Mary Soderstrom's Blog, page 36

Saturday Photo: Moshe Safdie's 80th Birthday

Here's the building that started the remarkable career of Moshe Safdie: Habitat 67.  Apparently he turns 80 this weekend, while Habitat turned 50 last year.  How time flies when you're having fun!

Saturday Photo: Breakfast on the Grass, or Why It's Good to Talk about Heat-Related Deaths

It's been hot around here and  until the heat wave broke yesterday the parks were full of people early in the morning taking a break(fast) away from their hot digs.

We've had emails from friends who've seen the stories of heat related deaths in Montreal and want to know how we're faring.  The answer is:  fine actually. 

But has been bothering me is the way that practically none of the reporting mentioned the fact that health authorities in other jurisdictions like Ontario don't report heat-related  dates immediately.  Presumably that will come, but only a couple of months later, in the fall, after the heat crisis is past.

The approach in Quebec has been different since 2010.  Heath-related deaths must be reported, so that public health measures can be taken right now.  There's no way of knowing at this point if the door to door visits by firemen, the bottles of water distributed, and the publicity of what to do during a heat wave have averted deaths.    Presumably that will come later when the numbers are crunched and we see what kind of "excess deaths" occurred.

The interesting thing will be to see how the figures here compare with those in Toronto, say, or Ottawa where there weren't  heat awareness campaigns. My guess is that the rate will be as high or higher, even though according to the Globe and Mail today "only 53 per cent of households in Quebec have air conditioning, compared with 83 per cent in Ontario and 57 per cent nationwide, according to 2015 figures from Statistics Canada.

Saturday Photo: Morning Contemplation

Hot weather.  Time to get out in the morning and then cool it inside...

We were in the parks at 8:30 a.m. Often go walking at that hour, but the boys spent the night with us, and they were ready for action early on.  Spent some nice time in the various parks.  Nice to have them so close (and "them" means both parks and grandsons.)

Now the old folks are resting, since the kids have gone home. ...

Saturday Photo: The Ducklings Are Back..

The ponds in our neighborhood parks are home some years to duck families.  This is the first time I've seen one in this particular park which is one of the most used.  Visited daily by masses of kids, exercisers and loafers, you wouldn't think it would offer much shelter.

But obviously it does, because the eight little guys I counted (couldn't get them all in the photo at one time) are too small to have flown here.  The nest must be in nearby bushes, and remained undiscovered long enough for the eggs to hatch.

Nice to see them.  A delight to know that there's still some nature in the city.

Saturday Photo: More Concrete....This Time in Peru

Moving toward the home stretch for my book Rock of Ages: How Concrete Built the World As We Know It. The University of Regina Press wants a draft by the middle of July, so it can be published sometime in 2019.

So I'm hard at work.  Among the things I'm doing is looking at the photos I've taken in my various travels to see what role concrete has played in the places I've visited.  The photo is of a building under construction in the little town in the Amazon basin where my bus stopped on the trip I took across the Andes from Cusco, Peru to Rio Branco, Brazil.  (For more about that, see Road through Time: The Story of Humanity on the Move .)  Definitely artisanal, DIY work, but it's also testimony to the ubiquity and usefulness of concrete.

Saturday Photo: Cars...

Woke up about 2 a.m. to the sound of cars racing.  This is Grand Prix weekend and the town is full of wannabes who are driving muscle cars too fast.  I suspect they were racing down Park Avenue which at the hour is usually deserted. 

It was a moment when you listen, almost hopefully, for a crash.

Cars are useful.  But like fire, they need to be controlled.  I'm a born-again pedestrian and I definitely could do without so much vehicular traffic on our streets.

But last year, this lovingly decorated oldie caught my eye.  Don't know if you could race it.  Probably not, thank goodness.  Somebody, however, thought a lot of it. 

The exception that proves the rule that cars are a pox on civilization?

Saturday Photo: Reading Lists....

Well,  it really isn't a photo, but a painting  done by the Hungarian painter Mihály Munkácsy in the 1890s.  Called "Paris Interior" in some places, it captures an era, as well as the calm delight of reading. Even the child on the floor seems to have escaped the heavy (if rather lovely) atmosphere of the salon.

Which brings me to reading lists.  I animate (the French word for moderate which I like a lot better) five book discussion groups in Montreal libraries, and this is the time to come up with reading lists for the season beginning in the fall.  Below you'll find what the groups will be reading, with the books in no particularly order. Note that these are not the only good books out there, but four of the five groups provide copies for the members, which means that only books for which there are 10-15 copies in local libraries make the cut.


A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Bone and Bread   by Saleema Nawaz Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf Lost in September by Kathleen Winter Swing Time by Zadie Smith The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall The Seven Sisters by Margaret Drabble The Human Stain by Philip Roth Indian Horse by Richard Wagemese Daughter of Fortune by Isabelle Allende The Widow by Fiona Barton The Door by Magda Szabo 419 by Will Ferguson Larose by Louise Erdrich The story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. Exposure   by Helen Dunmore Indian Horse by Richard Wagemese The Women by T.C. Boyle The Free World by  David Bezmozgis The Road Past Altamount by Gabrielle Roy A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson The Perfect Nanny by Leïla Slimani One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy  Pachinko by Min Jin Lee  Norse Mythology by Neil GaimanSélections en français
Nana de Émile Zola
Petit pays de Gaël Faye.
Le Mystère Henri Pick de David Foenkinos
La servante écarlate de Margaret Atwood
Le plongeur de Stéphane Larue
Un pedigree de Patrick Modiano
Un long retour de Louise Penny
L'heure mauve de Michèle Ouimet
Les sirènes de Bagdad de Yasmina Khadra

Saturday Photo: Not Just Maples and Oaks and etc.

Everything starts growing this time of year.  Here is a photo of the brilliant new growth on a deciduous tree.  Don't know the name--I'm not good with those of plants--but I'm struck by the power of renewal in plants.

Reminds me of the title and first line of Dylan Thomas's poem The Force That through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower. The rest is rather like those brilliant still-lives of fruit and flowers that always show some decay to remind us of our mortality. 

Better on a spring day to think of the force, not the end of the force.

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

Saturday Photo: Bumper Crop of Violets, the Other Side of Invasive

I love invasive plants.  Or Darwinian gardening, if you prefer. In my book, an attractive plant that has expansive tendencies is wonderful, because it will push out less attractive plants that aren't so aggressive.

That's why I planted violets in the front garden a few years ago.  Now they have taken over a fair amount of it and the neighbor's little yard.  Transplanted to the back yard, they now are making a wonderful show.  Of course, the little treelets are some competition, and I spent part of yesterday afternoon taking many out.  But still, what a delight to see so many lovely little flowers growing expansively on their own.

Saturday Photo: To Ope' Their Trunks the Trees Are Never Seen...

...How Then Do They Put on Their Robes of Green? "

Good question!  I always think of that song we sang  in my Southern California childhood this time of year in Montreal.  Back then there wasn't much seasonal difference in foliage and I remember puzzling about the words.  Here, though, the difference is nothing but miraculous.

The photo on the left was taken April 29 a few years ago, and the one on the right, three days later.  The great spurt of growth usually comes in the first week in May, when the bare branches a transformed into clouds of yellow green, and then into leafy shade.  The change has come a little later this year--leaflets just coming on now because of a week of very cool temperatures--but it is none the less something wonderful.

The last line of the song is: "They Leave Them Out!"  Another puzzle, until you realize that it's a pun.  Too sophisticated for kids, maybe.  Or maybe not...