The Blork Blog

I went to the Annual QWF Awards Gala last night, and on the way out, as I worked my way through the swag, I picked up a bookmark from the Used Book Circle that listed the second-hand bookstores (specializing in English-language books) that can be found in “mid-town” Montreal. As a fan of used bookstores, it occurred to me that this is a very nice and useful analog resource that could used a web-based companion.

If you’re awake, you’ll realize I just linked to www.usedbookcircle.com, which is a nice catch-all resource for used bookstores in London (Ontario), Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Victoria. However, my very sketchy and not so empirical test reveals that it doesn’t show up well on Web searches. (Although it does include a lot of useful information beyond just bookstore addresses.) This blog, on the other hand, has, after almost eight years in existence, notched up a decent Google ranking.

Therefore, as a public service, I hereby pass on the Used Book Circle’s Montreal list, under the highly Googleable heading of “used bookstores in Montreal” (alternatively, “second-hand bookstores in Montreal”).

Used Bookstores in Montreal

Westcott Books
2065 Ste-Catherine West [Map]
514-846-4037

Librairie Astro
1844 Ste-Catherine West [Map]
514-932-1139

Odyssey Books*
1439 Stanley [Map]
514-844-4843

Cheap Thrills*
2044 Metcalf [Map]
514-844-8988

Bibliomania
460 Ste-Catherine West, #406 [Map]
514-933-8156

The Word*^†
469 Milton [Map]
514-845-5640

S. W. Welch*
225 St. Viateur West [Map]
514-848-9358

Ex Libris
2159 Mackay St. [Map]
Tel: 514-284-0350

Enjoy!

* Personal favorites
^† Note: cash only.

Loyal readers will recall my blog post from last March in which I presented a TED video of Karen Armstrong and her “Charter for Compassion” lecture. I said then:

… Armstrong discusses the idea that what lies at the heart of the Abrahamic religions is the simple notion of the Golden Rule: “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you.” (…) She argues that the nasty aspects of religion that we’ve become so familiar with in recent years are a function of ego and human nature, not something within religion itself. Rather, the core of religion is human compassion as expressed in the Golden Rule.

Apparently, one of the goals of TED lectures is to enable the granting of “wishes” for particularly good ideas. In this case, a few soon to be more highly taxed wealthy folks in the crowd took her words to heart and have created a web site to collaboratively write the charter. The web site, www.charterforcompassion.org, invites regular plugs like us to contribute to the project, which is in progress over the next few weeks (up until December 4, 2008).

It’s a nice idea that even we secular folks should be able to get behind (just interpret the “do onto others” thing as “don’t be such a douchebag”). Hey, if it leads to less bickering and more people getting along, I’m all for it.

Now that the U.S. election is over, we have at least three or four weeks before the campaigning for 2012 begins. Let’s use this time to discuss some of the real issues that affect our daily lives.

For example, while mowing through some Hallowe’en candy recently, I was reminded of a design flaw inherent in the move towards hollow plastic lollipop sticks. This shift away from tightly rolled paper has been going on for some time, but the endless campaigning has distracted me from it.

The flaw is simply this: the plastic sticks are hollow, which prevents you from achieving proper suction while consuming your lollipop. Oh, the first few minutes are usually good, but as soon as the lollipop shrinks to the point of exposing the end of the stick, your vacuum is over.

The state of the plastic lollypop stick, circa 2008.

If you’re lucky, you can suck the lollipop down to a nub before this happens. Sometimes however, depending on the depth and angle of the stick, it happens right away, which can ruin your whole afternoon.

It is difficult to fully convey how annoying this is. You’re sitting there, blissfully enjoying your lemon or strawberry lollipop, and then sshhhhhhhhhh! The seal is broken and you’re sucking in cold dirty air. From then on, you can’t get any action from your lollipop, it just dangles there, making loud and sloppy whistling noises as you inevitably keep trying to get some proper lollipoppage. It’s a reflex left over from infancy; give a three-month old a pierced rubber nipple with no bottle attached, and see how quickly he gets pissed off from sucking in air. Yet he keeps on trying.

As a workaround, I recommend rolling a small sliver of paper, wetting it, and inserting it into the bottom of the hollow stick to block the air flow. Duck tape works too. However, what I really want is for the lollipop manufacturers to wake up to this flaw; to realize how the hollow stick spoils the lollipop experience.

Not that I want to go back to paper, which is prone to sogginess at the critical juncture where the stick meets the ball of tasty goodness. But what about designing a stick that is sectioned, like a pole of bamboo? While you’re at it, add a bit of texture so you don’t have to dig out that little divet in order to make the ball grip the stick.

Hire me. I’m an independent lollipop consultant. My rates are reasonable.

Back in the day, I was a Tri-X 400 addict. Tri-X 400 is a black-and-white (B&W) film from Kodak that was once (and to a small extent, still is) popular among photojournalists. It was well loved for being very forgiving in terms of exposure latitude, as well as being fast (base speed of 400, but pushable to 800 or even 1600 in a pinch). Photos taken on Tri-X have a very particular look about them; a special kind of punchy contrast that is very satisfying but isn’t fake looking or over-done. It has a nice salt & pepper grain that most photographers of yore thought of as providing a distinct texture to the images. Think of any B&W photos from the Korean or Vietnam wars, and there’s about a 90% chance it was shot on Tri-X.

I used to buy it in 100-foot rolls and hand-load it into 35mm cartridges, which I developed and printed myself. Those were the days. Frankly, I don’t miss the smells and chemistry, nor the enormous black hole of time that a darkroom is, or at least was. In the early 90s it wasn’t unusual for me to spend 10 or 12 hours of a Saturday in there.

But I do miss my Tri-X.

Fortunately, my new digital camera – a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3, which is at least physically similar to my old Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2 – is providing me with a bit of a nostalgic trip. Normally I detest the various silly modes and pre-canned settings that come built into most digital cameras, but this one has a mode called “Dynamic B&W” that produces results that remind me of images from Tri-X film.

For example, below is a photo I grabbed this evening at about 5:30. It was dark and rainy, and my old LX2 would not have been able to do anything under those circumstances. (That model is notorious for its noise when set above ISO 200, a problem that has been dealt with beautifully with the LX3.) I put my LX3 in “Dynamic B&W mode and cranked the ISO up to 1600 and grabbed a few one-handed shots from under my umbrella. My intention was to just test the camera, to see what the technical quality of the images would be.

A test shot, but I kind of like it. I particularly like the texture and feel, which reminds me of Tri-X. The only post-processing is that I brought down the highlights a bit to emphasize the stormy sky. Best seen large (1200×801 pixels).

At ISO 1600, there are some pretty wonky noise artifacts when viewed at 100% magnification. But if I reduce the image to Flickr size (which for me is usually 1200 pixels wide), the noise becomes a pleasant grain. More importantly, the images have that magical “Tri-Xy” quality that you can’t quite put your finger on but you know it’s there. At ISO 400 it seems to be even better; same punchy quality without the noise problems.

Not bad for a camera you can fit in your shirt pocket (assuming you have fairly big shirt pockets). Those who watch my Flickr stream and my Monday Morning Photo Blog might be seeing more B&W photos there in the next little while.

By the way, you may be wondering why I choose to shoot in B&W instead of simply converting to B&W in Photoshop. The answer is simple (yet not); when I’m photographing, I tend to pre-visualize. When I’m shooting B&W, I think slightly differently than when I’m shooting color. So when the camera is in B&W mode, so too am I.

In lieu of U.S. election coverage, I present to you a few notes and photos regarding Saturday’s pizza night chez nous.

We always start with the classic and zen-like pizza Margherita, which, when done right, can be a truly joyful thing. I attempt to do it right by using a very simple sauce composed of only drained, then ground, San Marzano tomatoes, a couple of tablespoons of good olive oil, and a bit of salt and pepper. That’s it. No cooking, no nothing. Just top notch-Italian tomatoes with a bit of oil and seasoning to make it sing. It is important to drain the tomatoes through a wire sieve first, as almost a full cup of water will come out. A too watery sauce will make your pizza soggy (something I wish they’d learn at Bottega, supposedly Montreal’s finest pizzeria).

This Margherita was also blessed with real mozzarella di bufala, which is expensive but worth it. As you can see, 125 grams was enough for this roughly 12-inch pizza. Finally, it was topped with fresh basil plucked from a living plant. And naturally, the basil was added after the pizza came out of the oven.

The second pizza was a real eye-popper. Same crust, same sauce (but slightly less of it and dressed lightly with some dried oregano), then topped with grated Friulano cheese, pan-crisped pancetta maison, and big hunks of porcini mushrooms.

In this case the mushrooms were frozen (and thawed, of course) as that amount of fresh porcinis would have cost about $20, if you could even find them. The cheese, Friulano, is an Italian inspired Canadian cheese that is sort of like mild cheddar but slightly nuttier tasting. I usually go half-and-half with mozzerella, but I had no mozzarella left. The only downside to the Friulano is that it’s very oily when you melt it (as you can see), but if you can forgive yourself it’s mighty delicious!

I wish I were a good enough bread man to make my own dough, but I’m not so I don’t. For the past year I’ve been using the fresh pizza dough from Milano, on Boul. St. Laurent in Little Italy (Montreal). I find it works remarkably well, and has never let me down. It rises up nice and soft inside with a definitely crispy exterior, just the way I like it.

OK, now that we’ve had dinner, it’s back to that election coverage.

I‘ve been in denial about the arrival of autumn. While it remains my favorite, although somewhat melancholy, time of year, the arrival of this year’s autumn is particularly hard to take after last year’s winter.

However, there is no doubt it has arrived, and it seems to have arrived in full this weekend. It was impossible to miss on Saturday, when Martine and I went on a covered bridge hunt in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. But that was out in the country. What about closer to home?

I knew it was here for sure when I looked into the back yard this morning. Our maple trees are among the last in this neighbourhood to give up the green, but when I saw the leaves on the table out back I knew it was time.

On the way to catch the bus into town, Autumn’s arrival was loud and clear, made particularly interesting because of the early morning fog we had today.

As I walked through the quiet morning, I finally shook off summer. Despite the unseasonably warm air today, autumn is upon is. There’s no going back. Now it is time to embrace autumn’s beauty and then hope for a short winter.