Deadlines, deadlines!

The next 24-48 hours will be particularly stressful for ol' Al. Not only do I have an assignment for my French-to-English translation course, but the deadline for my MA application is tomorrow. I've been polishing up my submissions as best I can, but I'm still missing one of my reference letters. I sent an e-mail yesterday to the professor in question, but as of right now, I haven't received a reply. With any luck, it'll magically appear in my mailbox before the deadline. After all, the Department Checklist clearly states that "only complete application packages will be processed." So, yeah. A wee bit worried. Sorry for the brevity of this entry, but I think I'll pace back and forth for a bit. Til next time...

Church, Balance and the Subtlety of Language

After my chance meeting of Martin’s uncle at la paroisse de Saint-Ambroise a few weeks ago, I’ve been attending mass every Sunday. I’d been thinking back on my Kin 021 class from several years back and the concept of the Wellness Wheel. A quick websearch turns up a bunch of sites related to the Wheel, so if you’re interested in a more thorough discussion of the topic, I encourage you to check them out.

Anyway, I’ve accepted that I lack balance in my life. In fact, I may have mentioned that in a previous entry… well, maybe not explicitly, but I had at least resolved to make some efforts towards self-improvement. The Spiritual segment of the Wellness Wheel has been non-existent for me for the past 15-20 years, at least, so I thought that it was a good place to start. Also, since the services are conducted in French, it’s a good opportunity for me to look at the language in a different context.

I won’t pretend to be a highly skilled grammarian by any stretch of the imagination, but I did notice some things that I found interesting. In English, when one uses God (and by “God” I mean the Christian version) in a sentence, it usually starts with an uppercase letter. That’s not particularly unusual, since it’s being used as a proper name. However, the same goes for when God is replaced by a pronoun, regardless of its placement within the sentence (eg. “I am an instrument of His will.”). From what I recall, this is supposed to acknowledge the writer’s reverence for the Supreme Being.

French is a far more subtle language, so I was interested in seeing how religious content was handled. I’ve been a bit surprised at the way the prayers have been translated, particularly since Quebec has (historically) been a God-fearing province for hundreds of years. I had expected to see a lot more use of what is typically called the vous de politesse. For those not familiar with the language, I’ll try and explain this as best I can.

In French, there are 2 pronouns used for the English equivalent of “You.” There’s the form “tu” and the form “vous.” The “tu” form is used when addressing an individual with whom one has a certain degree of familiarity. The “vous” form is used when addressing a group of people, when addressing someone that one holds in high esteem, someone elderly, a business client or perhaps just someone who one doesn’t know very well. Its use is a mark of respect. It used to be used when addressing one’s parents, but it’s pretty uncommon to see it used that way now. They’ve even got a couple of verbs specifically used to inform someone that they can switch from the “vous” to the “tu” or vice versa (tutoyer and vouvoyer).

So as I was saying, I figured that any prayers or responses would be full of “vous” when referring to God, perhaps even written in uppercase letters to note a similar reverence to God as what one sees in the English equivalent. Not so. At least not in the translations used in this parish. From what Martin’s uncle told me, they’ve used a lot of translations from Latin over the years and this particular one is far less formal in its structure. I was thinking about that and, to a certain extent, it makes sense to me. Through the subtlety of the language construction, this French version tries to create a familiarity with God. He isn’t some unknown force, but rather someone with whom parishioners can have a very close, personal relationship. This concept of a personal relationship with God is also in keeping with the message being conveyed during the masses. Anyway, it’s this sort of nuance that continues to fuel my interest in the French language. I’m intrigued by how much can be expressed by something so simple as the choice between the use of “tu” or “vous.”

I’m not sure if anyone else is still awake after reading this entry, but whatever. I find the topic interesting. Til next time…

Têtes à claques

I was talking with my distant cousin, Sylvain, recently and he pointed me in the direction of a site called Têtes à claques. According to my handy dictionary, that translates to “unpleasant faces,” which would pretty much sum up the look of the rather bizarre looking characters in these direct-to-web short comedic films. I kept forgetting to look up the site until this morning when I read an article online that announced that the folks at Juste Pour Rire had purchased the rights to these shorts and planned on selling them to various broadcasters all over the world. The creator of the shorts, Michel Beaudet, has maintained the rights for the internet, mobile phones and the Canadian and Quebecois television markets.

I took a look at the site and, to be quite honest, I’m not sure what I think about it. Part of the humour must come from the look of the characters, which are pretty much plastic figurines with Beaudet’s mouth and eyes spliced overtop to do the dialogue and the reactions, but I’m not sure how this has blown up into such a phenomenon. The site was launched in August and now gets about 250,000 visitors per day. That’s the sort of traffic ol’ Al could only dream of!

The most popular clip is a spoof of infomercials, advertising a the fictitious Willi Waller potato peelers. Just to give you an additional idea of the influence of this site, vendors in Montreal and area reported an increase in the sale of potato peelers during the Christmas season. There were many a happy Quebecois who found potato peelers in their stockings. Le monde est fou!

Anyway, if you’re a fan of short webfilms, then I encourage you to check out this site. Maybe one of my faithful readers can explain the appeal. Keep in mind, all the videos are in French at this point. They’re working on English versions, though, so when this is unleashed on an unsuspecting anglo audience, just remember where you saw it first! Til next time…

***UPDATE: Jan 25, 2007*** Alright, I took another look at the site and a few more of the clips. It's funnier than I first gave it credit for. Not every one's a winner, but there are plenty that are good! When I first made this posting, I doubted that I'd bother checking it out again, but now I can say that I'm becoming a fan. Til next time...

Racism in Quebec

Well, how about this little tidbit? After I spent a considerable amount of time defending les Quebecois against accusations of being racist and intolerant, they go ahead and admit it in a survey conducted by Le Journal de Montreal, TVA and 98.5 FM! Needless to say, I’m disheartened by this new information, especially since the same survey indicated that, collectively, the Quebecois are more racist than the rest of Canada.

According to the survey, 59% of those surveyed indicated that they were strongly, moderately or marginally racist. That’s a pretty significant number. Apparently the Arab community bears the brunt of these negative feelings, followed by the Jewish and Black communities. Surprisingly, the Asian community is barely mentioned. Now before we go tarring and feathering the ethnic Quebecois, it merits mentioning that half of the respondents who come from ethnic communities also consider themselves racist.

Apparently the respondents indicated that news coverage of the Middle East, in combination with the events of September 11, 2001, have contributed most strongly to the negative views of Arabs. The reaction to 9/11 shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but it also shouldn’t be used as a crutch 5 years after the fact to justify negative views of an entire cultural group, especially since those living here had nothing to do with it. This is making my brain hurt.

Now I didn’t participate in the survey, nor have I seen the list of questions, but I’m quite aware that statistics can be manipulated to support just about any conclusion one can think of. Remember, the survey indicates that 6 out of 10 people fit anywhere within the range of strongly to marginally racist. That’s a pretty wide berth. I’d be far more interested in seeing how many admit that they’re strongly racist. Perhaps Quebec is less ethnically diverse than the rest of Canada? Could that impact the results? Perhaps the Quebecois are more direct and honest in their discourse, admitting what those in the rest of Canada may be too embarrassed to admit? At the very least it sparks discussion. It may be nothing more than sensationalist nonsense used to drive newspaper sales or TV ratings, but if this somehow positively contributes to addressing an existing problem, then I’m all for it. Til next time…

Tag

I noticed a spike in my traffic today and since I didn’t post any links to gratuitous nudity recently, I found this to be a bit puzzling. So off I went to check my handy sitemeter and found the source of this new activity. It seems I’ve been “tagged” in some sort of game of blog tag by a columnist for Le Journal de Montréal named Jean-François Codère. You’re right, J-F, I had absolutely no idea that you stopped by to read my little blog, but I welcome visitors from the Francophone community. I expect your readers were a wee bit surprised to find largely English language content on my site when they followed the link. Anyway, perhaps you can point me in the direction of other aspects of Montreal that I’ve yet to discover.

Alright, out of respect for J-F’s link, I’ll play along, as well. From what I’ve gathered, I need to come up with 5 things to post about myself that aren’t exactly common knowledge. Hmmm. That may be tougher than I’d have thought as I’ve been pretty open about most things on here. Alright, here goes:

1) I have a fairly unnatural fear of squirrels. It’s subsided over the years, but I still don’t like the wee rodents. When I was a young lad of around 5 or 6 years old, I was chased around a playground by a (possibly rabid) squirrel. I have no idea how I managed to escape the little bastard unharmed, but since that time I’ve been afraid of them.
2) I have no idea how to ice skate. I had fully intended to learn, but the only time my parents took me out to skate, my mother hit some sort of edge on the ice surface and broke her leg. We just never went out to try again. If some petite québécoise wants to teach me, then I’m more than happy to learn!
3) I’m not a “cat person.” I prefer dogs as household pets.
4) I started watching curling in the 1990s because I thought Kim Gellard was really hot. Now I actually have an appreciation for the game. No, really. I do.
5) I’m half newfie. Both my grandparents on my mother’s side were born and raised in Newfoundland. I’ve never been there, but I think it may be nice to visit sometime.

That covers it, I think. I’m sure I could put something more scandalous down, but I’ll leave that for another time. As for the tagging of other blogs… hmmm… I suppose that Phil Renaud could put down something interesting. Let’s add Chris to the list, as well. Til next time…

Just Rambling

Things have been rather slow chez Al B Here. The semester has begun and I’ve been to my first two classes. I think it’ll be nice to have a regular routine, once I get accustomed to the consecutive 13 hour days on campus. I’m still working away on the MA application package. I managed to secure my references and even dig up some old, graded papers while I was home. THAT was a genuine surprise, let me tell you!

I dug through some plastic storage bins in my old closet and came out with a couple of ‘A’ papers from the days of my youth. I didn’t reread them because I was sure I would start critiquing my old work. And what good would that do? I wonder how surprised the selection committee will be when they see a writing sample from 1997… that was back before anyone even considered using online resources in essays and research papers!

In the interests of accountability, I thought I would post some of my goals for the New Year. No, they’re not resolutions. Resolutions are useless. So here’s the first one: buy a notebook and start carrying it around. Morgan has been hounding me about this one and he’s right more often than wrong (as we learned during a Totally 80s Trivial Pursuit game), so I’m going to give it a shot. Second, I’m going to make a more concerted effort to get to the gym. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are a complete write-off, because of my courses, but that leaves 5 other eligible days. My goal is to get there 3 times per week. This is actually part of a more general goal, which is to live a healthier lifestyle. I won’t give up anything, per se, but I’m going to seek a better balance in my life.

I think that covers everything for now. Wait, no. My final goal is to get back to posting some witty commentaries sooner than later. Til next time…

the Louis-José Houde experiment

I'm trying a little experiment here. Having seen the nifty clips that others have managed to include in their blogs, I thought I would try and do the same. I've attemped to link to a short clip of the stand up comedy of Louis-José Houde. Those of you who've seen the film Bon Cop Bad Cop will remember him as the fast talking coroner, Jeff.

He seems to be pretty much everywhere at the moment. Definitely one of the "in" Quebecois comedians at the moment. So sit back and enjoy this little experiment. By the way, it's in French, so I apologize to those readers that don't understand the language. Til next time...

Some Interesting Sites

Since I have a bit of time this morning, I thought I would direct my readers to a couple of interesting sites. The first is the blog of Matthew Hayday from Mount Allison University. He’s a post-doctoral fellow in Canadian Studies and has written a book called Bilingual Today, United Tomorrow: Official Languages in Education and Canadian Federalism (a copy of which is sitting on my kitchen table). It’s one thing for me to ramble on about Quebecois culture and language issues, but Matthew has the credibility to back up his analysis. He’s also been rather helpful as I’ve searched for potential essay topics for my MA application, so check out his site. I think it’s a worthwhile read.

The next comes from Larry Savage from Brock University. I’d gotten an e-mail over the past few weeks, indicating that he would like to put a link to my blog on his site and since I welcome new readers, I gave him the thumbs up to do so. I’ve skimmed his entries over the past week or so and it looks like a pretty interesting blog in its own right. He’s definitely more tech-savvy than I am, so if you like audio and video clips as well as interesting commentary, then I encourage you to visit his site, as well.

I’ll be starting one of my translation courses tonight, so we’ll have to see how workload affects my blogging output. As OJ has been so adept in pointing out, I’ve been AWOL for a good chunk of the holiday season. With any luck, I’ll be able to put things together on a more consistent basis as my humble blog enters its second year of existence. Til next time…

Draw Your Own Conclusions

Welcome to 2007! I’ve returned from the surprisingly green environs of London, Ontario and still have a day or so to kill before I start back at work. So I’ve been watching a bit of football and a variety of dvds (including my newest guilty pleasure, a film called Stick It). Since part of my holidays have already been covered on Chris’ blog, I thought I would jump straight to this past Sunday, when I had one of those really Bizarro World moments. Enough preamble, let’s get to it.

This past Sunday, I decided to check out the local Catholic churches. I’m not a devout Catholic by any stretch of the imagination, but recent correspondence with a new friend prompted me to take a look around. So I did some web searches on the Archdiocese of Montreal website and found a listing for Saint-Etienne, located about a block or so from me. It didn’t list the times of the services, so I made a wild guess and took a walk over. Here’s the thing—when I got to the address, there was NO church there! Nothing. There was just a fenced off lawn where I was expecting to see one.

I was a little put off by that. One would think that the Archdiocese would have the good sense to keep their parish listings at least somewhat current. I turned around and started to walk home when I noticed a church steeple off a few blocks away from me. So I decided it was worth a look. After all, I could have gotten the address mixed up. The closer I got, the more I realized how big this place was. It was HUGE. I can’t really say I’m surprised, though, since historically, the province of Quebec has always been a very Catholic province.

As it turns out, I’d found the parish of Saint-Ambroise. The service had started at 11am, so I was already late, but I decided to slip in the back anyway. Now I’m not sure if it was the echo of the hall (if someone can suggest a better word to describe the inside of a church, I’ll gladly take it) or the fact that I’d never spent much time learning religious words in my French courses, but I didn’t understand the majority of what was said. After the mass, I decided to introduce myself to the priest.

He was a pleasant enough fellow, with glasses and gray hair. He gave me the general rundown of the mass schedule and asked the usual questions about whether I’d been baptized, etc. occasionally switching to English after noticing my accent. I’d mentioned in passing that I had moved to Montreal from London and he told me that his brother used to teach Physics at Western. Interesting coincidence, but I didn’t think anything more of it.

On my way out, I took a look at the parish bulletin, trying to find a listing of the mass times and then, before leaving, I remembered my manners and asked the priest’s name. His answer left me stunned. We’re talking jaw-on-the-floor stunned here. I had just been having a pleasant conversation with Denis Saint-Maurice—the uncle of one of my best friends through eighth grade and high school, Martin St-Maurice! I’m a bit disappointed in myself that I hadn’t caught on sooner, since it was common knowledge amongst our group of friends that Martin’s father was a Physics professor. That was the reason they moved to London in the first place!

So I’m not sure what to make of this, to be quite honest. After all, there are a little less than 2 million people in Montreal and I just happened to move into THIS parish’s area? The odds of this happening are lottery-esque. So draw what conclusions you may from this, but I think I’ll be popping into the Sunday services a bit more regularly from now on. Couldn’t hurt, right? Til next time…