Going north

Yes, this blog is pretty much dead. But it’s useful for blogging in long form for updates that are longer than will fit on a Facebook status update.

I traveled to Toronto for two days (in the midst of spending a week with my parents). I wasn’t up there for any particular occasion. I just wanted to do some sightseeing and to soak up some Canadian culture. (Yes, there is such a thing). I took lots of pictures too, which will be posted after they are developed.

So without adieu, here are my random thoughts on Toronto, Ontario, and Canada.

Some Canadian businesses:
Pizza Pizza, “Ontario’s Number One Pizza Chain”
Jack Astor’s Bar and Grill
Future Shop, “Canada’s largest consumer electronics retailer”
Harvey’s, serving Canada’s fast food needs since 1959
Tim Horton’s (although it’s international now, and can enjoy it when I go to Erie and New England).
– Get your double double, Canadian maple donuts, and your Ice Capp Supreme

Shows we don’t get to watch in the States:
Rick Mercer Report
This Hour has 22 Minutes
The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos
Corner Gas
Little Mosque on the Prairie
How Do you Solve a Problem like Maria (Andrew Lloyd Webber casting the Canadian revival of Sound of Music)

What’s with these American theme restaurants?
St. Louis Ribs, Baton Rouge, Boston Pizza, etc.

CBC is having an challenge for people to compose the next Hockey Night in Canada anthem

The Bravo network in Canada is really nothing like the U.S. version. (Their answer to that is a channel called Slice)

CBC is having an challenge for people to compose the next Hockey Night in Canada anthem
The Bravo network in Canada is really nothing like the U.S. version. (Their answer to that is a channel called Slice)

Had an interesting conversation with a shop attendant. She was desparately trying to leave Toronto for Los Angeles. She said she would go to the States with an empty suitcase because everything was so cheap. She didn’t understand my obsession with Paul Gross.

I saw a billboard for “The Canadian Dream.” Which made me wonder what that was.

WTF….
Wheel of Fortune coming to the CBC?!
Desparate Housewives in French?

Visited: Eaton Centre, St. Lawrence Market, Roy Thompson Hall, Canada Walk of Fame, CN Railroad Station, Royal York Hotel, Hockey Hall of Fame

Did you know…
Heinz makes baby food?
Canadian flags are used to sell cars just as American ones do
You can buy poutine at Burger King?
That French-Canadian shows are not that different from Mexican telenovellas?

Just another American tourist reporting back from the land of the maple leaf.

Happy Canada Day!

Those of you who know me well, know that I have made a minor obsession about Canada in the last two years. I have struggled to know what makes her tick, how the music and media of her artists inform her place in the world, and what it can teach us Southerners (in the sense of south of the 49th Parallel).

But I’m more of a musician than a politician, so I’ll make this post about music I think that would be a worthwhile playlist for Canada Day—formerly known as Dominion Day.

1) Secord’s Warning / Tanglefoot / Captured Alive / Borealis BCD-157CD
A good reminder that people can be heroic on both sides of a war.
2) Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald / Gordon Lightfoot / Summertime Dream / Reprise (and subsequent releases on CD)
Not strictly a Canadian song in content, but arguably Lightfoot’s song embodies the best in Canadian songwriting.
3) A Case of You / Joni Mitchell / Blue / Reprise (and subsequent releases on CD)
For the sheer loneliness and passion, and for drawing a map of Canada.
4) Possession / Sarah McLachlan / Fumbling Towards Ecstacy / Arista
Like Mitchell, a master of describing both love and pain.
5) Canadian Pacific / Hank Snow / Greatest Hits Volume 1 / RCA Victor tape
After being everywhere, for making the traveler’s journey universal.
6) Helmethead / Great Big Sea / Something Beautiful / Zoe
Because every Canadian playlist should have a hockey song.
7) Snowbird / Anne Murray / Snowbird / Capitol (and various reissues)
Another timeless classic.
8. At the 100th Meridian / Tragically Hip / Fully Completely / MCA
Loved this song the first time I heard it on Due South. A contemporary look at surviving the times in which we live, while holding on to our dreams.
9) Henry Martin / Figgy Duff / Retrospective 1974-1993 /
Amber-EMI
Another song I heard from Due South. The group was one of the early Celtic rockers.
10) Chanson des Menteries / La Bottine Souriante/ La Traversée de Atlantique / Green Linnet
In the spirit of biculturalism, and plus the fact that they are just really too good not to listen to. Vive la difference!

I’ll leave you with some quotes about Canada I’ve found from various sources:

“I guess Canada is a nice country. I’ve never thought much about it. (Anon. Cal-State student).

“I’m not an American! I am a Canadian. I come from a “nice”, thoroughly unrealistic country” (Matthew Fisher).

“The great themes of Canadian history are as follows: Keeping the Americans out, keeping the French in, and trying to get the Natives to somehow disappear” (Will Ferguson).

“God Bless America, but God help Canada to put up with them!” (Anonymous).

“Canada is a place of infinite promise. We like the people, and if one ever had to emigrate, this would be the destination, not the U.S.A. The hills, lakes and forests make it a place of peace and repose of the mind, such as one never finds in the U.S.A.” (John Maynard Keynes).

“If you don’t believe your country should come before yourself, you can better serve your country by livin’ someplace else” (Stompin’ Tom Connors, who wrote the Hockey Song).

“I wouldn’t let someone take my Canadian citizenship from me for anything” (Jim Kale of the Guess Who).

“I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind” (John Diefenbaker (From the Canadian Bill of Rights, July 1, 1960)).

“Americans should never underestimate the constant pressure on Canada which the mere presence of the United States has produced. We’re different people from you and we’re different people because of you. Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is effected by every twitch and grunt. It should not therefore be expected that this kind of nation, this Canada, should project itself as a mirror image of the United States” (Pierre Trudeau).

“A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe” (Pierre Burton, historian).

“Canada is one of the planet’s most comfortable, and caring, societies. The United Nations Human Development Index cited the country as the most desirable place in the world to live. This year a World Bank study named Canada the globe’s second wealthiest society after Australia” (Time Magazine).

“We’ll explain the appeal of curling to you if you explain the appeal of the National Rifle Association to us” (Andy Barrie).

Happy Birthday Canada, you True North, strong and free. Don’t be afraid to offer tough love to your friends, and remember that you’ve earned a place on the world stage.

Input vs. output

I haven’t been in much of a writing mood lately, although I’ve had several topics I’d like to discuss. Information just keeps coming. I think I’m starting to shake the inertia now, as I have several projects coming due this month and next.

I’ve been gathering content for a Live365 station. I had been leaning either towards an all-Celtic (with local emphasis on the DC area) or all-Canadian oriented show. I have settled on the latter, and I look forward to having it up in the next few months. Live365 seems to be the way to go, since for the fee you pay, they pay all the royalties for music played.

I’m investing in some technology to set up the operations, plus increasing my CD collection to deliver an interesting mix. It’s going to be mostly folk, but spiced with jazz, blues, bluegrass, country, popular, spoken word, and classical selections to give a big picture of our neighbor to the North. Listening to CBC Two has also given me a lot of ideas. I hope I won’t duplicate them too much, it’s meant for as a Canadian music for residents of the United States. (Mustn’t call ourselves Americans.)

If anyone has a favorite Canadian artist or song, please send your ideas. I’ll be happy to incorporate them. What’s your favorite province? I’ll be getting another blog started for the show too, and I’ll keep all Audio Artifacts readers up-to-date on how the stream progresses.

Tonight’s Canuckian playlist

Some songs/albums/performers I’ve been enjoying via radio and recordings:

1) Artist: The Polyjesters
Album: Ka-Chunk

2) Artist: Sarah Harmer
Album: I’m a Mountain

3) Artist: Stuart MacLean
Album: History of Canada/I Remember Wayne

4) Artist: Stan Rogers
Album: Northwest Passage

5) Artist: Wailin’ Jennys
Album: Firecracker

6) Artist: Be Good Tanyas
Album: Hello Love

7) Artist: Tragically Hip
Album: Fully Completely

Artist: Northern Pikes
Album: Hits & Assorted Secrets: 1984-1993

9) Artist: Joe Trio
Album: Set ‘Em Up Joe

10) Various artists
Album: Due South soundtrack, vol. 1

More Canadian albums to come…

Men with Brooms burns the rock a bit

Fair warning: January 12 is Hockey Day in Canada.

I watched Men with Brooms last night. Yup, it is definitely about curling. It’s got some very dry Canadian humour. It’s not brilliant enough to be a parody on other sports movies, and it’s not full-out on being a buddy sports movie. It doesn’t succeed in being a great movie, but it’s a good-enough film for those of you who want a glimpse of one of Canada’s national obsessions. I did learn quite a bit about curling that I didn’t know before. And it is pretty spectacular to watch a player cast a stone. The script is a bit hackneyed, but it’s enjoyable enough watching Leslie Nielsen and Paul Gross in a strained father-son relationship. There’s also a subplot with beavers. ‘Nuff said.

Definitely not a sport to take for granite.

Current media obsessing

Done with:
Due South (why only 3 seasons?!) and associated fan sites.
Call of the Wild and Mounty [sic] on the Bounty are the highlights of season 3.

Waiting for:
1) Slings and Arrows, Season 1
2) Men with Brooms (movie about curling, eh!)
3) Corner Gas (50 miles from nowhere)
4) Paul Gross’s Two Horses (CD)

Wanted:
1) Anything with Paul Gross
2) North of 60 (never released)
3) Trailer Park Boys
4) Due South soundtrack, vol. 2
5) West Wing (seasons 6 and 7, no hurry though)
6) Six Feet Under (seasons 2 and 3, again no hurry since Bravo’s carrying it now)
7) Other Canadian media, esp. if it features a presentation of a Musical Ride.