Weekend Writing Prompt #405 – Gallant

Posted on March 2, 2025 by Dale | 98 Comments

Good Sunday afternoon! It is cold and windy outside and honestly, it is taking me some convincing to go for a walk. I haven’t succeeded yet despite the beautiful blue skies and sunshine (which forgot to turn on the heat). Plus the wind keeps gusting in a manner most menacing! What better way to wile away part of the day than to participat in Sammi’s WWP!

My friend is naturally gallant.

In a subtle dance

he takes the lead

while crossing streets

With a subtle twirl

I’m on the inside

and he, streetside

An Evening With Beethoven and Yannick

Posted on October 19, 2024 by Dale | 145 Comments

Hey there!

Remember me? I know, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? It was our extremely high season with the cruise ships in Montreal and, as if that wasn’t enough, I was dog sitting Vasco, my friend’s very rambunctious and lively Australian Shepherd. While that duty has been over since Monday, I am still trying to catch up on feeling normal.

My partner in culture, Julie, had to flush me for last night’s outing so I called in my friend of thirty years, François, who was more than willing to ~~suffer through~~ fill in for dinner and an evening of classical music.

After a lovely dinner at NYKS, we crossed the street to make our way to the hall.

Last night was the first of the Beethoven Marathon presented by the Orchestre Métropolitain, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, super conductor with many, MANY accolades and awards and honorary degrees. This first one was Beethoven’s Eroica.

I chose seats in the back of the orchestra because we would have the conductor facing us. I figured it would be a unique view and I know the sound in the “Maison Symphonique” is excellent no matter where you sit.

I was pretty shocked at how empty the hall was, though. As Marc said when I sent him a picture (before it started) – it looks like Covid!

The concert started off with Symphony no. 2. An enjoyable piece that I am only slightly familiar with. It’s funny how, surely many of us? become more familiar with one or two movements because that is what we hear on the radio. A little excerpt, ironically filmed post (during?) Covid.

The fascinating thing about sitting behind the orchestra is yes, you get to see all the expressions on the conductor’s face, but I was amusing myself with trying to count the number of cellos, oboes, bassoons, etc. I was very amused to watch one of the French horn players. If there was a long pause before she played, she would turn her instrument around in a full 360º before bringing it to her mouth. Who knew musicians had their little sort of superstitions or rituals like some athletes do?

After intermission, they played some obscure five-minute piece by Nicholas Ryan (don’t bother Googling, you can’t find anything!) called Eroi(s)ca – it sounded like it was part of a movie soundtrack that you can’t listen to if you aren’t watching the movie. It was a weird little piece that felt like it didn’t belong, really.

And then came the Symphony no. 3, also known as the Eroica. Wonderful piece. I actually recorded part of it but didn’t realise, in my trying to do it in a most discreet way, I basically filmed my boobs. So, no. You cannot have that excerpt here. Apologies most sincere.

After the concert, Maestro made his way through the orchestra thanking each musical section and extending his thanks to that part of the audience. I truly appreciated that. Plus it was nice to see him up close.

The drive home was bright with the Full Hunter’s Moon.

Heck, it even lit up my backyard. (Darn camera on my phone is so efficient, it over-compensated!)

I’m hoping to be back on the regular! Thanks for sticking around 🙂

Weekend Writing Prompt #379 – Timepiece

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Dale | 60 Comments

On Saturday night, my buddy Jules and I went to see Beau Dommage Symphonique. It was a wonderful show, an homage to the group we listened to all through high school and beyond. I was about to share my evening when I saw Sammi’s word prompt and figured I’d kill two birds with one stone (Gah! That is an awful expression, isn’t it?)

An Evening to Honour Beau Dommage

The crowd making its way through the entrance was a mature one – lots of silver reflecting from the lights. You know, around my age. There were a few young’uns who were certainly properly brought up on the music we were about to hear or who happened upon some of their tunes and liked what they heard. (How could they not?)

No timepiece was necessary to place the audience into the heart of Québec’s 70s decade as we all sang along to “La-Complainte-du-Phoque-en-Alaska”.*

* The Complaint of the Seal in Alaska

** total cheat by putting the song title in hyphens 😉

Safe – Friday Fictioneers

Posted on June 13, 2024 by Dale | 139 Comments

Again “late” to participate! Friday Fictioneers time is here. This week our lovely hostess chose a photo by Lisa Fox, and I thank you both, ladies! Click on Lisa’s pic to walk on over to Rochelle’s for the rules and regs. Or, just click on my frog below and pop in your link. Happy Thursday!

©Lisa Fox

Premium Vector | Cartoon frog in night forest Wild funny toad with green skin

Click to walk with me!

One of the things I love most about blogging is the discussions we have with others in our comments sections. Friendships are forged through this invisible wall that allows us to open up, I think.

To wit: Lisa and I chatted about hot peppers (whose post? 🤷🏻‍♀️) and their uses. This previous exchange came into play when I shared a nighttime walk. Lisa said I could make pepper spray with my dehydrated hot peppers. I was taken aback as it would never cross my mind to need it.

Sadly, it seems peaceful nighttime walks are not an option for everybody.

Add a Twinkle – Friday Fictioneers

Posted on June 6, 2024 by Dale | 117 Comments

A day late (for me) but here I am with this week’s Friday Fictioneers. This week, Roger Bultot’s lovely photo was selected to inspire us. Should you wish to play, click on Roger’s photo to get the rules and regs. If you don’t need ’em, just click on my frog below to add your link!

A Frog S Delight, Exploring the Joyful Display of Ornamented Fur, Generative Ai Stock Illustration - Illustration of summer, wildlife: 272251442

Click to play

She surveyed her display with not a little pride. It was not “stylish and du jour” but she never had been one to follow trends. What’s the point of putting up stuff that means nothing to you? Each piece was important to her and she cherished them all. She never could get that rule right. What was it? “Always put an uneven number of whatever and balance is key” or some other hogwash. Bah.

She loved the reflection of the lights hanging through the window. Yes! “I need to add some permanent twinkle. Extra around the window will be nice.”

Weekend Writing Prompt #344 – Wink

Posted on December 30, 2023 by Dale | 110 Comments

Boy, oh boy does Sammi like to give us a challenge on the last prompt of the year! 13 words! Accepted! Should you wish to participate, just click here to leave your link to your wink.

A smile

a sweet word

an invitation

a wink

a chill replaces warmth

I liked my mistake! I kept wondering why people said they liked my mistake! This image was lifted from another post. LOL… Joke’s on me…

Stolen Moments

Posted on June 24, 2023 by Dale | 98 Comments

Part deux from last week’s post, that I wanted to do the next day but danged if I can organise my time…

“Stolen moments” create a feeling of enjoyment in our “intensive time” awareness. The glow and the intensity of those instants can guide us throughout a whole lifetime. They can expose a second or a third dimension of the daily events and shed an expounding light on all the little details we encounter. (“Stolen moments” )”
― Erik Pevernagie

The show ended some time around 3:30 ish. Julie had errands to run so we went our separate ways. Walking back towards my car, I took pictures of the former St-Jacques Cathedral, then the Montreal Arts Institute (part of UQAM – Université du Québec à Montréal – one of our four universities) and, as I turned towards my car, I looked back and captured the Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes Chapel. (My aunt always said Quebec was the province of “Miracles” 😉 ) We’ve got a slew of ’em!

St-Jacques Cathedral

Cool opening

Montreal Arts Instutute

Ooh.. what’s thatT

Notre-Dame-de-Lourdres Chapel

I was parked right in front of “Les Foufs” – Les Foufounes Électriques (which, translated, means The Electric Bums) – a wild venue where you can have a drink and take in some live shows (so NOT my genre, usually! Punk and Speed Metal and the like…) I shared the murals around this building before, back in September 2019. (I just went back to check because I didn’t want to repeat and whoa! They are COMPLETELY different!) If you want to see the then images, click here.

I didn’t give them that much attention because I figured I had already photographed them (not realizing it was totes diff!)

Front

Side

Back

Adjoining building

I got back to the front of Les Foufs and threw my umbrella into my car as it wasn’t raining anymore and made the decision to steal a moment for myself. I looked at the battery of my phone. Oy! Only 35%! Welp, so be it, I’ll walk and click until the battery dies. Maybe I’d actually make it to the Mural festival!

St. Laurent Blvd, also known as The Main, is a rather busy street so to close it to car traffic for ten days between Sherbrooke and Mount Royal streets is something else. I know it caused us some grief at work as some of our tours go along this very section.

The last day for the festival was the 18th (the next day) and I was not coming back into town on Sunday, so thank you weather gods for turning off the taps for an hour or so, enabling me to go take a look-see, sans needing an umbrella.

Walking through the gates, I had only fifty feet or so to find myself in front of the first (and only) stage where two artists were hard at work with some thumping LOUD music playing.

This was pretty cool – creaked by Junko, using 0ld Bixi bikes (the bicycles you can rent anywhere in Montreal).

There were no other exhibits per se, as far as I could see; only kiosks selling this or that. It felt more like a sidewalk sale than a mural festival, quite frankly.

I was discouraged until I spotted wild colour to my left. It was the opening of an alleyway. Oooohhhh! These are done by Benny Wilding

On one side

Facing the other

To the end

‘Round the corner

I kept on going and there was LOTS of art but most of it felt rather messy to me. I took many pics but I’ll not bore you with them because frankly, once I uploaded them, they felt meh. I took many, MANY pictures along a couple alleys (way more than I would have thought 35% would allow!) and feel I could easily overwhelm you – so I shall hold back and save some for another time!

But I’m not quite done, yet, though… I didn’t go all the way to the end of the mural festival because, why? It just felt like there wasn’t more to see, so I turned east a block or two, snapping these

Alex Scanner, St-Laurent. Now I have Spanish Train in my head

Kevin Ledo, Leonard Cohen, Napoleon Street

Rone, Such a beautiful face, St-Dominique St.

Egle Zvirblyte – 1st to finish during festival 2023, corner of Pine and Hotel de Ville

Thank goodness for Google Image Search which enabled me to give the proper credit to the murals I photographed! Not all of them had signatures that were easy to see.

As I made my way back towards my car, I was taken by the charm of so many of the row houses. There were no more murals at this point and I still had some juice!

My camera grew dim. I had 3% left but just before I reached my car, I spotted these pigeons. As promised, Willow, here is that white one I mentioned. I’m frankly surprised it turned out!

I had time to get home, take a shower and get all dolled up because Linda and I had a dinner date at Lulu for mussels and good wine and we decided to dress up because… Why not?

We had such a lovely time despite making a crappy choice in wine (thankfully, we were able to switch it out for something way more palatable); the warm chèvre on not-crunchy croutons was tasty but there needs be some crunch! I enjoyed it anyway because it tasted good. I then chose the Diable (Devil) mussels – and like the name implies, it was spicy, while Linda took the Indienne. My friend was rather underwhelmed by her meal. We figured they were hit as hard as many other restaurants, thanks to the pandammit.

I am so mad at myself for forgetting to take our usual selfie. We looked marvellous! You’ll have to trust me on that one.

Of the Selfish Passions

Posted on June 19, 2023 by Dale | 123 Comments

“We can scarce express too much satisfaction in all the little occurrences of common life, in the company with which we spent the evening last night, in the entertainment that was set before us, in what was said and what was done, in all the little incidents of the present conversation, and in all those frivolous nothings which fill up the void of human life.”

~ Adam Smith, “Of the Selfish Passions,” The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Thank you, Yahooey 🙂

This past Saturday brought me so much joy and satisfaction and I have now realised I have way too much to say, so I shall have to split this up in a couple posts!

First, with Julie (my cultural sidekick). We got tickets to go see “Lasting Impressions” at the Espace St-Denis. Having seen the Immersive Van Gogh and Monet exhibitions, we figured this might be similar. Or not. We had no idea but that’s how we roll. Most of the times, our willingness to experience something unknown turns out to be a winner. This was no exception.

Our initial plan was to go early, say 10-ish, and walk around the Mural Festival on St. Laurent (a couple streets west and two blocks north) from the venue. However, Dame Nature decided to wash that idea away. Now those of you who’ve been hanging around this joint, know that Jules and I are not sissies when it comes to rain. It’s always best to be willing to walk in the rain after your event and not before it. Therefore, we changed our plans to meet for lunch and then go see the show. I was expecting the drive to be hell as it was also Grand Prix weekend. Nope. Easy-peasy and I was able to park on St. Catherine, a few blocks down. I could have parked closer but hey, the walk would do me good.

There were options but we ended up at Pizzeria Dei Compari – a joint I had gone to once in another lifetime – where we ended up choosing too-similar pizzas! So much for swapping out a different slice to taste something different – we did anyway. Oh well. They were both delicious.

We then walked about 100 metres to the doors of the Théâtre St-Denis. Oops. No, we were not going to see “Hair” – I dunno that I’d want to see a French version of it, to be honest. Our show was at the next door in the Espace St-Denis. Tables were all set out and it had a lovely cabaret feel to it. You could even order drinks and eats to nosh on while you enjoyed the show. We abstained.

The first thirty minutes or so were a tutorial of sorts. There was one giant screen at the front and multiple ones on either side, over the pillars and then continuing on each side and behind us. I didn’t think to take a picture but The Gazette’s John Mahoney did.

Patrons sit at tables as they watch the 2D portion of the new exhibition Lasting Impressions at Le Studio-Cabaret/Espace St-Denis in Montreal on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023. The second half of the show is presented in 3D.

We were seated in the second to front row. Might have benefitted from backing up a tad.

I just now thought of looking at YouTube. Apologies for those who already passed by and missed this. C’est magnifique. Merci, Sophie Renoir.

On the two main sides was a brief description of each of the artists: Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Georges Seurat, Henri Rousseau, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, in English and French, while images of their paintings faded in and out. The only complaint I have is what was written in English was totally different from the French and I did not always have time to read both. Plus, it was hard to look at the paintings and read (I can’t help myself – I must read). It would have been nice if they slowed it down a tad. They were especially quick with the sharing of the three often overlooked women impressionists of the time: Eva Gonzales, Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot.

And that is the extent of my complaint.

The true spectacle then began after a fifteen-minute intermission. On with our 3-D glasses to truly become one with the paintings. Oh. Wow. The music perfectly matched the images that, through the magic of computers, had movement. Like a breeze ruffling the tutus of the ballerinas or the water glimmering and rippling. I know it was silly to take a picture of one of the screens, but I couldn’t help myself 🙂

Debussy, Ravel, Aznavour, Piaf. The first Degas ballerina was just there – how to refrain from wanting to reach out and touch her.

And while you had a little taste of the beautiful Nana Mouskouri song, I have included it here, should you want to listen to the whole thing. So beautiful “It Will Be Me”.

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, they broke out the big guns. No, that’s not fair, really. I think I like Monet more than I do Van Gogh; however… They chose a version of “Vincent” I had not heard before. At first I thought it was Josh Groban, but no, I was wrong.

While image after image was taking over our visual senses, my whole being was taken over by this version of the song. I was frankly stunned at just how much it gutted me and brought me to tears. After the show, Julie told me she had never really paid attention to the lyrics before and didn’t realise it was about this Vincent. It made it all the more poignant with this beautiful art displayed in front of us. I could wax on but instead, I shall leave you with Adam Fisher and Brian Finley