Is that a Montreal thing? I ask this of these five itemz below.
1- Worrying about a toll on the replacement for the Champlain Bridge, is that a Montreal thing?
Our elected officials are claiming that there's a united opposition against the imposition of tolls on the upcoming bridge that will eventually replace what is the Champlain Bridge. To his credit the NDP South Shore MP whose name I can't quite recall has been working hard in his futile attempt to persuade the Harper Conservatives to allow motorists to ride the span for free.
But when a TV crew shot some streeters on the South Shore random folks interviewed said hell yeah put a toll up there because I don't use it much and I don't want to pay.
Other online discussion forums and article comment sections echoed the same sentiment.
Of course the diable est dans les details, there's a big difference between paying 25 cents of paying $7 bucks to cross and we don't know how much it'll cost to cross, so there's that.
So I ask: is worrying about tolls a Montreal thing?
2-French suddenly lovin' English, is that a Montreal thing suddenly?
Those of us long-in-the-tooth anglos who have been here a long time can certainly recall the parle-en-francais! and le-Quebec-aux-Quebecois era where folks were unashamed to pile on you for opening your mouth with the Queen's English coming out.
(Personally I parle French a lot and love doing it, but I also talk English in situations that other fluently-bilingual anglos might speak French. For example if I'm in the east end waiting for a red light and something unusual happens I might comment to the person next to me on it in English. Why? Because it's fun, it creates an interesting context, a bond, a declamatory moment, hard to explain).
But La Presse has come out with a new survey of 500 young Quebec volk, suggesting that the younger peeps here in the Kweeb are suddenly overwhelmingly positive to English, Premier Couillard was unabashedly pro-English and was even wildly applauded for saying he'd beef up the learning of English, and indeed just last night on French TV an academic said that studies show that the more English French kids can be taught, the better it will be.
Suddenly there's a consensus forming quite the opposite of what it would have been just a couple of years ago.
So I ask: Is French folks being highly positive to the English language suddenly a Montreal thing?
3-Going up the stairs at the Oratory, is it a Montreal thing?
I've got to tip my hat to the great oratory of St. Joseph, largely built by an unjustifiably ambitious underling who was in the right time at the right place to see an incredible massive shrine built around him, frankly the only local churcharoo that can really conjure up the mysteriousness sideshow element required to believe in ghostly gods. I know that they used to have Andre's heart in a jar until it was kidnapped and supposedly returned, although I'd say there's a good chance there's another man's heart in that jar now. And of course the chambres a bequilles has been featured on postcards, a place where people shun medical advice and toss their canes because their walking ways has been healed by the miracle of god.
That said, do pilgrims really ascend those stairs on their knees? I've never actually seen it.
Dance break: 4-Having sex in cars, is it a Montreal thing?
Montrealers used to be oversexed because they'd move out at age 12 and get an $80 a month apartment with money from their part beer bike jobs
As a result Montreal became a bit of a hedonists' paradise as young people would spend weekends at their lovers' apartments practicing sex position and consuming all sorts of drugs.
But rents skyrocketed and the few kids who move out now often have to share with several roommates, making intimacy difficult. The rest, of course, are doing the Italian thing and living at home until 29 and saving up for their future house which they'll buy once the real estate market crashes again.
So the stage has been set for Montreal to be a city of romantic parking. But if that's the case where in the city do they go to park? I can't imagine you can just pull over on any random city street and get busy and be vulnerable to dog-walkers peering in to your most personal moment.
A cop once told me that they see the steamed up windows with suspension shaking all the time but never bothered those inside.
So, um, is this, like, uh, a Montreal thing?
5- Seeing the area below the hill as lower-class, is that a Montreal thing?
Areas like the Point, the Hank, the Griff, Emard, Cote St. Paul, Verdun, were long seen as areas to escape from, partly no doubt because they lacked the geographical advantage of being above the hill, which was home to the most coveted and expensive areas.
But gentrification, proximity to downtown, bla bla, appear to have counteracted the trend and made some of these lower-altitude areas seem coveted. Or is is still just the same old lowerland hyped up with boosterism?
So seeing the below-the-hill area as less desirable, is that a Montreal thing?
I ask you this and encourage you mightily to respond in the comment section, as crowdsourcing is the only way to get answers these days.
1- Worrying about a toll on the replacement for the Champlain Bridge, is that a Montreal thing?
Our elected officials are claiming that there's a united opposition against the imposition of tolls on the upcoming bridge that will eventually replace what is the Champlain Bridge. To his credit the NDP South Shore MP whose name I can't quite recall has been working hard in his futile attempt to persuade the Harper Conservatives to allow motorists to ride the span for free.
But when a TV crew shot some streeters on the South Shore random folks interviewed said hell yeah put a toll up there because I don't use it much and I don't want to pay.
Other online discussion forums and article comment sections echoed the same sentiment.
Of course the diable est dans les details, there's a big difference between paying 25 cents of paying $7 bucks to cross and we don't know how much it'll cost to cross, so there's that.
So I ask: is worrying about tolls a Montreal thing?
2-French suddenly lovin' English, is that a Montreal thing suddenly?
Those of us long-in-the-tooth anglos who have been here a long time can certainly recall the parle-en-francais! and le-Quebec-aux-Quebecois era where folks were unashamed to pile on you for opening your mouth with the Queen's English coming out.
(Personally I parle French a lot and love doing it, but I also talk English in situations that other fluently-bilingual anglos might speak French. For example if I'm in the east end waiting for a red light and something unusual happens I might comment to the person next to me on it in English. Why? Because it's fun, it creates an interesting context, a bond, a declamatory moment, hard to explain).
But La Presse has come out with a new survey of 500 young Quebec volk, suggesting that the younger peeps here in the Kweeb are suddenly overwhelmingly positive to English, Premier Couillard was unabashedly pro-English and was even wildly applauded for saying he'd beef up the learning of English, and indeed just last night on French TV an academic said that studies show that the more English French kids can be taught, the better it will be.
Suddenly there's a consensus forming quite the opposite of what it would have been just a couple of years ago.
So I ask: Is French folks being highly positive to the English language suddenly a Montreal thing?
3-Going up the stairs at the Oratory, is it a Montreal thing?
I've got to tip my hat to the great oratory of St. Joseph, largely built by an unjustifiably ambitious underling who was in the right time at the right place to see an incredible massive shrine built around him, frankly the only local churcharoo that can really conjure up the mysteriousness sideshow element required to believe in ghostly gods. I know that they used to have Andre's heart in a jar until it was kidnapped and supposedly returned, although I'd say there's a good chance there's another man's heart in that jar now. And of course the chambres a bequilles has been featured on postcards, a place where people shun medical advice and toss their canes because their walking ways has been healed by the miracle of god.
That said, do pilgrims really ascend those stairs on their knees? I've never actually seen it.
Dance break: 4-Having sex in cars, is it a Montreal thing?
Montrealers used to be oversexed because they'd move out at age 12 and get an $80 a month apartment with money from their part beer bike jobs
As a result Montreal became a bit of a hedonists' paradise as young people would spend weekends at their lovers' apartments practicing sex position and consuming all sorts of drugs.
But rents skyrocketed and the few kids who move out now often have to share with several roommates, making intimacy difficult. The rest, of course, are doing the Italian thing and living at home until 29 and saving up for their future house which they'll buy once the real estate market crashes again.
So the stage has been set for Montreal to be a city of romantic parking. But if that's the case where in the city do they go to park? I can't imagine you can just pull over on any random city street and get busy and be vulnerable to dog-walkers peering in to your most personal moment.
A cop once told me that they see the steamed up windows with suspension shaking all the time but never bothered those inside.
So, um, is this, like, uh, a Montreal thing?
5- Seeing the area below the hill as lower-class, is that a Montreal thing?
Areas like the Point, the Hank, the Griff, Emard, Cote St. Paul, Verdun, were long seen as areas to escape from, partly no doubt because they lacked the geographical advantage of being above the hill, which was home to the most coveted and expensive areas.
But gentrification, proximity to downtown, bla bla, appear to have counteracted the trend and made some of these lower-altitude areas seem coveted. Or is is still just the same old lowerland hyped up with boosterism?
So seeing the below-the-hill area as less desirable, is that a Montreal thing?
I ask you this and encourage you mightily to respond in the comment section, as crowdsourcing is the only way to get answers these days.