La source tombait du rocher
Goutte à goutte à la mer affreuse.
L’Océan, fatal au nocher,
Lui dit : « Que me veux-tu, pleureuse?
» Je suis la tempête et l’effroi;
» Je finis où le ciel commence.
» Est-ce que j’ai besoin de toi,
» Petite, moi qui suis l’immense? »
La source dit au gouffre amer :
« Je te donne, sans bruit ni gloire,
» Ce qui te manque, ô vaste mer!
» Une goutte d’eau qu’on peut boire. »
Avril 1854, Victor Hugo
If you were outside today, you may have felt a little something like this…
ABOUT
This couch is a mix of beige and grey and is not of any particular brand. It sits at least three people, but two of the three would have recliners and thus make them superior to the unsuspecting middle-sitter. The condition of the couch is decent; as good as you would expect from two male roommates, really. Aside from standard wear and tear, there are no obscene stains or misleading defects. The dimensions are 7 ft. long, 3 ft. tall, and 3 ft. deep but if you’re the visual type, it’s about the length of a pair of French doors (as displayed).
OFFER
At first, we were set on selling the couch but realized that putting a price on her would be demeaning and just plain wrong for the years of humble and unabashed service she’s provided. Instead, we would like to exchange our cherished sofa for some delicious chicken. That’s right, chicken. We felt that the future owners needed to be just as easygoing as their predecessors if they were to inherit Montreal’s greatest couch. So why not trade it for Montreal’s greatest chicken? Romados.
DETAILS
This couch is one of the most versatile pieces of furniture you’ll ever come across. She can host out-of-town crashers, double as a snack-hold (as displayed), and if you’re anything like us, be the safe haven for hours upon hours of Netflix watching and NHL gaming. The chicken trade is as follows: one beige/grey couch for two half chickens (yes, that totals one full chicken) – heavy on that spicy sauce, please.
MOVING
The couch is on the second floor of a Plateau apartment building. It will require two adults or two really strong children to carry it out.
THANK YOU
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to inquire. We look forward to arranging a date optimal for couch pick-up and chicken eating. Have yourself a great day!
My friend, 24, recently posted “Pass This On” by The Knife and it quickly reminded me of my favorite scene from Xavier Dolan’s Les Amours Imaginaires. It also gave me the sudden urge to throw a crazy ass house party. Admittedly, Québécois cinema has its shining moments.
Monday Morning Rant: Social Media
Remember when Facebook was about posting on someone’s wall? When we would take time to write him or her because we missed them or because we wanted to tell them how much fun we had at that party?
It seems that all it’s good for now is self-promotion; “sharing” photos of where we’ve been and what we’ve seen, not whom we were with or what we were doing there. Tagging our friends in YouTube videos we want them to see is the closest we come to interacting with them, really. We take the time to check ourselves in to some defined location only to check ourselves out from a conversation with the very people we were scrolling for on our phones. Can’t we even wait for them to go take a piss before whipping out our four-inch piece of glass anymore?
Phones were intended to connect people and bring them together despite unimaginable distances but, as it stands, they serve as the ultimate alternative to actually acting human. For whatever reason, they provide us with what we believe to be tangible confirmation that we live and not only like things, we Like things.
Does it ever happen that you find yourself in the middle of some bizarre discussion only to decamp in favor of Facebook? Do you tweet about how awkward the whole scene was? Now take another step back and realize how you were the one who couldn’t hold that conversation; the one unfit to relate ad rem; the one who is reticent about the “awkwardness” of it all. Maybe you just wanted some attention. Perhaps one of your seven followers could sympathize if they weren’t some spammy bot-account following you to promote their SEO secrets or solutions to impotence — so much for your virtual refuge.
The bottom line is that social media favours quality over quantity, where posing as some social butterfly just because you can tweet and facebook is about the same as calling yourself a photographer because you use Instagram every now and then. Believe or not, amidst your salvo of media, people will still recognize social inadequacies. Why is it important for us to have so many friends, followers, and fans if we’re incapable of engaging with them and them with us? Connections must be established, trust earned. Ultimately, there are no formulas, metrics, or algorithms to speed up the process of saving you from yourself because, really, you can’t hide behind filters and hashtags forever.
Social media is about building relationships but the unfortunate reality is that through it, people risk not only alienating everyone they come into contact with, they also deliberately forgo the soft skills that are to get them by on a daily basis. They go on to use iniquitous buzzwords like “viral” and “trending” in the hopes of maturing into some internet guru when they’ve actually grown into little more than cell phone junkies, unable to decipher quality from cat videos.
Regardless of the date, it’s still Friday.
Now that the street salt has been washed away…
No better way to start your Monday than pretending it’s Friday, right? If you’re into graphic design and online marketing, take a minute to check out the hyper-creative, consumingly talented, and all around good person Eebs Berenstein, covered in MTL Blog’s Feature Friday. Truly some terrific work done for and by local artists.
Quite possibly the best thing I’ve heard all year. Although the track’s been teased since ‘09, the full-length version is finally out; perhaps to remedy hip-hop’s recent uninspiration. This is Dear Moleskine by the one and only Jay Electronica.
THE GOODS:
For some, Tuesday is movie night and, for others, it equates to KFC but this day will always resound through my ears for its new releases. And though this gem is already two weeks old, trust that the sound is as fresh as your mind can find. If you follow derogatory regularly, there’s little need to read on, just check out Voltronn by fivepee.
If you don’t already know him, the Montreal producer was on his Madlib this time last year when he put together his fifty-five track Copyleft Shuffle premix before releasing artafterwork. This time, on Voltronn, Potvin truly takes the time to get to that vernal appetence, that ambient itch he’s been dying to scratch, keeping it fun, keeping it different.
THE HIGHLIGHTS:
- “Go Lion” just download the track and you can thank him later.
- The hip-hop memes, including artists such as Big Daddy Kane, RZA, Biz Markie, Kool Moe Dee, and ODB, which were used to raise awareness for the defender of universe’s arrival.
- Voltronn is neither an LP nor an EP but a freeP, making it the third consecutive collection the artist has put together without asking for a cent. Do pick it up.
Monday Morning Rant: Bixi
These past three years, I’ve gotten around Montreal with little more than a bus pass and a Bixi key but, last summer, when 15 noticed the black and red-trimmed plastic dangling from my keychain, he couldn’t help but shake his head, almost in disgust, at the fact that I supported the bicycle sharing system. Why not? I responded. And what followed was a brief but insightful debate about the whole program and those who make use of it.
It turns out people don’t hate Bixi; they hate the dickheads who ride them. And If you’re unsure about whether or not you’re part of this dickheadedness, then perhaps you should ask yourself some of these questions the next time you wrench a Bixi from its Telus branded bike rack.
Must you use the sidewalk as your personal bike path? It’s one thing to hop the curb when you sense danger, or when it’s time to take a breather; it’s another when you insist on tailgating pedestrians, impatiently ringing your bell, demanding that they move aside. You won’t get too far on those three gears so instead of traipsing around, do us all a favor and walk the damn thing when you’re not on the road.
Why aren’t you wearing a helmet? Maybe you’re a tourist or riding around town for the first time but if you’re anything like me, going to and from work every other day, you should just buy one already. The one distinction motorists make between bixiers and cyclists is that, amidst the ruck, cyclists have the awareness and coordination to get the hell out of the way so making the argument that you bike only occasionally is little more than a reason to shell out the few extra bucks. You don’t see Communauto drivers going around without seatbelts, do you?
Should you really be tweeting from your bike? @BIXImontreal couldn’t care less that you’re on one. @RiMartineau won’t call you out on la belle vie. Only Segways are less cool than these things so, please, enough with touting your phone while you ride. Focus on the road and your surroundings because your friends don’t care what you’re doing right this instant but they’ll be pissed if you die and fail to check them in on facebook.
Enough bitching about the ads, kay? How can they possibly bother you this much? There are always going to be ads, always. They even double as decent and tasteful mudguards. But if you’d rather pay more for your membership, fine. If you ride the metro or bus without ads, fine. If you Google without ads, YouTube without ads, and buy apps without ads, fine. Otherwise, get over it. They’re just ads, dude.
Tomorrow, at Metropolis, I’ll finally get to find out what all the fuss is about. The last time people were this crazy about an R&B singer, they were pairing blue jeans with white blazers and doing the thunder clap. This is The Weeknd’s rendition of Dirty Diana.
Même de Maisonneuve veut bloquer la hausse.
10 Digital Signs That Your Relationship Is Over
With a constant flux of media running our lives, it’s important that we be able to pick up on the digital hints our friends will leave us every now and then. Obviously, by friends, I mean friends of friends, or coworkers, or hot people you meet at barbecues, not actual friends of course. The point is that you should actively draw a line that divides the unavailable from the unwilling. This line would then allow you to keep your behaviour in check so as to avoid those undesired scenarios where you may (a) constantly tell your friends that the other person’s a bitch, (b) maintain some paltry online conversation without ever coming into actual contact with the person, and (c) consistently pretend like you have something else going on when, really, you just end up scarfing down a tub of expired sour cream. With these things in mind, I’ve put together a short list of deal breakers to weed out those unsocial socialites and, hopefully, save us all a little bit of time and dignity.
Disclaimer: the pronoun she is used strictly for convenience sake and does not target any woman in particular but rather women in general. Men do some of these too but are usually far less subtle – usually because they are much, much simpler.
1. SHE ANSWERS TIME-SENSITIVE TEXT MESSAGES NO LESS THAN 48 HOURS LATER.
It’s Wednesday afternoon, you’re bored and tired of work so you begin to text. Your exchange is playful but prompt and hovers mostly around what you’ve got planned for the weekend: Oh, not too much, probably just take it easy, you each say. You add, well, if you’re free, we should go out Friday night, and she enthusiastically accepts! Great, you think. Friday comes around and you check back to confirm the details about the where and when but receive no reply. Maybe she’s in a meeting or has no reception? Give it an hour or so before you nudge. You send off another text after an acceptably unclingy amount of time but – still – nothing. Monday comes around and things go back to the way they were last Wednesday.
2. SHE APPARENTLY DIDN’T RECEIVE YOUR E-MAIL.
It’s true that there was a time when e-mails went undelivered. It happened the same year you bought your pager, the same year you lost the floppy disk that had all your homework on it, and the same year you purchased that first Ja Rule album and thought that yellow Hummers were cool. If you send someone an e-mail that requires an RSVP and they claim to have never received it, then you should probably pull a Gil Pender, check what decade you’re in, and just go with it.
3. SHE DOES NOTHING MORE THAN HIT LIKE AFTER YOU POST ON HER FACEBOOK, EVEN IF IT’S A QUESTION.
Hey it was really nice meeting you, maybe we can chat again sometime? Like. Hey, have you seen the new Paul Rudd romantic-comedy where he’s shy and awkward but turns out to be shy and awkward and a douche? I’ve wanted to see it with someone for a while now! Like. Hey! Long time no see. I’m dying in a month and the only thing that will slow the cancer is if you say something back to me. Like.
4. SHE INSTAGRAMS PICTURES THAT YOU TOOK.
Burn.
5. AFTER AN EXTENSIVE, WELL WRITTEN, OBVIOUSLY SINCERE, WITTY BUT NOT OVERLY DICKISH TEXT MESSAGE, SHE REPLIES WITH A SMILEY FACE.
You write your text out in full. You spell-check it. Replace a few words here and there to make sure it can’t be misinterpreted. You’re careful about the details and affirm that nothing was left out. You take a deep breath and you send it. You wait ten minutes and reopen your phone to see if it has finally disappeared from your outbox. You wonder if the message was too long and if it was broken up for having exceeded the number of allowed characters. You wonder what she’ll say; you secretly hope that she’ll be just as assiduous in her reply. You wonder what she’s thinking. Your anxiety is cut short by a sudden vibrating beep.
Incoming message, :)
6. SHE REPOSTS EVERY YOUTUBE VIDEO WITHOUT EVER ACKNOWLEDGING THAT YOU POSTED THAT SAME VIDEO TEN MINUTES EARLIER.
It’s one thing to attach the KONY 2012 video after you’ve said something about it. It’s another to re-post an obscure music video, the exact obscure music video you spotted through a friend an hour ago, and add omg I just discovered this artist and loving ittttttttt!
7. SHE IS THE FIRST TO DECLINE YOUR FACEBOOK EVENT – EVERY SINGLE TIME.
When I was putting this list together, I considered outing the folks who never responded to any of my events. But some people just don’t use Facebook as exhaustively as others. These people aren’t trying to push you away; they’re just not paying attention. It’s undivided so there’s really no blame to assign. Do note, however, that when someone consistently turns you down without even so much as a sorry, it’s not her fault – it’s yours.
8. SHE DIRECTLY REFERS TO YOU IN HER STATUS UPDATES WITHOUT EVER MENTIONING YOUR NAME.
e.g. OMG I hate it when Asian guys with big glasses write on their blogs about music I never heard of but omg I just discovered this artist and loving ittttttttt! That’s just annoying.
9. SHE UNFOLLOWS YOU ON PINTEREST.
Pinterest allows you to link your account to Facebook and Twitter. This way, it can suggest and display images that your friends have pinned or believe that you may like. By default, it follows everyone you know. So if you’ve been unfollowed, know that it was very, very voluntary.
10. SHE DOESN’T WISH YOU A HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
Possibly the granddaddy of them all. If she chooses not to wish you a happy birthday in spite of the weeklong Facebook notice, the eighty seven hundred people posting about it on your wall, and the fact that she doesn’t even need to go to your page to do it anymore, it’s because you need to figure it out. Although you’ve been content with these 23 hours of special treatment, you still weed through the red notifications hoping to find that one person who has clearly blocked it from their mind. It’s over, dude. Unless, of course, you forgot to wish her happy birthday first.
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