Spectacular fail

by RAF KATIGBAK

Man, I love this town. Montreal is the best. Granted, I’ve never lived anywhere else. In fact, I’ve only moved once in my life: from the house I was born in to the apartment I’m living in now. But I consider myself a reasonably well-travelled person, and no city gives me the same feeling as this one, my hometown.

Maybe it’s the wonderfully twisted dichotomy of Summer Montreal and Winter Montreal—the idea that a city can be explosively social and direly introspective from one season to the next—or maybe it’s the fact that I don’t really hold “making a decent living” very high on my list of priorities, but there are so many things about Montreal that keep me here, like cheap rent, a strong independent spirit, a tightly knit, supportive arts community and really, really good, cheap coffee. Sometimes we get it so wrong that it’s right, and I’ve learned to love what many people consider the embarrassing side of Montreal, like our rampant love for medievalism and all things kitsch.

But it’s not all foam swords and fried baloney sandwiches. Sometimes Montreal crosses the line. Sometimes the city does things that make me really wonder if living here is the right choice. In fact, we can also get it so wrong that it hurts. Maybe it’s because I live in the heart of what is now called the Quartier des Spectacles and I’ve been forced to endure everything from bad blues to bad jazz to bad comedy, and I’ve seen some pretty bad things.

But last night I saw something that made me want to put my eyes on a rocket ship and launch it towards the sun. It was so bad that I wanted that rocket ship to blow up the sun so that no one could ever see anything ever again. In my opinion, the inauguration of the Place des Festivals was the worst of the worst. It’s as if the organizers of the event somehow snuck a peek at my Dream Diary and ripped out a page from the Nightmares section, then spent millions of dollars making it come to life in front of my apartment, set to a soundtrack of bad French music.

I had no idea it would be so bad. In fact, I almost forgot about the whole event until I heard raucous applause coming from outside my window. “Oh right!” I thought, “Today is the big launch! I wonder what they have planned? What creative spectacle could adequately represent the crème de la crème of Montreal artistry?” What did I see? A team of 30 rollerbladers doing figure eights in the square, while other random people dribbled basketballs in time to some awful dance music. It was like the halftime show at the Superbowl of Corniness.

Then there were the clowns. Tons and tons of clowns. I don’t know about you, but I have a visceral I–want-to-punch-this-person-in-the-face reaction when I see someone in face paint over-exaggerating (unless we’re talking Juggalos, who totally rule). Clowns used to scare me, now they just make me mad. The one on the white grand piano that was crane-lifted to give the illusion that it was being sprayed into the sky by the new “interactive fountain” irked me the most.

Oh, don’t get me started on our new, famous “interactive fountain” with its 235 jets of illuminated water, choreographed to music. How is that impressive or even interactive? The only time I was fascinated by colourful streams of liquid was when I found out what ingesting tons of multi-vitamins does to your pee. I can’t wait for derelict men to start using the fountains to wash their delicates and bring a new and very real meaning to “interactive.”

In a conference prior to the show, Mayor Tremblay said, “This is the first of many events for Montreal as it undergoes a metamorphosis in the next few years.” Oh really? Do you really want to turn Montreal into a Peter Gabriel video from the ’80s?

The theme for the celebration was a collective kiss, and during the event, a pre-recorded message from the Mayor invited everyone “to now give a soul to this place with a powerful and simple gesture—a kiss.” Well, I have an idea where the city can plant a kiss. (Hint: it’s my butthole.)

The Gazette started their coverage of the inauguration with the line: “Bellagio eat your heart out.” Let me just say that if our cultural high-water mark is an overpriced hotel full of morbidly obese tourists watching coloured water go up and down in the most twisted, soulless, superficial city in the world, I have to start worrying about the future.

RIFF-RAFF@SYMPATICO.CA