Virgin Mary, with her pasties on, high heeled stilettos and jiggling bums was stabbing the bread baby Jesus on stage.
The burlesque performance was irreverently hilarious. One number was Charlie Chaplin doing a slapstick strip tease.I was constantly laughing and squirming. Another number was a blue haired Jesus with a skrillex cut conning a mercy seeker foisting off that she was not God. The whole number was presided by the Divine Danny D and we had a howling hooting table.
My first burlesque attendance and it was everything and more than I expected. Check out The Wiggle Room, I promise it is fun.
It was a throwback. A vaudeville performance that I had read about in books that I never thought I’d experience.
After the show, Lilly (I never thought I’d develop such a crush on a 50 something lady) explained to me on the rainy streets , why she can’t do flaming fire shots on her boobs, because in Montreal only one person can have that license.
It was currently being held by the venerable Burlesque performer BonBon-Bombay!
Of course.
I was sent along reassuringly that there was a burlesque performer worth noting in my backyard, a thin performer with a 44D brain.
When, not if, I check that performance out, I’ll rave, not rant.
I also am generally not the kind of person who saunters up to people in a bar, drink in hand, smooth talking and ending up the next day with a hazy memory of wet encounters and boa constrictions on my neck. But Montreal had me believing.
The general attitude towards life is relaxed and the people were extremely friendly.
I really am not sure what objects are rammed up the rest of the world’s asses, but we need to take it out pronto. The Montrealers are Jolie, Bon Vivant, and a terrifyingly teeming number of Genevieves. The chinatown was delightful and the fests incredible.
But but but
The thing that struck me most was that this city, in my mind, was in a sense at the edge of civilization. To the north there were smaller human settlements, Canadians kept insisting they were towns where polar bears roamed.
I laughed.
They were serious.
They laughed anyway because they were Canadians.
Later, over a bowl of some insanely delicious Ramen at Yokato Yokabai (again an institution worth checking out) I was explained that all swear words in French Canada were to do with the church.
Tabernac! Challis! How could you not love them?
They are all waiting for Mary Jane though. And they do have some really good ones.
In the midst of the festivities comes the realization that solo travel is definitely mind expanding.
Solo tripping is never easy. Once you get high you get lost.
Solo travel is never an easy decision either. There are chores, there are families, there are problems, there are appointments. There are disappointments. But you sometimes have to pack the bags and go.
It is sanity.
I had wondered if leaving a month old baby with her mom and grandmom and packing the bags off for a week was a good idea. Both were gnashing and foaming at their mouth. Not at my leaving, but at the general antics of the baby monster.
Also there was the
Who will put out the trash? Who will walk the baby to sleep in the middle of the night? What about that product release and the global conference and the 9876423 mails that need urgent answering yesterday? Bills?
Boxers. Thats what I focused on. Went to Target and bought nice comfy ones. Packed them in and whistled out.
The house remains intact, the baby rounder and fatter, the inhabitants eerily pleasant and I am alive. So all good.
Oh oh oh
Did I tell you about a Quebecois who kept saying Montreal was run by the Mafia? I was in an art gallery checking out some art. As I saw the curator walking purposefully towards me I panicked and said “these look good”.
The curator nodded appreciatively and said, those are Dali’s sketches. You have a good eye.
Good eye, my ass. The rest sucked. Thank god for Dali’s obvious genius and thank god for the rest of the artists’ apparent mediocrity.
Anyway, sufficiently impressed that I knew a bit about art, the curator gave me a rundown about how Montreal was run by the Mafia. She did look a little cuckoo. She was trying to sell me art pieces averaging 12000 CAD. I was trying to muffle the jiggle of change in my wallet.
“The Mafia is everywhere”
“They are crooks”
For a day I was convinced she was living in some time bubble because, Mafia? Montreal? Ppffttt, till the next day –
20 something snapchatty, instagrammy thing with legs to kill for slurred “oh, the Mafia, they carpet bomb the cafes here. But they do it only after the cafes are closed.”
The Reluctant Book Worm 
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