Hello Little Spiralings! My name's Kathy and I'm the new manager on the @ Little Spiral @ team. 

Suzanne and I have been busy chatting about what's next for her in the weeks and months ahead. 

Some of you may have received an email or Facebook message from me over the last month or so. However, I wanted to write a personal note here on Spiral's blog as she moves into some new and exciting projects. All of you are SO important in her journey, I felt it was important to touch base, introduce myself and send my appreciation to all of you! 

First, you'll be hearing about some cool new projects coming in the next couple of months— This includes a LIVE album recorded from her Concerts for Introverts series (were you there?!), studio-produced EPs, and a few singles. With all this coming quickly, I thought it would be best to add additional listeners to the mix.  

We came up with this idea of a fan-specific contest that includes giving away a few gifts in the process. And we’re encouraging old and new fans to add, follow and/or listen to her music on a number of different platforms.  

I know for myself, I follow a lot of bands, but I usually only follow them in one place. Much of the time, I'm not even aware of other platforms they may be on. We're definitely aware that you may be following Spiral in numerous places, but there may be a few apps you may frequent daily or weekly where you can add or follow her as well (I tend to always forget about one!). Obviously, this helps get her music out to more people (gotta love these algorithms!) so folks can enjoy anywhere, no matter what device. 

Second, we’ve launched this contest alongside some new promotional projects, and we thought it would be great to devote part of our ads budget to put that money right back in the hands of fans (YOU!). That’s why you’ll be entered with a chance to win a $40 Visa gift card and some @ Little Spiral @ merch as a big thank you for following her on as many platforms as you can. A few of you have said “I don’t need anything I just want to help!” which is awesome too! We’re also aware of the times right now and $40 can go a long way sometimes.. So help as you feel fit and share the love! 

Here’s how to enter the contest: https://www.toneden.io/little-spiral/post/little-spiral-giveaway 

THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for being such a big supporter of Spiral’s music! 

In music and rhythm, 

Kathy G

i recently moved, and as happens when you move, you find things you thought you lost forever. like my sister's mix tapes.

our family was (and still is) big on indie rock, new wave, and alternative 90s music. my sister Jo Anne was no exception. we would make mix tapes for each other all the time, until the cassette fell out of fashion. 

i recently found a stockpile of these old tapes, and i thought it would be fun to revisit this tape from 2001 on my tiktok and reels. each day i reveal a different song and will add it to this spotify playlist. 

should i cover any of these songs?

i don't know what possessed me to reach out, but i did.

it was a few years ago when i first saw Erik Cavanaugh dance on a viral video, and i was mesmerized.

it took me a hot minute to find his contact info and build up my courage to send him a message, but i am so glad i did.

i sent him my song Tossing & Turning, and then a few days later, he tagged me on his IG post.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Erik Cavanaugh (@erikcavanaugh)

to say i was starstruck is an understatement.

thank you, erik, for the gift of using your art to bring body positivity into the world.

listen to Tossing & Turning here, as a part of my EP experience.

I am 230-something pounds. It has been a lifelong struggle to love this body. And every time I hear a thinner woman have such struggles too, my heart just breaks for them. I can’t believe society has told all of us (yes, men too) to feel so ashamed of ourselves. 

And yet… is my life really that bad? 

Is my heavyset life that horrible that girls and women everywhere will hate themselves, starve themselves, cry themselves to sleep… just to avoid looking like… me? 

But I’m here. Here I am. I’m the thing that everyone doesn’t want to be. And I’m being it. And I am alive. And I am awake. I am connected. I am healthy. I have friends. I go out on dates. I go to the gym regularly. I get to do some cool shit professionally and artistically. I’m living a life people would kill for. 

Well, except for the whole weight thing. 

I have days — months, sometimes — where I struggle with loving myself. I have days — months, sometimes — where I am on top of the world and loving every moment I have consciousness. And I hear that women of every weight experience these highs and lows too. 

So, is my life really what everyone is scared of? 

When women say they don’t want to be fat, do they not want to be me? 

Because I’m alive, and worthy of that life. I am love and I’m worthy of that love. I’m good. Life is good. The body I live with, she is good. 

It’s not that awful to be me. 

It’s beautiful.

I'm about to redefine what perfect means to me. I do it every day, and I'm going to do it again.

What does perfect mean to you?

The Radiohead shows are over but I have video clips of the highlights and I watch them over and over. I have two days left in Montreal and I don’t want them to be anticlimactic after the shows. But hell, even if they are, who cares let’s do whatever.

I do have to work a bit, write a bit, organize a bit. I spend most of the morning and a bit of the afternoon doing random shit on my laptop that need to get done. In the evening I have plans with a longtime friend who happens to be in Montreal at the same time as me. We’re going to see Old Montreal, see some fireworks, but most importantly, we’re seeing this: Aura.

Jen has been petsitting just outside Montreal and hasn’t gotten the opportunity to explore the city proper. She also is getting into town a bit earlier than expected which is wonderful. So I tell her to meet me near the hostel and I can show her around Crescent Street, where we can wander a bit before the show tonight. She comes and it’s a delight to see her. We haven’t hung out in person for about 10 years, when I was in Boston doing a presentation and she was a resident. She played tour guide back then and it was magical, so I’m excited to return the favor on a city I’ve only known for a whole goddamn week.

We walk up Crescent Street and she oohs and awws and then squeals with delight when she discovers the Leonard Cohen mural and her jaw drops when she sees the art museum. I take her to a cool eclectic cafe down the street with a broken organ as furniture and a turntable with records out back. The fare has a Persian theme. I order anything with saffron in it. It’s delicious if a bit pricey. We sit and talk and we aren’t the type to start with small talk, we’re just going to get straight to the whole meaning of life business and what we want to do with our lives and what’s possible and Jen doesn’t have a home address right now, she just housesits around the world and teaches online. Wow. I think about what I could do and what my life’s priorities are, and it’s with music, and it’s a hell of a lot easier to make music when I’ve got a little home studio set up with my digital piano and relatively quiet surroundings and recording equipment. I can’t really do that well or easily if I’m traveling so often. But… damn, she makes me think.

I found a decent restaurant in Chinatown, just a 10 minute walk from where the show is, and we head over there, get only a teensy bit lost but luckily we get lost smack dab in the African Nights festival so it’s not really lost, is it? We find our way back, I show her the Underground City on the way to the Metro, and we emerge near the international symbol of Chinatown: a Paifang archway.

We wander a bit on our way to the restaurant and stumble on about 50 Chinese folks doing outdoor line dancing, and we’re both kind of swooning over this city and everything we’re finding around corners. We head back to the original restaurant planned, and there’s a line, so Jen points to another place next door, a Japanese ramen place, and I say yes and she says yes and we eat delicious ramen instead.

I get a message from my other Jennifer-shaped friend, my Radiohead pal from Mexico City. She’s bought tickets to Aura for tonight too! Yaaay, the Jennifers shall meet! We walk over, meet Jennifer in line and chit chat about everything we can chit chat about. We enter the basilica and I’m immediately drawn to the stations they have around the main pews. This is the only time you’re allowed to take video so I take video.

The main show starts… and it’s INCREDIBLE. I’ve never seen anything like it. I want to see it again. Jennifer wants to see it again. Alas, both of us are leaving too soon. However, Jen is planning on seeing it at least one more time while she’s here. Take one for the team, Jen!

Jennifer has to leave to pack tonight as she leaves tomorrow, so we say our goodbyes and Jen and I head over to the pier. There’s a fireworks festival here because of course there is. Name a topic, Montreal’s got a festival for it. We try and scope out a good place to see the fireworks and it turns out it’s a mediocre place to watch, actually, but we can see it and it’s magic. We decide to make a video for our mutual friends Sean and Jen, yes another Jen, it’s a thing and everyone’s well aware that Jennifers are awesome.

After the fireworks show we walk up Old Montreal and discover even more magic in the plazas and streets, and there is an accordion playing that stops Jen in her tracks and then she says NO, I can’t, we have to go, if I stop for even one second I will just stay. She says she has an accordion music addiction. I believe her. I tell her she should definitely come back.

We agree that Montreal has the power to charm the pants off us. We also agree that everything must be marked with an asterisk, because… winter. This could be the most fabulous city in the fucking universe but the harsh winter will keep Montreal an amazing flirtatious date with no chance for marriage. This native Californian has been weather-spoiled.

We say goodbye and I emerge back in the hostel neighborhood, and I stop to get a late night snack of some sort. I haven’t explored the neighborhood by my hostel after dark, because, speaking of flirtatious dates, there’s men peddling their exotic massage bars everywhere. Bright neon signs, handing out flyers, they stop other males in the street. “You looking for a good time, gentlemen?” “Girls, we got girls right here.” They’re the most aggressive I’ve ever seen Canadians be. One guy points to the other club across the street, saying, “They’ve got guys, we’ve got girls.” He does this for a group of guys in front of the promoter for the other parlor.

I grab a small sandwich from a little 24-hour joint, full of patrons of said erotic clubs. Erotic massage. What does that even mean. Happy endings allowed? Is this legal because I didn’t think it’s legal here. What is this place? Around every corner, I swear to god, I find something new and surprising in Montreal.

Bed.

Breakfast in the hostel and I feel like a different person from last night. I meet my friend from Mexico City, Jennifer, and tell her so. She agrees. We geek out. We talk about all the songs they played and even more importantly, what songs they didn’t. We notice a few gaps in albums — zero songs from Amnesiac or The Bends, and very little from Hail to the Thief, so we can expect more songs tonight from those albums. We hope.

I have a whole day before the show tonight so I should fill it with Montrealian things, I suppose. I think i’m outsmarting the weather by getting up to go to Mont Royal early before it gets hot. LOL. It’s supposed to rain and it’s so humid my face is dripping by 10 am. I decide not to go up Mont Royal. Instead I go to MAC, the modern art museum. I was so excited to see the Leonard Cohen exhibit listed on the website as running through 12/04/18. I was not excited to discover Canadians write their days first and that the exhibit is now closed. Fuck.

I go to the museum anyway. It’s pretty freaking weird and cool. I take pictures. I hear a guy next to me talk to someone about one of the pieces. I notice he’s talking about it like it’s his own. It’s his own. Hi, random internationally-renown dude with your name on the wall! Looks like your name is Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and you’re standing right by me. Congratulations on having your own exhibit here! This is cool and you are cool and I am cool and Montreal is cool AF and literally so in the winter but figuratively so in the summer.

The most intriguing piece in the MAC is a recurring theme in the artist’s work: about the theory that everything that has ever been said is still lingering in the air, it’s just humans can’t hear it anymore. I have a song, Old Stories Go, that talks about this:

I’m in the laboratory, balanced on a chair
Trying hard to measure the vibrations in the air
Where old stories go when we speak them

We catch fireflies in jars and poke holes in the lid
To study and demystify the source of light within
But where do stories go if we don’t catch them?

My most favorite thing about this guy’s installation, and also the most disturbing, is that the artist had engraved a passage from this theory onto microscopic pieces of gold, like itty bitty gold particles only atoms wide, and the museum released those itty bitty pieces into the air vents. You literally breathed in his work. The exhibit says it’s harmless. I believe it and I also freak out a bit. The feeling of gold particles with messages in my lungs is profound and also very WTF.

I exit to breathe non-gilded air and realize I am near where Leonard Cohen lives. There are murals EVERYWHERE. One is of him. You gotta click on this link to see more pictures and swipe away on Instagram:

the murals of St. Laurent Blvd

A post shared by intersection of tech & heart (@littlespiralmusic) on Jul 17, 2018 at 12:23pm PDT

I eat his favorite smoked meat sandwich at Main Deli. I go to Bagels Etc. where he writes about being able to see the waitresses’ behinds in the mirrors. Across the street is his house and a teensy tiny park. I like this neighborhood a lot. It randomly occurs to me: “Suzanne, I’m your man” is not only a Weezer lyric, it’s also two Leonard Cohen song titles together.

But… there’s something about Leonard Cohen that keeps me from idol worshipping. Damn near every single time he writes about a woman, it’s 100% sexualized. Even when it’s supposed to be platonic it’s still sexualized. Even Sisters of Mercy, for Chrissakes! I can’t shake this notion of this brilliant poet-slash-ladies-man not really seeing women as women but as meat sacks containing sex to be had, and it being a notable event when there isn’t sex to be had. I’ve been reading his poetry in a small little book I carry with me and there’s no doubt it’s brilliant in its own right but I just can’t get past this. I’ve got more to say about that but I’m only half here for Leonard Cohen. The other half, the more alive half, is here for Radiohead.

I head to the metro and I’m tired and sweaty and am counting down the hours and minutes to the Radiohead show except OH GOD THERE’S ANOTHER OUTDOOR PIANO and I have to stop everything. This one has quite a few non-working keys on it. I plunk out what I can for as long as I can before I give up and get back on the Metro to the hostel.

My new friend Jennifer is the only other person at the hostel who has tickets for both nights. Other hostellers are surprised we got both nights. Why would we want to do that, they ask. Because Radiohead have such a massive catalog that you can expect a different setlist each night is why. I know this from personal experience.

The hostel is right around the corner from the venue, not even a 10-minute walk. Jennifer is not quite ready to go but I want to see the opening band tonight. Barely missed it last night but they sounded really interesting. It’s called Junun and it has Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood in it. It’s like Sufi qawwali music but with some added guitar and electronic elements. Did I tell you how much I am inspired by the Sufis? The great Sufi poet Rumi is the reason I am @ Little Spiral @. He talks about “the place where everything is music” and it’s here. The spiral shape reminds me of the whirling dervish which is the reason I chose it. I should tell you that whole story later. But yeah, Sufi music. Jeff Buckley was inspired by qawwali, and Jeff Buckley inspired Thom Yorke so that makes some odd sense. I have a feeling Radiohead are on tour purely to promote Junun, as Radiohead have no album to promote but Junun went on Colbert and it’s Jonny’s passion project and I think they want us all to think about “world music” as not a separate category of the record store you never visit and I love this little conspiracy theory I just made up.

The second night launches. As I knew was going to happen, it’s a 90% different setlist. I’ve uploaded clips here. They play my favorites. They play songs I didn’t even know I needed to hear. How to Disappear Completely makes me openly weep. And Reckoner. Kid A is PHENOMENAL live. I never cared for Bloom on the recording but to hear his soaring voice in that stadium sends chills up my spine.

Short story time: Last time I saw Radiohead was 2006. They too played two nights, different setlists. It was supposedly a Hail to the Thief tour, and the big song from Hail to the Thief was There There. I waited and waited and waited for them to play that song. I figured they must play the one freaking single from that album. They never do. They play it the next night instead. That’s the real story of why I went to both nights. And they played There There tonight. There are 6 members of the band. Two drummers normally. On this song there are no less than four people onstage playing the drums. Colin’s holding down the bass, Thom is singing and guitaring it up, and everyone else is hitting things with sticks. It’s fucking magic and it scratches a 12-year itch for me.

I have another short story, if you’ll bear with me: Last year was tough. I was not doing well. I was struggling with a depressive episode that had no end in sight. I’m fortunate in that my depressive episodes usually have an end and I can just tell myself it too shall pass. Last year was not one of those times. Last year was also when my love affair wtih Radiohead was rekindled (thanks live Coachella feed). Perhaps I was seeking a distraction. Perhaps I was seeking meaning. No matter the reason, I couldn’t listen to anything else but Radiohead for months. I was giving albums I normally didn’t listen to a try. One of those albums was The King of Limbs. On it is a song that never really gets love or mentions on the Facebook fan forums I frequent. It’s called Give Up the Ghost. It’s dark. It’s depressing. I would not recommend listening to it if you’re suicidal, because you just might go through with it. But to me it was also comforting. I had it on repeat, when I couldn’t get out of bed. I had it on repeat, when all I could do was sleep. I had it on repeat one night when the full moon was shining brightly into my window and I thought I had my fill and I thought I should just give up. Not life, but everything I was doing. This song was my companion in complete surrender and resignation. The song meant a lot to me. It’s not their most popular song. It’s a song a lot of fans forget about. But tonight, they played it as an encore. I can’t tell you how much it meant to hear a song that means so much that I was not expecting at all and then there it is, live, resonant in your ears and in the stadium you inhabit with your musical heroes.

I’m crying typing about it.

Day 2 was better than Day 1 and I didn’t think it was possible. I’m afraid I might need to get a new passport to get home because I’m really, truly not the same person now.

It’s Radiohead Day. It’s Radiohead Day. IT’S RADIOHEAD DAY. I think about wearing my EEEEEEEEEEEED t-shirt all day and see who recognizes it.

This T-shirt is dedicated to the irreplaceable (no matter how hard they try) Ed O’Brien. Ed was one of three guitarists in #Radiohead until Kid A came around with hardly a guitar in sight. Ed has since been assigned to the important role of “atmosphere,” which includes shaking a tambourine occasionally, playing some really long sustained notes on the guitar, and singing his own name as background vocals. So here’s to you, Mr. O’Brien: you remind us all that even the most conventionally attractive member of a band can still be ignored and forgotten by everyone but your most ardent fans. We love you dearly. Where’s your solo album. We have been waiting for years, buddy. You keep saying it’s coming out but it never comes out.

A post shared by intersection of tech & heart (@littlespiralmusic) on Jul 17, 2018 at 10:12am PDT

It’s such a geeky T-shirt that even big Radiohead fans may not understand it. (If you’re in any of the Radiohead meme groups online, though, you’ll know.) I also think about how sweaty AF it is outside and rethink whether I also want to wear this shirt tomorrow for night 2 AND THESE ARE THE DECISIONS THAT DEFINE MY LIFE.

One thing: I don’t want to spend much more money today. Only real goal today is to eat poutine and see Radiohead, everything else should be free. Well parks are free and so are libraries. I spend time in a library. Most of the books are in French. There is an interesting English-only newspaper I read. I can’t help but feel, though, that the news through the eyes of the English-speaking community is also slanted towards its own point of view and I can’t help but wonder all of the in-depth discussions and deep knowledge bases that are locked away from my brain because I only know one language. So many people at the hostel speak more than two languages. I can’t wrap my head around it.

Anyway. I’m looking for a place with ambience so I can write, but this little neighborhood library isn’t quite doing it like I thought it would. Lights are too fluorescent, chairs not really suitable for my back.

I head out down the street and get iced rooibos tea i don’t like much. There’s a relatively new public park or urban space or whatever you call it with chairs and tables. A university student asks me about the sound environment. She gives me a survey. I pay attention to the city sounds of traffic, the sounds of feet rummaging through the gravel of the park, the chit-chat I can’t understand, the loud trucks, the laughing baby, the air conditioning unit on top of the apartment. It’s nothing special which makes it special. I put all that in the survey.

Down the street is a proper park. I go there. There’s a lake. The weather is nice. It’s supposed to be really hot and it isn’t. I find the ambience and inspiration to write. I pull out my little Bluetooth keyboard I carry in my bag, connect it to my phone, and write a blog post. I’m a day or so behind. Whatever, I want to write. I also have my paper notebook in my purse but I have lots to say and my fingers can keep up with my thoughts when I type.

I think a lot about physical notebooks. I pull mine out when it’s too clunky to pull out my keyboard. Or when I want to project in public as being a creative instead of just being a nerd. The medium really is a message, isn’t it. And there’s something different in the creative act when handwriting.

I’m going to try poutine at the place just next to this park. La Banquise. It’s quite good, and I’m even excited to know the poutine I had the other night at the other not-La-Banquise spot is just as good. Taste is different but both excellent poutine experiences. I’m laughing to myself as I type the phrase “excellent poutine experiences.”

I overhear the table next to me talk about “opening band” and “show at 7:30” and I’m like YOU’RE SEEING RADIOHEAD AREN’T YOU. They are. Half this fucking town is seeing Radiohead tonight. One guy flew from Vancouver just for the show. That’s just about as long as I flew.

I can’t finish the poutine, so I take the rest home and attempt a shower and a nap before the show. I go downstairs to the common room in the hostel and meet other people who are headed to the show, some who have also traveled far distances just for the show. The venue is just a ten-minute walk from the hostel. My new friend from Mexico City is walking with me. We are confused by all the lines but we eventually figure it out. There’s a merch tent. $50 FOR A T-SHIRT. I CAN’T DO THAT. I love Radiohead but I can’t do that. Even though it’s $50 Canadian. Can’t do it. But… I can do a keychain. As I lean over to get the keychain, I notice there’s a small white book on the merch table. It doesn’t have a price tag. I open it up and see handwriting in it. Someone must have left their notebook on the table. No. No they didn’t. This was a small replica of Thom Yorke’s songwriting notebook. I cry inside. I have to get it. It’s only $10. I get it. I now am carrying two songwriting notebooks in my bag, mine and his.

The show.

Is.

Amazing.

I take a lot of video clips. I’m going to put them all here in my Facebook photo album.

I will have to find the words later. Because I’m seeing both nights, and the story is incomplete with just one night. Just know I’m not the same person when I emerge from the Bell Centre.

Taking a chance to meet random strangers on the internet. There’s always a chance it will be awkward but thankfully Sam and Maxim are awesome.  I know Sam through a mutual internet friend in the marketing world. I know Maxim through a Radiohead fan group. He can’t come to the shows but he can come and hang out today. Explore Atwater Market, have a killer brisket sandwich, walk the canal. A restaurant on a boat, swan paddles, a guy in all-Quebecois garb, and the infamous construction in Montreal reaches even the water. i learn that “moi” was pronounced “moy” here, instead of “mwah” that I had been saying. ‘Scuse MOY.”

Feet were OK until they weren’t. I need a rest and Sam had to take off to get ready before rehearsal. She plays drums in a metal band, which is so kickass it hurts.

Maxim has a bit more time so after we rest in some water misters and Sam takes off we head back to the Metro and wander around downtown. We plan to see the Beaux-arts but then decide tickets were too expensive. Remember how I said I’m tired of pulling out my credit card every time I want to “do” something? I mean it. We walk instead down to the underground city – a network of malls located underground that also connect Metro stations, high-rise office buildings and universities. That way, in the winter, you can stay indoors on your commute. I mean, you still have to travel to get to a Metro station, but it’s a nice respite from the snow and bitter cold. I’ve got to sit and grab a drink. We sit and nerd out over Radiohead. Who doesn’t like Backdrift?! Stupid people. But Maxim and I differ on The Gloaming. I love it, he does not. It is agreed though that staring at a full moon enhances your Radiohead experience no matter what the song is. My feet are OK now. We emerge at Place des Artes and see a street performer and Maxim tells me about his upbringing in the more rural, closed -minded parts of Quebec, I tell him about my Mormon upbringing. He tells me about how music met him at his worst and allowed him to feel, to remind himself to be himself. Music is so fucking powerful. We go to his old university just down the street. We stop and rest some more and talk some more until we have to go. I’m just having the loveliest time and i’m not pulling out a credit card.

back at the hostel to take a nap before a guided bus tour. I enjoy the living shit out of it. I see all the sights without walking and someone smart tells me the history behind them all. I take lots of pictures of lots of buildings and I can’t possibly remember the names of them all for later but they are pretty and so I take the photos that i will likely not upload 98% of them. My dad takes pictures of sunsets. I take pictures of buildings. Between us two there’s nary a human in our vacation photos. I try to throw in a selfie here and there to balance it out.

Things I learn:
John Lennon’s bed-in was in Montreal
Adam Sandler’s Netflix movie is being filmed in Old Montreal which is what I may have run across earlier
The crabapple tree is representative of Montreal because it blooms in May, just like Montrealers
Five major nations helped found Montreal, says the tour guide: Ireland, Scotland, England, France and the indigenous First Nations.
There’s 200,000 bodies buried at the foot of Mont Royal in the cemeteries and I hear Leonard Cohen is one of them
Same guy who designed Mont Royal Park also did Central Park, amongst others
The law says you must have a full meal if you want to drink alcohol in the park, so needless to say, picnics are very popular
The tour guide is native to Montreal and gets ridiculously affordable higher education so she says she’s now a professional student
Montreal has a “forced equality” for English and French. When they built a French language hospital, they were also building an English hospital at the same time. In Old Montreal there was a statue of an Englishman who killed a bunch of French people in one war. Across the street there’s a statue of a Frenchman who killed a ton of English people in another war. They now face each other.
French speaking tour guide says she never once had a beer on Crescent Street. That’s the English neighborhood, she said in perfect English. The French and English love each other here, she says, but pretty much stick to their own neighborhoods.

There’s a bunch more but those were the things I remember. Also we get a face full of bugs on the open top deck of the bus. I am so spoiled in the Bay Area, we hardly get any bugs. But it’s warm and muggy out and we eat bugs and one splats on my glasses. There’s other points of the tour that aren’t so buggy. Thankfully.

It’s an amazing warm evening and I’m hungry and the bus tour ends and I’ve been trying to save my poutine experience for La Banquise, a place more than one friend who don’t know each other have recommended highly. But I’m feeling like cheating. I mean what I really feel like is comparing and contrasting. I find a spot just down the street from where the bus stops. It’s called Dunn’s and it feels a bit touristy and chain-restauranty and that’s OK, I’m going to be comparing their poutine to the higher rated restaurant later. Good god, I never thought that fries, gravy and squeaky cheese curds would work so well together but they do. When I first had poutine, it was back in Berkeley when Smoke’s Poutine opened up their first US shop. It was OK but I’m not the biggest fan of fries, or anything super starchy and potato-ey. So poutine didn’t sound appealing but I knew I would need to give it a try here. I can’t stop eating the massive bowl they gave me. I stuff myself silly. I make sure I order a side of something vegetable-like and the coleslaw just isn’t as good as the poutine.

I overhear restaurant workers make small talk about science. About we’re not getting enough salt in our diets, which I beg to differ, they don’t have my freezer meal diet. Also poutine and smoked meat are practically bathed in salt so montréal folks should be fine. The workers also talk about the medical composition of burning fat. The kid at the table by me repeats the conversation in his own words and sounds like he nailed the chemical composition. I wouldn’t know because it’s all Latin to me.

Except the big reason i can recognize so many French words is because we share a common Latin ancestor and deep down i know more Latin than i let on, or realize.

I finish. I pay. I’m on my way back, but before I continue, I want you to imagine you’re a bug and you fly into a sweaty girl’s face in the Metro. Imagine you’re small enough to stick to the sweat and you’re watching a hand come swat you from above. The hand wipes your small, lifeless carcass and flicks it on the floor and there’s no one to memorialize your passing except for some random sweaty girl who blogs. imagine you have 50,000 friends who also meet the same fate but without the blog part. Imagine how sad.

I’m back at the hostel and I sleep for days, figuratively speaking.

Woke up and everything hurts a little less. Today is take it easy day and I do. I don’t know why my Sprint data decided to stop working. I connect to wifi. I don’t know why my Instagram stories aren’t uploading and haven’t been for days. Turns out it’s a separate bug with Instagram.

Don’t know how i’m going to navigate through the city without my cell data but ok we shall see. Lots of screen shots of Google maps while i’m still connected to wifi. I know i can download maps for offline viewing but transit directions are not available offline. I’ve got two hurting feet so i really need to know where i’m going so i’m not needlessly walking the wrong way.

I don’t leave the hostel until noon. By then housekeeping arrives and I tell them I’m switching bunks. I tell the front desk too. This is an important detail for you, the reader, to remember for later.

Another important detail: I don’t have any socks. I left California too quickly and planned to walk around in my slip-on flats that don’t require socks. Thankfully I also packed my sneakers, because I knew I would be walking a lot but… well crap now I need socks. I then ask the front desk where I can get socks. They say everywhere. That’s not true. I was just at a cafe that clearly does not sell socks. Then they tell me a department store on St. Catherine’s Street. I look to catch a bus but the entirety of St. Catherine’s Street is closed down for a festival and the bus didn’t post rerouting options.

One thing I’m learning: Montreal streets are often closed during the summer, either for festivals or for the massive construction projects they have to do when it’s not snowing.

I take the subway. I get to the department store. It’s called The Bay. It’s been around since 1670. It was a fur trading company back then, and now they sell socks. Amongst other things. I need socks and I leave with socks and a bunch more souvenirs. That’s French for souvenier. Also some more French words: restaurant entrepreneur concierge menu café petite silhouette boutique cliché résumé RSVP.

I’m feeling scattered and plan-less. I wanted to check out St. Catherine’s festival but it’s a long-ass street and what I see of it so far looks… boring. Merchants selling shirts and pants and shoes and jewelry and more clothes and more clothes that are probably not my size and I don’t ever buy clothes without trying them on. There’s an occasional item of interest but not enough to warrant walking the entire street. The entire street is, like, miles long.

Instead I camp out in a cafe, connect to wifi, do some writing. Decide to go to Old Montreal and buy tickets for this show:

I see a tourist kiosk and they say the show sells out fast. It sure did. But I’m able to get tickets for Wednesday night. I also grab a map because my fucking phone isn’t working. Remember paper maps? I do. I don’t want to pull one out in public, but I’ve got one. I wander. I had practice of wandering without my phone and I didn’t like it. I wander again this time. I like it. This city has something breathtaking around every corner. Also, all the shop signs are labeled exactly what they are. Cafe. Indian food. Ice cream. Not in sf, where it’s just the restaurant name and it’s up to you to yelp that shit. I camp out yet again to siphon off Wi-Fi. There’s a public municipal open wifi network. it helps. SF needs one.

I am overspending money and I’m also over spending money. i just want to be in a city and just be there without buying all the food and buying all the tickets and buying all the rental jet boats on the St. Lawrence River and random shit i’m sure you can buy. My happy place is writing and music. Can i just spend 10 days writing songs in the shadow of the basilica and call it a successful vacation? There should be a piano nearby.

There is but there isn’t. It’s another public piano they have scattered through the city. It’s wrapped tightly around with a tarp. it’s supposedly supposed to rain tonight. I don’t think it ever does.

My feet hurt enough to consider doing the hop-on-hop-off open-top bus tour. They’re my touristy guilty pleasure. i once did one in SF. i learned some stuff! i also did one in New Orleans and learned even more stuff. But without internet I don’t know where to go to get on one. Feet prevent me from chasing one down, but I can go back to the Basilica square to that one tourist kiosk. Except it’s gone. It’s packed up and left. So does tourism stops around 4pm around here or am I missing something? I’m confused.

I walk into a hotel lobby and ask a concierge, which is French for concierge. He says the busses stop around 4pm but he is nice and gives me a map and a place where I can buy tickets. He didn’t say the tickets were $50 which would have been nicer to know. I can do like $30. Not $50.

I thought about watching the fireworks that night. There’s a fireworks festival going on. That’s on top of an African festival, a circus festival, a metal festival and a comedy festival and an electronic festival. I believe the myth that it was supposed to rain, and I also believe I should be taking it easy, so I do. I head back. I can see the fireworks on Wednesday, when I’m meeting up with a friend who also happens to be in town the same time as me. we’re going to see the show at the basilica.

back to the hostel. i need to rest my body. my back is starting to hurt. remember when i told the front desk i needed to switch to the bottom bunk bed for health purposes? i walk into the room to see a new person’s stuff all over the bottom bed. uuuugh. i just need to lay down. i complain at the front desk again. they say they’ll change the beds now. i ask where i can get some ibuprofen around here. they say the pharmacy two blocks down. i have to walk? i have to walk.

i walk. i get ibuprofen and something to drink it with. i go and get food because ibuprofen can be rough on my stomach without it. i sit. i eat. i drink. i medicate. i walk another block out of the way and go to the open piano. i need to heal, the piano is healing. i play my songs. i play butterflies and hurricanes. a stranger approaches me and says “can i play after you?” and before i can say “sure,” he says “I can play better than that. You’re missing accents. I studied at” whatever fancy college this fucker studied at. then he just sits right down besides me and takes over the piano and i’m so jaw-droppingly offended and say “that was so incredibly rude!” he pounds the piano with random ass notes that sound terrible and he is openly mocking me and i just fucking walk away screaming “so rude!” it’s been a WHILE since i felt so directly insulted like that. So much for healing.

coming down from one rage to another. I walk back to the hostel and the front desk DID NOT switch my bed like they said and i’m really upset by this time. I am in pain and i have to lie down and i have no place to lie down. i go to the common room to find a couch and it’s bastille day and there’s $5 glasses of wine. i take one and lie down. I put my feet on the couch i don’t give a fuck i’m lying down and wineing down and i conk out for a few minutes there.

I wake up and see an empty wine glass that needs to be returned to the bar. I’m used to washing my own dishes here and in a moment of confusion i ask the bartender if i was supposed to wash my own wine glass. He said no i’ll take it. Some guy at the bar laughed at me incredulously and said when do you ever wash your own glass? I say i’m in a hostel, you wash your own dishes. He says never at a hostel bar and i don’t feel like telling him i rarely drink and his comment was 100 percent not necessary and thanks for making me feel like an idiot, but i can only muster a nasty stare that i hope translated. I’m done with men insulting me today. Done.

The bed is done. It’s ready for me finally. My new upstairs neighbor moves into the bunk. We say hi, i say thanks for switching beds with me. Lights go out. One of the women starts snoring. My upstairs neighbor whispers “shit shit shit shit” to herself and goes to her locker for what i assume are earplugs. I don’t know why i’m fine with the snoring. Possibly because i’m about to pass out.

Bed.

Slept in. Got some work done before I had to rush out the door to Startupfest. Got a last-minute steeply discounted ticket because they want more queer women in attendance. Hell. Yes. I go to Old Port. It’s old and there’s a port, and someone is filming there. I’m on a boat! To the conference. I see something that looks like Epcot Center in the distance. Turns out it was the original inspiration for Epcot Center, built for the Expo 67 (“till they stepped on my hair / and told me I was fat”), and is now called the Biodome. Speaking of Epcot, my family went when I was a kid and the Canada pavillion was by far the lamest. We sang this song for years afterward and laughed and laughed and laughed because who the F thinks to rhyme Canada with “planet earth” and fun fact, this song was the first that popped in my mind when I landed here.

I’m off the boat. There is a park and a temporary village built on a small island to host this thing. It’s a diverse startup conference. One of the most diverse I’ve been to. There is food and a video feed of the keynote speaker. She’s talking about ads. That’s my primary form of income, so I pay attention. She pleads for morality and examining unintended consequences of our algorithms. The next guy talks about augmented reality and, speaking of unintended consequences, I am fucking terrified. The future he spoke of was like a bizarre cross between Minority Report and the totally warped last act of Sorry to Bother You. I’m sure people 200 years ago would be just as afraid of today. Still left me with such a massive WTF hangover that I pay scant attention to the following speakers. The pitch competition starts and I’m back in the lounge to write. I’m interrupted by someone who wants to network. We network, I guess. I just wanted to write but you know, I did pay something for this conference so I should probably make the most of it.

I go do some businessy things and attend businessy lectures and feel smart. I talk to a few people who could use Facebook ads. I hope it turns into something. I go to a Q&A about social impact businesses. There’s a woman on the panel, her name is Marika. She used to be in this little band called Arcade Fire. She started a business called Plus1 where major touring acts add a dollar to the ticket price to raise funds for charities. I ask her a question to kill three birds with one stone: 1) talk to a fellow musician who has had successes, 2) tell everyone in the room I do Facebook ads because they’re my ideal client, and 3) ask the actual question. I have a lot of clients who have to choose between bottom line and doing good in the world, and if anyone on the panel had examples of how they navigated that. She said they turned down a Coca-Cola sponsorship because they bottle and commodotize water in areas where water is scarce. That was interesting to hear. Some other people asked and answered questions but whatever it’s all about me. The panel was good. I went up afterward and asked if her team works with smaller musicians or if that would make any sense. She said she really only works with the bigger acts whose tickets are $30+. For smaller musicians, they should use that dollar for gas. She looks me in the eye. She says “go make art.” It’s ok, go make art. The phrase replays as an echo in the just-emptied chamber inside my skull. Go make art. I look around. I’m stuck on an island in the middle of St. Lawrence River and i can’t exactly sit down at a piano right now. I can write, though. Go make art. i choose to make art later.

I sit through another lecture, not making art. I walk to a food truck and get a $15 fish taco that was $5 worth of food, still not making art. I meet up with someone interested in advertising online. I feel creative in helping solve his marketing needs but I’m not making art. I get on the ferry. I’m on a boat. I pull out my journal. Waves prevent me from writing straight. I go back to not making art. I land. Old Montreal is beautiful and someone made the buildings into art years ago that I can now enjoy and remind myself that I’m not making art and I’m likely never having kids so if a Montreal autobus smacks into me today all the songs that remain in my head unrecorded will not be my legacy and I won’t be making any more art. I should download everything in my head to a hard drive for preservation.

Except I think about that terrifying augmented reality talk again. There was a point in his presentation where he asked us to imagine living life with all blank walls and AR puts the pictures on the wall, the chairs in front of us. Imagine a world where we become less materialistic because all objects are augmented reality (which I laughed out-the-fuck-out loud when he said that, because bro, NOT GOING TO HAPPEN BECAUSE OF AR, MY FRIEND, SOMEONE’S GONNA COMMODOTIZE THAT SHIT). Then he gave this example: Imagine a world where women could put on makeup with a magic mirror and everyone would perceive her face with the exact makeup design she wanted to project. He really gave that example. It took everything in me to not stand up and say HOW ABOUT WOMEN JUST DON’T NEED TO WEAR MAKEUP IN THIS UTOPIA OF OURS.

What made the talk terrifying was just how rosy he was painting this scenario that will clearly turn on us. I felt like he was selling us on eugenics or something even more horrifying by asking us to imagine a superhuman race of the future that can do whatever we want as long as the electricity never goes out.

My feet hurt again. I start to be actually concerned. Why are my feet swelling up like this? This was happening here and there a few weeks before the trip but it wasn’t a big deal. I walk to a food truck, the third food truck meal so far in Montreal. It’s a smoked meat sandwich. It reminds me of spam and bologna cured in salt. I wonder if it’s the food truck. I look up possible reasons why feet swell that are apart from walking a lot. The internet says I could have achilles tendonitis, or heart disease, or could be pregnant. The internet tells me to stop eating salt. Too late. It also says to not drink so much water, except another site says to drink more water.

Tomorrow I’m taking it easy. Was planning on checking out St. Catherines street festival but that is one long-ass street and a lot of walking, so I decide tomorrow I’m buying new socks and watching the fireworks. Easy.

I need to head back to Mile End to pick up the records I bought but couldn’t carry, then to see Meklit as part of an African festival in town. So many festivals. I get my records, grab a pizza because the smoked meat didn’t fill me, and realize I left my records behind. I’m going to start labeling all my spare bags and boxes I’m carrying around with “If lost call this number” because i know me and i know it’s a matter of time until this happens.

it’s time for Meklit’s show, and it was a fascinating study on how a multilingual country works. The emcee spoke only in French. The opening act spoke both French and English in her on-stage banter, I couldn’t tell if she was saying the same thing twice in each language, or if she was telling more to one language than another. She also sang in her native African tongue (which I unfortunately forget which language). Meklit spoke only in English and sang mostly in English and Amharic. In every language, it was a fabulous show. Meklit is a friend of a friend, as well as a former TED fellow. She played the pot lid song she mentions here.

It was an excellent night and now my back started to catch up with the pain from my feet so both were crying by the time I got home and had to lay down in the common room on top of a towel so I could properly stretch my back out enough to climb the ladder to my bed. I got home too late to officially switch the beds but my bottom-bunk roomie is checking out tomorrow so that fixes that tomorrow. In the meantime strangers are letting me do whatever I’m doing on the floor which is both relieving that there’s no judgement and concerning because shouldn’t someone ask me if I’m OK? someone eventually asks if I’m ok. i say no but i’m working on it. i work on it. i’m fine. i climb up the ladder. i’m switching tomorrow. i’m taking it easy tomorrow. i’m going to go make art tomorrow. I can’t make art if I don’t have a functioning body. I need to put this as a priority.

Bed.