I hope I’m not intruding…

I’m a 51-year old resident of Côte St. Luc and I first penned Briefly Bram as a column in the section I founded for The Suburban, Montreal Scene: A Touch of Class, back in the late 1980s. Reviving it almost 15 years later for another newspaper was therefore a rush and, honestly, I didn’t think I’d last too long. It was a lark, maximum one year, I figured. Boy, was I wrong. While a weekly column is a HUGE challenge – just try coming up with fresh subject matter without missing a beat for five years and you’ll see what I mean – it also gets into your blood, like sugar to an addict like me. You start to LIKE helping people get the news out regarding their businesses and projects. And when readers approach you in public places asking if you are “that guy who writes the column,” well, it strokes the ego something fierce. It’s nice to know your effort is appreciated, even writing for a small community weekly. As a matter of fact, it’s the small publications that highlight a writer’s work best… not that the New York Times has knocked on my door recently…

Which brings me to the Westmount Examiner and my appearance here. I have had the distinct pleasure of working with Examiner editor Wayne Larsen now and then during my tenure at The Monitor. He’s a bright, hard-working guy, funny, too, and he knows the biz inside out. And being a member of the same Transcontinental family, he sees my stuff on a regular basis. Wayne raised the issue of my writing for him a couple of years ago and we kept putting it off. Well, the time has finally come, it seems, and there’s no more delaying the inevitable. So, every other week or so to start with, I’ll be doing my thing here in Westmount, crowing to you in print and to the world, via the miracle of the Internet, why this municipality is the envy of Montrealers. I have been working in Westmount for almost four years, actually, and I like it here a lot, especially during the summer months when I can walk to various places during my lunch breaks.

Keep in touch!

I’ll merely ask you the same favour I ask of my West End readers: stay in touch. If you think of anyone who would like to be interviewed and written up, drop me an e-mail. If you enjoy a particular column or, similarly, do not, let me know. People tend to enjoy my columns most of the time, but I occasionally hit a nerve and that’s also okay. Nobody’s perfect, least of all me. All I ask is that you don’t allow me to toil in a vacuum, because for a writer, there is nothing less inspirational than indifference to one’s hard work.

I look forward to meeting you, working with you and boasting about you. It will be a true pleasure.



• Bram Eisenthal can be contacted at bramsbriefs@yahoo.ca