Taking the Bus with the Dalai Lama

October 30, 2010

When, a few months ago, I started thinking about what bothered me with bus systems anywhere around the world, it was mostly as an intellectual exercise for myself, a meditation on the city and its system, and a mild flexing of my observation muscles.

I was hoping that perhaps others would also be bothered by the issue enough to share a few ideas. I wasn’t, however, really expecting a great conversation full of good research and ideas. Nor was I expecting to receive personal e-mails profusely thanking me for putting my finger on some of the reasons others, not just me, were uncomfortable with buses.

So you can imagine my surprise when I received a message from Nora Young, the host of CBC Radio’s blog/show/podcast Spark, telling me that she and her team had liked the story and wanted to develop it together.

Unfortunately, both Nora and I were traveling or about to, and we couldn’t easily find a time for her to interview me for the show. However, since I happened to have a meeting that week at the Radio Canada / CBC tower in Montreal, we decided that I would go and record an interview based on a predetermined set of questions. I assumed that some amount of trickery would be applied to “make believe” that Nora was actually the one asking questions.

I don’t remember much about the interview – only that the people who welcomed me at Radio Canada were as friendly and wonderful as the radio studio was fantastic, and that I spent more than half an hour chatting in duplex with Carma Jolly in Toronto. And instead of the “fake” interview I assumed we were building, the Spark team managed to edit my long ramblings and chatter into a coherent, if a little lonesome, 5 minutes monologue.

The show is up already on the Spark blog, and is expected to air tomorrow. As cherry on the cake, my segment is followed by a speech by the Dalai Lama, which makes the whole thing double-plus-awesome, as well as a little surreal.

If we do each get 15 minutes of fame, I will henceforth assume I have approximately 10 left (to be enjoyed, hopefully, at my convenience).

Previous/Next

06 Octobre 2000~2010: Dix ans d'errance

2010-10-06

Il y a 10 ans aujourd'hui, j'embarquais sur un Paris-Tokyo

… À suivre

Farewell Montreal (Hello London)

2010-12-01

In exactly one month, I will be hopping on a plane to London (UK, not Ontario) to join a new job, a new city, a new life.