Montreal
There is an aesthetic to European cities that arrises from an ethos very different than that found in America. At it’s core this belief system includes the ideas that people have value, the community of people has value, and quality is more important than quantity or size. I definitely found this in Montreal.
Buildings in European style cities are things of beauty on the outside. They are designed to be appealing to people walking around outside of the structures, who may not even be involved in the commerce taking place inside and yet somehow deserve respect. Kunstler talks a lot about this, actually.
There were huge parts of the city designated as walking zones, as though people were as important as cars. There were also generous bike lanes throughout the city and at night, a collection of bikes lined the fronts of every house we passed. Public parks were plentiful and seemed to regularly host music and art events, including drag races where men dressed in drag competed in drink carrying and torch song events.
I felt like people’s health had value too. Not only did everyone have healthcare, but there were massive open markets of vegetables and fruits, as though people still ate them instead of fast food. The majority of humans I saw around me were striking in that they were their original shapes and sizes, as though they got exercise and ate reasonable portions of something other than corn syrup and fat.
When I later traveled west to Ottawa, the situation quickly reversed itself again. While I didn’t immerse myself quite as much in the city there, I was amazed to watch everyone grow several sizes. The stores followed suit, becoming gigantic box chains like Home Depot and Circuit City as though I had suddenly warped back to any suburb in the U.S.
Montreal was wonderful and the Montreal Jazz Fest was teasing me with great acts and flirting with me through beautiful posters. Fortunately, I came prepared and I was hip to this city’s game. I knew full well that if I stayed any longer the tiny window of livable weather would vanish in a white cloud of snow. Once it had trapped me the winds would tear me apart and even though I can’t read Celsius, thirty degrees below zero is thirty degrees below zero! (In fact, at that temperature it’s actually true that -30F = -34C!)
So in my short visit I danced around with my friend Heather Kelley, munching on a delicious loaf of Spelt bread from a shop that only made bread. We stopped to eat samples of peaches, apricots, berries and tomatoes at the market. We sat at an outdoor cafe while a group of musicians spontaneously formed to sing with guitars, passerby of all ages stopping to join in on familiar songs. We met a man selling bags made of recycled materials, his new business after meeting a lovely French woman while world traveling who dragged him up to Canada to be married. I found Go stones in Chinatown. I saw French hipsters packed into a cafe to watch an old black man sing the blues. I wondered at one way streets that suddenly changed direction throughout the day.
I might not be able to afford the snow boots to live there, but I may very well make the trip up again to sample the summer buffet, all the more rich and full for it’s brevity!
