altera ego

Thursday, December 29, 2005

confessions

All authors will tell you that to write, one must know solitude. Marguerite Duras has written an entire book on the subject. She speaks of a house where she was isolated, though in her Duras way she claims that solitude was with her even when she went out for a drink at the nearby pub or had guests over for supper. She speaks of solitude as a state of being, as a veil that covers and permeates. With others, she is always alone with her book. Yet she needs the house where her solitude may take form, where it weaves into the veil she then carries with her outside and in the presence of others.

I once read in a magazine interview that Yann Martel wrote Life of Pi over a span of fours years, some days writing pages it of it and others just a few lines. He, too, spoke of the solitude of the author, yet he mentioned how difficult a forced solitude can be for the one who writes. He spoke of the dual existence: the one with people, to know them and observe them, and the one alone, to write down the outside.

Authors also say that to be an author, one must write. And write. And simply write. Lucia Etxebarria writes always, or so it seems. She has worked as scriptwriter, a journalist, and a writer of essays, short stories and novels. I’ve only ever read her novel Amour, prozac et autres curiosités. It’s beautiful. She wrote on her website that authors write.

I have always saved myself from the conceit of calling myself an author by stating that I don’t write, not always. And I don’t always enjoy it. Writing is often hard because words are part of a faulty system, because rereading myself is seldom as I had planned it and because I become intimidated by the last piece I wrote if I should happen to like it. Writing can be an extremely distressing process. And it can reveal so much, even if the reader doesn’t realize how much of me he or she is reading. But at other times how little. And the best way to hide yourself behind your writing is by writing what pretends not to be you, like an thesis or some other school related paper, or like a blog entry about the books you read, or like something historical, empirical, and whatever else that evades popular conceptions of auto-fiction, or auto-non-fiction.

I have always been one to enjoy my solitude. Social and talkative as I may be, I have always relished my time to myself, looked forward to it and savoured it. But these days my solitude has been playing a nasty trick on me. It has turned on me. It is counter-productive. Days at home stretch out into weeks. I become domestic, as a means of procrastination. As my days lose their purpose, so does much else in my life, or at least my perspective of it. And at times, when all the laundry is done and the cat hairs discarded, at times I can’t fight it anymore. Solitude leaves me and I become lonely, and alone. And I wait for the hours to pass so that something might happen, something outside of me that might help propel me back into some kind of active state. I wait, lying on my bed, watching my ceiling. Books gather in piles, their words too heavy to read. My blog is not updated because I feel no use or purpose of putting thoughts into words, and can scarcely assemble my thoughts anyway. All will to work, to be productive in the most remote way, leaves me. I become desperate of a desperation that can barely express itself, so lethargic it is.

Claire and I were to have a writing exchange. I had some ideas. What more, I had some resolution. But days pass and I don’t even know how to start, where to write, by what medium, how to assemble, what won’t get on my nerves as the mere thought of it already does. I don’t even know under what title to save it, or in which file. It is complete formlessness, matching itself to me and my lack of motivation, and my resulting frustration.

On good days I realize it’s because I have “nothing going for myself.” Most people tell me to take advantage of this time and to relax. I can’t seem to do that, and inertia seems to deaden me all over. Stupid horrible state. And to think one day I'll look back on these days and will surely envy them.

Friday, December 23, 2005

can't sleep

I had a dream. I was in a club and while calling a taxi a mean looking hooker took the cash from my wallet. I was left walking the dark streets trying to find a taxi I could pay by credit card. I approached a group of university age kids who were heading home to the West Island. I decided to go with them figuring that the West Island is closer to home than wherever I was (funny how lately I’ve been dreaming that I’m going in a wrong direction). So we started walking through a forest. After a while the dream had us camping in the forest. I spotted a big black wolf with a monster-large head, a huge fleshy mouth and big fangs. It scared me and I hide in one of the tents, waking everybody up warning them that a wolf was near. It came towards the tent I was in and we all huddled in a corner, the one opposite it. As it paced around the tent slowly as a predator sure to catch its prey, we inside the tent moved away from it, always opposite it, contracted and aware and hoping the thin screen covering the tent was enough to shield us. Then I fell slightly behind. A long thin tongue slid out of its mouth to wrap itself around my right-hand pinky finger. Before pulling me towards it, Monic, and ex-colleague from Seville, in an effort to save me, took out two crisp bills that she started handling in the hopes of distracting our enemy. It worked. The end of the dream is a muddle. I woke up shortly after.

I received a call yesterday inviting me to a job interview for a promising position. I am honestly extremely excited about it.

A few months ago, Mireille drew my tarot cards. She concluded that I am in a period where many routes are open to me, and that I am confused about which one to take. I don’t remember much else about her reading. Besides, this element she felt particularly strongly. Then again, I was completely aware of this. When I was younger, I had a theory that when I did not know what to do, best do nothing. Now, I believe I should prefer to do anything. That is the direction I am going in: anything; as long as it is fulfilling and can help me achieve some other (which ever) greater good for my personal advancement. I am quite happy with this anything for it is better than nothing, yet at times I hear a ticking that I find bothersome. This ticking is telling me that I’m not getting any younger. It’s counting away my days and closing doors of opportunity. Wanting to stay wide open for everything, this ticking whispers in my ear that I can’t have it all, especially as I grow older. Who could be so eveil as to tick away in my ear like that?

I read an optimistic sentence the other day from Elizabeth Barrett Browning. “You are never to old to become who you were supposed to be.” (Or something like that.) This from a woman who spent most of her days secluded in a bedroom writing poetry. I wonder who Elizabeth Barrett Browning thought she was supposed to be. As for myself, I only have illusions, dreams I dare not admit here, that are usually halted by rationality. Some days, looking ahead, life seems much too short. Deceptively so.

I couldn’t fall back asleep after waking from the dream. My mind started busying itself with lists of things still needed for Christmas. Now it is 7 AM and the alarm clock just went off, which is the stereo, and it is playing Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. I've been awake since 4:30. This will surely be a tiring day.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Tupperware ladies are still out there!

(I actually started this post last Tuesday. It's a week late. I had some trouble finishing it.)

Last night I was invited to, and attended, what I consider a cultural event far-removed from my usual cultural outings: I attended the regional Tupperware Ladies’ meeting. They have a meeting every Monday, but this week it was special because they were presenting the new catalogue, hence new Tupperware stuff. I went there with Charlie, a friend of mine who’s recently joined the legions of Tupperware enthusiasts, Vida, a new recruit she hooked in a mall, and Matilda, Vida’s daughter. My friend, a natural social butterfly, has become mesmerized by the whole shebang while remaining completely lucid of the retro and kitsch effect being a Tupperware Lady has. She brushes all that off with a giggle, and her friends can’t help brushing it off also, realizing that it’s quite in her nature to do such a thing, and then accept to host a party for her. Charlie has that affect on people, which explains my presence last night at the T’Ladies’ regional meeting.

We arrived there at 7 PM, right on time. We bought our on-special $10.00 cake carrier, were given the program devoid of a program and seated ourselves in our designated-by-manager seats. Seeing that the meeting didn’t seem to be starting, I wandered around. There was a table lounging the right-side wall displaying liquidation items. The stage was arranged to look like a kitchen with many cupboards, a fridge and a functional stove. There were two pantries, which Charlie pointed out to me. One was a “before” filled with boxes and cans placed whichever which way, some powdery substance spilled on a shelf and generally looking like your basic food cabinet. The other was an “after.” It was filled with Tupperware containers of various shapes and sizes, all labeled and arranged for easy retrieval. My friend oohhed and aahhed as she showed me, pointing out the marvelous-ness of being orderly. I reminded her on our way back my already excessive orderliness and my personal efforts to accepting more mess in my life, recounting how an ex of mine once opened the food cupboard in front of me and started misplacing all the cans with the hopes of curing me. As for the rest of the stage, it was arranged like a normal kitchen that served to display the various uses of the various Tupperware products.

Forty-five minutes after our arrival, the presentation began. A lady with short hair and who spoke with a perpetual smile was our MC. She stood up front, next to a podium, and proceeded with what would become an extremely long and confusing presentation of the best Tupperware sales ladies, meaning those with the highest sales. She presented the highest sales of all the reps, then the highest sales per team, then the manager with the highest sales, then the highest sales in Canada and the ranking of the reps of this region who made that list, then the teams of the region that made the national list, and so on. (There were other classifications, but I was eventually quite confused with their distinctions and only clearly remember those listed above.) To make the presentation more dynamic, our MC invited each honoured rep to come forward so that we may see her and dutifully applaud her success. At one point I leaned over and asked Charlie if there’s any jalousie and competition between the Tupperware ladies. She assured me that no, they were all actually happy for the winners and encouraged their success. “How convivial,” I thought.

When our MC was done with this presentation, she proceeded with handing out bonuses. Once again, bonuses were attributed to the reps with the highest sales, then reps per region with the highest sales, then managers and then manager per region with highest sales. Once again, all recipients were invited to come forward to be recognized and applauded by all.

When the bonuses were handed out, it came time to honour the people at the meeting who had been the hostess of a Tupperware party. All hostesses of the month of November were invited to come to the front of the room (there were almost 30 in total). The MC then counted upward by $100.00 chunks. If a hostess had sold within a bracket, she was to raise her hand. The MC, who, poor thing, had trouble with any name that wasn’t French-Canadian, would ask the hostesses with raised hands how much money her party made for her rep. The monetary value stated, we would applaud her, after which she could return to her seat. Gifts were given to the hostesses who made the top-10 list (so the ten women who had earned their reps the most revenue). The “best hostess” was a young woman, who is surely about my age because we have the same name, it being one of the most popular names to give to baby girls in Quebec in the late seventies. Julie’s party sold more than $2000.00 worth of Tupperware gear. She apparently had transformed her basement into a mini-auditorium were 30 people assembled to listen to her rep.

When this was done, our MC came to the main event of the evening: the new Tupperware products that are included in the new Tupperware catalogue. These products were displayed on a table next to the podium. They had been hidden all evening with a sort of paper veil. Drum roll. The veil was removed. Heads peeped up to get a good glance at all the new stuff that can be sold. Our MC, all smiles, made a point of showing off each new product, stating its price and how it may improve any woman’s kitchen. She also explained the new exclusive offers for hostesses. “If you host one party, you get a thank you gift of the ‘Rock’N Serve Large Shallow’ Tupperware of a value of $29.00 for free! If you host a second party or more, you get another ‘Rock’N Serve Large Shallow’ Tupperware for free! So just by hosting two parties you get these two gifts, of a value of $58.00. That plus your 15% discount if you sell between $500.00-$1000.00, it’s like making $100.00 worth of cash!”

Meanwhile, one of the managers was kind enough bake a Christmas cake. She used one of the baking trays from the new catalogue, plus the angled measuring cup (which I admit is a great idea), the silicon spatula (which I eventually bought from the liquidation display, being aware of the virtues of silicon), the Quick Chef chopping container, and so on. The cake, made with a store bought mix and store bought icing, costs only $16.00 to make, quite a save for a Christmas cake! Apparently it was good. Unfortunately it didn’t feed the whole of us assembled and Tupperware ladies are quite voracious when it comes to cake. Then again, I’m sure Charlie wasn’t the only one to have made her way to the meeting without having had any supper, expecting it to last the regular 45 minutes rather than 3 hours. This would also explain why ladies started trickling out after an hour and a half.

After the cake was served, the meeting was coming to an end. Our MC conducted a raffle, which Charlie won. Then gifts were raffled to those in the room who had signed up to be hostesses. I won a thermos. Then gifts were given to those in the room who had signed up to be Tupperware ladies. I received 2 plastic glasses that these ladies are quite crazy about. And finally, it was over. I had arrived their a skeptic and left the meeting with a bag full of plastic stuff, a cake container so big I have no place to store it, a Tupperware party planned for the 7th of January and my name on Montreal’s list of Tupperware ladies.

Please don’t be fooled. My enrollment is due to the same reason that made me accept Charlie’s invitation: to please my enthusiastic friend. Yes, I admit, I did toy with the idea of being a rep for a party or two, just for the fun of it… “Maybe MP would be a good candidate… It could be fun, for a laugh.” But my aspirations soon waned. What I take away from that evening is rather a roomful of smiling-clapping ladies who go there to encourage and be encouraged. Seemingly secluded for various reasons, Tupperware offers them a social setting. What more, the ever-present dollar seems to reign over their ambitions. These ladies who become frenetic over stuff, over all the stuff they can buy at a rebate so it’s like saving money even if they are actually just spending it. And this stuff is to be used in the kitchen, or to receive guests and host parties, secluded in a home that can be an awfully lonely place when stuck their alone. Theirs is the cult of money, and the cult of what lasts forever. Boxes that bind and hold, made of material that’s freezer-safe, microwave-safe and resilient to wear and tear. Order. Everlasting.

I don’t mean to denigrate the product — which is quite good even if rather expensive and why oh why would somebody want that much plastic in their home! — or the positive aspects it brings to their employees. I’m sure many Tupperware ladies are very good sales persons who deserve their bonuses like any other sales persons. But the fact that the vast majority of Montreal’s regional Tupperware ladies are overweight and don’t appear as very stylish is hard to overlook. It is hard to imagine some of these ladies as sales reps for a more mainstream product, and harder to imagine them as part of the corporate world. One advantage to the trade heralded by some of these ladies is that they chose their own schedule and make more money than they did in their old jobs. Considering that a successful Tupperware lady makes about $1500.00 a month, after (Quebec and Canadian) taxes that roughly amounts to an annual salary of $25 000.00. Now why is it that these ladies, these good sales persons, can’t earn more than 25K/year in a “real job”? And why is it that they need an environment that claims to be so family-like? No, I take away from that evening an image of a roomful of smiling-clapping women whose smiles and encouragements seem filled with something empty, something rather sad. Indeed, there’s something problematic with this whole Tupperware affair.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

is long really slow?

I am now at page 333 of Albert Cohen’s 1110-page love story Belle du seigneur. Before starting it, I had wondered how someone could write 1110 pages on love. My friend Carole, who is French and has read the novel a few years ago, jokingly replied that the French can talk endlessly about love. Though that might be true, Cohen’s tactics are a bit different. Almost through the third of the story, all the reader knows is that the “seigneur,” a top official at a fictitious United Nations agency in Geneva, is awe-struck by a beautiful young woman, who is a fallen aristocrat and married to one of his employees. The plot is still in its beginning, while the narrative treads along oh-so slowly. Every detail of some specific situations is given. The dialogues and discussions are given in full. Cohen expands so thoroughly upon the behaviour and speech of his characters that the reader cannot but be submerged in his world, or more precisely: his criticism of his world. When Solal, our hero, presides over an assembly of the directors of the United Nations with the simple order of the day to address the General Secretary’s enquiry regarding “actions in favor of the goals and ideals of the United Nations,” Cohen aptly exposes the directors’ useless rhetoric (so as not to lose face) to such a useless question (to which the General Secretary did not even fathom an answer). Solal’s opinion of his daily farce is discreet throughout. The author expresses the idiocy of the situation by transcribing the directors’ empty statements, and then sums up his opinion by writing that the stenographer was voraciously transcribing the discussion, all muddled up by their talk because she was intelligent. Quite a reproof. And quite funny. But the author’s humour, criticism and irony would be lost if his text were to be truncated. It is his style that must be savoured in its length or never explored, discouraged or intimidated by the width of the book.

Which brings me to think about length. I read Vanity Fair last Christmas. When starting it I braced myself. “This book is long. I won’t have finished it in two weeks. Before beginning, I must promise to give it time, the time it’ll take.” As ridiculous as it might sound, it demanded a commitment. It is an absolutely delightful book, but, being a book of which the chapters were published once a month for a magazine over a period of several years, it does not conform in the slightest to our present perception of time.

Then I think of Memoirs of a Geisha, which I haven’t read, having bought Inoue Yuki’s version instead, but that many girl-acquaintances of mine have. I remember that the main criticism was its descriptions. “I’m really not interested in reading about some flower for about two pages.” Knowing what I know about Japanese culture, a two-page description of a flower is the least to be expected. They are a people who avidly pursue throughout the nation the bloom of their cherry trees, incorporating this race into their nightly newscasts. A society that seems dichotomist as far as time is concerned, they are able to embrace the slow and more than willing to reflect upon the beauty of nature.

My background in communication studies tells me that our reading patterns have greatly changed with the advent of new media: TV, films, video games. Ben recently read Mcluhan, a text I should revisit for what he says about the types of media. I remember him stating that reading is a visual medium whereas television is an auditory one. But about narrative? TV stories don’t give details about the surroundings. The person watching sees the environment so doesn’t need it to be described to her. Meanwhile, the show must last a maximum of 45 minutes. To keep the viewers interested for so many minutes, and to have them zap back to that station when the commercials are over, the story must be suspenseful. It is therefore completely plot oriented. Plus, a teaser of each segment is introduced in the preceding segment, which I’ll call the hook. (A plot and a tease, it almost sounds Québécois…)

To say that readers don’t want any details is false. No details equals a story with wholes in it, one that must be recreated in the reader’s mind in order to make sense — this is an idea I elaborate in my MA thesis, hence an example of such books would be Anne Stone’s Hush and Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood — which demands a lot of work on the reader’s part, much commitment, and often simply much too much. The (popular) reader wants the story told to her, yet in the simplest of ways. The work of the popular author is to gage the amount of detail given to make the story understood easily while advancing the plot, and possibly/ideally infusing it with some sort of personal style. In a way, the (popular) reader must know where she’s going while being teased the whole way through. It is the gauge of these writing devices that either make a novel an “easy read” or not.

Last summer I read that the humanities department (if I remember correctly) at McMaster University incorporated a new reading schedule for their undergraduate students. The aim is to form their students with an added general culture that should help them to better understand the world around them. All entering humanities undergrads were therefore to read M.G. Vassanji’s The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. Curious about what so many fresh minds would be considering as general culture, I picked up a copy of the book. I was encouraged by it being a national best seller and the winner of the 2003 Giller Prize. The premise is an exiled man of Indian heritage brought up in Kenya. Hiding within the snow banks of a Northern Canadian town, Vikram recounts his story. Each chapter consists of a lengthy bit on his upbringing in Kenya and then the tease: a few paragraphs written in the present and of the present, something about how he became the man he is. It is the tease because the reader must continue reading the long chronological story if she wants to understand how he became the horrible and worst money-laundering criminal of African history. Meanwhile, the development of the character, in this book quite directly linked to the plot, is deceptively one-dimensional. His life’s crisis revolves around the brutal slayings of two of his childhood friends. The narrator keeps coming back to this one event to epitomize the racial pressure in his country. Other perspectives are addressed but only lightly so as not to give too much food for thought or to muddle the reader with an overly polemic text. Also, this repetition works as a refresher for the subway readers who might not be disposed to give their full attention to such a long (400 pages) novel. The novel’s topic is interesting and, to its advantage, post-colonial. It’s writing is simplistic and plot oriented and contains successful tease tactics. It is a perfect combination for a fashionable award-winning novel. Not exactly what I look for in a novel, but I guess it’s up to me to be wary of bestsellers and prizewinners.

Then again, Cohen’s novel won the Académie française’s Grand Prize for novels in 1968.

Friday, December 09, 2005

good books or good readers?

Some books are so unpleasant that one does not feel much inclined to spend large amounts of time with it, especially in one sitting. I’m reading such a book. Ben keeps asking me why I put up with it. I used to be obstinate with books. I would read a book I had started until the very end, no matter how much it annoyed me, or put me to sleep, or made me depressed. Then I met a guy who changed all that. I do not remember his name and surely wouldn’t recognize him if I were to see him in the street. We studied together, and during my first semester at l’UQAM in Literary Studies I would often go out for coffee with a group of classmates, of which he was part. One day we were talking about the reading of boring books and he said that if he doesn’t like a book, he just leaves it to its own like a meal one doesn’t appreciate and doesn’t force oneself to eat. And just like that, I was converted. You bore me: I leave you on the night table. Your writing seems unrefined: I laugh at you. You loose my interest: I discard you in a corner where you soon find the company of balls of dust and cat hair.

Of course, this contradicts my idea that it isn’t most books that are bad, but most readers that are. To be a good reader, one must be able to acquire a book, to tame it. The good reader must be a chameleon and be able to change herself to accommodate the world in which she immerses herself. She must adapt herself. She must learn to surf the writing and the story at hand. She mustn’t be lazy. There is no reward for the lazy reader; she will invariably end up picking up the same book over and over again, with, of course, a different title and a few changed narrative elements such as the setting and the name of the characters. Surely, it is nothing but ill will to put all the blame on the novel.

To accommodate my seemingly opposing views, I shall hypothesize that the rapport between the reader and the novel (or any other type of book or writing) is a relationship in its own right, as any other relationship between two people. Just as we are not always inclined, on a specific day and depending on our attitude at the time, to see a specific person, so it is with books. Also, as we sometimes meet a person on one occasion and are not particularly impressed by her, we can meet that same person on another occasion and find her interesting, or amusing, or she may even qualify as a potential friend, it is likewise for the books we pick up. To turn a relationship into something valuable from which we learn and grow, one must be prepared to invest one’s time, to keep an open mind, and to remain as understanding as possible (of course, there needs be a minimum of mutual affection). This is true for the people we meet as well as the books we read. And just as not all people are destined to be our friends, or even to affect us in the remotest of ways, some books can easily remain on our bookshelf unread, or may be discarded, or may never be bought at all. It would be utopist to believe that all relationships are worth our time, or to hope that they will all be rewarding. So energy must be given where in turn it might be found; and such investments might change over time depending on how one might change oneself.

As for the book I am presently reading, I have remained faithful to it for two main reasons: 1) I know that if I were to pick up another book to be read simultaneously, I would eventually neglect this one entirely before having finished it; 2) it is not so much a relationship with the book that I seek than one with its author. Indeed, one aspect of doing an MA that I greatly appreciated was being able to read the entire published work of two authors. This was made particularly clear to me while going through the oeuvre of Djuna Barnes, who covered different media and genres over three decades. I liked getting to know an author in such a way. It gave me the impression that I was following her through time, watching out for her evolution. I enjoyed noticing how her style changed and how parts of it remained the same over years of writing. It was fascinating. It was so fascinating that I have decided to do the same with Virginia Woolf, which now has me reading her first work of fiction: The Voyage Out .

This book is about a young cloistered British girl (she’s 24) who travels to the Argentines and is left in the care of her aunt, a woman who I suspect was written to a certain extent as a portrait of the author, who wishes to “bring her out.” In other words, she wishes to make a reasonable person of her. Rachel, the young girl, therefore discovers the world through the people who inhabit Santa Marina’s hotel, a flock of British travelers meant to portray the different levels of British society (not to say caste); it serves as a microcosm where our protagonist can meet, mingle, and make her mind up about these various people. It is long-winded and extremely daunting. I used to read prefaces and introductions though they bored me; now I read them though they tell me how the novel ends. The book’s Introduction states that this novel expresses Woolf’s “coming out” as a novelist. It is where she first worked out her style. Unfortunately, this is all too true: the novel reads like a long practice piece of social study and commentary that comes off much more precisely, and with much more wit and cleverness, in her subsequent novels. To top it off, her heroine dies at the end. I have no inherent problems with the death of the main character at the end of a story. I usually deplore the run-of-the-mill happy ending. The problem with this one is that it feels like Woolf had Rachel die simply to contradict the happy ending, and without being able to find a more original way to disrupt reader expectations she simply gave her a tropical illness that finishes her off. It seems so obvious and, hence, pointless. These are the workings of what I call an immature narrative.

I put up with this novel because I want to come to know its author. I’ve already read several of Woolf’s novels, but I wish to re-read them, to re-discover them, and to see where her style changes and where it stays the same. I want to watch her improve has she grows older and wiser, as her admiration for writing such as Joyce’s expands, and as she allows herself to make books rather than babies.

The next book on my list is Cohen’s Belle du seigneur, a classic French love-story. I am hoping its magic will blend well with Christmas, while keeping myself in check not to hope too much of it lest I cannot mold myself into a good enough reader for it, and end up disappointed.

Monday, December 05, 2005

tales and a cabbie

I went to listen to stories tonight. A friend invited me yesterday. The event took place at the Sergent Recruteur brewery, one of Montreal’s several micro-brewery-cum-bars. I guess the word “tales” better translates “contes” than “stories” does. These tales were told by a French-Canadian man named Denis, who’s last name I don’t remember. He told mostly funny tales set a few hundred years back in rural Quebec. They involved men that go by the name of Fanfan, Jean-Guy or René Angelo, and most of them featured the Catholic god-fearing French-Canadian’s most threatening menace and enemy: le Yâble, known in English as The Devil. Going there, I was expecting to have Quebec folk-tales told me, some of which I know well but only because I’ve read them, my French-Canadian side not being peppered with story-telling uncles, though my mon’onque Jean-Guy could liven up family reunions with his accordion. I guess you can say that my roots are more musical than literary.

The friends I was with are French, and they claimed to perfectly understand the teller’s New France jargon, or rather old French Normand accent. I found it special because Denis spoke almost exactly like Ben’s father: the same tone, the same speech, the same facial expressions, and the same accent. It felt like I was sitting there listening to my boyfriend’s dad, though a more versed and long-winded version him. I had half a mind to ask the teller if he comes from the Bas St-Laurent region, but thought better of it. By the end of the show I started having stomach burns (due to my meager supper, I’m sure) and being uncomfortably hot (due to the heater next to which I was sitting). When the encore set was done, we quickly left, and I jumped into a taxi with several other girls.

The taxi driver was a large black man, quite dark of skin and with thick lips. He sat in a stoop, leaning towards me who left the back seats to the three other girls. We discussed the evening while the driver occasionally interrupted us. He asked one of the girls if she was French. He made a joke about the French being the audible minority. He was friendly though maybe a bit unrefined and I had the impression the girls did not particularly welcome his comments and interruptions.

When the two last girls were dropped off, who had paid the entire fair up to their place, the man continued towards my stop, the last one. He didn’t re-set the meter and I, always doubting others’ sincerity, asked him about it. He told me not to worry about it and that when we get to my place I’ll just pay the difference of the fair. He said that if he starts the meter again I’ll then be charged an extra 3,75$, and that he understands that I can’t pay it. The man had assumed, rather correctly, that I am a student. He said how he understands what it’s like to be a student seeing that he had been one for so long. I asked him what he studied. “Fine arts.” “What fine art? Painting?” Turns out he studied literature and afterwards got a degree in fine arts. He paints and sculpts. He said he then did a DEP, which is Quebec’s high school professional diplomat, in graphic design, but that he found the courses unsatisfactory because they did not delve into the subjects with enough depth. To this I agreed. Now he is working towards a college degree in graphic web work. At this point he asked me about myself, seeing that he was doing all the talking. So I said that I just finished my MA in English Literature.

“So you have read Shakespeare.”

“Yes.”

“And Edgar Allen Poe.”

“Yes.”

“And Stephen King.”

“Uuhh, no. But I do know of him.”

“Ah! You read the big names! Yes, I was told to read Shakespeare when I was a kid, but I never did. I was too busy reading Voltaire. But you know, that has been my downfall. I never learned English and if I would have learnt it, I wouldn’t have so many troubles as I do today.”

By this time we had reached my place but my cab driver, who’s mother, surely wanting to make a polite man of her son without any suspicions of his later trade, always told him not to leave a girl standing on the corner, found that we got there too quickly. So he talked on. He told me that if he knew English, he wouldn’t be stuck driving a cab to pay off his 35 000$ student loan. I replied that though knowing both languages in Montreal certainly helps, it is by all means not an easy ticket to a job.

“Well then what is the point of all this studying? It is purely for our own pleasure. To know more for our own intellectual advancements. But surely now, with your English and your MA, employers see that you are educated and want to give you work.”

“That’s actually not the case. Employers see my MA in Literature and wonder how I can possibly want to work a 9 to 5 good paying job. Surely I would rather be doing something more… literary.”

By now I was out the door and he was stooping lower in his seat to keep his eye on me while we talked. He told me how it is horrible that I can’t find a job, but that he is sure I’ll find something. When I suggested that the problem is that our values are off-track, he told me that he respects me. And then he said, “Quand tu te respecte et que tu trouve quelqu’un qui te respecte, là, tu deviens poète;” “When you respect yourself and when you find someone who respects you, then, you become a poet.” Of course I prefer hushing that voice in my head that might hear more in his comments of his respect for me than what honest propriety calls for, and prefer attributing these last wise words from a Montreal cab driver to Ben. That way I know that if I ever come to be called a poet, it will be in large part thanks to him.