Street Party for Spain

This morning, my friends—all of them Spain supporters, except for one, who kept quiet—decided to watch today’s Euro Cup final between Spain and Germany at the Club Español de Quebec, the unofficial hub of Montreal’s Spanish immigrant community. We arrived early, at noon, to secure a table and have lunch, but it was already packed. By the time the game actually started the building was crammed full beyond capacity, the noise of the crowd deafening.

By the 85th minute of the game it became clear that Spain would win; they had scored a goal early on and Germany seemed incapable of holding onto the ball. When the game finally ended, after 95 minutes of play, the crowd poured outside onto the Main, cheering and waving flags. Police were on hand to keep people out of traffic, but it was useless: after letting a few final cars through, they closed the street completely, and Spanish supporters flooded the pavement.

Montreal doesn’t have as many Spaniards as it does Italians or Greeks, so the street party wasn’t quite as raucous as when Italy won the World Cup in 2006 or when Greece won the Euro Cup in 2004, but it was still exhilarating to stand in the middle of St. Laurent surrounded by so many happy people. Passersby stopped to watch, take pictures or wade into the ecstatic crowd; up and down the street, people leaned out of windows to watch the celebration. (Incidentally, I had never realized that the Clube Portugal de Montreal is right across the street from the Club Español — amusing coincidence or a case of wry Iberian humour?)

Not too long ago, a friend proclaimed Toronto and Montreal to be the best places in the world to watch international soccer championships: it doesn’t matter who wins, there will always be people celebrating in the streets.

More

“It’s Not Just Fabric on a Stick”

It wasn’t hard for Tristan Verboven to decide which country to support in the 2008 Euro Cup soccer championship.

“Both my parents are Dutch and I’m a Dutch citizen, too,” the Montrealer said last week while sipping juice in a Park Ave. café. “I guess the idea of nationalism is kind of stupid because you can’t decide which country (you are from), but people in this neighbourhood are really proud, and they put out a lot of flags, so I decided to be a part of it.”

That’s why Verboven, who lives in Mile End, decided to fly a Dutch flag from his fourth-floor balcony.

“When I was tying it to the balcony some guy walking past looked up and shouted: ‘You’re gonna lose!’ I guess there’s a little part of it where you just want to be the one that stands out from the crowd.”

In Montreal, every important athletic, political and cultural event seems to inspire a fit of flag-waving. When the Canadiens make the playoffs – as Montrealers experienced this spring – flags bearing the Habs logo flutter from apartment windows and cars. In June, a sudden explosion of the fleur-de-lys welcomes St. Jean Baptiste Day.

Also this month, Montrealers have embraced soccer fever. In neighbourhoods across the city, this year’s Euro Cup has inspired the enthusiastic flag-waving from fans of every competing nation. Some are more visible than others, by virtue of Montreal’s ethnic mix – French, Italian, Greek and Portuguese flags are particularly well-represented – but the tournament also gives fans of other countries a chance to show their colours.

Verboven said his show of support is sort of like joining a conversation. “My flag is almost like a protest: ‘There’s actually Dutch people here!’ I’m putting my voice out in the crowd.”

More

Expo ’58: Fifty Years Later

A decade before the psychedelic euphoria of Montreal’s Expo ’67 was another emblematic World Fair, Brussels’ Expo 58. Celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, the fair’s symbolic centrepiece, The Atomium, was restored for the occasion.

The Atomium was intended to represent a giant iron molecule magnified billions of times. As cheesy as this may sound, it is actually a striking piece of architecture that is historic and avant-garde all at once. The interior is full of Expo ’58 paraphernalia and gives an idea of a World Fair that was part “The Jetsons,” and part “Father Knows Best.” Like Expo ’67, the archives that remain from the period exude a similar spirit of naive optimism fronted by the paste-on smiles of Expo hostesses. Whereas the Brussels fair celebrated the dawn of a prosperous post-war era, there was still a zoo of “Live Africans” at the Belgian Congo pavillion, and some USA-USSR Cold War tensions in the air.

More

Chengdu’s Odd Christmas Tradition

I was at dinner last night when one of my friends told me about a strange Christmas Eve tradition in her hometown of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. “Every year, people go to the main pedestrian street and start hitting each other with inflatable toys,” she explained.

I was perplexed, though far from surprised. Christmas is an increasingly popular holiday in China, mostly because it offers a fun excuse to shop and socialize. Since China has no homegrown Christmas traditions of its own, though, many Chinese are inventing new ones. I asked my friend to send me some more information when she got the chance. So late last night, after she returned home from dinner, she emailed me a link to this Chinese discussion board post, which described the event and provided a lot of nice photos.

Imagine a flash mob, like one of those public pillow fights, that involves not just a few dozen people but tens of thousands of them. Armed with inflatable bats (many inexplicably decorated with the stars and stripes), they descend on Chendu’s main shopping district and start whacking each other over the head. There are families with young children, groups of teenagers, young couples and middle-aged people; all of them seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.

More

Parking Lot Parties on Queen West

This past Saturday in Toronto, Car Free Day was held on Queen Street West. This event was coordinated by Streets are for People, who also spearheaded events such as Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington Market. Part of the celebration involved parking meter parties, which lined the street intermittently roughly from Bathurst to Trinity-Bellwoods park . These involve the purchase of a parking ticket and the use of the spot for more creative pursuits. As parking is technically paid for, such action is a completely legal way to reclaim the street for people.

More

Lessons Learned From Just for Laughs

Every year, I head down to Just for Laughs. Not for the comedy, but for the festival site, which takes over the entire Latin Quarter and makes brilliant use of its meandering laneways and hidden corners. For two weeks in July, the Latin Quarter becomes a mysterious village, an amiable place where crowds wander through a surreal landscape of street theatre and shadows. Outdoor cafés, bars and stages emerge in the normally quiet alleys behind St. Denis Street. Space that is normally left to cars and garbage is given over to the crowds.

Just for Laughs reveals the potential of the Latin Quarter’s urban space. The network of Victorian-era laneways that crisscrosses the neighbourhood — Joly Avenue, Terrasse St. Denis, Savoie Avenue and Place Paul-Émile-Borduas — is one of Montreal’s best-kept secrets. So why haven’t these laneways been turned into bona fide public spaces? Where are the trees, the benches, the quiet plazas in which you sit reading on a hot summer afternoon?

(Over the past couple of months, two of these alleys have been redeveloped. Place Borduas and Savoie Avenue, both of which lead to the Grande Bibliothèque, have been resurfaced with granite paving stones, though I have yet to see any benches or other types of street furniture. For the most part, the potential of these hidden streets is being squandered.)

Just for Laughs might be an exercise in urban imagination but, like too many of Montreal’s other large festivals, it is also an exercise in urban intimidation. While I am happy to see the Latin Quarter reimagined every summer, I am less thrilled to witness the temporary privatization of an entire city neighbourhood. Just for Laughs opens the streets and alleys of the Latin Quarter to the public, but it does so in the same manner as an amusement park. Access and behaviour is restricted: the festival’s security staff has the right to bar anyone from the festival site, even if it exists on public space.

More

A Bit of Brazil on the Edge of Mount Royal

Jean-Michel Labrosse looks like the kind of guy you’d expect to meet at the tam-tams. As he crosses Park Ave. with a big drum in one hand and a saxophone case in the other, you can’t miss his long, grey beard, with two braids dangling from its tip. Maybe that’s why virtually every journalist who writes about the weekly tam-tams is drawn to him. “I’ve had reporters from the United States, from China,” he said, smiling.

The tam-tam draws him because of the freedom it represents; it’s the one place in the city you can just show up with an instrument and play along.

Labrosse has come for twelve years. He plays the sax and totes around a big plastic drum he made six years ago out of a chemical bin his neighbour sold him for five bucks. All in all, he’s been playing sax for thirty years.

“It’s a Sunday community, like a big family,” he said. “When I was young, we’d go to mass — I was raised a Catholic — and now, this is my mass. It’s a way to meet people and celebrate.”

It has been twenty-five years since the first modern drum beats echoed out over the city from the Sir George-Etienne Cartier monument at the foot of the east side of Mount Royal. In 1978, a group of percussionists chose the site for their Sunday drumming workshops. Inadvertently, they founded a Montreal institution.

More

Montreal Pulls an All-Nighter

It has started to fade from memory, but I swear my sleep schedule is still screwed up. Two weeks ago, Montreal hosted its fourth annual Nuit Blanche, an all-night festival dedicated to arts and culture. Inspired by the original Nuit Blanche in Paris, Montreal has added its own wintry twist, combining it with the Montreal High Lights Festival, a week-long celebration of food, light and dance that seems like nothing more than an excuse to go out and party in the middle of winter.

More

Gung Hay Fat Choy: Notes from Vancouver

Candy-apple pig’s heads in a chocolate shop in downtown Vancouver

For a Montrealer, visiting Vancouver in mid-February is eerie, at once a glimpse of the future and a visit to some alternate dimension. Fountains gurgle, people sit in sidewalk cafés and flowers are starting to bloom—it’s strange to experience this without having to pass through customs or change currency. No wonder why Vancouver is seen by many Canadians as something akin to our own Hawaii.

It seems fitting, then, that the weather was so springlike as Vancouver rang in the Lunar New Year, also known in Chinese as the Spring Festival. More than anywhere else in North America, the Lunar New Year here is mainstream. A decade ago, it was an essentially ethnic celebration, like in most other cities. Now, it has been fully integrated into the cultural and economic life of Vancouver, just one indication that this city is becoming like Hawaii in more ways than just as a destination for escape. Like the American state, Vancouver is transforming into a multicultural, majority-Asian society.

More

With the Lunar New Year, a New Vancouver

The God of Fortune. Photo by Ben Johnson

Each year, Vancouver celebrates Chinese New Year like no other city on the continent. People flock to Chinatown for the traditional parade just as businesses are gearing up for one of the busiest spending periods of the year. Festivities large and small erupt across the city with a joyful exuberance otherwise seen only occasionally in this laid-back West Coast metropolis.

The biggest of these parties is thrown by the Chinese Federation of Commerce Canada (CFCC), a non-profit organization that offers business services and helps immigrants integrate into Canadian society. For fifteen years, the CFCC’s Lunar New Year bash has drawn tens of thousands of people to the Pacific National Exhibition grounds—this year they’re expecting up to 150,000 visitors—to shop for New Year goods, take in some entertainment and soak up the convivial atmosphere. The festival’s success is hinted at in its list of sponsors, which range from Rogers Wireless to Toyota to Ikea. Local and national media outlets, English and Chinese alike, have also lent their support. What makes festival organizers proudest, however, is its designation as a “Spirit of Vancouver” event by the Board of Trade in preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics. “It’s a very exclusive name,” enthuses Edmund Leung, the co-chairman of the CFCC festival.

More

Coupe du Monde

World Cup Final, France vs. Italy, July 9th, 2006.

Champs-Élysées, Paris.

Crows Nest Street Fair

Most of Sydney’s oldest and now busiest roads were built on ridges of the sandtone that much of Sydney lies on. At the junction of five of these roads, about five kilometres from the Sydney CBD is the suburb of Crows Nest. Aptly named because it towers above much of Sydney. Even in the low rise office block I work in, I can see seventy kilometres to the west and south and to the Pacific Ocean in the east.

Whilst Crows Nest could never hope to match the liveliness of Sydney’s eastern suburbs, it has a vitality rarely matched in Sydney’s north. Here are some photos from the Crows Nest Street Fair taken on Sunday, 15th of October 2006.

Children and adults alike trying to catch bead chains being thrown from the awning of a building.

More

An Art Fair, Lousy Weather and Lots of Beer

Here I was gadding through the Westport Art Fair in Kansas City in mid-September. KC’s frequent art fairs and gallery crawls make it easy to get streetlife photos with relative regularity.

In September we had both the Westport Art Fair and the Plaza Art Fair, with the Plaza fair drawing national artists, and the Westport one retaining a more localized draw.

Here, the smoke from the meat grilling blends in well with the gray sky. I wouldn’t consume that cooking meat though, as I don’t care for foods that also look like phalluses.

More

Nuit Blanche 2006, Toronto

A whole night of street art comes to Toronto.