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IssueM Articles

Animal’s People

Animal’s People. By Indra Sinha, Simon and Schuster, London, 2007. On December 2, 1984, the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, leaked methylisocyanate gas into the atmosphere causing the death of over 15,000 people and maiming hundreds of thousands […]

A Conversation

A Conversation Ring … Ring …. Ring …. They called last evening. “We do not want you to do what you are doing.” “It is not just me, there are others” “We know that. You must stop them”. “But they […]

Québec mon Pays

There were twelve of us in three cars driving from Montreal to Baie St-Paul and I was the only English-speaking person among eleven French-Canadians. We had decided to go whale watching and Baie St-Paul, situated in Charlevoix on the Fleuve […]

“Real Work”

"The immigrant story is, however, not always a happy one...."

The Foster Home

Unhung paintings stood stacked against a metal shelf. Inside four walls on Rue Mariette. The easel. Tubes of acrylic and oils. Boar bristle brushes. Black electric guitar in its case. Petunias in window boxes. Narrow pine shutters. A brick and […]

Homeland

Where I can cry me a river….

2 Poems: flux, wi & dem

flux fleuve st-laurent i am the river. my ripples shift shaping glyphs. can you read me? the iroquois did – by the glint the sun shot over my liquid lips. poets whose words flood undammed from mad minds, whose thoughts […]

Elergy for a Chinese (or any other) mineworker

(Every few months, perhaps weeks, there is a major Coal mine accident in China. Environmental issues are not just climate change issues, but health and safety issues for the poor of China and elsewhere.) Rana Bose December 10, 2004   […]

Communist hot dogs…

Communist Hot Dogs, In Pursuit of Petula, and A Kiss from Marlene Dietrich   The fortieth anniversary of the opening of Expo ’67 unleashed a flood of memories for me. As soon as season passes became available, passes which took […]

Casements

CASEMENTS (after Charles Baudelaire)   Through this doubled pane, the city spreads before me like a jeweled necklace.  Strings of lights delineate throughways.  Pinpoints of light shunt the length of them, lives encased in molded squares of metal that accelerate […]

Changing buses in Nicaragua

We left San Juan Del Sur early this morning, heading for Rivas. The bus waited on the side of the road with a small cafe selling gallo pinto and eggs. There was an old beat up car across the street […]

James Finnerty’s accoustic sound

  “James Finnerty started the night with his calm, quiet wit and heart-hurting hopeful lyrics and masterful guitar.” – Risa Dickens, Indyish Click on here to listen the mp3 of “Vermont Song”. Interview below. Vermont Song – Lyrics Two birds […]

Italophobia: more of a generalized malady – part 2

Part 1 is contained in Volume 20 No. 1 – ed Only until recently, the fabled term Italophobia emerged and remained in the domain of cultural studies but remained inaccessible to its own people. What were accessible were the snide […]

Planta’s plaint

Planta’s Plaint   I had returned to Siderea my ancestral home spending my time hitching rides on stars, swimming in milky ways, zipping in and out of darkness and thoroughly enjoying myself from my vantage point I would drink in […]

One winter soldier

  Scott Camil in Vietnam, taken from archival footage used in the Winter Soldier documentary. In his life Scott Camil has been shot three times: twice in Vietnam and once by the US government. A well known anti-war activist and […]

Listen to Saidye’s eco-rant

 Hello children of the planet Cassandra. It is so wonderful to be on a visit here in the earth year 2057 to teach you Cassandranicks about life on the planet earth among the Earthnics in the year 2007. As you […]

Guerilla gardening

Guerrilla Gardening. A Manualfesto by David Tracey. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC., 2007. The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose. — Henry Kissinger. Guerrilla gardening can be summarily defined […]

The good, the bad and the ugly

Mount Royal Park, designed by Olmsted of Central-Park-in-New-York-fame  is an oasis of greenery right smack in the middle of the busy island-port of Montreal. From the Saint Lawrence River you can look up at what Montrealers fondly call “The Mountain” […]

Everybody is talking green, but what does this mean?

The auditorium of St. James United Church on Ste.Catherine Street was packed with an eager crowd of over 300 persons. The title above was the title of the public event, scheduled to be a discussion on environmental policies and practices […]

A big story in a small place

I – A Public Place Like A Painting We are all acutely aware that our world is both a big and a small place. There were about 1 billion of us in 1900, but now we are 6 billion. And […]

House bodies and other works

Artist’s Statement: Naomi Bellos, a Montreal artist working in printmaking, was born in the U.K. She has a Bachelor in Fine Art (painting and printmaking) from Goldsmiths College, University of London and a Masters in Fine Art (film and video) […]

Facts, probabilitites and imagining

This issue of Montreal Serai is dedicated to the environment which is why it contains facts, probabilities and imagining. We need all three to see the environment, to see ourselves, because the environment is us. Whatever we do to it […]

This famished road

THIS FAMISHED ROAD a child picks up a glass shard i know he hasn’t eaten in days shocked I tear after him just in time, before it reaches his mouth. I look down to see his empty as hell tummy bursting […]

Standing on the edge & my happy ending

Standing on the Edge 2006 Looking over the edge Out and beyond her small town The past lies behind her The future around The unknown before her With the road closing in The edge moving closer Yet it is where […]

Baba moon

Baba Moon My Moon God is Hidden There is no Light on your Face At a Distance Who are You at Night? Shiva Shines on Your Silent Face Mainly Ancient Darkness You will not see Your Children Tonight Moon God […]

Interview with Janet Lumb – musician, composer

  —> Click on this text to hear Janet Lumb play the “Chant of Maarya”. Interview Q. You are a musician, a sax player, film composer and activist. How do you combine all this? A. They are all for me […]