Mar 31 2004
Blue Metropolis
Blue Metropolis starts today. That’s the big multi-lingual literary festival that was started only six years ago. It’s grown considerably, and is now quite the production, with dozens and dozens of readings, panels, workshops, and love-ins featuring writers from all over the world and in many languages.
Unfortunately, their Web site has been down for several days now (it redirects to an old version — here, try it yourself), making it difficult to get information. That is doubly-difficult because the festival program is hard to come by too. You can supposedly get one at the Nicolas Hoare bookstore if you want to trot all the way over to Westmount, or at some obscure other bookstore that nobody has ever heard of (and the no-longer-there Web site provided no directions to).
The kaput Web site claimed that the program would be in the Saturday Gazette prior to the festival, but I bought the last two Saturday’s issues and came up empty. (Reports indicate that at least some Gazette subscribers got them last weekend.) Apparently you can also get them at the venue, which is no relief for anyone who doesn’t live or work near there.
Incidentally, the venue has changed. Last year it was held at the Renaissance Hotel on Ave. du Parc, but soon afterwards the hotel inexplicably closed and was converted into dorms for McGill students.
This year Blue Metropolis is being held at the Hyatt Regency hotel at the corner of Ste. Catherine and Jeanne-Mance (part of Complexe Desjardins). That’s one odd hotel. I went there yesterday to get a program and had a difficult time finding my way around. The main entrance, it turns out, is inside the parking area — so you have to walk into the parking garage to get to it. Then you pass through the revolving doors into a carpeted area that has no sign of life or of anything else — such as directions. I eventually found my way to an elevator. Inside my only choices were “up” and “down.” No floor numbers specified. So I went up, and eventually emerged into the lobby.
I asked the concierge for a festival program and he gave me his second-last one. I inquired if there was an easier way to enter the hotel, and he said no, I had used the main entrance. On the way out I found a short-cut. If you go in the door to the Italian restaurant that’s right on the corner, you can bypass the restaurant, go down a lonely carpeted hallway, and emerge in front of the numberless elevator.
A Blue Metropolis anecdote: Six years ago, Binky and I were perusing the books table at the first Blue Metropolis festival — at the time a tiny little event at the Hotel Europa, downtown. We bumped into William Weintraub, one of my favorite ambassadors of bygone days and a former drinking buddy of two of my favorite writers, Brian Moore and Mordecai Richler.
A brief conversation ensued, and the topic of email was brought up. Weintraub shook his head and said “I don’t get it with email. We used to write letters to each other. Long, meaningful letters. With email all I get are these short little messages that don’t mean anything.”
“Obviously,” I retorted, “you’re getting email from the wrong people.”
Speaking of books, what’s up with this tome from the Dalai Lama? “The Art of Happiness at Work?” Isn’t that like taking marital advice from a priest?
15 Comments on “Blue Metropolis”
Don’t diss the Dalai! :)
One of the things I’m increasingly appreciating about Buddhism is the fact that it’s focused not on some gauzy spiritual afterlife but on the here-and-now, and in fact its raison-d’etre is learning to be happy in the here-and-now. And work - from toiling in the field to, uh, doing layouts on a PowerBook - is a source of unhappiness to billions. So why shouldn’t he address it?
Blue Metropolis: wow, you’ve hit the trifecta - web-unsavvy organization, pedestrian-unfriendly architecture and a complete lack of wayfinding infrastructure.
OT, what is it with authors these days needing to have three names to be taken seriously? And having to place the portentous “A Novel.” on the cover of any work of fiction? :)
AJ, it’s not like he’s ever actually had a job!
The three name thing is a bit much sometimes, although maybe it’s a matter of there being SO MANY WRITERS these days that you need three names to differentiate. After all, if some kid from Cape Breton named Salman Rushdie publishes a novel, he might want to specify that he’s Salman ANGUS Rushdie, not the other one.
Being a spiritual leader is not quite like an office job, but it’s a tough job and it looks like someone has to do it! ;-)
AJ: Check out this very interesting book (which I’ve been trying to finish for the last 3 years. Ah impermanence!):
Buddhism without beliefs:
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573226564/701-2509118-8601168
And Blork: I had never even heard of Blue Metropolis before I met you and started attending the conferences. It might be multilingual, but most of the PR work is done through English newspapers and bookstores. It’s like an anglo Salon du Livre. Too bad because there are a lot of good things on the program… when you can find it!
On Buddhism I recommend A Buddhist Bible by Dwight Goddard. It introduced ol Jack to Buddhism and he went on to write the Scriptures of the Golden Eternity. Here’s Scripture number 59:
Cats yawn because they realize that there’s nothing to do.
Here’s the entire thing:
golden eternity
They had the program around the UQAM halls, no problem finding it!
You can get programs at Montreal public librairies.
At the libraries? I wish I had known!
M, the anglo press probably publicizes it more because we repressed anglos are always grasping for recognition. ;-) Seriously though, it is organized by folks who are largely anglo, but that doesn’t mean the event is anglo. But it might mean that the franco press dismisses it as just another damn anglo thing.
When I picked up the program I flipped through page after page looking for the English. It seems more French than English by far. Most of the sponsor and PR blurbs at the front are in French only, and the bilingual stuff is always French first (which means if you look at it quickly it looks like French only, since the English isn’t different typographically).
In fact, the cover of the program is overwhelmingly French. The only English is the word “memory” and “The 6th Blue Met.” All else, including the title, dates, and location, are in French.
This year’s events are in French, English, Spanish, Catalan, Creole, Italian, Acoma, Yiddish, and Neopolitan.
Even as the Panchen Lama he wouldn’t have lived any sort of posh life, he would have been out watering the llamas and weaving the yarn for the saffron robes or whatever it is they do at the monastery…
One doesn’t have to directly experience a thing to be able to observe it, write about it, or even come up with an insight that others have not - presuming of course that the writing was well-thought out, researched, and pursued in good faith (pardon the pun…)
Work consists of a few different spheres of activity - creative work, the making of things, the selling of things, the administration of things.
Often work is repetitive, often it is not something we choose to do but something we fall into.
Often we do not choose our workmates, often we don’t get along with them. These things are universal, and have existed since the beginnings of work itself. Most often our unhappiness with work stems from our desire to be doing something else, or to be free from something unpleasant, etc.
So I think Buddhism, whose central precepts revolve around learning to be happy by releasing oneself from angst and unprofitable desires, to pursue that which is true to oneself, has at least a little something to teach us about work…
Oh AJ, it was a joke! :-)
Is it still organised by Linda Leith? (Blue Met, not buddhism.) You know, it’s like the Fringe: if it’s a bilingual event organised by anglos, the francophones either don’t know about it or don’t want to know about it. Over-simplification, granted, but there it is. You have to knock them over the head to get them interested, and even then, if there’s too much english being spoken then they’re scared off. Of course, this is in regard to the general public.
I mean, when Marie-Claire Blais was at the BM a few years back, it was wall-to-wall francophone, so some people stay in the know.
Oh, and who knew that Paul Auster was in town?
I think you have something there, Michel. I think there’s a perception that French = Francophone, English = Anglophone, and bilingual = Anglophone.
Paul Auster’s visit has been all over CBC and the Gazette, and a few other (anglo) places. No big secret. At least not to anglos.
Paul Auster is huge with French people and québécois. They (francophone newspapers) did that about the fact that he was going to be here.
As far as the bilingual = anglo thing: it’s like the “l’oeuf et la poule” story. Which came first? Did francophone shy away from the event because there wasn’t enough offering in French or was there little offering in French because no francophone showed up?
I know…I know…call me Mr. Literalism….
very funny story… great site too!