65: Who's Canadian?

Paul Tough

Well, we were all out at Leo's.

Nancy Updike

I don't know how it came up. I don't know which one of us brought it up.

Paul Tough

I don't know how it started. I don't know how it first came up.

Alix Spiegel

I don't even remember how we got on the topic, honestly.

Paul Tough

But we started mentioning Canadians. And I guess I was doing most of it, as the Canadian in the group.

Alix Spiegel

He started with William Shatner, and I thought that was wrong.

Alix Spiegel

That he was Canadian.

Paul Tough

People got increasingly freaked out.

Alix Spiegel

That's what he said about him.

Alix Spiegel

That he was Canadian, yeah.

Alix Spiegel

Well, the problem is that I grew up watching Star Trek. And he is like my American ideal. I mean, he represented for me everything that's good about America, in a way.

Paul Tough

Alix was saying, if William Shatner is Canadian, I might as well be Canadian.

Nancy Updike

I remember Alix being continually and repeatedly amazed.

Alix Spiegel

I was shocked. I was very shocked.

Nancy Updike

I mean, she stopped eating, I think. And it wasn't just that she'd be shocked at one and would then sort of go on. She'd come back to ones that were shocking earlier. "Peter Jennings? I can't believe it!"

Paul Tough

I remember Alix being really freaked out about Peter Jennings,

Alix Spiegel

Peter Jennings, especially.

Alix Spiegel

But he delivers information about America to Americans.

Alix Spiegel

Yeah, and he interprets our culture for us. So it's like having some Czechoslovakian as your vice president or something. I mean, it's just wrong. There's something about that that's wrong.

Paul Tough

She just thought it was wrong, that actually, there should be an actual law against it.

Paul Tough

Well, anchoring. I think CNN, she probably would let a CNN anchor be Canadian, but not ABC.

Well, I think that Americans generally think of Canadians as a pretty quiet, nondescript, stay-at-home kind of culture. And when Canadians come to the United States and have that kind of impact on the culture, I think it's a surprising fact. But I also think that it's a little disturbing and spooky to Americans because they haven't known. It's like suddenly discovering that everything you believed about someone was false.

Alix Spiegel

I guess it's the whole invasion of the body snatchers syndrome. They look like us, but they're not us.

Nancy Updike

It's weirdly like people hearing that somebody they didn't know was gay is gay, and it turned them back on themselves, that they could have brushed so close and not known.

Nancy Updike

Exactly.

Nancy Updike

Well, I think that's part of what is so compelling about it. It doesn't suggest anything. It's not that, oh, he's Russian. He must be communist. Oh, he's French, he must be rude. It's just a sense that they're a little off somehow, in some way that you don't understand, and you can't pin it down. And that makes it all the more unsettling. You can't put it anywhere and just have it rest there. It's just sort of continually surprising and disturbing.

David Rakoff

My tactics were to adopt a certain kind of world-weary, jaded, anxious neuroticism. And it was taken on as a cosmetic mantle at the beginning until such time as you simply can't pull the mask off your face. Oh my god, it's stuck. There you are years later, a jaded, affectless, neurotic, disenchanted, sad person. But that's fine.

David Rakoff

No. No, I would never consciously not bring it up. I would occasionally consciously bring it up because it would-- amazingly enough-- make me more exotic. Because let's face it, in New York City, I'm a Jewish guy with dark hair who works in publishing with a gift for the gab. I meet myself coming and going 12 to 14 times an hour. So occasionally, I'll need that little bit of spice. And what's more spicy than being Canadian? I ask you.

David Rakoff

All the time. Everything. And that, to me, is chemical. You know, the easy ones. Glenn Ford, Kate Nelligan, Hume Cronyn, Cowboy Junkies, Monty Hall--

David Rakoff

Yeah. Live and learn, huh?

David Rakoff

And yet, remember, Monty only facilitated the deals.

David Rakoff

There you go.

David Rakoff

Glenn Ford, John Kenneth Galbraith. But here's the thing about knowing who's Canadian. There is a woman named Shania Twain. She is Canadian. I know that she's Canadian. I do not know who the hell Shania Twain is. I don't know what she does. And yet, for some reason, I know that she's famous in America and that she's Canadian.

David Rakoff

I literally don't know. I feel there's a chip in my head or something because I simply happen to know that. Here's the other thing-- Borje Salming? Not --

David Rakoff

Borje Salming. Hockey player. Not Canadian. Daryl Sittler? Yes, Canadian. Ira, I have never been to a hockey game in my entire life. How do these things enter my brain?

David Rakoff

I don't even think so, you know? I just think it comes in off the breeze or in a cold front. And I know. I just know in my heart who's Canadian.

It's so strange. And of course, the arm on your space shuttle.

David Rakoff

The arm on your space shuttle for making interstellar repairs.

David Rakoff

The American space shuttle with its Canadian-built arm. Never any other way, as in "The American space shuttle with its Canadian-built arm blew up today."

David Rakoff

No, well, I was actually here at the time, but the Canadian-built arm gets a lot of airplay. Not down here, huh? In fact, if you were to ask most Canadians, "What do you think the space shuttle is for?" they'd say, "Oh, to go up and move stuff around in space with an arm."

David Rakoff

Oh, well, your heart does a little bit of a-- a certain special Canadian's chamber opens up and enfolds that name and you keep it. Or if you mention a famous Canadian in conversation to a Canadian without acknowledging it, there's a vague flicker over their eyes like the shadow of an angel's wing passing, and then the conversation will go on and on. And then, just as an afterthought, they'll say, well, you know, he's Canadian, by the way. Of course, it's all you've been waiting to say the entire conversation.

David Rakoff

If a non-Canadian says to you, and you are a Canadian. But you can do it with a Canadian too.

David Rakoff

Monty Hall.

David Rakoff

Why, just the other day when we were talking about what was in your purse. Remember, I asked you? And I would be compelled by DNA--

David Rakoff

Not even at some point, Ira. Let's try it. Go on, you start.

David Rakoff

They're Canadian. That's how I do it. I don't even wait. I don't even wait. Bachman-Turner Overdrive. They're Canadian. And then I'll tell you, "Taking Care of Business," they wrote that. They're Canadian. I don't even bother waiting. Very effective. And it always also begs the question, which is, oh, are you Canadian?

David Rakoff

Well, of course they'd ask that. It's a little unbalanced if one wasn't. Don't you think that would be somewhat strange behavior?

David Rakoff

Oh, yeah. I'm somewhat familiar with that game. So can you imagine what the double triumph is if someone's a Canadian Jew? Lorne Greene. You fairly cannot imagine anyone more heroic than Lorne Greene. He's a Canadian.

David Rakoff

Absolutely. He's Canadian, and Jewish too.

David Rakoff

And imagine how crestfallen everybody was when they found out that Andrea Martin of Second City TV is not just not Jewish, she's Armenian. But she's from Maine. She just lived in Canada. And then everybody shrugs and says, well, Armenians, they're very similar. And Maine, it's very close. And she lived here for so long.

David Rakoff

When I meet them here?

David Rakoff

Yes, I worry that they're going to be really literal and take everything that I say totally seriously-- even the throwaway remarks-- and then I'm going to have to backtrack and explain myself. I worry that they're going to blow my cover.

David Rakoff

As a Canadian masquerading as an urban sophisticate.

David Rakoff

They would suddenly say, "You're not a sophisticated New Yorker. You're just nothing but a tobogganing Canadian." And then I always feel that I have to turn in my liquor supply and my books and return home. And then, in fact, all the quips that I made all over the years turn out to actually have been made up by someone else, even though I didn't know it.

David Rakoff

That? Yes.

David Rakoff

Briefly. Briefly. And then, another kind of reserve kicks in. And one thinks, well, everybody's got to come from somewhere, don't they? And, in fact, it's a little bit even more vindicating because you have that whole sort of, not bad for a boy from Canada, sort of feeling.

David Rakoff

There was an adorable-- I remember going down to the deli or something one night when I was a freshman in college and looking into the dairy case and seeing what you call those individually wrapped slices of processed cheese food.

David Rakoff

Yes. And we call it Canadian cheese. And I, of course, thought, oh, isn't that cute. They're trying to take credit for Canadian cheese. And now, of course, my feeling is that we should be calling it American cheese, and you guys should be calling it Canadian cheese. It seems like something one should be throwing the blame right across the 49th parallel, whatever side you're on. But I thought, oh, that's adorable.

David Rakoff

Canadian singles, yes.

David Rakoff

Doesn't it just?

David Rakoff

They all work in a coffeehouse in Guelph, Ontario. Some of them are majoring in animal husbandry.

Ian Brown

I think we've developed the same attitudes that, say, the Pakistanis have towards India or, say, the border the Poles have to Russia. American culture somehow seizes you. But at the same time, we're not part of American culture. In fact, for years, Canadians have defined themselves-- or many Canadians have defined themselves-- as being, we're Canadian because we're not American. It's not a very good definition, but it's certainly one that a lot of people--

Ian Brown

Well, exactly.

Ian Brown

It's flipped around. You're always slightly afraid and slightly amazed and slightly aware that you're swirling in some huge vortex that might just suck you down. At the same time, I should say that-- and I don't know whether this is a widely shared view-- but one of the reasons why Canadians are so obsessed with America is that it is such an energetic culture. It's so important in the world. It is the great empire of the 20th century-- has been. And you can't avoid that.

Ian Brown

Well, you've struck on quite an important point there. It often isn't inspiring because it is so gradual. We've been talking about the constitution in this country. To my direct knowledge-- I've been following it since I was about-- well, the flag debate. I was about 11, I guess.

Ian Brown

No, the Canadian flag debate, when we finally got a flag of our own.

Ian Brown

Oh, that was 1965.

Ian Brown

Oh yeah, exactly, 100 years after the Confederation.

Ian Brown

Which was also fairly late. Yeah, sure. We're gradualists. We don't like to do anything extreme. And Margaret Atwood says that this is because it's so cold here and that you have to be so careful. You'd like to take your clothes off and go running outside, but it's so cold most of the time that you keep at least some of your clothes on, even though you're pretending to be naked.

Ian Brown

Well, I always liked "the True North, strong and free" myself. That's always appealed to me. And it's probably imported from somewhere. But that's always the one I like. And I think it's Voltaire's description of "a few acres of snow." I think he said that. I always liked that image.

Ian Brown

No, what it does is it reminds you that this country-- far more than yours-- is a physical country. You folks have all these ideas-- or so-called ideas-- Manifest Destiny, the pursuit of happiness-- life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But they're ideas. And physically, the country doesn't really exist. I was always amazed that more Americans aren't interested in politics down there. Your voting participation rate is absolutely abysmal. And I think it's because people can't conceive of the country in any way. It's like an amassing together of individualisms.

But after a while, there's so many individualisms that there's nothing collective there. In some ways, Canada has exactly the opposite problem, that we've needed to be collective. And for so long, it's been impossible to be an individualist and still be a Canadian. But it has to do with how youthful the country is.

I've been in the wilderness quite a bit in both Canada and the United States. And I always notice this incredible difference. In Canada, if I go-- I don't know-- 100 hundred miles north of Winnipeg, there are places where you go out into the bush, you go out into the wilderness, and you really do have this sense that you may very well be the first person to be standing there. That this is really virgin territory and you're standing there. And that's an incredible feeling, because--

Ian Brown

But you don't have it the same way. I've been in Montana. I've been on the top of the Teton Mountains and all the rest. And you get up there, and the sensation you have in the American wilderness is, well, this is incredible because I'm standing where so many people have gone before. Lewis and Clark were here, blah, blah, blah, all these people. And I'm standing in their footsteps, and that is the great thing. Whereas in Canada, it's the exact opposite. No one was here. I'm the first person.

And it has real consequences. In America, the great thing you have is your history and your tradition. The hard thing in America these days it seems to me looking at it from afar, is that it's so hard to think, well, I can do something new. We can break out of the box we're in. Look at something like campaign reform. Nobody thinks you can ever fix it, so why the heck try? Whereas in Canada, we have exactly the opposite problem. We all think, well, I couldn't possibly do this because no one's ever been here or done this before. It really is like the invert of--

Ian Brown

Yeah, but you've got to be more and more outlandish, it seems to us. The fact that Jerry Springer comes from your country is--

Ian Brown

Well, I'm sorry, but how does he fit into Manifest Destiny? If that's the end result of it--

Ian Brown

Well, that's what makes your country so interesting. And I think that's why people stereotype Canada and say it's boring. They think there is no individual spirit here. Wrongly, of course, but they do think that. And we think all you've got is yakking.

Ian Brown

Admittedly. Well, I have an American wife, remember.

Ian Brown

No, but the Canadians hold it against her. She often complains. She says there is a distinct anti-American feeling here. And she's a lovely person, and people like her. But she says people are always saying at parties, oh, that's so American, when someone talks about somebody being crass or somebody being particularly ambitious or particularly in your face. They say, oh, that's so American. Then they remember she's American and they say, oh, sorry, Johanna, not you. You're different.

And she thinks it's quite widespread. And I will say that as a Canadian, I never noticed anything like that down in America. It is a very, very, very tolerant place until you stand up and say, well, Canadians are different. And then they say, oh, no you're not. You're exactly the same. You like Disney too, don't you? And we say, well, yeah we do, but not all the time.

Ian Brown

I was walking along the boardwalk of Manhattan Beach in California. Manhattan Beach is right on the water, and there's this beautiful-- I was walking along, and I was having an argument with my wife. Not a loud argument, but an argument. A debate, I guess you could call it. And we were debating the merits of speaking in front of our children-- in front of my daughter-- and having discussions as if she wasn't there.

And as we were walking along, some guy on rollerblades went by and looked at us. And then he turned around, he came back up to me, and he said, "Man, I want to tell you, man, it, like, really lays some heavy lumber"-- I don't think he said lumber, but-- "it lays some heavy groove on your kids, man, to be fighting in front of them." And I said, "Well, first of all, we weren't fighting. We were having a debate. And B, it's none of your business. Get out of my face." That would never happen.

Ian Brown

It's not jerks. I mean, he probably had a point. But no Canadian that I have ever encountered would ever deign to even come close to telling you how-- especially publicly. Especially publicly.

Ian Brown

I understand your question, and there are so many similarities that many Canadians ask much the same question. We live in a global world, it's a global economy, we're all the same, nationalism is for jerks. But civically, we're very different. We have a parliamentary democracy here. There are at least two, and possibly more, parties involved in every single debate. Everything is voted on.

We elect our representatives directly to the House of Commons. Our prime minister is chosen from amongst them, generally speaking. That's not the case in America. You have this complicated checks and balances system, which seems to us to have no direct representation at all. And judging from the fractions in which you vote, a lot of Americans feel the same way, too. Whereas in Canada, voter participation is pretty high.

Ian Brown

They can't believe she's Canadian?

Ian Brown

Well, it depends how you measure them, though. Neil Armstrong is a great-- Neil Armstrong. He was American, right? He's the first guy who ever-- and he's American. It's incredible! No, Neil Young-- he's a brilliant songwriter and musician, so he hits the universal in that way.

Ian Brown

Well, that's, I think, you defining the song. It's not Neil defining the song. One of my favorite songs of his begins, "There is a town in North Ontario." I'd say that's the emblematic Neil Young song. And to me, he's hugely Canadian. Not only is he hugely Canadian because he writes the songs he does, because so many of them have a northern, isolated feel to them, because they are about strong emotion expressed quietly and expressed in a quiet vessel but also because his dad was a sportswriter for The Globe and Mail who everybody read. So I can't separate him out.

Ian Brown

Well, as I say, we're talking about the universal here, aren't we? You know what they say. If you want to sell something to everybody, make sure it has a large bust line. So she feels that--

Ian Brown

Marketers sometimes say that. What is she? She's like the most universally pneumatic vacuum in the world. So it's true. That doesn't feel particularly Canadian. And I understand why. But she's not a serious example. She's a woman--

Ian Brown

I only want to talk about the ones that you can actually measure on a real basis. I don't know what Pamela Lee was before she was inflated. But I'd be willing to say the old, uninflated Pamela Lee, before she became almost the quintessential Hollywood bombshell, I'll bet you could find Canadian stuff about her. I don't know. It would be an interesting story. That's for sure.

Ian Brown

That is definitely American. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That part of Pamela Lee is as American as American goes.

Ian Brown

Americans. Americans. Because I work as a writer. And in Canada, one of the biggest parts of the job is to draw people out, to make them comfortable, to get them talking, to get them to realize that it's just a conversation, that they can be themselves. Americans are much less conscious of themselves. They have much less self-consciousness. They're much more themselves in the world. And damn it if you don't like it. I'm an American. I'm an individual.

And so you get all this incredible unconscious behavior happening right in front you. It's like having your own little stage show wherever you go. There's always some entertainment because there's always people being themselves. You don't get that as much in Canada. And I found it--

Ian Brown

No, I don't mean in a condescending way. I'm glad I'm not of it, but I love having a seat ringside.

Paul Tough

They're doing what a lot of Canadians do and what I certainly did as a Canadian youth, which is they're playing on the street. They have nets set up on the street. They're playing with a tennis ball and hockey sticks. And the goalies are all in equipment. And when a car comes down the street, the first person to see the car yells, car! And everyone just stops the game and grabs the nets and gets to the side of the street. And then when the car passes, they say, game on! And they start playing again.

And when I saw that, it was like it was a secret message from Mike Myers to me and all the other Canadians who were watching this movie in the American audience, because those were exactly the two phrases that we would use. And no American knows those phrases. And Mike Myers, of course, growing up in [? Otobaco, ?] the true Wayne's World, grew up playing road hockey just like I did. And the sad thing is, he couldn't set his movie in Canada because then it would've been a Canadian movie, even if it was exactly the same movie. It was about Canadian culture, but in order to pass he had to set it in Illinois.

Brandon Walsh

You must've got a few splinters from your stick in my jersey.

Tom Miller

Maybe you're too fast for your own good.

Brandon Walsh

I think you may want to pick up your jock strap. You left it back there by the blue line.

Tom Miller

This is going to be fun playing with you all.

Peter Jennings

In Costa Rica today, President Clinton went to the rainforest, and he got wet.

Peter Jennings

The Pentagon does say today it is very concerned about an incident involving the Russians. Last month off the coast of Washington State, it appears that a Russian merchant ship directed a laser beam at a Canadian military helicopter carrying a US naval intelligence officer. He and a Canadian crew member both had their eyes burned, though not badly. The Russian ship was apparently monitoring American submarines in the region. The helicopter was monitoring the Russians.

Peter Jennings

When we come back out-- or when we come back--

Peter Jennings

When we come back out-- or when we come back--

Peter Jennings

When we come back, the stunning drop in the welfare rolls.

When we come back, the space-age technology that is already down on the farm.

When we come back, your money--

Peter Jennings

We're going to begin tonight with an--

Peter Jennings

Finally this evening, we're going to take you to Alabama.

Peter Jennings

They've approved a new type of laser device that should permit a dentist to fill a tooth more efficiently, and for you, if you have to go, maybe more comfortably, as well.

Peter Jennings

You may soon be able to check for E. coli bacteria right in the supermarket.

Peter Jennings

The new obesity pill that actually breaks down fat in the body.

Tums Commercial

Tum-tum-tum-tum, Tums.

Singer

[SINGING] The look, the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives.

Peter Jennings

When we come back out-- or when we come back-- taking the anxiety out of the fear.

Peter Jennings

Today, the story that reminds us once again that things are not always what they appear to be.

Paul's Sister

It's interesting because I talk about you often when I talk to people. And I talk about you as being my brother who has gone off and lived in the United States. And I talk about you with a great deal of pride. And people certainly respond by being very impressed. But there's that sense in which-- so I was thinking, if you came here, you would be a celebrity in the sense that you're my brother who lives in the United States and you live this highly sophisticated life and you live in New York City and everyone's deeply impressed by this.

But you wouldn't be of us. I think the perception would be very different if you had done the same thing over the last 10 years in London, England. I think you would be perceived as being more Canadian still than having gone to the United States for 10 years. I suspect it might even be true if you had gone to another European country, that you would still be perceived as being more Canadian than you would be perceived now.

Paul's Sister

Yeah.

Paul's Sister

Yeah.

Paul's Sister

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but I think in some ways, it's going over to the other side.

Paul's Sister

Wayne Gretzky, let's just say.

Paul's Sister

The tragic Wayne Gretzky story.

Paul's Sister

Phoenix, of all places.

Paul's Sister

Yes, I was. It was just not pretty. It's just not pretty. I mean, it's a really deep sense of loss, I think, and betrayal for Canadians.

Paul's Sister

Oh, whoever goes. And it's obviously not so rational all the time, right? So there's two things. There's a sense of betrayal, but there's also just a sense of sadness and a realization that that's the reality of the world and the economy that we live in. And also, maybe weariness, almost, when another one goes.

Paul's Sister

You are a bum.

Paul's Sister

I think only on a personal level. I don't think in any of those sort of philosophical ways. I think I would feel different, though, if you told me that you were deciding to become an American citizen. But I think until now, I've always felt like you're just living there and working there and eventually, you'll come back.

Paul's Sister

Yeah. Or it's not even that clear, but it's still that you belong here somehow. And even though you don't come back very much, somehow you're still Canadian.

Paul's Sister

[LAUGHS] Oh, don't worry. You're just like us.

Paul's Sister

Sure. Oh, you're really just like us.

Paul's Sister

What does it mean to be Canadian?

Paul's Sister

Yeah, I think that's really a struggle for Canadians. And in some way, I think it's that struggle that, ironically, defines what the answer is. I think in some ways, the answer is that a Canadian is someone who struggles to figure out what is to be Canadian and not American. And all of those things, it's really hard to make a pavilion about. There's that eternal problem of how do you make a Canadian knight? How do you make a Canadian pavilion? And you kind of have maple syrup, and that's the end of it. And we don't have a nice national dress and national food. And we have, well, the beaver, and not too much else.

David Rakoff

Yes, Canadian.

David Rakoff

Yes, Canadian.