2005-06-24
I'm afraid of Quebericans
Today is �Saint Jean Baptiste� day, the �Fete Nationale du Quebec�. Yes, the national holiday of this province. You did read and I did write, correctly.
I don�t know.
Nope, no one knows.
Apparently it�s very complex, but I chalk it up to �Nationale� not translating directly to �national�. Clearly it�s a case of �fromage� not being precisely equal to �cheese�.
This is the third Quebec national holiday of my time spent living in Montreal thus far. It is also the third Quebec national holiday I have experienced in Montreal during which I have spent the night prior, and the whole day cowering in a corner inside my very Anglo apartment, watching the Fleurs de Lys flags circle the block like blood-thirsty sharks.
There are a number of homes in my neighbourhood that display the Quebec flag year-round. During the federal elections the number of flags on these verandas increases, as during provincial elections, referendums, the Xmas season, Canada day, garbage strikes, Easter, Hanukkah, the Chinese New Year, rainstorms, famines, and the like. On a normal day, walking by these homes, I feel like I have a teeny tiny glimmering glimpse of what it may have been like to be black in the South in the 1920s or so, walking by the display of a Confederate flag. [This is one of those moments when I really hope that the vague pop. culture education I have on things like the Confederate flag holds true.] I stop speaking, hope no one comes out and says anything to me, discreetly cover anything Anglo I am carrying, and sneak by as silently as possible [asap].
On Saint Jean day [Saint Jean, is pronounced �saygng jhah�, by the way; the �a� in �jhah� a �short a�. And Baptiste is pronounced �batisse�.] � ahem. On Saint Jean day, all pro-Franco anti-Anglo sentiments, mild and dormant as they may lie over the course of the rest of the year, are distilled into a potent concentrate that is injected by hypodermic needle into all of the liquor available in the city. The trigger for this serum is the blaring of Quebecois folk tunes from stages that appear, like wraiths from the fog, overnight in all of the parks of the province.
If anyone has seen the movie �Strange Brew�, you will have an easier time understanding what I am explaining here. Having ingested the formula after buying out all of the depanneurs and SAQs [corner stores that sell beer and wine; government liquor stores that sell real booze], the Quebecois nation lumbers, prances, and generally jigs out of their homes and onto the streets or into the great pine forests, I suppose, depending on the location. When they hear the sounds of accordion and jester-hat wearing folk singers echoing tinnily off of every available surface, well, there�s no way else to put it: a murderous bloodbath ensues.
Ok, what happens is they all drink more and more and more because really SJB day is a ploy by CSIS to a) drain the bank accounts of all separatists, all at once and b) deplete the braincells of all separatists, all at once, at just the moment when they had nearly recovered capacity levels after last year�s successful debauchery.
Did I mention that the Quebec nation also clothes itself in soft handmade leather slippers, cloaks, tunics and hemp stockings on this, their nation�s birthday? It�s true. Picture a cross between Kevin Costner in Waterworld and Kevin Costner in Robin Hood.
pansycline at 9:06 p.m.