Let's give the Portuguese a round of applause...

Last night I walked home from downtown, up Alymer street to Pins, taking St. Urbain the final leg home. On the corner of Rachel and St. Urbain I notice a flurry of activity at the Portuguese Catholic church. I start to enter, walking up the stairs toward the door. Mass?, I wonder, supposing I could use the calm of choir and incense, but notice people directing traffic in the parking lot--old men in old caps. A wedding? I make to leave. But in addition to traffic direction, I also notice a bit of Portuguese anger. Horns honk, fists shoot out windows to shake angrily at a car behind or at the man directing the cars. An elderly woman, a shawl over her head and tied in the front, stands in the middle of the road, threatening drivers. Utter chaos. I stand under a street light and laugh. I really do laugh, and had they the focus to turn their attention to me, they'd suppose it was I that was insane. A mutual perception. I jot some notes about the scene. I look up and notice the threatening woman is now directing the traffic. She has to scream to be heard. Horns squeal, fists fly. I like this scene. Arguments and displays of anger in the church parking lot. A great piece of reality. Further up the street I stumble upon a new treasure in the Laughing Woman's front yard: a statue of the Virgin, encased in glass worthy of the Pope Mobile, decorated carefully and ceremoniously with colored christmas lights. This is a special sighting. Perhaps this protects her yard from gifts from the neighboring dogs, protects her door from Mormons; perhaps it is not protection but forgiveness that she seeks. Forgiveness for her cruel words to a slow driver in a church parking lot, or for embarrassing her husband in public places. So much easier to slip out the front door, particularly in the cold winter months, for penitence and offering.

I owe my weekend to the Portuguese. I really do. Because this path through Catholic hommage and (minor) hostility forgave the two disappointing films I saw, redeemed the rain and the stench of the sunday bus. Don Delillo, too, I owe. To avoid boredom and loneliness, I spend the 14th at Starbucks, a second-story edition nestled in the upstairs corner of a bookstore. I pull out the eggplant and stringy chicken from a not-so-stellar sandwich, hide these extractions between one napkin divided in two. I read "Underworld"--making progress, learning in novel form (and with a Cold War backdrop) about waste: waste used and reinvested--Klara Sax's decorated bomber planes; waste magnificently collected and shaped--Fresh Kills Landfill in New Jersey. My reading gains credence as I stare at my half-eaten sandwich, wrapped in plastic, a cardboard cup with a styrofoam lid, a napkin containing the dissected eggplant and chicken. And then there is the man outside who begs for money, shakes a plastic Starbucks cup in my direction. This is what these authors do to me. The world becomes a platform for theories to play out, and small images become big ideas that torment me for the rest of the day.

And that, I can safely say, is what may plague this blog or any of my writing. Without a weekend of great big adventure, I tend to extrapolate the small happenings. I apologize to those who are waiting for me to stop hoovering over events and actually describe my life. When I told you at the beginning that I would provide some sort of backalley guide to Montreal, I think you really stumbled upon a heady look into my pretensions. Sorry about that. Here's to the next blog and to getting back on the doubledecker tour bus.