Weary I am of the goodbyes and the dull pangs of melancholy I’ve been dealing with for the past few days. Fifteen years, off an on, since 1987, finally (?) coming to a close (??). I’ll be finding my nook in the experiences afforded by this place for years and years to come, so Montreal will never really disappear for me. It’s like a second skin now, not so easy to slough off. Montreal remains the place I found out what it means to be a city-dweller. Here I learned about things a navel-gazing, suburban adolescence never promised. I opened up and out here, taking in the anonymity, community, loneliness and intimacy. Montreal really served as the city I came into being, yes, in that existential sense. So for that I’m grateful.

Twenty years has seen many people come and go, and I’m sorry I couldn’t see more of those still here before I leave. But I’m happy to let that very social fact, its very matter-of-fact transience, retain its romantic appeal for me, in part because it formed the governing rhetoric of the city, the instability which people both loved and loathed and which motivated me and my research. It was the social logic that got me to where I am today. For that too I’m grateful.

In the past, I was the type of person who always loves to leave a place. I could never pack soon enough. That’s been tempered here, of course. I’ve really been savouring Montreal’s simpler pleasures, like doing nothing on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon but strolling up and down side streets. As I partially left two years ago, my separation anxiety this time around has been moderate. Now, with the big move really over, the records, posters, the knick knacks packed and tucked away in another city, the exhaustion has perhaps trumped any sense of sadness. This, like so much of the past couple of months, will no doubt hit me sometime in future. Or maybe not. Perhaps all this displacement has mobilized various defense mechanisms which have left me rootless and affective-less. I’m just gliding along, and things feel abstract, inaccessible, impenetrable, and most of all, somewhat distant. (And as a corollary, I’ve been rendering everything rather two-dimensional with my constant photographing, endlessly documenting and cataloguing Montreal landmarks and icons.)

But maybe I’m just trying to write my way past the lump in my throat.

At this point in the Great Ratio of Life, so far the endings have outnumbered the beginnings. Not for long I hope.

When I first left Montreal more than ten years ago, I was on my way to Australia and New Zealand. While there, I discovered much music and culture, so little of which had come this way (with some exceptions, the case seemed different in Europe from what I can tell). One of the greatest pleasures I had was hearing Peter Milton Walsh, of The Apartments, live in a small little in-store on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, Melbourne. He’s retired from music now, but he’s left us with at least one classic (later covered admirably by This Mortal Coil). Mr. Somewhere pretty much sums up my emotional and physical state right now:

Day comes up sicker than a cat
Something’s wrong that is that

Now the milkman beats you to the door
That was once a home, home no more
And Mr. Somewhere, missing somewhere couldn’t get the calendar to stop
Missing somewhere, never did figure just how much
Missing somewhere, never will admit just how much

Make of that what you will.

Iso G.

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Phew, more than ten days since the last post. I’d like to say so much has happened during those days, but really, time’s crawled at a snail’s pace while I’ve been gearing up for the great apartment move.

I’ve really been trying to let Montreal soak in a bit over these last few days. To that end, I’ve done a couple of DJ gigs, as well as a night at Jupiter Room. Nice to get some rumps shaking.

Done the rounds with some friends, but not really enough yet. Getting in some food fixes (bagels, Terrasse Lafayette, poutine — the veggie kind), Quebec beer, and Montreal in May. Actually the last hasn’t been so hot, literally. ‘Tis getting green though, so I’m happy all the same.

The NZ course seems good to go and I’ve got to add a couple more things to another course on popular music I’ll be giving guest lectures in. I’m still trying to wrap my head around all of this as it’s a tiny whirlwind of change which will no doubt leave something indelible on me. I have a feeling I won’t really be able to let anything sink in until I’m well ensconced in NZ.

I spent the last couple of days trying to sort out seven years of hoarding back on St. Laurent. Most of it will stay (I mean, New Zealand will present its own kind of hoarding potential, right?). I packed up my records, pausing to take in a few things I haven’t listened to in more than fifteen years (but I’m sure I’ll get back to in NZ, right?). More of the same for the next few days, with another DJ night to break up the monotony.

To Mississauga on Saturday. Stories from there soon.

And, oh yeah, this week the Canadian government might collapse and the Queen’s in town (thankfully not this town, but somewhere out West).

In other news, I was sad to hear that the great Swedish jazz singer, Monica Zetterlund, died in an apartment fire in Stockholm (by most accounts, it was the result of careless smoking). I’m not really a diehard fan, but I did get a chance to hear her music while in Copenhagen, as well as some classics she’d done as re-interpreted by others (see the Copenhagen post for more on that). So, in her honour, two of her classics: Bedårande Sommarvals and En gång i Stockholm.

Iso G.

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Yes, I’ve landed safely back in Montreal, but not without contracting a tiny cold from those vessels of airborne disease, the hacking children in the row behind me.

I was sad to see that Montreal wasn’t as far along Spring-wise as Berlin (which when I left was positively lush and green and 33 degrees). However, it’s warming up daily, so I expect that by the time I leave, Montreal will have given over to the fecundity of its summertime charms.

I’ve already started working the New Zealand job, sorting out readings and such, which I’ll have to mail off next week. I’m not sure if this is a good omen that the library there doesn’t have Simmel in its holdings. We’ll have to see about getting them up to speed on things. It’s been a bizarre chore trying to put together a course with a double handicap; that is, having to do this without my library on-hand and not having a clue as to what an upper-year course in NZ-terms looks like. Thankfully, the first one I’m looking after is co-taught, so the other lecturer has been more than helpful in sorting out things on the ground.

While in Montreal, I’ve also lined up a couple of DJ gigs, which always makes me happy. That Montreal institution, L’Eighties night, which feels a bit calcified these days, will be joined by me next week. It’s always a fun night, if not for the crowd, at least for me and the other DJs.

In blog-related news, I also hit 1000 views on my Flickr account. A sense of accomplished distraction nearly overwhelms me.

Note that the first place I hit was Fairmount Bagels, for a proper start to my last trip to Montreal for who knows how long. I wonder what the Wellington equivalent would be. Probably involves Orange Roughy or something fishy. I’ll have to find a veggie substitute. Recommendations welcome.

And lo, sweet readers/listeners, finally a proper podcast. You’ll have to forgive me for being a bit slack on this, but you understand what with the travel and illness and sunshine and all. A country-flavoured one this week (and no doubt there will be more along these lines).

Tracklisting:

1) L. Bacalov - Sugar Colt
2) Roy Hogsed - Rag Mop
3) Sons of the Pioneers - Too Old to Cut the Musterd
4) Arthur Smith - Mr. Stalin You’re Eatin’ Too High Off the Hog
5) Dave Dudley - Where There’s a Will There’s a Way
6) Roy Rogers - A Gay Ranchero
7) Terry Fell - We Wanna See Santa Do the Mambo
8) Roger Miller - You Can’t Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd
9) Marvin Rainwater - Boo Hoo
10) Tex Williams - Let’s Go Rockabilly
11) Porter Wagoner - Company’s Comin’
12) Harry Johnson - It’s Nothing to Me

Iso G.

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A brisk flight from Berlin to Copenhagen (45 minutes). I have a meeting with some Danish colleagues and I’m hooking up with a Swedish/honorary Danish friend for a few days.

Wednesday night is spent wandering around Christiania, the old hippie commune just outside the city. The air was thick with the oily, sweet smell of hash and patchouli (no patchouli really, but the smell is always there in absentia when I spot hippies. Am I too unfair? Nope, just amping up the disdain for the anticipated encounter with the Tam Tam players in Montreal and their scruffy Sunday squatting on Mont Royal. shudder). The commune is under siege by the conservative government actually, and it appears their easygoing lifestyle is going to have to get in line with the new Danish order (meaning they’ll have to pay taxes and act like “productive citizens”). We find a good restaurant here, which gives you American-sized portions for European-sized prices. Sated, we wander through central Copenhagen to a bar where a friend is supposed to be working, but he’s ill. A nice cellar bar and we decide to have one drink and call it a night.

Thursday I’m on my own, strolling through the city, taking in Central Station, Tivoli, City Hall and one record shop (I really have been good lately), in the former slum cum boho area, Vesterbro. Copenhagen is a somewhat fragmented collision/collusion of royal, military, market, medieval and modernist cities, which often makes orientation difficult. Over the course of the twentieth century, there have been various attempts to both fuse and distinguish the various districts. My favourite has to be the attempt to develop the city along a set of radial lines in something called, quite prosaically, “The Fingerplan.” In one version (the idea originates with Stein Eiler Rasmussen in 1947), the image of a hand is superimposed over Copenhagen, guiding planners as to how they might accommodate and manage the expansion of commercial and residential aspects of the city, a plan which might include, in the interstices of these urban digits, ample park space (a mixture of green and grey developments, as they say). The curious thing is that the plan was so simple and compelling that many contemporary plans for the city still rely on it.

As in Manchester, I’ve become somewhat fond of the roughness I’m seeing ’round town, which is out in spades today (actually, you really see it and feel it in Amager, a working-class/student district just on the southern edge of central Copenhagen). Later, I realize that there was a football match on, which explains the surly gangs of uniformly costumed and war-paint bespeckled boys, as well as the number of police vans scouring the streets and criss-crossing Central Square. My fondness was quickly dashed.

Friday I head off to the Musicology Department at the University of Copenhagen, where I meet up with people on the Danish Rock History Research project. (One thing you should know about how I approach a new city: I rarely look at maps. This usually makes for an adventurous meander through the city, but also makes you very late for scheduled appointments.) A few hours talking about the state of Danish pop music, media, and the upcoming IASPM conference and I’m off on my own again, making my way slowly to the Danish Radio House. Here I’m sitting in on a sound check for a performance which will be part of this weekend’s up-and-coming band showcase. This particular set is sounding much like Tori Amos, about which I’ll reserve judgment (except to note that the actual performance the following night consisted of a liberal scattering of rose petals around the stage, the musicians wearing laurels in their hair, and going barefoot. And me filling in the scene with the ghostly aroma of patchouli…. A tad too earnestly Gaian for me. But the musicians were solid. Though I’m obliged to say that as one was my host.)

Later that night we visit my host’s Swedish compatriot, who is performing in a jazz combo at one of Copenhagen’s oldest gay bars (Café Intime, pictured above). Chock a block with old queers and queens, it had the lived-in feel of a well-worn institution, done up with a velvety cabaret flare. It was a night of Swedish jazz standards (which go down better than Danish jazz standards, such as they are, I’m told), which hit all the right notes (save for the singer, who slowly tuned into her role of chanteuse). And one grand dame of a lesbian was celebrating her birthday, in grand dame style as you do, complete with a bout of upbeat dancing that put my sedentary ass to shame. All in all, a warm and beautiful evening.

Saturday, a proper walking tour through the city, along some of the canals, down to the harbour to glare at the new Opera House (and a sometimes disheartening talk about what it takes to get into the orchestra there. No meritocracy there.) and then wandering around the old fortifications, which serve as the city’s jogging circle and dog run (and yes, there was a Great Dane sighting). As night rolls in, we gear up for the big performance, which will be going out live over Danish radio. The festival is an awkward affair, not least because it has the more aggressive air of a meat market, with little attention paid to the performers. I was not particularly enthralled by much, music or people, so I headed out to sample the surrounding neighbourhood, which looked postcard-perfect in the warm spring air.

In the end, my new favourite thing to do in Copenhagen was to sit at the front of the driverless metro train and just take in the tunnel action. It’s only a couple of years old and barely used, so you’re pretty much guaranteed a front row seat for the screening of Copenhagen’s better-late-than-never entry into so-last-century metropolitan life.

Later this week, I’ll return to Montreal and Toronto, the third time since I left two years ago. I’m sorting out my apartment and visiting friends and family, before heading off to The Land of the Long White Cloud (”Aotearoa, rugged individual,” so says Split Enz). And a not so odd coincidence: Copenhagen is located on the island of Zealand (which makes it Old Zealand, I guess). Funny Ol’ World. It will be the last visit for a while, I think. I’ve got mixed feelings about this, in large part because I feel like my fleeting emotional attachment to all the cities I’ve been in has me pulled in too many directions and left me a little unmoored. Of course, I’ve also got my books scattered in different cities. And now it appears that Deutsche Post has lost three boxes of them somewhere between Norrköping and Berlin. Don’t get me started on my dealings with Deutsche Post. We’ve got a history.

Almost as compensation, and in a feel-good Benjaminian moment, I finally took out my books and records from storage in Berlin. I stayed up until 3 AM just listening to records I hadn’t heard for nearly a year. I guess I can call this home. For now.

Music: A dose of Danish pop, from Tesco Value, a band which sometimes sounds like a bit too-studied (read: music-academy trained) version of the Arcade Fire (but who were around before AF). Here is a Polish song, Proszse Sie Nie Baz, off their self-released album, Songs for the Gatekeeper.

Podcast in next post, which I hope to put up before I head off to Canada.

Iso G.

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