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kiki_engOne of the suggestions that calvinahobbes gave me for post topics was "Fandoms you have known and loved or, fandoms you are sort of in right now but haven't mentioned or, shows/books/movies/stuff you like but aren't fannish about." This post is kind of a combination of the first and last topics- three shows that I grew up around, have a lot of affection for, but not really any desire to engage with in a fannish way. I'm pretty hardwired that way at this point, though, so- there's a wee rec set in this, and also some very obvious fannish engagement. I also view unexpected RPF as a very real and looming possibility these days. So. There's that.
They're all Canadian and they're all a little bit about stories and people.
Road to Avonlea
Road to Avonlea was a television show that ran from 1990 to 1996 and was produced by Sullivan Entertainment (who also did Wind at My Back and Anne of Green Gables) with the CBC and Disney. I feel that, really, that should be a sufficient description. It was adapted from books by L.M. Montgomery, had, wonderful, terrible bits of THIS IS CANADA AND THIS IS OUR HISTORY sometimes, and was oh so very much a Family Program.
I am still very "Be still my heart!" about it. It's the first thing that I remember being fannish about. I shipped Gus Pike and Felicity King hard, I tell you. When the news of Jackie Burrough's death hit I got all sad. I am still kind of all sad. When I found out that Bruce Greenwood had guest-starred in an episode I got all gleeful. I've watched films specifically because Sarah Polley was in them. (Ask me about Sarah Polley. I get really excited about Sarah Polley.)
So, yeah, Road to Avonlea is something that I've known and loved, and been fannish about, though I've never considered myself to be in that fandom. ...have some art, though:
The Vinyl Cafe
For years when I was growing up CBC radio would be on in the kitchen every Saturday morning, so we'd have breakfast and putter around and do things, and The Vinyl Cafe would come on, and then a Dave and Morley story would come on and we'd stop. Most of the time it wasn't even something you'd decide to do, you'd just find yourself lingering in a doorway, listening. If you had to go somewhere while Stuart was in the middle of telling a story from The Vinyl Cafe, you'd kind of race to the car so you could turn on the radio again, and hope it finished before you had to be wherever you had to be.
The Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean is a radio variety show that airs on CBC radio. You can listen to it live online, or you can listen to the podcast, which I understand is a little edited down for copyright reasons. Stuart plays music and takes calls sometimes and tells stories - his own and and some from his listeners.
Stories from The Vinyl Cafe are set in a little world focused around a Toronto family - Dave and Morley and their children, Stephanie and Sam. Dave owns a record store called The Vinyl Cafe; that's where the show's name comes from. A chunk of the shows are recorded in studio and the other from some town in Canada - the show travels around a bit.
Stuart McLean is a storyteller, and he has a really distinctive style that he's gotten a bit of flack for and taken really well. When I was listening to Michael Ignatieff give his speech on election night (crushing defeat for the Liberal party; he and most of the Liberal party lost their seats) there was a point at which I said, "Oh, wow. He sounds like Stuart McLean." because he did. He had his pauses in all of the right places and there was just the right combination of whimsy and hope in what he was saying. It was kind of awesome.
Stories from The Vinyl Cafe are sometimes sad, often funny, and always full. They tend to meander a bit before pulling together really well at the end; Stuart's good with endings. (The stories themselves can also be found separately from the show on CDs as well as in book form.)
The Ongoing History of New Music
The Ongoing History has been ongoing since 1993 and chronicles the history of alternative rock. It's a radio program hosted by Alan Cross, and is another one of those programs that's very firmly with its host; it's The Ongoing History of New Music with Alan Cross.
His is another voice that I kind of grew up listening to and this show is where a lot of my background in alternative rock comes from. The episodes are a really nice combination of history and music. There's all kinds of trivia and anecdotes and context given for and interspersed with the music that gets played in each episode; it's a nice kind of drive-by look at that history.
The context makes me really happy and I love how earnest and excited Alan Cross seems about everything; he puts a lot into his voice. Each episode has a focus or a theme - a band, an era, a movement, a technology- something. The shows are interesting.
You can find The Ongoing History here - there are podcasts available, an On Demand player, and a list of stations that it airs on in the right side bar along with times. (If you think there's kind of a lot on one station they might be one of the ones that also air the history minutes - segments that are, yeah, a minute long; the standard program's an hour long.)
calvinahobbes gave me for post topics was "Fandoms you have known and loved or, fandoms you are sort of in right now but haven't mentioned or, shows/books/movies/stuff you like but aren't fannish about." This post is kind of a combination of the first and last topics- three shows that I grew up around, have a lot of affection for, but not really any desire to engage with in a fannish way. I'm pretty hardwired that way at this point, though, so- there's a wee rec set in this, and also some very obvious fannish engagement. I also view unexpected RPF as a very real and looming possibility these days. So. There's that.They're all Canadian and they're all a little bit about stories and people.
Road to Avonlea
Road to Avonlea was a television show that ran from 1990 to 1996 and was produced by Sullivan Entertainment (who also did Wind at My Back and Anne of Green Gables) with the CBC and Disney. I feel that, really, that should be a sufficient description. It was adapted from books by L.M. Montgomery, had, wonderful, terrible bits of THIS IS CANADA AND THIS IS OUR HISTORY sometimes, and was oh so very much a Family Program.
I am still very "Be still my heart!" about it. It's the first thing that I remember being fannish about. I shipped Gus Pike and Felicity King hard, I tell you. When the news of Jackie Burrough's death hit I got all sad. I am still kind of all sad. When I found out that Bruce Greenwood had guest-starred in an episode I got all gleeful. I've watched films specifically because Sarah Polley was in them. (Ask me about Sarah Polley. I get really excited about Sarah Polley.)
So, yeah, Road to Avonlea is something that I've known and loved, and been fannish about, though I've never considered myself to be in that fandom. ...have some art, though:
Avonlea by Hemhet
This is this fantastic faux-aged postcard of an Avonlea house. I really like the ink of the line art and the way the colour has been used with it. It's wonderfully evocative.
Pie 'n Ice Cream by Kittchi
Ink and a charcoal variant on thick paper, it's this brill scene of Booth and Sara rushing down a lane. I really like the contrast between mediums here, background and foreground.
Memories of Avonlea by IrinaR
This is ridiculous - bright and cartoonish and saccharine and just generally very much in keeping with the show. It's this really cute watercolour of the kids.
This is this fantastic faux-aged postcard of an Avonlea house. I really like the ink of the line art and the way the colour has been used with it. It's wonderfully evocative.
Pie 'n Ice Cream by Kittchi
Ink and a charcoal variant on thick paper, it's this brill scene of Booth and Sara rushing down a lane. I really like the contrast between mediums here, background and foreground.
Memories of Avonlea by IrinaR
This is ridiculous - bright and cartoonish and saccharine and just generally very much in keeping with the show. It's this really cute watercolour of the kids.
The Vinyl Cafe
For years when I was growing up CBC radio would be on in the kitchen every Saturday morning, so we'd have breakfast and putter around and do things, and The Vinyl Cafe would come on, and then a Dave and Morley story would come on and we'd stop. Most of the time it wasn't even something you'd decide to do, you'd just find yourself lingering in a doorway, listening. If you had to go somewhere while Stuart was in the middle of telling a story from The Vinyl Cafe, you'd kind of race to the car so you could turn on the radio again, and hope it finished before you had to be wherever you had to be.
The Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean is a radio variety show that airs on CBC radio. You can listen to it live online, or you can listen to the podcast, which I understand is a little edited down for copyright reasons. Stuart plays music and takes calls sometimes and tells stories - his own and and some from his listeners.
Stories from The Vinyl Cafe are set in a little world focused around a Toronto family - Dave and Morley and their children, Stephanie and Sam. Dave owns a record store called The Vinyl Cafe; that's where the show's name comes from. A chunk of the shows are recorded in studio and the other from some town in Canada - the show travels around a bit.
Stuart McLean is a storyteller, and he has a really distinctive style that he's gotten a bit of flack for and taken really well. When I was listening to Michael Ignatieff give his speech on election night (crushing defeat for the Liberal party; he and most of the Liberal party lost their seats) there was a point at which I said, "Oh, wow. He sounds like Stuart McLean." because he did. He had his pauses in all of the right places and there was just the right combination of whimsy and hope in what he was saying. It was kind of awesome.
Stories from The Vinyl Cafe are sometimes sad, often funny, and always full. They tend to meander a bit before pulling together really well at the end; Stuart's good with endings. (The stories themselves can also be found separately from the show on CDs as well as in book form.)
The Ongoing History of New Music
The Ongoing History has been ongoing since 1993 and chronicles the history of alternative rock. It's a radio program hosted by Alan Cross, and is another one of those programs that's very firmly with its host; it's The Ongoing History of New Music with Alan Cross.
His is another voice that I kind of grew up listening to and this show is where a lot of my background in alternative rock comes from. The episodes are a really nice combination of history and music. There's all kinds of trivia and anecdotes and context given for and interspersed with the music that gets played in each episode; it's a nice kind of drive-by look at that history.
The context makes me really happy and I love how earnest and excited Alan Cross seems about everything; he puts a lot into his voice. Each episode has a focus or a theme - a band, an era, a movement, a technology- something. The shows are interesting.
You can find The Ongoing History here - there are podcasts available, an On Demand player, and a list of stations that it airs on in the right side bar along with times. (If you think there's kind of a lot on one station they might be one of the ones that also air the history minutes - segments that are, yeah, a minute long; the standard program's an hour long.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-26 01:43 am (UTC)Your Vinyl Cafe history is basically exactly like mine. I found myself doing that while home for a bit after exams and it felt like a flashback. Stuart McLean has become iconic for CBC, and as a result, may or may not be considered iconic for Canadians. That's just my whimsy though. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-26 02:32 am (UTC)Do you remember when Peter Gzowski died? There are voices that get mythologised, I swear- not necessarily undeservedly, but just- radio. (...and, you know, broadcasting in general, there's a link that gets formed there.)
Foster Hewitt.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-26 06:25 am (UTC)I don't know The Road to Avonlea -- I hadn't heard of it until recently. I grew up on the Anne of Green Gables series. I recorded them on VHS when I was little, and I think I've watched them forty or fifty times. They re-run them almost every year on tv, usually around Christmas. That was a great show!
So, who is this Sarah Polley person? *chinhands*
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-26 07:39 pm (UTC)(Radio's something I could probably spin out a whole series of posts about. It's something I've been exposed to a lot and I've been listening to it more recently.)
There was an Emily of New Moon adaptation, too, by a different company, and I think there was an animated Anne, as well. Road to Avonlea played, I think, unrelentingly on the CBC for years- it was also an after school program. I didn't see Anne as much, just because it was so much shorter. The non-holiday-themed holiday selection's kinda a fun thing, eh?
Sarah Polley played Sara Stanley on Road to Avonlea. She's been acting since she was at least four, apparently, and has done some directing work, too. (She won a Canadian award and was nominated for an Academy Award for the first full-length film she directed.)
She pissed Disney off when she was twelve by wearing a peace sign in protest of the Gulf War at a children's television award ceremony. It was apparently a necklace, so I kind of do a jewelry comparison to the purity ring that a chunk of the recent Disney kids have done, and then I start grinning. She refused to take it off and Disney never rang her again.
Her mother died when she was eleven and she was diagnosed with scoliosis the same year. (She was also a child actor.) So, essentially, shit happened to her and she came out swinging.
She left home when she was ~15 and dropped out of school when she was ~17. In the mid 90s there were some major protests at the Ontario Legislative Building and she lost teeth to riot police. She was incredibly involved politically during her teens.
She's someone who has made the transition from child to adult actor, which is kind of impressive. She was part of a Toronto mayoral transition team and withdrew her name from a health campaign when it became obvious that it was also packaged with a brand.
She's been involved in a range of different projects and seems to have a solid reputation as a good person to work with. She seems a pretty fierce and principled person. (I could go on and feel that this is already too long, so am stopping now.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-28 07:27 am (UTC)I think, at least in my country, radio is a bit of a dying media. I don't know many young people who listen with any kind of regularity...
I remember Emily of New Moon. I watched it, but the narrative was very tight and progressed too fast to lend itself to casual watching, I think, so I remember sometimes being pretty lost with regards to character and plot development... I remember it as much darker than Anne. I didn't know there was an Anne animation; it sounds like fun.
Sara Polley sounds like an impressive lady. I like that you've sort of followed her career! I like how she seems to have things she believes in and thinks are worth fighting for. It's funny how Hollywood's fame mill sort of leads us to expect that all actors are these caricatures of real people -- they sort of overshadow all these other career actors for whom acting and being inexplicably famous isn't everything. I'm glad I know about Sara Polley now -- and I didn't think you went on too long at all!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-28 07:47 pm (UTC)*nods* I think I only saw a few episodes of Emily of New Moon, and I remember it being a lot more dark and romantic in a way that didn't appeal to me. I haven't seen a lot of the animated series, either, though I'm not sure there's a concrete reason for that.
I went on a bit of a google/youtube binge last year when Splice came out, so am a little better informed for that than I normally would be. Polley seems fairly down to earth, which is nice. She's pretty blunt and disdainful of the fame mill - on promotional junkets: “[I] sit here talking about [myself] and I can actually hear myself getting stupider and stupider and more and more narcissistic. Really, it’s going to take me a couple of days to detox.”*
The Los Angeles entertainment industry and celebrity narratives are kind of interesting. There's this staying true to your roots vs. selling out/Hollywood success narrative paradigm sometimes that's coupled with Canadian/American dynamics.
I'm glad learning about Sarah Polley was positive. Thanks for giving me an excuse to ramble. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-29 08:22 am (UTC)I think the darkness of Emily did appeal to me, but the fact that it was such a 'feel bad' show for kids, combined with it's quickly progressing plot, meant I never got hooked. I never got around to reading the books, beyond the first, and I keep thinking I should -- in general, I'd like to give L.M. Montgomery another go.
I just checked out the trailer for Splice -- turns out I saw the posters and dismissed it out of hand; it seems kind of... potentially faily. Have you seen it?
I liked the Polley quote! Could you explain what you mean about the Canada/US dynamics? I'm afraid I know terribly little about it!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-30 12:15 am (UTC)I have seen Splice. It's a Frankenstein story and is a lot about the dark and gore. I found it really predictable. I want to say "yes" to the fail question - the predictability of the narrative probably backs that up. (The more I'm thinking about it, the more I'm ending up with that "yes" answer.) I liked the graphics work. That the credits were hands-down the best part for me probably says things. I'd only really recommend it to someone if they were interested in horror or the Frankenstein plot line.
I'm going to try to answer your question without talking too much about cultural identity or history. Accordingly, I am going to reduce this to the most wee and simplistic explanation I can come up with. It goes like this: "We are wee and the US is big AND THEY ARE GOING TO EAT US. AHHHHHH!" and "Let us go down to the cinema to watch that (big US) film with whatshisname and whatshername in it." and "I would like to act with whatshername in a film like that." and "THEN YOU MUST LEAVE THIS LAND. ...WHY HAVE YOU LEFT THIS LAND, YOU TRAITOR, I AM SO PROUD OF YOU."
I think that a common language, similar culture, shared border, and peaceful relations may have resulted in cooperation and merging as a dominant approach in some industries rather than competition and that blockbuster-type films are one of those areas*. As there exists a Canadian fear of assimilation by the US that cooperation is also sometimes a source of unease. That said, I'm not in the film industry; mine are conclusions made with limited data and there are other factors at play (not least of which is the US' global influence).
*Debatable stance is debateable.
Hopefully that explanation is comprehensible? (I feel like it might not be, but I also almost started my explanation pre-Confederation, so.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-31 05:35 pm (UTC)I think I'll stay away from Splice -- there were things in the trailer that looked like they might even squick me, actually.
Thank you for explaining! I think I understand some of the fear of assimilation and the ambivalence wrt money/fame vs. 'integrity', which I think is a line Denmark also frequently toes in relation to film and television -- there's clearly this struggle to prove that we can do our own thing, but national productions often put a lot of energy into imitating Hollywood rather than try something different (which I think is the reason Danish film has been as successful as it has in international competitions).