Off-the-cuff
rough stuff

>> Anglos and francophones face off
ferociously at the LIMM’s 50th session

TWO SOLITUDES, BAD ATTITUDES: Schneider (L) and Pohu

By RUPERT BOTTENBERG

It’s been a long time coming. For five years now, on the regular, the Ligue d’Improvisation Musicale de Montréal, or LIMM, has convened to pit teams of top-notch talents from the artful and avant-garde corners of the local scene against one another in gruelling battles of spontaneous collective creation. Once the bodies were dragged off the stage and the blood mopped up, the winner was consistently clear—the audience.

This week, the LIMM holds its 50th tournament, and it seems that this is the confrontation that all before have led up to. Two platoons of a half-dozen wicked warriors—one English-speaking, the other French—will be loosed upon each other for a match so vicious and violent, it’s certain to sort out our province’s political problems once and for all.

In the West-End corner, Stefan Schneider commands such anglo assassins as Sage Reynolds, Marcus Paquin, Paul Shrofel, Joshua Zubot and Sean Craig. In the East-End corner, Sylvain Pohu oversees francophone fighters Philippe Brault, Jean-Sébastien Nicol, Alexis Dumais, Guido Del Fabre and Jean-Denis Levasseur.

The Mirror brought the two team captains together with the intention of asking some nuanced, nice-guy questions about their meticulous art and craft, and the magic of improvised music. No such luck. Within seconds, the pair was at each other’s throats (see photo above) and had to be forcibly separated. Obligated by law to communicate only through e-mails, Schneider and Pohu descended into a trash-talk tangle that presages a clash of terrifying consequences tonight.

Stefan Schneider: Hey Sylvain, are you ready to die? I hope all the gang at Affiliation Quebec will be coming down to Café Campus to cheer on their fellow anglos, and to watch us royally whip some French ass on Thursday!

Sylvain Pohu: Stef, le problème, c’est que tu crois que la reine Elizabeth II va encore venir te sauver. Allo p’tit pit! Ici, on est dans ma niche et c’est pas de la soupe aux pois que tu vas manger, mais tout un char de marde!

SS: Your team is nothing but a bunch of franco-phoneys! I can see you all now, hopping around the stage, trying to salvage whatever dignity you have left after you’ve been squashed like toads under a bulldozer!

SP: Justement, on a la chance de pouvoir être fière de quelque chose. C’est vrai que ça doit-être difficile d’être un... anglais... euh… américain... euh...

SS: Pardon?

SP: Toé et ta gang de têtes carrées, vous rêvez en couleurs. Vous auriez beau appeler au secours votre ami Stephen Harper, vous allez mourir écrasés sous un Bloc québécois.

SS: This won’t be the first time that a Québécois “bloc” missed its mark. If you only knew what me and my Loyalist team have in store for you, my friend. You will be shaking in your culottes!

SP: Tu crois que tu vas me faire peur avec ton « team Canada ». Jeudi prochain, tu verras comment la culture québécoise se distingue. Surtout contre une gang de «pseudo wannabe american».

SS: My team is as Canadian as a David Suzuki snowman sipping a Tim Horton’s cup of coffee sweetened with maple syrup while reading a Douglas Coupland book with a beaver burrowed up his ass. You better be scared, mister!

At Café Campus tonight,
Thursday, March 20, 7:30 p.m., $12