Are you an artist?
Going through another spell of sleeplessness, so I have been rather too exhausted to be inspired.
Meanwhile, Patrick has been posting small snippets about the Plateau of Montreal, which gave me the urge to try and re-establish the location of this very old house which I had walked past last autumn.
Along Saint-Dominque, lying just south of Mont-Royal, is this tiny house wedged between two apartment buildings, both built much later. The window panes have obviously been changed, but the frames could very well be original. The wood has been painted over, though it has aged and warped quite dramatically in places.
Happy to have found the house, I made my way north, thinking of revisiting a favourite cafe for brunch, one which I'd hardly been to since I'd moved. Until ... I was stopped dead in my tracks by a strong aroma of spices snaking out into the street through an open door.
It turned out to be a tiny cafe, though at 10h45 in the morning, it was somewhat empty.
Okay, I was positively starving. I gave in to bodily urges. Leaning forward in the doorway, I saw that there was a blond young man at the counter.
"Hi. Are you open yet?" I said.
"Well, um." He glanced at the clock. "We can serve dessert and coffee right now, but brunch starts at 11 o'clock."
Then I noticed that he was still writing up the menu on a small blackboard. I went in and plonked myself on a bar stool.
"You can help me with the menu."
"Or I could just watch," I said.
Though instead, I began to write a letter whilst he wrote up the menu. Then, after 10 minutes had crawled by, he said. "Okay, wanna help?" He was serious?
"What do you want me to do?"
"Feel free to decorate it however you want. Flowers, anything."
"Hmm." I picked up the green chalk, wondering if it would be appropriate to draw Charlie on the menu of a vegan cafe.
"Are you an artist?" He looked at me, straight in the face.
"No," I said. I was surprised at how fast that answer came out.
But when I took the chalk in my hand and started drawing a vine, I realised with a mild surprise that my lines are confident, I have a notion of filling in space only as much as is necessary. I'm not an artist, but I have a close relationship with my pens and pencils. Then the blond waiter told me that all the art work in the cafe were done by the staff, and showed me the terrace bathed in weekend sunshine.
So this was my first time at "Aux Vivres", a tiny vegan cafe along Saint-Dominique, also just south of Mont-Royal. The food will blow your tastebuds away, if the charm of the place hasn't blinded your senses.
And speaking of art, Mathieu's Post-It Gallery has been so popular that his bandwidth has gone through the roof. Reading some initial comments left on the first Post-Its, it's interesting what people think art ought to be. Really, expecting sophisticated art on a Post-It is probably much like expecting a high-quality photograph from a disposable Kodak.
Anyway, you might be pleased to know that Charlie has made a guest appearance. :)
Posted by sniffles at June 17, 2003 06:24 PM