Byte Thoughts 3.0: It's too damn hot to think straight but holy shit, thank the gods it's summertime!

3.1. The number of chain-smoking fools hanging out at LaFontaine Park always makes me flee the second the sun finishes setting and the boozers come out to play. I've come to realize it's not really cigarette smoke that bothers me per se but the quality of the tobacco being smoked. When I walk by someone smoking a high quality cigar or cigarette, I actually enjoy the smell of its second hand smoke.

So long as folks continue to smoke their nasty cancer sticks around the lovely pond at Parc LaFontaine, I'll continue to lounge around in other parks instead. It's a shame, the sun sets are sooo beautiful around the pond.

Now that I think of it.. the number of cigarette smokers at this particular park may have something to do with the low number of children playing around Parc LaFontaine. I guess parents these days don't like exposing their youngsters to toxic smoke if they can help it.

Which is a good sign.. with all luck the new generation of Quebecois children will grow up to be strong and smart enough to avoid the very products that are made by anglophone multi-national corporations which only lines the pockets of said anglophones while they sit around rubbing their hands in glee as our Quebecois youth and welfare classes kick the bucket decades earlier than they would otherwise.

Dudes, if you truly support the Quebecois movement, maybe you should stop smoking Anglo products that cause genetic malformations and chronic illness in the very population you're so damn proud of and trying so hard to protect: Quebec!

3.2. If you desperately need to smoke a cigarette, do yourself and everyone around you a favour and smoke pure tobacco. All these commercial cigarette brands are hardly tobacco at all, they're mostly chaff and sawdust and tar and benzene and cyanide, they are quite literally cancer in a stick. I am of the personal opinion that cigarette manufacturers should be banned from selling anything but 100% pure tobacco. I'm a bit perplexed as to why food, alcohol, and drug companies are not allowed to sell overtly toxic products for human consumption, but cigarette companies are allowed to sell products containing additives that are scientifically proven to be toxic. If food companies put benzene and tar and cyanide in their food products, they would be shut down in an instant. Why are cigarette companies not held to the same standards? I can understand the United States government not giving a flying fuck but c'mon Canada, you're better than that.

All Natural Native brand cigarettes are the Canadian equivalent of Free Spirit cigarettes and better quality in my opinion. I believe they are 100% additive free, but don't take my word for it.

3.3. Harp-Peur aka Stephen Harper

3.4. It would be nice if the city of Montreal put out garbage bins that hold bottles and cans that others can return for deposit along the edge of the can, like they have in Vancouver.

3.5. It would also be nice if the provincial government instituted a broad container deposit system like they have in British Columbia so that virtually all plastic, glass, paper, and metal containers could be brought back to bottle depots for a return deposit. This would take the burden off local depanneurs and grocery stores and would also open up a new industry in Quebec where entrepreneurs could open container depots and make a modest profit. This would also give low-income individuals incentive to pick rubbish off the street as they would also make a modest profit collecting recyclable materials.

At the moment there is no incentive for folks to clean up after themselves or pick rubbish off the streets, so instead Montreal's alleys and sidewalks and public spaces are constantly cluttered with waste, most of which is recyclable. This one small act, creating a container depot system, would simultaneously clean the streets of garbage and create small business incentives.

3.6. Stop cutting and start supporting and healing old trees in Montreal, dammit.

3.7. The city of Montreal stopped removing old tree stumps and trunks on Mount Royal about 5 years ago and it has created a noticeable difference the past couple of years, especially this summer. There are thousands of new mushrooms and colonies of moss and lichen! There is also a lot of new growth around the stumps since they provide moisture and shade for new sprouts. These stumps and trunks also create natural seating areas for park visitors, which are frequently used. Heck of a lot cheaper than installing a bunch of new benches everywhere, not to mention saving time and money leaving trunks in the park rather than cutting them up and dragging them out (to some contractor's backyard, no doubt).

3.8.We need to start looking at wheat flour and other grain flours as powdered sugar rather than a wholesome nutritious meal. Wheat = gluten = glucose = sugar.

3.9. There should be an active wildlife station on Mount Royal. There used to be one when I was a child..

Interior atrium of the ruelle des fortifications of the Centre de Commerce Mondial de Montréal in the Quartier International de Montréal. The grey stone building in the centre is just one of many fine examples of granite stone structures in Montreal. Most of the Appalachian Shield is comprised of granite and marble, so we have an abundance of both at our disposal as a building material.

3.10. I love granite as a building material. I also love the way the city has edged many of our new sidewalks in granite, it is more robust than regular sidewalk concrete and doesn't erode and chip the way concrete does. It's also aesthetically pleasing.

Sometimes I'll walk by a building with a granite exterior and I'll stop for a second and admire the way it glitters in the sun, or run my hands over it.. beautiful!

3.11. I read in a home renovation book recently that the larger the gravel is in a cement mix, the stronger that cement will be once it's dry. I wonder if this is indeed true...

3.12. Television came to Canada in the fall of 1952. Before television, the National Film Board of Canada was one of the only sources of visual entertainment in Canada. Folks came out to watch NFB films at local and impromptu theatres in droves, it was a regional event for many people, which is why NFB propaganda was so popular before the advent of television.Whole crowds of people would come from farms and factories to gather round a single projector in a school house or barn or outdoor screen and have a party of it.

NFB films are still popular today, however there is a noticeable difference between the documentary and propaganda films of the 1940-1950 era and the films being published today. In the 1940's NFB films were very optimistic, whereas today's films are quite pessimistic. It would be preferable if newer NFB films - and documentary films in general - could balance themselves between naive optimism and grudging pessimism.

I often avoid watching documentary films these days because while I appreciate and encourage free speech and uncensored public information, it doesn't help anyone if viewers are left with a feeling of impending doom at the end of the film. This only serves to terrorize the public and gives us a sense of powerlessness, impotence. If you must create a film - or music or any medium thereof - to educate the public on despotism and genocide, consider providing the public with constructive methods for combating said despotism.

There is a fine line between public education and public terrorism.

3.13. Lorne Greene's New Wilderness: one of my all time favourite television series when I was a child. Lorne Greene is also the reason why I still love Bonanza to this day. Him and Michael Landon. I should go on a Bonanza watching spree one of these days...

3.14. Late April, Easter Sunday 2011. Sitting in that secluded spot on the mountain, just above Rachel, I can see the Big O and hear the tam tams loud as day from all the way up here. The lawn of Jeanne-Mance park and the football field look so green, along with small groups of coniferous trees, red and white birch branches against the grey and brown buildings and tawn of spring. One mysterious tree is already budding, bright gold-green. There are only one or two bright gold-green trees lighting up among the thousands that haven't woken up yet. Bright maroon red, pink red, sunset red branches and white white birch..

3.15. This is not something I recommend or advocate or do very often, myself, but every once in awhile, when the snow isn't quite melted and there's less chance of forest fire..

***

It's dark, well past midnight, there is rain on the wind but I'm on Mount Royal tending a small campfire left behind by someone else. I've added dry leaves and small bits of wood and now that I've blown life back into the ashes, I sit down, calm and at peace and think of primitive magic. One of man's first tricks: the wonder and gift of creating fire. I feed small twigs and branches and oak leaves, thick pieces of bark fallen from trees over the winter. I hear traffic and airplanes glimmer across the night sky, roaring like quiet thunder... and I think.... tanzer... means dancer in German.

3.16. Old George, who lived at the corner of 6th Avenue and Roy in Dorval, the street I grew up on, had a sable coated german shepherd named Tanzer. I ask George what "Tanzer" means and he tells me.

Tanzer is a stoic, grouchy but handsome dog who scared the bejesus out of the neighbourhood kids who'd veer far away from the tall wooden fence around George's back yard any time Tanzer came near. I was scared of him too but loved dogs so much I'd simper up to the fence, let him sniff my hand, and sadly watch him turn away in complete disinterest.

When I was about 10 years old George adopted another shepherd, a small but friendly russet bitch he named Trouble. She was a wild lil pup who grew up to be an equally wild companion for grumpy ol' Tanzer. I couldn't resist. As soon as I saw Trouble in George's yard I ran up and introduce myself to her. She was a wonderful dog. Still scary, the way German Shepherds tend to be. Imposing. Stubborn. But smart.

I started taking Trouble for walks. Every few weeks I'd come by and ask George if I could take Trouble out and he'd sit and chat for a few minutes before he went and got her leash. Then we were off, usually to the abandoned field next to the apartment buildings behind my house, where my brothers and I would build forts.

After awhile Tanzer warmed up to me too and when I was big enough to take both dogs out at once, that's what I did. They were better company than most of the neighbourhood kids. It became a habit. When I was lonely or bored and wanted some company I'd take the neighbourhood dogs for a walk, for free. Kelley, the beautiful border collie across the street, my own dog Dutchess, a black Labrador, and Tanzer and Trouble too.

One day George showed me his big toe, which was half rotted through with cancer. A few months after that he told me his toe'd been clean taken off. A couple years passed and I noticed the dogs were becoming unkempt. George stopped cooking homemade meals for the dogs, beef stew, stopped brushing their fur, and he stopped coming out to mow the lawn and chat on his front porch. The house was boarded up and the dogs were taken away by his daughter, who told me Old George had passed away.

I went to the lake shore and thought for a long time.

Tanzer. Means "dancer" in German.


***


3.17. Weird the way hospitals and aerospace factories have the same odour.

3.18. Why are there no snakes or frogs on Mount Royal?

3.19. Normandy. My father once told us we were descendents of the Normands of France. He tells us he is the seventh son of the seventh son and my mother rolls her eyes, gimme a break, illusions of grandeur. But it's true, if you count all the daughters in between. My brother Keith takes it seriously. He loves our father dearly. I do too, but I can barely remember him. My father's name is Norman, which just compounds the issue. I'm only two, but I remember things..

First my father, then my mother leaves.. and a lot of stuff happens in between.

***

We're 14 and 16. My brother thinks the seventh son of the seventh son means my father was a Satanist. I roll my eyes at him. My brother and his illusions of grandeur. He paints his bedroom first blood red, doesn't like it, so a few weeks later he paints his room pitch black. He collects skulls and bones and cuts words into his skin. He pierces his own ears, sticks needles through the webs between his fingers, so I pierce my own ears too. It doesn't actually hurt. So I pierce my right ear again, three piercings in a row, sew fishing line and beads through two of them, a regular ear ring in the last and oldest, the one I begged my foster mother to let me have when I was eight.

I go to church every Sunday morning and Bible study on Thursday nights. My brother goes to the woods and drinks and smokes and parties with his girlfriend and neighbourhood punks. I go sometimes too. I'm stuck between two worlds and I'm alright with that. I interlope. I leave church every Sunday and come home to Ste-Rose with my Satanist brother and his skin-cutting body-piercing friends and life is interesting and it's all good.

I paint murals on my bedroom wall. A horse's head, poetry, landscapes and abstract doodles and my mother complains. My brother and his satanic blood red and pitch black darkness is a-okay but God help me if I paint beautiful things on my own bedroom wall.

My mother owes me two hundred dollars and won't give it to me so I steal her guitar. My brother shows me first C, then D, then G. My fingers hurt but I keep going, strum each painful chord one at a time, a single strum down. My brother is better than I am, he has the gift, but me, it takes time. The guitar is too big, the strings are too far off the fret. My brother has bigger fingers and I'm jealous he can hold the strings down so easily. But I keep going, keep going, keep at it, until I can strum my first few songs.

Every Rose Has It's Thorn.

Patience.

Blaze of Glory.

The Rose.

I go to church and I can play guitar now.

I sing gospel songs and do my best to play along.

***

3.20. With cloning and genetic manipulation, scientists are bringing the ancient gods, the gods of old, back to life again, though most do not know it.

3.21. Those hardest to love are the ones who need it the most.

3.22. Remaining cultures with powerful positive magic.. the Irish.. the Hasids.. the Africans.. the Indians.. our First Nations..

3.23. It is possible to be both critical and optimistic.

3.24. Hasids depend on their cars and minivans too much. I rarely see an adult Hasid riding a bicycle. Dudes, you guys need to get in touch with the Earth again, with your own bodies. I only criticize you because I love you so much. You have powerful magic, you need to set an example for others.

3.25. LaRouche is all about semantics but doesn't seem to be all that concerned with root causes. So much noise and so little action. Bad vibes from dude trying to sell me LaRouche propaganda on avenue du Parc near the corner of rue Bernard.

3.26. Prescribed affection: hug therapy > prescribed medication: drug therapy.

3.27. Aleutian Islands

3.28. The very word "government" implies despotism.

3.29. Mandatory prison education. Basic Math, English, Biology, and Health science.

3.30. Alvar Aalto: 1898-1976. Finnish architect.

3.31. Helena Syrkus: 1900-1982. Polish architect.

3.32. Kunio Maekawa: 1905-1986. Japanese architect. Worked with le Corbusier.

3.33. Norman Bel Geddes: 1893-1958. American theatrical and industrial designer.

3.34. Odd how the higher the value and income of a neighbourhood is, the less people use their yards and homes. I walk through these wealthy hoods and rarely see anyone out enjoying their yards, no families having a nice BBQ dinner together, no children playing ball on the street, no adults sitting around laughing and playing music and having a drink or two. Almost as if the more wealth a person accumulates the less soul they possess.

3.35. Why are red brick buildings so charming?

3.36. I keep mentioning this, but it's ridiculous how much noise pollution automobile traffic creates! It is extremely irritating/disturbing.

3.37. Beeping signals for the blind at crosswalks.. are they supposed to beep when the lights are red? Or are they simply indicators that there is in fact a button for sight-impaired folks to push? Because there are several signals beeping constantly at busy intersections regardless of whether the light is green or red and it is quite disconcerting. Mildly ironic that sight-impaired individuals seem to be a wee bit more cognitively aware than our own city workers are since I keep coming across malfunctioning signals for the blind and yet have yet to witness a blind pedestrian in a street accident.

notice the braille to the right of the moss

If any of you city workers are reading this, please check the beeping signal-for-the-blind at the main cross-walk on avenue du Parc in front of the George-Etienne Cartier memorial, as well as the ever-beeping signals along chemin Cote-Ste-Catherine. Merci!

3.38. The punks and vagrants seem to be doing a better job - without pay! - of taking care of Mount Royal than the Amis de la Montagne and city workers seem to be doing, for pay. Local punks have been carefully placing fallen logs and dead trees across unofficial pathways to deter cyclists and other visitors from crashing through the woods, which stops cyclists/visitors from killing small trees and bushes and countless plants along the way.

These same anonymous landscapers have rebuilt the small brook north-east of the of the George-Etienne Cartier memorial. They've obviously put a lot of time and effort into their work, moving all the stones and large rocks by hand. Whoever you guys are... I love you! Keep up the good work. I wish I knew who you were! The city should be paying you guys for your work, damn it.

3.39. I need to find out the name of what locals call, "scrub maple".. it's such a fast growing tree.

3.40. I wish city workers and private landscapers would create manmade paths on top of organic pathways rather than creating new - and completely unused - pathways based on in-organic design. Just because it looks pretty on paper doesn't mean it's functional in practice.

3.41. Per Wikipedia:

Richard Phillips Feynman ( /ˈfaɪnmən/; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics (he proposed the parton model). For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman, jointly with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. He developed a widely used pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions governing the behavior of subatomic particles, which later became known as Feynman diagrams. During his lifetime, Feynman became one of the best-known scientists in the world. 

3.42. Young, pretty mulatto chick walking by me yesterday, as I was cycling along Decarie zooming past the old Blue Bonnets site to trade some kribs for some rasboras at the new Aquatropicale store at Decarie Square (also the site of the Dollar Cinema, incidentally), grins at me, chuckling, calls out, "tan dammit! tan dammit!". I look down at my pale-ass arms and laugh.

Tan, damn it!

3.43. Thucydides: c. 460 BC - 395 BC. "War is a stern teacher".

Gotta love CBC.

3.44. I understand the appeal of planting annuals because they require more turnover, so growers can make a steady profit every year by selling new plants to gardeners and garden centers, and to their clients. But perennials are more appropriate, they're better for the environment, and they don't create as much waste and loss of manpower.

Landscape designers, growers, gardeners, and our municipal department should stop planting annuals, or at least only plant them in small containers, and plant perennials in our city gardens, as well as private gardens. Our horticultural and landscape design industry should stop focusing on short-term profit and reeducate themselves, focus on organic gardening, building roof top gardens, vertical farms, next tier horticultural projects. These types of projects create more profit in any case as they require more labour and materials, and tend to cater to clients with more disposable income.

3.45. Please, for the love of your own damn city and planet, stop creating Make Work Projects. There are so many necessary public works and private projects that need to be built and maintained. There is no need to build half-shod public works and low-quality private projects just to ensure future work and profit. Stop draining city coffers with low-quality work, and stop pointing the finger at the mayor, point it at your own damn selves: shady-ass construction crews and landscape companies.

3.46. Plastic signs too easily destroyed, barely last a full season. Aluminum/stainless steel ones last for years.

3.47. Don't mow at least 3 to 5 feet around base of trees, growth protects the roots from being exposed, trees healthier.

3.48. Few old growth trees in Montreal, sadly.

3.49. Something healing and powerful about pine woods. Wonder what it is... the sap, maybe? Stays fluid in both hot and cold?

3.50. There should be a pedestrian cross-walk at Esplanade and rue Mont-Royal.

3.51. Sense of community is very important. This is the most notable difference between Vancouver and Montreal and why people tend to leave Vancouver to come back east. There is a greater sense of community on the east coast. Perhaps because the east coast has had more time to grow organically, to set down psychological roots. Toronto is somewhere in between Vancouver and Montreal. Toronto has a sense of community, but also a sense of social alienation. Vancouver has virtually no sense of community, but the city is slowly taking root. In a few decades Vancouver should be more settled, but only if the gap between rich and poor is addressed. See: human population not using yards and homes in high income communities. Deserted yards and homes = lack of sense of community = social alienation.

3.52. Neptune's Banquet

Peace, bastards.

3.53. The more I learn about pure and applied science the more I realize no one really knows what's going on and all "laws" of science are arbitrary hubris.

3.54. Paraphrased: you can enter a room filled with evil and darkness and light a candle and the darkness will flee, the room will be illuminated with light. But the opposite does not happen, if darkness enters a room filled with light the darkness will immediately fade to nothing. Darkness cannot exist in light. But light can exist in darkness.

3.55. I (current) = V (voltage) ÷ R (resistance)

or V = I x R

3.56. Cardinal tetras are a much better choice for the home aquarium than neon tetras, which tend to die off very quickly. Cardinal tetras are more robust, and more colourful.

3.57. The air quality around lower Peel at rue Williams STINKS. I had to cover my mouth with cloth it was so bad. Some building in that area has a subpar ventilation and air filtration system and needs to be replaced. It has the same air quality as the incinerator in the meat packing plant at the corner of Parc & Bernard, thick choking exhaust. That said, it appears said meat packing plant has recently revamped it's exhaust system (or stopped incinerating carcasses on site), I have not smelled ye olde animal carcass holocaust coming from that building for several months now. Lets hope it stays that way.

3.58. I really need to gather my stones and check out the new Nouveau Palais, it's right across the freakin' street. The possibility of bumping into Pop Boss skeers me... I can take on a big ol' mean German Shepherd for Christ's sake but Pop-dude makes me run away faster than you can say goddamn.

3.59. I seem to have a weird and mild allergic reaction to bananas. More than a couple bananas per day results in a histamine reaction. Also, is it just me or do organic bananas taste spicier than regular bananas? Like cinnamon.. or nutmeg. Or something.

3.60. Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless:

"Anything that happens, happens.

Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.

Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.

It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though."

Montreal in the distance..