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Larry Muffin At Home

~ Remembering that life is a comedy and the world is a small town.

Larry Muffin At Home

Monthly Archives: April 2018

Setting Day

30 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by larrymuffin in lobster

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Charlottetown, Food, PEI, Seafood, Summer, tourists

Today 30 April is the last day to do your income tax report in Canada and pay whatever you may owe, it is also Setting Day in PEI. This is the opening of the Lobster Spring harvest Season. At dawn from all the ports around the Island, lobster boats went off to set the traps, they will do this every day until 30 June. Setting means laying down the traps to catch Lobsters. It will be interesting to see what prices will be set for 1 lbs. In the supermarket today a pound lobster was selling at $14.99 I do not know if this price will fall or rise. Of course you can go down to the dock and buy your lobster directly from any fisherman and it is likely you will pay a lot less probably around $5 to $7 dollars a pound. Will see…

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Many people come out to see them go, it is quite the sight. This also means that the Summer tourist season is about to open, in 48 hours the first cruise ship will arrive in Port at Charlottetown. I believe the first is a Holland American ship. Tomorrow morning the restaurants catering to the tourist crowds open at 11:30am for lunch.

 

 

My recent trip

29 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by larrymuffin in Montreal

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

art., cuisine, Food, French, life, Travel

I travelled to Montreal my hometown for a week’s vacation away from PEI. Islanders will tell you that you need to get off the island especially between November and end April for mental health reasons. I did not listen to them and I should have, everyone I know goes away for a minimum of 2 full weeks in that time period.

I was born in Montreal and lived part of my childhood there from 1956 to 1960 and 1965 to 1974, only returning occasionally afterwards for family matters or to see friends.

I witnessed great changes in Montreal during the period of Mayor Jean Drapeau who had a grand vision for the Paris of the New World, Montreal is the second largest French speaking city in the World after Paris. It also was the metropolis of Canada until 1977 a title she lost to Toronto but regained as the other Metropolis after 2008.

The Metro system was opened in 1966, then we had the World Exposition in 1967, then the Olympics games in 1976. Montreal is also the seat of IATA and several international organizations, fine museums, art centres, great dining, etc.

It had been 4 years since my last visit when my father died and that visit was all about death and cleaning out my parents home, so not exactly a fun time.

I flew from Charlottetown on a regional jet (small plane) that is all that flies here to the island, the flight is 75 minutes so fairly quick. Montreal is a city of 4 million people and growing, construction everywhere, including the road system and a new bridge across the Saint-Lawrence river. People everywhere, traffic, very cosmopolitan and French.

I was staying with an old friend in the Côte des Neiges neighbourhood, near the Jewish General Hospital and the Université de Montréal. Montreal has 4 universities. The neighbourhood is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, though everyone speaks French and all signs are in French, you will hear a multitude of languages from around the world.

On Monday we went to a German grocery store which sells all manner of product from Germany and Austria but also has a great lunch counter with specialties as you would find them in Europe. It seems that many customers spoke German with the staff and French with everyone else. The food was very good, this business has been on the same corner of Queen Mary and Côte des Neiges for 60 years.

Then I went downtown, to look around and was very surprised at how much familiar streets where my parents lived and worked had completely changed to the point I could not remember what was previously there. The area around the old Windsor Station which is now a complex of tall stylish condo buildings, there is about 9 new towers. The Queen Elizabeth Hotel, my Mom’s favourite in Montreal has been completely redecorated for its 60th anniversary and it is very nicely done. The old Birks & Sons Jewellery store on Phillips Square is being remodelled into a luxury hotel but is keeping the famous jeweller on the ground floor.

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Birks and Sons Jeweller on Sainte-Catherine street at Phillips Square under renovations.

A new Four Seasons Hotel is being built next to Ogilvy’s department store which is now amalgamated with Holt Renfrew. I thought of Dad when I saw this project, he knew all about it, it has been in the works for 10 years and is now coming to completion. My father opened the first Four Seasons Hotel in Montreal back in the 70’s, how he would have love to see this one, a tall tower of black glass.

I also walked by the former Mount Stephens Club which was the home of Sir George Stephens the builder with Sir William Cornelius Van Horne of the transcontinental railway in Canada in 1888.  Today the mansion has been restored preserving the rare and exotic wood panelling and original decor and is used as meeting rooms and bar, dining rooms  and joined at the back to a new hotel tower part of the Leading Hotels of the world collection.

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Detail of the interior of the house, top is the former reception room panelled in Lemonwood or Degame, beautiful soft yellow colour. The other bottom photo shows the top of the staircase all in mahogany, the windows have Tiffany glass, it is very dark despite the very large windows, giving the house a very formal atmosphere.

Then on Sherbrooke Street I went to the Musée des Beaux Arts also known as the museum of Fine Arts to see what was on show. The museum has 2 new wings, one called Le Pavillon pour la Paix, a gift of Michal and Renata Hornstein and the other is the Pavillon Claire et Marc Bourgie, a gift of the Bourgie family, the premier undertakers for funerals of distinction in Quebec. The Museum was founded about 120 years ago by art lovers in Montreal on the same location it is now but with the years it has grown into a 7 building complex. What is interesting about its expansion is how organically it grew, incorporating other landmarks around it like the Erskine & American United Church with its 17 famous Tiffany Stain glass windows of 1897. I love this museum, the collections are superb and if you go to Montreal you really should make an effort to visit, even if just for one hour. The restaurant of the museum is also wonderful, I had lunch there and the food is very good as is the wine selection, I had a grilled octopus salad accompanied by a Pouilly Fuissé Chardonnay and then a Magret de Canard, very good indeed.

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I return by Métro to my friend’s home, tired but very happy for this first day.

 

 

Happy Birthday!

21 Saturday Apr 2018

Posted by larrymuffin in Canada, EIIR, Rome

≈ 5 Comments

Today there is two birthdays I consider important, one is the birthday of Rome founded some 2771 years ago on 21 April by Romulus. To this day I think you can say Auguri Roma, bellezza eterna.

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The other birthday is that of the Queen of Canada, Her Majesty Elizabeth II who is 92 years old and the oldest reigning Monarch in British history but not Canadian history, Louis XIV has that distinction. Nonetheless we wish her a wonderful Birthday.

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# It has been 2 months folks!

16 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by larrymuffin in Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Campaign, Charlottetown, City Hall, Councillor, Election, Municipality, PEI

Yes two full months already on the municipal campaign trail, a lot of work and meeting a lot of people, business people, investors, entrepreneurs, developers, social activists, new comers and just plain people who reside here in Ward 1 Queen Square in Downtown Charlottetown.

I am very proud of the fact that I have been able to talk face to face with so many people in our Ward. It has been very interesting and the reception has been very good, so thank you all. For those people I have not met yet, I will meet you soon, promise!

It is not over and I continue to hammer home the point that I am here for you and to work on your behalf. That my campaign is about accountability at City Council. Time for a new vision of progressive ideas at City Council, an up-beat can do attitude. There is so much to do in the next four years.

Charlottetown is a great multi-ethnic and multi-racial Capital, full of diversity and the future is here for us all. What is important now is how to approach the opportunities presented to us, what will we make of our Capital City.

I need your support and I need to hear from you. Please contact me and let’s talk. I have a blog on many topics and I continue to add topics as we go, all of it based on conversations with you, I am listening to you.

I am convinced like you that change is in the air at City Hall, so many of you wish for it. Let’s make it happen!

Contact me;   Lbwardone@gmail.com

My blog on WordPress, Laurent Beaulieu in 2018 or click on the link 

Ward1councillor2018.wordpress.com

 This Municipal Election is about you!  What can I do for you? 

 Laurent Beaulieu for City Councillor, Ward 1.

 

Just a quick one

10 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by larrymuffin in art

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Bach, comedy, life, Music, royal wedding

As you probably know by now there is a Royal Wedding happening in May of minor royal prince by now. In all the Official paperwork that needs to be done for this wedding, the Queen as Sovereign has to give her permission and the Great Seal must be fixed to said documents which are then kept by the Privy Council Office. In those documents you can read that the party who is to marry is called H.R.H Prince Henry and Ms. Rachel Markle. You will hear those names pronounced during the wedding service so do not be surprise.

It is quite late and I am listening to piano music on Radio-Canada.  It is J.S. Bach and I love to sit in the dark and just listen to the music. It is so relaxing and enchanting. Bach’s Partita no 4, played by Glenn Gould and recorded in 1963.

Here is a compilation tourism poster of PEI, the Season is just about to start.

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It was a French comedian who said:

Speaking of oneself leads to an absolute dead end.  

 

Early Spring

08 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by larrymuffin in gallery

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

art work, Canada 150, Monkman, natives, Spring, Storms

Tonight we are on our fifth storm that was not, all Winter we had alerts for disruptive snow storms etc. One after the other did not materialize, because of the position of the Island Province winds have a great impact on the trajectory of storms, what is coming at you one moment suddenly moves into another direction and misses us completely. I am not  complaining but here the impact is serious, often because many small communities are isolated and some roads are not paved, schools will close for the day, in some cases government services will also be shut early. If the storm does not come or is 12 hours late and passes over us in the dead of night, it causes a lot of disruption in daily lives. Today the storm did not materialize and is 6 hours late, giving us light snow which melts on contact.

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I was at the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre this week and spoke with the Director about the Summer Exhibit and my availability as guide. I am very much looking forward to the new Summer show. It will be on the Canada 150, though the celebration of 2017 are over, this travelling exhibit criss-crossed Canada and is now coming here in a few weeks. The main artist is well known, Kent Monkman, a Cree native whose reputation is well established. His large canvasses will be accompanied and displayed with art pieces from the Glenbow Museum as reference to his own interpretation to the history of the last 150 years in Canada.

One piece is entitled the Scream and refers to the policy of the National Government to kidnap native children from their parents in order to civilize them in the notorious Residential Schools.

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The Scream, Kent Monkman.

I know that this exhibit will be very controversial and many may not like it at all. A difficult topic on the abuse of the authorities against natives in Canada. As a guide I am not tasked with explaining national history nor taking sides or defending the actions of the national government at the time but to present the point of view of the artist, letting the public decide for themselves about the art work on show.

In the 19th century, the Canadian government believed it was responsible for educating and caring for aboriginal people in Canada. It thought their best chance for success was to learn English and adopt Christianity and Canadian customs. Ideally, they would pass their adopted lifestyle on to their children, and native traditions would diminish, or be completely abolished in a few generations.

The Canadian government developed a policy called “aggressive assimilation” to be taught at church-run, government-funded industrial schools, later called residential schools. The government felt children were easier to mold than adults, and the concept of a boarding school was the best way to prepare them for life in mainstream society.

Residential schools were federally run, under the Department of Indian Affairs. Attendance was mandatory for children in the many communities that didn’t have day schools. Agents were employed by the government to ensure all native children attended school.

The last school closed in 1996, there were 80 such schools in Canada operated by Churches both Protestant and Catholic. Some 150,000 children passed through the system in 110 years with devastating effects.

 

Found photos

01 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by larrymuffin in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Cairo, Egypt, Ibn Tulun, islam, Mosque

I was wondering what had happened to these photos and I am happy to have found them in an entry of 2015 on Cairo.

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Happy days indeed, here I am at the Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo in July 1990, I was 34 then and I had a full head of blue black hair then. I am bare feet since you must not enter the precinct of a Mosque wearing shoes. A bit like removing your hat in a Christian Church or covering your head in a Synagogue. A sign of respect.

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Ibn Tulun was deserted, we were visiting in the afternoon between prayer times. Such an ancient place so fascinating.

 

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