SHEDDEN 500 BLOG: 500 people, places and things that define Jim Shedden.

#31/500: Montreal

I like Montreal. I love Montreal.

I’m going next week to attend to some family business (in Laval), but Shellie and I will have a day or two to explore the city again to see if we can rekindle the romance with that city again.

I love Montreal, but it’s not that simple sometimes. While it’s the only city in Canada that I’d want to live in other than Toronto, I’ve never done it and it doesn’t mean I don’t love Toronto.

Still, it’s all Toronto + Montreal for me, not Toronto vs. Montreal. Even for that brief moment in childhood when I was into hockey, it was all about Boston vs. Montreal for me in any case.

My mother was from Îles de la Madeleine and moved to Halifax quite young when her mother died. Much of her family ended up in Montreal and the surrounding area, so I spent a lot of my time visiting Montreal as a kid. I don’t remember the name of the area where my grandparents live, but it seemed a bit rural (but becoming suburban), kind of like Manse Road or Military Trail in Scarborough did. I do remember there was a dépanneur within walking distance and I admit that buying candy and other sugary garbage there is the strongest memory I have of that house.

My aunts and uncles and a few dozen of my mother’s 100 cousins all seemed to end up in Verdun, specifically the working class area of Wellington-De l'Église, with its mainly 2 and 3-plexes and outdoor, winding staircases and balconies. Verdun was its own city until it amalgamated with Montreal in 2002, and was mostly dry (maybe it still is)? The retail and residential street life was designed for success, along a couple of main streets at grade (with walk-ups above), but always seemed a bit subdued or even depressed. I hear this has turned around significantly since the 1990s, and it doesn’t surprise me. Verdun always seemed like it had the potential to be one of the more attractive and lively parts of Montreal. I haven’t been there since 1992. I used to crash at my Aunt Simone’s walk-ups when I was there for Montreal World Film Festival, then a bigger deal than the Festival of Festivals. Maybe it’s worth a visit in the short period of time we have there on this visit to see if my slightly romantic memories of Verdun have any substance.

When I was 3 (almost 4) we went to Expo 67. Who knows how real this is, but it seems that my first memories in life may be attending this World’s Fair and taking in a couple of the spectacular multi-screen film installations: A Place to Stand (the Ontario Pavilion) almost for sure; and possibly the NFB’s Labyrinth Pavilion. These are the two that are the most discussed these days, and I am very consciously paying homage to A Place to Stand with a multi-screen installation that I am working on. But my father has mentioned The Telephone Pavilion, a total wrap-around whereby 1500 people would stand in a room surrounded by nine large film screens. I was apparently there, so perhaps I have a lingering memory of that one as well. It was commissioned by Canada’s telephone companies and made by Disney.

There were many other installations at Expo 67. I may have seen We are Young (Francis Thompson and Alexander Hammid, who I know from the experimental film world), which is a wonderful record of those optimistic, progressive times. Whatever I attended or didn’t, it’s all I remember from Expo 67, and the whole idea that I was at the most cinematic of all World’s Fairs (and they were frequently cinematic), one that meshed with the “expanded cinema” vibe at the time, has always been exciting to me. It seems that I truly became conscious in Montreal.

Over the years, I also became aware of few other features of Expo 67. Habitat, for example, Moshe Safdie’s masterpiece, and what I still consider the greatest building in Canadian history. I say that as someone who hasn’t been insider, nor even very close to it in real life. But I have been close enough and I’ve seen photos and models and I am always excited to see it in any form, including an artwork by Brian Jungen when he makes a miniature version of it as a cat residence. I love it.

There was also Bucky’s American Pavilion, one of his great geodesic domes. Unfortunately it burned to the ground.

I am moved by the story of how the theme, Man and His World, was chosen. It was a group comprising a group of prominent Canadian thinkers—including Alan Jarvis, director of the National Gallery of Canada; novelists Hugh MacLennan and Gabrielle Roy; J. Tuzo Wilson, geophysicist; and Claude Robillard, town planner, who met for three days at the Seigneury Club in Montebello, Quebec in 1963. It seems that we would not be so bold, or confident, to turn this sort of thing over to writers, scientists and planners now, but who knows?  The theme, "Man and His World", was based on the 1939 book entitled Terre des Hommes (translated as Wind, Sand and Stars) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Roy explained the theme as follows:

“In Terre des Hommes, his haunting book, so filled with dreams and hopes for the future, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry writes of how deeply moved he was when, flying for the first time by night alone over Argentina, he happened to notice a few flickering lights scattered below him across an almost empty plain. They "twinkled here and there, alone like stars. ..." In truth, being made aware of our own solitude can give us insight into the solitude of others. It can even cause us to gravitate towards one another as if to lessen our distress. Without this inevitable solitude, would there be any fusion at all, any tenderness between human beings. Moved as he was by a heightened awareness of the solitude of all creation and by the human need for solidarity, Saint-Exupéry found a phrase to express his anguish and his hope that was as simple as it was rich in meaning; and because that phrase was chosen many years later to be the governing idea of Expo 67, a group of people from all walks of life was invited by the Corporation to reflect upon it and to see how it could be given tangible form.”

Since then, I have had many good, great and transformative experiences in Montreal. I’ve had some bad ones, too, but I mainly chalk that up to me being in crappy frame of mind.

I was at the 76 Olympics.

I have a false memory of being in Montreal right after the referendum where Jacques Parizeau blamed the loss on on "l'argent et des votes ethniques", and I remember being there with my friends Dave, Tracy and Art, me for the film festival and they for general hanging about. But the referendum was in 1995 and I think that trip with those three was in 1991 or 1992. Anyhow, good times with them, good times with Shellie in 1995 maybe, and bad times with Parizeau, who made it clear that nationalism always ends up being ugly.

I went to a few smaller film festivals in Montreal, too, including the Festival of New Cinema (or whatever it’s called now), and then I had a documentary in the Festival of Films on Art (my Michael Snow Up Close piece).

I’ve walked up and down St. Laurent dozens of times. That’s how I generally structure my time. I may wander over to St. Denis or Ste. Catherine, but St. Laurent has always led me to great things. For example, Schwartz’s Deli is on that great street. This is an establishment that I like so much that I’ve often had briskets delivered to me via FedEx, or my friends Jim and Joanne who visit frequently. I’ve patronized the competition over the years too, including The Main and Ben’s: they’re praiseworthy too.

I love the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Musée d’art contemporain. The CCA is always up something intriguing as well.

I’ve been to the jazz festival numerous times.

I like that I can always go to L’Express for lunch or dinner and it’s always great. I always like that in a city, and lament that my own town doesn’t foster longevity in restaurants, bars, cafes, etc.

I love the popularity of rotisserie restaurants, thanks to the Portuguese population.

Bagels: I’ll take St. Viateur or Fairmont. Usually I go to the former, just out of habit.

I love wandering into Drawn and Quarterly to find out what’s happening in the world of the graphic novel.

I love the vintage shops in the Mile End, though I have never found anything that fits me there.

I like wandering around Old Montreal.

I like the tiny (compared to Toronto) Chinatown and have eaten well there.

Happy I attended a St. Paddy’s Day Parade there once, and I’m happy to never do it again.

Many of my friends have lived there, or visit often, so feel free to give me advice. That also applies to my very good friends who live there now (full or part-time): Sasha Johnson, Ella Stewart, Richard Kerr, Dave Morris, Emilia Angelova.