Since it appears that I am a marked man, and anything I link to has the potential to land me in jail, I will be extremely careful when writing here. (Kate at the Montreal City Weblog, Julie Belanger at maZe and Martin Breton at brem experience all do wonderful jobs of summarizing my situation).

But if anyone is interested in reading the contraband information, I will be bringing photocopies of all the articles to YULBlog this Wednesday.

Oh, and if anyone knows a good constitutional lawyer who accepts legal aid cases, I’d be most appreciative if you let me know.

Glen LeMesurier makes a bunch of people in Mile End happy. Go make him happy by seeing the new sculptures he made at Van Horne and Saint Urbain tonight from 6 pm.

Peggy Curran over at the Gazette wrote a fluff and feelgood article about Project 55. Project 55 is an oral history project directed by Steven High somehow affiliated with Concordia University. On first blush it s pretty cool. They have the requisite mp3 file, and they have pdf files as well that help explain things.

But what I find most interesting is how it seems like every two or three years someone thinks it is going to be a fabulous idea to do some history of Saint Laurent and stick it up on the web. Governments are suckers for that sort of thing, falling over themselves to throw money at anyone who even writes teh words “history,” “Saint Laurent,” and “Internet.” in the same grant application.

Last year, ATSA did their FRAG on the Main. In 2004 they did a test of FRAG on the Main, that they must not have been terribly satisfied with as they then went and redid it..

Then if you want an earlier (abd audio-less version) I strongly reccommend Parks Canada’s version which went up in 1998 or so.

And finally, in a nice bit of timing there is an exhibit on right now of work by Bill Vazan at Vox which just so happens to have one piece of his called “Walking to the Vanishing Point June 13, 1970, Northward on Saint Laurent, Montreal.” Which is a series of pictures Mr. Vazan took at every street corner from Saint Laurent and de la Commune to Saint Laurent and Somerville.

[update May 13: I just discovered that there is another piece of art that deals with Saint Laurent and the 55 bus. It is called Fifty-Five, and it is by Kinga Araya, and currently it is being exhibited around the city as part of Rythmes Urbains.]

303 days ago I wrote a post about the cameras on Saint Laurent. Well they are now ‘live’ and as a consequence the Gazette has written an editorial against them being used. My guess is that the Gazette editorial is going to be as effective as my original post.

If you are interested in making your opinions known, these are the people in charge who can do something about it:
Gordon Bernstein, President of the SDC Saint Laurent, (514) 286-1021.
Marco Carrier, commander of Police Station 38, (514) 280-0119.
Madame Helen Fotopulos, Mairesse of Le Plateau, (514) 872-9530
Richard Bergeron, city councilor (514) 868-5193.
Isabel Dos Santos, city councilor (514) 868-5195.
Madame Josee Duplessis, city councilor (514) 868-5196.
Madame Eleni Fakotakis, city councilor (514) 868-5192.
Michel Labrecque, city councilor (514) 868-5191.
Michel Prescott, city councilor (514) 868-5194.
Societe de developpement du boulevard Saint-Laurent (514) 286-0334.

As some of you might know there is an annual popularity contest run by the Montreal Mirror, called The Best of Montreal. Since you need to have a minimum of 25 entries for your ballot to count, I figured I might make some suggestions in some categories so as to help people fill it out.

For the record, I have deliberately left the Best Blog category blank, because I am fairly certain that everyone who reads this has an opinion. Also, in case you didn’t know, I run Zeke’s Gallery, and the three artists that I suggested for best art exhibit all had their exhibits here, and a bunch of the musians have played here as well. Lisa Hunter (best author auggestion) is a Metroblogger as well.

And if you do fill out a ballot, the format for the telephone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx, all hypens, no parenthesis.

Best political/social cause: The Arts
Best local radio show: Homerun
Best local radio host: Bernard Saint-Laurent
Best neighbourhood: The Plateau
Best waiter/waitress: Hugo at La Montée de Lait
Best sleazy dive: Brutopia
Best watering hole: Aszu
Best pickup spot: Any art gallery in town
Best happy hour: Musee d’art contemporain vernissages
Best terrasse: La Rotunde at the Musee d’art contemporain
Best drug: Beer
Best musical act: Pat Lehman Band, United Steel Workers of Montreal, Katie Moore, Little Birdie, Sarah Mangle, Kyra Shaughnessy, Pierre-Yves Martel, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Philippe Lauzier and lots more…
Best country/folk act: United Steel Workers of Montreal
Best jazz musician: Pierre-Yves Martel, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Philippe Lauzier
Best singer/songwriter: Sarah Mangle
Best local actor: Adam Kelly
Best spoken word act: Kyra Shaughnessy
Best museum: Musee des beaux arts, Musee d’art contemporain, Musee Emile Berliner
Best gallery: Zeke’s Gallery
Best art exhibit: Naledi Jackson, tyson howard, Tricia McDaid
Best author: Lisa Hunter
Best magazine/zine: The Mirror
Best cartoonist: Billy Mavreas, Dstrbo
Best Internet Service Provider: VIF
Best florist: Florateria
Best kitsch/antique store: Monastiraki
Best cheap eats: Vietnamese Sub
Best late-night eats: Dollar Pizza
Best breakfast: Dim Sum
Best Chinese : Beijing
Best Indian: Mysore
Best Japanese: Isakaya
Best Mexican: Mex-I
Best Middle-Eastern: Andalos
Best Portuguese: Le Roi du Plateau
Best barbecued chicken: Rotisserie Portugalia
Best poutine: La Banquise
Best coffee: La Vieille Europe
Best non-chain coffee: La Vieille Europe
Best locally brewed beer: Brutopia
Best drag queen: Miss Gina
Best standup comedian: Uncalled For

It appears that the all the fundraising has worked. To give you the back story, about a year ago, Dr. Robert J. Lang had a wicked cool exhibit of things he made at the Redpath Museum. They had so much fun with it, that they asked him back in order to get their own giant origami Pteranodon.

No, I’m not certain I know what it is either – but they will be constructing it next week, and if you can’t help, it definitely is worth at least a gander.

if you need help finding the Redpath Museum (it is a little tricky) click on this.

The Blue Met Festival released their schedule yesterday, and like last year, completely ignore blogs, blogging, and bloggers. And it doesn’t look like they will be accrediting bloggers either, as the form has a field for ‘employer.’

Does anyone want to try?

[Update: Apparently this election thing is important. Her interview has been bumped to Wednesday eve, everything else remains the same]

I don’t know how many folk still listen to As it Happens in the gazillion channel universe, especially since it is (gasp!) a radio program, on the CBC to boot. But I am immensely proud of my mother as she is going to be interviewed by Carol Off all about Gardasil, aka the HPV vaccination.

For those of you out of the loop (or too young to know) As it Happens is a 20+ year old radio program where they call out to newsmakers and informed folk (like my mom) on headline stuff. Back when I was a youngster one of the cooler ones was when they interviewed the best friend of a woman who had tried to assasinate president Ford – as you might guess it was quite incendiary. If I remember correctly it was listened to by as many as 1 million people, but I would guess many fewer these days.

If you care to hear my mom, the program starts at 6:30 pm, lasts an hour (although I do not know exactly what time my mom is going to be interviewed) and CBC radio One is 88.5 or 104.7 depending where on the island you live, or you can stream it from their website, or download their podcast after the fact.

Arcade Fire make it into the New Yorker magazine. Apparently this indie music thing that makes Montreal fascinating to people from the Empire state has not stopped. Unfortunately, Sasha Frere-Jones decided it would be better to see the band in London than here. Oh well.

Well I looked and I searched and I couldn’t find anything locally, so I figured it was worthwhile mentioning here. According to this article in the New York Times, and this article in the LA Times, local press pundit Dick Pound was rebuked by the International Olympic Committee for comments he made in 2005.

I’ve never been a big fan of Mr. Pound’s, and while I’m not exactly jumping up and down, it is heartening to hear that the IOC thinks that what Mr. Pound said ‘impugned the integrity‘ of Lance Armstrong. It is a nice reminder to think before speaking.