Re: Blame it on Canada...

[apikoyros <apikoyros...>]

Raboysay (and esteemed colleagues),
My only gripes about Canada are 

1. that Klez Kanada conflicts with
the (older) annual week that we Yiddish 
speakers (mostly rootless cosmopolitans,
with musical and other talents among us)
gather at a summer camp, Yiddish vokh,
sponsored by Yugntruf. I remember seeing
quite a few who belong on this list there.
This event takes place in NY State,
convenient  to most of eastern Canada.
And, for the record, I have no financial
connection with Yiddish vokh. (yet)

2. The Ashkenaz festival happens 
only once every two years and also 
at that partially conflicting time. Its 
first year, it occurred the week of July 
4th, a time 'sacred' to both nations that
enabled Americans visiting Toronto
to take one less day off work. 

Nokhem-Leyb Friedman

Eh, siz git, tants zshe yidn mit...
(lebn zol kolombus)

On Wed, 24 May 2000 16:31:04 -0400 Jeffrey Miller/Burden of Proof
Research <jefmil (at) interlog(dot)com> writes:
> >For the heck of it,  what percentage of your music library is by US 
> artists vs.
> >Canadian ones?
> >You reading library?
> >How many US- made movies do you see in any given year vs. Canadian 
> ones?
> >What about the "brand names" in your fridge, pantry  and medicine 
> cabinet?
> >TV programs?  Magazines?  Car?  Clothing?
> 
> Absolutely, I got the Campbell's (I used to write their ads and 
> jingles), I
> got the Benalyn, I got the Canadian-made Toyota...
> 
> American culture dominates, which is why other cultures (including 
> France
> with their cinema, e.g.) are so nervous about it.  It is also partly 
> why
> this list exists.  When we speak of American culture, we mean 
> pre-packaged,
> homogenized, consumer goods, not Hankus's band, or your lively CDs, 
> or all
> of Henry's hard, hard work.  A lot of your (and my occasional) 
> compatriots
> don't seem to have recognized yet that we (Americans) are living in 
> this
> so-called global village. (Some of the U.S. people on this list 
> announce
> events without even bothering to post the city they're talking 
> about, let
> alone the country!) They (we) don't have to, because the U.S. 
> invented mass
> culture, and controls it.  In many ways, we have not come that far 
> from the
> scenario portrayed in that book both of us are old enough to recall, 
> _The
> Ugly American_.  (John Updike reinvented it in the coup, 
> demonstrating that
> it could be all the more malignant because well-intended.)
> 
> (This is about music, Ari, honest -- at least partly.)  As you know, 
> Wolf,
> when we're right at the border, with 1/10the the population, we tend 
> to get
> even more nervous.  (Apparently there was a very dismissive piece in 
> your
> Boston Globe about a Canadian beer ad that's sweeping this country, 
> an ad
> for Molson Canadian which goes on and on about U.S. prejudices about 
> Canada
> -- how we all live in igloos and wear lumberjack shirts, etc.)  My 
> U.S.
> friends are sometimes shocked by anti-American feeling they perceive 
> when
> they visit here, as I was when I arrived here at the end of the Viet 
> Nam
> war.  I was constantly explaining that I was not a baby-killer -- 
> not a lot
> different than the prejudice I suffered as a kid for other reasons 
> we all
> know about.  The only Bruce Cockburn or Stan Rogers or Bourbon 
> Tabernacle
> Choir, or, come to that, Finjan or Flying Bulgar Klezmer (Canadian 
> bands,
> folks) my Amurrican family and friends have is what I give them as 
> gifts
> (not to mention Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, etc.)  And I 
> think you'll
> agree, they're missing out!
> 
> I will end my passion-of-the-converted (I'm speaking of nationality 
> here,
> folks, not religion) rant with the following question: Hands up, how 
> many on
> the list know where Oscar Peterson was born and where he lives?  
> Glenn
> Gould?  I was gonna add Saul Bellow, but I don't think he can play 
> clarinet,
> and he's been down there with the Wrigleys so long, he's as Canadian 
> as Joni
> Mitchell...
> 
> 
> Best,
> J.
> 
> ---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org 
> ---------------------+
>