Interesting ariticle on Helen Vendler from A&L. Also an interview with her from earlier this year.
Then for something completely strange, here's a poem by that great American poet Ernest Hemingway...
I LIKE CANADIANS (1923)
I like Canadians.
They are so unlike Americans.
They go home at night.
Their cigarets don't smell bad.
Their hats fit.
They really believe that they won the war.
They don't believe in Literature.
They think Art has been exaggerated.
But they are wonderful on ice skates.
A few of them are very rich.
But when they are rich they buy more horses
Than motor cars.
Chicago calls Toronto a puritan town.
But both boxing and horse-racing are illegal
In Chicago.
Nobody works on Sunday.
Nobody.
That doesn't make me mad.
There is only one Woodbine.
But were you ever at Blue Bonnets?
If you kill somebody with a motor car in Ontario
You are liable to go to jail.
So it isn't done.
There have been over 500 people killed by motor cars
In Chicago
So far this year.
It is hard to get rich in Canada.
But it is easy to make money.
There are too many tea rooms.
But, then, there are no cabarets.
If you tip a waiter a quarter
He says "Thank you."
Instead of calling the bouncer.
They let women stand up in the street cars.
Even if they are good-looking.
They are all in a hurry to get home to supper
And their radio sets.
They are a fine people.
I like them.
I'm trying to figure out if this was before or after Canadian writer Morley Callaghan beat the snot out of Hemingway in Paris.
It's a remarkably accurate poem about life in WASPish Toronto in the early twenties. When he says nothing was open on Sunday, he means it-- not even the newspaper Hemingway worked for in the early 20s, The Toronto Star, published on Sunday (nor did any newspaper in Canada for that matter-- it's why our colour comics sections are published even to this day a day earlier than in the US on Saturday). The remarkable thing is that things didn't change from Hemingway's time for decades: Dave Broadfoot once joked that in the 50s in Toronto a gourmet restaurant was the one that served Heinz Ketchup. We didn't have Sunday newspapers until the 1970s.
Woodbine is a racetrack that until 15 years ago or so existed in the East end of town. It's been demolished in favour of luxury housing. I sort of miss it.
Posted by: Graeme Burk at January 25, 2005 02:47 PM