Loving Leonard

Regarding the Leonard Cohen tribute, I’m Your Man [“He’s our man,” Film, June 22]: I heard the music of Leonard Cohen inside my mother’s womb, it was in the milk I fed from, it has been in my life, always. Lots of people think Cohen’s music is depressing. I think, on the contrary, that it conveys the utmost joy, but a joy that brings tears of happiness. So, if you listen carefully, it is not sadness that is the ground of his music, but transcendence.

Only a few of the performers in the show seem to have understood this—Rufus Wainwright, Julie Christensen and Jarvis Cocker. The others had that air of compunction most people think is of circumstance with LC, which could not hide some sort of shallowness. The film did not feature one tenth of LC’s masterful art, remaining in the obvious when so much can be dug out.

» Virginie Tremblay

Killers and killjoys

I suppose your unstated editorial policy is to hold a mirror up to Montreal. Okay, it’s not exactly Shakespeare. But neither is it Cat Stevens.

Here’s a slice of Montreal life that begs to be reflected far and wide. Across from my apartment, a retired black blues man lives in an assisted-living home. He is not allowed to smoke inside his home, so he uses our local bus shelter as his smoking parlour.

He was there one day last week. Brown walking stick, red shoes, white hair. You know, he’s cool like that. And then along came a woman public transit user who is convinced that the biggest killer of Montreal public transit users is lung cancer caused by inhaling second-hand smoke in city bus shelters.

In next to no time, she told our resident red-shoed bluesman that it is “now illegal to smoke in public bus shelters.” He was gracious. He put out his cigarette. He is a retired bluesman. He’s cool like that.

But come on, Montrealers. Is that what we’re coming to—a society of self-righteous killjoys? Even when you’re right, you can be wrong. Why don’t more people get this?

» Ron Huza

One thing people seem to forget about this ban on smoking indoors is that it gets really, really cold here in Montreal. I can live in principal with restrictions to my smoking habit—I would not object to a law forcing all bars to have a non-smoking section, or even to a law requiring all establishments to separately ventilate their smoking area, but now I am going to be forced to smoke outside this winter instead of finding a cozy hole near work that serves coffee. If it’s negative 40 and windy outside, frostbite can strike in five minutes.

Unless the government is willing to make smoking completely illegal, they should tone down the legislative rhetoric and make laws that take everyone’s best interest into account. If they had enacted laws that prevented my habit from harming others’ health without unduly risking mine, I would have been fine. As it is, they’ve done nothing but alienate a good portion of the Quebec voters with an ill-conceived, totalitarian, unnecessary law.

» Basil Berntsen

Somehow, I am mildly enraged by the two letters “Smoking Politics” letters in the Mirror [June 8]. Both Lucy Brown and Gerhardt seem to think this is a big deal, and it is not.

How many cities already have a smoking ban? Aren’t there a few cities that have already banned scents? Wasn’t perfume invented many centuries ago in order to cover up BO because no one in those days got to bathe that often? People are cleaner now, no? I don’t care a whit about the debate on how “dangerous” second-hand smoke can be—there are a billion things that are dangerous, and Gerhardt is right to bring up the environment as something we are killing, though I must add that it in turn will be killing us. There are countless injustices more profoundly disturbing than having to go outside for a bit of tobacco. Get the fuck over it, Montreal.

» Craig Stewart

Colon cancer: not humorous

Ron Huza pokes fun at vegetarians and asks, “If vegetables really love vegetarians, why do all vegetarians suffer from excessive flatus gas?” [“Vegetarians, humour and hot air,” Letters, June 8]. It may be true that a high-fibre diet may make one more flatulent sometimes, but vegetarians also tend to be healthier and less obese. I ask why a far higher percentage of meat-eaters develop colon cancer than vegetarians. I have lost meat-loving friends because they died of colon cancer prematurely. I do not think I would make fun of vegetarians.

» Aldous Denton

Peeler punditry!

I would like to hear Sasha’s opinions of our local strip clubs. You have restaurant critics, so why not have an informative write-up on our clubs—who’s good, who’s not. And what happened to all the tease... or is it just for the lap?

» GC

WE WELCOME LETTERS TO THE EDITOR!

Send your comments, compliments or criticisms to:

Letters to the Editor,
c/o Montreal Mirror,
465 McGill, 3rd Floor
Montreal, Quebec
H2Y 4B4

You may also fax us at (514) 393-3173, or reach us by e-mail:

Letters to the Editor

All letters should include your name, address and daytime phone number.

If you wish to reach someone in particular, here's a list of people involved with the production of the newspaper and this site.