ramble through the bronx

yes, this here is ramble through the bronx, the continuing musings of a graduate student* who should be writing her dissertation, but honestly, living in new york city there's really so much else to do...

* and her commenting friends. And guest blogger.
[welcome to ramble through the bronx | bloghome
[archive]
[I wish I was a mole in the ground]
FRIENDS
NYC
Meredith [>] (NYC/Toronto)
Emily [>] (Brooklyn)
Emily's music site[>]
Jeremy [>] (Bronx)
Ryan [>] (Bronx)
non-NYC people I miss
Jennifer [>] (Toronto)
Tokyo Tintin[>] (Tokyo/Toronto)
Dawn [>] (Ottawa)
Caitlyn [>] (Ottawa)
CBC [>] (my true love)
del.icio.us/janeyjane [>] (my social link collection, alas, not updated lately. I am apparently not delicious)
The Keeper [>] (try it, you'll love it)
comics sites that I check every day
Newsarama [>] (check out the 'blog' section especially)
When Fangirls Attack [>] (women in comics links)
politics, media, and gossip
AlterNet [>]
Wonkette[>]
Gawker[>]
'Fuddle duddle' incident [>]
The Nation [>]
Catholic stuff
America Magazine [>] magazine of US Jesuits
Commonweal Magazine [>] biweekly magazine of lay Catholics
Karl Rahner Society [>] site dedicated to awesome 20th c. theologian
Liberal Catholic News [>] blog for progressive catholics
Pacem in Terris [>] Pope John XXIII's 1963 encyclical
music - mostly folk music and banjo links
The How and Tao of Folk Music [>] Patrick Costello's podcasts & banjo & folk guitar instruction
Back Porch News [>]News, Commentary & Links for the folkie community
E-Z Folk [>]Folk music instruction and tabulature
amuse yourself
Piled Higher and Deeper [>] (comic about grad student life)
Cat and Girl [>] just what it sounds like
The Onion [>]
Sluggy Freelance [>]
The Boondocks [>]
Eric Conveys an Emotion [>]
philosophy
Society for Women in Philosophy [>]
the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy [>]
The Hegel Society of America[>]
North American Fichte Society[>]
Journal of Neoplatonic Studies [>]
Women Philosophers [>]
Brian Leiter's blog [>]
read/see/hear
Harper's [>]
Neil Gaiman [>]
Charles de Lint [>]
Making Light [>]
McSweeney's [>]
WFUV [>]
Anti-pedantry page: Singular 'their' in Jane Austen [>]
places I miss
Cafe Diplomatico [>] (Toronto)
The Red Room [>] (Toronto)
The Free Times Cafe [>] (Toronto)
Sneaky Dee's [>] (Toronto... aka Sneaky Disease, best nachos in town)
Kensington Market [>] (Toronto)
College Street [>] (Toronto)
Perfection Satisfaction Promise [>] (Ottawa - formerly the Painted Potato)
Piccolo Grande [>] (Ottawa)
The Market [>] (Ottawa)
Stray cats of Parliament Hill [>] (Ottawa)
other nonsense
Mozilla [>]
Abebooks [>]
Alibris [>]
Metafilter [>]
and thank you
Thanks to Haloscan for blog-comment-ability

Monday, April 12, 2004

Back in the Bronx

Richard and I got back to the Bronx last night at around 11pm, which was pretty good given I don't think we left Ottawa until 2.30 or thereabouts -- we had brunch in the newly cleaned-up Rockwell's in Merivale Mall (the mall was otherwise closed due to Easter Sunday).

Of course, right now I'm supposed to be working on my poststructuralism paper, which is going to use the case study of residential schools in Canada as a clear example of why Derrida's conception of justice & ethics & stuff is better than Rorty's. But, meh, it's more fun just to post on my blog & check email & all that sort of stuff.

It was fun to be in Canada, even just for the weekend, but it was kind of strange to be there with someone who'd never been to Canada before. I kept feeling that I had something to prove, as if Canada could somehow be totally grasped in one weekend.

Often I'll tell people that I'm from Canada, & then specify that I'm from Ontario (generally I just say Toronto, no offense to Ottawa, since more Americans know where it is). What's amusing is what will come next. "Oh, Canada's beautiful, I was in Vancouver once." Or, "Canada's lovely, they're really nice in Banff." Or, "My wife and I were once in Nova Scotia, it was incredibly beautiful." Obviously all of these places are geographically quite distinct. And it's kind of people to greet my Canadianness with a general affirmation of the beauty of the country -- I'm not offended at all, obviously, just amused. I've never been to Banff or Cape Breton Island, and I've only been to Vancouver once, and yet I then feel the need to affirm their statement.

"Oh you'll love NYC," this woman on the Greyhound bus once said to me, as I was heading to the Big Apple for the very first time "It's just like downtown Canada... all the big buildings...." She'd been to Toronto, once, for Caribana.

I guess Americans travelling through Europe may feel the same way. "I'm from the US." "Oh, New York, that must be exciting." I've had Americans complain that all Europeans seem to think about with regard to the US is LA and NYC, and maybe a little hint of Texas -- the Midwest, for instance, seems to entirely slip below the radar. And I'm learning more and more about the possible virtues of the South...

Anyway.

So Richard and I were wandering around Montreal, and all I wanted was for everything to be perfect. I wanted "Canadianness" to radiate from the ground and the skies, to enthrall and seduce him into loving "Canada." But how is that possible? Every place is just one place... nowhere else in Canada is just like Montreal (geographically or attitudinally), so why did Montreal matter so much? Similarly with Ottawa.

I guess that's why we have CBC and Tim Horton's. Our small, possibly hopeless, attempt to encapsule all of Canada, and to express it in unity. (Though of course I realize that the West doesn't have as many Tim's, and that there's a longstanding dispute about whether the CBC is too Ontario-centric...)

Is driving along 40/417 from Montreal to Ottawa while listening to Ottawa-Toronto playoff hockey on the radio somehow paradigmatic of a Canadian experience?

Is having vinegar on fries?

Anyway.

Go Leafs go.


jane 1:50 PM [+]

Comments: Post a Comment

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?