Here’s a neat Spanish-Canadian connection: Margaret Atwood just won the 2008 Príncipe de Asturias prize for Literature, which is almost as good as winning a Nobel (there have been a few winners of both awards over the years, such as Doris Lessing).

That 50.000€ is worth around $80,000 Canadian! Maybe not as good as the 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.7M Cdn) you get for the Nobel, but still a good bit of cash for a writer… (-; I’m sure it’s a drop in the bucket, though, compared to her royalty earnings.

Good job, Margaret!

I’m not truly “home”, since home is now in Spain…but I am back in Montreal (with travel insurance to visit my own country, if you can imagine). My three month ticket return date came up, and since all my Spanish paperwork is now in order (and thus I should be able to legally re-enter the country), I decided to take a three-week jaunt across Canada by plane, train and automobile. First to Montreal, then out west to see my sister and her new daughter, then more family. (If “more family” sounds dismissive, please — it isn’t. I’ll be glad to see everyone; it’s just that having a two-month-old niece is particularly exciting.)

It’s a great time to be in Montreal, of course: the street fair, fireworks competition, Jazz Fest (starting later this week). The place probably hasn’t changed that much in the three months I’ve been away, yet it’s undergone the spring to summer transition (which is always dramatic, and not only in the amount of clothing people wear) and all the restaurants have new menus, prices bumped up by $0.25 (best case) to $2.00 or more. Guess this is the price of oil, food…or just opportunism, with a new tourist season heating up?

The other noticeable change is the proliferation of bicycles. Montreal has always been a big biking city with great bike paths (more developed and bike-friendly than Barcelona in almost every way except for Bicing). But there are so many new bike paths this year that bikes are especially viable, even for people who need to commute to and from downtown. Bikes are absolutely everywhere. There are new links that run down avenue du Parc, along de Maisonneuve…it’s impressive (and makes me a little jealous) to see all the new developments. Hopefully Montreal will learn some things from Barcelona’s “public biking” approach, but Barcelona could learn plenty from Montreal, too.

The exciting news from today is that I bought my annual supply of underwear and socks at the St. Laurent street sale (wonderfully named La Frénésie de la Main). But it had a nice Spanish(-language, at least) touch — I bought them from a latina shopkeeper (hablamos español). Meanwhile Spain was playing Italy (two emotional forces of La Main, especially now that Portugal is out) on the big screens in every bar and restaurant around. Spain eventually won the Euro 2008 match in a kickoff, so it’s into the semi-finals for them (I mean, for us).

I guess I must adjust to new situations quickly, because although it’s really good to be here, I’ll be glad to (when the time comes) go back to Barcelona. In Spain, probably I go on too much about how great Canada is for this or that. But here in Canada, I don’t find myself saying: “Phew, finally I’m back in a land where things makes sense,” but instead going on about how great it is…back home.

I’ve had a series of wonderful “nature moments” in the last week… I was awakened early Tuesday morning by a bugling bull elk outside my open window, expressing his rutting randiness with that eerie trumpeting sound. My goosebumps were not from the frosty mountain air…

Then I was watching a glacier (Cavell Glacier in Jasper National Park) on Tuesday when I happened to witness a massive chunk of ice calve off into the lake. Over the years, I have occasionally seen bits break off glaciers and make that impressive “gunshot” sound of ice cracking, but this was on a huge scale — really special. It’s hard to judge precisely from across the small lake, but I’d estimate it was a chunk maybe 50m wide and 15m high that broke off(!). After several internal groans and bangs, it dropped into the lake in “slow motion” with a giant splash that caused a minor tsunami…a wave that worked its way across the lake. By the time it reached our shore it was mostly a ripple, though, since the lake was almost frozen over and the wave lost a lot of its energy.

Last night, I flew from Edmonton to Montreal on the Air Canada red-eye flight. We left Edmonton at 1h15 and arrived in Montreal 4 hours later, just after sunrise, around 7h10. Somewhere in between (I suspect when we were over Saskatchewan) I suddenly jolted out of my semi-conscious reverie and looked out the window. I was greeted by two unlikely sights…first, a bright meteor shot vertically downwards just at the moment I looked out. Second, the view out my window was filled with green and very dynamic Northern Lights (aurora borealis) from horizon to horizon. What a treat! They continued for a long while, and so I didn’t sleep much after that, just kept staring out the window.

I tried to take a few pictures when they were at their most dramatic, to give you a vague idea what it was like… (note that the window was quite greasy in spite of my attempts to clean it, and also it’s hard to hold a camera steady for a second or two on a bumpy airplane!) Luckily aurorae are not “hard-edged” phenomena, so a little blur doesn’t hurt. Note that this is pretty far south for such an intense display — probably the plane was around 51 or 52 degrees North at the time.

When I got home, I checked SpaceWeather.com, and discovered the following:

High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras tonight. Earth is entering a high-speed solar wind stream, which could trigger a geomagnetic storm.

Indeed…

At least, that’s where they seem to be going, these days. Things are falling down, whether it’s the Concorde overpass in Montreal last year (five dead), the I35W bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis a month ago (13 dead) or the recent collapse of a bridge under construction in Fenghuang, China (at least 36 dead). And there are plenty of bridges in bad shape in the U.S. (and in Canada and elsewhere in the world, too!).

And as recently as this past weekend, there were more scares. In Montreal, a big section of downtown was closed for much of the weekend over fears a concrete slab in the “underground city” would collapse. It has been shored up with many supporting pylons, surely not a permanent solution.

Other bridges, such as the ten-year-old Confederation Bridge to PEI, seem to be doing just fine. Excuse me, did you say…TEN years old? I should hope not!

But today is the anniversary of another major collapse disaster. The Pont de Québec had its first (and most disastrous) collapse one hundred years ago today. It is an event Canadian engineers often learn about in their first-year classes; it is a lesson in responsibility, human error and humility. Some initial calculations weren’t checked and the bridge couldn’t even support its own weight. It collapsed under construction, killing 75 workers. Apparently, at 17h37 today (local time), church bells in many communities will ring, to mark the anniversary and commemorate the dead.

I know this sounds a bit dubious, like something you might accidentally stumble across on the Internet. But no, I’m talking about the FIFA World Cup, and in particular the “under-twenty” version of the championship that’s being held in Canada for the first time this year. (We’re hoping to some day graduate to the “real” World Cup.)

Everyone in Canada loves soccer, don’t they? I mean, we almost all played it (or play it) as kids, and amateur soccer (aka “summer hockey”) is certainly alive and well. (Surely you know our noble Canadian motto: It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, as long as you have fun.) We’re not what you would call a world power, though, when it comes to the higher echelons of the sport. We have had (and do have) some professional leagues (Edmonton Drillers, late 1970s, anyone?), but I daresay most people would be hard pressed to name a single Canadian professional team. However, as of this year we do have Toronto FC, the first Canadian team in Major League Soccer (yes, that’s the same league Beckham now plays in, with the Los Angeles Galaxy…in fact he will play his first MLS game in Toronto on August 5!).

Anyhow, I’ve never been a fan of football on TV (and by football, of course I mean soccer). I rank it above golf in watchability but certainly below hockey and women’s beach volleyball. To give you an idea of how casually I take my spectating — even with hockey, I normally only watch a bit during the playoffs (and beach volleyball every four years, during the Olympics, whether I need it or not).

But as someone who wants to live in Spain, a country at least as mad about fútbol as Canada is about hockey, I feel I should give it a chance. I do enjoy watching highlight reels, seeing those spectacular goooooóls and the touch-and-go passing. Other than that, though, watching tiny specks exchanging possession within an enormous midfield area strikes me as almost…golf-ish, in its level of excitement.

But I appreciate the energy of fandom and national pride (actual or adoptive). I live in a neighbourhood with many Portuguese and Brazilian ties, so I’m surrounded by fanatical worshippers of the buckyball. I woke up early on a summer 2002 morning to join in the impromptu parade when Brazil won the World Cup. In 2006, I went to the Spanish social club and shared the humiliation of Spain being eliminated by France in the Round of 16. I remember hearing the roar of 80,000 fans coming from Palo Alto’s Stanford Stadium (near where I was living) during the 1994 World Cup. And last year, although jetlagged, I gave up hope of sleeping in Barcelona on the night Barça won the European Champion’s League — there were home-brew fireworks shows as far as the eye could see (and ear could hear).

So perhaps I was wrong. Somehow, I’ve gotten hooked watching this year’s under-twenty league (on TV or even on the ‘net, thanks to CBC and FIFA). As the teams filter down via elimination, the games get pretty exciting. The skill on display, by tomorrow’s superstars, is great to watch. So is the immaturity of some of these kids, as when Portuguese player Zequinha plucked a red card out of the referee’s hands because he “refused” to allow it to be assigned to his teammate. He then left the stadium in tears, also thrown out. This week I went so far as to buy a ticket to Sunday’s quarter-final match at the Olympic Stadium, between Chile and Nigeria. Amazingly, after almost fifteen years in Montreal, this will be my first sporting event at the Big O (we can’t call it “The Big Owe” any more because it finally got paid off, last December!). I’m excited; I just hope I don’t get caught up in any hooliganism or, more likely, chunks of collapsing roof…ha ha.

No comment about the fact that host team Canada didn’t win a single game, nor even score a single goal… No comment, except to say that we have our own unique way of achieving “firsts”! Suffice it to say that attendance has been great — in fact we may set a record, which would be a true point of pride.

Who do I cheer for? Generally, I do it on cultural and linguistic lines. If the option is there, I cheer first for Canada (why not?). After that comes Spain, then other hispanohablante country (e.g. Chile, Argentina, Mexico), then I move to neighbourhood favourites (both eliminated this time!) Brazil and Portugal. As a tie-breaker in undecided cases, where I don’t really know or care, I cheer for the underdog. On the other hand, if a team is playing exceptionally well, I may switch allegiance simply because they just deserve my applause. My loyalties are many and fickle.

…yes, Happy Birthday to Canada! It’s the big four-oh (plus one hundred). Lucky us: here in Quebec we’re enjoying our second long weekend in a row, more time to enjoy the Jazz Fest and the strangely cool weather of the last few days. Last weekend was la Saint-Jean, Quebec’s fête nationale. Today, one week later, is Canada’s 140th!

It’s hard to imagine that I’ve been alive for one quarter of my country’s history. If you were from San Marino, you’d have to be well over 400 years old to make that claim. On the other hand, if you were from Montenegro you could be 3 months old and still alive for quarter of your country’s history…

Turns out it’s also Princess Diana’s birthday (and about ten years since her death), and there’s that big Wembley concert her sons are putting on in her memory, that apparently 500 million are watching right now. Ah, Lady Di… I especially love saying her name the way they pronounce it in Spain: there, it sounds like “Laddie D,” which somehow I find very cute.

“Props” also to those in Hong Kong, who today are celebrating ten years since the end of British rule (basically the same thing we’re celebrating here!).

The expression goes: “As American as apple pie.” Well here, we’re so proud of our symbols, oh yes indeed — people today are talking about “the North,” the beaver, hockey, the Mounties…we’ve got our Seven Wonders…and yet a recent survey says that (my italics):

…around 30 per cent of Canadians say part of what makes Canada successful is the lack of a strong national identity.

Well, you know, at least we’ve got a nice personality…

…with those eyes of yours. The makers of a new Canadian short film have integrated real eye performances with stop-motion animated puppets. The result looks quite spectacular: both emotionally engaging and spooky. The NFB-supported film, Madame Tutli-Putli, looks fantastic, at least judging from the trailer and “making of” stuff I’ve seen on the web. I can’t wait to be able to see it in its entirety.

The eye replacement “trick” they’re using is something that I’m sure will be copied in Hollywood and independent films alike, simply because it’s a great idea. It may be a ton of work to do well (read more about portrait artist Jason Walker’s digital compositing work here, or look at the gallery on his site), but hey — what isn’t painstaking in the animation world?

I suppose it would be only fair to mention the vaguely similar yet completely different Québécois animation phenomenon called Têtes à Claques. (Caution: only attempt to enjoy these goofy episodes if you are fluent in Joual! ;-)

In the same way that the bullet-time effect became almost cliché after The Matrix showed us how cool it was, I wonder if, in a few years, we will be rolling our eyes (quick, someone, grab a video camera!) to see this new technique being used in yet another film. For now, though, it’s fresh and innovative — if Madame Tutli-Putli is screened in your town, go see it and simply enjoy the filmmakers’ magical visual style. Also, its about riding a train cross-country, which is always cool. I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t claim to know Mme. T-P personally. But on first appearance I think she looks like she may be the love-child of Amélie Poulain and Charlie Chaplin. Could be the hat. Or maybe it’s those big eyes.

A story that has to be read to be believed: The U.S. government was investigating claims of a top secret Canadian “spy coin” that we crafty Canadians were allegedly planting in the pockets of U.S. government contractors to track their locations, record their conversations, signal the extraterrestrials to commence invasion, devalue the American currency…or something like that. (I may have made up a few of those)

Well done, the game is up. You caught us!

The culprit to the American mystery was our top secret “Poppy Quarter“, a coin put into circulation in 2004 in commemoration of the 117,000 Canadians killed in World War I, WWII and other conflicts. The poppy is our symbol of Remembrance.

“So how did these advanced nanotechnology tracking devices get into my pocket?” they ask. Reports were written. Investigations launched. It’s a little something we like to call: “making change”…obviously a radical Canadian concept you’re not so familiar with.

Let me explain: we rely on your secret agents crossing the border to buy coffee and donuts at Tim Hortons. Our Tim’s operatives mix the tracking coins with regular ones when making change for your greenbacks (your agents are overwhelmed by the rainbow hues of our currency and don’t notice anything “amiss” until it’s too late). Coins embedded in your agents’ pockets, we can track their positions, so please…just tell them not to make any 25-cent pay phone calls, or to feel overly generous should they pass a wishing well. That would, uh, throw off our carefully-laid evil plans.

N.B.: Tim’s was the exclusive distributor to the coin when it initially launched — So go ahead and R-r-r-roll up the rim to be tracked by our supercoins, which are uplinked to a massive network (four) of Anik spy satellites. And get this: did you know that “Anik” means “little brother” in Inuit? That’s right…Little Canadian Brother is watching youuuuu… (cue paranoid Twilight Zone music)

But the 2004 Poppy Quarter is old news. In the spy world, things change fast. The Canadian Mint has just completed a top secret project (read all about it here) to create the largest gold coin ever! It has a face value of $1 million (though the solid gold is worth over $2 million at today’s prices, and will actually sell for about $3 million!), and weighs 100kg. (that’s 220lbs for our agent friends from down south) Just think of the spy technology we were able to pack into something the size of a very thick pizza! Think of it…and be afraid…

Or should I say: “Expo…say friend!”

Today, 40 years ago (that would be 1967, for those not so quick on the math), Montreal’s World Exposition had its opening ceremonies, and it opened to the public on April 28th, which was a Friday that year. Canada turned 100 years old that year, and Expo was our centennial party. I’m sure there will be more in the news about this later today and tomorrow, but CBC has published a slideshow on their site here.

More fun is to be had in their archives. They feature more media…like clips from CBC TV and radio back in the day. Check the archives out here.

“Montreal is generally known for its attractive women…”
Listen to the stammering reporter trying to interview the pavillion hostesses:
“I really feel that I should put on a sign that says: ‘Please talk to me, I’m lonely.’”
“It’s quite interesting to see how the Canadian lives…”

Our metro (subway) was created and opened in the six months leading up to Expo, too. It was a time of massive change and development in Montreal. And, interestingly, tomorrow, besides being the 40th anniversary of Expo, they’re opening new stations in one of the biggest metro extensions in ages. The metro now runs to Laval. And rides are free on the entire network this weekend… This will “no doubt generate strong interest and even greater pride,” says the STM. Frankly, I don’t know if I can handle any more pride.

Back on the subject of Expo, there is a range of activities planned to commemorate the anniversary. More here (en français).

Still more archival material can be found here. Si tu préfères regarder et écouter en français, essaye-donc icitte…

Remarkable Canadian activist and journalist June Callwood died last week, at the age of 82, of cancer. She wanted no “extraordinary measures”, or even treatment. Just let the disease take its course and awaited death with poise, humour, and wisdom.

CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos (of The Hour) did an interview with her shortly before her death. It is “required viewing”. Moving, funny and — just wonderful. Please watch it, either the shorter version as aired on TV or (10:39), if you can spare the time, a somewhat longer version (16:35).

What a lady.