One Year, One Canadian

Month #10 – Music

2011-10-11T18:27:51Z

I first discovered the Cowboy Junkies when my brother brought home their extraordinary 1988 album, The Trinity Sessions. The band’s languid rhythms and Margo Timmons’s hesitant, sultry whisper clutched at my serious teenage heart, and kicked off a lifetime love affair. They were the first band I ever really discovered, and they were Canadian.

And, while the band has taken musical vacations to different climes–the American South or China–they’ve always felt profoundly Canadian. The sparseness of their sound seems to echo our endless wilderness. They’ve always been a humble band–songwriter and guitarist Michael Timmons (Margo’s brother) plays sitting down, with his hair concealing his face. And their back catalog is full of Neil Young covers.

I had been primed to love the Junkies, of course, because my childhood household was filled with rock and roll–and lots of it Canadian. I didn’t appreciate them then as much as I do now, but my father fed us a steady stream of Neil Young and The Band. One of the first riffs I mastered when I was learning to play the guitar was the emblematic opening of Young’s “Hey Hey, My My”.

The Junkies were just the first in a long line of Canadian bands I’ve come to deeply admire. They’re in a zigzaggy line from the Junkies through Weeping Tile to, most recently, Dan Mangan.

My taste is mostly in the folk rock and singer-songwriter mold, but I dabble in other mediums. My favourite music to listen to while I write are Glenn Gould’s famous recordings of Bach’s “The Goldberg Variations”. And I fell for Sophie Milman when I saw her play at the Vancouver Jazz Festival a few years ago.

The Rules

They’re pretty simple. I’ll only listen to Canadian music for the rest of the year. There’s not a lot I can do when I leave the house, but at home, on my iPhone and in the car I’m going all-Canadian, all the time.

Will that be a burden? As it happens, I’m an obsessive self-documenter, and so for years have tracked my musical taste with Last.fm. Here’s what I’ve listened to over the last 12 months:

I’ll accept partial responsibility for Taylor Swift, but not Glee. In any case, more than half of my most-listened-to artists are already Canadian. My wife and I have an iTunes library of about 10,000 songs. I went through them and made a playlist of all the Canadian ones, and that came out to be about 1,500 tunes. So, that should carry me through the rest of the year.

Photo by Adam Bowie.

Why Aren’t Canadian Movies Better?

2011-10-03T04:42:46Z

Let’s just acknowledge something right off the bat about Canadian movies: they’re rarely good. I’ve been watching a bunch of Canadian cinema over the summer–mostly the films that enjoyed brief runs at local cinemas–and they’ve been dismal. The Mountie, Modra, Breakaway, Terry, The High Cost of Living–the list of underwhelming movies goes on and on.

The problem, I think, is that I inevitably compare them to Hollywood fare. Obviously, mainstream American cinema is full of dogs too, but they’re easy to avoid. Plus, there’s a constant flow of quality movies from which to choose. For Canadian movies in the theatre, there’s usually zero to one on in Vancouver at any given time. And there’s no assurance that that one will be any good.

As a case in point, this weekend I watched Breakaway, the story of a team of Canadian Sikhs who earn redemption on the hockey rink. It was pretty dreadful. The script was clunky and the performances were wooden. It was the unfunny red-headed step-child of Bend It Like Beckham.

In a conversation with a friend of mine, he suggested that Canadian cinema was the AHL to Hollywood’s top-flight league. He’s right, after all, as we send our best filmmakers to California to find fame and fortune. So maybe I should lower my expectations for Canadian movies? Part of the problem is that while I don’t watch AHL teams at Rogers Arena, I see Canuck films in the same theatres or on the same TV screens where I watch the very best American movies. So, the average Canadian movie will inevitably disappoint by comparison.

Of course, our country has produced a number of great movies. The one bright spot in my 2011 viewing schedule was Incendies, a terrific tale of a daughter discovering her past in the war-torn Middle East. It was French and included incest as a plot point–two common characteristics of good Canadian movies.

I sometimes think that, in North America, we have a biased view of so-called “foreign films”. Why? Because the movie market filters out 98% of movies from any other country, so that we only see the very best (or, possibly, the most commercially viable) films from France or China. Maybe that’s the approach we need to take with Canadian movies: treat our local films as if they’re from a foreign country, and only watch the very best?

Month #9 – Travel

2011-10-10T23:51:31Z

Note: I’m back-dating this post to September 15 because I failed miserably to write it last month.

For the rest of 2011, I shall not set foot on foreign soil. I know that, compared to giving up non-Canadian food or television, this self-denial doesn’t feel like much of a sacrifice. But I have had to forego invitations to one of the Carolinas (I can’t for the life of me remember which) and Point Roberts, Washington.

Point Roberts, incidentally, is this idiosyncratic peninsula that’s connected only to Tsawassen in British Columbia. Much like the Russian region of Kalinigrad, it’s a pene-exclave which Americans can only reach by air, water or passing through Canada. It’s full of Canadians who have bought cheap (or cheaper, at least) property for holiday homes. Hence, the invitation I had to decline.

And so I’ll only travel in Canada for the balance of the year. I’ve done plenty of that already. I’ve been to Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax since the start of the year, and I have plans to see Regina and to return to Toronto before the year is out.

That sounds like a lot of Canada, but, of course, it’s just a thumbnail on the body of our great nation. I’m a little ashamed of how little of Canada I’ve actually seen, particular if you remove the big cities from the equation.

I have traveled outside of Canada a lot, though, and I’ve lived abroad in Ireland, Malta and Morocco. Nothing makes you more patriotic than watching your country from a distance, or celebrating national holidays with newfound Canadian expats.

A side note: a few months ago, I had a notion of assembling a slideshow of Google Street View screenshots of big Canadian roadside statues and monuments. This proved more difficult and time-consuming than I imagined, so I leave you with just three of my favourites, and a question: if you were going to recommend a Canadian destination to me outside the major cities, what would it be?

I included a photo of the Terry Fox Memorial in Thunder Bay (by Paul Weimer) because it’s a spot I’ve always wanted to visit, but haven’t had the chance yet.

Contest: Win a basket of Canadian goodness

2011-09-15T17:19:55Z

I think about food all the time, and I hate it. I’m only a few weeks into my all-Canadian diet, and the amount of time I need to spend shopping for and preparing food is a bit ridiculous. I also went cold turkey on Coke, a beverage I’ve drunk daily for the past, oh, 25 years. Don’t get me started on the headaches.

On a lighter note, it’s time for another contest. The good people at Saul Good Gift Company have donated a gourmet gift basket to the cause. It contains all sorts of tasty local stuff–pecan fruit crisps from Vancouver, chocolate bark from Ladysmith, season fruit preserves from Langley and so forth.

What do you have to do to enter this contest? Simply ‘like’ the 1Y1C Facebook page. Have you already liked it? No problem, you’re already entered in the contest.

Not on Facebook? Good for you. Just leave a comment below and we’ll add your name to the mix.

I’ll pick a winner in early October and Saul will send you the goodies.

My Food Tracking Spreadsheet

2011-09-15T16:37:27Z

Since kicking off my food month, I’ve been keeping track of where my food comes from. I started a spreadsheet so that I could build up my knowledge of Canadian food sources, and have something to refer to when I didn’t know what to eat for dinner.

It’s a work in progress, but you can check out the spreadsheet below.

Month #8 – Food

2011-08-26T05:24:12Z

I was about 11 years old when my parents got divorced, and I lived with my father until I left for university. When my Mom left, she gave my father a binder with seven recipes in it. My brother, father and I ate those seven recipes for the next seven years of my life.

Because I know you’re wondering, the recipes were for hamburger soup, pork chops, Shake ‘N’ Bake chicken, spaghetti, pizza and the much-hated sole. His seventh meal was flank steak, reserved for special occasions.

I went off to university, and cooked for myself for the next few years.

So, for some critical formative years, I ate in a kind of culinary desert.

The result? As an adult, I’m ambivalent, if not downright anhedonic about food. There are foods I moderately prefer to other foods, but, beyond health concerns, I’m not somebody who really cares about what I eat.

I used to not eat red meat for ethical reasons. Now I don’t do it because it simplifies my eating decisions. When my wife is away, I’m happy eating the same food for two or three meals in a row. When faced with a restaurant menu, I scan it until I find something that appeals, and I stop there. I also don’t drink alcohol, coffee or tea.

I’m not critical of people who find great joy or comfort in preparing and eating food. Well, I do think a subsection of foodies has a misbegotten sense of moral righteousness around their eating habits, but they’re the exception.

But now I have to constantly think about food. I have to rigorously contemplate my every buying and eating decision. And you know what? It sucks.

With this in mind, will I miss anything over the next four months? I do drink Coke quite often, so that’s a non-starter. And who doesn’t like chocolate? I’ll also miss the convenience of grabbing some sushi (or nearly anything, for that matter) for lunch.

The Rules

If I eat it at home, it has to be sourced in Canada. That’s everything, from cooking oil to sugar to any processed food. I’ve been hosting some informative discussions on the One Year, One Canadian Facebook page which has helped me discover promising sources of Canadian bread, sugar and flour.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time at farmer’s markets, asking irritating questions about Colin the chicken. I’ll also spend some time this fall going right to the source to get food. I went snorkeling with a friend to catch the red rock crabs you see in the photo.

I don’t plan to eat out that much, but when I do, I’m going to require that the main ingredients be sourced in Canada.

If you had to eat all-Canadian for a year, what would you miss most?

Month #7 – Books and Magazines

2011-08-01T04:29:03Z

It’s only been a few weeks, but I miss The New Yorker already. I’ve shared a subscription with my brother and father for the past couple of years, and found the magazine incomparable in terms of the quality and depth of its reporting. It’s the only magazine I read regularly.

When I’m traveling, I’ll sometimes indulge in lighter fare like Esquire, Details or Wired, but that’s the extent of things in the analogue world. My online reading inevitably sends me all over the place, from The Atlantic to Slate.

But July has been the month to go all-Canadian for books and magazine, so I have to give up my American magazines and magazine sites. Where does that leave me on this side of the border?

Macleans – My father used to read Mcleans religiously when I was young. I usually just read the movie reviews and Allan Fotheringham’s backpage column. It’s my impression that, in recent years, the magazine has morphed into a hyper-ventilating mouthpiece of conservative Canada, but I honestly haven’t picked an issue up in a decade. I’ll buy one and test my assumptions.

The Walrus – Early in its life, I gave The Walrus several tries. Ultimately, though, it didn’t stick. I can’t quite say why.

Geist – I’ve read Geist off-and-on for years, though I’ve never felt really compelled by its brand of showily-brainy non-fiction. As it happens, I’ve written a couple small items for this magazine, all of them at the less brainy end of the scale.

Canadian Geographic - My Mom used to get this magazine. I almost exclusively looked at the pretty pictures.

Sharp – I just discovered this in the Toronto airport. It’s seems to be positioned as Canada’s Esquire. The issue I read had Bradley Cooper on the cover. It was unremarkable.

Though I’ve never read it, several people have recommended Toronto Life to me. What’s your favourite Canadian magazine?

Escapism For Canada’s Brunettes

2011-07-21T17:49:23Z

I recently watched an episode of Being Erica which began with Erica awakening to find her bed empty. Her boyfriend, shirtless under an apron, greets her from the kitchen, where he’s cooking breakfast. He is ridiculously handsome, and has underwear model abs. After embracing Erica, he offers her a day of shopping with his credit card.

It’s escapism for Canada’s women, and that’s excellent. We’ve had fifty years male fantasy in the form of Gunsmoke, Magnum PI and Two and a Half Men, so it’s high time to even up the score.

On a related note, in its first season, the show depicts all five of its recurring blonde female characters as villainnesses, or at least difficult and a little bitchy. The show’s creator? A brunette.

For those new to Being Erica, the show has a wacky premise. In the pilot, Erica meets Dr. Tom, a kind of metaphysical therapist who transports her back to various points in her life, where she inhabits an earlier version of herself. The time travel stems from the idea that Erica has many regrets, and the time travel enables her to correct past mistakes.

But here’s the thing: more often than not, she cannot or does not change the past. The show’s message is also a kind of (gender-neutral) fantasy: my life is the indelible sum of past actions, and it’s inevitable and right. There’s something very assuring in that idea, and reflects our culture’s current fetishization of “absolutely no regrets”. I’m not sure that’s a great lesson, but only a stupid man would turn to television shows was lessons.

I’m only ten episodes into the first season, and I’m actually enjoying it. The writing is entertaining, and the leads are strong. I’m proud to say that the actress who plays Erica, Erin Karpluk, is from my alma mater. I’ve tried six or eight Canadian series, and this is the one that’s stuck. I’m going to give Combat Hospital a try, too, as I think that passes the Canadian test.

Speaking of the Canadian test, how Canadian is Being Erica?

The cast occasionally acknowledges that they’re in Toronto, and we see iconic Toronto locations like the ferry to Toronto Island.
One of the recurring characters if French Canadian.
I’ve spotted some Canadian currency.
One of the characters works as a columnist at The Globe and Mail (she seems modeled on Leah McLaren).

If an American wasn’t paying close attention, though, they could watch several episodes without realizing the show was Canadian. So, I give it two out of five poutines.

Month #6 Contest – Win a Chillbed Laptop Stand

2011-08-07T03:50:11Z

I know, I’m a bit behind. I failed to deploy a contest last month. What can I tell you? The categories are adding up, and I’m having a hard enough time just wrestling my busy life into too-small mukluks that is this project.

But, on the upside, you get two contests this month. The first one comes courtesy of the good folks at Chillbeds. They produce made-in-Canada laptop stands.

I didn’t realize how handy a laptop stand was until I received one–not a Chillbed, but something similar–as a gift a couple of years ago. My Macbook Air gets really hot, and after a half-hour or so it can be uncomfortable to have it in my lap. A laptop stand ameliorates this problem. Likewise, they’re super-handy if you want to watch something on your laptop in bed with a, uh, bed partner. You put the stand in-between you and nobody gets a stiff neck.

In keeping with last month’s home category, here’s the contest. Before July 31, leave a comment below naming one thing in your home that’s made in Canada. It can be a piece of clothing, an item of furniture, a beauty product–anything, really.

I’ll pick a winner in early August, and they’ll receive a Chillbed.

UPDATE: Congratulations to Nicole from Ontario–she’s the lucky commenter who we randomly selected to win the Chillbeds laptop stand.

My Best Canada Days Have Been Abroad

2011-07-02T07:32:50Z

On this, Canada’s 144th birthday (a gross birthday, as one friend pointed out), I’ve been thinking about two of the Canada Days which I spent outside the country. In 2001, we’d been living in Ireland for about four months. For reasons that escape me now, we’d checked in with the Canadian consulate in Dublin shortly after we arrived. As a result, I received email invitations to all sorts of Irish-Canadian events.

One such event was at the Canadian ambassador’s residence, in a very posh Dublin suburb (the Canadian government has since sold it, but I see that you can rent it for a mere €10,000 a month). Rohinton Mistry gave a reading to a lot of middle-aged ladies-who-lunched, and two out-of-place young Canadians. We sneaked outside and explored the grounds, which included a lovely grove of eucalyptus trees.

But I digress. The consulate also notified me about a Canada Day event at a downtown bar. My wife and I brought a couple of my work colleagues down to investigate. Curiously, the bar was called Major Tom’s Down Under, and had an Australian theme. There are no Canada-themed bars in Dublin, so I suppose they figured a sister Commonwealth country was close enough. We stepped inside, and entered into a kind of hyper-Canadian party. Young people danced to The Tragically Hip, drank Moosehead Beer and watched Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em videos on the bar’s TVs. My Irish friends were perplexed.

Six years later, we were living in Malta, and were invited to a dinner hosted by the Canadian-Gozitan Society. A Gozitan is a resident of Gozo, the small Maltese island where we lived. The photo for this post shows a plaque on a house in the little village where we lived. Oddly, we never met the owners.

We had a splendid evening and four-course meal at a fancy hotel overlooking Gozo’s gorgeous Mgarr Harbour. Most of the attendees were retired (Malta is full of elderly ex-pats), so the proceedings were a little more staid than in Dublin. Speeches were spoken, and the Canadian national anthem was played over the hotel’s sound system. We sat at a table with some friends from Newfoundland (if memory serves), and talked of our first homes.

Never have I been more patriotic than when I’m living outside of the country. Canada Days spent abroad bring a kind of nationalistic clarity to my love of my country.

Have you spent a Canada Day outside Canada?