So yesterday was a pretty eventful day: I fell waist-deep into a giant uncovered manhole in the middle of central Johannesburg at the busiest time of day; and I heard gunshots in my neighbourhood for the first time. I also went to the Johannesburg Art Gallery in Joubert Park to check out their Africa Remix exhibit and to a great bar in Newtown.
But first …
Happy Canada Day!
I didn’t really do much to celebrate today, unfortunately. I searched online for any Canada Day parties or any kind of ex-pat thing going on, but couldn’t find anything. I also thought the Canadian embassy might host some kind of back-bacon luncheon or something, but I couldn’t find any evidence that they were hosting anything. So then I thought I’d check out the Apartheid Museum; my thinking being that it would make sense, on Canada Day, to learn about a system that was basically the antithesis to the longstanding Canadian dream/myth of multiculturalism. But then I woke up too late and also realized the museum is a lot farther away than I originally thought.
So instead, I put on my raggedy Leaf hat, went for a late breakfast at this Portuguese bakery in South Kensington and whistled “Oooh What a Night”, “More Than a Feeling” and “Sudbury Saturday Night” to myself as I walked, hoping that it might attract some fellow Canadians.
No luck.
But, just as I sat down in the little café, guess what came blaring through the radio?
“I got my first real six-string / Bought it at the five-and-dime”
Yes, this actually happened. And I laughed out loud. I was sitting by myself so I’m pretty sure the other restaurant patrons thought I was insane.
So I felt a little better knowing that I could share my Canada Day coffee with Mr. Bryan Adams.
Other than that, I actually spent most of the day cleaning my house while listening to the following CanCon playlists.
I made three playlists: CanRock of my youth, CanRock of other people’s youths and CanRock of the youth I’m still trying to hold onto (essentially anything post 2000).
“Papa only watches hockey games”
or
CanRock of my youth:
Our Lady Peace – Starseed
The Pursuit of Happiness – Gretzky Rocks
Rheostatics – The Ballad of Wendel Clark Parts I and II
The Super Friendz – Karate Man
Sloan – Underwhelmed
Weeping Tile – Good Fortune
Sandbox – Carry
The Age of Electric – Ugly
Rusty – Misogyny
Buck 65 – Pants On Fire
Change of Heart – Herstory
Chixdiggit – (I Feel Like Gerry) Cheevers (Got Stitch Marks On My Heart)
Eric’s Trip – Viewmaster
Fur Packed Action – Everything
Hayden – In September
hHead – University
The Inbreds – Drag Us Down
Treble Charger - Red
Spirit of the West – Far Too Canadian
I Mother Earth – Not Quite Sonic
Thrush Hermit – The Day We Hit the Coast
The Lowest of the Low – Under the Carlaw Bridge
Matthew Good Band – Alabama Motel Room
The Monoxides – Can’t Get Excited
Plumtree – Regret
The Rude Mechanicals – Coquette
The Tragically Hip – Nautical Disaster
The Watchmen – All Uncovered
*Now, over the course of making this playlist I realized that I haven’t converted a bunch of my CDs (the ones I listened to in my younger youth, mostly), but I thought of a few songs that definitely would have made the playlist if I had access to them.
The Headstones – Unsound
The Odds – Eat My Brain
54-40 – Oyster Pearl
Moist - Push
Junkhouse – Out of My Head
Lawrence Gowan – Dancing On My Own Ground
“There’s a place in north Ontario”
or
CanRock of Other People’s Youths
Tom Cochrane – Life Is a Highway
The Guess Who – Runnin’ Back to Saskatoon
Loverboy – Workin’ For the Weekend
The Diodes – Waking Up Tired
The Nils – Pop Goes the World
Rush – Closer to the Heart
Trooper – The Boys in the Bright White Sports Car
Bruch Cockburn – Lovers in a Dangerous Time
Kim Mitchell – Easy To Tame
Leonard Cohen – Famous Blue Raincoat
Joni Mitchell – A Case of You
Gordon Lightfoot – Alberta Bound
Stan Rogers – Farewell to Nova Scotia
Stompin’ Tom Connors – Canada Day Up Canada Way
Gordon Lightfoot – The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Neil Young – Helpless
“At 3 a.m. they play O Canada, true patriot love and la-la-la-la-la”
or
CanRock of the youth I’m still trying to hold onto
Joel Plaskett – True Patriot Love
Two-Hours Traffic – Stuck For the Summer
The Arcade Fire – Headlights Look Like Diamonds
The Radical Dudez – Girls Who Play in the Snow
Steve McKay – You May Be Dirty, But You’re All I’ve Got
Cadence Weapon – Oliver Square
K’Naan – Smile
Malajube – Montreal -40 degrees
Land of Talk – Seafoam
The Constantines – Young Lions
The Sourkeys – Demon or Deity
Cuff the Duke – Ballad of a Lonely Construction Worker
Elliot Brood – Oh Alberta
The Deadly Snakes – Gore Veil
Final Fantasy – The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead
Friday Morning’s Regret – Wooden Sky
Chad VanGaalen – Wind-Driving Dogs
Great Lake Swimmers – Your Rocky Spine
Christine Fellows – Phantom Pains
Nich Worby – Brown, Brown Fields
FemBots – The City
Wintersleep – Avalanche
The Diableros – Olympic Island
Timber Timbre – Home
Again, happy Canada Day everybody. If you’re near a lake or on a patio, pour a Labatt 50 (pronounced “cinquante”) out for me. To Bob and Doug Mackenzie!
I’ll post about Saturday’s wild stuff as soon as I can (I’m going to figure out how to post photos of the Africa Remix exhibit first).
BK
5 comments:
happy can-ah-duh day! so far the highlight was john allemang's feature on an immigrant family from afghanistan and the ibbitson vs. valpy smackdown on cdn history in public education, with trevisan sidebars. apart from that, you're really not missing much.
how was africa remix? it's supposed to be really good.
watch out for holes in the street! i fell in a pothole while biking a couple weeks ago and the road rash still hasn't healed.
I've got to do some work-work right now (I work a little on weekends to cover the half-day I take off during the week now), but I'll try to get some of the Africa Remix photos up soon. It was mostly pretty amazing (I say mostly because no matter how hard I try, I can't get into earnest video art ... it always seems so pretentious and intentionally inaccessible ... like I feel like I'm being made fun of because the artist wants to explore how the audience reacts to NOTHING HAPPENING ... maybe I've just built up an intolerance because I didn't like one of my first-year film profs, Gary Kibbins, who was big into video art such as "Wavelength." Ugh.)
And I was hoping to spend a little time with a cup of tea and Canadian online newspapers tonight, but I don't know if I'll be able to get to it. Cleaning my house took a lot longer than I thought it would.
I'm going to work in the actual bureau with Stephanie on Tuesday! Ah!
Have you visited the Wayne Gretzky statue at the Oilers arena yet?
there's a wayne gretzky statue? and an oilers' arena? all i know is the hockey team plays at rexaLl place, which is named after the drugstore owned by a zillionaire who offered to buy them twice and then got rejected. whatta burn.
how was your stint chez stephanie nolen??? definitely in need of a play-by-play, here, so do please spill.
(i, too, find most art videos incomprehensible, altho i saw a really cool time-lapse one of fruit rotting, once)
Oh, Bryan Adams. He gets everywhere. It was him in Accra and Celine Dion in Ouagadougou last summer. The globalization of mediocre things--if you ignore the fact that I do have a weakness for Summer of 69. :p
How's your actual work going?
Emily!
Work has its ups and downs; generally speaking the work is interesting, but sometimes it's just NGO office work, you know? Well, I know you know.
But I'm getting excited these days about starting a community newspaper and/or creative writing project with youth in Hillbrow. It's still in the idea stage right now but I'm meeting with two community groups early next week to talk about a possible collaboration. So I'm pumped about that.
I'll do a better work blog soon.
It's really nice to hear from you - what are you up to these days?
I'm going to put this in an e-mail to you so we can quit this public conversation. (likewise, Anna)
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