Cafe Volver

"Since Feeling is First" by e.e. cummings
(Click through to see large)

Volver is a new cafe that just opened up in my area -- at 5604 ave. du Parc, just above St-Viatur. Owned and run by two Argentenian women, Nora and Sofia (that's Nora pictured below), it aims to be a Latin American-style "cafe culturel", with art exhibits, music performances and poetry readings. What won me over especially is its poetry friendliness: laminated on most tables is a poem. Most are in French and Spanish, by the likes of Paul Elouard, Emile Martel, and Octavio Paz; above is one by e.e. cummings. Light, air, and friendly cheer warm up this cavernous space. At the present time, events can be booked for free. I've booked the next League of Poets (W)Rites of Spring fundraiser there, on April 3. On Sat. Jan. 19, there's a Peña -- a celebration of music, poetry, & song -- to which I've been invited; other performances are on the books, and bulletin board outside. At the same time there's lots of cafe competition in the area -- The Depanneur, The Arts Cafe, and Cagalie (formerly the Cafe Pharmacie Esperanza) are all homey places that stage events and vernissages (otherwise known as art openings), and Cafe del Popolo, Montreal's mini-Mecca of spoken word, is not too far away -- so I can only hope this one takes off.

SNOW DAY

No teaching tonight -- Montreal schools are closed after last night's storm. It's the second snow day in two weeks. Here, the chairs on my balcony, a "cardrift" seen through my window, and the window through which I took that photo, beside the desk where I write.

Poetry guy reviews his Urban Geography 101

photo by Christopher DeWolf, from Welcome to the Mile End

Talking with a friend about last week's Waverly St. bash, he pointed out that a number of things peculiar to the geography and urban architecture of Montreal make these kinds of happenings possible where they simply aren't in other cities: we have a lot of well-defined, high-density, mixed-use neighbourhoods (by mixed use: lots of corner stores, restaurants, family owned businesses, and the like integrated with residential land use, i.e. within short walking distance) . In other places (the Mtl. suburbs, most of Toronto, and particularly wholly suburban cities like Houston or LA), you can go out on the street and take a long walk past 10,000 neighbours, but whatever would you do that for? Where would you walk to? Better to hop in your car and drive... hence neighbourhoods without sidewalks, etc. The car, it would seem, is the culprit more than any other so-called anti-socializing factor (i.e. TV, the internet, franchise and mass-marketing) behind the disappearance of community in North America. Just a side-note. And a pretty obvious one, come to think.

Local Scene: Waverly en Fête

I have to say, I live on an amazing street: rue Waverly, in Montreal's Mile End area. So many artistic and rather cool people live here that a group of five of us formed a committee to have a community party to get to know each other better and to celebrate the cultural life of the street. ("Fête" in French is like "Fiesta" in Spanish... meaning party). It soon got quite impressive. Someone on the committee knew how to pull the right strings: we got the city to fence off the street, the local Y to provide tables. The city even gave us permission to provide our own alcoholic beverages. The afternoon began with a Children's Olympics and street theatre for the kids (second photo from the top -- click on it to see it big), a showing of paintings by artists on the street, a performance by a percussion/dance troupe called the Kumpa'nia band, whose leader lives on our street (third photo), followed by a pot luck supper and music. I donated my sound system; a guy who works in theatre provided lighting from a second floor balcony across the street. I performed some songs (A few pictures were taken during my set; maybe one will appear here eventually). Although a Cuban ensemble that was supposed to be the main feature failed to show up (they were on tour in Toronto and just couldn't make it on time), about a half-dozen quite skilled musicians ran into their apartments, returned with instruments and provided quite a varied evening's impromptu entertainment. In all, about a hundred people participated -- a truly huge turnout for the first time. Incidental costs were covered through sales of T-shirts with the insignia above, designed by one of our neighbours. In an age where "community" seems a thing of the past, where local warmth and camaraderie are ever-more unattainable due to so many anti-socializing factors including this internet you're on now, I think this is truly remarkable. I wonder, how many other neighbourhoods were throwing such a party for themselves this weekend?