montreal
WordCamp
My friend on her way home
Stevie Wonder is downtown
I’m so happy to have a friend who knows what is happening in this city. Stevie Wonder is opening the Jazz Festival tonight, for free. Renata and I will be there as long as she survives my homemade dinner.
[grooveshark player removed]
Imagine
Because I had forgotten my camera the first time, I visited Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John & Yoko at the Musée des beaux-arts twice: once when Paula was in town and then again with Renata last Wednesday.
I didn’t know that John Lennon was born during an air raid in 1940 or anything about the international War is Over! campaign. In this exhibit I especially liked the handwritten song pages and the interactive stamping room which had gotten a little out of control…
Homegrown children’s library
Normally during the school year I got caught up in essays, going on tangents in research. I collected all sorts of articles that seemed potentially relevant, but that I never ended up reading. The one day I actually went to a party and socialized, my friend Jennie told me about an awesome project she’d been working on for over a year: Building a children’s library for a local community center to support their after-school program as well as their literacy summer camp.
Books are collected mainly through donations and organized by 4 or 5 library volunteers. Jennie invited me to join and I spent a few weeks helping catalogue the items in LibraryThing, though I did squeeze in some reading when I could (how could I not?). It’s breaktime for the summer now, but if I’m still in Montreal in fall I’ll definitely be going back. It’s awesome to be part of a building a library from scratch!
Paula’s visit
Last week our good buddy and former colleague Paula visited Montreal. From my photos you’d think all we did was eat vegetables and cheese. Not so.
We also walked the Mont Royal street fair, lounged at the park, introduced her to The Inbetweeners, learned some interior decorating, got close to getting her to like beer by finding mead for sale (maybe that’s a stretch, but it’s
in the family at least), shopped Jean Talon market (why only when we have guests?), visited BAnQ, and saw the Imagine exhibit. Funny she missed Adam by a week.
Getting all nostalgic for our teaching days at WLI, we also called up Mr. Ahn in Suwon and chatted about his baby (who is practically a college student now!) Our phone call earned us some photos of Hyo-won, finally. What a doll!
Circus
Graduation
