Chasse-balcon in Mile End, and a five-year anniversary
We get an early start on summer festivities here, because after our long winters, Montréalers are starved for life in the streets. On such evenings, the air buzzes, the city lifts—because everyone is out.
On last Friday evening, the kickoff to the first of the spring-to-Labour Day long weekends, the delightful Chasse-Balcon drew us and scores of others to a street-corner in the Mile-End neighbourhood. An ensemble of musicians led by the warmly hospitable Catherine Planet gather to play traditional music in Montréal neighbourhoods, a different one every weekend from May into mid-June. Inspired by a similar event in Louisiana, and making use of Montréal's winding outdoor staircases, the musicians played reels and jigs for about an hour, and enjoined the crowd to serre les mains, two-step, sing along, and play spoons.
It's a particular interest of Planet's to build community though shared musical experiences, and you could definitely feel that happening among the convival crowd.
You could listen, dance... or kiss:
Montréalers—or those visiting by mid-June—can learn the location of the next several Chasse-Balcons through their Facebook page, which presents clues, treasure-hunt fashion, but does confirm guesses, so you'll end up in the right spot even if you don't know the city.
Then, we strolled along Avenue du Parc toward a tiny taquiera, where the warm evening showed what women are wearing once out of coats. This seemed to be a bachelorette party, with several young women in the wide-legged cropped pants that are showing up everywhere, and one, background, in the runner-up, the knife-pleated midi skirt.
I was charmed by this dress in the window of Éditions de Robes, one of the best of our local designers: bright, heavyweight lace, a spring bouquet to wear. Notice how the lace finishes at the sleeve and skirt, using the natural edge, not a hem:
I also admired her vintage-looking skirt printed with travel posters, worn with a pink tee.
A golden evening draws flâneurs of all ages. This arrondissement, among others, has installed new street furniture, already in enthusiastic use, especially by elders, who appreciate a place to sit to catch up with friends.
We picked up a half-dozen sesame bagels straight out of the oven:
and walked home in air scented with just-blooming lilacs, to the apartment into which we moved exactly five years ago this weekend. An evening like this, full of music, lit by diverse, vibrant street life, and ready access to food from so many cultures, from the swank to the simple, reaffirms the decision.
Never mind that last week (May 16) we saw snow in the air, this is the north—and when the weather breaks, there is nothing as exhilarating as Montréal's massed joy.
On last Friday evening, the kickoff to the first of the spring-to-Labour Day long weekends, the delightful Chasse-Balcon drew us and scores of others to a street-corner in the Mile-End neighbourhood. An ensemble of musicians led by the warmly hospitable Catherine Planet gather to play traditional music in Montréal neighbourhoods, a different one every weekend from May into mid-June. Inspired by a similar event in Louisiana, and making use of Montréal's winding outdoor staircases, the musicians played reels and jigs for about an hour, and enjoined the crowd to serre les mains, two-step, sing along, and play spoons.
It's a particular interest of Planet's to build community though shared musical experiences, and you could definitely feel that happening among the convival crowd.
You could listen, dance... or kiss:
Then, we strolled along Avenue du Parc toward a tiny taquiera, where the warm evening showed what women are wearing once out of coats. This seemed to be a bachelorette party, with several young women in the wide-legged cropped pants that are showing up everywhere, and one, background, in the runner-up, the knife-pleated midi skirt.
I also admired her vintage-looking skirt printed with travel posters, worn with a pink tee.
A golden evening draws flâneurs of all ages. This arrondissement, among others, has installed new street furniture, already in enthusiastic use, especially by elders, who appreciate a place to sit to catch up with friends.
We picked up a half-dozen sesame bagels straight out of the oven:
and walked home in air scented with just-blooming lilacs, to the apartment into which we moved exactly five years ago this weekend. An evening like this, full of music, lit by diverse, vibrant street life, and ready access to food from so many cultures, from the swank to the simple, reaffirms the decision.
Never mind that last week (May 16) we saw snow in the air, this is the north—and when the weather breaks, there is nothing as exhilarating as Montréal's massed joy.
Comments
Today our spring/summer paused, it's raining cats and dogs.
Living in Munich in Bavaria, we often meet with friends in on of our beloved beergardens.
It's common to bring your own food and plates in a basket and just to buy the beer and large Pretzels, fresh and warm from the oven. It's lovely to share "Schmankerl" like Obazdn, Wurstsalat and Radi with others.
I haven't been to Montreal in nearly two years and I'm thinking that it's time to think about another visit.
Barbara, Munich is also a beautiful city, and less austere than some northern German cities - I guess it is the Catholic touch. Here it is the opposite: we have restaurants, at many price levels, where you can bring your own wine (or beer).
I'll tell people other than materfamilias and la Duchesse that Ottawa and Montréal are not very far apart, and that it is a short journey by railway, bus or car - we won't mention by air; once I had a flight from Amsterdam that had an Ottawa-Mtl leg, which is ridiculous.
Leonard Cohen, from his early novel Beautiful Losers (the losers are the "French and Indians") and of course it is also about sex:
"Spring comes into Quebec from the west. It is the warm Japan Current that brings the change of season to the east coast of Canada, and then the West Wind picks it up. It comes across the prairies in the breath of the Chinook, waking up the grain and caves of bears. It flows over Ontario like a dream of legislation, and it sneaks into Quebec, into our villages, between our birch trees. In Montreal the cafés, like a bed of tulip bulbs, sprout from their cellars in a display of awnings and chairs. In Montreal spring is like an autopsy. Everyone wants to see the inside of the frozen mammoth. Girls rip off their sleeves and the flesh is sweet and white, like wood under green bark. From the streets a sexual manifesto rises like an inflating tire, "The winter has not killed us again!" Spring comes into Quebec from Japan, and like a prewar Crackerjack prize it breaks the first day because we play too hard with it. Spring comes into Montreal like an American movie of Riviera Romance, and everyone has to sleep with a foreigner, and suddenly the house lights flare and it's summer, but we don't mind because spring is really a little flashy for our taste, a little effeminate, like the furs of Hollywood lavatories. Spring is an exotic import, like rubber love equipment from Hong Kong, we only want it for a special afternoon, and vote tariffs tomorrow if necessary".
That was written 50 years ago, when there were still deep traces of a reactionary sort of Catholicism. The madness of spring remains, but it is not exotic; it is deeply a part of the culture. Nobody will vote tariffs against its sweet embrace.