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Signs of fall
SUNDAY,
OCTOBER 26, 2003 - CHRISTOPHER DEWOLF
MONTREAL, 09.10.03 : PUMPKINS OUTSIDE
MONT-ROYAL METRO
MONTREAL, 11.10.03 : SIDEWALK SALE ON
ESPLANADE STREET
MONTREAL, 12.10.03 : THANKSGIVING AT
THE JEAN-TALON MARKET
MONTREAL, 11.10.03 : WAVERLY AND
ST-VIATEUR IN MILE END
MONTREAL, 14.10.03 : SKYLINE FROM
MCTAVISH STREET
MONTREAL, 11.10.03 : SCHOOLBUS ON
WAVERLY STREET
MONTREAL, 18.10.03 : PARC AVENUE NEAR
ST-VIATEUR
MONTREAL, 18.10.03 : BEAUBIEN STREET
IN THE PETITE PATRIE
MONTREAL, 19.10.03 : MOUNT ROYAL AS
SEEN FROM FAIRMOUNT
MONTREAL, 19.10.03 : GROCERY STORE ON
PARC AVENUE
MONTREAL, 19.10.03 : AUTUMNAL
SIDESTREET IN OUTREMONT
MONTREAL, 19.10.03 : RUNNING BOY ON
ST-VIATEUR, OUTREMONT
MONTREAL, 19.10.03 : OUTREMONT
HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS
MONTREAL, 23.10.03 : VEGETABLES ON
FAIRMOUNT STREET
MONTREAL, 23.10.03 : FALL DECORATIONS
ON BERRI STREET
MONTREAL, 19.10.03 : INFLATABLE
PUMPKINS ON PARC AVENUE
A few weeks ago,
Mike Clarke of Hunkabutta,
a photoblog about his life as a foreigner living in Tokyo,
posted an entry about
the
signs of fall. In his usual amusing, anecdotal style, he
mused about the small details that herald the arrival of
autumn in Tokyo. For starters, the cicadas fall ignominiously
from the trees, and "half the cans of coffee and tea in the
vending machines on the streets are now switched to hot,
instead of all cold." Warm oden stew stands emerge on
street corners and, naturally, "it's time to turn on the
seat-heating function on your ultra high tech toilet."
Alas, Canada
boasts few toilets with heated seats, but Mike's post got me
thinking about the signs of fall in Montreal. Most apparent is
the sudden ubiquity of pumpkins. Great piles of them collect
around the public markets, like bulbous orange snowdrifts.
Pumpkin pies appear at the bakeries. Halloween decorations
emerge on balconies and in store windows, kitschy collections
of jack-o-lanterns, spiderwebs and witches. The days get
colder and shorter: one day in late October you're walking
home and realize the sun is setting at five o'clock, making
that daily cup of café au lait seem all the more appealing.
The Québécois penchant for frilly, colourful scarves reemerges
after six months of hibernation. You take your knit sweaters
off the hanger for the first time since March. Tying it all
together is the turning of the leaves, which seem to change
colour overnight, some bursting into rich red, brilliant
yellow and, sometimes, dull, disappointing ochre.
I'll stop there.
As you've probably noticed, I've decided to include a lot more
photos than usual this week -- what better way to illustrate
fall than by photographing it? Enjoy the autumn colours.
Discuss this post
on our discussion forum
Head over to the
archives for
last month's posts
Bus vs. metro
MONDAY,
OCTOBER 20, 2003 - CHRISTOPHER DEWOLF
MONTREAL, 28.09.03 : RAINY DAY ON PARC
AVENUE
MONTREAL, 28.09.03 : WINDOW ON
ESPLANADE STREET
MONTREAL, 28.09.03 : ESPLANADE STREET
MONTREAL, 28.09.03 : BERNARD STREET,
MILE END
MONTREAL, 28.09.03 : BERNARD STREET AT
ESPLANADE
MONTREAL, 29.09.03 : VAN HORNE
VIADUCT, MILE END
MONTREAL, 29.09.03 : VIEW FROM VAN
HORNE VIADUCT
MONTREAL, 29.09.03 : ST. MICHAEL'S
CHURCH AND MOUNT ROYAL
MONTREAL, 12.10.03 : CAFE ON PARC
AVENUE
MONTREAL, 18.10.03 : BERRI STREET NEAR
JARRY, VILLERAY
MONTREAL, 29.09.03 : TANGO LESSONS ON
PARC AVENUE
I've been taking
the bus a lot ever since I moved to
Mile End. I
pretty much have to, since the nearest metro stop is a good
fifteen minute walk away;
instead, the neighbourhood is served by several frequent bus lines. In fact,
the more I take the bus, the more I find myself
avoiding the metro as much as possible. It feels like such an
effort to descend below ground, wait for a train and then
struggle back above ground via rotten passageways and broken
escalators. The odd thing, though, is that if it came down to a deathmatch between the bus and the
metro, the metro would win handily. It is, after all, a lot
speedier, usually more frequent and it involves a lot less
exposure to elements, which is particularly important in the
winter wonderland that is Montreal. The bus, on the other hand, has the
reputation of being late, sluggish, smelly and full of the
kinds of people your mom told you to avoid as a kid. Needless
to say, popular
opinion holds buses in low regard. In fact, there's even a
phenomenon called
rail bias: people who would otherwise eschew
public transit are keen to hop onto a streetcar or a sleek subway, which explains the popularity of
spiffy new light rail systems in cities like Dallas and St. Louis.
Still, there's
something to be said for riding the bus. In the May 5th, 2003 issue of the
New Yorker,
writer Adam Gopnik
waxed poetic about the joys of New York's
seriously overlooked buses. Gopnik, a staff writer for the
magazine and the author of From
Paris to the Moon, returned to New York from five years in Paris
only to discover that his beloved subway wasn't the same
Dantesque pit it was when he left. In the 70s, he writes, the subway was "a rumbling,
sleepless, snorting animal presence underfoot, more a god to
be appeased and admired than a thing that had been mastered by
its owners." When he returned to New York in 2000, the subway,
"now graffiti free, with dully gleaming metal cars," was a lot
less appealing: for starters, it had "recorded announcements, and for a
while a picture of the station manager at every stop. It
seemed obviously improved but somehow degraded, grimly
utilitarian, intended to suggest the receding future vision of
'RoboCop': automatic voices encased in armor." That sublime
mix of "feral thugs and killer nerds," grit and decay, had
been ignominiously swept away in Rudy Giuliani's spiffy new New York.
"And
so," he writes, "the bus":
The bus I
find humane, in several ways. There is, first of all, the
non-confrontational and yet collaborative nature of the
seating. You look over people’s shoulders, closely, and yet
only rarely look directly at them, face to face, as you must
on the subway. There is a hierarchy of seating on the bus, far
more articulate than that of the subway. There are seats you
must give up to handicapped people, seats you ought to give up
to handicapped people if you have any decency at all, and
seats—the bumpy, exhaust-scented row in the very back—that you
never have to give up to anyone, if you’re willing to sit
there. (...)
The bus also
has order, order as we know it from the fading patriarchal
family, visible order kept by an irritable chief. The driver
has not only control over his world but the delight of the
exercise of arbitrary authority, like that of a French
bureaucrat. Bus riders learn that, if your MetroCard turns out
to be short fifty cents, the driver will look at you with
distaste, tell you to find change from fellow-passengers
(surprisingly, to a subway rider, people dig into their purses
cheerfully), and, if this doesn’t work, will wearily wave you
on back.
I find the bus
humane, too. It is one of the few intimate places in a city,
situated somewhere between a sidewalk cafe and a square on a
warm summer night.
You watch people and they watch you; others watch the passing
streets and still more talk amongst themselves. "It is
uniquely possible to overhear conversations on the bus," Gopnik writes, and it's true:
the metro is far too loud and
oppressive for the kind of easygoing conversation that takes
place on a bus. On the bus, your seatmates seem more accessible, even if
you don't know them, and you tend to develop a sort of
relationship with your fellow passengers. The drivers become
familiar faces and you begin to recognize people who get
off at your stop. Above all, this sort of communal feel is the
bus's biggest attraction. Where the metro feels like a big
waiting room, with its silent downward stares and relentlessly
boring, utterly predictable path, the bus feels like a big
family car trip, right down to the parent at the wheel,
Gopnik's patriarchal driver.
Everyone is sharing a confined space with only a couple of
exits, the old sardines in a tin can cliché. Whatever happens,
you're all in it together.
―――
For once, the
recent lack of updates wasn't due to laziness. Really. We were
busy. (Honestly!) So, now that October is
here, Colin Kent presents the latest featured photoessay:
Dusk. Dusk,
incidentally, is
easily my favourite time of day. In the sunny months of
summer, it means beautiful sunsets and warm, languourous light
spilling over the city like hot butter. In the fall and
winter, dusk is that ethereal time when the private and public
spheres of the city connect, when the outside is still light,
yet dark enough for the illuminated interiors of stores and apartments
to shine clearly. Enjoy the photos, and don't
forget that September's updates can be seen in the
archives section.
Discuss this post
on our discussion forum
Head over to the
archives for
last month's posts
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