Stop 7: Montreal

“Momentum” is, of course, Taddle Creek’s middle name, which is why it can afford to leave a gap of three months between tour dates and still draw a crowd. And that is exactly what happened when the magazine landed in Montreal on Saturday, November 6th, for what would be the final out-of-town stop of the tour.

Montreal needs no introduction, and yet: Established in 1832, it is Canada’s second-largest city, with a non-metro population of more than one-and-a-half million. Despite being overtaken in size by Toronto and losing its baseball team, it still managed to undo its amalgamation and have better systems of bike lanes and rentals. Montreal also happens to be one of Taddle Creek’s all-time favourite cities, and it visits as often as it can. Montreal and Saint John are the only cities on the tour Taddle Creek would say it knows well. Which, when taken with the fact that the editor studied, and passed, seven years’ worth of French, is ironic considering he can’t string together a single sentence in the language.

Taddle Creek’s Montreal tour stop was held at le Cagibi, which was significant for two reasons: it is Taddle Creek’s Jet Fuel away from Jet Fuel, and it is located in Mile End, a neighbourhood featured prominently in the Out-of-Towner issue via Sara Gilbert’s essay of neighbourhood vignettes. Sara was on hand to read one of her neighbourhood tales and show some slides of the area. She was followed by the poet Katia Grubisic, a Montrealer who has become something of a Taddle Creek Out-of-Towner regular. Fredericton’s Mark Jarman just happened to be coming to town to read at McGill on Monday, so the magazine was happy to welcome him to join the tour for the second time (he shook up his set with a quick number on the harmonica). The night before the event Taddle Creek got an E-mail from its once-and-future Toronto contributor Sara Heinonen, who said she was also going to just happen to be in town for the event, so the magazine conned her into being a surprise special guest reader. And last but not least, the evening was brought to a close by Saleema Nawaz, another Montrealer, who, until the event, had no connection to Taddle Creek, but the magazine hopes this is the beginning of a long association.

The house was packed, the projector, as always, was annoying but worked in the end. Some friendly faces dropped by (one who was alerted to the event via the magazine’s live tweeting). The readings were great, and several parties took place after. Taddle Creek spent the rest of the weekend in Montreal taking in the sites of Mile End, thanks in part to a guided tour from Sara G.

Big thanks to Sara Gilbert and Katia for their help in setting up the event, and to Cagibi for hosting. Thanks also to Andrea Belcham, who also helped make this event happen without even really trying to. The magazine is sorry she couldn’t make it out. Montreal was indeed a high point of the tour.

The magazine is now making its way back to Toronto to wrap the tour with the launch of the winter issue, on December 8th, at the Cameron House. Which, unfortunately, means Taddle Creek has to write one more of these damn blog posts.