Spirit of '76 (1976, that is)

Following on yesterday's frog theme, I found myself remembering and re-examining "The Frog Song", a fairly hefty hit for Québecois singer Robert Charlebois during the summer of 1976.

It's a song which has had some popularity for anglophone Canadians taking part in French immersion courses in the province of Quebec over the years, probably due to the chorus in English, with the cheeky reference to the ancient English insult to francophones.

It's a song that gets a bit lost in translation, and not just because of the joual:

Ton beurre est dur pis tes toasts sont brûlées. 

Ton lait est sûr, ton jaune d’œuf est crevé. 

T’as pus d’eau chaude pour te faire un café instantané. 

You’re a frog, I’m a frog, kiss me! 

And I’ll turn into a prince suddenly! 

Donne-moi des peanuts, j’m’en va te chanter "Alouette" sans fausse note.

(Your butter is hard; your toast is burnt/ Your milk is sour; your egg yolk is broken/ You don't have hot water to make instant coffee . . . . Give me some peanuts; I'll sing you "Alouette" flawlessly)

Yeah.

The following verses are about grabbing your bag, getting on the bus to get to work, and your boss (doubtless some rich Anglo) is spending the winter on the Ivory Coast, while you work too hard, and your family is unappealing, and you are uncomplaining and polite...

See, another song popular with immersion students in the 80s and 90s (mainly the adolescent and post-adolescent males) was "Bye Bye, Mon Cowboy" by Mitsou, because, like "The Frog Song", it also had some English words, and, unlike "The Frog Song", the message was unmistakeable - and the French was really easy to decipher.

"The Frog Song" (composed by Jean Chevrier, about whom I've been able to find out nothing, apart from some random blog saying he is/was a writer in Montreal) came out in the midst of widespread frustration and anger with Quebec premier Robert Bourassa, who was swept out of power the autumn of 1976 by René Lévesque and his separatist/sovereigntist Parti Québécois.  (Bourassa got back in less than ten years later, and stayed in power for almost another ten years, ultimately defeated by cancer.)

The adolescent immersion students who danced and hopped and kissed happily to the song were, for the most part, blissfully unaware of the satire and rage between the lines and the notes.

There's a demon and an angel in my belly

A few weeks ago, I dropped by the Marble Slab Ice Cream Store, because I was running errands and running out of steam. There was a knot of people ahead of me, and I realised, because of the tee-shirt of a statuesque women taking a leadership role amongst them, that they were ESL students from the University of Victoria, under the guidance of what we used to call "monitors", then euphemised to "cultural assistants".  I have tremendous respect for the work they did - except those that slept with the students (a minority, I believe).

I have fond memories of the English language programmes at UVic, particularly the summer programme, where the majority of the students were Québécois - not I ever played favourites, of course.

Last week, I heard this song at the coffee shop, and, although this song is recent, it brings back the feel of those summers, and the endearingly insular young men and women in my classes.

 

Mais nous, nous serons morts

A news item from the CBC described our new prime minister Justin Trudeau visiting the Bataclan concert hall where the most people died in the Paris attacks two weeks ago. The visit to the site had been organized by a Québec delegation, and a Franco-Ontarian singer named Véronic Dicaire (who is from Embrun, which is south-east of Ottawa) sang "Quand tous les hommes vivront d'amour".

I first heard the song when I was in a summer French Immersion course in Trois-Rivières. It was sung at several gatherings in a folksy style, but the original recording by its composer Raymond Levesque is in the jazzy and relaxed rhythm of the cafés of Paris, which belies its melancholic message: "When people live in love and peace, life will be beautiful, but you and I will be long gone, bud."

Raymond Levesque, who was born in Montréal, was living in Paris in the 1950s, and wrote this song in response to the war in Algeria in 1956. The lyrics are not totally pessimistic; they suggest that the world of peace and love must have its beginning in us, if only so those enjoying it might remember those who used to live in an atmosphere of hate and war.

Last week, when the official memorial service was held in Paris, another song I had not heard for a long time was featured, and it was also written by someone who lived in Paris, but was not a Frenchman: "Quand on n'a que l'amour" by the Belgian Jacques Brel. I am more familiar with the English version of the song which was featured in the stage musical and movie Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. (He isn't - he died in 1978.) This is from the 1975 film version starring Mort Shuman, Elly Stone and Joe Masiell. The English lyrics are by Eric Blau and Mort Shuman.

If we only have love, we can melt all the guns, and then give the new world to our daughters and sons.

Gotta hold on to the dream.

Revelations

One thing I rather like about November is that with the foliage gone, you can see the rivers. (Sounds a bit like I'm clutching at straws, doesn't it?)

About this time, three years ago, I was taking the Accent Snob on what I call The Long Walk. We followed the streets that line the back of the grounds of Rideau Hall, the residence of the Canadian Governor General, following the wrought iron railings until the dog and I reached the Rockcliffe Parkway. From there, just a short walk away from 24 Sussex Drive, official residence of the Prime Minister, I looked out over the Ottawa River to the province of Québec.

This is what I saw one late Sunday afternoon in 2012:

You can click on this to enlarge it.

Writing blog-posts forces you to look things up. It took a bit of scrolling over a Google Map of the neighbourhood to figure out that I was looking at the Paroisse St-François-De-Sales, built in 1840, and standing on the bank of the Gatineau River, just before it meets the Ottawa River, which in turn flows in an easterly direction towards Montréal, where it merges with the St Lawrence.

That late afternoon in Ottawa, it was a nameless ethereal church glowing in the light of a dying afternoon, framed with the tattered remains of autumn.

Summer immersion

This time of year, there's almost too much going on in Hades. (Just try finding something in April, September, or after Christmas.) Right now, in addition to shows at the National Arts Centre, we have the lead-up to Canada Day -- which is a big deal in Ottawa --, the Fringe Festival, and the Jazz Festival. I doubt we'll make it to the Fringe this year, but younger daughter, as it may have been established, is a jazz fan. I have failed so far to summon up the large amounts of money nor the courage to attend the big-ticket outdoor jazz concerts in Confederation Park. There are two reasons for needing some nerve: thunderstorms (pretty well every night this week) and the great Ottawan sport of fighting for premium seating while armed with folding chairs of every description -- usually only to have someone stand in front of you anyway.

However the Jazz Festival also features several free concerts, involving less famous but perfectly skilled musicians. Over the years, younger daughter and I have enjoyed noon hour concerts featuring Fats Waller specialists, American Song Book singalongs, and swing dancers, among others. This morning, I checked the schedule and saw that the Nicole Ratté Quintet would be performing popular Quebecois songs in jazz settings, so we set off for the Rideau Centre and managed, thanks to a kind young man who said he had to leave early anyway, to secure seats at the back of the court surrounding the escalators, where lunch-time shoppers drifted up, looking back over their shoulders in something like slack-jawed amazement -- except for every third or fourth person, who was checking his/her cellphone. No smiles, only two people who showed any signs of pleasure. The people leaning over the railings of the upper levels seemed to be having a better time, and off to the sides, I saw a woman moving delightedly in time with the music, while her son studiously ignored her -- and checked his cellphone.

I know a little about the rich tradition of Quebecois popular music from being in immersion the summer I was nineteen, and from teaching ESL to scores of Quebecois students, also in summer immersion. So Quebec music, despite their country being winter, means summer to me. I didn't recognize many of the songs, but the surrounding audience, full of francophones, most evidently did and I did recognize the names of the composers: Robert Charlebois, Felix Leclerc, Gilles Vigneault, etc.

This show, however, was a sad illustration of how far my French has deteriorated since I was nineteen. I knew I should know the song that opened the set, but the lyrics baffled me. I heard them as (and I blush to disclose this): Recouvrez-moi la mer. Once I got home and googled it, I realized my mistake and the memories came flooding back:

Je voudrais voir la mer
Et ses plages d'argent
Et ses falaises blanches
Fières dans le vent
Je voudrais voir la mer
Et ses oiseaux de lune
Et ses chevaux de brume
Et ses poissons volants

Je voudrais voir la mer
Quand elle est un miroir
Où passent sans se voir
Des nuages de laine
Et les soirs de tempête
Dans la colère du ciel
Entendre une baleine
Appeler son amour

Je voudrais voir la mer
Et danser avec elle
Pour défier la mort

Je voudrais voir la mer
Avaler un navire
Son or et ses canons
Pour entendre le rire
De cent millions d'enfants
Qui n'ont pas peur de l'eau
Qui ont envie de vivre
Sans tenir un drapeau

Je voudrais voir la mer
Ses monstres imaginaires
Ses hollandais volants
Et ses bateaux de guerre
Son cimetière marin
Et son lit de corail
Où dorment les requins
Dans des draps de satin

Je voudrais voir la mer
Et danser avec elle
Pour défier la mort

Je vis dans une bulle
Au milieu d'une ville
Parfois mon coeur est gris
Et derrière la fenêtre
Je sens tomber l'ennui
Sur les visages blêmes
Et sous les pas pesants
Que traînent les passants

Alors du fond de moi
Se lève un vent du large
Aussi fort que l'orage
Aussi doux qu'un amour
Et l'océan m'appelle
D'une voix de velours
Et dessine en mon corps
Le mouvant...
Le mouvant de la vague

Je voudrais voir la mer
Et danser avec elle
Pour défier la mort...

Je voudrais voir la mer
Se gonfler de soleil
Devenir un bijou
Aussi gros que la terre

Je voudrais voir la mer...

Maybe if I had had my French immersion earlier in life...
Actually, I have a bona fide June memory connected with a famous Quebecois song. The following used be sung at elder daughter's end-of-the-year assemblies when she was in a school that was roughly 40% French Immersion and 60% English Stream -- she was in the 60%, but everybody had to take French, because this is Ottawa. Imagine, if you will, a gym full of elementary school students murmuring this song in the heavy, humid heat of a Hades June:

Dancing before falling down

I spent the last day of this particular NaBloPoMo baking pies. For some reason, there appears to be a pool of cooking oil in the bottom of the oven, and by the time I put the third pie in, smoke was seeping out and our smoke detector went off. The Resident Fan Boy reports that this is the first time the Accent Snob was actually quite eager to go out for a walk. The pies taste fine, but I'm stopping at four. (Bake sale at younger daughter's school tomorrow.)

This completes my eighth NaBloPoMo month. For the record, I've done February and September 2009; March, August and November 2010; April and October 2011; and now May 2012. For my next feat, now that I've acquired a laptop, I will attempt to NaBloPoMo July 2012 while travelling to Victoria, BC and house-sitting a place with a 1980s computer. This should be fun...

As my May swan-song, I'm dredging up a video I was originally going to use for a review of La La La Human Steps, a modern dance troupe from Montreal. Unfortunately, I saw them a year ago, so I'll skip the review (the evening was disappointing anyway, from what I vaguely recall), and share the video which is from the glory days of the company when Louise Lecavalier was still their lead dancer and Edouard Lock was in his prime.  You'll see them both dancing here in this video which features Quebecoise actor Carole Laure singing "Danse avant de tomber", the French version of "Save the Last Dance for Me".  I chiefly remember Ms Laure for her role in the deeply weird 1978 film that actually won Best Foreign Language Film:   Préparez vos mouchoirs (Get Out Your Handkerchiefs)
(I doubt it would even get made these days.  It involves a woman not coming out of her depression until she takes up with a thirteen-year-old boy -- it was billed as a romantic comedy... )

(2015 update: The French language version got yanked off YouTube, so I'm linking to the English version which doesn't have quite the same feel, although the dancing is identical.)

I think what I love best about this is how the rather dangerous and hostile feel of most of the video is contrasted with the safe and tender dance of Laure and her mother. That's probably just me.

And this is also just me, signing off. I hope to get a few posts in during June before recklessly trying to NaBloPoMo July. Wish me luck.

Qu'est-ce c'est? (Fa-fa-fa-fah, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fah...)

This morning, my Friend With Whom I Have Coffee turned up on my doorstep to whisk me away to select our Christmas tree from the Byward Market. (I am known throughout her van as the woman who can pick a tree in under five minutes. And that usually includes paying for it.)

FWWIHC knew our dog was a veteran of francophone homes and as she stepped over our threshold, bathed our new pet with caresses and endearments Québécoises. We had been told by the Humane Society that the dog responded more readily to French commands. We had noticed no such thing over the past week (the Resident Fan Boy being reasonably conversant en français), but, judging from the joyful tail-wagging and shivering, it became painfully clear -- we have opened our home and hearts to an accent snob:

Madame! Sauvez-moi des têtes carrées!!

Ungrateful brute.

Canadian Christmas traditions (part two)

It's just after 8 am on Christmas Eve morning. About twenty minutes minutes ago, the Resident Fan Boy set off in the new snow (yes, we've had even more of it) for the forty-five-minute trudge to his office for the Christmas Eve lunch, which starts vaguely about mid-morning and peters out in the early afternoon, as everyone sneaks home. He woke me just after 6 am so I could take one of the tourtières I'd assembled yesterday from the freezer, glaze it with egg yolk and milk and put it in the oven. I put a tea towel in the bottom of an empty kitty litter box, stuffed the whole thing into a cloth bag with a flat bottom, and tucked the still-hot tourtière into the bottom. We do this because a) tourtières can be mostly prepared ahead of time; b)tourtières are associated with Christmas; and c) the Resident Fan Boy's French-Canadian work-mates go all misty and goo-goo-eyed when he sets the tourtière on the buffet table. They tell him about the réveillons of their childhoods when they returned from midnight mass to tables groaning with tourtières, each one made by an aunt, mother or sister according to her secret recipe.

I wasn't quite prepared for my tourtière to have an emotional impact on anybody. I started making them about a dozen years ago when the weight of preparing Christmas dinner began to fall to me, because I don't particularly care for turkey. Demeter had experimented with various roasted fowls over the years (even a greasy and, heaven help us, hairy goose one year), and the closest we came to adopting as a tradition was a capon. However, ordering, preparing, stuffing and roasting birds leaves me cold. The beauty of the tourtière is that you can make it several days in advance, freeze it, pop it into the oven on Christmas afternoon et voilà, a festive dish. It took several years to find the right recipe, as the traditional tourtière is, alas, rather bland, but the recipe I use is pepped up with onions, garlic and celery. Living in anglophone Victoria, I only had the intellectual notion that it was a French-Canadian custom.

Then we moved to Ottawa. The province of Québec is a fifty-minute walk across the Alexandra Bridge from our doorstep (if I keep my pace reasonably brisk), and our neighbourhood seems full of anglophone/francophone partnerships. Elder daughter's classmates all seemed to have parents with Scottish and French surnames. At least half of my husband's workmates speak French as their first language, driving, cycling or walking to work across the Ottawa River from the city of Gatineau. It's for the sake of the ancient children behind their eyes that I got up this morning to put the final touches on one of the tourtières (the other is waiting in the freezer for Christmas Day). I suspect that modern life has rendered home-made pastries as scarce in Québec as anywhere else. With the bus strike, we won't be dragging our daughters down for the office party this year, but the Resident Fan Boy is determined to go and bask in the cries of welcome as the golden pie takes its place. Christmas is for children, after all, even the grown-up ones. And now elder daughter has confessed her attachment to the dish. It's become part of her childhood Christmas. Well, one of her ancestral names is Boucher, after all.

Now, I must sort and wrap the treasures hidden in my closet against tomorrow. For those of you who keep Christmas, I wish ease and speed in your preparations. For those who don't, I wish peace and beauty.