had a great time in Montreal the other weekend...my olde home town & all, even rolled out a Nuit Blanche, February edition, so i could celebrate being in Montreal by going to galleries all night long. okay, some people like dancing in nightclubs, and i like watching conceptual art videos at 2 in the morning. followed by hotdogs with coleslaw at the Montreal Pool Room. i only wish i'd had time to go out to the biosphere, to watch the night birds...including, i suppose, this preternaturally-glowing blue owl...
i got to do two very different readings while in Montreal--a Friday lunchtime reading at the venerable Atwater Library, accompanied by the very fun & cool sax player Dave Turner, and the second at the Pilot Reading Series, which takes place every month or so at the Sparrow, a bar which is now on my all-time favourite top ten bar list for the planet earth. this, based on three essential facts: it has excellent Quebec beer; it has a beautiful staircase that goes nowhere; and it is conveniently close to an all-night bagel bakery. it also has some of the most beautiful wallpaper i have ever seen, in a bar or elsewhere.
a big giddy bisou to all who made the readings happen...
A great evening organized by Rats of Las Vegas publisher Enfield & Wizenty (the literary imprint of Great Plains), at the most excellent Yellow Dog in downtown Winnipeg. Kudos to poker queen Susie Moloney for winning the evening's 7-card stud game--her prize was an enduring reputation at the card table & a serious bottle of booze. And many thanks to the other players, who were a treat to deal for: crime authors Michael Van Rooy and Mike McIntyre, McNally Robinson's David Lawrence, and Great Plains publisher extraordinaire, Gregg Shilliday. (photos courtesy of a cellphone...nicely atmospheric, i say! and for further multimedia, imagine the really marvellous selection of whiskey at the Yellow Dog)
