Smoke Turret Cigarettes!

A painted billboard, recently exposed when the neighbouring building was demolished after a fire, for Turret cigarettes. Located next door to Artie Gold's old apartment building, The Westmore.

A walk in N.D.G., Summer 2008

A walk in our neighbourhood, Notre Dame de Grace, is always interesting and fun. Here, beside the apartment where Artie Gold used to live, is a painted billboard from the 1920s-1930s, pristine and clear after being protected and hidden for many decades by another building that was destroyed by fire a few years ago. The debris has now been removed from where the old building used to stand. I see others have posted photographs online of this same painted billboard. 

Montreal isn't Ville Marie--the City of Mary--for nothing. Here, a few blocks east of the Turret cigarette advertisement, is a statue of Mary (to the left of the huge statue of Jesus), in someone's back yard. 

A few hundred feet east from the statues of Jesus and Mary, on Monkland Avenue, is the former home of poet Irving Layton; it has been renovated by the new owners. I remember visiting Layton here, with CZ and Noni Howard, in his living room. Sometimes, when I would walk or drive by Layton's place, I'd look at his home and see him sitting at his dining room table writing poems, smoking his pipe.

On the Loyola Campus of Concordia University, near where Irving Layton used to live, is this statue of Mary, with a water fall and water circulating around the statue.

Next, we walk down Elmhurst Avenue from Sherbrooke, cross the railway tracks, and then walk along St. Jacques by the old Griffith-McConnell nursing home; the building has fallen in disrepair and neglect since they moved to their new location in Cote St. Luc. The old place is still standing, but since these photographs were taken, in 2008, construction has begun behind the building and I suspect it will be demolished.

Poetry, spirituality, lilacs blooming in spring, lanes that are like the country, history and people, they all make N.D.G. one of the nicest neighbourhoods in Montreal.




On the way home we stop by Rosedale-Queen Mary Road United Church, at Terrebonne and Rosedale, where they have constructed a labyrinth outside of the adjoining community centre. I gave a reading here once, all very nice people. The labyrinth is open to the public and has an amazing affect when walking on it. You are almost immediately plunged into profound questioning on the meaning of mortality. I never expected this but it certainly had this affect on me. As you walk the labyrinth, you are removed from the everyday, you find yourself in the spiritual.

There is a lot more to see than this on our walk in N.D.G.; this is just a part of the less trendy western part of N.D.G. For instance, there is a miniature Chinese garden directly across the street from the labyrinth; this is a wonderful creation someone has lovingly made and maintained in their front garden, it is a city and landscape all in miniature, with Oriental statues, running water in a little river, and tiny houses.

Morningside Park, spring 2009

An Exhibit at the Metropolitan, NYC

This is a curious small sculpture that shows a woman holding onto the tail of a bird, apparently in flight. The caption beneath says that the purpose for this sculpture is unknown. I suggest it shows a shamanistic journey, that this is a depiction of a shamanistic journey. In future posts I will describe other texts and artifacts in this way.

(From the exhibit Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.November 18, 2008–March 15, 2009, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall, 2nd floor.)

News of the Book Launch

Monday evening's book launch for Girouard Avenue and Blue Poppy, at The Word book store on Milton in McGill Univrsity's student ghetto, was a big success. An excellent turn out, 40 to 50 people, readings from the books, excellent food, and a good time for all of us.

Here is Poetry Quebec's review of the book launch.

Thank you to Adrian King-Edwards who hosted the evening. Thank you to everyone who came!

Windsor Station, mid-2000s, Montreal

Windsor Station on a spring day, mid-2000s.