from chris lloyd <dearpm@gmail.com>
to pm@pm.gc.ca,
date Jun 1, 2007 10:30 AM
subject Schwarzenegger extends hand to B.C; La classe moyenne sort gagnante de l’adoption du budget, soutient Charest
Dear Stephen,
So we stayed an extra night in Québec City after practicing the ceremony a bit with Kent. We had a great meal at a funky restaurant near his place, as you know he lives dans le bas ville, le quartier St. Roch, very hip. We stayed overnight and then realized that Claudine had left her handbag there, containing not only her telephone but also our iPod! The restaurant didn’t open again until 10am so we had breakfast with Kent at another trendy spot, this time dans le haut ville, and luckily retrieved the handbag afterwards. We also bought needles and thread and Claudine added a nice orange highlight to my wedding tie, which I had bought at Simons on sale for $10! It is narrow, dark blue with three anchors near the bottom. Very Maritime.
Drove back to Les Éboulements and saw Animal Sad Story #2 : someone had hit a moose and left it by the side of the road. It looked to have a broken leg and was sitting upright, quite alive, by the side of the road. People were stopping periodically to see, a couple ladies had already called the police so we didn’t wait long. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera so no picture! Nor did I manage to snap a photo of the mama duck and her dozen ducklings that I stopped traffic for right after the visit to the tent. That is Animal Happy Story #1.
OMG, we also managed a fun little heist in Québec City. Just after our shopping spree chez Simons we stopped at a Metro in the mall to buy some juice and lo and behold there were a dozen of the little baby-size shopping carts! I’ve been looking for that size for over a month! So I lobbed our bags into one, Claudine went to get the getaway car and I waltzed nonchalantly into the parking lot. Save for a little girl—who pointed to me as she said “Mama, il as la même panier comme moi!”—we were not noticed. Hooray!
Yesterday is now a bit of a blur : back from Québec, the tent was in progress, we met up with Trevor and Tamara, who had stayed at our chalet the night before, and my parents, who had arrived mid-afternoon (6.5 hours from Saint John, including the hour on the ferry), we stopped at their rented house in Baie-St-Paul for a little drink before heading back to la ferme Éboulemontaise to decorate the tent a little. We are now planning the ceremony to occur in a field behind the barns and just beside a herd of sheep.
Went back to our chalet, lit a bonfire and fired up the barbecue. Ate hamburgers with the super Rioja that Peter had brought back from Spain for us. Super! Had an early night. Today is full of last-minute details and then a barbecue tonight. We hope lots of friends arrive. The neighbour has been kind enough to offer some of his land for parking to save those with poor transmissions or who fear climbing a veritable mountain in their cars.
-chris
Chris Lloyd Projects
http://www.dearpm.blogspot.com
A Division of ADD Painters:
“we’re here to swerve”
from chris lloyd <dearpm@gmail.com>
to pm@pm.gc.ca,
date Jun 6, 2007 11:35 PM
subject Hundreds of B.C. homes threatened by flooding; Hundreds of B.C. homes threatened by flooding
Dear Stephen,
Sorry I haven’t written, I was busy getting married and all. It was a perfect day and too much for words: you had to be there. But since you weren’t you can check out the photos on Facebook. I’d like to get into more detail about it but at the moment we are with Jo and Philippe (I just beat him in table hockey; too bad the Senators couldn’t eek out another win or two), we arrived back in Montréal this afternoon after stopping briefly in Shawinigan to see the Carston Höller exhibition. We were the only visitors there, we had the place to ourselves, four guards each. We had spent the night in Québec City with Fannie and Seb and little Emilie, and the night before that was our last at the chalet in St. Joseph de la Rive. It rained the last two days but that was perfect for us as we were breaking the six-week sex embargo. So it was fun to have some time together. Tomorrow we are visiting Clo’s grandparents and then meeting Jen and Stephan for supper. Oh and today on our way into the city we stopped at The Bay and used up some gift cards. We’ll leave the gifts with Jo and Philippe as we need to make the car a little less full. Our full plans for the next two weeks include camping in the Adirondacks, a visit to Mass MoCCA and a visit to Portland. And we want to hang out on some beaches. All this to say that we were incredibly satisfied and happy with the wedding, with everyone who came and helped make it a special event, for the weather, the food, the love and support. Weddings rock!
-chris
from chris lloyd <dearpm@gmail.com>
to pm@pm.gc.ca,
date Jun 8, 2007 9:36 AM
subject Weather eases flood tensions in B.C.; Steven Guilbeault quittera l’organisation Greenpeace en septembre
Dear Stephen,
One simply has to love Montréal, bad performance art and all. After a fun night pouring through wedding photos and videos with Philippe and Jo, we took the little one on a little road trip to St. Eustache. Jo is back to work and Philippe wanted to mow the lawn, so we packed up Nataniel and visited with Claudine’s grandparents. Managed to get lost en route but the St. Hubert delivery lunch more than compensated. It was certainly fun to be pretend parents for a little while, I even changed a diaper.
Later in the afternoon, after dropping Nataniel back home, we headed into Montréal. We were stuck in traffic a bit but we weren’t on a deadline. We ate at Chinese restaurant on St. Laurent and received lousy service. The waitress just did not want to be there. Afterwards we walked a bit—it felt nice to walk, to be out of the car!—and eventually met up with Jen and Stephan at Centre Clark for a performance. I loved what the gallery had done with the space, they had created a sloped stage with sloped entrances. Jen and Stephan had arrived late for the performance the week before and were used as props, so they were early this time around. They claimed that the previous two performances they had seen as part of a weekly series called “8 personnages engagés pour peupler scénario de drame psychologique” were quite good, but the one we saw last night was absolutely terrible. It was a nightmarish blend of narcissistic, Cegep-era, high on acid pseudo-spiritual bad acting type of performance that taints all performance art with a damning brush. We were wedged into the top corner and so could not escape early. Claudine and I passed through the most excruciating moments by creating a performance piece of our own, called “chewing gun”, by pretending to chew gum.
We went back to Jen and Stephan’s new apartment afterwards to hang out. On the way we saw a big crowd at General 54 on St. Viateur; a vernissage! And lo and behold of course I ran into people I know, again Kim Waldron, although it seemed more plausible to see her at an anglo art event in the Mile End, and the one and only Sixtoo spinning records—though are digital turntables still called records? The paintings were all of power lines and so we had to buy one, and we did, the very last one available. A wedding present to ourselves! I can’t even remember the name of the artist, Dan something.
We spent the night at the new apartment, there is no furniture, they were painting last week, and don’t move in until after they get back from Germany at the end of the month. We’ll stay at there other place for a few nights before we go camping. But the smell! Whoever lives below was cooking up a massive pot of some sort of curry dish and the whole apartment smelled like you would never believe! We shut all the doors and even tried towels int he cracks but the smell was permeating through the floor! Not a super pleasant night sleep.
Today we’re getting our haircuts and then we’ll have lunch with Claudine’s friend Stephane, then wander around. There are only about a dozen music, art and fringe theatre festivals going on at the moment so I don’t think we’ll have a problem finding something to do. Even bad performance art goes down sweet in a town like this.
-chris
from chris lloyd <dearpm@gmail.com>
to pm@pm.gc.ca,
date Jun 10, 2007 4:13 PM
subject ‘Green’ plan faces long odds: observers; L’avenir politique de Charest pourrait se jouer cet été, selon des analystes
Dear Stephen,
I’m sitting in a Second Cup down on the corner of St. Denis and Maissoneuve and I’m trying to decide which company I hate more at the moment : Second Cup or Rogers Wireless. See, we came here for one reason and one reason only : to use the Internet. We bought an over-priced cappuccino and smoothie so we could sit in peace for a half hour or so and catch up on email. However, there is a catch: the Internet isn’t free here. One can choose to be billed an extraordinary $7.50 / hour to credit card or wireless account. With less than twenty minutes until our film starts (Ma vie en rose) I’m not likely to sign up. I’ll search for Isle sans fil to locate tomorrow.
Today was another super hot day. We took the metro to visit the Biennale of Montréal but things started off on the wrong foot, or wrong direction. We ended up at metro Frontenac all confused, looking for exhibitions that just weren’t there. We watched the zoo outside while having a quick bit to eat at the Trois Brasseurs on Ste. Catherine and Crescent; the Formula 1 is in town this weekend and the city is full of car racing enthusiasts. We finally got to the main location at École Bourget on de la Montagne and one of the first works we saw remained one of my favourites throughout the day: David Hoffos. His small model wall vitrines featured his trademark video reflections, ghostly apparitions of a guy sitting in a chair drinking a beer and watching a weird glowing wall-sculpture, or two teenage girls hanging out under an overpass talking about clothes, or curtains blowing in the wind. Simple, yet effective and poignant works.
I’ve started some art writing, reflections on the Carsten Höller show at Shawinigan Space and of course the many more works seen at the Biennale, I’ll include some in a future post.
La vie en rose was a tad too long and a bit jumpy in spots—the narrative was cut up and scenes were presented in a seemingly random order, but it overall it was a decent biographical film, and the actress who played Edith Piaf was incredible. After the film we were hungry so we stopped at Avenue Mont Royal and split a wrap and fries, it was a huge plate. We talked about the gentrification of le Plateau.
Today we met Sarah Roberts for brunch at Les Vivres, then shopped for books. We’re going to have supper with Caroline and Stephane at their apartment and then see the movie The lives of others at AMC Forum. Tomorrow Claudine has a job interview at Oboro and we are both preparing our Cvs to apply for a position with ATSA: Action Terroriste Socialement Acceptable. The job hunt begins!
-chris
DEAR PM 