The Walkable City: From Haussmann's Boulevards to Jane Jacobs' Streets and Beyond
Confession: the photo was taken some time ago when we actually had some sunny weather. It's been gray and rainy for the last couple of days and all the snow is melting. Would love to have the sun greet the new year, but the forecast says no.
Whatever, best wishes for a splendid 2023.
Here's the link to our holiday blog, too, in case you're interested.
But I'm not going out until the sidewalk tractors come by. Snowy sidewalks are a good excuse to stay inside and read.
Spent a good part of the morning filleting and cleaning them, and now I have four large jars of sil in the fridge, ready for celebrations later this month.
But I'm up and around, even walking outside with a cane, despite snow on the sidewalks so it's time to catch up....
I talk about them at length in my new book Against the Seas: Saving Civilizations from Rising Waters that will be out in February from Dundurn Press. Not a moment too soon...
Love plant that comes back every year. I don't know why people bother annuals in this climate go-around.
My contribution is this photo of the perennial plant, Queen Anne's lace, which is just finishing up its reign as queen of wild spaces just now. A member of the carrot family, it supposedly is named after Queen Anne, the wife of England's King James II. She wore a lot of lace ,it seems.
The connection with the monarchy is clear, and so is the beauty of the plant.
When you get to the end of the road at Kegaska, you can continue by going out to sea. Manypeople must have considered doingtht, becausethe harbourhas many inukshuk, those Inuit cairns, that show the way. 
This is as far as you can go on a road up the north shore of the St. Lawrence river. To reach the small villages beyond, you have to take a boat, or fly in.
Kegaska is about 1300 km from Montreal, and we took three days to get there and eight days to come back. Wonderful weather, great scenery and generally a good time.
More photos to come, as fall approaches and the world closes in upon us.
Just as France begins to consider prohibiting women from wearing niqab, or a full veil, fashion designer Riccardo Tisci features a very attractive young woman wearing a sort of pseudo-veil in his new collection for Givenchy, seen at left as shown in The Globe and Mail.
The juxtaposition throws a spotlight on the place where fashion and ideas about modesty—religious or not—intersect. As I’ve said before here, wearing a veil may be a signal of Muslim belief in some quarters, but it doesn’t stop women from caring about how they look.
And, as I’ve just learned, the veil is not only a Muslim thing. It has been a strategy to avoid harrassment in other places, and has gone through some interesting transformations elsewhere too.
I’m reading Louise Levathes’ fascinating When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433 as I research my book about the Portuguese Making Waves. After the great period of Chinese maritime adventure, its defences against attack from the sea declined until its coastal areas were prey for pirates and raiders in the 16th century, frequently called wako.
“China’s coastal famers and fishermen...who had been robbed of their livelihood as well as, at times, their wives or daughters, never forgot the wako. Young girls in the Hui’an peninsula ... to this day tie blue scarfs tightly around their heads, hiding their faces...it has become the local fashion,” she writes. “But the stories, passed down for generations in villages, of a time when yong women fled from the lecherous glances of the bandits who came from across the sea in ships with red sails, have not died.”
Hui’an women are reputed for their beauty, and now wear very short jackets which show their navels along with their scarves. “Sexy Lady on the Sunny Beach – Hui'an Women” one story about their traditional dress says. Fashion trumps all!
Photos of Hui'an women from Chinavista.com and Chinaculture.org. Photo of Tisci creation from onsugar.com
Note from March 6, 2011: for more about Muslim women, the veil and female affirmation see "Good News from the Arab Spring Revolutions: "When Women Change, Everything Changes."
So this guy just ambled out, kept a wary eye on us (who had stopped to look at birds) and proceeded to scratch his belly on the sandy soil. Trying to remove parasites? Scratch mosquito bites? Who knows? Obviously as long as we were still he felt no fear. But as soon as we moved he took off...
This comes as the Monarch is being declared an endangered species, in large part because of wholesale destruction of its breeding fields in North America. Glad to see that some people are still planting those species that Monarchs like. Very unhappy to see that sometimes the fields of milk weed and cone flowers get mowed by public agencies who don't seem to know what they'e doing.
Planting street trees and greening parks are important parts of any plan to combat climate change. Besides, they're beautiful.
Geese are quite tame and not at all bothered by our presence. Young are of various ages. Nice to see on Fathers' Day.
Just a few minutes earlier a noisy flock of geese landing in a nearby pond to feed and splash around. Why were they not with their partners raising more goslings? I wondered.
Turns out that for the first
couple of years young geese don't settle down to raise little ones.
The bird books didn't say so, but it looked like the flock must have
been a group of rowdy goose adolescents without responsbilities yet. Wonder what they did on Saturday night.
I've run this before, but it bares repeating: in Quebec this weekend is not Victoria Day but the Journée des Patriotes. It commemorates the Rebllion of 1837-38, which was that nearest thing to a revolution Canada has ever known. And it wasn't just the French speakers of Lower Canada who were demanding a larger say in government, William Lyon Mackenzie (grandfather of William Lyon Mackenzie King) was one of the leaders of the uprising in Upper Canada, not to mention Wolfred and Robert Nelson who were leaders here.
However, about18 months ago I took up the challenge, bought a healthy and blooming plant, and then tried several methods. Didn't write them down, so I can't really say what worked, but something did.
The plant began blooming this week, and I'm hoping we'll have a couple of months of blooms. Yay!!
Nevertheless, somehow the plant last week sensed that spring was upon us and started sending out green leaves. Lee carried it upstairs to the second floor landing on Sunday, and now it is growing wonderfully under the skylight.
I find it amazing that minimal cues can prompt plants into new life when spring arrives. There are a lot of things that we don't know about the world...
Many birds though, including red winged blackbirds that seem to be delighted to be back where they nest.
It's easy to forget just how far the tidal influences extend up the St. Lawrence estuary. I knew tides were felt as far as Quebec City, but I really didn't realize the extent of that flow until this week when we spent a few days there. One of the day's two high tides came at the end of the afternoon so we spent a lot of time watching the ice run upstream. Fascinating!
Once again, I bowled over the wonders of nature.
I have two indulgences. One is a good haircut from Wayne McLaughlin at Furisme. The other is a subscription to The New Yorker. Must go see Wayne soon, because I'm getting shaggy, but here are two great covers from the magazine.
As I've been enjoying the weather (much prefer sun and cold to mild and grey) I've been wondering if we all should be storing up a lot of memories of what a good winter is like. The latest report by the International Panel on Climate Change says that things are going to get worse.
According to to the background info: “This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction,” said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC. “It shows that climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our wellbeing and a healthy planet. Our actions today will shape how people adapt and nature responds to increasing climate risks.”
Take heed, everyone. And enjoy what we've got when we can.
But given all the stupidity going around, I'm feeling just as out-of-sorts as he does.
I've spent far more time on pickets lines and at various demonstrations than I care to remember, but I've never seen such folly as in the last few days.
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There's a decorative orange tree too, that spends the winter at the top of the stairs under a sky light. Until last summer we took it outside too, but it now is really too big to wrestle down the stairs. Last summer we got it out on a balcony, but I dont know how long that dodge will work.
Nice to have plants that live a long time, particularly when the world seems to be so dangerous these days...
The photo was taken several years ago, but I still like it. Saw several kids out this morning trying their skates out.
I hear our youngest grandkid just graduated from two-blade skates to the real thing, and I imagine he's out today despite the cold.
The only thing to do in the middle of a pandemic, even when it's cold, is go play outside!
Remember it, friends, when the way looks obscured ahead.
