in the party took the opportunity as the train first left Henri-Bourassa to flash her breasts at the metro agent standing on the opposite platform
  • The first song played out of Kevin’s iPod was a hard-to-hear pounding of bass. The party really got started on, of all songs, Aqua’s “Happy Boys and Girls” (which, I admit, is on my music player as well)
  • Kevin’s portable speakers may not have survived the night. One of them appeared to develop a bad wire.
  • The crowd discovered relatively quickly that 100 people bouncing up and down to a rhythm will cause a metro car to sway. Unfortunately they couldn’t keep it going once they realized what they were doing.
  • “That’s not good, someone lit up a joint.” — As far as I could tell, it was the only illegal consumption that occurred that night, and it only happened once.
  • For some reason, about 20 people stayed on the platform at Lionel-Groulx as the train departed. They had gotten out as the metro cops walked toward the car to see what was going on.
  • At Villa-Maria, where the platform’s exit was right next to the last car, came the most visible staring. Some pointed, others looked confused. Others said things like “what the fuck?”
  • My photographer, Tim Snow, was quite a sport. He was sweating bullets as he tried to switch back and forth between a regular and wide-angle lens to take close-quarter shots. He almost got into an altercation with a police officer when the lens got too close to the officer’s face.
  • The party was also being filmed for a new CBC series that’s replacing the cancelled Street Cents.
  • I counted about 109 people on the platform at Côte-Vertu for the return trip. I got some strange looks as I counted, and some people shouting random numbers at me to throw me off (after I had already finished)
  • As the train left for its second run, a cloud of smoke filled the air. No, it wasn’t a cigarette, it was the dust being pounded out of the ventilation system in the ceiling.
  • A woman with a bike at De La Savane métro. She wasn’t getting on. Not the party’s fault though, she should have been at the head of the train, not the end.
  • The train stopped suddenly, twice, as it left Plamondon. It was then that I realized it was game over and the train wouldn’t go past the next station. Sure enough, the signals at Côte-Sainte-Catherine prevented the train from proceeding further until the cops came to kick everyone out.
  • Strangely, the metro cops (they were the same ones we saw at Côte-Vertu minutes before) didn’t want to kick everyone out at first, but merely set ground rules for the party to continue: No weapons, knives or alcohol (there weren’t any), and spread the party over three cars instead of one (which would have been a bummer because there was only one set of speakers). The group seemed favourable to the compromise until the city cops swung by and kicked everyone out.
  • Quote a cop (who was a really patronizing to me because he didn’t believe I was a journalist): “At least it’s original”. Despite the forced eviction, the police there took the situation pretty lightly.
  • One person apparently lost his bag at some point (which I found odd because he had a backpack on him as he spoke to the police — did he have two bags?). He disappeared before I could get the full story.
  • This weekend, Newmindspace is planning an Easter Egg hunt in Toronto, but has already pissed off one lefty who thinks they should use real ones.

Faceless Invasion

  • I spent the first part of the afternoon with a team from U de M. It was actually my first time on U de M’s campus, though I’ve been near it many times. Boy is that hill steep. Getting anywhere is like running a marathon.
  • The team I was with spoke franglais so badly I honestly had no idea what their mother tongue was. Every sentence would have half the words in either language.
  • A Reuters photographer was at the pudding wrestling tournament and got some good pictures.
  • Tomatoes and eggs have funny ways of exploding when thrown at someone’s skull at close range.
  • Catching a frisbee in your mouth is very hard. You’re more likely to break a tooth first.
  • I asked the McGill team (Team Just Fuck a Nun) why they’re spending 12 hours on this instead of, say, working on school stuff. Their answer, of course, was “but this is fun”, which I’m sure will comfort them when they fail their classes.
  • “Naked Newman”, who performed tasks naked even when not required, was apparently trying to earn back his nickname. He’d had it in high school for being naked at parties, but wasn’t known for this at McGill yet.
  • The McGill team members live in adjacent dorm-room-style 1 1/2 apartments in the same building, which is how they all know each other.
  • Naked Newman and “Judy” filmed themselves stealing an orange pylon on St. Laurent. They brought it home, passing right by two police officers who didn’t flinch. They planned to use it for their homemade bong, but never did.
  • Quote: “Do you want me to produce semen right now?” — One of the members, who performed most of the sex acts with his girlfriend, was kind of drained by the end of the night. But somehow he managed to produce enough man-seed to be used in a whiskey shot, scoring a few more points.
  • Quote: “You can stick it in there, but don’t move your finger!” — His girlfriend, receiving The Shocker. We later learned it was performed incorrectly, using the ring finger instead of the pinky.
  • Nick, the organizer, emailed me about this post, and wanted to get more information so he could issue a press release about my arrest. I told him to read the entire post. Then he felt like an idiot.

I’m back … with a bang

After a couple of weeks without anything in the paper, today I have a whole page to myself with a feature about Wikitravel, a Wikipedia-like website for collaborative travel guides run by a Montrealer. There’s also companion stories about wikis in general and about its founder’s blog, which uses the French Revolutionary Calendar. And there’s an online extra massive list of wikis from Memory Alpha to Wikocracy. Taken together, it’s my longest story to date (2500 words, give or take), and I’m pretty happy with it. But it was a mess trying to keep it all in my head near the end.

Also today, another blog profile. This time, of Chaos Theory, a blog mostly about mothering two young daughters.

UPDATE: MtlWebLog’s Kate McDonnell notes that “pissed off” is used in the main feature in a quote. To be honest, I didn’t even think when writing it that it might be considered an expletive. Does that say something?

ALSO: Can anyone tell me what Patricia’s beef is? I’m an idiot. I read “except” when I should have read “excerpt”, which meant I mistook Patricia’s praise for criticism. Sorry.

She ordered St. Hubert once. Oh the horror!

As part of its six-day food series, The Gazette today looks at the personal culinary habits of its restaurant critic, complete with photos that keep her off camera so she won’t get recognized doing her job.

It’s about what you’d expect.

My daily profile of a supermarket shopper isn’t online, but it’s in the paper on Page A4. Today is Daisy Leclerc, who was lots of fun to interview (albeit for a brief period).