Life in my city, Montreal, wraps itself around unseen centers of gravity. What makes all the difference in this city is not the particular architecture — a mix of old world aesthetics, some dashes of large scale brio, a livable human scale, and a few heroically bad judgments — but the ungraspable specters of place that lounge at every street corner.
One night in the fall, for the thousandth time, a francophone clerk at the corner grocery store wished me a “bon fin de journee.” As I walked home I thought about how, for English speakers, there really is no equivalent of a “fin de journee.” This is why I like the French in this city. Not only does their energy keep out the unilingual riff-raff, but they know at some profound level of their being that an “end-of-the-day” is a something, that it is worth noting and naming, and that, without this animating extra-being, a city is merely a collection of roads and structures. (more…)