Holiday Spirit

I am enjoying the leftover Christmas lights this spring (scroll down to end of gloom I wish I could make that fancy link that scrolls but I am html-deficient). This display is nice because it has blended in so well with the greenery.

  It is almost as if the ornaments had grown on the tree.

 The snowflakes are like spring blossoms.

Still in the holiday mood, I decided photograph the shrub with the leaves that look like valentine hearts.

I did not find any Halloween references but the season is young.

Gold Shopping Cart

A few weeks ago I caught a glimpse of this odd monument as I rode past BAM.  I knew I had to get a closer look.

 This was installed by a street artist name Specter (who is from Montreal!).  It is a tribute to the city's marginalized workers according to his website. Click on Manage Work Flow under his Projects link to see the cart in its full glory or check out the post on Animal New York from November (it really took me a while to notice).  Specter is in the Gentrification show at MoCada and his work is really lovely (there is much to browse on his site).  

Quebec

We took a little break from New York and headed up North.  We passed throught Montreal and headed up towards some mountains.

It rained all the way up, the skies beginning to clear after we left the city. When we got to our chalet, the snow was already beginning to melt

Nothing was budding, but there were shoots of bright red branches coming out.

In New York snow collects black soot.  In Quebec it collects dirt and twigs.

 

And in Montreal it had a strange scattering of colors.

The people are so nice, it is incredibly soothing.  Everything is cute and colorful

Even the delis

And the grafitti 

Well this mural in Mont Tremblant is sort of an exception to the cute and colorful rule

I am not sure what the mural is about, perhaps a depiction of a church run orphanage?  Everyone has kind of dead eyes staring straight out at the viewer.  The two priests on the end are pushing their feet below the rail as if they are about to crawl out of the painting.  the black dots on some of the foreheads looking like bullet holes add to the creepy zombie movie vibe.

The stone totem in front of McDonald's was intriguing. I saw other totems like this and I am not sure what it is all about.  They actually tended to appear in the more plastic areas.

It was great to be in a place that was so strange and familiar at the same time.  But the best part of leaving New York is coming back.