It’s hard to say what really makes a city sexy. It’s the little things, the je ne sais quoi, after all, that make a person sexy, a kind of ineffable spirit. Cities are just the same; they’ve either got it or they don’t. Montreal definitely has sex appeal, the kind of exotic charm frequently attribute to older men and women who’ve been around the block and experimented—the type of people who have seen a lot but know better than to kiss and tell.

Montrealers may kiss and tell, but often they do it en français, which makes everything seem that much more sexy to an outsider who speaks only English. The easy back-and-forth between French and English impresses tourists and impressionable Anglophones, and with just a few words, they may find themselves back at a beautiful guy or gal’s apartment for a nightcap. Oh la la!

Montreal is sexy for many reasons, and while we can’t discount the obvious (the strip clubs, the sex shops), it’s not the obvious things that seduce the well-travelled and the worldly. No, there’s something more to this city that keeps people coming back for more. It’s the attitude, the one that argues against the soul-crushing 40-hour work week and in favour of greater free time, relaxation, and a general joie de vivre. Montreal is sexy because its inhabitants know how to take their time, delight in seduction and play, love to wine and dine and romance each other, even when they know they are doing things that residents will recognize as a bit cliché. Picnics on the Mountain, long walks along the Lachine Canal, lounging in cafés and dining on fine wine and oysters at upscale French bistros: these things are popular, seductive, for a reason. Those of us who have lived in the city long enough bristle against their predictability, but they’re also an important part of the real Montreal experience. Anyone who hasn’t been spied naked and heaving on the Mountain, somewhere on the path toward orgasm, isn’t really One Of Us.

Montreal is a town of exhibitionists, of sexual libertines, of the naked and the bold. But it has no guidebook to these carnal pleasures and earthly delights. I therefore propose to write a field guide to these local delicacies, moans and sighs of interest. I am currently researching and compiling items to include in my Sexy Montreal guidebook. If you have anything you’d like to see included in the book, please contact me at
laura [at] blackheartmagazine.com.

"first storm of the new year" by Flickr user placeinsun

I start with the simple things. People always want to know about the snow in Montreal. “Does it snow a lot up there?” my American friends will ask. It doesn’t matter where they’re from. Some of them never get any snow where they live, and others have winters that are just as bad as ours. They all seem to think I live in an igloo, bundled in furs year-round.

I don’t, but it sure as hell snows up here. In fact, although it’s supposedly spring, it just snowed several inches the other day. April 8 and it’s still snowing. I’m still bundled up in my winter coat when I run errands, my scarf wound ’round my neck. It starts to drive you a bit mad, particularly when you’ve previously lived in the hot, humid, writhing soap-bubble of New York City where snow falls rarely and melts quickly. You begin to miss “April showers bring May flowers,” because March always roars in like a lion, but rarely departs quietly like a lamb, and nothing quite makes sense when there’s snow falling past the allotted winter months.

Sure, our April snowfalls don’t stick the way our February storms do, but it’s disconcerting, nevertheless. And I feel like some kind of weird, anarchistic explorer trying to describe the quality of April snow versus February snow, but I swear yesterday’s snow was nearer to hail, like perfectly round bits of styrofoam packing. Little tiny balls of snow, not flakes at all. They clung to my coat tenaciously, unwilling to melt until I entered my apartment, which was barely warmer than the air outside.

It won’t begin to thaw and truly warm here until the end of May, or even the middle of June. Climate change (aka “global warming”) has pushed all our seasons back a month, although springtime in Montreal has always been iffy. One or two good spring-like days when the weather is warmer but still cool enough to require a light jacket, and then BAM! Summer hits, full blast. Get your air-conditioner out and running. You’ll rarely have a break between your winter heating bill and your summer AC bill in Montreal. C’est la vie.

Even cute little girls should clean up after their dogs! (excerpt from "Dogwalk" comic by Matt Forsythe)

It’s springtime in Montreal, which is to say that every other day is warm enough for the city’s residents to leave their winter coats on the hook and their furry boots parked next to the front door. We all lace up our sneakers and leave the house with a lighter step, because spring has finally sprung, huzzah!

Until we take that first step off of our spiral staircases straight into a squishy, wet pile of dog poop that has been mouldering there since the first snowstorm back in November.

EWWWWWW!

For serious: Montrealers need to get their shit together, by which I mean they need to clean up after their little shit-machine mutts. I’m tired of having to play “dodge the dog-bomb” as I scoot my way up and down even heavily-trafficked streets, and I don’t really understand why Montrealers seem to think that they, like those enlightened Parisians they so love to imitate, also have special city workers who are specifically charged with cleaning up after people’s dogs.

NEWSFLASH: We don’t have any caninettes here, so voyons! Clean up after your dog!

Manager Larissa "Lit Pimp" Dutil poses at the Co-op Bookstore (photo: Rob Maguire)

The Concordia Community Solidarity Co-op Bookstore, or Co-op Bookstore for short, has been helping students reduce their educational debt loads since 2001. Originally founded by the Concordia Student Union (CSU) as a way to allow students to sell back their used textbooks for fair prices, the now independent bookstore’s textbook consignment periods continue to draw students who are tired of the university bookstore’s unfair buy-back policies, which often pay out less than 10% of the books’ original prices.

More than merely offering better money to students in return for their used books, the Co-op Bookstore is also a hub for students, teachers and Montrealers who prefer to buy locally, think about politics, support green initiatives and local artists, and otherwise create a true community. With a mandate to offer everything from new books and textbooks to school supplies and gifts at a fraction of suggested retail value, the bookstore is a great boon for those on a budget. Membership costs only $10 (CAN) for life, and the discounts can regularly add up to 30% for savvy shoppers which is, in many cases, even better than the Chapters/Coles/Indigo iRewards program.

Even more importantly, the Co-op’s customers are loyal, returning again and again to support the store with their purchases and their time. As a not-for-profit organization, the bookstore relies upon word of mouth and customer satisfaction to keep going. Luckily, there are plenty of well-wishers to keep the store afloat. From Concordia’s new Dean of Students, Elizabeth Morey, to local celebrities like members of the band Arcade Fire, the customers, friends and fans of the bookstore support a dizzying variety of causes and interests. Some contribute monetarily with support memberships of $100 from the organizations they represent; faculty and staff help by making commitments to buy their recycled paper through the Co-op, and many insist that their students buy from the Co-op Bookstore rather than the university bookstore, placing preference on this community-building initiative. Others contribute time by volunteering to work at the store, put up flyers on campus for in-store events, or simply show up bearing baked goods from time to time.

With an emphasis on their large and diverse Gender and Sexuality section, the Co-op Bookstore is a hub for gender activism, the English-speaking LGBT community, Women’s Studies students and professors, and anyone interested in the academic study of sexuality and gender issues. In addition to Political Science books from non-partisan perspectives, anarchist themes also permeate the store’s DIY selections, with literature on how to do almost everything from growing vegetables to fixing your bike, making zines and even beer.

In-house events cover a similarly varied gamut, with the annual Anti-Valentine’s Day Party being the most popular. This year’s event drew the largest crowd the bookstore has ever seen, with help from local celebrities like Bitchin’ Lifestyle‘s Nadia G, boudoir photographer Andrea Hausmann, and musical guests Wai-Yant Li and Rae Spoon.

If real community involvement and a little home-made activism is what you’re craving, along with some hot reading material, or a little bit of gift-buying advice from your friendly neighbourhood Lit Pimp (a.k.a. manager Larissa Dutil), the Co-op Bookstore truly has it all. Stop by the shop at 2150 Bishop from Monday to Friday between 10 AM and 6 PM to find out more about this truly unique store and all the bubbling passion it houses within, and don’t miss their “Crazy-Talk Used Book Sale,” featuring used books for as low as $1 a piece, ending this Tuesday, March 31.

Darling, how I miss you! Wandering Toronto’s unfamiliar streets, I shiver and take back every awful word I’ve ever said about your gutter French, crumbling infrastructure, and outrageous taxes that never seem to be reinvested into your joie de vivre. You, Montreal, are a pouty lip-shaped island as no man (or woman) can be, and for this, all manner of offence can be forgiven.

Ma petite chère, ma belle province, you had me captivated from the start with your exotic foreignness, your vive la différence, your escape from average everydayness. You were a revelation: a city that runs on sunshine and a metro that hums a jaunty little tune before gliding on rubber wheels to la prochaine station.

So cute, so precious! You’re a small town where everyone knows one another, a familiar landscape where city life’s fearful anonymity can dissolve. Even your “mountain” is miniature.

And yet you’re oversized, too, with your two solitudes: French on one side of the material divide of St-Laurent, English on the other. Your culture gap looms large, the way parents and children stare at each other, uncomprehending, from either side of a generation. You take the best of both worlds, but also a strangely provincial attitude of FUCK THE ENGLISH! You refuse to teach your children the language of the global economy, reasoning that it will dilute their culture. But tell me, Montreal, what exactly constitutes “culture” here? Oversized fleur-de-lis hats and unicycles? Circus freaks performing in the streets? Homeless men and women frozen like statues on every corner?

Anyway, Montreal, we had some laughs, some good times, but eventually it seemed like you just didn’t care. Maybe there were others, and you were a neglectful mistress. Maybe the sheen was simply off, the honeymoon over.

Maybe I changed, too.

So I left you to seek others. Your sister city, your nemesis, beckoned: Toronto the Good. I ride her streetcars and subway, marvelling now at the foreignness of her unfamiliar street signs: Keele, Osgoode, Ossington, Spadina. There are no saints in this city, and even though I remain convinced that your holies are mostly fictional (St. Philomena?), I’ve come to cherish them in a secular, sacreligious way. They have your je ne sais quoi, ma chère.

Even as I find Toronto’s bosom strange and cold, her heart obsessed with images signifying nothing—or worse, greed—I wonder if there is anything left for me with you, Montreal. Have we parted ways for the last time? Will you continue to sparkle in my memory as the one that got away? Shall we give it one more go, this time with feeling?

My bus returns Monday afternoon, ma chère. If you still care for me, please meet me at the station with love and kisses and a large Italian poutine.

Yours truly,
Elle

I also thought it seemed appropriate to use WordPress’s “Hemingway” theme for the blog, given this photo of her and the old man, which I love: