Play Like It’s 1989

C’est le temps de la revanche. After taking slack from Canuck and Maple Leaf fans for years, oh how the tables have turned. Since no one knows what’ll happen in the playoffs I thought I’d take this little moment to gloat, and though I have to admit I’d cheer for a Canadian team over an American team any day, I’d also give anything right now to see those arrogant smugs wiped off those silly Toronto faces. If you’re a Toronto fan, feel free to send me pictures of yourself pre and post season, and I’ll be sure to post them in my next blog. Promise.

Readers, if you’re in the same mood as me, here’s a wee Instigator cartoon that’ll bring tears of laughter/joy to your eyes. To quote my buddy Ed “… the Leafs are done, which is one step in the right direction for the civilized world.”

Alright, that’s enough, let’s not forget Karma. However, I will say one thing. Honestly stepping back as an objective observer, I like the Flames this year to go all the way. Why? Because their strengths are exactly the kind of qualities that win Cups. A team concept, a hot Vezina/MVP-calibre goalie and most of all, more heart than any team in the entire league. Any one of those things can win you a Cup all on its own! I keep reading over and over again how the Flames weakness lies in their lack of scoring, how they don’t tally enough goals to be a threat in the post-season and how this’ll haunt them down the stretch. However, I think people need to start looking at it from the other angle - Sutter and the Flames have managed to make a defensive approach successful in a league where changes have been made expressly to encourage offense. Scoring is the highest it’s been in years, penalties for clutching and grabbing are being called left right and centre and the Flames, with the 4th lowest goal scoring in the league, pulled in 103 points. This is by far one of the most startling achievements in the entire league this season.

Simply put, offense wins games, defense wins championships, and Calgary far and away has the lowest goals against of any NHL team. Not to jinx it, but this could be the year!

As for the east, I’m cheering for the Habs. Why? Ask yourself which team was the only one to win a Stanley Cup in the Montreal Forum besides the Canadiens, and you’ll have your answer. Besides, how epic would a Kipper-Huet duel be? This is the stuff legends are made of.

In honour of this year’s momentous achievements and the ones I see coming, I’ve posted a few photos I downloaded way back in 2004, when I was all the way in Scotland staying up late at night listening to the Flames’ Cup run on online radio. I get excited just looking at them.

GO FLAMES GO!!

P.S. – What’s this I hear about the popo cracking down on the red mile? Say it ain’t so!

Le Gros Connard
So... here's a good story for ya. Yesterday, I popped into the internet café early so as to send a document to my prof that I'd been writing the night before. I went online on MSN while I was at it, but of course, since it was 11AM here it was uber early in Canada, and still kind of early for everyone else, no one was really online. So I minimized and forgot about it, carried on with my day, and left without closing it.
Fastforward to 7 o'clock at night, and Hélène goes online at the university to find me 'online' (I was actually at home) and began talking to 'me'. And 'I' reply etc. etc., you can see where this goes, pretty quickly she figures out it ain't me (by the guy's horrible english) and demands that he close my account right away, to which he replies that he refuses, why close a good account, and besides it's an easy way for him to have hot women message him, or something along those lines. Anyways, Hélène comes home, grabs me, and we head straight to the internet café where we catch the dick readhanded with my account and give him HELL!! It was sweet, especially hearing Hélène really go off on someone in French (plus I added my two cents from time to time... that's all I really have in French, it's suprising how hard it is to get angry in a language that is not your own). It was awesome, he cleary thought he wouldn't get busted on it, and to get reemed out for being such a dick he felt great shame (or so it seemed to me). Luckily, he claims not to have fooled with my e-mail, and I found no evidence that he had (and luckily there was nothing personal on there anyways).
But here's the thing, if any of you talked to me on MSN yesterday, at any time, IT WASN'T ME! Just so that's clear, he seemed like a real creep so who knows what he might've said. Actually, I'd be curious - if you talked to 'me' yesterday, feel free to upload the conversation into the comments area, could be amusing.
So who's the gros connard? Well him obviously, and I'd like to make a moral statement that if I ever found an open MSN online at an internet café I would shut it off. But the thing is I'm le gros connard also, so let this be a lesson to you kids: always shut off your fucking MSN!
All the best.

Student Strikes and Fairy Tales

film|mensonges, trahisons… et plus si affinité
|2046
lit|l’enfer – rené belletto
music|mon h.l.m. - renaud

I took a quick look on CBC this weekend, and I saw that all the fuss about the CPE here in France had finally made the international news. Hélène hasn’t had class in two weeks, and as for me, well, besides blocking my way to the damn computer lab once in awhile, all SUEE (International Student classes, i.e. me) are allowed to continue. I think we’re just not worth the hassle. I’ve also discovered the easiest way to cross the blockade is simply to speak horrid French with a heavy American accent (which probably isn’t all that different from my French anyways, but you get my drift). However, the way the blockade inevitably adds five minutes to my journey to class… which of course means I am now regularly five minutes late for class. C’est la vie.

The best part of this blockade has been its impact on my work. At the high school where I teach English the students have occupied the school (like something straight out of the 60s, sit-ins with bongo drums and guitars etc.) and the teachers are on strike against the CPE as well. Translation, literally one week after I actually began teaching classes I am now on strike, and I will still receive my bursary. Score!

So Hélène finds herself on premature vacation, and I’m finding work to be a lot less work than I originally imagined. There is going to be a huge nation wide strike Tuesday, so nothing will be open and no one will be working. In French culture, this concept is also known as Sunday + downtown protest. Simple really.

The whole debacle behind the CPE is really quite interesting. Essentially, for the last 10 years the French youth unemployment rate has been about 10% higher than the national rate, and so after much toil and trouble the government is proposing this solution: to encourage employers to take a chance on young workers, the CPE will give them the right to fire them without cause during the first two years of employment. This of course addresses the problem of a lack of experience, but not the problem of the marginalization of youth in French culture (and has actually made them feel even more marginalized), and the youth have responded. So the question is whether the government will repeal the law, and if not, how the population will respond. Stay tuned.

So with our new found free time, Hélène and I did a wee bit of hiking the other day with a few of our friends around Clermont and partied a wee bit too. I’ve included a few photos for your viewing pleasure (including one of us profiting from low cost French wine, and of the introduction of the Crazy Creek to the French community).

As for those of you who are still in Canada, do not miss the Matthew Good solo acoustic tour! It’s killing me to know it’s going on while I’m away!! The setlists look great, and even better he’s telling stories, going on rants, and taking shots with the audience all the way through with as much passion as ever. Plus he’s playing Can’t Get Shot In The Back If You Don’t Run – love that song! If it ain’t sold out, go get tickets, so that I may live vicariously through you.

I’m proud to announce that I’ve triumphed over my second French novel, which wasn’t half bad, a detective story that prides itself on breaking every rule that detective stories typically use. Nothing mind blowing, but y’know, it was 400 pages long, so I was proud of myself for getting through it. As for film, I’ve seen so many movies these last little while, but two cool ones I saw are listed above, a funny comedy about a writer who writes celebrities autobiographies for them (my favourite is when he’s having a meeting with the captain of France’s football team, and he asks him to write his autobiography “like Baudelaire”, and then hands him a copy of the The Flowers of Evil telling him “don’t worry, I’ve highlighted the good parts”) and then the other being a really crazy film from China, worth watching for the visuals but the story is interesting too. Finally, I’m starting to get into French music because we’re studying it as poetry in class. French music is striking for it’s lack of real harmony, but deep lyrics which I still have trouble completely understanding. M. Renaud is a good example, he just adores slang. But the song Mon H.L.M. is somewhat a portrait some of the awful personalities that exist in France, and of couse, some 30 years later, nothing much has changed. My favourite is the beauf – slang for beau-frère or borther in law – which is kind of a sleezy Frenchmen who works out a lot and has slicked hair, who is very conservative, and loves to vacation in a sort of trailerpark / camping environment. I suppose think Julian of the Trailer Park Boys, but French and not as funny.

Finally, Hélène and I both just returned from Tours after spending the weekend there, where I took in some more incredible castles, such as the castle that inspired Sleeping Beauty (Ussé), and the castle where Leonardo DaVinci is buried (Ambroise), and finally another castle built on water (Azay-de-Rideau) which was really cool, but not as cool as my favourite, Chenonceaux, which I saw my first visit to Tours. I’ve enclosed a few photos, including one where it looks like I’m lost in a fairy tale. The nights were also great. Friday night we grilled up a storm over an open fire in a Cave of a friend of Hélène’s parents. This was literally somewhat of a summer home dug out form the soft rock of the area, perfect because inside it’s always the same temperature and thus great for storing wine, partying etc. Our Saturday night was really fun, we spent it partying down by the Cher river where a whole bunch of students and artsy type people (as well as street people) were gathered to celebrate essentially nothing more than it finally being warm enough outside to party. There were people playing all sorts of instruments together, just giving ‘er and not carrying about anything, which created a great atmosphere but some gawdawful music. Imagine Broke Social Scene gone terribly, terribly wrong. But it was a great time, it was too bad I didn’t have my camera with me to get a pic, between the setting, the atmosphere, and the characters wandering about it was definitely something else.

As for the more artsy posts I’d promised last time around, I haven’t really gotten around to it, but I will sometime soon, lately I’ve been too busy writing damn compte-rendus and chapters for a French novel (seriously, but we’re writing it all together as a class, I’ll explain another time).

I’m also sending in my application today for an internship with the United Nations (!) so everyone keep their fingers crossed for me. Also, write a message to me dammit, I’d love to hear from ya! In the next posting, you can look forward to crazy stories from Amsterdam, as we’re spending our spring vacation celebrating Queen’s Night and Queen’s Day there! Supposed to be the craziest party that Amsterdam has all year, so I’m really looking forward to it (and if the difficulty we had tracking down a hostel is any indication, it should be a blast). Until then…