Casseroles.

June 6, 2012 4:15 AM

Casseroles.
posted by loquacious (23 comments total)

Really great, thanks.
posted by litleozy at 4:26 AM on June 6, 2012

Video taken from recent Quebec student and community protests about tuition fee hikes and anti-protest legislation.
posted by loquacious at 4:26 AM on June 6, 2012

I figured I might not be the only one who had to resort to Google to figure out what was going on here. Pot-banging against Bill 78, Quebec law limiting protests, is catching on
posted by Lame_username at 4:28 AM on June 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

It's a really wonderful form of protest. When I walk or ride around the city in the evening now I always hear pots and pans; often it's just people sitting out on their balconies banging out a rhythm. My impression is that hearing it everywhere, and knowing that you'll hear it everywhere, really keeps up the spirits of the protestors -- a regular reminder of the solidarity of (hundreds of thousands of) others.

I particularly like this video because my doctoral supervisor is in it; holding his pot in his left hand at 3:12.
posted by louigi at 4:44 AM on June 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Sometimes bean casseroles help me make le plus de bruit possible. But that would be a disproportionate form of protest, it's more like chemical warfare.
posted by XMLicious at 4:52 AM on June 6, 2012

There have been casserole nights here in Sherbrooke, too. I find them awesome but always feel a little bad for the lone guy still clanging away after everyone else has decided to call it a night.
posted by Kitteh at 5:12 AM on June 6, 2012

Great visuals, but it would've been great to hear all the pot banging - the actual means of protest, rather than replacing it with music.
posted by FreezBoy at 5:19 AM on June 6, 2012

I saw "casserole" and "Quebec", and I guessed that this was Pat le Chef's casserole video (NSFW unless you work at the naked people restaurant, of course).

Video taken from recent Quebec student and community protests about tuition fee hikes and anti-protest legislation.

I keep seeing tiny mentions of this in the news, and always hope that they will win.
posted by Forktine at 6:18 AM on June 6, 2012

There's a casseroles event in toronto today at 8pm, for those interested: https://www.facebook.com/events/391104920936260/
posted by modernnomad at 6:21 AM on June 6, 2012

I should also add that for those on facebook, if you join that event, there's an interesting wall discussion going on about elements of the black bloc with the casseroles protests attempting to divert them.
posted by modernnomad at 6:24 AM on June 6, 2012

As my grandmother used to say, Hak mir nit keyn tshaynik!.
posted by Jode at 6:28 AM on June 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

In Montreal this is exclusively a French phenomenon. In English districts on the west side the anglos are sitting on their thumbs going derp. Morons, you're being outdone by Toronto, for God's sake. Toronto.
posted by fleetmouse at 6:31 AM on June 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Map of events worldwide. There's one in Vancouver tonight, 8PM at the VAG
posted by doublesix at 7:04 AM on June 6, 2012

We have our march in solidarity with the students in Montreal tonight at 7 in Washington Sq Park for my New York City people. Bring your pots and pans, Occupy!
posted by willie11 at 7:51 AM on June 6, 2012

Oops, that's 8pm tonight and every Wednesday. Washington square park.
posted by willie11 at 8:35 AM on June 6, 2012

In Montreal this is exclusively a French phenomenon.

The student ghettos near the two English universities are pretty Anglo saturated and noisy- but I wouldn't expect the West Island to get into a tizzy about anything. Heck, I suspect the rest of Montreal could be burning down and it would still be placid asides from smoke complaints. I really wish people would stop making this into a language/nationalist thing, since one of the nicest parts of the protest is they've been pretty pan-linguistic.

The first few days, when everyone was scared of the police because of the incidents, it was eerie. Imagine a city in that between time, before everyone's out having fun in bars but after the commute related traffic, when the light's turning grey and all through the city you can hear a slow rhythmic tink-tink-tink-tink from the blocks on either side of you and then a few nervous, proud people, a cyclist shaking a can as he goes through the streets, a young woman leaning from her window with a friend, each with pot and spoon, another man walking the street and similarly equip. Everyone seemed a little scared, not helped that the Friday night I saw this, there was a tornado warning and the skies were all balled up with the grey torrent it was going to drop with the coming night, and you could feel the pressure change. Tink-tink-tink-tink.

Right now, after another round of negotiation failed, all the talk is about the Grand Prix and tourism problems. The local chapter of anonymous already hacked a ticket seller's website, releasing a hundred or so names of buyers, while the event organizers cancelled the open-to-the-public day while the major student unions promise not to destroy people's ability to get to the event, but more radical left leaning groups see the very wealthy guests as undeserving of the courtesy. So the city has the awkward position that there may be disruptions, but if they act in a savage fashion to suppress them they'll make it harder for people to feel no sympathy for the protesters. Bill 78 really marks a turning point in popular opinion, from accusing students of being "brats throwing temper tantrums" to a civil liberties issue, basically functioning like a text book success story for low grade violent agitation- some window breaking, a bonfire, pelting the riot cops with debris, bridges blocked and most dramatically, a few smoke bomb attacks on the metro contributing to the crack down with Bill 78 and controversial anti-mask law.

Protesters have been helped that while blocking commuters won them no favours, there's a great deal of ambivalence with the local police, who have a wee bit of a violent reputation, and with the metro security staff (and personally, I think the metro's tendency to break down on its own). Coverage of the smoke bombing, for example, spoke a lot about the excessive, post 9-11 anti-terrorism laws the people responsible were going to have to deal with, perhaps helped that the quad turned themselves in.

Right now, other than watching the Formula One racing thing very closely, and daily updates on how fighting various laws are going in court, it's actually been pretty quiet, maybe aided by heavy rain. Though the movement has been catching on, here in the Plateau (ultra gentrified, french, close to downtown, for you non-residents) there's plenty of red banners hung from balconies and windows, but it feels like a bit less clanking and banging, and shorter protests than previously.

Then again a hundred thousand or more strong march walked a hole through Sherbrooke large enough to lose a car in. So this should give you the scale of how things were in mid-May.

It's fun that between the Slutwalk and the Red Square stuff Canada is importing something of cultural interest. It's also pretty fun to be helping with the red square shortage- since you can't get red felt in this city now, for love or money, you may bump into me with a little tray of red flannel squares and safety pins handing them out. And yes I give them to tourists as souvenirs.
posted by Phalene at 10:10 AM on June 6, 2012 [6 favorites]

You know what else makes great red squares, in a pinch? A Canadian flag. Dollarama has a whole aisle of potential red squares just in time for Canada Day.

See you at the next manif, Phalene!
posted by Freyja at 10:40 AM on June 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I want to go to one of these and throw frozen peas into the air like confetti. Because.... not enough frozen peas.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:00 PM on June 6, 2012

Flannel is cheaper, and the nice people at the fabric store ask you if you need safety pins for your project too. Speaking of which, I think I need more pins.
posted by Phalene at 12:35 PM on June 6, 2012

That film made the protest seem awfully nice, especially compared to the local ongoing sideshow.

I was kind of weirded out by, um, how ethnically homogenous the crowd was. I mean, it was a lot of white people. And then I thought back to protests I'd been too and started googling and I think it may be official. Things White People Like #135: protesting.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 1:26 PM on June 6, 2012

I mean, it was a lot of white people.

Well, 75% of Montreal is some permutation of "white". I'm not calling it a bastion of racial harmony and inclusion, but it's not quite as jarring as in some countries/regions... we're definitely missing that 7% with all the extra melanin here, and could use a few more Asians for street of Montreal VS crowd in video balance- I can't get an accurate count on South Asians when everyone is grey coloured. Not exactly a Klan meeting, even if a pot and spoon fit into one's privilege knapsack so very neatly.
posted by Phalene at 2:09 PM on June 6, 2012

I mean, it was a lot of white people.

California is really incredibly multi-racial, Ogre. Come visit the East Coast sometime — there's just loads and loads of white folk.
posted by benito.strauss at 2:18 PM on June 6, 2012

Translating the printemps érable is a volunteer collective attempting to balance the English media's extremely poor coverage of the student conflict in Québec by translating media that has been published in French into English.

An original collaboration of illustrators.

Out of the mouth of casseroles.

Never have I seen Montreal so beautifully together. Jason Bajada: TheSound Your Life Makes

posted by bru at 3:29 PM on June 6, 2012 [1 favorite]