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IssueM Articles

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 […]

The Queen’s handbag

“Hello.  My name is Betty.  You don’t know me for I am no-one of import.  I live the simple life of a commoner. Until now my life has been one of blundering about, eating egg and chips with the occasional […]

Karachi

It was a balmy night like tonight, when I stepped out of the Karachi airport. I looked around for a clue for my rapid heart beats: visually it looked like Delhi and felt like Bombay on the skin. I had […]

Identity and violence

Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny Author: Sen, Amartya Publication date: Hardback, Feb. 2006; Paperback: Jan. 2007 Publisher: W. W. Norton ISBN: 0393329291 The notion of a “clash of civilizations,” first made famous in Samuel Huntington’s 1996 work “The […]

We need to end Montreal’s attacks on activists

March 14, 2007, Montreal   Jaggi Singh, taken from the Montreal Mirror Jaggi Singh, a well-known Montreal-based social justice activist, was released from jail last night on $1,000 bail, to face trial June 22 for violating his previous bail conditions […]

The U.N. spins its mission in Haiti

  Port-au-Prince, March 2nd, 2007: seeing the arrival of journalists, MINUSTAH troops take leave of a group of angry Cité Soleil residents. Residents stated that UN troops had just arrested their 23 year-old neighbor without a warrant as he was […]

Italophobia: more of a generalized malady

Part 1 – Given the size of this article it will be published in 2 pieces. Part 1 in Vol 20 No 1 and Part 2 in Vol 20 No 2. Dedicated to: To my maternal great grandfather D. M, […]

“Racists”, by Kunal Basu

Racists. (Kunal Basu, Penguin, 2006). While sipping comforting cocoa in the cafeteria of a high-tech Indian hospital that provides health services internationally, my eyes fell on a book displayed on the shelves of the gift shop. Three words caught my […]

Glass mosaics

Artist’s Statement: We are born in this world to discover that racism has many facets – the religion of one, the colour of the other, the social class, the shape and size of each one of us. At 17 years […]

Slant eyes and ragheads

    Cartoon by Susan Dubrofsky Racial disdain and distance goes beyond incidents of hatred on the streets, defiling of monuments, police arrogance and brutality towards minorities or the ignorance-based proto-working class commentary that spews out of AM radio and […]

Busted by love

It was the craziest thing. I was just going home from rehearsal, and I was so caught up that I didn’t even notice that long after sunset the lights were out all over town. An ambulance drew up, and a […]

West bank landscaping

The view is impressive from the balcony of the Muhsen family’s apartment in Abu Dis. Hisham, a fine arts teacher at Al Quds University, gazes over the rolling hills of Jerusalem, the campus, the valley, and the 8-metre concrete wall […]

Bombing montreal

Montreal has the distinction of being the most “bombed-out” graffiti capital. “Bombing” in the graffiti world refers to the act of vandalising property with one’s signature or logo. “Bombing”-type graffiti can manifest itself in many different forms, but always happens […]

Everyone should be Palestinians or Jews

Lately, opinion writers have taken to labeling everyone who supports the Palestinians, as “Palestinians”. For instance, Canada’s changing UN votes on Israel won’t  “impede Canada’s ability to be the “honest broker” the Palestinian community wants our government to be”, wrote […]