Kilgore Trout

Par ailleurs, 3 millions seront investis pour créer un chemin piétonnier qui fera le tour du cimetière de Notre-Dame-des-Neiges. «Il partira du lac aux Castors, fera un circuit à l'intérieur du cimetière en fonction de l'intérêt d'un certain nombre de caveaux, descendra vers le chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges, fera le tour près de l'Université de Montréal et reviendra jusqu'au chemin Olmstead.»

Finally! To be honest, I've always been kind of appalled that half of the mountain was pretty much fenced-off. You can walk around the cemeteries but you can't walk through them.

Ils sont mieux de garder leurs 'design' au goût de l'époque.

Je vois la ville de Montréal accorder une forêt de tronc d'arbre rose (comme on les trouves dans le hall du Palais des Congres) pour remplacer la Place d'Armes.

Les touristes veulent voir un coté Nouvel France - Europe - Vieux-Montréal quand ils viennent dans le Vieux Montreal.

Je sort mon gun et je m'installe dans la fontaine. Faites moi signe.

Les intérêts des gens d'ici devraient avoir TOUJOURS la priorité sur les intérêts des touristes. À l'époque, la place d'Armes était un lieu important partagé par tous les montréalais. Elle est aujourd'hui reléguée à la marge de la vie urbaine. On devrait la retourner à l'ensemble de la ville, common on l'a fait avec le square Victoria.

reading all of these blog posts makes me kind of depressed. most tourists have such a superficial relationship with the city... reading all of these entries, you'd think montreal is a small town that begins with horse-drawn carriages and ends with the notre-dame basilica.

this is ridiculous. guys, let's be serious. the UN is not going to move to montreal. i mean, look at who's pushing this: some bureaucrats in ottawa. it was reported in la presse and nowhere else. the UN hasn't said a word about this. nobody will be talking about this in a month.

i see no real problem in concerned citizens asking that second cup reinstate the "les cafés" on their signs.

now as for the "money talks" response malek posted from some reader of le devoir:

Lorsque je vois que ce n'est pas le cas, j'informe le gérant de ce qui me dérange ( musique en anglais, personnel anglophone ne parlant pas français, affichage etc.)et je termine en lui disant « Sorry for you, but my money speaks french ».

i can understand her anger if the staff doesn't speak french, but i can't imagine what kind of a small-minded bigot would avoid a store because it plays english music! is it just english music that she doesn't like or does she hate any non-french music? her head would explode if she ever deigned to wander into a shop in chinatown or park extension.

forgetting the design for a second, i think this is the perfect location for a highrise condominium. with all of the construction around stanley and drummond there will be a real neighbourhood in the middle of the retail district.

to be honest, i'm surprised that this project's retail space has sat empty for so long. it's been awhile since the building was completed. not to mention that it's right on prince arthur.

great news. the MTR in hong kong makes huge profits because it develops all of the land it owns.

great news. markets are excellent incubators for small business.

nice height, but the street frontage is lame. what's with those planters? there should be simple, easy-to-access retail, not some strange set of steps.

yeah, java u started in the hall building at concordia. that's the original location.

are there even six MBCo. locations here? there's one on stanley, one in the airport, but what else?

a number of montreal chains have expanded internationally. java u has locations in atlanta, dubai and amman, for instance.

at long last i voted for a winner...

it has that UQAM look going on but whatever. it'll do.

Good to know, I think I will try that!

you won't regret it. i've been three times. bring lots of friends, though --- hot pot is best if it's a communal activity!

By the way, this statement is completely false:

L'édifice de 23 m de hauteur sera le plus haut du quartier.

Huh? What about the Holiday Inn, the Place du Quartier Chinois and the Complexe Guy-Favreau? They're all taller than 23 metres.

Premièrement, je ne suis pas religieux, donc les églises, je m'en crisse un peu.

Religion doesn't have anything to do with this. I'm not religious either but I still care deeply about Montreal's patrimoine réligieux. Montreal has a lot of churches, sure, but it has very few churches left from the early 19th century. Saint-Sauveur is a testament to the history of its neighbourhood, which was once home to the city's francophone elite. Destroying it for a big monolithic health complex would be a mistake, especially when that health complex could integrate the church into its design. Seriously, what's a few million extra dollars when you're already spending more than a billion? This is spare change.

The CHUM is going to be utterly forgettable and anonymous, but it might be a bit less so if it included Saint-Sauveur.

Very nice. This is exactly what Chinatown needs right now.

There has been a lot of new investment there lately. Xiao Fei Yang, a huge Chinese chain restaurant with thousands of locations in China, recently opened at Clark and La Gauchetière --- one of only three locations outside Asia. The mall on St. Urbain, where Kam Fung is, was nearly empty two years ago but has recently filled up with lots of little Chinese businesses.

Things are looking good...

I don't think a tramway along Ontario is necessary but the 125 bus badly needs a service upgrade. Yes, it runs parallel to the green line, but the green line is completely out of the way for everything in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. It's a good 15 minute walk from the Maisonneuve Market, for instance, and most parts of the Ontario St. commercial district are about 10 minutes from the metro. It's hardly convenient.

Gotta give that to the americans, they are all proud to be americans, they don'T describe themselves primarily as californians or pensylvanians.

Oh really? I know some Americans who might disagree with you. Some of my friends, for instance...

At best, even if every American is proud to be "American," they each have a different conception of what it is to be American. The Southerner's conception of Americanness is entirely different than that of the New Englander or the Californian.

Being from a country is far more than to belong to a common abstract political entity. Any country is far more than that : it's the addition of so many things. I'm surprised to see myself saying that to you !!

What you feel about your country is probably how anyone is feeling about any country.

Of course, and as I said I am very proud of certain things about Canada, just as I am proud of certain things about Quebec. But I don't necessarily feel proud to be a Canadian, full stop. To me that entails a certain tacit acceptance of everything that is wrong with this country.

I'm actually kind of relieved that this has started construction. When I saw that the sales centre still wasn't occupied I was worried that they would be waiting for several months before digging.

it seems to be under perpetual construction. they must be going along as they get the money. first it was just a box, then they added the minaret, then the mural.

I'm certainly a proud Montrealer but I can't bring myself to say that I'm either a proud Canadian or a proud Quebecker. (In fact, I don't even consider myself to be a real Quebecker, since my experience of this province is limited entirely to Montreal. Similarly, even though I grew up in Calgary, I never considered myself to be an Albertan. Alberta means nothing to me.)

I'm proud of certain things in Canada, but I'm also deeply ashamed of and disillusioned by others. To be proud of an abstract political entity just strikes me as being a bit silly.

yeah, but this is all empty rhetoric: the USA might be a "melting pot" but in reality it's no different than canada. i mean, just look at los angeles: it's a cultural mosaic just like toronto but it's way more segregated.

Quebec n'est pas bilingue ni multiculturel? D'accord. C'est une province presqu'entièrement francophone et assez homogène.

Mais MONTRÉAL? C'est assez évident que c'est une ville bilingue et multiculturelle. Seulement un con ou un démagogue le nierait.

Bernard Landry reste à Montréal mais on dirait qu'il n'a jamais devenu un Montréalais. Son mépris pour la métropole est indéniable.

(desole pour la manque d'accents, je ne sais pas comment activer le clavier francais sur cet ordinateur.)

j'ai deja travaille avec plusieurs francophones. une, noemi, venait de quebec et son anglais etait assez faible. je parlais 100% francais avec elle. par contre, un autre collegue a passe quelques ans en angleterre et il parlait un bon anglais avec un accent anglais. je parlais l'anglais avec lui... meme quand je parlais parfois le francais il m'a toujours repondu en anglais.

i have many friends that were raised in montreal. whether they identify themselves as francophone, anglophone or something else, they all speak both languages perfectly --- and, often enough, they speak a third language as well, albeit less fluently than english or french.

thanks to my girlfriend's work, i also know many new chinese immigrants who have only very recently come to montreal. almost all of them devote themselves to learning both french and english. they realize that, in montreal, you need to know both --- but especially french --- in order to succeed.