It’s Victoria Day here in Canada, in which we celebrate both the birthday of this truly attractive and not at all hostile looking lady as well as the official birthday of our current head of state, Her Majesty, the Queen of Canada, Elizabeth II.* In other words, we get a day off and no one really cares why!
(*E II’s actual birthday is in April at some point, but I guess we don’t deserve two holidays or something. I dunno, it’s complicated up here.)
“Dead Irish Writers,” The West Wing
Uranium City is small-town Canada taken to the extreme
Northern Saskatchewan’s Uranium City may be a life too isolated for the likes of most city dwellers, but as photographer Ian Brewster and anthropologist Justin Armstrong discovered on their trip to the ghost town, the city’s sense of community has kept its remaining 70 inhabitants going strong.
“The idea of the abandonment wasn’t as interesting as the people who stayed,” Brewster says. “You know, I don’t really view this as a story about the town and all the people that left, I view the story more about the people that have stayed and why they stayed and that was sort of the more interesting aspect of it for us.” (Photos: Courtesy of Ian Brewster)
If it’s something you happen to be interested in, the National Film Board of Canada has its two Oscar nominated shorts online for free streaming. One, Dimanche (or Sunday in English), is about a little boy’s attempts to make his dreary church- and relatives-filled Sunday more entertaining. It’s decent. The other is called Wild Life and is about a British young man who migrates to live on the Canadian prairies. It’s phenomenally good; the script is fresh, the animation is very reminiscent of The Sweater (perhaps an homage), and it’s also a little bit of history lesson. I would definitely recommend watching both - free! - right here. Hopefully one of them wins come Oscar night.
Just as an aside, if you’ve never heard of the National Film Board of Canada, it’s a really interesting entity. The world’s first national film board, it’s won 12 competitive Oscars and, if I remember correctly, was given an honorary Oscar for its contribution to cinema. Their website is filled with movies you can stream for free, many of them REALLY GOOD documentaries. It’s an excellent way for Canadians to get in touch with their own country, and for non-Canadians to learn about Canada without (or with very few) mentions of hockey or peace keeping.
(That being said, a good place to start when learning about Canadian film and Canadian culture is with The Sweater; the film, and the book, are so iconic that there is a quotation from them on our $5 bill. It will give you a stilted image of Canada, and especially of rural Quebec before the Quiet Revolution, but if you’re going to sow our flag on your backpack, you may as well do a little research and watch it. You can do that for free right here.)
A Yahoo! Answers on harp seals. It made me laugh.
(Source: canadian-problems)
Maybe [Braack Obama is] not a true socialist, but his ideals and ideas are — this kumbaya thing where everyone gets the same health care and the same benefits. And most of the health care is going to go to immigrants. Well, the country wasn’t built that way.
- John Slover, a random New Jerseyan who apparently thinks people should get different health treatment (probably based on something like how much money you make.) I love reveling in the stupidity of Republicans…. they make me thankful I live in Canada. http://nyti.ms/97p7pF
Lucas is an award-watching blogger best known for his witty, moving and erudite portrayals of the human experience through video embeds, memes and photoshopped images that he didn't make.
Lucas is twenty-one.
He lives in Toronto.
Alone.
One of my favorite scenes from The West Wing. From Season 4 Episode 18 “Privateers”
RIP Alderaan
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