Francesca Barron, manager of a Napierville pet shop, had reported last year that she was chastised by a client, because her polly didn't wanna parlez-vous. Barron said she started getting visits from official-looking individuals, who warned that her unilingual pet parrot could land her in the birdhouse. Nevertheless, the Office de la Langue Française said no complaint had ever been filed against Peek-a-Boo. Still, Barron, who is of French and English origins, wasn't taking any chances. She tried to give Peek-a-Boo a crash course in French, but failed.
It turned out that the Napierville flap was not an isolated incident. The manager of a pet shop in Notre Dame de Grâce had reported that the store's big-mouthed macaw had landed her in hot water on occasion, as well. The macaw's inability to speak French drew complaints from customers despite protestations from the manager that the macaw didn't converse in English really well, either. Francophone employees at the pet shop had unsuccessfully tried to teach the macaw and the store's resident cockatiels workable French.
A local parrot-breeder came to the rescue of the soon-to-be-endangered species by explaining that the birds weren't racist they simply mimicked what they heard at the pet shop or home.
Case closed? Hardly. News of Peek-a-Boo's linguistic flaws flew around the world. Electronic and print media called from Australia, Germany, Britain and U.S. to get the poop on Peek-a-boo. No story this scribe had written in 20 years drew as much response both here and abroad not even his trenchant analysis of the oeuvres of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
The esteemed U.S. TV news-show 60 Minutes recently got wind of this parrot tale while crews were visiting Montreal to get the low-down on anglo-franco relations for a coming program.
By coincidence, Marie-Claude Harvey, a reporter for the French TV network Quatre Saisons, who is also doing a piece on anglo-franco relations, got wind of 60 Minutes getting wind of Peek-a-Boo. The impassioned Harvey was concerned the Peek-a-Boo saga could leave a black mark actually it's a little more white on Quebec and give an impression to foreigners that francophones were intolerant and anglos were oversensitive. She also expressed doubts about the credibility of Peek-a-Boo's owner, citing a story in Journal de Montréal last year that claimed Barron might have been a Galganoviste.
(If it had been a Toronto TV news show to jump on the Peek-a-Boo perch, I suspect the local French press would have ignored it. But when it's 60 Minutes based in New York, the same city that is home to the major bond markets people understandably get perturbed here.)
I tried to allay Harvey's fears, but to little avail. I said the incident merely underscored the absurdity of life in Quebec in much the same way as petty beefs over English kosher-food labels, business cards, Web sites in cyberspace, and the size of Schwartz's smoked-meat sign.
This polarization of the communities in Quebec is sad and distressing on one level. But it is, I tried to relate, to laugh on another. Frankly, it would have all made terrific fodder for an Ionesco play.
Harvey was still unconvinced. I tried to reassure her that most anglos don't really equate life in Quebec to that of a Nazi death camp, that anglos and francophones alike are damned fortunate not to be living in the climate of fear and chaos that encompasses much of the world.
The conversation then turned to objectivity in news coverage. Harvey felt the English media was too quick to report isolated stories, like Peek-a-Boo's, that exaggerate tensions in the province. My retort was that the French media was sometimes too slow in reporting the same stories.
She felt the English media sensed too much conspiracy. I said a few members of the French press assumed the role of apologists for the government and missed the point in some of the English reportage.
We talked about differing perceptions. Recent Gazette coverage concerning Quebec Finance Minister Bernard Landry's tardiness in paying his municipal taxes is an excellent case in point. No matter what our personal sentiments about Landry, the finance minister does have a certain moral responsibility to pay his taxes on time particularly at a time when Quebec is trying to stick a $500-million load on the municipalities.
But to some of the French media, this story was yet another anglo witchhunt targeting a Quebec nationalist. And what's the big deal about paying taxes on time anyway? questioned Journal de Montréal columnist Franco Nuovo last week, as he took shots at "ze chic Gazette" which frankly sounds more like a swank skin-mag than the reactionary anglo bastion he accuses us of being. (For the record, Landry admitted he was wrong and paid his taxes with interest last week.)
All the same, reporter Harvey felt anglos were overly paranoid. I said we probably had every reason to feel paranoid after Jacques Parizeau's irresponsible referendum-night remark, blaming money and ethnic votes for the separatist defeat. She just shrugged.
We agreed on little, other than the fact that most anglos and francophones had totally different spins on life in Quebec. But at least we talked, and even smiled on occasion.
As for Peek-a-Boo, I fear the worst. So does ever-sensitive colleague Mary Lamey. "St. Hubert Bar B-Q," she winced.
Francesca Barron, Peek-a-Boo's owner, no longer works at the Napierville pet shop and couldn't be located.
The store's unamused proprietors rue the day she first spoke about the parrot's plight.
Doubtless, Barron does, too.
- Bill Brownstein