Spruce beer: the choice of tree-chuggers

One of my impulse buys in Montreal was a can of spruce beer that I spotted it near the back of a shelf in the Gai Village’s Metro supermarket. It was painted with evergreen branches that bent slightly in front, like a meek dog waiting for permission to look someone in the eye, and it made me think of Christmas, which is a powerful feeling for someone traveling alone. (Religious cults ought to give it away at street corners to lure the emotionally vulnerable.) It tasted awful, of course. Imagine a floor so clean you could eat off it. Now imagine that no one has dropped any food, so you lick the floor instead and get a mouthful of Pine-Sol. I gave it about four sips before I poured the rest in the kitchen sink at my B&B — making the place smell, for an instant, like a camping tent in a Quebec forest. I expect that to satisfy my desire to experience the great outdoors this summer, unless I stumble upon some Beavermeat Saspirilla. (And I don’t mean at Mado.)

Le roi du smoked meat

As if a pizza box written in Franglais wasn't good enough, this one also has Chinese take-out typography ("Ouvert 24 heures"). The deli/pizzeria is a few blocks from the Jean-Talon subway stop in Montreal, and I stumbled on it this past weekend while trying to find the public market nearby (which is amazing, but more on that later). You can't see them in the photo, but the window display also features cans of Cott's Black Cherry Cola -- a drink associated with Montreal's most famous source of smoked meat, Schwartz's. It's nice to see an almost-extinct soft drink hang on because of a parasitic relationship with an even less healthy foodstuff. Maybe there's hope for Moxie.

Je plonge dans la piscine

Trying to move beyond baby steps (étapes de bébé) in speaking French, last night I attended a conversation group at the Ritz-Carlton bar called Jer-Ne. (Is it intentional that the name sounds like journée, French for a day's wages?) But I still felt like a little boy, if not a bébé, as I thought of my childhood visits to my grand-pères in Maine, when I couldn't decipher anything other than oui, non, and chocolat. This feeling only got stronger when I was talking to a very friendly and patient older man in the group and I blurted out, "J'aime lire des bandes desinées," or "I like to read comic books!" (Well, I do. Especially Charlie Brown and Lucy psychiatre.) I probably didn't seem any more mature when I excitedly talked about right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen, a candidate in this weekend's election for president of France. I'm no fascist; it was just that his name was the easiest to remember and pronounce (at least, more so than Nicolas Sarkozy). Midway through the meeting, our organizer announced in French that the next meeting would be in a private room of another restaurant, so that there'd be less noise to compete with. As I said good-bye, I told the organizer that I very much liked the idea of une petite salle sans bruit (small room without noise), and she responded, slowly and carefully, that I was in luck because the next meeting would be in just such a place -- apparently assuming, with good reason, that I hadn't understood a word of her previous announcement. I thought about saying, "But I understood you the first time!", but I couldn't come up with the words.

Sacre Bleu Line!

Note: I am now blogging at Robert David Sullivan. Please visit! The MBTA's new Web site is in 15 different languages, but the translations, at least in French, are a bit too literal. (Go to Charlie on the MBTA for good gripes about all things T-related.) I don't get why the station names are translated at all, since a French speaker who reads that "Coin de champs" is the closest station to where he wants to go would be better off knowing that all the signs at that station say "Fields Corner." And he would be better off asking a Bostonian "Does thees train go to Feeelds Cornair?" than saying the name of the station in French. Here are some of my favorite stops: BLUE LINE Le Suffolk avale la station (Suffolk Downs, or The Suffolk Swallows the Station). Run for your lives! Vénérez la station de plage (Revere Beach, or Venerate the Beach's Station!). The MBTA, naturally, prefers the imperative tense. Station non-conformiste (Maverick). It spits on your bourgeois Charlie Cards. GREEN LINE Station de prudence (Prudential Center, or Caution Station). En arrière de la station de colline (Back of the Hill, or The Back of the Station Called "Hill"). RED LINE Station carrée de bagagiste (Porter Square, or Person Who Carries Bags Square). Station de maître d'hôtel (Butler Street, or Butler Whose Name Is Probably Not Butler Station)* *Marilyn Monroe warned about this possible confusion in "All About Eve":

[a butler passes by] Miss Claudia Caswell: Oh, waiter! Addison DeWitt: That is not a waiter, my dear, that is a butler. Miss Claudia Caswell: Well, I can't yell "Oh butler!" can I? Maybe somebody's name is Butler. Addison DeWitt: You have a point. An idiotic one, but a point.

Read about my failures

A few weeks ago The New York Times reported on bloggers who chronicle their attempts to get out of debt. The theory is that, in being so open with their finances, they'll be too embarrassed to backslide into wasteful spending. They write how much they save eating lunch at Subway and, if they're in a masochistic mood, what extravagent purchases have gotten them into trouble. (See http://bloggingawaydebt.com/ and http://kgazette.blogspot.com/ for examples.) Clearly, a narrative involving personal failings is what is needed at Escar-go-go. Unfortunately, I erased my credit-card debt long before starting this blog, and I'm not in any group whose name ends with Anonymous (not that you know of, anyway). But I do have goals, and I will write about the steps taken to achieve them. One is to find a new apartment, which will be fun because of my unreasonable expectations. Another is to start a regular exercise regimen, which I guarantee will take a long time because it's so boring to write about. (Having a drink in every Boston establishment with a cocktail menu will probably take precedence.) And there is the goal of having a complete wardrobe that I look and feel comfortable in. Right now I'm all set with T-shirts (thanks to Christmas gifts) and pajamas (I don't want any, so I don't have any). One goal that seems attainable (probably deceptively so) is fluency in French. I have the benefit of a French-speaking mother whose parents were from Quebec, several years of classes in high school, and frequent trips to Montreal. But there is a problem in the difference between French French and Quebecois French. For example, I told my mother I was reading a novel about Paris called A Year in the Merde. I pronounced “merde” in the proper French way (the first syllable being similar to what Rhoda called Mary on The Mary Tyler Moore Show), and she didn’t know what I was talking about, so I started yelling “Merde! Merde!”, which is something I never expected to do to my mother. Finally, she said, “Oh, you mean mAHrde!” The lesson was that the French and the Quebecois don’t even shit the same way. So this might take longer than I hope.