Elect Goblin Macbeth

There really isn't a bad time to visit Montréal. Even in the true depths of winter there are extensive Christmas markets, the underground city becomes alive, and there are events like Igloofest and Nuit Blanche - where the city stays up all night and roller skates through libraries. In the simmering summer highs you can find few breaks between music festivals offering free outdoor concerts - Francos, Pop Montreal, Jazzfest, Just For Laughs - don't let any of the names fool you into thinking these are genre specific. We saw Klezmer musician Geoff Berner at Pop Montreal at a park under a bridge.

But by far the best season to visit is right at this moment, in Autumn (automne). I sit in a park while writing this in a perfect jeans-and-t-shirt sunny day, surrounded by reading, chatting, and dozing people on picnic blankets. Quiet guitar music filters in from a nearby gentleman who is leaned up against his mobility scooter.

Among other things it is a time of reflection and, for some, decisions. The Québeçois will choose a new government in a few short days. A grand debate with the five principal parties opened with a congratulations from the moderator, who took a moment to contrast the state of their democracy with their neighbor to the south whom had just banned the press from covering the President. It was Rosh Hashanah a scant two weeks ago - a time of reflection and atonement that some of the Jewish faith believe decides whether your name will be written in the Book of Life for another year. If so, you will live long enough to make your case again next time!

My nephew turned one, so we made our way to Florida to join in the festivities. The parents are apprehensive about a second child because this first one is happy and sleeps at a reasonable duration/cadence and there is zero guarantee that will be the case for the next one. My partner knit an adorable hat with bear ears on it but I will not be posting an overwhelmingly cute picture of the nephew wearing it. Even early photos may negatively impact his future efforts at smashing the brutal AI surveillance state being rapidly build during his infancy.

Speaking of showing your papers - our work permits were up, which meant driving down to the border to put another three years on the clock. In theory you don't have to drive to the border, cross it, and immediately return, but it's still somehow the most expedient way to go and you are incentivized to do all this last minute such that the next renewal is further in the future. It has not been exactly three years since we arrived, but it feels like a milestone. We showed up with a few bags and a fat elderly dog, knowing very little French, virtually nothing about the culture, and no one in the city. Sadly we are down one dog, but the rest of those things are no longer true.

For instance, I had a birthday picnic and people actually showed up. Super!

Finally, I've managed to find something useful to do with my time: annoying local governments.

I have been volunteering and organizing for an outfit called CivicTech Montreal. It is relatively new, modeled after the popular CivicTech Toronto. Here's an abstract of a talk we've been giving:

CivicTech Montreal is a growing community looking to do some public good with technology. Brique Par Brique is a non-profit in Parc Extension that is trying to find properties to buy up and turn into affordable housing. Follow the story of problem discovery, experimentation, geospatial analysis, fitful replies to open data requests from the 19 city boroughs, and effective coproduction. Stay for the relationships we made along the way and a look into future work.

One part of this adventure involved asking all of the 19 arrondissements of Montreal for their zoning information and getting basically one (1) responding with useful data (another managed to put it online in a usable format). One returned geometries without attributes. Classic. Another provided a rapidly expiring download link through some third party commercial service. My favorite replied that they honestly didn't even have it in a digital format.