this piece takes the form of an editorial.

skip ahead to the project launch

preamble

language and identity are difficulty topics. The context of my upbringing is fairly distant from what can be reasonably described as a “muti lingual multi racial ‘democracy’” and i am easily lost on the self conscious anxieties of “coloniality” of everything. (Colonial: a process of making XXX identity out of the bodies of YYY, should YYY have their own stuff going on before arriving at ZZZ place and have XXX thrown onto them.)

introduction

The bar l’escogriffe has a triangle table near the front. Behind the fun triangle table are two stools, and upon the stools are the friends of the musicians/acts, and in their hands a cash box, a guest list, and a l’esco stamp. This is what we call the door/ticket person. On Friday the 28th i returned to l’ecco to see the stool occupied by a familiar stranger.

This time, it is live jazz/swing act and the bar is full of middle ages white franco man in dark (rock & roll ?) fits. Me, in my loafer and floral dress, decided to take my lager (in my attempt to stick to french I pronounced it as “léger”) outside and enjoy the ambience while waiting for the show to start.

I learnt about the show from a poster on l’esco’s wall when i was at there on tuesday. It was filled with anglo queers with the beauty and pretty i know and love and i was on that stool behind the triangle table. At one point I was asking a friend’s friend if her roommate, who was there, is single and giggling and barely holding it together throughout the exchange. At time of writing i can imagine in sharp detail the slip dress and 10/10 eye makeup [redacted] wore that night. Obviously nothing came out of it: i am accustomed to give myself a million excuses to never remotely appear as imposing on anyone.

And tonight l’esco is of frano middle aged men.

The band warms up, and i was saying to my friend maybe tonight is the night i try to keep it to french. It has been a long time coming: accumulation of what must now be north of a thousands hours of classes and efforts, a chance encounter with swing, surprise teleportation away from the anglo status quo, and the reassuringly familiar roles and venue. The effort did not last all night.

The following Monday, i recorded this interview on franco music with PO and Mat.

the interview

0 min 0s – 3 min 25 s : is frano music a genera?
3 min 36 s : cat purring
4 min 45 s : reminder – cats all over
3 min 25 s – 6 min 26 s : trying to make sense of north america and montreal
6 min 26 s – 8 min 17 s : franco shows and festivals
8 min 17 s – 10 min 30 s : is the vibe different?
10 min 30 s – 19 min 29 s : fav frano acts
12 min 50 s : more purring
19 min 29 s – 22 min 30 s : Mat’s take
22 min 30 s – 26 min 03 s : take home message
26 min 03 s – fin : idea for the new project

postscript

At time of writing, I am cycling through Just As I Am by Bill Withers and Rapture by Anita Baker. Just As I Am because i randomly saved Ain’t No Sunshine from ages ago and just discovered the album. Rapture because it came recommended by (shame on me for forgetting his name) La Fin du Vinyl’s Thurs/Fri shop keeper. Reflecting back on what Mat and PO said about living under the shadow of American cultural output, I think should be thankful for my national education and collective efforts of the past/current generations such that i am in a position to hold steadfast against american/western cultural output, to dance with it where i please, and to scoff at it when its imperial and colonial fangs are showing. I think this interview and the matching table project it inspires is an effort at subduing the patterns of coloniality that i bring to the table while, hopefully, bringing value to the “community”.

the franco matching table

It’s a running dry laugh among language learners that Spanish speakers are very happy to hear you try to speak spanish and very encouraging, whereas french speakers just give death stares and switch to english. In this light PO’s suggestion of starting with Frano festival is terrifying for the more timid-inclined. I think it more approachable if the venue is smaller and folks know what they are getting themselves into – and hence the idea of a matching table.

every genre that you can think of, there is a Quebecois (franco) alternative – Mat

And this table is almost exactly that, where we try to pair some known entity (genera, act, etc) to a local franco act so there will be some sense of familiarity going into it. I definitely do not have the knowledge to pull this off. so… text me!

The link to this project is in the menu section on the bottom of every page, and is also here.