regeneration.tv

What was the outcome of this altercation? Could you pleas let us know? Are there any legal proceedings or consequences pending?
Solidrity!

Hey there,

I checked out your some stuff on regeneration.tv and I thought you might like to get some poop from a bilingual Winnipeger who has been living here for a little while.

I live on Rue St. Jean, about 30ft from where la mur de honté (wall of shame) was located.

What I wrote is rough around the edges, but it gets a message accross and provides a perspective from a local community.

It`s a monster, so read it when you`ve got about 30mins to spare.

I`d appreciate your feedback,
Dana

INTRODUCTION

This peice is something that I`ve been working on sporadically over the last couple of months. The focus of it is the Americas Summit in Québec City and I`ve recounted my experiences to the best of my ability without anyone but myself to edit it. The story begins a week before the real protests and riots begin. It continues through to the Monday after the Summit. I have also edited and rewritten parts of other pieces, articles, thoughts and e-mail correspondance with friends that I considered relevent This includes writing I`ve done since I came to Québec City at the end of August.

For me, I believe that environmentalism, political and social activism is a guilty addiction. No matter how hard I`ve tried to avoid analyzing the world and its problems I don`t seem able to prevent myself from being involved somehow. Sometimes it is as if these things follow me. It is as if I`ve lost control of a cruel habit and I can`t seem to stop fufilling my insatiable needs whether I want to or not. People came from all over the Americas to protest here, I just came here for some peace and to polish my french. I wanted to start a new life in a beautiful place.

I`ve been compiling many of the things I`ve written over the years in an effort to create a large fictional piece that I hope one day will become a book. Much of this will be apart of that book and I will use it to describe some of the main character`s challenges as well as to develop his persona for the reader. As an aspiring writer I believe the most interesting things I can write about are things that I know and have experienced for myself, therefore all the experiences I describe to you in this are true and actually happened to me. Many of the locals and myself have come to the consensus that the media began very selective coverage after 6pm Saturday.

In order to do this effectively I want to describe to you my impression of this truly unique city. My life here hasn`t been easy, and at times it has been downright difficult but there is something about this place that fuels my desire to create and improvise. I imagine that it has the same effect on the people who come here to stay or visit whether they know it or not.

Québec City is far from the rest of North American culture, and it isn`t in the mainstream of time either. With a certain je ne sais quoi it exists somehow between then and now. The city and its people leave someone who is new to this place to discover a vague sense of present time as if they are flickering between the past and the present. Despite its language barriers with the rest of North America it observes what the future may offer and because of its prequel nature it remains firmly attached to the past. Like an artist it adapts in accordance to its own spirit, condition and mood.

I encourage any and all feedback because I`m so moved by the feelings I`ve had and continue to feel during and as well as after this event. Sometimes I wonder if I`m not totally crazy or so far away from the bourgeoisie that there isn`t a person on the planet who can relate to what I am thinking. Hopefully, this piece of some of my inner most thoughts will not go unheard, or
misunderstood. I say this because this piece is fairly inconclusive but I try to raise questions that have been nagging me for a long time. If nothing else, I hope you enjoy and find it interesting and entertaining.

With all of that in mind, I`d like to present to you now what I call: FENCE LIFE a journey into

FEAR AND COMPLACENCY IN QUÉBEC CITY - THE AMERICAS SUMMIT

T-minus 7 days.

For the first time I experienced a really cold thunderstorm. Out west, the biggest storm days are always when it is so hot. Watching the last one here was fascinating, it started as light snow with lightening, the snow turned to hard rain, the lightening increased in intensity and erupted into thunder. You could almost taste that something beautifully wicked was this way coming. The pattern was reversed as the disturbance left, or possibly changed forms.

If I were more ambitious I think I`d feel like a kid in a candy store right now but something inside me has left me staggeringly uninvolved in what I`m scared to admit might happen. Where are the ordinary people speaking against this? It is as if people are afraid to talk about it. Sometimes I think that people don`t want to talk about it because they`re afraid of seeming stupid, ou con. It`s as if most people are embarrassed to say anything because who really knows anything?

For the first time in over a century, Québec is a real fortress. The Citadel is a combat ready barracks deep inside a very secure and large perimeter covering over ten square kilometers. I try to relieve myself from the tension among the real social life of the historic tourist town in the cafés and pubs at the far end of Rue St. Jean. I compare the summit to a Glastonbury scale music festival, or a Woodstock without the musicians.

I`ve made that comparison as I walk by the concrete and steel structures wrapping around the old city smelling freshly uncovered dogshit from the winter. I realize at a music festival, the cirque speaks to the audience and not just to each other. Why do these people have to communicate to us through television sets and monitors, I find it so impersonal and controlled. It dictates to me against my will the differences between rights of people who are just ordinary.

On Av. René Levesque people have decorated a strip of the thing that has been described by some locals as a tribute to the cold war, with party balloons. I wonder how many of these vigilantly party decorators were actually invited to the party? I butted a cigarette on a balloon dog jammed through a space in the metal wire and heard the pop from the balloon like a whimper. It echoed off the townhouses like a cough from an orphan waif unnoticed and wrapped in an old trench coat trying to stay warm on the wet pavement.

Incidentally, the securities people are counting on a 100 meter drop off a cap off the Plains of Abraham to make up around a quarter of almost the entire perimeter. I recall that Montcalm made the same mistake against Wolfe. That 18th century battle, in which both Generals were killed has been recorded by history as having lasted only an hour or so. That conflict defined the future of North America. I wonder if this conflict will define anything.

I wish I knew more about situationism, because it is certainly a situation that we have here. I know mountain bikers who talk casually about the trails in that area. I`ve seen the fence on the other side of the park and although it may be able to stop a large car traveling at highway speeds, but it seems flimsy at best when I imagine footage from some European soccer games from the early nineties. I imagine footage from the riots of Coatia that seemed to spur a civil war into gallop in Yugoslavia and like them I feel like there might be much more here to fight about than crucial league match. I am torn between thinking this is going to be like a "save the Jets" rally, where it was really too late to do anything. Or that it might be something really puissant that could bring about change.

Right now, I`m cynical. I imagine a few days from now seeing people offering their opinions on hand made signs, attracting attention at stages allowing people to speak that have been touring marijuana party conventions and haven`t gone a day without a toke since university. I imagine them babbling carelessly using crowd pleasing punch lines like a self promoting rapper with an ego problem from days of break dance. Except this person doesn`t even have rhythm.

I see opportunistic artists, promoters, fast food chains and retailers making money off of the anti-capitalists from beer, disposable cameras and (cue the theme to Hawaii Five-O) dancing on their politically sensitive paychecks. It seems as potent as a group of children offering their 7 year life savings in a Wal-Mart piggy bank to help subsidize the demanding salary of a mutli-millionaire, professional, international athlete who`s purpose is to show his talent for the sake of feeding us advertising.

I haven`t gone looking but no one has really tried to get to know me and find me and say, "Hey, you should come to this meeting, this group is organizing something really important. If we do this then these are the results you can expect..." Sure I got pamphlets off of the street, but we didn`t talk, in english or in french. I haven`t looked at the websites dedicated to protesting, I don`t want to. I`m not a technophobe. I think that my instincts are telling me that I`m tired of getting information from a screen instead of a person.

The very foundations of western politics are being questioned because corporations have been given rights greater than humans, so they say.

Kurt Vonnegut tribute inserted here:

Hi ho.

In democracy we`ve tried to preserve the human element in decision making and try to remain just in the way that we punish those who are accountable for wrong doings but this hasn`t been happening for a long time it seems. Cultures all over the world have trusted in the human element of conflict to remain understanding of ethics, I think. I believe that this human element has been in the process of removing itself for too long, not because we chose to, but because we wanted it to without even knowing about it. The Gulf War seemed more like a sporting event than a war. An understanding of general knowledge seems to exist powerfully more than ever before in the "information age". To me it exists with an unprecedented lack of wisdom as well.

Miles Davis called what he felt was a breakdown between the performer and spectator as the Voo Doo Down. If Québec is indeed a flashpoint, a point in history coming full circle again after the Winnipeg General Strike and many other things that eventually resulted in the 1968 anti-capitalist riots in the Paris Latin Quartier, (not that I really know if there is a connection between those events) I hope the forces of the City, Provincial Government, Federal Government, Multi-National corporations will allow the people to take the streets ìn a much larger group than most people would like to admit and let them voice their opinions peacefully. Those who know they are involved and deeply rooted in the existing legal, political and religious systems are among those who`d like a voice that could be heard, and why not? Isn`t that what we`ve been told democracy is all about? But, who likes to admit that maybe they we`ve been wrong about how we treat the environment and each other. Maybe we`re all guilty, and I think that is a major problem and I still don`t know exactly what we are supposed to protest against.

I remember working at Sam the Record man in Polo Park Mall in Winnipeg one winter to make some extra cash for Christmas consumption. One of my big responsibilities was the jazz and classical sections of the store. This was probably the best place to be because it required the least amount of work you had to do for old Scam. One day, a guy came in and wasn`t very familiar with Jazz but wanted to learn a little bit about be-bop. So I prescribed the guy a disc that was a live recording of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie playing in Toronto in 1958. (I think that was the year, I`m not sure.) Anyhow, buddy took the disc with a smile and I thought I might see him again in a couple of weeks wanting to buy more by perhaps any of the musicians involved in that concert.

He returned the following weekend and wanted to exchange the disc for something else, he was cool and was also willing to buy something else even if he had to keep the disc. I told him I couldn`t exchange it, even though I could and asked him what the problem was: Obstinate behavior was always so tempting when I worked in retail. I was confused, he wanted to learn
about be-bop. This recording had such groundbreaking songs such as Salt Peanuts, Groovin` high, and many others that really defined and started the genre. His complaint was the recording quality.

He said it wasn`t good enough to really get into. Not knowing what to do, I sold him a CBC compilation of a bunch of remastered stuff that I like to call lawyer jazz and sent him on his way.

I had another copy in the store and I pulled it out of the shrink wrap, killed whatever was playing abruptly and mid song much to the chagrin of my co-workers. After all, playing Gypsy Kings or Jessie Cooke sold a lot of discs. I didn`t care because I wanted to know if I made a mistake when I sold the guy this disc. I remembered hearing it on vinyl many times and just getting lost in the sounds. It was one of those things that leaves an impression on you, kind of like the first time you hear Djengo. It started playing, a couple of my co-workers complained a little but I kept my ears on the speakers. Admittedly the production quality was poor, but not bad. You could hear the reverberance of the people in the theatre, the sounds of the musicians talking, even the stereo image was oddly placed with the horns panned to each side. What I realize now is something that would have never occurred to me then.

It was raw real for that guy. He was so used to listening to the impeccable production of modern commercial music that his brain received a "syntax error" message. What was real had become less than real than reality itself and he couldn`t accept it. He had become so used to expecting more that when he didn`t get it he instinctively wanted it. Just like a good consumer. Speaking of remembrance...

Québec plates read, "Je me souviens". I assume that this is a reference to the fall of the French Capital in the Americas in 17.... whatever. I don`t know, I surveyed the sparsely filled cyber bar that I`m writing this e-mail to find out the exact date but it seems that the Québecios ne souviens pas. I asked quite a decent cross section of the society available to me here in Haute Ville. They were all francophone and ranging in age from early twenties to golden years and nobody could remember. Although I was assured that I could find out on several websites dedicated to the History of the Plains.

I rely on myself now to try to edit out the various swear words that normally I`d employ when I feel strongly about something and at this moment je me suis trompé. This has been happening a lot.

I know that people all over have been planning. I`ve heard buzz from Montréal about the gatherings at McGill and the procedures to bring Americans here by boat and to make arrangements for them to be here before the borders in la Belle Province are closed despite media reports.

I`m still worried, and skeptical. We`re told that real decisions will not be made at this conference, it is just a meet and greet, a party basically. Whether or not isn`t important, the big question seems to be if the party will be crashed or not.

Thinking idealistically is nice, but I can`t call myself an optimist.

Therefore I hope Castro will make an unexpected appearance on René Levesque, unfolding himself from a 1950`s cadillac that he paid someone 100 dollars US for 3 years to restore with used parts grinning while billowing smoke from large cigar wearing a uniform with perfectly ironed creases and boots so shiny you could shave in the reflection of the toe.

I know he`s a dictator and all but I believe he`s more socially conscious than some of his democratic latin American counterparts.

Hmmmm.... When I really think about it, communism isn`t for me either.

Tomorrow, tomorrow tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow.



T-minus 25.5 hours.

I think I saw the dress rehearsal for the circus. To know how I felt do this: Yawn and stretch.

Even if you read when you take the bus, you really notice when it changes routes despite your familiarity with the surroundings. It seems very intrusive. I can`t wait till I get my 68 Rambler American out of storage. I thought I`d postpone the sortie because the model reads "American" in chrome italics on the fenders. I figured that`d be an invitation for vandalism. The restoration of that car was painstaking and fruitful. I wouldn`t want to have my vanity damaged.

I wish it wasn`t true, but what surprised me was the realization that I was in my home country feeling weirder than a white guy with blue eyes at a sweat with a Cree Shaman. If I was at that sweat right now, I`d be like a non-smoker in pub at 2am on a friday night, sober and uncomfortable. I`d be gasping from the heat and smoke with my face pushed into the dirt trying to take advantage of the lowest smoke to air ratio while I was surrounded with noise and dark movements contributing to the chaos. The burning in my lungs and the smell of my hair would remind me for days after what I experienced. I`d feel a sense of accomplishment and be enriched from a new and unique cultural experience. I don`t think what is eminent is going to make me feel that way. Right now I`d have to say that I`m somewhat uncomfortable even though this kind of anticipation is somewhat familiar. I`m sure you`ve had strange feelings of anticipation like this before. Maybe you`ve sensed this before you knew a team initiation ceremony was being planned for you on the next out of town game or maybe before you`re first big rock concert or before a theatre audition. I`m sure we`ve been there before somehow, at least indirectly.

Since I moved here in August, I don`t think that I`ve ever heard so many people speaking english on Rue St. Jean. I was taken back while I eavesdropped on the odd english conversation that I heard. I passed by a motley crew of three while I was offered something resembling a newspaper from someone who looked far to clean cut to be handing out demonstration propaganda. I heard him speaking comfortably but not perfectly in french; He responded in english and explained the newspaper he was handing me contained english text. I folded it, put it in my pocket and tried to filter through what has become white noise to me; Tires, cars, streets, stereos, and people going about their daily business.

The people I tried to listen to came from Winnipeg.

There were so many people from out of town that the clerks at J.A. Moisian started to treat me like a local for the first time, chatting me up and actually asking me if I wanted a bag a receipt instead of almost forcing it on me.

Streets seemed a little more alive with the feeling of something new happening and it was unusual. There were TV crews shading the sidewalk from the sun. On light posts contractors were removing canvas signs and replacing them with new ones of a different colour. I stopped and looked at a dark grey skyscraper. It was smaller than those typical of larger North American cities, it had become unremarkable after walking past it for several months except it had fifteen story banners resembling giant strips of plastic tape sticking placidly to the sides of the building in blue and white. The very frozen nature of them wasn`t very beauty inspiring and I hardly noticed the huge messages frozen to the concrete. I assumed it must be more impressive from the air. I decided the welcome message wasn`t for us.

I walked down Réne Levesque and saw through a wire fence two long lines of sedans and SUV`s. It was larger than any parade I had ever seen that I wasn`t actually in. It was more than three blocks long and at each block it was rooked with police cruisers and motorcycles controlling the first two ways of a large four way intersection. For the next two blocks they filtered traffic down to cruisers and suits and a few pedestrians. Cruisers had drivers in uniforms and they acted as bookmarks for the suits, ties and shiny shoes that looked busy and mysterious. Every few cars you would notice a man in a trench coat getting either into, or out of a vehicle. Compared to the video I had seen of myself in other parades this place seemed strange and unknown. It was a parade without festivity and it wasn`t a funeral, so what was it?

I`ve been in many parades, but that is another story.

I eavesdropped on a conversation on René Levesque between two people who look more like out of town campers than locals, "Too bad we are so dependant on fossil fuels, huh? So who`s going to be the flag burner on this one? We really need to revise a shitload of legislation. For example, putting the right to control the economy back in the hands of people and not corporations. Boards of directors should be held more accountable for their actions. Down with Chapter 11 man."

What else is new?

YAWN.

Even though I don`t know enough about it I`m still going to emphasize the importance of what I think the situationists in France tried to do in the 60`s. They organized a large general strike that spread quite a bit. It had a domino effect that went around the world spurring protests in major urban centres on three continents. There was a strong anti-consumerist movement that became organized all around the world. They did it before the internet, cell phones and all kind of technology. Why do I feel like I`m caught in a gauntlet of taxes, work and near poverty? Why am I so tired all the time? Why do I watch such crap on TV? Why do I always feel like I have nothing better to do?

Why do we still use neo-classical economic theory and not question it? I haven`t taken a course on economic theory but I`ve run a few businesses in my life. Economists can`t be scientists. I feel like a slave damnit. I find it so hard to be spontaneous anymore. It pisses me off because I think I became a slave to this pattern I live willingly and without even knowing it was happening. This is my life in the first world and people in poorer countries all over the world are fighting in line to be enslaved in this life I have. They have been made to believe it is the best way, the right way and to close the deals with them we sell our nationalities in the same way as Mcdonalds and Nike do.

So a bunch of dufusses manage to release an even bigger sport utility every year to tantalize our insatiable appetites for consumption. Like many of the key issues it seems to be just another symptom of a much bigger problem to me. I think the relentless toll we`re taking on our natural environment may only be a symptom of how we`ve polluted our mental environment with marketing, useless information and false needs. Maybe we`re living in a virtual reality? What I find the most amazing is that most people who don`t believe me would love to try it if it included putting a pair of projection goggles on that were hooked to a computer.

The circus is in town and nobody knows what to expect, including me.



Friday night is good for fighting.

Life is hell and my apartment reeks of gas.

It is Halloween and instead of candy we have tear gas.

My windows that I cleaned in a neurotic spring cleaning binge (unnoticed and unappreciated by my roommate) are now covered in CS dust and I have to wash my hands after every time I use my balcony. It sounds like the 1st of July outside as weapons echo off the buildings of the narrow old streets of the city. Sometimes they blend into the percussion of the protestors drumming almost musically.

I`ve found my place in the chaos. I have to give the military some credit for having made me familiar with the effects of CS Gas. I`m against FTAA or ZLÉA or whatever you want to call it for several reasons but I`m not a militant despite I`m a non-commissioned member of the military. I`m sure you`re already familiar with some of my issues by now.

I decided that the best contribution to the whole mess I could make was to fill the role of a medic. Along with some basic photography equipment I put together a care pack of water, Solarcane, tensors, bandaids, iso-propel, Ozonol, and a mixture of Maalox antacid to help people who were overwhelmed by the gas. In case you don`t know, I learned that Maalox helps to neutralize the burning sensation it causes on your skin. This wisdom was shared with me by a peacekeeper I know who was posted in Yugoslavia. I was surprised that it had a pleasant vanilla, cherry smell.

Wearing a lime soaked scarf over my face I`ve translated and given directions, I`ve also prevented people from running and encouraged them to just walk despite the hell they are going through. The streets and stairways here are narrow and trampling is a constant risk, especially when you are close to the shit. I feel now, that it is really the least I could have done. I am regretful because I wish I were as prepared as some of the Québecois I know and have seen.

Wearing this mask I feel as if I disclose something to people that is frozen in time forever. It is a principle expression concealing what is real and obvious and demonstrates my universal identity in this tableau vivante instead of my physical identity which could be considered as wandering without loyalty and adulterate. The liberties of being disguised don`t represent offensive democratic freedom or a rebel carrying all before one but a kind of magic that transcends machiavellianism and success. A mask at this point is the face of perpetual being whether you`re police or protestor. Meet me in cognito and we`ll have nothing to hide.

I know there are those who will question and condemn my involvement. Especially my superiors at my Naval Unit. Some might say that having peaceful protestors amongst the ones who take more direct action distorts and complicates the justice process. I understand their frustration too much because of my own financial and tax issues. Although I`m opposed to violence, the value of violence seems symbolic because it is a universal like love, shitting, fucking, and yes, we also kill like nature. Therefore, to me, violence is and always has been a great symbol of a changes in human history. Whether the revolution you speak of is the American, the French, or the Cubans, many benefits we enjoy are a result of conflict. When we become complacent and forget that violence rears its ugly and necessary head so that we can relearn lessons we`ve already taken and the societal cycle can begin again. Today I have seen some violence, and I have found that totally unnecessary, hopefully after this weekend it will not show its face again.

I`ve seen militant protesters with home made combustible projectile weapons firing on police. At one point tonight my friend Jamie and I were separated by fighting. On Rue Aiguillon by a bandana clad dark figure with something that resembled a large sparkler for the instant that I looked at him. He was shooting at police down the street. The firework bounced off a clear plexiglass shield. Police to my back, behind a fence returned fire with a couple rubber bullets, a tear gas canister and something that just seemed to make a loud bang that made me hesitate before I ran back to Rue St. Jean. This was happening with us stuck in the middle and the air was devouring my eyes and lungs.

It`s Saturday now. The streets are riddled with garbage and people sitting on the curbs. My waitress at Station St. Jean informed me that I could have a café alongé at regular price because the coffee machine is filtering the water into a strange yellow colour. My eggs and hash brownslasted slightly bitter and odd.

At the People`s Summit where the marches for today were organized about 30000 people were gathered. Some of the percussion ensembles were truly impressive. The feeling from the crowd was exciting and familiar but on a larger scale than I`ve experienced. This was more like the parades that I`m used to seeing. It was very festive but I`ve never seen this many people in one before. People manipulate large puppets and fly inflatable factories with messages written on them. Some people wear suits with barcode stickers
covering their mouths and march in ranks. I sauntered with the crowd, being herded like cattle through the streets of Basse Ville. It was festive but it became tense as many groups who were committed to the peaceful march began to lobby groups to move into the streets above to support the frustrations of the thousands of protesters there. I decided go up and stop at my apartment to make a late lunch.

Outside my apartment building garbage bins have been lit on fire, everyone now covers their face with something to avoid the gas that is everywhere. The crowd has quadrupled. When I look off my balcony vis a vis the Laurentide mountains I see a haze over the city that I haven`t seen before.

On Réne Levesque this afternoon it was business as usual. The police brought out hoses today and prayed from behind a fence. A platoon of riot police flanked the protesters from a park situated on the south-east side of René Levesque . They used dogs and pushed the crowd downhill towards Rue St.Jean. As the crowd was pushed down the hill a car was lit on fire by a canister that went astray right through the passenger side window. I kicked a canister that landed too close for comfort away from me and two french students with little effect, I believe. The air was saturated already and it didn`t make a difference what people did. I continued to wash their eyes and gave them some of my Maalox mixture. I retreated and helped who I could until my coughing and burning became unbearable and I administered some water and antacid on myself. My mucus soaked mouth burned behind my scarf. I stopped at one point on Côte Ste-Claire to throw up. I sat for a moment, watching people pick rocks away from the crumbling foundations of old buildings and filling their backpacks with them. Some of these rock gatherers even tapped them on the ground before putting them in their bags to ensure they were quality and solid.

I decided I`d had enough and the only people staying up there must have gas masks, are foolhardy or both. I walked up Rue St. Jean to see if there were more people coming down Rue Scott or Rue Zouaves who need help. There were. As I continued down the street I saw a lovely young girl dressed as a fairy who was hanging on the fence at the end of my street in front of a crowd. I had seen her many times before, since thursday night she could be seen just dancing to the music coming from stereos in apartments and groups of drummers but this afternoon in an effort to quell the rising tensions she`d mounted the fence. She`d decided to take on the responsibility of filling the growing void of communal love by telling the police how much she loves them, in french of course. Later she is forced to descend from her perch because of garbage bins being set aflame in front of the fence. Whether her feelings of peace and beauty effected the police I`m not sure, but it certainly wasn`t working on the crowd of protesters anymore.

On my street I noticed some fences were broken overnight, garbage is everywhere and cars have been spray painted. The crowd is getting huge now because most people don`t want to brave the chaos higher up the hill. A garbage bin is being set on fire in front of my apartment building and as I look back I see now the bins near the fairy are smoldering, belching filth into the sky. I see the smoke trails from les bon bons de l`àrcjmogene being lobbed into the air with a banging that I`ve become so familiar with that I don`t even flinch. The projectiles fall in a group that has begun to fold a 40 foot section of the fence. I took a picture and went up to my apartment to make something to eat and rinse the taste of gas and puke out of my mouth.

After dinner I was trapped for almost three hours inside the walls in the old city. The police had created blockades at all the entrances going into Haute Ville like pike men with shields and batons. The gas complicated my efforts getting home after I descended into Base Ville. I thought I could walk around the mess above from below. I wasn`t looking forward to this long route around the bottom of Haute Ville because I didn`t know the area well and I was tired, but I managed to get back to Rue St. Jean eventually with luck and a lot of persistence. It took me over another two hours to finally get home.

The gathering under Boulevard Montemarcy-Duffrin was macabre. I would guess that close to 6,000 people were gathered, in a camp of what could be described as a gathering of pagan vampires. There was still many different kinds of people, hippies, regular people, avantguardistes, Black Blocs, punks and an assortment of general misfits. They were lighting fires, banging on anything that made noise and braving terrible amounts of tear gas being shot from above.

The absence of the media seemed strange.

Some people were caught up in something they didn`t want or except. Some strangers who had left their cars on the streets earlier in the day somewhere around Rue Aigillon and Rue Richelieu. They were searching for a safe way back up. I told one group I wasn`t sure and they should head in the direction of the train station and brave it there until things calm down. I gave first aid to the couple from Vermont, including their 12 year old son. I encouraged them that it only burned for awhile and they`d be fine. They thanked me and expressed their regret for their naive curiosity that drew them to see what all the commotion was about.

At one of the first stairways I tried to ascend I approached a barricade of Suerte Québec with my ID in hand and a piece symbol in the other to see if I could ascend the cap. I was greeted with warm hostility, an officer feigned a swing at me with a baton and told me to return to where I came from. I turned and started a slow jog towards another line of police that had formed behind me. They were shooting gas down into a crowd off of a hill and I was trapped and alone. I sat in the middle of the street and had a cigarette. After all that gas, I don`t care what the surgeon general says, it can`t do that much harm.

When I finally managed to make it on to the cap the scene from the stairs on Ste-Vallier was incredible. I saw that if I wanted to continue into my neighbourhood I would have to pass between a line of Militants with shields throwing stones at riot police descending on Côte d` Abraham. They were shooting rubber bullets, gas and approaching with an amoured vehicle with a water cannon. What I imagine was members of the group Black Bloc were running while pushing a flaming garbage bin at the quickly approaching line of police. I ran around a bonfire in the middle of the street, and snapped a a couple pictures on the way. I hope that they turn out despite my weak flash bulb.

I managed to find a route around the chaos and arrived at my apartment by taking a route I`ve never used before. A row of police stood on Rue St. Jean and Côte Sainte Genevieve to protect workers repairing the fence that was torn down earlier. A small crowd has gathered to sit on the street in front of them. Neither side is harassing the other, the protestors are entirely french and trying to end the stalemate by singing songs to the police, telling jokes and and one person even had the audacity to ask for cab fare home after a cop informed him the buses had probably stopped service for the night. Someone from behind them shouts the occasional drill command to keep the police stimulated and to break up the informality. Their
genuine sweetness was too hard to resist, the crowd cheers. They applaud and compliment them on their snappy drill performance as if they were doing a weird modern dance routine. Finally the line comes to attention, swiftly turns to the right and begins to walk off the street. The crowd erupts and people begin hugging and kissing whoever is nearby. They inundated the forces of obstruction with love until they couldn`t stand it anymore, it was victorious, sinful and beautifully playful at the same time.

As I took an hour long shower to wash the poison from my body and soothe my aching muscles I thought about what I`d just seen and I decided this: Like the fairy on the fence, to me this situation was symbolic of how that maybe it is better to be petite, colourful, sexy, careless and peaceful like flowers instead of being big, conservative, repressed, fearful and aggressive. The best part about this was I actually realized it really could work for the first time in my life.

I`m tired and burned out. I coughed all night, my throat and lungs hurt. I`m supposed to go and play at an old folks home with a military band I`m a member of and I don`t know how I`m going to muster the energy. Me and a friend decide that if we can get some freshly made juice into us we might feel better. We walk down Aiguillon to Dufferin-Montmarcy at around 11am, there aren`t as many people out as yesterday but I know its early. I imagine that today will be less intense because many people have to head back home for work on Monday. It didn`t take long till the gas hit us. I tried to convince myself to brave the discomfort by comparing it to a blistering cold winter in Winnipeg but I couldn`t. We were so tired of it all, we
turned around and thought we`d have better luck up St. Jean. We didn`t, by 11am les bon bons had started flying and the clouds drifted down into the streets below.

I called a band member with a cell phone and told her I my woes. I understand the band and my superiors were unsympathetic and cynical. Even though people miss work sometimes because of headaches and basic fatigue, being gassed for three days was no excuse. I could have been at work, they saw it all on TV and knew that I wasn`t anywhere near the action. According to them, I had to be exaggerating to justify laziness, or something.

Things quieted down, and later that day the walls started opening. Some vandalism was committed over the evening but overall, Sunday was a few firecrackers compared to Friday and Saturday which were more like atomic bombs in comparison. It seemed to finish with a whimper.

I spent most of that evening writing here at Étrange, a cyber bar on Rue St. Jean.

I`m here again and I have to go to work this evening, so how does this story end?

We are born, taught, conditioned and forced to live for consumption because we have to. We feel bad when we don`t, we`re told constantly everyday that we need to buy things because they will make us feel better, be more attractive, make us more popular and what we strive to achieve because of what we see on TV, in movies, magazines and just about all sources of information we use is more real that reality itself. We fall short of our desires all the time and keep working or doing whatever we can to fill that gap. Anyone who doesn`t believe me should consider why a 15 year old girl that is 5,9 120 lbs and induces vomit after every other meal because she thinks she`s fat.

We see these symptoms every day but we still fail to recognize them. Worst of all, there isn`t nearly enough people thinking about this problem intelligently and simply enough to really do anything about it. Thinking about this kind of reality and what we do to ourselves and the environment truthfully is about as comfortable for most people as it was for one of my more unfortunate roommates. I thought I`d be funny if snatched the blankets off of him while he slept and throw 2lbs of frozen ground beef on him that I`d mashed into pieces. To wit: If this wasn`t rude enough, he also was naked, it was five in the morning on a Sunday somewhere in the beginning of February in Winnipeg.

So, how do we wake people up?

Should we wake people up?
Is this all for show, blown out of proportion am I crazy or paranoid?
Should I believe everything I`m told on TV?
If not where do I draw the line?

Under my eyes there are blue marks that resemble bad meat. Tomorrow, I have to face my superiors in the military to find out if I should enter the process of a summary tribunal for my absence on Sunday. I probably won`t because I`ll give convincing arguments about the nature of my involvement despite the false information that was leaked to them by someone who acted stupid and jealous. In case you don`t know, military members are not allowed to participate in or sign any petition that could be considered anti-government. It is a chargeable offense that could result in a bad record, fines, and possible time in a special place located in Edmonton just for people like me who sometimes misuse foreign words, phrases and those who punch officers.

C`est la vie,

Dana Neal

************************************************************
The information contained in this email is confidential and is intended solely for the use of the
named addressee. Access, copying or re-use of the information in it by any other person is not
authorized by anyone but Klooky`s Garden of Agony. The internet is not a secure transmission
(duh) medium and therefore the content and spelling and grammatical errors made in this email
may have been changed without the consent of the originator.
************************************************************

thats it? I thought, by the bloated hype of the footage and related endevours from the regeneration website, that this would be some interesting footage. Instead there is a ridiculously meagre repeated cowering in saying "you do not have permission to enter my private vehicle" over and over and a hostile girl ready for confrontation with the cops. Thats why the cops asked you to get out of the vehicle honey.