http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog Exploring urban life through word and photography. Sat, 10 May 2008 06:11:19 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [youtube]NO0-1GKXZEA[/youtube] "Les peaux de lièvres" is quintessential Tricot Machine. Deliberately innocent but twinged with melancholy, it revels in the simple pleasures of life, like wandering through a snowy, nighttime Montreal. I have to be honest when I say that I probably wouldn't have remembered it if it weren't for this music ... http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/05/09/il-tombe-des-peaux-de-lievre-sur-montreal/ The Champ de Mars is one of Montreal's most storied places. It derives its name from the French colonial era, when it was a military parade ground, but in the eighteenth century it was the site of the city's northern wall. After the wall was torn down in the early ... http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/05/08/films-de-mars/ For some reason, I'd never really considered how and where Hong Kong's taxicabs are plastered with advertising, so I was somewhat amused to wander into a group of guys doing just that in an out-of-the-way part of the North Point waterfront. http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/05/08/taxi-ads/ High Street isn't much of a high street. It's actually a narrow sidestreet in the Hong Kong neighbourhood of Sai Ying Pun, which was first established in the mid-nineteenth century, shortly after the British took control of Hong Kong Island. Despite the steep hillside location, streets here were laid out ... http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/05/06/dusk-on-high-street/ Westmount is probably the most heavily stereotyped municipality in Quebec. It is the epitome of anglophone privilege and WASP snobbery, a posh district best represented by the "elderly women in pink suits" on Greene Avenue. While there is a grain of truth to that, as with any stereotype, Westmount is ... http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/05/06/westmounts-little-streets/ Whenever I walk through Westmount I am reminded of Julie Brock's poem, "Greene Ave.," from her 1999 book The End of Travel. Montreal's blazing in tufts of acid green and crapapple pink. Clouds mass at dusk behind Mount Royal like additional summits, as my father noted yesterday from his favourite chair, pleased as he should be with ... http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/05/05/greene-avenue/ Earlier this week, while walking to a friend's place on Coloniale Street on the Plateau, I came across an unusual piece of street art. Pasted on an abandoned mattress that was leaning against the side of a building, it depicted the body of a skinny-jeaned, cardiganed hipster topped by the ... http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/05/04/the-antlerheads-come-to-montreal/ Doorway on Basset Street near Pine Avenue, Montreal http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/05/04/3711-3709/ [youtube]dv-xrhEa7lY[/youtube] Some cities ravaged by war slump into decline and desperation. Others rebound with as much vigour as before. Kabul seems to be the latter, which is not surprising considering its 3,000-year history as a crossroads of culture, commerce and empire. In this clip from documentary film Kabul Transit, the camera ... http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/05/04/floating-through-kabul/ A young couple share a special moment while other passengers exist in their own worlds. Toronto, 2007 http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/05/04/five-lives-and-one-frame/ The view from my kitchen, Jing'an, Shanghai http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/04/30/kitchen-view/ Sai Yee Street, Mongkok, Kowloon http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/04/30/mailboxes/ YMCA, Park Avenue at St. Viateur Street YMHA, Mount Royal Avenue at Jeanne-Mance Street In 1936, when these photos were taken, Montreal was just beginning to climb out of the Great Depression, which had hit this industrial city with particularly brute force. Unemployment remained high and thousands of the city's inhabitants lived ... http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/04/30/ymca-vs-ymha/ Madrid's iconography is strictly prewar. Between the gratuitous ornamentation dripping from the buildings lining Gran Via and the interiors of crowded tapas, the city centre appears decked out in full late-19th century regalia, fit for admirers of coattails and opera gloves. Tread out along the boulevards bursting from the city's ... http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2008/04/29/modern-madrid/