The Smoked Meat Tour

Stan is apparently trying to eat every single kind of smoked meat available in the city. We've already been to Dunn's, which is the smoked-meat deli for tourists. Yesterday, we hit the Great Original, which is the 80-year-old Schwartz's Montréal Hebrew Deli. "Lots of room, lots of room," cried the man behind the counter, waving a dripping chunk of beef towards the crowd hunched along the counter and over the aluminum tables. The smoked meat really was spectacular, served more like a Sunday brisket than like cold cuts, in hot, meaty hunks. Les frites were the highlight for me; the only fries that even come close to the gloriously greasy Schwartz's patates are those once made by an ex-RAF-airman at a little dive called Gibson's, in Saskatoon. Worth every oleaginous, heart-killing calorie.

Today, on the other hand, we went upscale to Reuben's, which caters to the wealthy Baby Boom with spicier meat, a tonier atmosphere, and portions so gigantic it takes a Y chromosome just to look at them steadily. After sharing his huge platter of beef with me, Stan treated himself to a 9-inch-square slab of carrot layer cake, slathered in caramel and creme anglaise. "I," he said, shortly after the last forkful, "am a Great Big Man."

We also finished registering for Congress, and picked up the obligatory conference cloth bag by which all delegates identify each other. It beats sniffing butts, I guess. I plan to get up early for Dr. K's paper for the Renaissance Society this Sunday morning. But before then, I suspect Stan's going to need to follow up on a tip from a local: Lester's Deli, Rue Bernard, for yet another meal of smoked meat.

Lunch at the House of Jazz

Sometimes it's easy to love Montréal. As we strolled towards Notre Dame this morning, someone near us whistled for a cab so loudly that my ears rang--it turned out to be a frail, white-haired old lady with a cane and a wrist brace. Vivid, take-no-shit women seem to thrive here. Witness the woman who served us lunch at the House of Jazz yesterday. The House of Jazz itself is worth seeing; its exuberant décor refuses to recognize "kitch" as a category, mixing Art Nouveau bronzes with life-size figures of Jake and Elwood. Our waitress was worthy of the setting: bright-eyed, leathery, and about as shy as the Wife of Bath. "That shit is GOOD," she rasped, when we ordered the duck terrine. She was right: beautifully meaty duck flavoured with fresh orange, wrapped in pork caul fat, and served in an actual terrine. She sang along with every jazz standard that came over the sound system during the lunch rush and high-fived us when we left, feeling like we'd found the warm, bright heart of the Montréal galaxy.

It's not just the women, either. Our cab driver today barely had his hands on the wheel while he clapped and danced to blaring Haitian music, but even Stan couldn't help grinning anyway, as we veered joyously through the tunnels of the Bonadventure Highway with all the windows open. Un bon adventure, indeed.

Victoria Day in Montréal

The May statutory holiday is perhaps not the jolliest of celebrations in Montréal. What the rest of the country knows as "Victoria Day" is called "Journée nationale des Patriotes" in Québec, and the city's locals (easily recognizable by the wiry physique which results from a diet of cigarettes and rancour) spend it indoors, sulking over the Plains of Abraham. Stan and I and the other tourists had Sherbrooke Street pretty much to ourselves, and as we wandered past the life-sized bronze of Queen Victoria, no birthday cake was visible.

We're in the Museum Quarter here, and this seems to attract unofficial artists of various kinds. Mural-sized graffiti pops up in unlikely places (such as three stories up the sheer side of a semi-demolished building). Here's one of the commoner and more modest examples:



In accordance with the province's stringent language requirements for public signage, I also include the following:



We were eating smoked meat sandwiches in Dunn's Deli during Game 5 with Philadelphia (again, surrounded by other tourists), and it was almost impossible not to get caught up in the enthusiasm of the wait staff. Montréal scored in the first minute of the game, and a jubilant waiter explained that the Habs have never lost a game in which they made the first goal. Alas! for the local urban myths: the Flyers won 4-2, and the mounted riot police patrolling Ste. Catherine Boulevard all went home and got a good night's sleep.

Brass Cannon Plans

By now, I'd hoped to be on the tenure track somewhere, as an expert in eighteenth-century English literature – but whatever leads I had dried up when the economy crashed. Even sessional teaching is a washout in my hometown, for at least the next two years. At my age, I have to face the fact that I don't have much time left to get a foot in the door somewhere.

Academic research is what I'm trained for, and what I love. Even if nobody's willing to hire me to do it, I'm going to take the next year and do as much as I can until my money runs out. If this is my last shot, I'm going to go nuts on it.

Robert Heinlein retailed this story: a certain man makes his living polishing the brass cannon in front of the town's courthouse. Someone asks him about his retirement plans. "I've saved a little money," he says. "I'm going to buy a cannon and go into business for myself." Picture me with a whole house full of cannon catalogues, deciding how much I can afford.