Andrew, Alex, Annie, and I took a road trip to Montreal. Armed only with my GPS and a veggie platter, we headed to the food capital of Canada without a plan or timetable.
Schwartz’s Hebrew Delicatessen
Our first stop was for lunch at Schwartz’s. It’s a tiny place, packed with with the heady aroma of seasoned smoked meat. Established in 1928, it’s a landmark in Montreal. I like to imagine that Moe’s Diner in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz was based on a place like this, or maybe that Leonard Cohen frequented in his youth, and I was sitting where he penned the lyrics for his songs.
Everyone — and I mean everyone — between the ages of 25 and 30 used to watch The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air
The token Asian guy has a fraternal connection with the other token Asian guy in every clique
Fire has the ability to bring out people’s primal natures, and make them throw their hands in the air and wave them like they just don’t care (or some reasonable facsimile thereof)
Some people think they’re never too old to get hooched up for a Saturday night
A good DJ can make you feel like you never left high-school
Even at 27, I still look like I’m 18, according to the bouncer who carded me
After attending Opus 01, I knew I wanted to be a part of this.
John, as a true friend, flew from Toronto to be there for the night. Alex, who was doing a medical internship at a family practice in a nearby city, drove there. Even Pearl also dropped by and I got to meet her.
I was so busy talking with my guests that I didn’t even have time to go into the other rooms to see how the other artists were doing. The house was packed with people again, young and old.
Performances
Jacqueline’s second piece was Sonata in A Minor, by Franz Schubert (unfortunately, her first piece was over ten minutes long, which isn’t allowed on YouTube). I found it to be a rather masculine piece, beginning like a sombre funeral march, leading to a journey of bubbling emotion, so it was mesmerizing to see a girl play it with such conviction. Pay special attention to the burning trill at 5:28, which leads back to the main theme.
Misun told me that when she handed Jacqueline a rose after the performance, it looked like she had run a marathon.
Afterwards, Jacqueline told me after she couldn’t stop looking at my penis through her performance, then quickly corrected herself and said the penis picture, which was hung across from her.
Louise plays the harp by feeling only. She doesn’t have formal any musical training, so she doesn’t write any of her compositions down. It just flows from her fingers, and quite well I might add. As a result, her music is semi-improvised.
John kept telling us how not drunk he was, even though you can clearly seeing him downing glasses of wine in this video.
The after party
When the people left and the doors closed, the real party began for the artists, their guests, and the volunteers. Frédéric and Misun broke out the cold cuts, the fresh and fancy bread, the wine, the cheese and we celebrated a successful night. We had been standing for five hours, so it was time to take a break.
When Dan gave me a reading two years ago, and said that I would be making money off my art within the next 15 years, I never would have believed him.
Note: All media in this post has an extremely warm colour tone. I decided to keep it instead of balancing it to neutral white, because I enjoy the cozy feel of it, which expresses the mood of the house-gallery.
With a hammer and a ladder, we hung my pictures tonight, carefully deciding where to place each one to balance the colours, the orientations, the shapes, and the concepts.
Amongst the wine and the wood, the kids and the colours, we stopped to admire the art in the house. Adrienne dropped by to share her latest graphic poems with us, along with her alcoholic findings. “From The Desk Of” Penelope was written that day, dense and deep, full of details taken for granted. The words must write themselves, I thought.
Misun and I seem to share a kinship through our appreciation of expression, something I’ve never had with my friends. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, but I’ve always felt like they can’t relate to me when it comes to emotions or creativity. As I seem to be the creative brother she’s always wanted, and she seems to be the supportive sister I’ve always needed, we agreed to be adopted siblings.
In a recent interview, Frédéric said, in his ebullient Parisian accent, that one of the reasons he wanted to open the Salon is to promote dialogue and interaction. Perhaps it’s this hunger for dialogue that connects us. He also mentioned to me he was stressed out about being interviewed; being put on the spot made him freeze up. I told him I had the same problem with pretty girls. “You’re affected by beauty”, he said, something I knew, but not something that everyone understands.
I left, feeling like I was a part of something wonderful, something greater than myself.
I asked Julie to come to the show with me. I did it with trepidation, because I considered it a big favour, and felt like I didn’t know her well enough to ask. But Blake was out of town and she was going out on Saturday, so it just happened that she decided to keep her Friday free.
It pretty much saved me. When driving to the pub, I was hit with an anxiety attack, which I’ll elaborate on in another entry someday.
Julie was the perfect person to bring, I imagine because she has experience with people who suffer from anxiety. I told her I may suddenly want to leave at any point, possibly even on the way there. She told me she didn’t mind coming, she didn’t mind leaving, she didn’t even mind standing outside the pub with me for a couple minutes in -16°C weather while I mentally prepared myself. I owe her big time.
We played cards to get my mind off the anxiety. I taught her how to play Slapjack, she taught me how to play Egyptian War. It worked.
While waiting for the show to start, I gave Krista the large prints from the previous shows. Krista gave us some random Larry and Bob balloon stickers she found on the bus (Julie and I think they were from a deaf person). Julie also met Cory there, her schoolmate from horticulture college, and Krista’s sister.
At the first show, I told Shane he should make an acoustic version of his album. Since I paid him in person for a pre-release EP that night, he told me he did have an acoustic version and promised to give it to me. I asked him earlier this week if he could bring it, which he did, but he forgot it in his suitcase. Quite a pity, since he told me he was in the studio making sure he mixed it right for me. He felt terrible about it, and told me he’d mail it to me instead. March 14th is when the album officially comes out.
The sets were rather short. Shanker and Romps opened for them, a garage rockabilly duo. Our view of this performance was a bunch of people who were much taller than ourselves.
The highlight of the show was seeing Shane perform It’s A Drag (and getting a video of it!), my favourite song on the album. Krista did the backup vocals. This is the only time you’ll hear such a dulcet harmony from another awesome artist, certainly something you can only experience from a tour. Krista also got Cory up on stage for the Bumblebee Song as an encore.
Julie asked me if I still had a crush on Krista. I had to think about it for a little bit, and the fact that I had to think about it made me realize that I don’t anymore.
