Dear Friends,
My oven is currently full of chocolate-stout cupcakes and bundt cake and love. And let me tell you, I think this is my new favourite dessert recipe. And I don’t even know how it will turn out yet. There’s something about a big pot of beer and butter bubbling away on the stove that is just, well, makes a 2-bed, 2-bath, rent-controlled apartment a home. And also the batter was pretty delicious (licking the beaters being the chef’s prerogative).
Anyhow, anyhow. I’m currently really annoyed about something. And there will be a more lucid, detailed post about this on my soon-to-be-launched Other Blog. But for now: I am really fed up with the elitist, offensive rhetoric that is being employed by people who are opposed to the format changes over at CBC Radio 2. I have yet to hear an argument that amounts to anything more than “Radio 2 should remain exclusively a classical music station because classical music is better and superior to popular music which is all verse-chorus-verse, and the national music station should be playing only music to edify the people.” It’s really aggravating. It’s especially aggravating because the people making these arguments are people who I guess are my colleagues – music educators, musicians, composers, etc. It makes me so mad to see this false popular/classical dichotomy upheld, a dichotomy that is ultimately less about the music itself and more about identifying oneself as better than other people. (Because – newsflash! – classical music is not better than popular music or vice versa. Both are capable of being edifying or not. And arguments to the contrary are strongly ideologically motivated.) And it sort of makes a lot of sense to me that a national music station should try to appeal to as wide a demographic as possible, you know? By playing lots of different kinds of music? You know? And I wish people would think of what it means when they say that, by playing music by “popular” Canadian musicians, Radio 2 is dumbing itself down. That kind of rhetoric marginalizes both the artists and listeners. I listened to the new 3:00 show the other day, which features mainly independent, Canadian musicians, and, let me tell you, I didn’t hear anything that I would describe as dumb. Anyhow. Mostly I’m just fed up with the kind of jackassery that I hoped was exclusively the domain of self-important music undergraduates.
Oh, also annoying: Stephen Harper, what is the point of the election you are going to call tomorrow? I hate your stupid face (and also all of your stupid policies). Hopefully the people of Canada will have the sense to fire you. But I worry.
Luckily for you, Stephen Harper, my oven timer is buzzing at me so I am stepping off my soapbox for the time being.
THE END,
Xandra A.
I’ve been hearing lots of buzz about Buck 65′s new show. I’m going to tune in on Monday and it better be good.
It was pretty good the other day – he played Ohbijou, Stephen Fearing, Feist, that kind of stuff. I really liked his music choices. I’m not totally convinced on Buck 65′s hosting ability because he sounded kinda awkward sometimes, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk that up to him being new to the job, and I figure he’ll get less awkward in time.