One of the longest transit strikes in recent memory rocked Montréal as people went to the polls and elected a new mayor: Soraya Martinez Ferrada. At a time when immigration has been increasingly blamed for all manner of social ills - from crime to housing - the city has elected
I was informed recently that for all the effort I put into finding and embedding the music for my last post, literally nothing appeared in the email. If you were interested in actually hearing anything I featured, here is a link to the actual post with all the music available.
You can get news anywhere and there is currently too much of it. I'm happy [[1]] to talk about it in another post, but here and now let me share some music with you. These are good songs even if you don't know French and do
I originally wrote this post in French as a means to practice for the language exam - part of trying to get permanent residence - in October. I already took two of the four parts of the exams before the Ministry for Immigration and Francisation changed the rules and made
Today: summer in Montreal, silly side projects/networking, and why make babies.
I have a million more things to say about Paris but (1) my last post was rather text heavy and (2) rather than going detail by detail I've thrown together some photo highlights with commentary. The long history: The food/drinks which, like any major world city, were
Half way through our visit we moved to a hotel in the famous Montmartre district. Montmarte is known for: * Its elevation - beautiful views and strategic position * Its former independence from Paris (made into the 14th Arrondissement late) * Its radicalism - most evident with the Paris Commune * Gypsum mining, which,
There are some massively fucked up people who get very worked up over declining birthrates. Most of these people, like Elon Musk, are of course concerned principally with the birthrate of specific kinds of people. [[1]] The New Yorker recently wrote on the topic. They accurately point out that birthrates
Two things that Paris impresses upon you immediately is that it is (1) an old city and (2) a world city. The former I intend to talk about at some length next post, but the latter becomes apparent just walking down the street. On your way elsewhere, you will find
FrenchBee is a funny name for a company. I prefer it over the original name, FrenchBlue, that they were called before JetBlue complained to the FAA. Both are sadly inferior to the temporary name the chose in the interregnum - just “French”. Anyway a huge amount of the branding persists
I don't really have anything to add about the economic turmoil we are currently engulfed in [[1]]. Whether you are reading this on a day when the market is up or, as French speakers might say, chute libre, is less important than America's most valuable export
We went to a Purim party with the local leftist Jewish group my partner found when we arrived. It was held in a a building that made up part of the first (and until recently, largest) hospital complex in Montréal: Cité des Hospitalières. The original hospital was the product of
I'm back in Fayetteville, Arkansas again. I don't think I really have the capacity right now to talk about my father, his life, and our loss in a manner that I would feel proud or happy about. It is still too soon. The collective mood is
I've started writing four posts in the last two weeks, never managing to finish them because other events have barged into our collective mental space. Those posts were: * One titled "Hindenburg v2", a retrospective on Joseph Biden * Another about the new Star Trek movie, Section 51,
What I've done This year started with finishing the first of four French courses, moving on from Substack [[1]], and wistfully considering alternative futures. As spring rolled in, we started going out a little more - the highlights being a drag brunch Megillah reading (Purim), the first heatwave
A key activity in the final 8 weeks of my french course is improv. The Quebecois fucking love improv and, admittedly, it's a pretty good way to move from "think something, translate it in your head, and then speak" to "just say what you are
While the inclination to keep this blog more of a personal thing - for letting friends know how we are doing, experiences foreign and familiar, etc - remains strong, unfortunately the United States is very important and powerful and unreasonably close geographically to Canada, so there is no avoiding talking
Montreal autumn is a strong contender for "best season in the world" next to Seattle summers. It's beautiful and, occasionally, warm as heck. As opposed to the summer - which I frankly found a bit too hot for my liking - and winter, the variability of
So Canada has a different day for Thanksgiving, or L'action de grâce. And also they kinda don't. You could rack it up with like President's Day or MLK Day in the sense that there isn't like a bunch of decorations or major
So, against my general intentions with this blog as a fun way to keep in touch with folks and have something nice to look back on every once in a while, I feel it is necessary to address an issue I've been asked about a couple of times
This post is quite late! In the last few weeks I have encountered a series of maladies. I won't tire folks with a lot of details, since none of it ended up being serious, but the first thing had the semblance of being serious which means I was
I have not posted in a while! French classes started back up and I've been quite occupied with it. One big change in the last month or so is that I can finally really understand (some) television/comedy. Not all of it, not all the time, but actually
In Montreal, Pride (or Fierté) falls on the first week of August and was, like Pride in the United States, originally inspired by a violent police raid and subsequent cop riots. While in the 1970s, violent raids and harassment by vice squads - including outing people by publishing their names
The start of my trip back to visit Seattle did not start off well! Half way through a painfully long drive to the airport I realized I had forgotten my passport. My partner had to take another car to drop it off to me. The trip was a whirlwind of