'I Found It In The Street....'

The title of this post is a completely legitimate phrase to utter in Montreal due to the general population's attitude to 'stuff'. In addition to celebrating the culture of leaving stuff out in the streets in this fair city, this post also largely revolves around my favourite part of town, Mile End.

First up, we have the first item we encountered just hangin' out on Rue Jeanne-Mance. A sofa. So if you need a black leatherette sofa, you know where to go:

 Then there were the books. I was musing just this morning how when I finish Never Let Me Go today/tomorrow, I will be out of reading material that doesn't revolve around aesthetic theory or American Action Painters. And what luck! Someone also on Rue Jeanne-Mance decided to leave a load of books outside their house in the hope someone would relieve them. I'm now the proud owner of The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Germinal by Zola, The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, and my personal favourite, a particularly educative tome called Complete Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen. No, not one of those ironic, 'retro' volumes printed in recent years, but a proper old book with an index that includes such domains as 'Shooting Parties: Seasons', 'Veal, to carve', ' "Honourables" ' and 'Etiquette at the Card Table'. I think I just died and went to Mitford heaven.

 Emma was tempted by the guide to breastfeeding but settled for fiction.

Rue Waverly is home to some of the prettiest houses, and outside one of them is this metal sculpture. It's not just a collection of metally junk, it's art. Because it has a label like in a museum.

This is the top of the beautiful, beautiful Byzantine church on St. Viateur in Mile End. Next weekend there's a bazaar on, so I will definitely be taking advantage of the opportunity to see inside.

One of the nicest things about Mile End is the ruelles. There are ruelles in a lot of Montreal but I don't walk down them as much as I do in Mile End. I can't quite explain it, but there's a certain kind of loveliness to be found in the alleys round the back of people's houses, especially at night. But here's Emma in a ruelle, followed by ruelle au naturel, and me in the ruelle, just in case anyone's forgotten what I look like.

 If this was in London, in English, it'd make me sick. But platitudes and cliches are somehow more moving in French, on a random wall round the back of someone's house. If you can't read it, it says 'L'absence est a l'amour ce que le feu est au vent. Il eteint le petit et allume le grand'. I don't know how I feel about it. But I thought you'd like to see it, and I like the fact it's there.

Oh look! Another metal sculpture! With another museum-esque tag! Mile End front gardens: centre of the art world. Pretty neat, huh? Like, sooooo Montreal.

This time I really mean it: next entry WILL be about Boston.
xx