This hurts. Just when you think you're up to speed on all arcane factoids about Montreal's past, it takes two Torontonians to shed light on a heretofore unknown moment in our glorious history.

It seems that on Aug. 23, 1820, a lost pig entered the Bank of Montreal on St. Jacques St. in Old Montreal. No truth, however, to the rumour that the porker became president of the bank.

And who knew that people could make the trip to the top of Mount Royal on an incline railway in the 19th century?

Well, Hal Niedzviecki (we'll call him Hal) and Darren Wershler-Henry (and we'll call him Darren) did. And it's only a hunch, but the two Hogtowners surmise that the train trip down the mountain was a lot swifter than the one up.

These are but a few of the revelations in Hal and Darren's Original Canadian City Dwellers Almanac: Facts, Rants, Anecdotes and Unsupported Assertions for Urban Residents.

But the guys are quick to point out there is one assertion about this city they can support: "There's no better place than Montreal to get drunk, period!"

To drive home their claim, they echo the sentiments of some telling graffiti plastered over a urinal in a west-end bar: "A Bad Thursday in Montreal is like a Good Friday in Toronto."

But it's not all wine and roses. Almanac contributor David McGimpsey reminds us all of an aspect of city life that probably contributes to the excessive libation: "Montreal winter is like 100 funerals ... if by 100 one means 1,000."

On that cheery note, the editors have provided a primer on how to deal with the resultant depression, titled Your Mental Breakdown in Montreal Will Require Careful Planning.

Excerpted from Valerie Joy Kalynchuk's All Day Breakfast, this four-pronged plan delves into all the intricacies of finding the mental-health professional who is right for you. And if all else fails, Kalynchuk passes along this therapeutic tidbit: "Well, just don't cry so much, OK? Eh?"

Hal and Darren have a startling confession. It's about a cultural bias they share.

"Even though we are contractually obligated to be completely Toronto-centric and ignore the rest of the country, we just couldn't ignore Montreal," Hal says over a libation at a downtown cafe.

"This city just keeps on seducing us," Darren says.

And by seducing, Darren doesn't mean our lap-dancers - deemed by New York-based Stuff magazine to be the hottest in North America. Not entirely. He is also left drooling by the dining experiences this city has to offer.

"Montreal claims to have more restaurants per capita than any city in North America, except Manhattan," Darren says. "Of course, Quebec City, Victoria, Winnipeg, Kingston and Saskatoon also lay claim to having the most restaurants per capita."

"Someone's lying," sleuth Hal says. "But you'll notice we're in Montreal now, not Saskatoon."

The guys also note that Montreal is a hotbed for comedians, cartoonists, eccentrics and indie ambient punk ensembles like Godspeed You Black Emperor! Plus, they note Montreal wrote the book on Olympic-spending follies and is home to the only big-league stadium where fans can catch either fly balls or falling concrete chunks in the stands.

They have obviously done their homework.

So, if this city is so darned swell, why don't they move here?

"If we moved here, where would we go for a good time?" deep-thinking Darren responds.

"No one gets passionate about living in Toronto - mostly because no one who lives there was actually born there," Hal says.

"In fact, about the most passionate debate in Toronto centres on roti," Darren says. "Basically, you have your bone-in roti fans and your bone-out roti fans.

For the record, roti is a Caribbean goat delicacy, and Darren favours bone-in, while Hal is a bone-out kind of guy.

No surprise that their City Almanac is an irreverent reaction to the Old Farmer's Almanac.

"Fun is a relatively new concept for Canadians, except for Montrealers," says either Darren or Hal. "Historically, our culture has been all about mind-numbing, backbreaking work. Farming is not fun. Fishing for cod is not fun. Mining coal is not fun. Sure, cities stink. But they reek of life, and fun, too."

And an errant pig making a deposit.

Easy Reader
Dan Smith
Toronto Star
December 14, 2002

My daddy always told me that nobody likes a smart ass but in these times of ennui-soaked irony, well, there's a certain ready appeal for those who can entertainingly offer a certain knowing glibness but still laugh at it.

Hip young Toronto book dudes Hal Niedzviecki (Broken Pencil zine magazine; lots of fiction; ubiquitous pop culture critic) and Darren Wersheler-Henry (poet, Coach House Press editor; author of five books on technology and culture) have, happily, intact senses of humour to go with all that attitude. The pair has a lot of fun attempting to capture the essence of life in urban Canada in their saucy, inventive and extremely skimmable The Original Canadian City Dweller's Almanac: Facts, Rants, Anecdotes And Unsupported Assertions For Urban Residents (Viking Canada, 246 pages, $25). Example: A tip on how to choose a bar: "Look for seediness. A seedy bar is a good bar, because it means low prices and people who aren't too uppity when it comes to talking to a stranger."

That's us all over.

Where we fit in Canadian urbanness:
Ottawa coverage light in new almanac
Susan Burgess
Ottawa Citizen
November 18, 2002

Ottawans can take pride in being second only to Vancouver in UFO sightings last year, according to a new book called The Original Canadian City Dweller's Almanac.

Hal Niedzviecki and his co-author, Darren Wershler-Henry, tell us we also have at least one cool bookstore (Octopus Books) and a hip indy rock band (Wooden Stars). Other than that, however, Ottawa gets only slightly more coverage than Mississauga in the guide to urban living.

But Mr. Niedzviecki says it's not personal.

"You can't satisfy an entire country in 220 pages," said Mr. Niedzviecki, who spent his childhood in Ottawa, but now lives in Toronto.

Mr. Niedzviecki and Mr. Wershler-Henry recalled their own travel experiences and talked to people who live in Canada's major cities to come up with a humorous work that is part travel guide, part etiquette book and part celebration of urban living.

"We haven't really embraced the urbanness of Canada as much as we should," Mr. Niedzviecki said.

The book's opening pages describe how our cities began, with a short section devoted to Ottawa. The authors say the city was picked by Queen Victoria to be Canada's capital "for reasons that are either lost in the mists of time or obscured by indifference."

"One of the things that we really enjoyed doing was looking at the accidental bureaucracy that founded most Canadian cities," Mr. Niedzviecki said. "Ottawa being sort of randomly selected by the Queen. Toronto emerging when the Upper Canada brain trust decided their lawyers and rich bigwigs were too vulnerable to attack in Kingston. Vancouver pretty much being founded by where the railroad decided it would stop."

Our cities' hangups are as unique as their beginnings, according to Mr. Niedzviecki. While Montrealers worry their city is too licentious and Torontonians obsess about being world-class, Ottawans are thin-skinned about their city's image as a sleepy government town.

"Maybe we could say that Ottawa needs to embrace its other side, its ability to have fun and produce culture and all those other things," Mr. Niedzviecki said. "But I think that's as far as I'm going to go in terms of a critique of Ottawa."

At least a wild party is only a hop across a bridge. The almanac describes Hull as "Ottawa's id, sustained largely by pork-barrelling, greasy spoons, late-night boozecans, strip joints, and various and sundry services necessary to sustain a population of civil servants."

Jeff Miller, the creator of an annual magazine that has frequently featured stories and essays about life in Ottawa, was pleased his magazine Otaku made the almanac's list of eight "Great Canadian Urban Zines."

Mr. Miller now spends most of the year in Montreal, but has Ottawa's latitude and longitude tattooed on his wrist.

"What I try to explain to people is despite how Ottawa may seem on the first, second, third, fourth or fifth impression, there are really some incredible people and great artists and musicians," he said. "Ottawa's great. It's like a little hidden gem."