Category Archives: culture

café, Coffee, coffee scenes, culture, espresso, Montreal, WiFi

Montreal Coffee Renaissance?

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Just posted a message about my Caffè in Gamba, a new café in Montreal.

CoffeeGeek – Regional: Eastern Canada, Caffè in Gamba (Montreal Intelligentsia)

Because this café’s website isn’t online yet, I would need to repeat the info. The café is located in a new building at 5263 Park Ave., between Fairmount and Bernard. It’s first claim for fame is that it’s the first place in Montreal to have Intelligentsia coffee on its regular coffee menu. But I think it’ll become much more than this.

Owner J.F. Leduc is surprisingly soft-spoken for a passionate coffee lover. But I think he prefers it if the coffee “can speak for itself” instead of him having to hype coffee enjoyment out of existence. In fact, he has a bit of the same humble attitude you would notice in an actual barista in Northern Italy. They know what they like but they remember that they’re in the service industry! 🙂

I think Leduc can become a key player in the broader movement to make Montreal a real coffee destination.

Granted, I tend to be overly enthusiastic about such things. And I’ve been disappointed in the past. But I have a good vibe, especially after I got a chance to chat it up with Leduc.

I also notice something bigger, happening in town. There’s a number of Montrealers who really care about coffee. And Montreal’s ready for a new phase in its coffee history.

Veritas, in Old Montreal, is home to Anthony Benda, whom I consider the best barista in Montreal. They sell the Epic blend from Vancouver roaster 49th Parallel. My hope is that Veritas can help people understand the beauty that is West Coast style espresso in a culinary context.

Gamba has a different role, in my opinion. It may become a local hangout and certainly has the potential to educate people about the pleasures of espresso drinking. But my feeling is that it may spread other aspects of café culture and/or be part of something more specific to Montreal.

I’ll certainly go back to Caffè in Gamba in the near future and, as soon as they have their site up, I’ll link to it from this blog as well as other online venues.

In the meantime, maybe somebody can help J.F. set up his wireless router? 😉

academics, CBC, critical thinking, culture, Ethnography

"Let's Wilson It"

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Was listening to the podcast version of CBC’s Quirks and Quirks science program. The latest episode has some interesting segments, two of which are with men called D. Wilson. Just a coincidence, I’m sure, but it’s kind of funny. Especially since one of those Wilsons’ homepage mentions another Wilson: E.O. Wilson (who gave a TEDtalk recently).

Hence my cryptic title. Kind of a way to put things together in an apparently arbitrary fashion. Fun!

With these science shows, I guess attitude is everything. The first Wilson interview was with biological anthropologist Daniel H. Wilson, a roboticist whose Where’s My Jetpack? book sounds like a fascinating look at mid-20th C. futurism in the current context. Apart from the content of that interview, I truly enjoyed DHW’s cheeriness. While listening to him, I thought about blogging just about that. He sounds like a humanist, a technology enthusiast, and a critical thinker all wrapped into one person. IOW, he just sounded like an interesting and well-rounded person. Neat! I’m somewhat jealous of the fact that he makes a living writing non-fiction books, but who knows where life will be leading me in the next few years. 😉
The second Wilson interview was with David Sloan Wilson about his book Evolution for Everyone. Now, as a culturalist, I had some apprehensions when I heard the description of the book by the Q&Q host. In ethnographic disciplines, we’re extremely wary of the application of ideas from biological evolution to cultural phenomena. Many of us have a knee-jerk reaction to evolutionary claims on culture. Not because we want to protect culture. But because we typically find those theories reductive and simplistic. Add to this wariness the intricacies of the nurture/nature debate on the disciplinary level and you’re likely to get tensions between evolutionary biologists and culturalists on those issues. IOW, I was prepared for the worst but I thought I should listen to the interview anyway.

And I’m glad I did. Not that there was a lot of new ideas in what DSW said. But he sounded open-minded enough that his explanations didn’t rub too hard against my skin. In fact, I found a few things about which I can easily agree with him, including the fact that people should pay attention to both genetics and culture. Interestingly enough, DSW’s harsher words were directed at his colleagues in biological fields, especially Richard Dawkins.

Those idea with which I most readily agreed in the DSW interview were quite similar to what I got from music and cognition researcher Ian Cross. Simply put, biologically-savvy people seem to agree with us (culturalists) that human culture is adaptive. Where we differ has more to do with issues of causality and determinism than with the basic phenomena. It makes it easy to “set aside our differences” and talk about the actual relationships between culture and adaptation without reacting viscerally.

As is often the case with more biologically-oriented scholars, David Sloan Wilson’s concept of culture sounds fairly limited in scope or even sophistication. In the interview, he mentioned music and other things listed by the Q&Q host and then mostly talked about religion. It would have been useful if DSW had defined his concept of culture anthropologically but I’m not surprised that he didn’t do so on a science show. The reason I care is that I’m thinking about using this segment in some future cultural anthropology courses and I don’t want students to think that culture is limited to what we usually call “superstructure.”

Ah, well…

Anthropology, cultural awareness, culture, fieldwork, globalisation, nationalism, opinions, Orientalism, patriotism, Québec, ramblings, rants

Took a While

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The latest episode of Télé-Québec’s Les Francs Tireurs had a segment on international humatarian aid. (Especially of the Euro-American CICR and Reporters sans frontières style.) Maybe there are more (I don’t to watch much television) but this one was the first television report which had a thoughtful and insightful discussion of the negative impacts of humanitarian aid.

Of course, several parts of the discussion were probably edited out (hosts on the show are sometimes explicit about the “need” for editing) and it did sound at times like discussions that most anthropology students have had at one point or another (usually pretty early on in their training) but it was quite refreshing, especially when compared to the usual news reports on how bad the situation is supposed to be anywhere else in the world (i.e., any place where people live a different lifestyle).

What’s funny is that the two main participants in the show were quite honest about the biases of Quebec society in terms of humanitarian aid. This is a society (my own upbringing) in which people pride themselves to be “open-minded” (often meaning “more open-minded that you“). Yet people take humanitarian aid as a sacred principle, not to be criticised. Some aid workers in Africa and elsewhere seem to think that their mission (the religious connotations were discussed on the television show) is to help Others become more like them. Pretty charitable when you see your own habits as the only appropriate way to live, but pretty damaging when you transform knowledgeable human beings into the object of pity.

activism, advocacy, Alcohol, Beer, brewing, brewpubs, Cegeps, consumerism, craft beer, craft beer culture, cuisine, culture, economics, Empowerment, food and society, foodies, geek crowd, homebrewing, humor, humour, local, market economy, marketing, mass media, media, mediascape, moral enterpreneurs, Québec, responsible drinking, social capital, social dynamics, stereotypes, taste, tasting

Alcohol Marketing, Craft Beer, and Responsible Drinking

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[UPDATE: Press release. Much clearer than the Hour article…]

This could potentially be big for craft beer. A code of ethics for alcohol adverts.

Hour.ca – News – Alcohol marketing becomes ethical

A bit like video game manufacturer who propose rating systems for their own games, members of the alcoholic beverage industry in Quebec are trying to regulate their own advertising practises. According to the article:

Under the new code, the following has been forbidden:

  • Using alcohol content as a sales argument
  • Associating alcohol with violent or asocial behaviour, or with illicit drugs
  • Sexism or the association of the product with sexual performance, sexual attraction or popularity
  • Implications that the product improves physical or intellectual capacities, or has health benefits
  • Encouraging drinking games or excessive drinking
  • Making the product particularly attractive to people under 18
  • Showing images of people who look younger than 25
  • Showing disrespect for those who choose not to drink

By proposing such a code of ethics, the industry may possibly bypass government regulation. It also shows that its members are willing to go some distance in changing their practises.

Educ’alcool‘s message, associating responsible (moderate) drinking with taste, is well-established in Quebec culture and this code goes in the same line. By contrast, in the U.S., advocacy for responsible drinking is criticized by academics and health specialists. IMHO, this criticism has the effect of encouraging younger people to binge drink, with sad consequences. Educ’alcool and Quebec’s alcoholic beverage industry are probably trying to avoid such a situation. Although it might sound counter-intuitive, binge drinking is not beneficial to their bottom line. After all, nobody wants to get sued for the death of any of consumers.

The main apparent target of this code is beer advertising, especially on television. While Quebec has its share of beer ads with scantily clad women, even ads for some of InBev’s Labatt products are somewhat more subtle. In fact, the French-speaking versions of commercials for Labatt bleue have, over the years, represented an alternative to the typical "beer gets you laid" message. As typical of Quebec culture, these ads have used humour to carry their message, often with puns and other word play. For instance, one of the most recent ads uses a zeugma and the names of several parts of Quebec (strengthening the association between the beer and Quebec cultural identity). It also describes the beer in its association with food.

Which brings me to the interesting point about craft beer. While beer advertisement is typically full of what this new code of ethics seeks to prohibit, craft beer positions itself in exactly the same line as Educ’alcool and this code of ethics: taste and responsible drinking. The only television ads I’ve seen for craft beer were made by Boston Beer company for their Samuel Adams products. These ads usually emphasize the brewing craft itself and have been discussed by many members of the craft beer crowd. An important point is that they’re quite effective at delivering the message about taste, quality, sophistication, and responsibility. (Actually, I wore a Samuel Adams t-shirt yesterday, after reading about the new code of ethics. Didn’t even notice the possible connection!)

Any craft beer person will argue that craft beer always wins on taste. So if the new marketing message needs to focus on taste, craft beer wins.

It’s quite striking that the code of ethics mentions people looking older than 25. IMHO, it’s overstating the case a bit. IMHO, nothing is to be gained by avoiding the portrayal of members of the 18-25yo age bracket in advertising for responsible drinking. This demographic is not only very important for the alcohol industry but it’s one which should be targeted by the responsible drinking movement. Educ’alcool does target people who are even younger than that, so that they "do the right thing" once they’re old enough to drink, but there’s no reason to let people down once they start drinking. Eighteen-year-olds are not only learning the value of responsible drinking, they’re integrating responsible drinking in their social lives. And they’re learning how to taste alcoholic beverages.

Apart from age, characteristics of craft beer people are usually the same as those of the target market for beer in general. But their emphasis is really: taste, distinctiveness, sophistication, and responsibility. Again, perfect for the new type of ads.

Speaking of beer marketing, the issue of Montreal’s Hour indie weekly also has a piece on the importance of beer sponsorships for the success of events in the city. Coincidence?

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cultural identity, culture, Francophonie, media, Québec

The Vitality of Quebec Culture

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[Kept this one in my draft list for about a month. But thinking of Saint-Jean-Baptiste and other issues pushes me to post it as is. To be continued…]
This is something of a follow-up on my CriticalWorld post on Quebec’s music industry.
Was reading a gushing piece on Pierre-Karl Péladeau and Julie Snyder's media convergence success story to link from my blog entry on Quebec music scenes and the CRTC. That piece was written by Globe and Mail journalist Konrad Yakabuski whose perspective on Quebec's “cultural industries,” though very business-oriented, seems rather insightful. A few months after that Péladeau/Snyder piece, Yakabuski wrote an article about the success story revolving around Quebec movie Seducing Doctor Lewis (original title: La Grande séduction). That movie is actually one of my favourite examples of what Quebec culture “is all about” these days. Not only did I really enjoy that movie, but the fact that it has won several awards implies something more than local appeal. To me, it’s a good example of something clearly Québécois, yet rather easily exportable.

Obviously, my perspective isn’t so much about the economy of it. Like music, “culture” is not a commodity.  But business-minded journalists and myself, a French-speaking Québécois and ethnographer, may share some ideas about the situation.
Quick notes:

  • Quebec is a relatively small society (by population) but is quite active in many domains, especially the part of arts and entertainment that is known as “culture”
  • Despite political incentives to say otherwise, we’re pretty secure about our culture.
  • Quebec culture is rather inward-looking and even clique-like. But the effects of this are not all bad.
  • While there might only be twenty-six “media personalities” in Quebec (a made-up number, for effect), they’re basically everywhere and constitute a very special group. The very fact that Quebec has something of a “star system” is itself fascinating. It’s not so much the case in Switzerland (which has about the same population as Quebec).
  • Montreal has a long-lasting rivalry with Quebec City but it’s not on the minds of Montrealers on a daily basis (the way it might be for some people in the capital). And Toronto’s rivalry with Montreal is not so much of a two-way street.
  • Quebec culture in general remains quite distinct from other North American cultures but it’s also much less dependent on France than it once was.
  • Cultural diversity in Quebec is much more significant than “the numbers” might imply. It signifies more in part because cultural identity has been the subject of much dialogue, debate, and discussion for at least the past 36 years.
  • This weekend is both Saint-Jean weekend and Grand Prix weekend. Woohoo!
Alcohol, Beer, culture, Québec, responsible drinking

Iowa "Alcohol Culture"

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Easy access to alcohol and an alluring bar scene contribute to a high rate of drinking-related arrests, even by college-town standards

A newspaper article full of fallacies, logical flaws, non sequiturs on the association of alcohol-related problems with "easy access" to alcohol.

Of course, coming from Quebec which has comparatively loose alcohol laws and even more widespread availability of alcohol (especially for university students) to a dry university where they have more alcohol-related problems, I'm quite ready to challenge this point.
Interestingly, they use the number of alcohol-related arrests as a major proof that they have more problems. What's the name of that specific logical flaw?

From the article:

Recent studies show that people in the upper Midwest drink more than in other parts of the country and that heavy binge drinking corresponds with less-strict state laws on alcohol.

I'd really like to see those "studies," especially since it seems quite unlikely that the MidWest in general has looser state laws on alcohol than every part of the Northeast. Also, the article keeps saying that those who overindulge come from out of state so their data would in fact support the notion that Iowa has more problems because other places have stricter laws. There's a significant difference.

One would hope that, one day, the US will wake up and see that restrictive attitudes toward alcohol compound the problem. It's even a problem for us in Quebec because "college" students from the US go across the border to drink excessively. Also, influence from the US, in some places, seems to make some Quebeckers see alcohol as a way to get drunk as opposed to a part of a normal healthy adult life. Hopefully, we'll keep the focus on responsible drinking and non-judgemental help for those who abuse alcohol for one reason or the other. As the Quebec liquor board says: «La modération a bien meilleur goût» ("responsible drinking tastes better").