The Bulletin: Our most boring newsletter yet [Issue #78]

The Bulletin is a collection of what's happened, what’s happening, and what’s to come in and around Montreal.

The Main

The Main

May 23, 2024- Read time: 8 min
The Bulletin: Our most boring newsletter yet [Issue #78]Photograph: Olivier Collet on Unsplash

Pysch! There's a TON of things to do this weekend. Too much to do, even.

We've been saying it over and over again: Summer's coming early this year, and this weekend's arriving like a force of reckoning. Like, the parting of the Red Sea/Battle of Hogwarts/final battle at the Black Gate and Frodo's journey to Mount Doom type of reckoning: Tons of parties, festivals, pop-ups, special events, and weird/fun/weird-fun stories.

You're guaranteed to find something happening in just about every corner of the island this weekend as the heat breaks and everything pops off, but you know the drill: Start the weekend here, and start the weekend right. Happy trails!


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Activities, parties, points of interest, art exhibitions, you name it: These are the weekend events you don't want to miss.

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

  • Mile end en fête's neighbourhood festival will take people through the streets of the neighbourhood with art, music, culture and more on May 25 and 26.
  • Nightclub Francesco’s doing a mysterious after-hours party with the FLTK Collective. Let loose and have at 'er.
  • This year's edition of the storytelling festival Festilou is featuring performers trained in Rakugo, a traditional Japanese storytelling technique—should be wild.
  • Don't miss the vintage pop-up happening at Messorem from 1pm to 7pm.
  • Evoking New Orleans-style music street parties, Dame Festive: Musique de Rue is a new festival featuring 15 performances spanning genres from jazz to reggae in Lachine.

Sunday

  • Weather's looking good, so consider either Tam Tams or Piknic Électronik and its five artists playing across two stages this weekend in Jean-Drapeau.
  • Shop for new wall art at L'Affichiste during their prosecco-fuelled pop-up.
  • The PHI Centre has launched the Canadian premiere of Broken Spectre by award-winning Irish artist Richard Mosse, a 75-minute video with a selection of large-format photos revealing exponential environmental devastation in the Amazon Basin.

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Photograph: Néo Rioux / @restaurant_jaja_mtl (Instagram)

WHAT TO EAT & DRINK IN AND AROUND MONTREAL

Scope the latest restaurant openings, recommendations on where to eat, plus new menus, old classics, and everything in between.

History and all the hits

To understand Jewish food in Montreal, it helps to know about the history of Jews in Montreal and all of the best places to eat the Ashkenazi, Sherpardic, and diasporic variations of its cuisine. This is the only guide you'll need. (The Main)

A guide to Jewish food in Montreal with the Wandering Chew’s Kat Romanow
From the local legends and institutions to new generations, this is your complete guide to the five neighbourhoods holding the keys to Jewish food in Montreal.

Let's go to the Dep

As a locally-focused cultural magazine, we're working with the people who help enrich our city's identity by showing us just how beautiful and creative it is.

That's why we created the Dépanneur, where you can support locals, keep cash in the community, and connect with the people who are creating amazing things (every purchase also helps to support our editorial content, too).

Right now, you can subscribe to our coffee program collaboration with Dreamy Café that's fueled by freshly-roasted Montreal brands, and shipped straight to your door every month. And if you're subscribed to The Main? You get 10% off!


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Here, you'll find a weekly round-up of the latest local news, from entertainment to current affairs and more.

You from Montreal? Here's your homework

Montreal is as appealing for its beauty as for its shadows. Here, the novelist Mona Awad recommends books that are “both dreamy and uncompromising” that prep anyone—local or not—to experience the city. (New York Times)


Melons: A part of our heritage

The Montreal melon made the city famous-ish more than 100 years ago, and it's starting to reappear thanks to seed companies trying to unearth it after being forgotten for decades. (24 Heures)

Image principale de l'article Un fruit qui aurait été protégé par des gardes
Photograph: Fraser Hickson Institute

Some weak sauce

It's not so much the message here as it is the funny way this promotional video from the PQ looks, complete with images of babies, continually walking towards the camera, and its finale shot of some random lake. (Montreal Gazette)

The Parti Québécois is pitching independence — in English
“It is important to recall we are all in the same boat, all united by the same citizenship and the same destiny,” says Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.

Art attack! 🎨

How artistic spaces brought Griffintown back from the brink of an economic recession, political uncertainty around separation, and a brain drain of young Anglos and immigrants to Toronto and the U.S. in the 1990's. (Seven Days)

Griffintown: The Montréal Neighborhood That Art Saved | Seven Days
Fonderie Darling, a massive exhibition space, residency program and hub for contemporary art, is revitalizing Griffintown.

Reviving the Paris of the North?

While artists and venue owners are interested in this idea, they have some reservations, worrying whether staying open all night is worth the trouble while others question whether city-sanctioned 24-hour events will be expensive and crowd out the underground parties for which Montreal is famous. (CBC Montreal)

Montreal artists and venue owners support 24-hour party district - with reservations | CBC News
Earlier this year, the administration of Mayor Valerie Plante held public consultations for a 24-hour nightlife district to be created in a still-undetermined sector of downtown. While artists and venue owners are interested in the idea, they have some reservations.

Don't demolish, just polish

Quebec's housing stock is one of the oldest in Canada. In 2017, 71% of homes dated before 1996 and 24% before 1961. Traditional buildings, built before the second half of the last century, were designed to last 120 years without major work. (Le Devoir)

Les bâtiments existants comme antidote à la crise du logement
Le manque d’entretien et la démolition hâtive des immeubles fragilisent le parc immobilier. Ainsi que la planète.

Flowers, flowers, everywhere so let's all take a pic

In recent years, artificial flowers have been multiplying in restaurants, cafes, hair salons and florists in major European cities, and now the trend's arrived in Old Montreal. Some are saying that attention has to be given to its potential for plastic waste, however. (La Presse)

Photograph: Martin Chamberland / La Presse

The good, the bad, and the groovy

This feature-length film about poverty in Montreal is set against a soundtrack that includes rap, blues, rock, and country and western music. The film deals with the universal themes of hunger, hope and love and is named after an actual Montreal restaurant that's been serving those in need for over 25 years. (NFB)

Au Chic Resto Pop, Tahani Rached, provided by the National Film Board of Canada


And that wraps yet another weekly bulletin. We’ll be back with more curiosities, local stories, and events to discover next week.

If ever you catch something we should know, don't hesitate to reach out to us on Instagram.

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