Beats on a birthday in late autumn

Many days pass by, one indistinguishable from the next, until when you look back after a period of time, you realize that only a few moments in your life truly stand out – like islands in a vast ocean. And this outlook can characterize our interaction with the city, where often, we pass from one place to another, in a hurry to do something, failing to notice much.

When I moved to Montreal, I told myself, “Never take this place for granted.” But all the same, it is easy for me to slip into complacency. I can become surly with the construction, or the long commute to Concordia’s west-end campus, or even a poor meal I was served in a noodle house.

On Sunday – October 21 – the city itself jolted me out of this complacency and reminded me, for about the fiftieth time now, why I chose to live here, and indeed, why, for the foreseeable future, I do not want to live anywhere else.

It was my birthday. My friends and I met at Mont Royal metro and walked east, where we joined more friends at the foot of the “mountain” – and had a picnic. In the background were the tamtams, that famous Montreal tradition, that a cursory glance at Wikipedia has just informed me has “unknown origins.” Tamtams takes place every seasonable Sunday. People gather at noon and bang on their tamtams and dance and hang out and relax, eat, go into rhythmic rapture – whatever they feel like!

One of the best aspects of the picnic in the park (for me) was the unexpected diversity of the attendees. I had invited friends similar in age to me. But those friends in turn invited other friends who in turn brought pets and children, so that the eventual turn-out was larger than expected. We had people ranging from 3-ish to 33-ish, not to mention a big, friendly Bull Mastiff.

The unexpectedness of a given situation is, to a certain extent, antithetical to consumer culture. The spectacle of the shopping event serves up a large dose of “exactly what you want” – for the right price. You buy an object that will meet with your expectations. Or you pay for a service – an experience – such as a Mexician holiday, where you expect sun, surf and Corona in satisfactory portions.

Even when the capitalists offer you something unexpected, it is merely a ruse. I recall an advert for the snack, Bits and Bites. The slogan was, “You never know what you’re gonna get.” But as anyone with common sense knows, this is a lie. When you reach into a bag of Bits and Bites, you are going to get a Bit and Bite, regardless of what particular form the Bit and Bite in question might take.

You are not going to get a snail.

And so when people congregate at an event of “unknown origins” where the entertainment is unorchestrated and spontaneous, and the pleasures lie entirely outside of the exchange of money for goods and services, one can be satisfied to have briefly escaped the dictatorship of capitalism.

It was indeed a birthday to remember!

More to the point, we sat on a tarp and devoured the goodies and wine that we had brought, cracked jokes, watch Denis throwing a small child over his shoulder and through the air, watched Gus the Bull Mastiff frolic in the grass, laughed, soaked up the late-autumn sun, and then a smaller number of us climbed the mountain and enjoyed the pristine view from on top.

(Selin in the shades)

If you had been actively seeking the city’s essence on that day, the tamtams might well have been the best place to do so. It was relaxed, sexual, but not overt, and very, very human.

Laurence