Description 29 - le défilé du Père Noël

In Montreal, Santa Claus has roadies and a secretary, but I learn the guy works hard to entertain at his big downtown parade. Enjoy not-exactly-festive music from Loco Locass, along with face-painting, more mouth-noises than ever and someone twirling long socks like nunchucks.

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Associated links:
défilé du Père Noël
The official site of Père Noël
where he hangs out in Quebec
Loco Locass
Complexe Desjardins
Radio Énergie
Viva Marina! (Orsini, that is...)
Wikipedia on Annie Brocoli (that woman in the parade everyone knew but me)

Seriously, sorry about the mouth noises. I should've had some water sitting around.

The little hymn at the start of the episode was something I recorded at the Centaur Theatre while seeing a play called "Assorted Candies," the English version (translated by Linda Gaboriau) of the Michel Tremblay play "Bonbons Assorties". It's a funny and often melancholy collection of remembrances M. Tremblay has about being a kid at Christmas when his family was poor. You can find a book version here.

I mentioned a show Marina Orsini was in called "The Last Chapter / Le Dernier Chapitre". It was a miniseries about biker gangs in Ontario and Quebec, and Marina played the steely wife of the ambitious Ontario leader (Michael Ironside). I guess it should go without saying that our old pal Roy Dupuis was in it too. Actually, it was two miniseries - four, if you count the sequel - because they filmed in both languages simultaneously. Okay, obviously, it wasn't completely simultaneous, but they would film a scene in one language, then do the same scene in the other language, and on they went down the line. Freaking wicked. Granted, a couple of the Anglos who couldn't quite get their pronunciations down like me :-) had stunt-French-talkers who were dubbed in for them. But still, I think it was a great achievement, and I wish more tv shows and movies were done that way. Yes, I know it's a pain in the ass to make any domestic piece of entertainment in English Canada, much less twice in two languages, but a gal can dream.

Guess that's all the stuff I'll put on the podcast from Montreal for now. I have my perspective, but there are plenty of podcasts and blogs based in Quebec where people actually know what the hell they're talking about. I think #1 for me is Vu d'ici (Seen From Here), but there's also BandeÀpart (part of Radio-Canada), the legendary in over your head, Quebec en Baladodiffusion, and if only in retrospect if they don't get their crap together :-) The Bob and AJ Show. And of course there are others, but that's as far as my brain's going right now.

And while trying to figure out that Loco Locass song, I decided to bounce it off a friend of mine in Second Life who happens to be French (like, French French). Of course, he couldn't get a lot of local references, but got that while Quebec has been accused of fascism and censure in the past, plenty of those accusers would do well to check out the skeletons in their own closets. But my friend found another possible very cool reference. The title, "La censure pour l'échafaud," reminds him of a Nouvelle Vague film from the '50's called Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, which can be translated to "elevator to the gallows" or "elevator to the scaffold". Louis Malle's first feature film, it's about a guy who plots with his lover (Jeanne Moreau, of course) to kill her husband (his boss), and while the murder does happen, something gets messed up and stuff really starts to unravel. And it happens to have an amazing soundtrack by the late Miles Davis. Doesn't get much cooler than that.