TWO WEEKS IN NON-ANGLOPHONIC CANADA
(1999-07-05)
19990705T0819
Got 710 CAD from Mike.
700 CAD × 10
USD/14 CAD = 500
USD
T1031 Reading Globe & Mail at the airport.
The commentary and opinion pages are filled with paranoid
comments about the Canadian national identity.
(The Sewage Lagoon stunk.)
Supposed to board plane around T1400.
Did I write this down?: The models in Chatelaine all look
like they are Celtic. Many of the white chicks at the airports look
Celtic too. T1035
So much tension in this country! The US-Canada tension. The
Anglophone-Francophone tension.
Was reading the Globe and Mail, the Gazette, the
Ottawa Citizen, and La Presse.
Much tension in the Gazette (A.-F.) and the Globe
(U.S.-Canada).
The Citizen was sort of carefree and embraced the U.S. ad
sort of a matter-of-fact on the same continent.
La Presse did not exhibit much tension, other than the
funny column comparing St-Jean-Baptiste Day of Québec,
Canada Day, Fourth of July, and the French 14 of July.
A letter in the Globe & Mail said "Canada has always
been a lost cause for the past 150 years. the important thing is to
keep it a lost cause for the next 150 years." (June 29)
Iqaluit airport, Nunavut, Canada T1127
T1442 Taking off on First Air 867 to Montréal. As
I looked right (west) to see the Grinnell Park and the causeway, I
saw the terrain that we have trodden step-by-step,
meter-by-meter.
I felt the pride of the explorer... although maybe somehow
undeservedly... T1446
T1555 Kuujjuaq Airport, Nunavik, Québec,
Canada.
Security check involved a metal detector and open-baggage checks
-- no x-ray machines here. I don't know if this is just a
Québec thing or what.
I think I am getting mentally tired, either from Bawer's book or
from the idea of returning to Québec, a land of tension.
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Skimming through Bawer in hope of being able to throw it away at
the Montréal Airport. T1558
Hastily finished Bawer. T1700. On the plane to
Montréal.
Bawer, at his last chapter, talked about Huckleberry
Finn.
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Benedetti talked about Huck this morning at breakfast
too, saying it was often regarded as the one Great American
Novel.
David Lee Roth's autobiography, Mike said, talked also a lot
about Huckleberry Finn too.
Cooked caribou meat in the burger I ate yesterday tasted like
lamb.
Arctic char, when cooked or smoked, tasted like salmon.
I just had cooked arctic char for the meal on the flight.
T1704
| Bawer, book review:
Although I am not a fundamentalist, I still have my Apostles'
Creed-based belief holding that YHWH is a person, not some
"universe power" you can draw from. Bawer apparently does not.
This book is, although slightly more intelligent than, still
barely saved from, a stringed-together of name-calling, movie
reviews, gay sentiments, and notes from web-surfing.
Total disappointment. I was expecting a Christian Left which
still holds true to the divine inspiration of the Bible and
Apostles' Creed Faith free from arbitrary subjectivity. But Bawer
is just as too self-righteous, self-sufficient, and
self-justified as the Right he criticizes to do such. I believe
such a Christian Left is still possible, though.
How does Bawer explain things such as the pillars of cloud and
fire, the burning bush, the abomination of idolatry, and basically
the whole Old Testament, given that YHWH is not a person?
Metaphors? Poetry? Why not miracles?
This mystic, new age like, humanist "religious" view just annoys
me.
All in all, this is a stupid book; its only value was to provide
a glimpse of the denominations and history of the Church in the
U.S., but I am sure there are way better books for this purpose
than Bawer.
Rate: 0 out of 4. A disappointment. T1717
I am about to leave Bawer at the Montréal Dorval Airport.
T1718
T1732 Just because Pat Robertson and James
Dawson Dobson are foolish and hateful people, it
does not mean that everything they believe is wrong. However, that
seems to be Bawer's line of logic.
I think most "mainline" church-goers today are neither
Jeffersonist/Bawerists nor Robertsonist/Dawsonists
Dobsonists. They are liberal protestants, as much
in-this-world as they are out-of-this-world, caring as much about
others as about themselves. Nothing like the picture of mainline
church Bawer paints; evidence: PC(USA) & other
mainline church recent acts & documents.
On the other hand, Taiwan has been exposed to fundamentalist
media programming without realizing, knowing or understanding it.
For example: the 700 Club & the PTL Club are
aired without counterpoint liberal "check-and-balance" (if I may
use that phrase here). Dr Dawson Dobson is
featured on Studio Classroom also without check.
I realized this only after arriving & living in the U.S. for
a couple of years. T1740
How does Bawer explain prayer, and the beginning lines of the
Lord's Prayer: "Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be thy
name."?
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T1943 Things get typeset vertically a lot more here in
Montréal. Is it a francophony thing? T1943 On the bus
to Rev Wu (Ngô·)'s house.
Somehow the tickets, transfers (correspondance), &c. become
awards of francophony to me...
I am still contemplating the sociolinguistics of my confidence
(or lack thereof) in speaking French... T1946
0705T2356 Talked with three seniors: Ron, May and
Vina(?). Tried to acquire a Canadian accent, eh.
Plan for tomorrow: (Tue)
- Morning: Musées
- Architecture
- Beaux-Arts (Crescent/Ste-Cat.)
- McCord
- Cathedral
- Christ Church
- Musée d'art contemporain
- Afternoon: Vieux-Port
- Basilique N.-D.
- Pt-à-Callière
- Église N-D-de-Bonsecours
- Musée Banque de Montréal
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