#Canadiana

[skepwith]

[First image: @molochofficial tweets, "one of our better cultural customs is teaching English-speaking children the "Frère Jacques" nursery rhyme and then letting them just go buckwild with vaguely-French sounds."]

[Second image: #WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU GUYS LEARN FRÈRE JACQUES ?????? #LMAOOOOO]

I distinctly remember having fun with "sunnylaymateena" (Sonnez les matines) as a kid. Our French immersion teacher sang the words with exaggerrated enunciation, like we were somehow gonna pick up on "The bells for matins are ringing" as six-year-old anglophones.

One teacher did tell me, quite cheerfully, what the words to "Alouette" meant, and I was Very Disturbed. (It's about plucking a bird. That you're talking to and calling "nice" as you pluck it.)

But I think my greatest heights of French-sounding gibberish came from singing "O Canada" every morning in French. Again, the teachers really tried to enunciate everything, but words like aïeux (forefathers), épopée (epic), and ton front est ceint (your brow is girt) were not in your average elementary-schooler's vocab. As for de foi trempé (tempered by faith), I sang it as deux fois trompé (twice mistaken), which always seemed like a weird thing to put in your national anthem.

[sammaggs]

3x08 Spy vs. Spy | Protection

So this is the true story of how Sports Illustrated came to Canada, and it was such a problem that the government shut it down.

Here’s the thing about being this close to America, and this small by comparison: Canada is at constant risk of having its culture entirely dominated and obliterated by the States. All of our music, movies, TV, magazines—we don’t have the money or the manpower to compete, so it’s all American.

It sounds kind of silly, but in 1991 Canadian magazines were operating on a profit margin of TWO PERCENT. It’s impossible to compete with glossy, expensively-made magazines from America. The government subsidizes our magazine industry now; that’s how magazines like Macleans can continue to exist.

In the ‘60s, to try and stem the cultural hemorrhaging, the government established what we now call “CanCon” mandates, or our Canadian Content laws.

Basically, about one-third to one-half of all the media we consume has to be written, shot, produced, published, created, etc. by Canadians, in Canada. That goes for music on the radio, books on the shelves, shows on the screen, magazines on the rack—everything.

It was codified into NAFTA in '92: Free Trade includes everything except cultural exports.

I mean… they barely tried

The Americans obviously think this is stupid, and also not their problem. We are a huge export market for them culturally—almost all media we consume is American, and that’s big $$$ for American companies. They would love to swallow us whole.

So on April 5, 1993, American publication Sports Illustrated rolls in and slaps the word “Canada” on the end of it. They include some references to Canadian sports teams (even getting some wrong) and try to call it a legal day, even though it was foreign-produced and really did not hit the CanCon marks at all.

And the Canadian. Government. Got. Furious.

The government basically tried to litigate and tax them out of existence entirely. It was a massive controversy through the '90s, which is why they're still bringing it up in this 1997 episode of due South.

And uhhh... yeah Canada fuckin super lost. We lost as fuck. Deeply unsurprising.

Many scholarly articles came out about this at the time, as you can see above, and if you want to know more you can read a great one for free here. But yeah, this is a real thing that happened.

Dave Cole, who wrote Spy vs. Spy, also wrote Perfect Strangers, which includes that perfect bit about the human tragedy that is the lack of arts opportunities for filmmakers in Canada so, he was obviously a big supporter of all this (and rightfully so).

Bonus treat! Because Canada is not real, here's how music qualifies as CanCon: It must fulfill two of the following four conditions:

M (music) — the music is composed entirely by a Canadian

A (artist) — the music is, or the lyrics are, performed principally by a Canadian

P (performance) — the musical selection consists of a performance that is: Recorded wholly in Canada, or Performed wholly in Canada and broadcast live in Canada.

L (lyrics) — the lyrics are written entirely by a Canadian

That's right... it has to fulfill two of the four...

MAPL conditions.

Quiet Canadiana in due South [more]

[pppapaya]

This is not a drill. The upscaled Reboot is now on YT

[motelpearl]

[postmodernpostman]

Thank you to my L&O obsession for alerting me to the fact that apparently Due South is beloved around the world, and now has a giant fandom?! I am LIVING.

[hibiscusbabyboy]

"Are Dream Boys even real?"

[pigtailedgirl]

Ah Fraser casually throwing shade at the American school children.

1812, we sent you packing!!!

PS Love that Fraser is not a classroom or kid charmer. He's so annoyed by this kid at the end.

[the-most-sublime-fool]

I Came to the Secret Springs and Lakes Where Moose Slake Their Thirst, Theodor Severin Kittelsen (1900)

[aeolianblues]

🎵 SONG-TO-GO 🎵

It's Friday again, which means unbelievably, I get to do yet another song wizard new music Friday. For a 5th week! Somehow you're all still here. I'm not out of music, so let's do this!

For the uninitiated, Song-To-Go is a weekly song poll to take a lesser-known song along with you as you scroll!

As with last week, choose songs based on the 30-second Spotify snippets if you don’t know them (I’ve tried to make sure there’s something you won’t know), and if you like them they’re yours* to carry along on your trip!

*as in add them to your library etc., if you like them a lot come ask me and I’ll try and dig up a Bandcamp like for you, hee hee

[last week’s poll, now complete, and you can see the results. Or just listen to more music! And then tell me about it :) ]

This week's picks are all about rock and weird but really catchy indie (and the one ska punk track). What other genres do you want to hear in the next few weeks?

As always, poll’s open for a week, so if you miss this one, I’ll be back with another one by next Friday. I think I'll also keep a running playlist of everything I've posted so far, plus others I'm planning to use for upcoming weeks because honestly, I don't really feel like there's a magician's cloth I'm pulling back to reveal songs. A lot of this is actually just stuff I've played on introducing radio over the last 4 years :P

The growing playlist, here.

Happy scrolling! If you want to give your mutuals a few new songs, reblog and tell them what you liked. Happy listening!

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

It's fun sometimes to try to explain the Commonwealth to my American friends. One of them talked about her plans for Memorial Day and asked if I had any, before remembering that right, we don't do Memorial Day up here.

I got to tell her that instead, I shit you not, the second-last Monday in May is the day Canada pretends is the monarch's birthday so people can get a long weekend in May. Charles III is a Scorpio? Not in Canada he ain't!

(In double-checking my facts just now, I discovered the caveats that this is only patchily observed as a holiday in the Maritimes, and is not at all Québec, not because they hate fun, but because it's more important to celebrate... rebellion against the Anglos? I love it. Very chic, très cool.)

[mioritic]

"Climbing on Mt. Victoria, Lake Louise"

Postcard published by S.H. Baker (Glacier, British Columbia), ca. 1911

University of Alberta

[manifestoagainstoblivion]

Cleaning up the Coulees (2015)

[sammaggs]

was scrolling through some old photos for work stuff and found a gem: that one time I went to the Canadian Screen Awards in 2015 the lifetime achievement award that year was given to OUR MAIN MAN

photos were absolutely not allowed inside so I have exactly one (1) picture from the entire night, but I was NOT TO BE DETERRED so here, have a Shitty 2015 Cell Phone Rare Paul

This had somehow entirely disappeared from my memory banks (ADHD brain huh) but I now recall sneaky-taking this with shaking hands, and that his speech was beautiful and all about the importance of Canadian cinema and television!

Also a winner that year on the same stage: Callum Keith Rennie for guest starring on Motive

George Pimentel the photog king of Toronto, impossible to not smile at him exactly like this!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also incredible you can tell I was dating a short king by where the TELEFILM logo lands on Callum (neck) vs my dear sweet Ted (over his head) lmao

I was a baby but I was at the time the Cineplex Girl dating the Space Guy so I was generally in this orbit

So apparently I saw both Paul and Callum on stage from like 2 tables away in 2015 and totally spaced on it until this exact moment!!!!!!! Cool!!!!!!!

GLAD I SNUCK A PIC TBH!!

do u fuckin think they hung out after or what like oh my god

[arcelian]

ok it's firmly back to school season here so I am remembering to ask.

Do other countries have their version of a Canada exercise book or is it just us?

^ this is the version I am most familiar with but there are multiple kinds. The distinguishing features are:

called "Canada exercise book" on the front cover along with a vaguely Canadian design (Canada shape, maple leaf, etc.)

back cover has the conjugation chart for to be/to have and être/avoir

I think sometimes they also have a map of the provinces on the back?

softcover (usually paper but sometimes plastic) and has holes to be put in a 3-ring binder

I cannot overstate how ubiquitous these are. They're cheap and useful and every elementary school uses them. Is this a thing elsewhere or did we just invent it???

[motelpearl]

[denizbevan]

Happy Canada day weekend! 🇨🇦

Here are all my OFMD fics set in Canada! 🇨🇦

Dock of the Bay series

Ed owns a marina in Ontario

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3469171

the camhouse fic, also in Ontario

https://archiveofourown.org/works/46737868

the Montreal boys series!

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3804346

university AU, set in Montreal

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51430027

the WWI AU, starts in Montreal

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3929419

post-canon, winter in Quebec City

https://archiveofourown.org/works/50525413

post-canon, Olympic Games in Quebec City

https://archiveofourown.org/works/53127211

teachers chaperoning a high school dance, set in Montreal

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3952045

fantasy/magical realism love at first sight, set in a national park in Quebec

https://archiveofourown.org/works/55270231

the Into the Woods fic, set in Nova Scotia

https://archiveofourown.org/works/46689085

first sequel to the Finland meet cute, set in Ottawa

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56066173