Orange Blues
Driving against the sun feels like being the murderous L'Étranger estranged to the limits of bright light and heat. On Autoroute 10 Ouest I'm listening to rock classics on the radio, singing out loud alongside Jim Morrison 'People are strange when you're a stranger.' I'm on my way back to Montréal in a borrowed car (merci Francis!) having just hiked my way up to the Owl's Head Mountain with a semi-stranger. Suddenly my index finger, of its own accord, proceeds to preset 1 button on the display of the radio '....Jack Layton était....un choc...il avait....'. Jack Layton is dead at the age of 61. My heart sinks into the shade of a passing truck. The leader of the New Democratic Party until recently when cancer no longer permitted him, Jack Layton stood for that rare political zest: hope for social democracy in a conservatively regressive (régro-cons, if I may) Canada. The designer of the bike parking poles in Toronto, owner of a tandem bike he used t...