A Fresh Look at Good ol' Montréal

Wines in Common
by Scott Bloomquist
I went to wine country once, on business; it seemed out of the way. Simi Valley I think it was; sunny, rolling hills carpeted with grape vines, distantly surrounded by crowning mountain peaks. Wine is an art and a craft to lots of folks, but to me, as I sped south down the highway it was a sideshow to life. There is something sporting about wine, in that, there is a game and a technique to the practice of enjoying it. Wine is ideally paired with companionship; it's something people get good at enjoying, and something people talk about after the fact. I've enjoyed plenty of wine in my day and shared bottles and meals with some professedly advanced palates, but no matter how much someone else's discriminating taste congratulates or rejects the qualities of a particular wine, I try to maintain my individual appreciation without the suggestions of a more seasoned drinker than myself.

One summer a few years back, a buddy of mine bought a new car, and when he did he drove it to every extra place he could think of. In fact, that is exactly what he said, "I'm gonna drive this thing to every extra place I can think of", as he wrung the new leather and wood steering wheel in his hands. So for a few weeks he turned up with all sorts of odd, out of the way things from his "extra" driving. Things like souvenirs from the closest beaches three hours away, hoagie wrapper and pizzas boxes from corner places deep in traffic-filled downtown, mysterious ferry ticket stubs from Southern Virginia, and a three-foot-tall, wooden bear carved with a chainsaw from a solid tree trunk were among the more notable items. I'm sure he considered all of the items as treasure, but for me only one caught my eye - a bottle of wine called Steeplechase Red from Sugarloaf, Maryland which I got a glimpse of sitting quietly, sharing the backseat of his car with the giant, carved bear.

However, this buddy of mine moved out West a few years after his campaign of extra-curricular driving and it wouldn't be until I went to visit him that I would come across that exact bottle of obscure, non-vintage wine again. Its looks hadn't changed much; although, the once lacquered and crisp red lettering on the label had been marred by rough handling and negligent storage among unlike items in a plastic milk crate at the back of a closet in my buddy's pool house apartment, but they still read clearly; the red lacquer shown threw the web of minute scratches, Steeple Chase Red. The very sight of the words in my mind harkened back to the warm, softly rolling country side of Maryland in summer from where the wine had come a few years earlier. When I asked my buddy if we could drink it, he wasn't even sure what I was talking about at first, but judging from his face when I showed him the bottle his mind was filling with old memories. So, out on his patio in the warm, dry evening wind of the South West we toasted to the old days and sipped as we recounted moments and longer instances of memory. As we did, I felt as though I could sense the sweetly damp South Eastern air slowly moving and lingering on my skin, carrying with the smell of honeysuckle and magnolia through the ripe, summer oak leaves.

Upon finishing my glass, I was brought back to the present with the rush of a freshly baked breeze rustling the rosemary bush's piney branches that meander around the border of his patio.
It was saddening to see the bottle empty, its hollow greenness accompanied with the white and red lacquer of its label gave it the pallor of a creature drained of life. I cannot describe to you how that wine tasted, only the thoughts and feelings it evoked. All that can be said about it is that the wine gained sentimental qualities for us when taken out of its time and place but left in its context. It was just an obscure non-vintage wine, and perhaps didn't require much occasion to open, and maybe, just maybe, it wasn't so great, but for us the occasion and appreciation were homemade.

Lots of folks will recommend waiting for the perfect moment to open a special or vintage bottle of wine, but others will maintain that the occasion to open a special bottle should be a celebration of the wine itself and the moment present because there is an organic, living quality to wine that ages and changes over time, just like any living, breathing thing, and drinking it should be a celebration of ourselves and the moment in the reflecting pool of whatever wine is special to us and those around us.

A Pretty, Goodtime Town

By Scott Bloomquist

Al Carter was the first member of the general public to be admitted to The World Exposition in Montreal during the year 1967. His place in the procession of visitors was the product not of coincidence but of fevered enthusiasm and persistence on his part. The opening days of the Expo were fortunate and sunny as the twentieth century's most successful world's fair opened, providing a convenient metaphor about success and providence for everyone involved. The world around Expo67, dimmed to those circulating under the spotlight's beam, hardly reflects the ideal relationship between man and his world that the Expo67 displays to its more than 50.000.000 visitors over 6 months. In the same year of the Expo the U.S. Army conducts secret germ warfare experiments, The Doors release their debut album, Jimmy Hoffa begins an 8-year-sentence for bribing a jury, the first French nuclear submarine is launched, Israel's six-day war comes and goes in less than a week, British Parliament decriminalizes homosexuality, Elvis Presley marries Priscilla, Rene Levesque leaves the National Party and John McCain is shot down over Vietnam and becomes a POW until his political career takes off; so pretty much relative global business-as-usual in the time leading up to and following The World Exposition in Montreal, where business-as-usual has always been anything but usual.

From 1962 until opening day in 1967 a sound that resembled that of progress could be heard in the air from all quarters of the city; rumbling trucks hauling supplies to hammering workers at job sites, local businesses of all kinds quietly stocking up and making room, investors and middlemen shuffling money, suits and credit all over town, and of course the unsubtle plopping of concrete being poured. In the decades following Expo67, Montreal has collected artifacts of its development as a city in this manner which serves to illustrate the city's character.

Montreal's memory of the Expo can be seen in the physical legacy of it, which tells a different tale than the storied recollection of its recorded success or statistical renown. Within the gates of the present day amusement park that is now owned by foreign interests stands something of a spooky, harkening relic to that sunny opening day in April, 1967. It is a grey cylindrical bulk of building that once housed the visions of a community in fiscal springtime, the Alcan Dolphin Pool. Just like the foresight of the times, the Alcan Dolphin Pool and the adjacent aquarium look as if they were designed for some kind of flight, and could take off at any moment, and frankly, resemble something out of Batman Returns. Like many other buildings that were erected for the Expo, they were exciting, eye-filling, captivating, yet seemingly impractical for use in the conditions of the present day and age, perhaps a world not yet tamed enough for such precisely developed innovations. Eventually, the aquarium was completely dismantled and now all that remains is the swirled rotunda of the Dolphin Pool that sits mute, carefully locked, and tightly boarded up making an entrance or even an exit impossible. The Dolphin Pool and the Aquarium were among a few building that would remain after Expo67 closed, although with time they would come to show how the success of Expo67 and other economically stimulating events hosted by the city were managed.

I wonder how Al Carter felt when he finally got to the Dolphin Pool and sat in one of the 900 seats and watched the dolphin tamer and his faithful performers jump through hoops of fire and play soccer. I wonder if when the throng finally filed him past the 23 separate fish tanks he reached his hand out and touched one of them with his palm and outstretched fingers and felt a sense of permanence about the temperature controlled fish tank inside the climate controlled edifice of the aquarium; or did he dare not touch them, lest he dissipate some delicate illusion of captivity and captivation? Did he feel informed or enriched, empowered, or did he just feel a sense overwhelming and anesthetizing abundance of material and information in his moment before the glistening success of humanity as represented by Expo67? It's anybody's guess how his life was changed.

The opening day of Expo67 represented a future, the future of April 28, 1967; and it was a beautiful prospect. But if our concept of the future is derived from our concept of the present's condition, then the scene of Expo67's proposed future was bound to change even before the Expo was scheduled to open. Kuwait closed its pavilion to demonstrate Arab solidarity and protest Western reasoning for conducting war. The 1960s brought a lot of changes and political upheaval to the Middle East, perhaps more than the Expo's representation of the future needed to impress its visitors. So the scene of Expo67's present changed some, but all one needed do was look to the other, still unchallenged pavilions and exhibits for comfort in an ever-changing world.

The grand representation of Expo67 was permanence; permanence through concrete representations. These representations weren't just built to art, science and nature. They were also built to display political permanence through progress by whoever could afford it. The Soviet Union's presence at the Expo is most telling of how Expo67 represented a stage for a global economic spring. During the decade of the 1960s, the Soviet Union was undergoing de-Stalinization and the "Brezhnev Thaw" both of which were programs geared towards relaxation of censorship and economic restrictions on Russian society. Things were looking up for people in Russia and they built a pavilion at Expo67 in Montreal to proclaim their present success. But what did their pavilion say for the future? Certainly it didn't say that over the next decade the Soviet Union would undergo a monumentally massive arms buildup and fortify Eastern Europe, invade Afghanistan 5 years later and eventually crumble on live television another decade after that. From the history of present day we can see that a world's fair provides a stage to act out the prospects of the future. While realistically uncertain, hopes for the future were captured for the moment in the frame of Montreal's Expo67.

Al Carter stands in the frame of Expo67 as the holder of the first ticket issued. His figure represents the general public in that his obscurity as a 41-year-old drummer from Chicago was brought to the fore by his effort to acquire his place in line; an effort for which he was awarded a gold watch by the Expo67 director. Al Carter's future must have seen obvious enough to him, but what could a trip to the world's fair in Montreal do to hurt his life as a musician? It must have seemed like he had nothing to lose and everything to gain from being represented in the future at Expo67.

As was planned for the predicted success of Expo67, the Montreal Aquarium and Dolphin Pool remained open as a permanent attraction owned and operated by Montreal authorities. Less than a decade went by and the Olympic Games in 1976 brought new abundances and constructions that include the Olympic Stadium that now weathers the Canadian seasons something like a sandcastle. Then, one day, all of a sudden, it was the 80s, and everyone everywhere just stopped caring about anything at all. Money had finally become everything, and thus the most important human pursuit; but when everything becomes important, in reality nothing can be truly important and everything loses meaning.

Of course the aging Dolphin Pool and its performing dolphins were not immune this phenomenon. It was during the 1980s when a workers strike resulted in the staving death of two dolphins in the Alcan Dolphin Pool. After the strike, the dolphins that survived were sold down the river to foreign interests in Florida. The beleaguered aquarium remained open for another decade, but the course of future that Expo67 professed has been changed as man's relationship with his world remains largely unchanged since distant times.

Every community needs a source of recognition and revenue to sustain itself. This is what defines a city and forges its character which is recognized and in turn rewarded. Montreal is a host city by trade, it has built itself on providing hospitality to events that have put it on the map and opened doors to new and exciting prospects for the future. Today's living example of hosting by Montreal is the Formula 1 racing series that comes to town on a semi-regular basis and draws crowds from all corners of the globe. The structures left behind by the great defining booms in Montreal economy serve as the lasting symbols of the city as a host for the world's people and events.

Berton, Pierre. 1967: The Last Good Year. Toronto: Seal, 1975. Print.
Kenneally, Rhona Richman, and Johanne Sloan. Expo 67: Not Just a Souvenir. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2010. Print.
Expo67 Information Manual. Montreal, 1968. Print.

Interview With an Everyday Woman
by Scott Bloomquist

The subject of our interview was willing to share her story with us under the condition that her true identity be protected. So, for the purposes of this interview we will call her Ms. Liz. She is a grandmother and a part-time crossing guard living in Toronto. She has spent the last three summers visiting her daughter and granddaughter in Flagstaff, Arizona. She worked for Canada Post for 14 years before her late husband's electrical supply company was granted the contract to provide components for the new LED traffic light systems for 3 Canadian cities and 14 others in the United States. She lives here in Canada, where she grew up and where much of her family still lives.

I met Ms. Liz when I moved into a new apartment building a few months ago. She didn't seem like much out of the ordinary, but I suppose no one does when you see them doing their laundry or getting into or out of an elevator. One day, she asked me if I had noticed weather or not the pool had been cleaned yet. Stating that I didn't know, but agreeing with her that one shouldn't have to ask, we soon became fairly friendly acquaintances around the building.
She is a very kindly looking woman, and her face seems to reach out at you as if to say hello even if she remains perfectly quiet. Medium height and build for a woman, she doesn't ask for much, she merely expects it and has been known to squeeze herself into already over-crowded elevators to the protests of the crammed occupants. She just smiles with her whole face and gets on with whatever she has to do. She smokes cigarettes and consumes a great amount of varying herbal teas, which I found to be something of a contradiction, but this left me totally unprepared for what lay ahead.

I encountered Ms. Liz at a grocery store not far from the building we both live in, she was visibly agitated and not her pushy, but jovial self. She was yanking her shopping bags from the checkout counter and storming out the door when we passed each other. I said a surprised "hello". She looked at me as if she has never seen such an unfamiliar person in her life and continued away from the store. That afternoon, I crossed Ms. Liz again, this time, in the courtyard garden of our apartment building. I asked her if she was having a rough day, to which she was surprised that I noticed that she was; apparently not having recognized me at the grocery that very morning.
She was quick to bring up the source of her apparent anguish, "Did I ever tell you that I have seen the inside of a spaceship?" It was at this moment that, for some reason, Ms. Liz would spend the next three months telling me little snippets of a story that sounds completely insane. Over a series of small conversations in places like the courtyard and the laundry room, it finally became clear to me that Ms. Liz believes that she has been abducted by extraterrestrials; not once, not twice, but multiple times over the course of her life.
You're probably as flabbergasted as I was upon first hearing her seemingly outrageous claim, but as I continued to listen to her sporadic tales I began to realize that perhaps the explanation for her experience wasn't outrageous at all, and, in fact, was perfectly sane. At an arranged interview at her apartment I was determined to coax out a clearer picture of an alien abductee.

The Interview
Me: What is your name?
Ms. Liz: Ms. Liz
Me: What do you do for a living?
Mr. Liz: I am a crossing guard.
Me: What do you do for fun?
Ms. Liz: Well, I like to paint and travel and last time I went to Flagstaff I started a collection of glass miniatures.
Me: How long have you believed in extraterrestrials?
Ms. Liz: Aliens? Since I was younger.
Me: When was the last time you were abducted?
Ms. Liz: Thirteen years ago, just after my daughter moved away to Arizona.
Me: How long were you gone?
Ms. Liz: It doesn't feel like long at all. Time isn't a problem.
Me: Have you ever undergone hypnosis for any reason?
Ms. Liz: No.
Me: Do you have any pets?
Ms. Liz: No.
Me: Do you sleepwalk?
Ms. Lliz: When I was younger, yes.
Me: How much younger?
Ms. Liz: A while.
Me: What is your name?
Ms. Liz: You already asked me that.
Me: Have you met any other abductees?
Ms. Liz: Yes.
Me: How did it change your life?
Meeting other people?
Me: No, the abductions.
Ms. Liz: By now I can't imagine my life without them.
Me: Did you ever try to document your experience in any way?
Ms. Liz: I wrote about it in my diary.
Me: Do you have any symptoms as a result of your abduction?
Ms. Liz: I'm not sure. I was sick some years back but it was my ulcer.
Me: Did your abductors ever try to communicate with you in any way?
Ms. Liz: I feel like the whole thing is a kind of communication.

Conclusions
While the conviction with which Ms. Liz tells her story might come off as bizarre its kind is not uncommon among characters such as Ms. Liz. Alien Abductees frequently resemble each other socially and in life experience as well. They are often individuals who are off-center from the community. They frequently have experienced an extreme or recent trauma in their lives. However, the characteristic that they most frequently share is that of loneliness, and Ms. Liz is certainly that. The most interesting of her answers was that her last abduction was when her daughter moved away to Arizona. In conclusion, this alien abductee seems to be coping with losses in her life by translating the harsh experience into a story about leaving earth, the scene of her loss, behind.