O, Canada: A Collection of Hymns by Ex-Pats

I appreciate that the New York Times was even cognizant of Canada Day. In fact, their little collection of testimonies from Canadian emigrants reads like a hymnal that proves absence makes the heart grow fonder. I suppose this is the experience of most emigrants, particularly Canadians, for whom "Canada" doesn't really appear as a definable entity until one has left. But with distance and the cultural contrast, aspects of Canadian culture come into focus. I suppose only a fish out of water begins to reflect on the nature of water.

In response to the query, "What do you miss about Canada?," an array of authors, actors, and comedians weigh in. Sean Cullen's pining is succinct: "Back home, hockey highlights lead off SportsCenter. That is the height of civilization."

Malcolm Gladwell doesn't miss taking a shot at his host country (a favorite pastime for Canadian ex-pats):

In history class, in seventh grade (or as we like to say in Canada, grade seven) we learned the story of the American Revolution — from the British perspective. Turns out you were all a bunch of ungrateful tax cheats. And you weren’t very nice to the Loyalists. What I miss most about Canada is getting the truth about the United States.

Sarah McNally laments the disappearance of a distinctly Canadian literature while Bruce McCall pens an encomium to Coffee Crisp candy bars (sorry, "chocolate bars" in Canadian-ese). But it is perhaps Rick Moranis, of Second City and "Strange Brew" fame, who most lyrically captures some of my own memories (minus the prairie wind):

I remember singing “God Save the Queen” every morning in school. “Long live our noble Queen!” we belted, thousands of us tubby little obedient Canadians. I guess it worked. She’s still alive. Now they sing “O Canada” in schools and at most sporting events; usually in French and English. Around the time we were changing anthems, dumping ensigns and renaming holidays, the official use of both languages became mandatory, except in Quebec where the required use of English is a bit fuzzy.

Canada Day comes and goes modestly every year. Sure, there are retail sales promotions and a long weekend. But there isn’t bluster or commodity in Canadian celebration. Canada isn’t big on bunting. Or jet flyovers, fireworks, marching bands or military pomp.

Canadians defer. We save our loonies and don’t jaywalk. It’s illegal, eh. We stand on guard at red lights, even when there is no traffic. We wait for clear, green governing lights to signal our turn and lead us on. Then we tuck our heads down, under wooly toques and worn-out scarves, one eye barely open, squinting headlong into the harsh prairie wind, cautiously, quietly, demurely Canadian.

I was in Canada last weekend and was struck by how much it had become foreign to me--enough that I could see it as "other." The accents and lilts of Canadian diction are so noticeable now, and it seems to me that there is a Canadian "look" that is discernable. My kids can pick Canadians out of a crowd. Of course "Canada" shouldn't be confused with or reduced to the rural, small-town sectors that we inhabit when we return to Ontario. And while there is much to praise in its best moments--a charming humility ["Sorry"]; Alice Munro; socialized medicine (despite the horror stories Americans want to hear, universal healthcare is still a good thing--just ask the rest of the civilized world)--Canada has its dirty little secrets, too: its submerged racism that can perversely pride itself on never having had slavery as an institution; its bland cultural offerings which have always seemed parasitic on other national cultures; its ressentiment vis-a-vis the States, all the while eagerly assimilating and appropriating the trinkets of American 'culture;' the vengefulness bred into young men by hockey; the disempowerment of the delapidated First Nations territories that dot the land; the militarism of both our anthem and our history; Kim Cattral. I could go on.

It's an easy sport for Canadian ex-pats to idolize their homeland--and demonize their host country. I'm not about to quit either, but I've got just enough distance to see what I'm doing--and to recognize it as quintessentially Canadian.

Kazin on Magazine Writing

"One of the reasons why so many academic scholars find it impossible to write effectively for general magazines is that they are not used to listening to their own voices as poets are. They find their happiness in approbation, not in the English language."

~Alfred Kazin, "Writing for Magazines," in Contemporaries, p. 473.

Book Launch Event at Literary Life Bookstore, June 18, 7pm

The Devil Reads Derrida: and Other Essays on the University, the Church, Politics and the Arts is due to the Eerdmans warehouse this week. I'm very excited that the good folks at Literary Life Bookstore will host a "Third Thursday" event on June 18, 7pm as a sort of "launch" event. I will be doing some readings from the new book and talking a bit about the writing process. The event will also include music by the Kilpatricks (about whose music I've raved before). And, of course, Literary Life will have that wonderful Harney & Sons tea on offer. The book will be available for purchase (and I'll be doing book signings afterwards).


If you're not able to visit Literary Life, you can also order the book through their website. They'll be happy to ship it to you.

Hope to see you there!

On Being a "Popularizer"

In academia, one of the most derogatory comments one can make about a colleague is to label them a "popularizer." This is pretty much akin to being labeled a Democrat on FOX News. The irony, of course, is that almost all scholars are engaged in the profession of teaching which is, by its very nature, the art of a certain kind of popularization.

I was reminded of this recently while reading Saul Bellow's Ravelstein, his very thinly-veiled take on Allan Bloom. (I still hope to post some notes on this over at What I'm Reading.) In the story, Ravelstein (the Bloom-ish character) finally writes a "popular" book which encapsulates the core of the philosophical vision he's been disseminating to students for 30 years. The narrator observes:

To his own surprise, Abe Ravelstein then found himself writing the book he had signed up to do. The surprise was general among his friends and the three or four generations of students he had trained. Some of these disapproved. They opposed what they saw as the popularization, or cheapening, of his ideas. But teaching, even if you are teaching Plato or Lucretius or Machiavelli or Bacon, is a kind of popularization (p. 22).

Poetry Reading at Literary Life

FYI for locals: I'll be reading my first-ever published poem ("The Temptation of Icicles") as part of the Literary Life Chapbook Celebration, an event to launch the chapbook of select poems from their First Annual Poetry Contest. Here are the details:

LITERARY LIFE CHAPBOOK CELEBRATION

Wednesday, May 27th, at 7pm

As you may remember, we recently announced the winners of the First Annual Literary Life Bookstore Poetry Contest, judged by Heather Sellers. Now, you can read the award-winning poems, along with a few select poetry contest entries, in our new chapbook, available for purchase in the bookstore. Enjoy a bit of bubbly (and breads + spreads!) as we listen to a few of the poets read their works, mingle with like-minded literary peers, and peruse the bookstore shelves. For more information, call us at 616.458.8418, or email us at info@literarylifebookstore.com.

The book will include cover art by local artist Rick Beerhorst. (Some Fors Clavigera readers might recognize Beerhorst's work from the etchings that appear in Stanley Hauerwas' Cross-Shattered Christ.) In fact, the Beerhorsts live just around the corner from us and kindly loaned us spigots to tap our maple trees this spring. This is yet another taste of how delightfully local and rooted this whole project is, spawned by the hospitality of Literary Life.

What's Right with the Prosperity Gospel?

Some Fors Clavigera readers might be interested in a new little article of mine just published by the good folks at Catapult magazine: "Abundance for All: What's Right with the Prosperity Gospel?." It's part of an issue devoted to "Life Abundant."

This piece began it's life as a chapel talk at Calvin College in a sermon series on "God's Economy." It grows out of my continued interest in looking for points of intersection between the pentecostal and Reformed traditions.

Catholic Republicans?: Brooks on Ford

David Brooks meditation today on filmmaker, John Ford, is worth a read. As he rightly notes, Ford's "westerns" are not about the rugged individualism that has captured the Ayn-Randish imaginations of the Republican party. As Brooks comments,

the greatest of all Western directors, John Ford, actually used Westerns to tell a different story. Ford’s movies didn’t really celebrate the rugged individual. They celebrated civic order.

For example, in Ford’s 1946 movie, “My Darling Clementine,” Henry Fonda plays Wyatt Earp, the marshal who tamed Tombstone. But the movie isn’t really about the gunfight and the lone bravery of a heroic man. It’s about how decent people build a town. Much of the movie is about how the townsfolk put up a church, hire a teacher, enjoy Shakespeare, get a surgeon and work to improve their manners.

The movie, in other words, is really about religion, education, science, culture, etiquette and rule of law — the pillars of community. In Ford’s movie, as in real life, the story of Western settlement is the story of community-building.

There's an important explanation of this that Brooks doesn't cite: Ford was a Catholic. The lone cowboy that characterizes most other westerns is a distinctly Protestant, and therefore deeply American, phenomenon. Ford's western cinematic imagination stands out, I would suggest, because it is implicitly informed by the communitarianism of the the Catholic tradition. For a lucid and insightful exploration of this thesis, see Richard Blake's marvelous book, Afterimage: The Indelible Catholic Imagination of Six American Filmmakers (chapter 5).