Description 59 - Montréal Avant Podcamp

Before attending the first big social media "anti-conference" in Quebec, I buy fabulously unhealthy food, sit on a very high balcony and celebrate how Everyone In Montreal Is Cooler Than Me. Features music by David Usher and a last-second cameo by Julien Smith which emphasize this last point.

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Associated links
The other Montreal episodes: Description 28 and Description 29
Podcamp Montreal
Gare Centrale @Wikipedia
Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana
History and various versions of O Canada
Les Halles de la Gare
Première Moisson
A recipe for Feuilleté au jambon (but keep those mushrooms out!)
David Usher: official site, myspace, Maplemusic, CloudiD (his tech/social media blog) and the Podsafe Music Network
Six Pixels of Separation by Twist Image (Mitch Joel)
McGill Station and Place-des-Arts Station
Place des Arts
Le site officiel de Youppi! (I keep forgetting he's mascot for Les Canadiens now.)
Trylon Apartments
Provigo
Katherine Matthews and Rob Lee
A recipe for Tarte au Sucre
And where I ended up.

Those murals at Gare Centrale weren't even remotely trompe l’oeil, which I reminded myself later is an artistic technique of making two-dimensional things look like they're three-dimensional. I then wondered if I meant clin d'oeil, but that seems unlikely (though any Google research is overwhelmed by the fact Clin d'oeil is a huge women's magazine in Quebec). I was trying to come up with a style of French design typified by dark blue details against a stone/bone-coloured background - and even then the colours in the murals were reversed! Argh. Here's an example of those murals. I should've just said Art Deco and shut up until I had a chance to watch more HGTV.

I didn't go out and say that David Usher is a resident of Montreal, so I'll say it now. He's bounced around various places throughout his life, but had lived in Montreal a few years ago, and is now back - again, when he's not touring. More consistently from Montreal is Julien Smith, pretty much the first podcaster in Canada (Bob and AJ are the cause of me putting that "pretty much" in there) and not surprisingly one of the brilliant organizers of Podcamp Montreal. You can get an idea about this guy from watching his Podcamp presentation, which is still available (as of post-time) via the Ustream Podcamp Montreal channel. While you're there, check out the presentations I attended by fellow organizer Sylvain Grand’Maison and previously-mentioned "standard bearer" Scarborough Dude. They really aren't too inside-baseball, but just very engaging talks by very intelligent people.

And here's the view of Montreal from my 18th-floor balcony: