Quote of the week

“Hey O’Byrne, you dropped your purse” —A Tampa Bay fan’s sign at the Canadiens-Lighting game on Tuesday, one of many referring to rookie Ryan O’Byrne’s arrest on Sunday night.

Walking the Village

Following the successful temporary closing of Ste-Catherine E. through the Gay Village during the last two summers, the downtown borough is preparing to table a measure that would permanently close the artery to traffic from St. Jean Baptiste Day to Labour Day.

The proposal, to be presented sometime late next week, seeks to bar motor traffic from Berri to Papineau while still keeping side streets open. According to Ville-Marie spokesman Jean-Yves Duthel, security concerns still need to be ironed out, but the public generally supports the measure.

“We’ve been meeting with small groups like the residents’ association and the merchants’ association,” says Duthel. While there won’t be any formal public consultations, he says the project “isn’t all that complicated, because there isn’t much traffic through here anyway.”

Village merchants are reportedly pleased about the decision, but Duthel says the move isn’t just about keeping local businesses happy. “It’s a quality of life issue,” he says. “We’re seeing this kind of trend all across North America, so we don’t want to be moving backwards.”

The city decided to move ahead with the proposal after the summer of 2007, when the thoroughfare was closed on eight consecutive weekends.

Yanks R us?

Artists, academics and assorted others descend on Montreal this week to examine the shifting cultural landscape of the New World as the “Are We American?” conference takes place over the next two days (Thursday, Feb. 14 and Friday, Feb. 15) at the Omni Mont-Royal Hotel (1050 Sherbrooke W.).

“I think [North American culture is] probably diverging,” says Will Straw, acting director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada and one of the conference’s principal organizers. “[In Canada], we tend to think that we might not be like Mexico, we’re like the U.S. In fact, if you look at U.S. culture, there’s a Latin-ization happening in many ways that we don’t have here. In Canada, south Asian culture is becoming much more of an influence.”

The extensive roster of speakers includes Gilberto Gil, Brazil’s minister of culture, a Grammy Award-winning singer and guitarist and longtime political activist, who will close things out with a free public lecture on Friday, Feb. 15, at 6 p.m.

Most events have a fee, ranging from $75 for students to $275 for corporate and government types, and require registration, which can be done on site. For the complete program and online registration, visit www.mcgill.ca/culture2008/.

by CHRISTOPHER HAZOU

Solidaire celebration

Québec solidaire is celebrating the second anniversary of the blissful union of former parties Option citoyenne and Union des forces progressistes. And what better way to celebrate than by asking people for money? The young provincial party is shooting two birds with one stone by throwing itself a birthday bash/fundraising event on Thursday, Feb. 21.

A handful of artists and several of the party’s representatives, including co-leader Amir Khadir, will be on hand to help Québec solidaire usher in a third year. The party will also take the opportunity to launch its DVD, a documentary about last March’s electoral campaign, selling at 20 bucks a pop. Funds amassed from ticket sales will go towards beefing up the party’s presence in the city, says Andres Fontecilla, the Montreal regional assembly’s spokesperson.

So far the party has been working hard to boost its profile in Montreal; several events are planned this month, including its third annual general assembly from Friday, Feb. 29 to Saturday, March 1 at UQÀM.

But party first, work later—the fundraiser happens Feb. 21 starting at 7 p.m. at Salle du Liban (1530 Ducharme, in Outremont).

For more info, visit quebecsolidaire.net.

by TRACEY LINDEMAN

Young queer movies

Many would like to see more films that explore issues of human sexuality made by creative young gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans-gendered or inter-sexed folks. And Project 10, the organization that provides information and support services to young people who identify as any of these sexual orientations or question their gender identity, is doing something about it.

The P10 Video Project, a collaboration between Project 10 and MyView Video Project, a Montreal-based organization dedicated to getting cameras into the hands of youth, combines personal development through group meetings with instructional workshops on short-film creation. The program, which consists of five sessions to be held once every Wednesday evening from 7–9 p.m. for the next five weeks, will examine topics ranging from identity, image and relationships, but won’t be limited to those strictly; it’s designed to be flexible enough to cater to the wishes of those taking part. The sessions take place in the Batshaw Building (6 Weredale), and begin Wednesday, Feb. 20.

“We’re doing this in the interest of creating a meaningful dialogue,” explains Project 10 drop-in coordinator Daniel Baylis. “This is a great opportunity for youth to express themselves about issues such as body identity and relationships.”

For more information, see www.p10.qc.ca.

by STEVE ZYLBERGOLD

Rear-view mirror

15 YEARS AGO - FEB. 11-18, 1993

On the cover: Mile-End MCM councillor John Gardiner and a clockface, as the Mirror looks at 10 battleground wards the embattled party risks losing in the next election. Gardiner, responsible for housing, is in danger for his alleged love of condo conversions.
• Examining black cinema, the Mirror is unimpressed with its lack of progressive values. “In these productions, black male actors play pathologically violent, foolish or greedy characters. And black females are commonly portrayed as castrating bitches, usually oppressed in some way.”
• Elvis Costello shrugs off criticism of his latest album, The Juliet Letters, written for a string quartet. “We’ve had a couple of vitriolic attacks that haven’t said much about the music so much as talked about me and what a shame I didn’t die in a plane crash.”
• Gaëtan Charlebois reviews three books by media icons: P.J. O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores, Michael Medved’s Hollywood vs. America and Camille Paglia’s Sex, Art and American Culture. O’Rourke is “enjoyable” despite his politics, Medved “easily dismissed” and Paglia “unfair and hypocritical.”

Angel >> Smoke breaks for prisoners Jacques Dupuis, Quebec’s Public Security Minister, reversed a ban on all smoking for provincial prisoners this week—but only after a small riot broke out in Orsainville prison two days after the ban was implemented on Feb. 5. On Friday, Feb. 8, Dupuis said prisoners would be allowed to smoke outdoors. Aside from the prisoners, an estimated 80 per cent of whom smoke, the move also pleased the prison guard union, which opposed the ban saying it was unenforceable. And who in their right mind would want to mess with a nic-fitting con? Quebec is the only province that allows smoking in its jails. The real test will come at the end of April, when federal prisoners—who are doing real hard time—face a total smoking ban.

Insect >> Enhanced driver’s licenses British Columbia’s plan to issue enhanced driver’s licenses to 500 selected residents has the federal privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, worried. She and all of her provincial counterparts say the cards—used to ease cross-border traffic—can be the groundwork for a national ID card, which the commissioners would unanimously oppose. The enhanced licences contain identifiers that can be read up to 10 metres away, ostensibly to speed traffic through congested crossings. But the identifiers are stored in a database that they think could be scoured by prying, paranoid American eyes. The B.C. government dismissed the concerns.