THE SCARIEST SIGNS IN THE WORLD

Skull and crossbones? Check. Little girl in pigtails running away from the death wave? Check. Top is from Ticino, Switzerland. These signs are everywhere, next to the most innocent looking little quiet mountain streams. Bottom is from Montreal and is just plain evil. What is the instruction here? Simply: death is coming from above.

MONTREAL IN MARCH NGT

The nice editors of National Geographic Traveler called to tell me that Montreal was the most "playful" city in the world. OK, I said. Would I, they asked, go there and find the playfulness and report back? OK, I said. Mostly this involved talking to contortionist teachers at the national academy of circus, dodging the rain and drinking coffee with some interesting folks who love their city. Also: eating sweet Fairmount bagels, foie gras poutine (above, from the excellent Au Pied de Cochon) and a lot of other things that didn't make it into the story because it wasn't a food story. Anyway, I think everyone can agree Montreal is a fine city. PDF of the story is HERE. I'll put up a link to an online version when I can find one.

MONTREAL

In Montreal this week/end. Sun, rain, contortionists, foie gras poutine and sweet bagels.
AM: students practicing at the École Nationale de Cirque. PM: "Duck in a Can" at Au Pied de Cochon.

Echo

On the left: Scene from my hike in Canada.
On the right: Scene from Bergman's Seventh Seal.

Bears! Helicopters! Cookies!

I'm in the Canadian Rockies this week heli-hiking. The helicopter delivers us to some remote otherwise unreachable peak. We walk around, eat cookies, avoid bears, eat cookies. Then "the machine" (as all staff here refer to it) picks us up again and drops off at another beautiful spot, before picking us up and bringing us back to the lodge for cocktail hour. It's all pretty civilized. [By the way, this isn't slowed down. I shot this on my little camera which takes only a few frames per second which can't keep up with the fast-moving blades. The pickup is actually sort of terrifying as the helicopter basically flies right at you and lands a foot from your crouching body