Mes amis!

Je ne sais pas pourquoi la photo est telle petite quand ici son mes grands amis: Monique Laforce, Martin, Mathieu, et Itzela Sosa. Dans la bistro.

Tandis que ...

While I wait to remember to bring the right USB to the library with me, I'll post here another picture or two that I think is worth seeing, though I'd meant to put something altogether different up that I don't have with me.

My friend Monique Laforce has come with me to Bibliothèque Gabrielle Roy in the early evening, still quite hot, 88 degrees Farenheit at 7 pm -- 31.111111111(+) Celcius à 19 heures. We spent most of the day reading her poetry, translating some, eating chocolate ice cream with strawberries grown in Québec.

This morning we went to the Université Laval for her to register for something called here a Third Age Course, Études de Troisième Age, which are inexpensive serious courses in such as art and philosophy for people over 50, given by the university. Why doesn't every university do that?

Then we went to a bistro near the university to which she'd not been in years, Café au Temps Perdu. We spoke long of many things. Elle est diserte, mon amie la poète, mais dans le mieux sens du mot. (I learned this word disert(e) today from Monique, from something of hers I read about Not Funny Buffoons -- Les Bouffons Pas Drôles. Disert(e) originally meant fluent, but then began to mean talkative or gabby. Monique is fluent, communicative. Today I translated three of her poems of lyrical tone and three funny ones -- trois plus drôles. Friday night Monique read at the Tam Tam in Basse Ville.

Another dear friend, young Mathieu Lizotte [I always call him young Mathieu because he is] has returned safely from his travels in South America with his Czech girl friend (I think his girlfriend), Blanka.

Very few pictures on the USB I have with me, but I offer these: outside the Librarie Nelligan, also called Les Temps Retrouvé, and outside le librarie Page Noir.





Nelligans, by the way, is the subject of one of the photographs in an exhibition now at the university Social Science Library. It takes the center place of choice. I went to tell François, the book store owner, to go see it, the day after I saw it. But here's an elegant sight on a hot summer day: a view of Basse Ville taken from stairs going down, back in late winter -- or March 25, properly spring:

Au revoir et merci ....

Malhereusement, je pars de la belle ville, mercredi. C'est difficile le faire quand il fait si doux. On espoit à revenir bientôt.

Je remercie la ville soi-même, à tous les citoyennes, mais particulièrement à Mathieu Lizotte -- artiste, musician, écrivain, étudiant, ami, bon humain -- qui m'a aidée tellement...;

aussi je remercie Monique Laforce, poète, pour les heures de collaboration en faisant traductions de ses poèmes...;

je remercie Renée Lachance, qui m'a aidée beaucoup, avec la traduction et aussi pour connaitre la ville meillure...;

je remercie leComité Populaire de la Faubourg, Les Amis de la Terre, la Bibliothèque St. Jean Baptiste et la Bibliothèque Gabrielle Roy...;

la librarie Nelligan et Pierre qui travaille là...;

Jean-François qui m'a louyée la pièd-a-terre...;

Itzela Sosa, qui va traduire la première biographie de Flora Tristan (écrit en 1845) à l'espagnol...;

Connie Berg for two great writing sessions that were extremely helpful...;

all the bus drivers but especially the écobus drivers...;

sweet Tony who called me every night...;

c'est-à-dire: tous.

On remercie.

P.S. For about 6-8 weeks, I'll be sharing pictures and notes from my time here but won't actually be here in Québec. Plan to return for the summer festival.

If you`d like to study French in Québec, check out the FLE program at Université Laval. I think you could still register. It's a relatively inexpensive and really good program.