A long slow week of meandering around the city, occasionally stopping to see a museum or gallery, but mostly just walking.

When I went to the Atwater market last weekend, I arrived to find someone talking, surrounded by cameras and journalists. There's an election here soon, and so I figured it was a politician, though as they were chatting away in French I didn't have much of an idea. But I hung around on the edge of the crowd in case something spectacular happened, and when he finished talking he started to shake hands with people. He took a look at me, walked straight up, said "Bonjour" and shook my hand. I've been wondering all week who he was.

I went to the Museum of Contemporary art on Tuesday and spent a quiet afternoon watching the video work of Gillian Wearing, as well as exploring the work of some Canadian and Quebecoise artists. There's currently an exhibition of major Quebecoise art from the 40s, 50s and 60s - it was interesting to see that work after studying American art of the same period, and seeing the influence of Abstract Expressionism, Op and the beginnings of Pop art. Some reminded me strongly of the work of Joan Mitchell - a predominance of white, and obvious allusion to landscape as the major subject.

I went to the cinema on Wednesday at the forum - bought a ticket for Auberge L'Espagnole, and then, when that finished, snuck in to see About Schmidt. My Wednesday lunchtime club meeting found me munching on a fresh baguette with brie in a darkened cinema. It felt like a nice civilised way to spend the afternoon.

I spent the day yesterday with Claudia, a girl from Rome, who's been living in the US for the past four years. She's currently doing her PhD in Italian Literature at Yale, looking at the theatre of Siena. Had some long talks about her thesis, and my own poetry, and history, religion, the US, among other things. Went to the Notre Dame Basilica. "I like the objects can tell the story of a place" she said. The cathedrale is beautiful, but the stonework is quite simple:it is the woodwork inside that makes it so unusual, so beautiful. Spent a while exploring. Some beautiful stained glass windows with depictions of very Canadian landscapes, which was particularly interesting.

I also purchased something I've been looking for for a long time: a 1966 issue of Playboy. Now, I'm sure this takes some explaining... Or else everyone will just think that studying Art/Pornography/Blasphemy/Propaganda last year went to my head! About 4 or 5 years ago I watched some of the documentary series SBS ran on the 1950s in America, and one of the episodes talked about the launch of Playboy magazine. Flipping through it, it's not terribly full of girly pictures (and the Miss April centrefold is done very tastefully - and accompanied by a story, and snapshots of her surfing! Gidget as centrefold!) but it was a magazine young men could read to find out how they were meant to behave in certain social situations. I've always found this a bit bizarre - Playboy as guide to etiquette - hence the fact that I've always wanted a chance to look at it. Scanning it I found phrases such as "Brechtian song" and "Camp, camp, camp, the Baroque Beatles Madrigals..." as well as the conclusion of the Ian Fleming serial Octopussy , and writing by Nabakov. So strange! It was quite an object of fascination in the common room last night- everyone took a chance to flip through it. Particular special is the fact that is contains a story about several previous Playboy covers! All in all - a worthwhile purchase. I'm just worried that Playboy poems will follow Gidget poems...

Last night Claudia and I walked up Saint Laurent and around the Latin Quarter for a while - wish I'd made my way up there a little earlier. Paused in a shop full of posters and prints and postcards - took a while to decide which Tintin postcard to purchase in French! We ended up in an Indian restaurant for dinner - for $9 I felt like I'd eaten quite a feast! And I realised how much I miss curry - am heading out to the supermarket today to get some groceries to catch up on my curry consumption!

Have been reading Thackeray's Vanity Fair for the past week, and reading other bits and pieces in between - rereading Anne Carson's Glass, Irony and God at the moment, and still astounded by the suddenness of her sentences, the way they immediately cut to the point. There's a sentence in one of her Short Talks that somehow sums up her writing for me - in her short talk "On Sylvia Plath". Writing about seeing Plath's mother on the television, she observes that Aurelia "said plain, burned things." Rereading "The Glass Essay" is like a series of shocks, all the while coaxing me towards writing my own pieces. Sometime in the next few days I'm going to head to either the library or one of the bookshops with big armchairs (that might as well be libraries) to do a little research on Robert Smithson for a piece I've begun thinking through.

I'm also hoping to make it to the Quebec literary festival - Kathryn Harrison is a guest, and I'd like to see her speak. Got to try to book tickets today.

Montreal.