The National Anthem

Tags

Anthem, Canada., CBC, EXPO 67, Montreal, Quebec City

This morning on CBC Radio 1, Michael Enright on Sunday Edition had a program all about Canada. The first segment was about our National Anthem O Canada, the second part about EXPO 67 which was held 50 years ago in Montreal, the most successful World  Exhibition ever held in the World, something I remember well I was 11 yrs old. How wonderful that was, one of my best childhood memories. The third segment was about how there his 3 founding Nations in Canada, the Indigenous, the French, the English and how we are finally coming to understand that fact.

He had Musicologist and Historian, Robert Harris to explain it all and how wonderful it was to hear. http://www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/sunday-edition/episode/13062323

Just wonderful, Robert Harris explained so many secrets about our National Anthem, the opening two stanzas of O Canada is taken from Mozart’s March of the Priest from the Opera Magic Flute. How wonderful is that given that our Country was born from a series of drinking and dancing parties here in Charlottetown and Quebec City held by the Fathers of Confederation in 1864.

The second incredible secret is that the National Anthem of Canada was written/com posed for the Saint Jean Baptiste Society in June of 1880. A French Nationalist Anthem to be sung at a Convention of French Canadians who had gathered from all over North America in Quebec City. The lyrics are about the French in North America and the music is martial, reference to God, the King (France) and our ancestors in this land.

How did it become the National Anthem of Canada? Harris explained that in 1902 King Edward VII was visiting Canada and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in Toronto decided that they needed to sing an Anthem about Canada and not the Royal Anthem, God Save the King. So they arrange for a quick translation of the lyrics into English to sing for the Royal visit, the result was not very good and was difficult, cumbersome to sing, nothing like the French version. A few years later in 1906 Judge and poet Robert Stanley Weir wrote the English lyrics to O Canada, he changed them again in 1908, 1909, 1913. For a long time we had the 1921 lyrics which most English speaking Canadians know.

We will have to wait 1964 and the debate on the New Canadian Flag in Parliament to have another debate about making O Canada the Official National Anthem.  But that did not work out, to much opposition, too many English Canadians wanted to keep the Royal Anthem and having to swallow a new flag to replace the old Red Ensign was too much politically. Again in 1967 and 1968 Parliament tried and failed and again in 1976 and again in 1980 at the time of the first referendum on Quebec Independence. This time it worked and O Canada became our Official Anthem. Though many Canadians had taken it as the Official Anthem for many previous decades.

Currently a Bill in the Senate C-210 would amend one sentence of the English Lyrics of O Canada from IN ALL THEY SONS COMMAND to IN ALL OF US COMMAND. This to satisfy the Feminists in Canada. It would appear that many do not know that the English lyrics have been amended in the past many times, this includes the media who are very confused on the topic. Senators who hold a more traditional point of view oppose any change.

All this to say that the radio program was most interesting on the history of our Anthem, they also played several various versions from 1908, 1910,1927 and a famous one by Roger Doucet, tenor who for years would sing the National Anthem in both French and English before the beginning of a Hockey game at the old Forum in Montreal. He changed 2 words of the Anthem in 1979 before a game, at first the crowd in the Forum is silent not quite understanding what went on and then suddenly the reaction. The words, inserted by Doucet were Our Rights and Liberty, a reference to the upcoming Quebec Referendum and the demands of French speaking Canadians.

Nothing is ever simple in Canada. My favourite rendition c.1960 is the one with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal with Maestro Wilfrid Pelletier and chorus sung in French. It is quite beautiful.

 

Ô Canada! Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l’épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
Sous l’œil de Dieu, près du fleuve géant,
Le Canadien grandit en espérant.
Il est né d’une race fière,
Béni fut son berceau.
Le ciel a marqué sa carrière
Dans ce monde nouveau.
Toujours guidé par sa lumière,
Il gardera l’honneur de son drapeau,
Il gardera l’honneur de son drapeau.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Montréal 17 mai 1642

Tags

375, anniversaire, Celebration, Maisonneuve, Montreal

Today at 9am the bells of the churches in Montreal rang for the 375th Birthday of the City founded on this day in 1642. The city is spending $1 Billion dollars on the Birthday, an incredible sum of money, but hey, it is a great city, my family have lived in Montreal for 300 years. In my life time I saw the city host one of the most well attended Universal World Fair in 1967, build a modern subway system running on tires and not rail, the Olympic Games of 1976.  A city of 4 million people, the Paris of the New World, great restaurants, wonderful museums, great architecture, seat of UN Organizations and other international bodies.

Place D’Armes with the statue of its founder and the Basilica Notre-Dame, 1673.

The history of Montreal spans some 8,000 years. At the time of European contact, the area was inhabited on the South shore of the St-Lawrence valley by Iroquoians, a distinct group of Iroquoian-speaking natives. Jacques Cartier became the first European to reach the area now known as Montreal in 1535 when he entered the village of Hochelaga on the Island of Montreal. In May 1642 Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve and Jeanne Mance founded what was at the time with a handful of others a religious mission named Ville-Marie. They had a tough time of it, isolated from the Capital Quebec City and under constant threat by the Iroquois. The small settlement was almost wiped out several times by attacking natives, until the Sun King Louis XIV sent regiments of troops which resulted in 1662 in the great Peace of Montreal. In 1644  Jeanne Mance founded the first hospital l’Hôtel Dieu in North America, North of Mexico City. A hospital which is still in operation today.

Montreal ones of the great city of the world. Happy Birthday to my home town.

 

View from the Marina in the Old Port of the City

View of downtown from the Mont Royal

The flag and coat of Arms of the City of Montreal designed by Mayor Jacques Viger in 1833. The flag represents the 4 ethnic groups living in the City at the time, French, English, Scots and Irish.

 

A 23 day adventure

Tags

Air Transat, Dublin, Europe, Hermes, Montreal, museum, Paris, Pointe à Callière

This trip started on Tuesday 6 September, it is our habit to leave one day ahead of schedule when we have to fly to catch a flight in Montreal or Toronto. Though I much prefer to fly from Montreal if possible. We do this because in Canada you never know with the weather or possible storms, Summer like Winter. We left Charlottetown on a bright sunny day, as the plane took off we could see the Hillsborough River and the entrance into the Strait of Northumberland. The island is very green and I got a better appreciation for its topography from the sky. A short flight to Montreal only 90 minutes. Always a pleasure to return to Montreal a city filled with childhood memories.

By being a day ahead we went into Montreal, my home town, to see a special exhibit presented by Hermès, the famous 179 year old French Design House. The exhibit titled Man and Horse was beautifully curated and presented the private collection of Emile Hermes 1871-1951.

We explored the private collection of Émile Hermès. For the first time in its history, Hermès of Paris has agreed to share 250 remarkable objects, which travelled from the enthusiast’s office at 24 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. The tremendously rich collection—in terms of both history and heritage—traces the history of the horse and its relationship with man. Until now, only a few privileged visitors have been able to see the collection. An exclusive world premiere at the Musée Pointe à Callière in Montreal. https://pacmusee.qc.ca/fr/  The Museum is located in the oldest part of Montreal, the founding site of the city, c.1642.

Duc-Carriage with horse logo

Being in Old Montreal, we also visited the Basilica Notre Dame c.1676 which is built in the French Gothic style and has been beautifully restored to show the great stain glass ceiling which brings lots of natural light into the church which can sit 3000 people.

Old Montreal, Place d’Armes with the monument to Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve 1612-1676 who with Jeanne Mance founded Montreal or Ville-Marie as it was then called. What is interesting about the origin of this great French Metropolis is the original foundation project was strictly a religious one. Ville-Marie was to be a religious settlement for the propagation of the Catholic Faith, things turned out differently.

We had a very good lunch on Place Jacques Cartier by the City Hall at Terrasse William Gray.

On Wednesday 7 September we left from Pierre-Elliott Trudeau International Airport on Air Transat for Dublin, a 5 hour 30 minute flight.

 

 

 

A final page

Tags

Canada., Family, Funeral, Hotel, Montreal, Restaurant, Saint Laurent

This past weekend was a final page in the sense that we, the three orphans buried our mother’s ashes and held a memorial for my father who died 3 months ago.

We were lucky with the weather like two years ago when we had the Funeral Mass for my mother, it was a beautiful sunny day in Fall colours. The old Cemetery of Saint-Laurent dates back to 1740. My mother’s family have been buried there since 1830.

The immediate family gathered at the grave site with the Curé de la Paroisse for a final prayer. It was nice to see everyone, some cousins who were part of our childhood I had not seen in 40 years.

the Gougeon Family Monument

In the afternoon we held the Memorial for my father who died suddenly on Sunday 12 July at Holt Renfrew his favourite store in Montreal.

I was asked by my sister and brother to deliver a short speech to both families Beaulieu and the Gougeon and to gathered colleagues and friends. I was somewhat nervous about what to say, how to present it, what to recall. Did not want to bore people or say something that would not be accurate or in keeping with the memories people had of our father. Again many people at this gathering I had not seen in 45 years but I remembered them well. They are all quite elderly now it brought back a lot of memories of all those years past and of my father’s contribution to the development of the Hotel industry in Montreal, in Canada and North America.

I also asked people to join in and say a few words about their own memories of him. One anecdote told by an old friend of my Dad was during the late 1960’s when speaking with an important new customer by father explained that by holding their convention banquet in his hotel, guests would be served an 8oz filet of steak. My Dad’s friend who was the Banquet manager asked him afterwards why did he say 8oz to the customer knowing that all steaks were no more than 5oz in any hotel in Montreal, the standard for the industry, my Dad replied that a customer should never be disappointed in what he is expecting from an event, in this case the size of the steak on the plate. The art of the sale as they call it. It made everyone laugh because that was Dad alright, and his clients always remembered him fondly, many followed him from one hotel to the next because they trusted him with their events.

The Memorial was catered in one of our parents favorite restaurants in Montreal, L’Orchidée de Chine on Peel Street. The owner was an old family friend who was quite overwhelmed with grief.

The food served was wonderful, Dad would have approved and of course we had Champagne, always bubbles the way both Mom and Dad enjoyed it. It was a weekend of memories and in many ways a good one. Death does not have to be a sad ending when so many good memories remain with us.

Photo I took in Mykonos during our trip for his 80th Birthday.

Auguste Rodin how did he work?

Tags

Dad, Family, MBAB, Montreal, Rodin, Rue Sherbrooke Ouest

This museum in Montreal started in 1860 on the always fashionable Sherbrooke Street surrounded by the Mansions of the powerful and wealthy, the Golden Mile. The Museum backs unto the slopes of the Mount Royal, the ancient extinct volcano which forms the Island of Montreal, a city founded in 1642 and a commercial metropolis ever since due to its geographical location. It is now a city of 4 million people where 90% of the population speak French.

The Desmarais wing across the street from the original museum building, the two buildings are connected by an underground gallery.

the street Avenue du Musée has been closed to create this outdoor revolving and ever changing work of art between the original museum building and the Bourgie Hall, a former protestant church converted in a concert hall and museum space. The old church is famous for its numerous large Tiffany glass windows.

Bourgie Hall with the gift of Montreal sculptor David Altmejd, The Eye (2011).

From its original Beaux-Arts style building the museum in the last 25 years has expanded and continues to do so with generous gifts from patrons. A fourth building of 49,000 sq. meters is currently being added, Pavillion pour la Paix, a gift of Michal Hornstein and his wife Renata, a generous Montreal couple.

The sculpture called Sun by Dale Chihuly now grace the front steps of the Museum in the Summer time. Sold by Chihuly to the Museum for $1 million dollar, it was bought through public donations, the sum being raised in a matter of a couple of months.

In the last few years the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has rivalled and sometimes outshone some other Canadian Museum like the National Gallery of Canada in terms of attendance, patron loyalty, generous endowments and varied exhibits.

The latest exhibits on Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), father of modern sculpture is most interesting. Unlike other exhibits showing simply the finished works, this exhibits explains how Rodin worked and how he created his masterpieces. You enter into the secret world of his Atelier and read about his routine to create works which astonished and brought about much criticism. Rodin did break well established conventions and the critics of the time were merciless.

First the drawings, all his life from childhood Rodin was a gifted artist and would draw many subjects. During his life time he would also only use live models, never statues or mannequins. He said that it was important to draw live people because you saw the way the body actually looked and had a better appreciation for all the natural human form, the tension in the muscles, the natural curves, the elasticity of the flesh. He appreciated that no one human looked like another and that bodies came in various shapes. He rejected the academic sculptural school which copied the Classicism of Antiquity. He also used his own body, per example his hands which can be seen in his creation in marble ”The Hand of God”. Taking his cue from the saying that we are made in God’s image.

For all his creations he would first draw, then make a clay model from clay that he collected. He worked hours with clay, shaping it from small round balls and then flattening them. Once the clay model was done he would ask an assistant to make a faithful exact replica in plaster. Like the artists of the Renaissance he used assistants widely who often were themselves masters in their field of work. This was an expensive process but Rodin used it from the beginning, even when he had little money to spare.

The plaster models look like white meringue, they are fine and are said to be very light, a man could lift with his own hands the model in plaster of The Thinker. It speaks volumes of the incredible artistry of the assistants of Rodin.

From the plaster model he would cast his work in bronze or marble again using many assistants. This exhibit had numerous plaster models from the Musée Rodin in Paris, which I am told is currently under renovation. One in particular was the plaster model of ”The walking man” a statue which in its finished form has no arms and no head. The viewer concentrates on the legs and the thrusting movement, the energetic walking pose, the legs like a compass, the muscles in the thighs and their movement forward, the walking man is aggressively moving forward with great strength.

The subject for this statue was an Italian peasant by the name of Pignatelli from the Abruzzo. He impressed Rodin who would say that this man, exhibits a primeval strength born from the Earth devoid of the refined beauty of civilization. He stood like a rock, when you see him you can imagine a Hercules.

The Saint John the Baptist is taken from the Walking Man same pose and is instantly recognizable as the Saint. He is a man of nature, a true believer, someone who comes to announce the Messiah, what we would call in French un Illuminé.

Rodin would often re-use some plaster casts of arms and legs and putting them in different poses on new creations to suit the dramatic effect he sought to create.

The exhibit also devoted a portion of the presentation of this exhibit to show the Gate of Hell and how Rodin re-used some of the figures in other works he would them make into giant forms.  The figure of ”The Thinker” who reflects on what he has done, the man is lost in reflection, he has just committed murder and reflects on his act of violence. The monumental Gate of Hell was a commissioned work for a new building in Paris which was never built. It is now in a museum garden in Paris.

Rodin also employed for his marbles what he called metteurs en points, these were assistants who would take a bloc of marble and chip off and prepare the bloc for him, Rodin would examine the prepared blocks carefully, his observation based on the clay models and the plaster models representing faithfully his vision of the final work. Rodin would then employ other practionners to continue the work under his strict supervision. He employed some 100 practitioners working on 400 marble works between 1872-1917, they sculpted most of the blocks and Rodin only did the finishing touches, using them again to put the final polish to the completed marble figure. Rodin loved Pentelic marble from Greece and the Seravezza marble of Italy for its incredible purity, the same marble used by Michaelangelo. He would use these types of marbles exclusively.

When you see this exhibit and how it was curated, you wish to thank the curator for such a well done job. I will never look at Rodin in the same way, now that I understand the incredible artistry of the man and his vision of how to represent the human form.

I completed this visit to the Museum by having lunch in their elegant restaurant Le Café des beaux-arts. Great menu and service. A wonderful way to say goodbye to my Dad.

Auguste Rodin towards the end of his life.

What a week it has been

Tags

children, Denis Beaulieu, Drummond street, Family, Green ave, heir, Holt Renfrew, Montreal, Peel street, Ritz Carlton Hotel, Rosemount Ave., Son, Westmount

As I am getting older, I will be 60 in 7 months, I find that I am happy to have little on my social agenda. I am retired and I have been very active in the last 3 years with various volunteer jobs. However this summer we had 9 weeks of interminable renovations and then suddenly my father died. I feel like I want to get off the merry go round. I am very tired and not sleeping well. Blame it on too many emotions and memories. Too much to do to sort out my late father’s affairs and belongings, finding the right people to dispose of things, etc. I am not alone in this task, my sister and brother-in-law are also extremely helpful and very well organized.

It’s mental fatigue more than anything else, maybe a slight depression. Loosing a parent is like a part of us has died.

As I travelled within the City going from the North side of the Mont Royal to the Western Side I criss-cross streets and neighbourhoods between Montreal and Westmount, everything reminds me of my childhood, my old schools, the streets, etc. The Office where my mother worked in Real Estate in Westmount and the stories of houses and people she met. Shops where my father liked to do everyday shopping, restaurants, people he knew, he spoke to everyone. Even the last street he lived on Rosemount, a street of large mansions, he knew all the neighbours, who they were and their family stories, if anyone told him something he would remember it did not matter if the conversation occurred last week or 20 years ago. He certainly had a sense of observation and he knew Montreal.

Thursday last was the appraiser who took what was going to auction and then Friday the Charity to whom the rest of his belongings went to. The apartment is now empty and I walked around it one last time, it felt very strange. This is what he wanted, he was against expensive funerals and chose to give his body to science and his belongings to charity. We the children respected his wishes simply because it was his will and he would have been disappointed in us if we had not.

I do not know how much time it will take to put the events of July 2015 behind me. A neighbour told me that it could take several months. My Mom died two years ago this September and I still think of her. I think that with Dad it will be the same, they remain a presence despite having entered the afterlife.

After completing my task at Dad’s apartment I went to the Museum of Fine Arts of Montreal on Friday to see the Rodin exhibit, the museum is on Sherbrooke Street one of the main arteries of Montreal, in the heart of the district my Dad liked so much.

I will write on Rodin and the secret of his Atelier in another post, it was beautifully curated and gave me a new understanding of Rodin the sculptor and how he worked, something I had not seen before in other exhibits.

Requiescat in Pace

Tags

Canada., children, Dad, Death, Denis Beaulieu, Family, Funeral, Montreal, mourning, Peace, sadness, Son, Westmount

Eternal Rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

The header of this posting is dedicated to my father, Denis C. Beaulieu, the painting by Newell C. Wyeth is entitled; Lobstering off Black Spruce Ledge.

He loved the dish Lobster Thermidor and he also loved anything to do with the Sea.

On the afternoon of Sunday 12 July my father died suddenly while shopping in one of his favourite stores, Holt Renfrew in Montreal. He was transported to the Hotel Dieu de Montreal, the oldest hospital in the city founded 1645. My siblings and I cannot say enough good about the kindness, care and thoughtfulness of the hospital emergency staff.  We are very grateful for their attention and care they gave to our father despite the fact that he was beyond help. Death came very quickly and he did not suffer according to the three doctors and ambulance para-medics who attended him.

My parents wedding 18 June 1955 

Our mother had died on 28 September 2013 after a very lenghty illness. My father was suffering from increasing poor health with an accumulation of heart and lung problems aggravated by old age, he was 85. The weather on Sunday was very humid 90% and very hot around 32C a lethal combination for someone like him.

I arrived in Montreal from Ottawa around 19:30 hrs, I do not really remember the highway drive down, my mind so preoccupied and hoping that I might arrive before he left this world. He died around 18:00. It was strangely peaceful to sit with him for several hours in the hospital room. We had during his lifetime sat in the same room at home in silence both of us reading and exchanging a few words. The two of us had gone to Greece 5 years ago for his 80th birthday, during our trip he and I would often look at the scenery in silence. It was a similar experience and I was able to say my quiet goodbyes. I was happy to have this opportunity, just me and Dad.

My mother always said and it became a family joke, that we were, him and I so alike in mannerisms, figure of speech and voice, people often would think it was my father calling on the phone when in fact it was me. Now it is even stranger as I phone his friends I am quick to tell them it is me calling for fear they might think it was him and I would have to correct them and then announced his death.

After leaving the hospital, I was the first to arrive at his apartment in Westmount and looking around everything was in its habitual place just waiting his return, he had just left for a few hours for shopping, never to return. I just sat there and looked around so many memories in the various objects, many of them going back to my childhood.

My father had an incredible career in the Hotel Industry in Canada from 1960.  He was a natural salesman and in marketing he always knew how to present his product and sell it. He also had the memory of an elephant and was able to recall names,places and events, even conversations years later. It was eerie but would fascinate clients who recalling events could not believe that he remembered so many things about them. As children we often lived at the hotel he managed and I being the oldest was able to observe his style, he had a lot of style, from the clothes he wore to the cars he drove, to interior decoration to design in general, to flower arrangements, to the food served or drinks, or the way he lived, life with Dad was never ordinary.

He was a man of opinions and as much as he could charm the birds off the trees, he could be harsh in his criticism if it had to do with hotels or restaurants and or shoddy service. He always believed that if a client paid, he was entitled to full value and then some. Cutting corners to make a fast profit was never his policy and would not put up with anyone even a colleague suggesting it. He was dismayed by today’s hospitality business and the poor service generally, considering the prices charged. He was lucky to work in the hotel field at a time when hotel service was still steeped in tradition unlike today.

Many of his clients through the years were famous people and often repeat customers. I got to meet some of them. He would get to know what they liked and kept notes. When the client arrived they would find the room with a bouquet of flowers they liked or with an item such as fresh juices or that special liquor bottle they favoured. His clients never forgot, he made them feel at ease and would get to know them personally and even be privy to confidences.

Dad and me, He is 30 years old and I am 5 years old. His first born,I am named after his own father who had died prematurely in 1954. This wonderful picture was taken by my uncle, we are reading a book together.

As a father he tried to give us some basics, he firmly believed that hard work would be rewarded. Every job even menial, his example, picking up city garbage deserved to be done well. He also wanted us to know the value of a dollar and look for good value in anything we bought. It was not always easy to be his son, he always had high expectations and would not put up with whatever, you always had to do better.  I remember once he had a client who was the heir to a huge corporate fortune who was always complaining that he was so bored. My father could not understand why this fellow did not try to find something meaningful to do despite his fortune. This was an example for us not to follow, no matter what happened in life, always try to be useful to others.

I remember when I was sixteen my father found me a job in Lausanne, Switzerland, the seat of the famous hotel school. He sent me to a friend of his to work at the resort hotel his family managed on Lac Leman (lake Geneva). My father gave me a one way ticket and when I asked about the return portion, he told me that since I would be working I could come back once I had secured enough money to buy a return ticket, it is called learning to manage a budget. I was stunned. For several months I learned the hotel business, getting up at dawn to prepare the dining room for breakfast, polishing silverware and arranging table settings under the eagle eye of the Maitre d’Hotel, everything had to be perfect. I worked long hours sometimes up to 18 hours a day, 6 days a week and we were fed mostly, pig tripe in tomato sauce, not a bad dish, but not one of my favorites. I learned a lot during those months and did not at the time, fully appreciate it. But these were the kind of experiences my father thought were important to prepare us kids against the vagaries of life.

It is strange to think that he is gone. I think even Montreal will not look the same to me without him and mom. I won’t be able to have those conversations with him about restaurants, world politics and whatever or just sit with him in silence. I owe my Dad a great deal and I am very proud of him, I did not always agree with him but in the end as Mom would say, you are his son that cannot be denied.

Typical of him, there will be no funeral and he gave his body to the medical Faculty of McGill University. He did ask that we give a party in his memory, invite his friends and we must serve Champagne, that is what we will do.

Hotels he managed in his career; Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City 1960, Chateau Champlain, Hotel Bonaventure (construction phase and Opening 1966) Montreal.  Four Seasons Hotel Montreal. King Edward (re-construction and re-opening) Toronto 1974, Hotel Meridien Montreal 1976, Hotel Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, Hotel Pierre, New York, Hotel Fairfax, 2100 Massachusetts ave. Washington DC in the Reagan years., Hotel St-Paul, in St-Paul, MN, Hotel Bristol, Paris, Hotel Stafford, London and then for many years the Private Club of the Royal Bank of Canada on the 41st floor of Place Ville Marie in Montreal.

Memories

Tags

Guy Mauffette, Montreal, Petite fleur, Radio Canada, Sidney Bechett

Sidney Bechett at the Olympia in Paris plays Petite Fleur. This piece of music is remembered by many people because it was the signature of a very famous late night radio show called Le Cabaret du soir qui penche on Radio-Canada. Le cabaret du soir qui penche, l’émission du dimanche soir qu’il définit comme « une chanson pour bercer la misère humaine », où la musique est intimement mêlée à la poésie. Broadcasted on Sunday nights from 1960 to 1973, music was mixed in with poetry and the theme of the show was; music to cradle human misery. The host was Guy Mauffette known as L’oiseau de nuit, the night bird. The show was immensely popular and has entered the mythical world of Canadian radio history. Mauffette who would be 100 years old in 2015, died 10 years ago and he is still remembered by a wide audience. He was much more than a radio host of a popular show, he popularized and adapted many works of literature and poetry for the radio and help many discover our rich French Canadian literary heritage.