Ian Austen reports for the NY Times (archived):
When Kristy Findlay moved to Quebec City after her American-born husband accepted a job there, she soon developed a longing. “I would go to parks with my young children, I would hear a little English spoken, and I feel like: Oh my gosh, I’m hungry for it,” said Ms. Findlay, who was raised in Ontario. […]
But even in this Francophone redoubt, Ms. Findlay was ultimately able to find a place where her craving for conversation in her native language could be sated. At a former jail and Presbyterian college standing amid the cobblestone streets of the city’s historic Upper Town, a discreet sign above the entrance, reading simply “Morrin,” gives no hint of the linguistic heterodoxy taking place inside.
The Morrin Cultural Centre acts as a hub for Quebec City’s English speakers much the same way as outposts of the Goethe-Institut do for Germans living abroad. It’s a place for books, education, conversation and, above all, it’s a reminder to English speakers that they aren’t alone.
At its heart is the city’s only English-language library. With its cast iron balcony railings and green leather chairs, it still has a decided 19th-century flavor, even if its wooden shelves are filled with contemporary titles. […]
With the exodus of English speakers in the 1980s, the Morrin Centre suffered something of a slump, with much of the building uninhabitable and decaying. Money was so tight, remembers Ms. Kameen, a board member at the time, that “the big decision as a board member back then was if we would get an electric typewriter.”
A series of fund-raising events and government grants financed extensive renovations, and the building’s history became an asset. The cells from its days as a jail had never been removed from the basement, largely because they held up the foundation. They were transformed into a claustrophobic, if evocative, museum about the prison and prison reform in 19th-century Quebec.
The torrent of tourists who descend on Quebec City who now pay for tours of the library and jail have created a reliable revenue source to maintain the building and fund programs.
On a recent evening, a lecture by Sandra Tomaylla, a local photographer and filmmaker, attracted a diverse group of people — including a French speaker, Christian Shriqui. Originally from Montreal, Mr. Shriqui said he belongs to a book club at the Morrin and regularly attends workshops and poetry readings here — all in English.
“It’s a very rare jewel, a gem,” Mr. Shriqui said, adding that he regularly encounters other French speakers at the events.
It’s a nice-looking place, and if I visited Quebec City I’d definitely drop by. (I trust we can enjoy and/or discuss the piece without getting into tiresome arguments about language policy in Quebec; we’ve been there and done that.)
Off-topic, maybe irrelevant here:
hatitude
First paragraph of a July 24 book review::
“Lately, everybody has been looking for the decade that did this to us—put the country in the appalling state of full-spectrum hatitude that we now permanently inhabit (a condition so many seem to enjoy). The ’80s for many reasons give off the strongest scent as the culprit. Paul Elie’s The Last Supper, a sprawling and many-peopled time machine of a book, does the necessary forensics and locates the roots of our endless culture wars in that decade—but his ’80s may not be the ’80s you lived through and/or remember and/or have read about and/or watched on replay”.
https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/among-the-blasphemers/
OK, “hatitude” just doesn’t work for me — I presume it’s based on “hate,” but it looks like it should rhyme with “attitude.” Bad word-formation, Gerald Howard!
You’ve doubled up the sentence which starts ‘The torrent of tourists’. (Which is quite a nice word for them. I wish Edinburgh’s tourists were a torrent, but they’re more like a log jam.)
LH knows better than I, though merely note the earlier hattitude.
You’ve doubled up the sentence which starts ‘The torrent of tourists’.
Good catch — I’ve undoubled it!
Interesting review, though. But much of it seems to boil down to the idea that you can’t be provocative using religion unless someone actually believes the stuff in question, and probably won’t really be motivated to, unless you believe it yourself, at least residually.
I liked the Flannery O’Connor story:
Even back when the political/cultural power of Anglophones in Quebec was other than what it now is, the Presbyterian college that once occupied the space turned out not to really be a viable proposition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrin_College
But good adaptive reuse of the former city gaol?
hatitude
I read the thread bottom up and thought someone made up a word describing a mood or a multitude of this blog. Was really disappointed. Maybe hattitude?
“hatitude” just doesn’t work for me — I presume it’s based on “hate,” but it looks like it should rhyme with “attitude.”
Quite. Or “latitude”.
Lateitude: the habit of expecting no-one will turn up on time, so I won’t either.
Most Ghits for “hatitude” relate to hats.
We already have hate, hating, hatred, and hatefulness; what nuance is “hatitude” meant to have? Maybe it is actually intended as a blend of “hate” and “attitude”? In which case, still nope
“hatitude”
i’m very much in agreement with mollymooly, adding only that the semantic field it seems to be grasping for does have a word in it: hateration. even a widely known (if not necessarily widely-used) word, thanks to mary j. blige.*
.
* in the same song where she uses strong past tense “crunk” (the likely origin of the genre name and other uses; i think “cr[azy d]runk” is purely retrospective, from the crossover moment).
unrelatedly, @JiE: it’s been interesting to see the slacker flow of tourists in nyc since the new regime began. i know an abrupt stop isn’t great for a lot of people in the city, but to my eye it is such a manifest improvement. after having gotten a feel for what the city completely without tourists could be like in 2020-21*, the different gradations of presence vs. intrusion stand out more than they used to (or perhaps because before that the level only ever went up).
.
* because i travel by bike, i was a lot more mobile than most when the subway system was down or running a reduced schedule, so i got to see the emptiest version. if anyone ever tries to tell you that the christopher street liberation day march (better known as the nyc pride parade) was cancelled in 2020, they’re wrong. i was half of it; we went the whole route at the usual time of day. barely saw another soul on the road till 14th st.)
the same way as outposts of the Goethe-Institut do for Germans living abroad
So… not much? In the places where I was living abroad, Germans got together in clubs of the German economy, in informal circles playing Skat (a card game) or found the places where a decent beer was served, especially in countries where that’s difficult to find. The people you met at the Goethe institutes were almost all locals visiting German language courses or wanting to learn about German culture.
@rozele
You should have carried a placard “What if they had a Pride Parade and nobody came?”. Also thanks for the “flow of slacker tourists” (my first reading–they would give poor tips but share their drugs with you after you finished work).
rozele,
That’s a nice image. Was that planned with a friend or spontaneous with someone who was there when you showed up?