Daily Archives: March 24, 2006

Canadianism: Two Solitudes indeed

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I can’t believe I went to the hottest restaurant in New Westminster and they had two televisions hanging from the ceiling, playing curling. I don’t think I live in the same country as the rest of these people do; this is a cultural divide that cannot be bridged. It’s all very well for me to lord it over Americans and the English, yammering on about PC and Relativism and Pierre Trudeau, but there is, let’s face it, no multicultural initiative that can allow the curling fans and the I-suppose-they-call-us-mundanes to coexist. Hence Newfoundland; it’s a 21st Century sort of reservation/theme park for curlers.

When I get back to Vancouver, I’m sneaking into Delilah’s and not leaving until they throw me out and given how their clientele normally behaves (to say nothing of the staff) I may be there for the rest of my life, sustaining myself on smoked oysters, olives, lime wedges, and vodka-infused apricots. That’s all the food groups, right?

In any case, after several years on the Downtown EastSide, if there is nothing else I know, I do know how to give Canada what it wants:

Hockey Joke

Operation Global Media Domination: Irish Poet Edition with Bonus Irish Poet Story

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I am in the unfortunate position of having to report that Irish poets, even Nobel Prize winners, are to hits as Ebola is to cardiovascular health. We’ve dropped in popularity by 68% overnight. Seamus better watch his back if he ever gets to Vancouver, that’s all I’m saying.

Frank McCourtSo Frank McCourt was on Conan O’Brian’s Conan O'Brianshow, and he was of course telling a story, as every Irishman is compelled to do in company of another Irishman or even Irish-American, or even, it must be admitted, in the presence of nobody more than just the voices in his own head.

The story goes like this, more or less. I shall paraphrase recklessly. I spoze I could look it up, but I’m a blogger, not an effing researcher!

Frank: So I used to teach at New York University. Are you listening, Conan?

Conan(rapt): Huh? Yeah!

Frank: Good. I used to teach poetry at NYU. Are you paying attention, now?

Conan: What? Yes!

Frank: Ah, that’s good then. And you know, there were lots of nice young people, and some older ones, you never knew what they were doing there, who used to be my students, because I used to teach, you know. Poetry. I was a poetry teacher. Conan!

Conan: I AM LISTENING!

Frank: Good to hear. Yes, so I was a poetry teacher, and one day, years later…this is the important part, now…

Conan: FRANK! I AM PAYING ATTENTION!

Frank: Excellent. So one day I’m walking down the street in New York, and I run up against a fellow who used to be one of my students. They leave…they go on…I never see them again…So. I asked him what he was doing now. “Well,” says he, “Your teaching really inspired me and now I’m a poet, Professor McCourt.” “Well that’s grand,” I say, “Is it going well?” He says, “No, I’m fucking starving!”

Conan: You know Frank, you were brought on to elevate the show…