Mary Soderstrom's Blog, page 86

Coming up on Sundat: A Blue Met Walk in the Bairro Português

I think there are still places left in the  walk I'll be leading on Sunday morning as part of the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival. 

Called How the Portuguese Saved the Plateau, it will lead participants through on of Montreal's currently trendy neighborhoods which was saved from urban distruction by Portuguese immigrants. 

In the best Jane Jacobs tradition, the neighborhood is a walkable village that has stood the test of time.  For info, try this link.  The photo is of the Parc du Portugal where we'll be starting about 11 a.m.

Who's Winnig the Language War in Quebec?

On Tuesday I spent a fabulous day giving workshops in a large English language high school south of Montreal.  The kids were 13 to 15, sometimes rowdy but in general open to my workshop which was about where stories come from.  I read one of my stories, talked about what inicidents in my life prompted the reflection that led to the story, and then they had to start a story about things from their lives.  A few of the boys did nothing at all, which I understand is par for them, but others created some very nice things in the 20 minutes they had to write.

They wrote in English because it was an English class in an English high school in an English school board, but at least half of them spoke to each other in French before,during and after class.  

This leaves me with one big question:  How did these  Francophone kids receive permission to go to school in English?  Obviously there are a lot of Francophone parents who want their kids to learn English well, even though there are rather strict requirements for eligibility for English instruction. 

Should be no surprise, therefore, that the PQ has just removed the idea of giving English kids first dibs on places in English cegeps to Anglophones for their new language bill.  There'd be a mutiny in the ranks....

A Very Funny Descendant of Zola: Marina Lewycka's Novel about Quants, Commies and Community

Seems I spoke too soon a bit ago when I asked, rather rhetorically, in my book blog: where is a current novel to compare with Zola's The Kill when it comes to dealing with the causes of our economic woes?

Marina Lewycka's hilarious Various Pets Alive and Dead does just that, however,  It begins in early September 2008, ends a year or so later, and in between hits many of the high points of radical politics in Britain in the last quaarter of the 20th century.

The main characters include Doro and Marcus, a couple who fetched up in a hugh old house in coal mining country, just as Margaret Thatcher and economic forces were conspiring to shut down that industry.  Their three children--school teacher Clara, math whiz Serge and Down's syndrome sweetie Oolie-Anna--are trying to make their own lives, free of their parents' do-gooder, pacifist ways.  Other characters include Serge's comrades in the fields of finance, the other residents who passed through the old house/commune, and Clara's fellow teachers.

What they do is very funny: I laughed out loud every 25 pages or so, and I read late into the night for sheer pleasure.  Mixed in with the farce, however, is a great deal of information about the financial shenanigans that lead to the collapse of the housing bubble.  Nowhere else have I come across such a digestible exposition of the mathematical models that underlie the making of  financial "products" and manipulation of the stock market.  Bravo for Lewycka for doing what legions of business writers haven't done while telling an engaging story!

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian , Lewycka's first big novelistic success (she's written four in all)  also mixes fact and story.  But whereas it looks backward to the Ukraine of the 1930s and 1940s and immigrant life in post-War England, Various Pets... is as contemporary as the latest computer hardware update.

Zola might not recognize Lewycka as working his tradition--can't think of a moment when he was funny--but they belong in the same company of writers who deal honestly with the world as they see it in books that people are going to want to read.

How Smart Is Your Dog? A Scientist Tries to Find out

When Jeanne was old enough to behave like a dog--to go and fetch something when you asked her--we were very pleased and proud.  We laughed at the time that the day would soon come when she would stop doing that unless she felt like, and that therein lay the difference between dogs and kids.



Perhaps: Brian Hare, an evolutionary biologist at Duke University, is undertaking  big study of dog intelligence, trying to enlist thousands of dog owners to test their pets and send in the results. 

Hare says that dog  smarts are as different from those of their closest relatives, wolves, as ours are from chimpanzees'. We and our canine friends pick up cues from our fellows the way the other animals can't. 

It would be great fun to try out the tests Hare and his colleagues have developed, but we haven't a handy dog to do them.   Maybe we'll go try to borrow one.

Croissants: Now, That's the Way to Start the Day

Looks like a missed something delicious on the weekend: a dozen bakeries in the Montreal area were celebrating the croissant. 

The lovely, light bun was one of my first discovery in Montreal, because when we came here, croissants were just about unknown on the West Coast.  Now you can find them in plastic sacks in any big supermarket, but the delight of a buttery, flakey freshly baked one is something else entirely.

According to Le Devoir, the croissant has its origins in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire .  A pastry cook in Vienna  whipped them up when a sack of coffee bearing the Turkish creecent  was left behind by the fleeing Turks.  Marie Antoinette brought them with her to Frence--was her cry of "Let them eat cake" really "Let them eat croissants."

Whatever, I love them, and I know where you can get the best ones--just around the corner from us at the Croissanterie Figaro.  Here's what it looks like on nice mornings from mid-May until the snow flies.

Saturday Photo Bis: Bougainvillea

The snowdrops are up. So are a few crocuses. But the nicest flowers around this place are those on my ancient bougainvillea. 

Global Deforestation:

The buds on the trees are beginning to swell, so spring is on its way and once again I'm amazed at the way trees around here go from looking dead to be luxuriant in a couple of weeks.

. My thoughts are turning to trees because I'm back working on a non-fiction poject which will include much about human's relations with forests.  Deforestation is part of the story, and I found this most interesting video about it.

Something Not at All Political: A Short Story in Queen's Quarterly....

Shameless self-promotion department: my story "Ancient Faults" has just been published in the Spring 2013 Queen's Quarterly, Canada's oldest literary magazine.

Here's an excerpt:

The tide is out and Rebecca sees immediately that she can walk out as far as the rock, which at high tide is a sort of tower guarding the coast. There is one place where the rushing water has cut a channel in the rock, but she knows she can jump over it. She's jumped over it before, even without holding her father's hand.
 
     She looks around: her mother and the carriage are still a long way away, it will take several minutes for them to get close enough for Dorothy to tell her to stop. Besides, a man is getting out of a car at the wide space at the end of the road, and her mother is talking to him. She won't notice. Rebecca will be at the tower rock, on top of the tower rock even, before she notices ...

The story will be part of a new collection of short stories I'm working on to be called Destire Lines: Stories of Love and Geography.  

Harper's Attack Ads: Will Cons Profit, or Will the NDP?

Just thinking out loud here, but is it possible that the nasty attack ads the Harper Conservatives rolled out on Monday, impugning Justin Trudeau's lack of content and maturity, make work more to the NDP's advantage than the Cons'?

Negative advertising is tricky business, because it can backfire when people decide it is unfair.  Several among the chattering classes said that, but I didn't hear anyone say how the ads may play into Tom Mulcair's hands.  The NDP leaders have said they don't want to go there when it comes to ad hominen attacks, that they want to raise politics to a higher level.  That position I think is a genuine one.

But at the same time, I'm sure there was a little chuckling the NDP backrooms over the ads, because they point out Trudeau's vividly and make Mulcair look all the better.

As for the polls, well, wait a couple of weeks and see what happens to the Liberals recent surge in popularity.

Furher to Bagpipe Alert: Black Watch Pipers Try out Musical Swings

I didn't hear or see them, but this morning Le Devoir has this great photo of Black Watch pipers swing on Montreal's musical swings yesterday.

The Royal Highland Regiment of Canada  is the oldest highland regiement in Canada, dating from 1862 as 1862 as the 5th Battalion, Volunteer Militia Rifles of Canada.  Its website says: "The rise of American military strength during the Civil War concerned Canada. The government authorized formation of militia regiments. Each of six Montreal Scottish chieftains responded by raising an infantry company for the 5th Battalion. Eventually, eight companies were raised for border service." 

Times have changed since, and the pipers, whose regimental headquarters are only a block away from the swing, obviously enjoyed their duty.  The swings have caught the eye of others, too: in March Oprah featured them on one of her programs.