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epitome of incomprehensibility
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A roughly north-south, steeply uphill-downhill street that goes from Sherbrooke to just above Docteur Penfield. It’s called Avenue de la Musée because its southernmost stretch is bordered by buildings belonging to the art museum.
And, notably, dotted with outdoor sculptures to the right and left. Mostly metal, they range from an ostrich on roller skates made from bronze casts of mixed-together scraps – a 3-D collage, say - to a sitting cow rendered with noble realism. Properly cow-sized, too.
But yesterday I was paying more attention to the northern, uphill part – my goal. It was my break between classes, I’d just finished a syntax assignment, the near-noon sun was warm on this early October day, and some exercise was in order.
Trucks up ahead suggested construction activity, and, thinking of the buildings near the top, I joked to myself that this traffic was because the Russian embassy was taking over the Polish one. It’d bided its time long enough. Today was the day to reclaim part of its nineteenth-century border, starting symbolically… But the two trucks were doing different things: one was actually a moving van, and people emerged from it with a plastic-encased mattress; the other was involved in some roadwork up ahead.
As I walked uphill, I wondered if my memory had misplaced the embassies. Maybe they were on a different street. I only had so much time and I wanted to see the posters outside of Poland’s, the ones that had French bios of Polish writers. I’d come across them a few weeks ago and read all five from top to bottom, thinking, “Look, I’m getting a double cultural education here, reading about another country in my second language.” But my mental notes of the text had faded to “sci-fi writer, name like Stanislaus” and “a word that has something to do with flowers.” Suppose, too, that the embassy had taken down the posters?
But ahead of me was a building flying the EU flag next to Poland’s white and red one (the second had a coat of arms in the white part, so maybe they have different flags for different uses/occasions). Then I saw the posters on my side of the gate, showing scenic views in pumped-up colour saturation. I turned the corner onto Docteur Penfield and yes, the ones about writers were still there:
Stanisław Lem, the sci-fi guy (1921-2006)
Cyprian Kamil Norwid, poet, dramatist, artist, etc. (1821-83)
Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński (1921-81), church guy, published sermons and said “non possumus,” which sounds possum-related but was about non-compliance to Stalin’s suppression of religious freedom…and now, sixty-odd years later, the church’s resurgence there threatens other liberties; the lesson might be, push too hard and the pushback might also be bad (see Quebec with Catholicism for a similar thing in reverse, minus the communist parts)
Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, poet, same first name as our friend Penderecki (hard to spell for my non-Polish-speaking self), killed in Warsaw during WW2 (1921-44, poor kid)
and finally
Tadeusz Różewicz (1921-2014), poet, dramatist, screenwriter. Here’s where the “flower” word appears! “Ses oeuvres sont extraordinairement dénudées dans leur forme, laconiques et dépourvues de toute fioriture.”
A few weeks ago, when I first saw that sentence, I balked at “fioriture”. I’d never seen the word before. Then I remembered the Italian names Fiora (Flora) and Fiorenze (the city Florence). Aha! Flowery-ness.
So the sentence says, roughly, “His works are extraordinarily stripped-down (i.e. minimalist) in structure, laconic and completely lacking in ornamentation.” A lot of words to say someone wasn’t wordy!
…Anyway, I was standing in front of the fence with a notebook out, scribbling this down, when someone came out of the gate and passed me. Perhaps they thought I was a Russian spy, plotting the takeover.
The Russian embassy is at the top stretch of the street. Its fence, not “dénudée dans sa forme,” is decorated with a golden flower design at regular intervals, but imagine what they could print if they went the glossy poster route. Mountain scenes! Ocean vistas! At the very least, some swanky castles! And they’d have heaps of writers to celebrate.
For car traffic, the north end of the street comes to a dead end - a cul de sac, the thing Montreal anglos might jokingly translate as “ass of bag”. But for adventurous pedestrians, there’s a set of stairs, in four sections, going up to the street above that (des Pins, aka Pine) and from there you can go into Mount Royal Park.
I was near the top of the stairs, slowing down and huffing, when a grey-haired man passed me, practically hopping up the steps. I saw his face as he headed back down – he couldn’t have been younger than sixty – and I grinned out my recognition of his strength, but he seemed too focused to notice. He was just carrying himself in his clothes, while I also had a laptop bag and a backpack; then again, I wouldn’t bet on myself beating him in a race.
The trip down isn’t worth recording in so much detail. On the south end again – near the museum, specifically where the road had been painted various shades of blue – I sat on a bench and ate lunch in the semi-shade of a small tree. My be-jeaned knees grew hot with the sun’s rays. I noted a passing woman shouting “Still standing!” into a phone and one chipmunk chasing another, lively racing stripes for its sidewalk sortie.
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