Seb Toots Montreal snowboarding run
January 6, 2013 2:44 PM Subscribe
Commuting Canadian style. Snowboarder Seb Toots (Sebastien Toutant) took advantage of the late December blizzard in Montréal by taking his board to a good launch spot on Mont Royal (Kondiaronk Lookout, according to one Vimeo commenter) and working his way down. Elegant, fluid, hypnotic. Note: Some wildlife may have been briefly bemused or alarmed during the making of this film. No wildlife attempted to eat him.
But I'm struck by how they were able to get through five minutes of death-defying jumps and sliding-down-railing-while-plummeting-down-a-mountain thingers, all without once giving any impression of speed at all.
I blame the music, which makes anything slow motion. Anything. Or sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Or completely static for 10 hours.
posted by maudlin at 3:01 PM on January 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
I blame the music, which makes anything slow motion. Anything. Or sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Or completely static for 10 hours.
posted by maudlin at 3:01 PM on January 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
Did he just grind that gravestone?
posted by ReeMonster at 3:02 PM on January 6, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by ReeMonster at 3:02 PM on January 6, 2013 [1 favorite]
I don't know... I'm impressed, but after that business with the eagle I'm regarding any neat video from Canada with some suspicion. It could all turn out to just be clever stop-motion animation or puppets.
posted by BinaryApe at 3:04 PM on January 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by BinaryApe at 3:04 PM on January 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
It's really not that far in vertical distance - 100 or so meters elevation from where he started to the streetside where the film ends (from there it's still a ways downhill to downtown), so I'm not surprised, especially with the direction changes necessary, that he didn't get much speed going. I've walked it (the staircase where he rides the rails, not his exact route.)
posted by Philofacts at 3:04 PM on January 6, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Philofacts at 3:04 PM on January 6, 2013 [1 favorite]
I muted the sound and watched it with Bom Senso by Tim Maia and found it groovy man.
posted by stbalbach at 3:05 PM on January 6, 2013
posted by stbalbach at 3:05 PM on January 6, 2013
OH, and the largest wildlife we have on the mountain is raccoons and a few foxes. Coyotes and coyote-wolf hybrids are out in the countryside now, but AFAIK haven't tried to get on the island yet.
posted by Philofacts at 3:07 PM on January 6, 2013
posted by Philofacts at 3:07 PM on January 6, 2013
Yeah, I don't think he was going quickly either. Also, it's something I've seen many other people do, though not while being filmed.
posted by jeather at 3:08 PM on January 6, 2013
posted by jeather at 3:08 PM on January 6, 2013
After the first shot of the squirrel, what is that big fluffy thing sitting in a tree?
posted by jontyjago at 3:10 PM on January 6, 2013
posted by jontyjago at 3:10 PM on January 6, 2013
After the first shot of the squirrel, what is that big fluffy thing sitting in a tree?
Looked like a porcupine to me. They are really cuddly.
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 3:13 PM on January 6, 2013
Looked like a porcupine to me. They are really cuddly.
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 3:13 PM on January 6, 2013
what is that big fluffy thing sitting in a tree?
It's a northern fur monkey. They have no natural predators and are becoming a nuisance in the city parks.
posted by stbalbach at 3:14 PM on January 6, 2013 [15 favorites]
It's a northern fur monkey. They have no natural predators and are becoming a nuisance in the city parks.
posted by stbalbach at 3:14 PM on January 6, 2013 [15 favorites]
How can Red Bull possibly sponsor so many random athletes, daredevils, racing teams, airplanes, boats and on and on?
posted by letitrain at 3:50 PM on January 6, 2013
posted by letitrain at 3:50 PM on January 6, 2013
Red Bull sells a tiny can of caffeinated sugar water for quite a pleasant multiple of the price of a two-liter of anything else. All that sponsorship is a drop in the bucket for their marketing department.
previously
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 4:02 PM on January 6, 2013
previously
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 4:02 PM on January 6, 2013
Not to take away from anything, but this is just a series of shots pieced together. It isn't a document of a single run down the side of Mont Royal. The shot in Mont Royal Cemetery is miles away from where he is supposedly making his descent.
posted by shackpalace at 4:44 PM on January 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by shackpalace at 4:44 PM on January 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
It isn't a document of a single run
No, to do that you'd need an enormous camera crew and a ton of cameras, because they are always filming him as he passes them. It says it was filmed over the course of two days, and it implies they only had one camera. It's not trying to deceive. But it's a lot funner to watch when the hodge-podge of shots are edited together into a semi-narrative flow.
posted by aubilenon at 4:49 PM on January 6, 2013 [3 favorites]
No, to do that you'd need an enormous camera crew and a ton of cameras, because they are always filming him as he passes them. It says it was filmed over the course of two days, and it implies they only had one camera. It's not trying to deceive. But it's a lot funner to watch when the hodge-podge of shots are edited together into a semi-narrative flow.
posted by aubilenon at 4:49 PM on January 6, 2013 [3 favorites]
In a similar vein to this street-skiing video from last winter.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 5:03 PM on January 6, 2013
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 5:03 PM on January 6, 2013
Every weekday morning I get off the bus at the intersection of Peel and Avenue des Pins (3:21 in the video) with my 3 year old daughter, put her on my shoulders, and walk down the steep, icy, snowy length of Peel (3:32 in the video) to deposit her at her daycare, then I hike back up Peel to my office (which he passes at ~3:45 in the video); and then roughly eight hours later I do it all over again, in reverse. I'll be doing it in just about twelve hours, in fact.
That, my friends, is commuting Canadian style.
posted by googly at 5:10 PM on January 6, 2013 [11 favorites]
That, my friends, is commuting Canadian style.
posted by googly at 5:10 PM on January 6, 2013 [11 favorites]
Every weekday morning I get off the bus at the intersection of Peel and Avenue des Pins (3:21 in the video)
I was rear-ended by a taxi on that very stretch of Peel a couple of days ago.
posted by shackpalace at 5:16 PM on January 6, 2013
I was rear-ended by a taxi on that very stretch of Peel a couple of days ago.
posted by shackpalace at 5:16 PM on January 6, 2013
So tired of seeing these videos where they all make sure they get credit but then they never credit the musicians.
posted by dobbs at 5:42 PM on January 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by dobbs at 5:42 PM on January 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
Yeah, that drove me nuts, too. Someone in the Vimeo thread asks about the intro music, but not the main piece, so I did some extra Googling to track it down in my earlier comment. It appears to be a popular choice for all kinds of little films, though, so maybe that was an additional factor for the omission of the credit: they just thought that EVERYONE must know it. Well, no, not everyone, guys. And credit is still due even for the most well-known songs.
posted by maudlin at 6:26 PM on January 6, 2013
posted by maudlin at 6:26 PM on January 6, 2013
The second to last thing I did before leaving Montreal in March of 2008 was called Mont-Royalcoholism and involved a race from the cross down to the statue by toboggan in teams of two, except that you had to start by drinking enough so that when you got to the statue and took a breathalyzer test you'd be over the legal limit. I miss Montreal.
posted by furtive at 7:04 PM on January 6, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by furtive at 7:04 PM on January 6, 2013 [4 favorites]
Yeah they probably figured everybody knows that XX bit by now.
That was very cool. As others have said, he was all over the mountain for various bits of this, and the cemetery which is way over on the opposite side (I think that was the Molson mausoleum that he grinds over). Somebody should do this right after a big snowfall: you could go from the lookout all the way down to Ste Catherine before the street is cleared.
For a year when I was at McGill I lived way over on Cote des Neiges, backing onto the park halfway around Mount Royal, and I would ski (XC) to class in the winter. That, I guess, was commuting Canadian style.
(furtive: I once organized a race for the McGill Outing Club from the cross to the Jacques Cartier statue by whatever route or means necessary; I called it the 'descent from the cross'. Even though his route along the main road was much longer than a bushwack straight down, I think a guy on a mountain bike won)
posted by Flashman at 7:13 PM on January 6, 2013 [1 favorite]
That was very cool. As others have said, he was all over the mountain for various bits of this, and the cemetery which is way over on the opposite side (I think that was the Molson mausoleum that he grinds over). Somebody should do this right after a big snowfall: you could go from the lookout all the way down to Ste Catherine before the street is cleared.
For a year when I was at McGill I lived way over on Cote des Neiges, backing onto the park halfway around Mount Royal, and I would ski (XC) to class in the winter. That, I guess, was commuting Canadian style.
(furtive: I once organized a race for the McGill Outing Club from the cross to the Jacques Cartier statue by whatever route or means necessary; I called it the 'descent from the cross'. Even though his route along the main road was much longer than a bushwack straight down, I think a guy on a mountain bike won)
posted by Flashman at 7:13 PM on January 6, 2013 [1 favorite]
Molson has a mausoleum?
posted by chapps at 10:46 PM on January 6, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by chapps at 10:46 PM on January 6, 2013 [1 favorite]
I was surprised by the opening aerial shots for what sounded like an amateur go. Then he started in, and I realized: sponsor.
posted by stilist at 11:36 PM on January 6, 2013
posted by stilist at 11:36 PM on January 6, 2013
Molson has a mausoleum?
Two-hundred plus years of brewing beer can make a family a lot of money, such that they can afford to put up the dead in a certain style.
posted by ssg at 11:54 PM on January 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
Two-hundred plus years of brewing beer can make a family a lot of money, such that they can afford to put up the dead in a certain style.
posted by ssg at 11:54 PM on January 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
Yup, and the Molson sign is an icon of the riverfront cityscape as you come in over le pont Cartier, although I never see anyone drinking Molson here (we have so many good local brands in Québec), unless it's at the Jazz Fest or similar sponsored things where by contract it's the only beer, or one of the only, on the bar menu. (In which case I drink wine or other alternatives.)
Fun fact: when I lived near Harvard Square in Cambridge in the 80s, our landlord (a Mr. Cooper, pronounced Coo-pah!) for my then well-rent-controlled apartment, who had grown up poor in the apartment above us, had become a millionaire making the green bottles that Molson comes in, which enabled him to buy the building. So in a way I have Molson to thank for one of the few non-greedy landlords I've had. (It was the only time my rent ever went down under rent control, and when we decided to sand and refinish our floors, he paid for it. Beautiful red pine from the 1890s under all those decades of grime.)
posted by Philofacts at 8:52 AM on January 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
Fun fact: when I lived near Harvard Square in Cambridge in the 80s, our landlord (a Mr. Cooper, pronounced Coo-pah!) for my then well-rent-controlled apartment, who had grown up poor in the apartment above us, had become a millionaire making the green bottles that Molson comes in, which enabled him to buy the building. So in a way I have Molson to thank for one of the few non-greedy landlords I've had. (It was the only time my rent ever went down under rent control, and when we decided to sand and refinish our floors, he paid for it. Beautiful red pine from the 1890s under all those decades of grime.)
posted by Philofacts at 8:52 AM on January 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
« Older Beauty matters. Plainness hurts. | The British and their bizarre view of American Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by bicyclefish at 2:52 PM on January 6, 2013 [1 favorite]