doreyme

Joy#213 of 1 organic swiss chard, 3 organic beans + 1 organic raspberry, watercolour, 8x11 August 1.09

To be or not be organic

Not organicers revel in articles like this.

Not very long ago this was a non issue. Everything grown was de facto organic.

These days, anyone who has ever seen, eg. fields of potatoes being sprayed, sprayed, sprayed and then seeing the dead fish in the stream affected by the runoff of the spray is willing to pay just a bit more for the organic spuds.   Although, here at least, in downtown Montreal, the prices have been going down quickly and continuously and the accessibility greater.  So about these anti-organic studies? Who is really funding them?  Last week the buzz was about fat people living longer.  What will it be next week? 

rainraingoaway but if you need some summer colour, Pat Pink Garden Show still going strong

Pink Espace "The Garden Show", 1399 St. Jacques, Montreal

Joy#211 of one organic zucchini, watercolour, 8x9 July 31.09

Infoman Le Palais De Pauline Marois
envoyé par mediawatchqc. -

PQ leader, Pauline Marois is selling her villa for 8 million dollars, it appears

The details here in Ms Marois fave newspaper.

It includes, apparently, an indoor swimming pool, a Jacuzzi bathtub,  8 bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a dining room that can seat 50 (these details heard on CBC this morning, as reported by a real estate agent in the region.) 

Pauline Marois  will keep an apartment or condo or something in Montreal it has been reported in various papers plus her residence in Quebec City as well as a new house to be built on their riverfront residence in the popular tourist area of Charlevoix where her riding is.  Apparently Pauline Marois didn't give many public tours of her villa.  

 Sotheby Canada. "La Closerie" ,on Ile Bizard Island,etc.  Wow. Wow. 

Joy#210 of two organic baby carrots, watercolour, 8x9 July 30.09

joy#209 of three organic Italian tomatoes, watercolour, 8x9 July 29.09

yum yum

Plateau alley, Montreal, July 28.09

St. Joseph's Oratory, Montreal

The other day I played tourist in my own city and toured for the first time, the entire  amazing St. Joseph's Oratory 

It has the third largest dome in the world.  There is an area full of crutches left by people who were purportedly cured by Father Andre who may be canonized one day, it's in the works...(a note, I don't know how to add accents with Typepad, my French words are often not correct).

There are beautiful gardens at the back with incredible architectural details you don't see every day.  Like the wrought iron bird deterrent fences. 

Inside, in the various chapels and museums, etc. there are many statues of Father Andre (plus his actual heart which was stolen + recovered  in the early 1970's + his body in the crypt.) 

And more in the souvenir shop.  This big Father is for sale. 

Joy#208 of three organic Royalty Purple Pod Beans, watercolour, 8x9 July 28.09

that turn green when you cook them

We eat wolves, don't we? No, actually Sarah Palin....

....we don't.  So your silly smug little "we eat therefore we hunt" sounds just a little bit hollow.  Gawd,  I wish  that over-hyped woman would  go off with her ghost writer for a very long long time  to write her hysterical memoir + journalists would stop traipsing after her for awhile.  Everytime I hear her hysterical voice or see her crazed face my blood pressure soars.  No wonder the anti-government health plan folks due south love her. 

Patrick Dougherty

here's more. I love these.

Joy#207 of four organic raspberries, watercolour 8x9 July 27.09

meanwhile the Marche Duluth...

on Marianne+Laval thrives.  It's wonderful to be able to walk to an organic farmer's market to buy all this great stuff.  Right now only on Sundays but maybe that will change.

Apparently my $250,000 alley greenification is actually...

the $33, 000 greenification according to the Montreal Gazette today.   I don't know if that includes the heavy machinery + crew that were there all last week but in any case it's alot saner than $250,000 which is the amount the City presented as the cost. It's all very heart warming that citizens have organized this greenification of an alley although I still have issues about it.  Call me the neighbourhood curmudgeon, but... first of all, this particular alley was not "a dismal concrete slab where no one really wanted to go" which Marcelle Bastien, director of the Lajeunesse community centre states in the article.  Quite the contrary.  It was, to my eyes, which attended art school for six years, quite beautiful + fairly green.   Here is a "before" picture, taken on May 27.09

To my eyes, it was a naturally evolved space and much, much used by many.  My kids learned how to ride their bikes in this alley (+ others around here).  More recently it was much used by me + Angus.  Plus many, many other dog owners around here.  Bicyclists trying to avoid the crowded one way streets of the Plateau. Bell and Videotron repairmen. Junkies shooting up. Flashers.  And very few unattended children.  Like none.  Ever.  No one in their right mind allows young kids to play in the inner city alleys unattended these days.   Most people bring their little kids to  the two newly gentrified little kid parks around here.  One a block away. The other two blocks away. Both which now outlaw dogs (before the gentrification they were allowed as long as they were on leashes.)  Here are two pictures of the new + improved alley.

Hopefully the ruelle baree signs will come down.  The planted plants will get larger + it will looker nicer if you're part of the Mallification Movement,  but I worry, now people like me, the dog walkers will be barred from what is still public property.   Already, yesterday as I walked down the alley with Angus, I had to hold him tightly by my side for fear he was, as dogs do, going to pee on one of the new planted plants as opposed to the mostly wild + indigenuous plants and trees that were there before they were yanked out by the green citizens.   Parents (everyone was out this weekend) gave Angus dirty looks as we walked by.  No one did that "oh, look at the nice doggy" thing  + I can see the writing on the wall.  The city grows smaller, the taxes grow higher...

Oh, stop the presses.  Just discovered in the same paper another articleabout alleys.   

This one closer to my spirit. "Montreal’s laneways are habitat to some of the city’s richest biodiversity, says Chester, who leads tree tours around Montreal and has recently published a guidebook on the trees of McGill University. Saplings and wildflowers whose seeds were sown by the wind or the birds thrive and grow in the neglected cracks and corners in between walls and fences."  You said it,  Bronwyn Chester.  Amen.   

 

joy#206 of holding paws with my good dog while I work,watercolour 8x8 July 26.09

a new gallery in town, Battat Contemporary

 

see for yourself

Thanks for this S. I love it too. + I'm going to start using the film option more, too.

joy#205 of working in monochrome 8x8 July 25.09

Joy#204 of the climbing clematis watercolour, 8x8 July 24.09

the $250,000 greenification of the alley continues...

The secret Mount Royal artist? July 22.09

Not sure if this is the work of the Secret Mount Royal artist or not.  If it is, it's the first time s(he) has used outside materials.  Usually s(he) just uses objects/junk/trash found on the mountain.  Perhaps it's a New Secret Artist, a painter? 

joy#203 of a super book called Wesley the Owl, watercolour, 9x12 July 23.09

It's a love story about a girl (a biologist called Stacey O'Brian ) + her owl.   I couldn't put it down until I finished. Now that's literature. 

if in NY, a fabulous free concert by Electro Morocco, Sat night

Joy#202 of the backyard geraniums + pansies watercolour, July 22.09

these were in my e-mail box this morn....

Joy#201 of the artist's assistant 9x11, watercolour, July 21.09

Angus stops to smell the rose

canadians for wise Latina women, too

check it out

Sarah Jessica Parker likes art

so she's involved in a new reality arts show I sincerely hope does not make artists or contemporary art look 

stupid.  There's too much of that around already.

40 years ago tonight

I ran away from Vancouver after a wild party where everything got trashed -- couches out the window, that kind of thing.  I left for Montreal with two guys I didn't know very well in a French sports car + little money.  By day 3 we had a huge fight.  I stormed off + found myself in the middle of the vast Canadian prairies + looked up, way up, at the moon where Neil Armstrong  + Buzz Aldrin were bouncing around erecting an American flag.  Ah, good times...

Recycling at its finest

cleaning up + then swimming in, the dumpster

joy#200 of the geraniums, Swiss red, 8x8 watercolour, July 20.09

Friday Night Lights

a wonderful American tv show about small town America was only nominated for  

one Emmy + that's for casting?  What's up about that?  The writing, acting, directing, camera, etc. is top notch.  It doesn't have vampires, serial teen age girl killers, male hookers, etc.  Is that why?  

 

joy#199 of friendship, 9x11, watercolour, July 19.09

happy birthday wonderful Angus, 4 years old today

 

 

to kill a lobster in a more humanely manner than boiling water....

do this

Maxfield Parish, untitled; cover linings for Poems of Childhood by Eugene Field, 1904.

joy #197 of a little house in Calgary, 9x12 watercolour, July17.09

Houses like this are not common in Montreal.  + in Vancouver, most have been torn down to build 30 or so townhouses in their place.  Even in Calgary, near where I stayed, they are in the process of being torn down.   A chicken in the pot, a backyard for the kids, soon a thing of the past...if not already.  Who cooks chicken in the pot anymore?

Mount Royal, July 15.09

Joy #196 of seeing something new in an older piece, watercolour, July16.09

joy#194 more of, happy Angus swimming 8x8, watercolour, July 15.09

nerves of steel

I don't know how she puts up with all the bullying from the (predominantly) born rich not young not black not Chinese not Hispanic  (etc) not women men in suits whose votes...artists would make very poor judges, me thinks.  They're far too hot headed. 

weed robes, clothing made from leaves

joy#193 of remembering seeing wild animals in the wild, 8x8, watercolour, July 14.09

Rufus Wainwright's first opera

Prima Donna opened in Manchester, England, Friday night. The NYTimes music review seems a bit lukewarm.