This text is part of the special book Culture as a gift
Reading, music, objects, outings … The team of collaborators of the special notebooks offers you some of their cultural favorites. So many moments to share during the Holidays, or gift ideas to slip under the tree.
Soft in the ears
Written and published in the midst of a pandemic, the Untourable Album from Montreal electro-pop group Men I Trust, their fourth in their career, lives up to its name quite well. As always, the trio offers us rich, sweet and soaring tones filled with bass and synthesizers in which the sweet voice of singer Emmanuelle Proulx intertwines. Composed of sound layers difficult to reproduce on stage, the album is designed so that the listener can discover it in high-caliber headphones, while working, contemplating the heavy snow which falls in silence or even in the early morning, coffee at the hand.
Gabrielle Tremblay-Baillargeon
Reconnect with your childhood dreams
What would you do if on the night of your 35e birthday, you found yourself alone, without a partner and without friends to share this new stage in your life? Samuel decides to dial the only number he remembers by heart, that of his childhood home. To his surprise, someone picks up the phone. And not just anyone: it is to himself, ten years old, that he is talking! A dialogue begins then between these two versions of himself, prompting Samuel to introspection and to wonder about what he did with his childhood dreams. Someone to talk to, by Grégory Panaccione (Le Lombard, 2021), is a moving graphic novel adaptation of the eponymous novel by Cyril Massarotto (XO, 2017) which will undoubtedly delight all those who keep a little nostalgia for the time when phones still had a wire. A real nugget full of humor and tenderness.
Hélène Roulot-Ganzmann
An immodest logbook
Its loyal readers will have had to wait for many years, but Marie-Sissi Labrèche has finally come back to them, in all her insolence. This time again, she hides nothing of her unhappy childhood, her anxiety attacks and her perpetual feeling of inadequacy. Whether she is stuck between her desperate mother and her cantankerous grandmother in the middle of an insanitary housing, on the benches of UQAM in literature or in her suburban house, she never seems out of place. It is not, however, for lack of trying, as she describes it with a mixture of rage and irony in this diary, and shameless, logbook to learn to navigate in a world that constantly frightens her. For who does not yet know this unique and insolent voice, 225 milligrams of me (Leméac, 2021) represents the ideal prescription.
André Lavoie
Jorane’s ambition
When I first listened to this opus released in September, I was taken with a pleasant nostalgia. Jorane has been able to innovate throughout his discography, but with Hemenetset, she returns to the sources of her creativity. With its made-up words and musical exploration, the album reminded me 16 mm, released in 2000. The cégépienne that I was then played it in a loop in its CD player. This new album is the fruit of no less than six years of ambitious work. We find Jorane on voice and cello, but also on harp. The melodies are coated with the choirs of Chloé Lacasse and Geneviève Toupin, but also strings, piano and synthesizers, percussion and programming. For a concert experience, Jorane will take the stage in 2022, April 6 and 7 at the Grand Théâtre de Québec and April 21 at the Théâtre Outremont in Montreal. I will definitely be there!
Leïla Jolin-Dahel
A certain vision of the future
Does your son-in-law love science fiction? He has already read Dune, swallowed all Asimov, and seeks his next book-universe? A vision of the future so glaring with truth, so well thought out in its smallest details, that one would swear that the author has the gift of foreknowledge? Offer him The three-body problem (Actes Sud, 2016), first volume of the masterful trilogy of Chinese director Liu Cixin, soon to be adapted for Netflix by the creators of the series Game Of Thrones. And above all, do not read absolutely nothing about it, not even the summary at the back, under penalty of inadvertently deflowering a breathtaking plot, which reveals itself like a long backward tracking shot, both in time and in space. It all starts with the Maoist revolution, the space race… and ends hundreds of millennia later. A tale of long time that is as dizzying as it is bewitching.
Tristan Roulot
Works of art to wear
Lili is inspired by nature (sometimes a bouquet of wild flowers, sometimes a mountainous landscape or the waves of the ocean) to create timeless jewels adorned with illustrations as refined as they are feminine. Shaped one by one from clay from Quebec – hard to do more local! – these porcelain earrings beautifully enhanced with 22 karat liquid gold are painted and then meticulously assembled by hand. Not one is the same, and that’s what makes their charm! We love the delicate floral pattern which here reminds us of Japanese cherry blossoms. And the artist’s other models are just as irresistible. Creativity at the service of elegance!
Koya earrings, $ 45
Jessica dostie
An ode to Montreal everyday life
How to go through a life when it seems defined by all the generations that have preceded us? How can we approach the future with enthusiasm when images of our past come back to haunt us? After all, there is only one certainty: life is full of secrets, but also of dangers. This is what Alain Farah seems to want to tell us with his novel A thousand secrets, a thousand dangers (Le Quartanier, 2021). In this autobiographical tale spanning several generations, the author and professor of literature at McGill University reveals himself as never before. He deals with nostalgia for his first loves, his teenage stupidities in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville and Petit Liban neighborhoods in Saint-Laurent. The story opens with the most important days of his life: that of his marriage and that of the death of one of the people most dear to his heart. Touching, heartbreaking in authenticity and imbued with great gentleness, this novel is an ode to the daily life of Montreal of a young man wishing to find his place between two cultures that come together in him.
Flavie Boivin-Côté
January under the Colombian sun
A big star in Latin America, singer-songwriter Carlos Vives will perform on January 29 at L’Olympia. If in 2017, La Bicicleta, his single in duet with Shakira, had propelled his popularity on a planetary scale, the child prodigy of Santa Marta – in the northern part of the Colombian coast – already has a beautiful career of three decades on the clock. Witness to the extreme richness and diversity of Latin American music, Vives has made a name for itself for its melodies influenced by vallenato, a traditional musical genre of its region of origin, which has been included in the intangible heritage of UNESCO since 2015. A past master in sound fusion, he has a colorful repertoire that also mixes cumbia, pop, rock, not without trying (brilliantly) to punctual forays into other genres according to his collaborations. At a time when we can finally dance and shout in all joy, do not miss the passage of the artist to the joy of living so communicative. Undoubtedly the best antidote to the greyness of January!
Rabea Kabbaj
A comforting storm
From the first notes of the song Where the storm, the images began to scroll. I was conquered by the warmth of the interpretation and the steel guitar. Armed with a limpid and comforting voice, Amélie M. Bastien (alias the little girl in anorak) whispers her sweet melodies to us with candor, literally making us travel, in images, through her inspirations permeated by nature, everyday life , and small and big magic moments. On November 18, at the Quai des brumes, in Montreal, the singer-songwriter offered us, in acoustic formula, her first EP, Time stops. This mini-album features four country-folk-style songs, on which the strings intertwine in his sweet voice. To listen in front of a good hot chocolate marshmallows. Available on all listening platforms.
Christian Vien
Hope for better times
Polish composer and pianist Hania Rani reunites with Dobrawa Czocher, her childhood friend cellist, for a new four-handed album. Inner Symphonies was born from a series of video exchanges and was composed in full confinement. This unclassifiable album embodies, from start to finish, the feeling of loneliness that has inhabited us in the last year. By their own admission, the two musicians claim to have wanted to bring comfort and – above all! – hope through this musical project. Pay particular attention to the room There Will Be Hope. The minimalist influence of Philip Glass is clearly exposed there: uncertain and tense atmosphere whose breath grows little by little, before the conclusion on a change of key that overthrows you and envelops you in the soul. The hope for better times lies in listening to Hania Rani and Dobrawa Czocher.
Claudia Vachon
In the eye of Yousuf Karsh
Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchill… the great legends in the history of the 20th centurye century were revealed in front of the lens of photographer Yousuf Karsh. Thanks to a donation of 111 photographs from the Estate of Yousuf Karsh and Estrellita Karsh, widow of the portrait painter, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts presents the exhibition The universe of Yousuf Karsh: the essence of the subject. In three chronological sections, the public discovers works expressing the humanist vision of the Armenian-Canadian artist. Sometimes touching, sometimes confusing, her proofs demonstrate her mastery of the gelatin silver process, but also her ability to capture in less than a second the unknown nature of the most famous personalities of this world. At the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), until January 30
Maryse Deraîche
A walk in the forest, warm on the couch
I received it as a gift a few days ago, for no particular reason, from a great friend who knows me well. Since then, I savor Forest woman (Éditions Marchand de feuilles), Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette’s latest novel, like a small cake at the end of which I am in no hurry to arrive. Like the other books by this Quebec author, her latest novel is an instant crush for me. This time, she invites us to enter a century-old house shared by two families. A house full of humans, nature and winter all around. A book that overflows with life, that makes you want to fill your lungs with fresh air and open your eyes wide. While his bestseller The woman who fledt has won numerous honors, including the Prix des libraires du Québec and the Prix littéraire France-Québec, Forest woman does not disappoint. Every word seems out of place. There are many strong and unexpected images, and the emotions are so well drawn that you can almost feel them yourself. To slip without hesitation under the tree, as much for the initiates as for the neophytes of the work of this writer (and also to offer oneself, without remorse).
Catherine girouard