Guest episode: Montréal by Not Lost

Hello, Gastropod listeners.

We have something special for you today.

It's the first episode of a brand new podcast called Not Lost from our friends at Pushkin Industries.

It's hosted by Brendan Francis Newnham.

You might remember him as I do as the former co-host of the show Dinner Party Download.

Brendan's new show is all about how food and travel intersect and affect how we see ourselves and the world around us.

Each week, he takes listeners around the world to learn about new places by getting invited to a stranger's house for dinner.

Yep, part of the whole premise is that he has to try to get someone he doesn't know to invite him over to share a meal.

And in the process, he learns about their city firsthand.

From Montreal to Mexico City, he's joined by guests to drink, dance, and eat, and they all learn as much about themselves as the places they visit.

In the episode you're about to hear, Brendan and his friend and fellow traveler Danielle Henderson head to Quebec.

They brave the icy streets of Montreal to learn about local history, listen to famed musicians, and tour the Jantalan market, where they discover a local pastry known as nuns' farts.

One quick note: we know that some Gastropod listeners listen to the show with kids.

If that's you, be warned.

You might not think some of the conversations Brendan has with the people he travels with and meets are suitable for the youngest ears.

Now, get ready to fly up to Montreal and enjoy.

You can travel the world and hear more episodes of Not Lost, wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll be back with a fresh episode of Gastropod in two weeks.

Support for this episode comes in part from Vitamix.

Quick kitchen history lesson.

Electric blenders, first introduced in 1922, were invented to make milkshakes.

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Soon, electric blenders found their way into kitchens across the country where they've been essential cooking tools ever since.

Vitamix reimagined the blender as a powerful, versatile tool ideal for making soups, nut butters, marinades, and, of course, delicious nostalgic milkshakes.

Vitamix's trusted versatility blends together culture, science, and history right on your countertop.

Only the essential at vitamix.com.

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What are you doing?

I'm shaving my chin hairs.

What is that thing?

It looks like a little magic marker for princesses.

It's like supposed to be used for bikini shaving.

There were shaved.

I didn't know that women have those.

We have a lot of secrets, man.

We got a lot of tools in the tool belt.

That's a tool for below the tool belt.

Not in my case, because when I go out of my house, I can actually see my chin hairs in a better mirror than the one I have in my house.

And I'll hit up a hotel and I'll turn on the magnifying mirror and be like, oh, there's the forest of hairs.

And I'll shave them off.

This is the unvarnished travel show.

I don't wear makeup, but I will shave a chin hair.

This is not lost.

You look amazing.

All I wear is overalls and jumpsuits now.

A travel show about going places to find yourself.

Each week, a friend and I go to a new place and try to get invited to someone's house for dinner.

I feel like you wore the turtle bag on purpose.

That's been my signature move.

I'm Brendan Francis Newnham.

Those boots are something else.

And that's my friend, Daniel Henderson.

Those boots are all business.

There's snow boots, man.

We've just met up at Trudeau Airport.

Just staring at the people coming out of the plane.

They look Canadian.

You'd think they would just look like us, but they don't.

They look better.

They look like they have health care.

Episode one, Montreal.

I think tabs are this way.

Monjour.

See that?

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my God.

Freezing.

Why did we come to Montreal in the dead of winter?

Well, because most travel shows would come here in spring or fall.

Yeah.

I mean, you're talking to someone who flew in from Los Angeles.

I have a bag with my Bergenstock sandals in it because that's what I was wearing this morning.

But I wanted like authentic Montreal, man.

Like, I think like this is what separates the Canadian wheat from the Canadian chaff.

So we need to establish on this ride that you're a TV writer.

I am a like audio

person and

we're both single.

We're on the wrong side of 35.

We're looking for connection, creative meaning, a hand to hold in this mad mad world.

What's up?

My only plan was to get on a plane and show up.

It's rad to see you and I think we're gonna have fun.

So basically I need to do this travel pod thing.

We also have some people we're gonna meet.

Very excited.

And I would like to hopefully insinuate ourselves into someone's home to have dinner because I feel like that's the real way to meet them.

When you say it like that, I can't imagine anyone else turning anyone turning us down.

I'd like to insinuate myself into your home.

I'm gonna switch mics, so don't say anything interesting.

Where are you all from?

I'm from LA.

Okay.

I'm from New York.

Okay, so that there is the Olympic Stadium.

And you will see we are actually on an island, which is, yeah.

I love it.

Metro is cool because we, you know we we are like americans without the baggage we can watch and look kind of laugh

because we're across the border but we're the same like you you might even think i'm from jersey right i thought you were from new jersey you know what i mean

that's what an anglophone quebecer sounds like

can you say a quintessential quebecer anglophone sentence

all right let's go get some poutine

uh

oh you try our smoked meat all right did you get some bagels yet?

Yeah.

What about if you're just talking to your family or friends on a Sunday?

Well, since I have three teenagers, I don't talk much to them because they're teenagers.

But here, you'll notice all the signs that we have around.

They're all French, but if you notice, there will be some

parts of it in English.

But they have to be, this is a law,

a third of the size.

We've got the

Office de l'Alonde de Français, the French police.

Yeah, go around and go into your establishment and measure your sign and make sure you're conforming.

Oh, yeah.

We've tried to secede from Canada.

One time it was real close.

It was like, I think 49.51.

It was like

all the head offices and companies just up and left.

And

the wealth left.

And so what remained was nice, beautiful, easy-to-live, lovable Montreal.

This is it.

All right.

My tour has ended.

I don't, but I'm Uber Daryl.

Thank you, eh?

Thank you.

Watch yourself in the ice.

Woo!

You're welcome to grab my arm here for these icy regions.

Here's where it gets treacherous, though, because now it's snow on top of ice.

I think you just have to walk like an old person your entire walk.

I just want to point out that a small child ran past us like she was just walking on grass.

Just fully ran past us while we take our old bones down this street.

In my high school yearbook caption, I wrote a message to my unrequited crush.

It said, Dear E, our artist loft in Canada waits.

I'd never even been to Canada or a loft, but somehow I'd gotten this idea that it was a place for culture, romance, and affordable real estate.

Three things I still long for.

He's married now with two kids.

But at least I made it to Canada.

Albeit in the dead of winter.

With my friend.

Oh my gosh, there's a cat cafe 10 feet from our door.

That's insane.

Danielle and I drop off our bags and head to the Museum of Fine Arts.

As good a place as any to learn about Montreal's creative roots.

So it was a city where it was like much more important to be a sculptor than than a doctor.

That is really cool, whatever that is.

I saw it last time I was here.

My name is Heather O'Neill and I'm a local Montreal author.

These look kind of like Giacomettis, a little bit, right?

Yeah, like with the skinny, elongated limbs.

This is Louis Archambeau.

He has sculptures in parks too, I believe.

This is like such a style.

I always liked it, but my dad would try and show me like this is crap.

I love the idea of him bringing you to all these works of public art just to point out how horrible they are.

It's terrible.

It's phony, phony.

So we're making our way into the Quebec Arts Pavilion.

You're not a historian, you're not responsible to explain all this to us.

If you read anything, you encounter the quiet revolution.

Is there a way to summarize that pretty quickly, the kind of what that was?

All right, here I go.

Okay.

Do your worst.

Do your worst.

We'll just go to the 60s when it started.

All the sort of good jobs in Montreal and all the executive jobs were held by English-speaking people.

And a lot of the companies were, they were all owned by Anglophones, and they would only give English-speaking citizens the jobs.

And then what happened was there began to be a cultural movement where

they decided we're just going to

overthrow this predicament we're in.

French, like the lower class.

Yeah, the lower class francophones were like, this is just enough.

One of the big movements was they

made education all the universities free.

So you ended up with this like massive class of young people who came from working class backgrounds but were incredibly educated.

And so obviously that created like radical thinking.

So we're in this permanent exhibit called the Age of the Manifesto.

Do you recognize any of these?

Oh yeah, this is Riopal who yeah is sort of our Jackson Pollock.

He's incredibly well regarded in Quebec.

Isn't that cool?

Even someone myself who came from as lower class as you get in the city, I still went to McGill University and had like a top-rate education and then was you know kind of thrown back on the street corner and I was like, what do I do?

I've just read a lot of Henry James.

So there's this kind of irony and there's a humor when you're able to suddenly talk about your odd

down and out predicament, but in the language of

like economic

literary and so then it becomes everything kind of becomes like tongue-in-cheek and absurd and you kind of have this like Beckett like feeling.

That's a beautiful summation.

Well thanks so much for meeting us today.

Oh it was fun.

What's going on tonight?

What are you up to?

Oh

I have like a deadline.

I'm asking because we're kind of trying to get invited to a dinner party

because it's a place where you can genuinely get to know people instead of just being tourists, you know?

I would love that, but I have like a chihuahua who is aggressive towards strangers.

But it would just overwhelm him, I think.

Okay.

I'm sorry, like,

it seems rude.

I know it has to be a good idea.

Everyone said Canadians are nice, but apparently they're.

No, but if you bring people by dog, it's going to bite someone.

Okay, that would not be a good outcome.

But you have health care for those people.

What is your dog's name?

Hamlet.

I don't spend as much time thinking about how I'm going to die alone when I'm traveling.

But I get to travel with someone I love.

Oh, see, I love you too.

And also, we get to eat as much.

Very sincere.

I love you too.

Mike's a lot of therapy bills behind that.

You're so white.

I love it.

It's nice.

It's nice to kind of.

It is nice to travel with buddy.

This is Ariane Saint-Laurent.

Thank you.

When my last radio show ended, fairly abruptly.

I was a little concerned about your mental health.

Yeah, I was a little bit lost.

You know, I went from having this rad show where I spoke with Neil deGrasse Tyson and Scarlett Johansson to

my deli guy being the only person I spoke to on any given day.

Yeah.

But now at this show, trying to get myself back out there.

Dude, this is exciting.

Let's play a game.

Like, let's just name what comes to mind when we think of Montreal.

I definitely think of Poutine.

Of course.

Leonard Cohen.

I think of cucas.

They're everywhere.

There is just that kind of French undercurrent where you're like, ooh, la la.

What is this?

Like an 80s perfume commercial?

Please never say that to a woman here.

I want her to say it to me.

Oh my god, I can't breathe.

I can never remember who founded Montreal, whether it was Samuel de Champlain or Jacques Cartier, but what a fucking idiot.

Like, I mean, we're only a six-hour drive from New York.

That's comedian, writer, actress Trana Winter.

We're at a restaurant called Lawrence, which is a fitting name.

If this place was a human, it'd be that fancy kid who dresses like a carefree bohemian.

Lawrence.

I try and fail to tuck a napkin into my cashmere turtleneck.

Montreal winters aren't all glamorous.

It's really hard to be glamorous.

It's hard to be glamorous with crampons on your boots.

Yeah.

Oh, here we go.

Let's cheers.

What do you say?

Shalon.

Shalante.

Santa.

Santa.

But

I love living here.

Yeah, why do you love it here?

It's the last remaining affordable North American metropolis.

I live in a one-bedroom apartment, like smack in the middle of everything, and it's $600 a month.

$600 Canadian.

So that's like $480 American.

Yeah.

The other thing that I love about it is just...

There's just this sexy vibe in Montreal, this pulse, this energy that I don't fully know how to articulate, but it's here.

I've been horny since the minute I landed here.

There is this sensuality to it.

There is this kind of verb.

And I don't, I just think like, oh, it's European, which is my catch-all term for any kind of those feelings.

I'm not sure that's part of it.

I think part of it too is just it is a diversity, you know.

But I don't think that's special anymore.

That sort of seems to be

when I travel alone as a black woman, I feel like that's something that I notice right away if I feel comfortable or not.

Right.

And there are still some places where I just don't.

Right.

For sharing it all, thank you.

On top, you have a little salad of fresh tarrigan, belugal lanteles, and coin that's marinated.

Enjoy.

Looks good, thank you.

Just looks so good.

Well, the thing that I like about it, though, I feel like you're trying here.

Like, there's a cultural identity that people are not willing to just roll over and let things happen.

Yeah, that's true, especially on the French side.

Yeah.

The French side is very much about protecting their culture.

I actually just started to do comedy in French because I am am bilingual.

Is there different things that French people find funny?

In Quebec, actually there's something called l'Écale de l'Umour,

which is comedy school, basically.

Okay.

Like 90% of French or francophone comedians in Quebec have gone through this school.

Class one is like, did you ever notice?

Right.

It's like, yeah, that's your freshman year.

And so there is kind of like this uniformity in terms of comedy style.

So also out of necessity, there is this Quebec star system.

Like Quebec has its own Hollywood that doesn't exist anywhere else because it can't exist anywhere else.

It doesn't translate.

But now that I've started performing in French, it's like that's become my new dream.

You're going to want to tell me that you're going to be part of like the Quebec star system.

I'm like, that's...

My dream has always been to make it just so I can be a has-been.

What's it called?

If you never did anything to be washed up on?

I never was, I guess.

I never was.

Yeah.

You're not a has-been.

You're a never was.

All right.

So I got divorced five years ago, and I met my ex-husband on an internet comic book forum in the late 90s.

Oh, wow.

And he was like my best friend, and he was part of my memory and my heart.

And I lost that.

And I lost all of my confidence.

I have not been on a date or been in a relationship since then.

I have had sex once.

No, twice.

Twice.

In the past four years.

Oh, really?

Yeah, like that.

It's been very difficult to admit to myself that I'm interested now

in being with someone in a real way again, like sharing my life with them.

Are you afraid to be?

We think we all are vulnerable.

Yeah, I don't do vulnerability.

I've known you for a while and we've goofed around and traveled a lot.

Like, you do have an appetite for just some freewheel and love.

Freewheel.

I mean, a lot.

What happened?

Like, Jim Henson in the 70s?

But also, you're such a, I don't know, you have such a nurturing instinct and you're, you're, you're, you're, I don't know.

I'm not that I have to go there now, but I'm afraid of that instinct because I don't want to take care of a man.

And it sucks that the result of that is that I might have to be alone.

Because that both the thought of being alone bother you, though?

No.

Me either.

It doesn't bother me.

It's only like when I want to get laid and I can't, I don't know how people do it.

It bothers me.

It bothers me.

It does?

Yeah.

Super into cuddling.

I like cooking breakfast half naked.

I feel like a dog.

Would really take care of my

cuddling affection.

No.

How's your drink?

It's great.

Got some gin and some lime and some booze.

It's good.

It looks like it got colder outside in the time we were eating.

I'm a little scared.

Yeah.

But you know, Montreal, like even in the most insane winter weather, you can always count on one asshole to be on their bike, still going.

I'm telling you.

In a blizzard.

In a blizzard.

In the weather.

Must be career street sweepers here.

Like there's so much snow, so long.

Absolutely.

And as a warning, before the plows come, they have these tow trucks driving around blaring this insane siren.

Oh.

It's not a cop siren.

It's not a fire truck, it's its own unique sound.

It's a pre-plow siren.

Get your car the fuck out of here, siren.

So, what are you doing this weekend?

What are the plans?

Um,

I mean, my weekends are always kind of up in the air.

I'm as you know, I'm very non-committal.

We're looking for a dinner party to go to.

You're looking for a dinner party?

I mean, I like you guys.

Let's play it by ear.

Is that the name of your next comedy album?

Maybe.

Maybe.

Yeah.

0 for 2 in our dinner party search.

Or rather, 0.5 for 2 since Trana did say maybe.

Back at our lodgings, we brush our teeth, tuck ourselves in, and upload select photos to Instagram.

Eventually, I drift off to sleep with dreams of $600 rent going through my head.

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Oh my god, let's get coffee.

Whoa.

That is a style.

That guy's got like a slicked back moose to ponytail.

I mean, it is morning, and I'm surprisingly still horny from Montreal.

Monjour, comment.

Saba, biétrois.

All right, you showed me up.

You speak French, I don't.

May I have one of these with the feta?

Yeah, merci.

And I will have a latte

in your largest to-go cup.

So today we're going to go to the Jean-Toulon market, this food market, with this woman, Massam, who's a food blogger, because we got to get our food 411.

Got to get it some snacks.

But I was thinking to get started, we should go to Leonard Cohen's home because he's the city's favorite son.

Is it a museum now that he's dead, or is it just his house?

It's not a museum, and it's kind of, I'm not even 100% positive where it is.

It's like, I know it's on this Parc de Portugal.

I don't know.

I just feel like there might be a clue for me up there.

Yeah, I mean, you have to go with your heart.

Go where your heart leads you.

My heart is leading me to get a massage on a boat.

Really?

Because I think it gets you into the spirit of,

well, I don't know.

I was going to bullshit something about how it gets you into the spirit of the city, but it's just entirely selfish and I like feeling good.

All right, well, I'm just going to take off, I guess.

I feel weird abandoning you at this stage of the game.

Look, we're both adults.

I'm going to let you go stand outside Leonard Cohen's house like a creep, and I'm going to go get a massage.

All right, I'll let you know how it goes.

And if you get arrested, I'll bail you out.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

Pardon?

I'm looking for Leonard Cohen's house.

Cohen,

I'm looking for.

Excuse me.

Welcome to to Botabota.

Is it your first time here?

It is.

Wonderful.

Well, welcome.

I'm very excited to see what a spa on a river has to offer.

And it's so wonderful because the sun is ripping.

I think it's like Parc de Portugal or something.

Oh, yeah, you just have to like keep walking a little bit, turn right and head up a few blocks, and you'll get there.

All right, but there's not like a sign or anything that says that's where I used to live.

No, no, no.

Okay.

It's fucking freezing out here.

This is one of our saunas.

Lord a ceiling windows looking over the port.

This is unreal.

Jacuzzi hot tubs, we call them béromous.

I cannot get over this.

And this is filled with eucalyptus normally.

I want to live in this.

We're gonna head down to the first deck and go for your massage.

I'm ready.

I'm gonna pass you off to Janine and you're in the back tab.

Oh, fuck.

Oh my goodness.

You're a very gentle touch.

I'm going through the scar tissue because we have scar tissue that builds up in muscles that are over-solicited.

You use your body in different ways in such extreme temperatures.

And so I'm wondering if that contributes to you seeing certain types of ailments over and over again.

What I see a lot of is definitely low back, more low back

tension, which crawls up front because we're huddled.

You know, we're trying to keep ourselves warm, we're trying to keep centered so that we can navigate the ice and the snow and the slush and the puddles and the roads.

It's really the march of the penguins in the winter here.

I mean, and you're gonna see that today, and you guys are gonna giggle to yourselves and you say, Yeah, there's the penguins, yeah, I see them.

You know, and it's because we're so afraid to fall

like a bird on the wire,

like a drunk in the midnight choir,

I have tried

in my way

to be free.

Thank you.

Well,

this is it.

Just a gray

stone

one, two, three

triplex,

pretty nondescript.

You know, he sang about religion and sex and

poets and history, and it's weird just to see a gray house on a little park with a Honda Civic parked out front of it.

Not really sure why I thought it was so important to come here.

Alright.

It's icy, it's cold,

and I think

that's the bagel place he would go to.

It's kind of strange to

realize how powerful a healing touch can be.

Because I don't I don't date, I don't kind of like engage in that way anymore.

I was alone for 13 years after my divorce.

And I met someone.

What I came to understand about myself is what stops me from dating is how well can I hide my wounds.

Right.

So my current partner and I, we decided

the philosophy of our relationship is no masks, full disclosure.

So I think it's about really deciding to

have that level of honesty within yourself and the trusting.

But when you've had trauma, trust is so

fragile.

Yeah.

So one of my

big trauma is that my mom left.

She dropped us off at my grandparents' house for a weekend and then never came back.

And the person who's supposed to love you unconditionally leaves, and that will mess you up.

Well, because

you're always asking yourself, what did I do wrong?

Right.

And will I do something wrong again?

Yeah.

But what will I do to make someone leave?

Because

the assumption is that somebody will always leave.

A lot of tension in your calves.

Yeah.

But you spoke of your herniated disc, so I'm going to soften and warm that up for you.

So when you go out and do the March of the Penguins,

you're going to feel a little more ease in your body.

Thank you.

So, Janine, what are you up to this weekend?

Because,

you know, Brendan and I are in town and we're kind of looking for

dinner parties.

He's making me ask everyone if we can eat at their house, basically.

Oh, well, that's unfortunate.

I would love to normally have you eat at my house.

However, I am going on for a match.

Can I just get a

Bagel with locks?

Yeah.

Merci.

Visiting town?

How do you know I'm visiting?

Guidebook's kind of a giveaway.

Let me guess.

Leonard Cohen's house.

It doesn't even have a plaque.

I just feel like if that was in America, there would be an amusement park around it, like a Suzanne roller coaster.

Like Leonard Wood.

Yeah.

They would be selling like my blue raincoats or something for toddlers.

Right.

Maybe that's a good idea.

I didn't get in on that.

Yeah.

I'm Brendan by the way.

Brendan Francis Newnham.

I'm doing a travel podcast thing here.

Oh, okay.

I'm Tim Kingsbury and I live in the neighborhood.

Cool.

I used to have this podcast you might have heard of called the Dinner Party Download.

Well, I don't know that one.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean it was mostly America.

Are you a fan of Cohen?

Yeah, definitely.

Like, I moved here just to play music myself, actually.

Oh, you're a musician?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

What kind of hold does he have on kind of Montreal, like his imagination?

He's everywhere.

There's like a big mural downtown since he passed away and everyone's got a Leonard Cohen story or

he's everywhere.

Do you have a Leonard Cohen story?

I used to work at a grocery store just down the road called Warshaw and I was like a bag boy there and he came in one time and bought some bananas.

Just bananas?

I think there were bagels too.

That sounds very Freudian actually.

That's what I imagine

are going with that.

Yeah.

No, he I remember he was he he thought they were overpriced and he was right they were.

Nice nice talking to you.

I I gotta get going.

Oh, by the way, what what's the name of the band you're in?

Uh Arcade Fire?

Is is there anything going on tonight?

Uh I think I'm actually getting out of town and I'm gonna go up north.

Maybe are your friends doing like are your friends doing anything?

Like they out?

Yeah, they're probably doing something.

She ran out of the other.

There you are.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you so much for driving us here.

We're getting dropped off at the city's biggest food market.

What should we eat there?

Everything.

You can taste everything for free, in fact.

And if you like it, you could buy it.

Thank you, Carrine.

Maybe buying provisions for a dinner party will induce a dinner party.

Maison!

Hi!

I'm Corner.

Hey, I'm Danielle.

Nice to meet you, Maison.

Welcome to the Jantalon market.

A lot of markets in North America these days have become sort of a tourist attraction.

They sell a lot of stuff that's not really food.

They sell t-shirts and souvenirs and caps, whereas this market it's just food.

Although we might want to come up with a t-shirt idea while we're here and we can make some money.

You can't ruin the spirit of this place.

That's so American.

Get your Jean Talon.

No.

No.

No.

Pavé de Samon Fondant.

Delicious.

I'm addicted to it.

Three of these.

Yeah?

The Chocoda Jean Vievere Cromblé is the most famous chocolate makers in Montreal.

Let's get a jar of chocolate sauce.

We're going to make friends.

It's the best way.

Four generations of foragers, so his mother, his grandmother, and her mother before that.

Pi de Canui from

organic honey.

Actually, we're standing right in front of one of my favorite stores, rice store.

That's for you and your white people.

Spice it up, white folks.

Let's do it.

Macarons with foie gras inside.

That seems like a French stoner food.

It's really, really good.

I already take this whole tray with me.

How about we buy some instead of you taking the sample tray?

Can I do both?

You have such distinguished mark.

Guard commenting on this gentleman's eyebrow.

Yeah, he's got a beautiful face.

What are you doing later tonight?

My friend is visiting.

Then you have the tortilla, which is a typical meat pie in Quebec.

What is the quintessential food Montreal besides poutine?

Bagels.

Besides bagels.

Meat.

Maple anything.

All right, here we go.

What is she trying?

She's trying a maple tart.

Oh, yeah.

That is incredible.

Are you kidding me?

Support for this episode comes in part from Starbucks.

And just like that, we're into the fall season.

I love fall because I love watching the leaves turn glorious shades of yellow, red, and orange.

I love breaking out my favorite cozy sweaters and roasting seasonal Brussels sprouts.

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They're pet d'Ossa, which literally translated as nuns' farts.

Why did I ask?

Pie dough with butter and brown sugar and they put

some cream on the on top before cooking it.

What does that have to do with nuns?

I don't know.

Why do they call it coquel?

It was invented, it was created by nuns.

Like they were trying to find something to do with the leftovers, nuns' farts.

That's so upsetting, but I appreciate it.

I know.

I'm very sensitive.

So Mazam, thank you so much for showing us the market.

It's been fun hanging out with you.

Now that we've got all these snacks, do you want to hang out with us tonight?

Maybe throw a dinner party in our honor?

Worst case scenario, you and me at our Airbnb.

If we don't find a dinner party, I'm going to go out to a restaurant.

I mean, you hit on the cheese boy.

I didn't hit on him.

I said I had an interesting face, and then you were like, what are you doing tonight?

He was into it.

La la

though.

It's almost 4 p.m.

and Montreal's winter sun is already beginning to set.

And our prospects for a dinner party are dimming as well.

Back at our place, things go from la bad to la worse.

Danielle's back seizes up and she might have to abandon our mission altogether.

As I sit at the kitchen table nibbling on a nunfart, it strikes me it's going to take a miracle to turn things around.

And where do miracles reside?

Well, Mark Twain said when he visited Montreal, you couldn't throw a brick in this town without breaking a church window.

I'm with Mark Ellsworthy, an architecture buff who works with the local Ministry of Heritage.

So right now we're in the Notre-Dame de Bonseco Chapel.

It's the oldest.

We're in one of the oldest churches in Montreal.

Look, dates to the 1930s.

They call it the Sailor's Church.

And my eye is going immediately to these wonderful boats that are hanging with candles.

Yeah.

There's even a cargo ship with containers on it.

Oh yeah, that is a cargo ship.

And so they have two candles in each of them, green candles.

Like, I kind of want to.

I'm not going to steal one, but...

Well, I would hope not.

But they feel like someone.

You can steal from church.

But can we Instagram it and then start a shop that sells them?

I don't know.

I feel even bad taking pictures in churches.

No, okay.

You know, a harbor town is considered usually honky-ponk, like red light district.

And certainly in the Prohibition, Montreal serve that role to this day, maybe with Americans.

But there's so many churches, it's interesting that there's this.

Quebecers are interesting.

On the census, they all still fell out that they're Roman Catholic, and Quebec has the lowest church attendance in Canada.

Church is really tied into identity, but not practice.

People don't come to the church.

They may have been for grandma's funeral a while back, or maybe not, or you know, but no one does baptisms.

People don't get married in the church.

Are there any other facets of this chapel

that you like or that you want to point out?

Well we have to light a candle for someone.

Oh my gosh.

We should.

Okay.

We could light a candle for back pain to go away.

Yeah for Danielle who's suffering a little bit.

Okay good thought.

There we are.

There we are a moment.

I usually only light candles at romantic dinners, but here

It could lead to a romantic dinner.

Nobody knows.

It could.

I just felt a pang of Catholic guilt.

When I lit that candle, I did not light the candle for Danielle's back.

I lit the candle because

we need to find a place to eat tonight because the whole point of this show was for us to learn about the town, but to then get into someone's home to kind of have a true authentic experience.

And so far, we've had a lot of people who are very friendly, but when I've asked them that question, they've been like, oh, maybe contact us later.

And I promised the company paying for this that I'm going to get in someone's home.

What do you think?

It's Saturday night.

Even if you just let us in for 10 minutes, could we just eat food?

After lying in church, you want to come to my house?

I'm confessing to you, and that's what I wish for when I lit the candle.

So if there is a God, you got me on that one.

Okay, well.

Can I borrow your phone?

And then I'll just call my husband to see if Tony can't.

Okay.

I don't think my roaming can be.

I love that you're paying roaming.

Just a second.

This is penance.

Hello.

Escort pins sat bizarre d'Avo de person de pleus au supé

mais métant

que vent pettam nes plain vain.

Please.

What's okay?

So you have to do the dishes and bring wine.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

He's down?

Well, I didn't really give him much choice.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

This is amazing.

Not going to regret this.

Promise.

Hello.

Hello, come on in.

Are you Mark?

I am.

Welcome.

Hello.

Hey.

How are you?

Good you.

Should I just throw this over here?

Heather.

Nice.

Thanks so much for showing up.

Hi, I'm trying.

Thanks to me.

Have you met Louis, whose beautiful house?

Half of a couple of his beautiful houses.

Hi.

Louie, interesting.

Hey, hello.

This is the place, eh?

Hi, nice to meet you.

I really didn't think anyone we talked to today was going to come.

I'd love a surprise.

Would you like some wine?

Sure.

Triple Gemini?

Like Haile Minaug.

Sculptor who was also dating the Leonard Leonard Cohen Suzanne.

There are Francophone community elsewhere in Canada.

Oh, that is the same.

We bought that at the Quebecois store where Danielle hit on the cheese motor.

Hottest city in North America.

Very handsome.

Everyone's dance with your husband's handsome.

Everyone's handsome.

You were doing the Pinot Noir, right?

Oh, we found something.

That's a Saturday night for me, guys.

Okay, this isn't really get more Montreal than like listening to Celine after like a dinner party and like

the thing about

it.

Someone didn't pay their title bill.

So I hope you guys have learned a lot.

Never leaving is what I'm learning.

Let's make it such a choice

to this

podcast.

Thank you for letting us read your vlog.

It's not loud enough.

Okay, the the chorus is literally just voyage, voayage.

So you can both sing along.

Ready?

Hit it.

Buayage, voyage.

Travel, travel.

Buayage, voayage.

This should be your theme song.

Travel, travel.

We're driving up if you can walk up as well.

Oh, yeah, I mean it's a bit cold and you know, you gotta be kind of entering.

I mean, we're also we're also to be fair hung over right now.

Well, that

doesn't help, but this street will wind us up

to the top of the mountain.

So do people actually come to Mount Royal who live here?

Love it.

It is I guess would be like our central park but it's on a mountain.

People are cross-country skiing, show snowshoeing.

We have a skating rink on the top.

Now we're looking to the east side of the city.

The lookout is that way.

Okay, cool.

Thank you there.

Be careful on the ice.

Oh, look at that.

I've never seen a snowshoe in action.

Oh, yeah.

What a weekend.

Like, we did a lot.

We did a lot.

We were talking about coming as we were coming into the city, kind of like our love lives and romance and all this stuff.

And I think I'm much more likely to fall in love with a place than I am with a person.

That's interesting.

There it is.

There's There's the city that you love.

We're looking at the downtown, the St.

Lawrence River.

Look at Leonard Cohen down there.

You see him?

Yeah, there's literally a mural of Leonard Cohen down there.

Oh my God.

I thought you saw an apparition.

When I was at that Leonard Cohen house, which

I honestly did meet a member of Arcade Fire.

You have to believe me.

I don't, but it's fine.

I'll play you the tape later.

If you need that story to get through the weekend, that's fine.

Being there, honestly, like I'm glad I saw the house, but actually, the fact that it was really not that exciting and anticlimactic in the sense that it was just someone's home, this is going to sound corny, but obviously I've been thinking a lot about being an artist or being more creative with my old show ending.

And

there's no magical properties to it.

Like even Leonard Cohen just lived in a house and bought bananas.

And it's more about just doing the work and getting it into the world, you know?

But it's not like me living a certain way will make me Leonard Cohen or something.

Oh, that's that's always been the key though.

You know that.

Well, I mean I'm just pretending to learn it now for the show.

I think it is crazy that Leonard Cohen is staring directly at us.

I think it's crazy that you thought I was talking about a ghost.

Honestly, we didn't go over this, but marijuana is legal here now, and last night did run pretty long.

no comment

you know what I think about when I look in the skyline now what's that

voyage voyage

you are not only changing

but you're singing it really poorly

I'm gonna walk that way

I feel free here now

I think we'll just fade that the real song into my singing and people won't notice it

I think it's I'm gonna try to find another story.

The lead producer on this The Pilot episode of Not Lost was the talented Crystal Duhaim.

The show was also produced and written by me, Brendan Francis Newnham.

Our associate producer was Jackson Musker.

Special editorial guidance came from Mira Burt Wintock.

The show was sound designed and mixed by Crystal Duhaim and mastered by Hannes Brown.

A big thanks to my friend and this episode's travel partner, Danielle Henderson.

I highly recommend you check out her memoir, The Ugly Cry.

Not Lost is a co-production of Pushkin Industries, Topic Studios, and iHeartMedia.

It was developed at Topic Studios.

The show's executive producers are me, Christy Gressman, Maria Zuckerman, Lisa Leingang, and Latale Malad.

Production assistants on this episode also came from Jacob Smith, Amy Gaines, and Julia Barton.

Our theme song was created by Alexis Georgopoulos, aka ARP.

Voyage Voyage appeared courtesy of Desireless.

This show was recorded before the pandemic, so a big mercy to everyone we met up with in Montreal.

Writer Heather O'Neill, whose new book, When We Lost Our Heads, is out now.

Comedian Trana Winter, the staff at Boda Boda Spa, Tim Kingsbury of Arcade Fire, fact checked that one and he wasn't lying, also food blogger Mesam Samaha, and our dinner party hosts, Mark and Louie.

If you want to peek at our itinerary or learn about any of our guests, head to notlostshow.com.

And if anyone from the Canadian government is listening to this and they have the power to grant me citizenship, be in touch.

Oh, and here's a trip we'd like you to take from the comfort of your own phone or computer.

Please head to Apple Podcasts and rate and review us.

I know you hear it a lot, but it's a real thing.

It would would mean so much.

Learn more about Topic Studios at topicstudios.com.

To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

I'm Brendan Francis Newnham.

Until next time, Bon Voyage.

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la la la la la la

la la

la

la la la la la la la la

la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la