Mary Soderstrom's Blog, page 107

There's been a lot about urban agriculture in the press around here lately.  Hard to tell just how much impact the movement to grow your own food in the city is having, but it's clear that many people have long cultivated their own little gardens in the center of Montreal.

This summer has been excellent for growing things, provided you have access to wter.  This garden in the back of a triplex was doing well when I took the picture a couple of weeks ago, and now has many goodies ready to harvest.

We had a few pears that I saved from the squirrels, but since I don't have hoses installed under the two trees at the back of our 25 by 100 foot lot and they suffered before I realized that they needed some extra help.  Last night I cut a few up for a fruit salad, and while they were a welcome addition, they didn't match the marvelous taste of this year's Ontario peaches.

Lukas's birthday was Wednesday, Jeanne's will be Sunday, so we're having the gang (11 of them, counting Jeanne)  over for barbecued leg of lamb and other good things this evening.

It'll be Lukas who'll be doing the barbecue honours: his idea, I assured the butcher who butterflied the gigot for me.  But there's a lot of other things to do, so I'll not be posting anything more profound than this.  Carpe diem!

Montrealers have been beating up the city for the last little while: crumbling infrastructure, too much road repairs/reconstruction, doubtful influences in contract awards etc.  So it is refeshing to come across two stories on successive days which laud the city.

The first is from a well-read blog on urbanism, Placeshakers and Newsmakers.  In it Hazel Borys calls Montreal a place where lessons in urbanism are delightfully on display. She winds up: "..our 7-year-old enjoyed the shows (about Star Wars and the Biodome,) however at the end of the day, preferred riding the Metro and bus system and walking the streets, along with the visit to Saint-Joseph du Mount Royal. Just as with the urbanism, the bells and whistles are rarely as valued as much as the permanence. Even if you’re seven."

The second is rather old news: a story in The New York Times from last November about "Hip Cities That think about How They Work."  The selection was eclectic to say the least: Aukland, Berlin, Barcelona, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Curitiba, Santiago, Shanghai, and Vilnius, Latvia, besides Montreal. 

So there you go: it's a city that we didn't set out to move to really. We came because Lee got  a three year contract Lee, because, well, why not?   But that was in 1968 and we've never seriously considered living any place else.

Photo: Mount Royal in June.

Montrealers have been beating up the city for the last little while: crumbling infrastructure, too much road repairs/reconstruction, doubtful influences in contract awards etc.  So it is refeshing to come across two stories on successive days which laud the city.

The first is from a well-read blog on urbanism, Placeshakers and Newsmakers.  In it Hazel Borys calls Montreal a place where lessons in urbanism are delightfully on display. She winds up: "..our 7-year-old enjoyed the shows (about Star Wars and the Biodome,) however at the end of the day, preferred riding the Metro and bus system and walking the streets, along with the visit to Saint-Joseph du Mount Royal. Just as with the urbanism, the bells and whistles are rarely as valued as much as the permanence. Even if you’re seven."

The second is rather old news: a story in The New York Times from last November about "Hip Cities That think about How They Work."  The selection was eclectic to say the least: Aukland, Berlin, Barcelona, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Curitiba, Santiago, Shanghai, and Vilnius, Latvia, besides Montreal. 

So there you go: it's a city that we didn't set out to move to really. We came because Lee got  a three year contract Lee, because, well, why not?   But that was in 1968 and we've never seriously considered living any place else.

Photo: Mount Royal in June.

The Electronic Rights Defence Committee is beginning discussions about how to distribute the money and stock it received on behalf of freelancers who wrote for The Gazette of Montreal from Postmedia and other defendants in a class action.  

A committee has been formed to consider how to distribute the proceeds. Because the cash value of the stock is much less than it was a year ago the executive instructed the committee to make a simple plan that will cut down on administration costs. Specifically, the committee is charged to use the following parameters:

a) The plan is to be based on considering all claimants as one group.
b) It will consider the distribution of shares among claimants.
c) It will propose minimum and maximum amounts in the payout per claimant.

The committee, currently composed of David Homel (class representative), Mary Soderstrom (ERDC president) and Stephanie O’Hanley (ERDC executive member at large), is to prepare a proposal by mid-October. ERDC members who would like to join the committee or who have suggestions for it should contact the ERDC through secretary Jack Ruttan at [email protected]. or me at  [email protected]

It used to be said that the first casualty of war was the truth. Now, unfortunately, truth seems to be completely forgotten in any sort of skirmish.

 The latest example is the cover story by Niall Ferguson in Newsweek (and I'm not going to give the link here because it doesn't deserve it) which says that the US needs a new president, and that Barak Obama has not kept his promises as president.

Certainly, Obama hasn't done all the things he said he'd do--think of closing down the prison at Guantanamo--and he can be legitimately criticized for that. But in many cases he was blocked ever step of the way by Republicans in Congress and by fear of the Right Wing out side of it. He tried to conciliat and you just can't do that with ideologues.

 But Ferguson's article and the prominence that Newsweek and The Daily Beast have given it are entirely different. The facts were wrong and Newsweek didn't check them.  "We, like other news organisations today, rely on our writers to submit factually accurate material," Newsweek spokesman Andrew Kirk told the website Politico.

That's the same kind of uncritical, self-serving thinking that led that sorry excuse for  a Congressman.  Todd Akin, to say that raped women have mechanisms in their body that can stop pregnancy.  Absolutely absurd.

The quote, by the way, is John 8:32.  Some Christians would have it the truth being talked about here is the Gospel.  But they're probably the ones who don't like the idea that Jesus might have been a poor, long-haired, Socialist, dark-skinned Jew.

Had a lovely picnic yesterday on the Iles de Boucherville with the extended Soderstrom and Lizée families: 10 adults and four kids with one on the way.  Nice to get together outside and play a bit.

We were far from the only ones.  The park in the middle of the St. Lawrence is always popular for its good picnicking, acces to kayaking and great bicyle and walking trails.  But yesterday was also the day when Muslims around the world broke the Ramadan month of fasting with celebrations.  The picnic ground was full of groups of families and friends barbecuing delicious-smelling things and feasting in the afternoon sun.

During the holy month, devout and not-so-devout Muslims fast during daylight hours, which always seemed to me to be an immense sacrfice when the month cycles into summer in northern latitudes.  But it seems that in many places, the evenings are filled with fun.  This story in The New York Times details how conservative Saudi Arabian television puts on its most engaging programs for audiences who spend the evenings at home during Ramadan.  Here's an  interesting look at what's considered risqué.  (Hint: a 31 episode drama about one of the Prophet's most illustrious follow, Omar.
And then there's the Arabian-Bollywood series, Hindistani. Popular culture is everywhere!

One of my favourite novels by a Canadian writer is Neil Bissonndath's The Unyielding Clamour of the Night , an imagined story of terrorism and dedication in a country not unlike Sri Lanka. 

The title always seemed to me unfelicitous, however, until I began thinking about how Bissonndath wrote the book.  A native of Trinidad, he knows first hand tropical climates, although  he's lived in Quebec for decades. He says he began writing the book sitting in a park on a snowy winter day.  Seemed terribly incongrous, until it occurred to me that one of the things about this climate is that it changes completely from season to season. 

In Bissonndath's story the chorus of insects at night is a comforting sound, which disappears when the country is in conflict.  A hallmark of Quebec summer is also a wild music made by insects--cicadas, crickets and probably others I don't know about.  You don't find it where the ecological balance has been upset, just where nature has had a chance to reassert itself. 

 I'm pleased to report that this morning over in the marvelous "vacant lot" which is the Champs des possibles, the clamour was truly deafening.  In addition, many orange butterflies (Monarchs?) floated up as I passed on the path running through clouds of wild clover, chicory and golden yarrow. 

These plants, you may notice, are all ones introduced into North America, and considered invasive by some.  But they can mark  a stage toward redemption of the land.  Would that other invasive species, humans, did as much!

One last thing: there will be a nature walk focused on insects at the Champs this afternoon, beginning at 1 p.m.

With any luck the three books I sent on Monday to the winners of the After Surfing Ocean Beach giveaway at nearing their destination. I'm really looking forwad to hearing what the winners think of the story.

If you didn't win, but would like to read the novel, here's the link to the Kindle ebook. http://www.amazon.com/After-Surfing-O...

And should buy hear and read it electronically, let me know what you think too.

These days I'm toggling back and forth between working on the short story collection Desire Lines and the first stages of a new non-fiction book called  Road through Time . 

The first has three short stories that deal in one way or another with the forces of the earth: click here for the only one published so far: "Open Window" which came out in the July 2004 issue of Maisconneuve . The latter is going to be about time and the tracks humans have made on the earth over time.  Just where I'm going I'm not sure, but it will consider our short time references against those of this planet (and maybe of the universe, but let's not get pretentious.

My friend Monique Hamelin sent me the link to the following video this morning, and it seems to fall right in with my reflections.  Perhaps it will with yours too.