MONTREAL CALEIDOSCOPE OR 100 HOURS WITH A DEAR FRIEND.
Sketch Four: The Christmas Lights Of The Big City.
Talking of lights, Montreal is officially considered the second biggest French-speaking city in the world, while its only superior in this aspect - Paris - is widely known as The City Of Lights. That made me curious as to Montreal’s relationships with lights…and colours.
It’s easy to guess that the city’s predominant colour during the daytime was white. To be exact - all hues and tinges of white. It looked grayish-white when rain and snow mixed in the air, it acquired a shade of yellow when this very snow melted under numerous feet; buildings and pavements painted the islands of snow in their immediate proximity in milky-white…To find the real colour, pure-white, one had to go to parks with their untrodden paths or visit big squares, temporarily untainted with any human presence. I am neither a painter nor an art-expert, so I went to such a square to enjoy its beauty rather than to apprecite and savour the colour itself - and yet, I couldn’t help being drawn and hypnotised by its purity. Right across the road people were hurrying up and down the road, and even some cars would yo-yo there and back from time to time. All that was being of a little concern for me - for a moment Jack London’s famous “White Silence” swallowed me…
It would be symbolic and highly exaggerated to say that I emerged out of it when darkness fell on the city because, in reality, it took the darkness quite a while to settle in. The natural colours were gone but artificial lights proved to be a wonderful substitution. I am not talking about those steady lights of the Underground City I mentioned at the end of the previous sketch - neither of the flickering lights luring passerbies into malls and entertainment centres or the never-ending gaudy lights of the highly ritualized, ABBA-oriented casino with its “always sunny in the rich men’s world” message. I did spend there a couple of mildly profitable hours but now I am rather referring to seasonal lights that never appear before December and seldom outlive the first part of January, the Christmas festivity lights on fir-trees.
I have no idea who St.Catherine was, and if she had ever met Jesus Christ - on Earth or else. It’s however obvious that the street bearing her name (which seems to be Montreal’s main street) is very well familiar with the tree associated with the Saviour and devoted to his birth… It was on a rather nice and not even especially cold evening that we found ourselves strolling along St.Catherine while trying not to hit one of those numerous puddles created by the recently melted snow. The street was full of hurrying people as it probably always is on any given day - independently of the season. X-mas was still weeks away, and there was no special reason to expect any of its characteristic sights to come to the foreground. We stopped at a traffic lights by a rather big junction, and suddenly…there was it. A Christmas tree in its full attire, fresh and festive as if smiling at all those watching it. I got a clear impression that the momentary hostages of the traffic lights caught the mood and started smiling back - at the tree and at each other. Probably I was getting delirious for an instant…
Romantic as it was, it was not the first little touch of magic on that day. I already mentioned the old Windsor railway station we passed during our snowy tour. In fact, we spent some time inside it too, in a vast empty hall turned into a museum of… memories and silence. Normally, our steps would probably echo in our own ears but this time we were greeted by music. A delightful soft piece of music was seemingly coming from nowhere - and a charming Christmas tree seemed to reach for us with all its lights. That was some surprise! I felt like we should do something worthy of its presence there - so I lured my dear companion into a soft, innocent, slow dance around the tree. Not the worst possible way to celebrate the imminent Christmas, New Year - or whatever…
Talking of lights, Montreal is officially considered the second biggest French-speaking city in the world, while its only superior in this aspect - Paris - is widely known as The City Of Lights. That made me curious as to Montreal’s relationships with lights…and colours.
It’s easy to guess that the city’s predominant colour during the daytime was white. To be exact - all hues and tinges of white. It looked grayish-white when rain and snow mixed in the air, it acquired a shade of yellow when this very snow melted under numerous feet; buildings and pavements painted the islands of snow in their immediate proximity in milky-white…To find the real colour, pure-white, one had to go to parks with their untrodden paths or visit big squares, temporarily untainted with any human presence. I am neither a painter nor an art-expert, so I went to such a square to enjoy its beauty rather than to apprecite and savour the colour itself - and yet, I couldn’t help being drawn and hypnotised by its purity. Right across the road people were hurrying up and down the road, and even some cars would yo-yo there and back from time to time. All that was being of a little concern for me - for a moment Jack London’s famous “White Silence” swallowed me…
It would be symbolic and highly exaggerated to say that I emerged out of it when darkness fell on the city because, in reality, it took the darkness quite a while to settle in. The natural colours were gone but artificial lights proved to be a wonderful substitution. I am not talking about those steady lights of the Underground City I mentioned at the end of the previous sketch - neither of the flickering lights luring passerbies into malls and entertainment centres or the never-ending gaudy lights of the highly ritualized, ABBA-oriented casino with its “always sunny in the rich men’s world” message. I did spend there a couple of mildly profitable hours but now I am rather referring to seasonal lights that never appear before December and seldom outlive the first part of January, the Christmas festivity lights on fir-trees.
I have no idea who St.Catherine was, and if she had ever met Jesus Christ - on Earth or else. It’s however obvious that the street bearing her name (which seems to be Montreal’s main street) is very well familiar with the tree associated with the Saviour and devoted to his birth… It was on a rather nice and not even especially cold evening that we found ourselves strolling along St.Catherine while trying not to hit one of those numerous puddles created by the recently melted snow. The street was full of hurrying people as it probably always is on any given day - independently of the season. X-mas was still weeks away, and there was no special reason to expect any of its characteristic sights to come to the foreground. We stopped at a traffic lights by a rather big junction, and suddenly…there was it. A Christmas tree in its full attire, fresh and festive as if smiling at all those watching it. I got a clear impression that the momentary hostages of the traffic lights caught the mood and started smiling back - at the tree and at each other. Probably I was getting delirious for an instant…
Romantic as it was, it was not the first little touch of magic on that day. I already mentioned the old Windsor railway station we passed during our snowy tour. In fact, we spent some time inside it too, in a vast empty hall turned into a museum of… memories and silence. Normally, our steps would probably echo in our own ears but this time we were greeted by music. A delightful soft piece of music was seemingly coming from nowhere - and a charming Christmas tree seemed to reach for us with all its lights. That was some surprise! I felt like we should do something worthy of its presence there - so I lured my dear companion into a soft, innocent, slow dance around the tree. Not the worst possible way to celebrate the imminent Christmas, New Year - or whatever…