Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Run of the Mill
At the base of Kelly's mountain, an hour from Glace Bay, the Gaelic College of St. Anne's sits along the serene edge of the great Bras d'Or lake. In order to get there, one has to traverse the precipitous and narrow seal island bridge first. Although locals and tourists alike seem to dread the passage, I always look forward to it. During the crossing I feel as though I'm leaving the industrial part of Cape Breton behind. I've grown to love the feel of the emptiness on both sides of me, I look forward to climb up Kelly's mountain, to the panorama of sea-lake and sky at its peak, and the steep decline that ends in a basin that is the village of St. Anne's.
The Gaelic college is a scattering of wood-frame buildings overlooking the saltwater Bras d'Or. When I arrived late Friday evening, I was greeted by the stars, a welcome sight after a month in Glace Bay, where the night sky is dulled to a muddy orange by Sydney's lights. A contingency of PEI Gaelic zealots had already begun a session in the main hall, where a local guy by the name of Joe Peter, a fluent Gaelic speaker and enyclopedia of tunes, played the fiddle to lone step dancer in the center of the floor. I listened for a while, wandered outside briefly to take in the frosted light on the lake's face, and at 2:00 am when the session finally ended, let the low dip of the half moon rock me to sleep.
I took beginner's Gaelic both days of the weekend. My teacher, Alaisdair was from Judique, Gaelic is his first language, and all his English he learned in school. Like many Cape Bretoners Alisdair moves slowly, speaks slowly, and lets the words of his native language thicken like spring mud at the base of his throat. We learned more than 100 vocab words. Window in Gaelic is uinneag, when spoken it sounds like onion. When I fell asleep in class on Sunday my neighbor nudged me awake shortly before an avalanche of red bulbs came pouring through the skylight. Not surprisingly, my Gaelic is even more appalling than my Irish. No harm done though, when someone asks me something I usually answer back in Irish, they assume I'm either an advanced speaker, or a scholar of ancient Gaelic, and more often than not they leave me alone.
Until the Gaelic weekend I was convinced Cape Breton was devoid of a living singing tradition. Although ballads are rumored to be warbled in the glens of Inverness, Mabou mines, and the North Shore up until the present day, there are no regular singing sessions like those I found in Kerry, and I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be able to share, in Cape Breton, the musical expression I love the most. My fears have proven to be unfounded, now that I've discovered the island's own version of sean nós on steroids: the milling frolic.
In days past, Cape Breton women would gather around the milling to beat cloth, singing in rythym to make the process a little smoother, a little faster, and a little more fun. Today, Gaelic enthusiasts still gather around a table, they still pass a blanket, and although they aren't doing any work per sá, I can't imagine that the original practice is that much different from its contemporary counterpart. One person will sing the verse of the song, everyone joins in the chorus, and by the end of the night, what was once a perfectly good wool blanket might be stretched and beaten beyond recognition. Often the choruses contain vocables, nonsense words that function strictly as percussive supplements. The melodies are beautiful, and the verses themsleves often a little widow into the culture from which they were born, especially those that come from, "the old country."
Today, I started learning 'Ille Dhuinne Og U, "The Brown Haired Lad." By the fourth verse I noticed something slightly suspicious. The Brown Haired Lad's hair color had changed three times. When I asked my teacher what the deal was, he answered, "You can't expect a Gaelic man to keep the same color hair, can you?" Finally, he confessed that the Gaels managed to avoid the Victorian chastity that still plagues contemporary Western culture today. I like to imagine that I would have been good friends with the author of 'Ille Dhuinne Og U, and that perhaps, at the milling table, in another life, in the old country, we might have exchanged a wink and a smile.
The Gaelic college is a scattering of wood-frame buildings overlooking the saltwater Bras d'Or. When I arrived late Friday evening, I was greeted by the stars, a welcome sight after a month in Glace Bay, where the night sky is dulled to a muddy orange by Sydney's lights. A contingency of PEI Gaelic zealots had already begun a session in the main hall, where a local guy by the name of Joe Peter, a fluent Gaelic speaker and enyclopedia of tunes, played the fiddle to lone step dancer in the center of the floor. I listened for a while, wandered outside briefly to take in the frosted light on the lake's face, and at 2:00 am when the session finally ended, let the low dip of the half moon rock me to sleep.
I took beginner's Gaelic both days of the weekend. My teacher, Alaisdair was from Judique, Gaelic is his first language, and all his English he learned in school. Like many Cape Bretoners Alisdair moves slowly, speaks slowly, and lets the words of his native language thicken like spring mud at the base of his throat. We learned more than 100 vocab words. Window in Gaelic is uinneag, when spoken it sounds like onion. When I fell asleep in class on Sunday my neighbor nudged me awake shortly before an avalanche of red bulbs came pouring through the skylight. Not surprisingly, my Gaelic is even more appalling than my Irish. No harm done though, when someone asks me something I usually answer back in Irish, they assume I'm either an advanced speaker, or a scholar of ancient Gaelic, and more often than not they leave me alone.
Until the Gaelic weekend I was convinced Cape Breton was devoid of a living singing tradition. Although ballads are rumored to be warbled in the glens of Inverness, Mabou mines, and the North Shore up until the present day, there are no regular singing sessions like those I found in Kerry, and I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be able to share, in Cape Breton, the musical expression I love the most. My fears have proven to be unfounded, now that I've discovered the island's own version of sean nós on steroids: the milling frolic.
In days past, Cape Breton women would gather around the milling to beat cloth, singing in rythym to make the process a little smoother, a little faster, and a little more fun. Today, Gaelic enthusiasts still gather around a table, they still pass a blanket, and although they aren't doing any work per sá, I can't imagine that the original practice is that much different from its contemporary counterpart. One person will sing the verse of the song, everyone joins in the chorus, and by the end of the night, what was once a perfectly good wool blanket might be stretched and beaten beyond recognition. Often the choruses contain vocables, nonsense words that function strictly as percussive supplements. The melodies are beautiful, and the verses themsleves often a little widow into the culture from which they were born, especially those that come from, "the old country."
Today, I started learning 'Ille Dhuinne Og U, "The Brown Haired Lad." By the fourth verse I noticed something slightly suspicious. The Brown Haired Lad's hair color had changed three times. When I asked my teacher what the deal was, he answered, "You can't expect a Gaelic man to keep the same color hair, can you?" Finally, he confessed that the Gaels managed to avoid the Victorian chastity that still plagues contemporary Western culture today. I like to imagine that I would have been good friends with the author of 'Ille Dhuinne Og U, and that perhaps, at the milling table, in another life, in the old country, we might have exchanged a wink and a smile.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
For the Love of God
My car broke down in Mabou three days before I was to fly to Ottawa. As is now habit, I spent the Saturday night at Jim and Margaret's after the square dance in what has now become, "my bed," while my friend Erin laid claim to the couch. On Sunday, Jimmy gave us a tour of Mabou, showed us a movie of family Christmas ten years ago, and finally dropped us off at the Judique music center to see Buddy MacMaster play, only to pick us up again two hours later after the suspicious buzz at the front of my car mounted to an all-out-roar.
Looking back, I liken the first half of the day to the calm before a hurricane. Halfway to the mechanic's shop...the levees broke...
"So," Jim muttered from the front seat, "I noticed that neither of you girls went to church this morning."
Silence.
Me: "If it makes you happy Jimmy, I'll go to church with you guys every sunday."
Erin: "Why would I go to church? I don't support organized religion."
An hour later, above the drone of philosophical debate, John Beaton attempted to diagnose the rattle coming from the upper right region of my vehicle.
"Well...it looks like there's a wire loose, but I doubt it could be making noise like that."
"Yeah, it's so hip and cool not to listen to authority. You're so hip. You're so cool."
"Why do you keep reverting to "hip" and "cool"? I'm twenty four years old...I don't care about being cool anymore."
It could be one of your front rotors, if you'll just stand back I'll spin the wheels."
"Jesus was the son of God."
"Was he?...Really?...How did that come about?"
"I'd say it's the right tire for sure."
"The love of God."
"You keep saying that. The love of God...what does that mean?!"
"In all my years I've never heard noise like that coming from a wheel."
Two hours later, with the fate and origin of the universe still undecided, and my ten year old Mazda in an even more perilous state, Erin and I drove Jimmy's rusty red ford back to Glace Bay. For the next three days, I waited for the verdict from John Beaton and read up on my orientation reading for my weekend in Ottawa.
The basic theme of the articles was as follows: Canadians and Americans in many respects may look, act, dress, and sound the same, but there are key cultural differences. America is a melting pot, Canada a mosaic. Canadians are more communally focused, Americans, fiercely individualistic, sometimes to the point of selfishness.
While in Ottawa, I attempted to identify for the first time some of these cultural differences myself. While in Cape Breton, I'd been so interested in Scottish, aboriginal, and Acadian culture, I'd neglected acknowledge the possibility of an overall national identity that could encompass them all. Just in the pool of the Fulbright fellows that weekend, an outsider might find an overall "Americaness" as difficult to uncover as the elusive Canadian national identity. The Fulbright fellows of 2008 ranged broadly in age, ethnicity and sexual orientation. One 28 year old graduate student would be spending the winter in an Inuit village studying eating habits, a middle-aged professor would conduct a comparative study of Wal Mart in the neighboring countries, while another young PhD, to "keep his job" would publish a book on Asian/American spectatorship.
"Academia is a bitch." He confided to me the following day in the art museum, before turning to chat to a guard in French.
As brilliant as the gathered group was, few conclusions were drawn on the differences between Canadian and American identity. Socialism aside, judging from personal experience, the people of Cape Breton seem to be as fiercely individualist, and dare I say stubborn, as any American, perhaps with an even stronger sense of self emanating from their well-charted histories.
Sunday evening, while I waited for the bus to the airport, I chatted with a young Killam fellow from Nova Scotia who was about to travel to Europe for the first time. He told me it was senseless to compare America and Canada, regionally, the two countries contain as many cultures as there are stars in the sky. He chuckled when I told him I was in Cape Breton for the year.
"Really? You're all the way up there? Hmm...don't you find Cape Bretoners hilarious?"
"They don't seem any funnier to me than people anywhere else."
As soon as I said the words, I regretted them. My thoughts flew back to John Beaton's auto shop, to the fierce moral debate that ended in a hug, to a red truck with the proud declaration, "this farmer drives John Deere tractors" on its bumper, that was proudly my own for four days, and to a family whose faith in mankind's (or strange woman's) goodness was my saving grace the Sunday before. To an American raised in a somewhat brusque culture, this trust does seem a little funny, while to a Mabou man, easy selflessness, like the "love of God" still makes all the sense in the world.
Looking back, I liken the first half of the day to the calm before a hurricane. Halfway to the mechanic's shop...the levees broke...
"So," Jim muttered from the front seat, "I noticed that neither of you girls went to church this morning."
Silence.
Me: "If it makes you happy Jimmy, I'll go to church with you guys every sunday."
Erin: "Why would I go to church? I don't support organized religion."
An hour later, above the drone of philosophical debate, John Beaton attempted to diagnose the rattle coming from the upper right region of my vehicle.
"Well...it looks like there's a wire loose, but I doubt it could be making noise like that."
"Yeah, it's so hip and cool not to listen to authority. You're so hip. You're so cool."
"Why do you keep reverting to "hip" and "cool"? I'm twenty four years old...I don't care about being cool anymore."
It could be one of your front rotors, if you'll just stand back I'll spin the wheels."
"Jesus was the son of God."
"Was he?...Really?...How did that come about?"
"I'd say it's the right tire for sure."
"The love of God."
"You keep saying that. The love of God...what does that mean?!"
"In all my years I've never heard noise like that coming from a wheel."
Two hours later, with the fate and origin of the universe still undecided, and my ten year old Mazda in an even more perilous state, Erin and I drove Jimmy's rusty red ford back to Glace Bay. For the next three days, I waited for the verdict from John Beaton and read up on my orientation reading for my weekend in Ottawa.
The basic theme of the articles was as follows: Canadians and Americans in many respects may look, act, dress, and sound the same, but there are key cultural differences. America is a melting pot, Canada a mosaic. Canadians are more communally focused, Americans, fiercely individualistic, sometimes to the point of selfishness.
While in Ottawa, I attempted to identify for the first time some of these cultural differences myself. While in Cape Breton, I'd been so interested in Scottish, aboriginal, and Acadian culture, I'd neglected acknowledge the possibility of an overall national identity that could encompass them all. Just in the pool of the Fulbright fellows that weekend, an outsider might find an overall "Americaness" as difficult to uncover as the elusive Canadian national identity. The Fulbright fellows of 2008 ranged broadly in age, ethnicity and sexual orientation. One 28 year old graduate student would be spending the winter in an Inuit village studying eating habits, a middle-aged professor would conduct a comparative study of Wal Mart in the neighboring countries, while another young PhD, to "keep his job" would publish a book on Asian/American spectatorship.
"Academia is a bitch." He confided to me the following day in the art museum, before turning to chat to a guard in French.
As brilliant as the gathered group was, few conclusions were drawn on the differences between Canadian and American identity. Socialism aside, judging from personal experience, the people of Cape Breton seem to be as fiercely individualist, and dare I say stubborn, as any American, perhaps with an even stronger sense of self emanating from their well-charted histories.
Sunday evening, while I waited for the bus to the airport, I chatted with a young Killam fellow from Nova Scotia who was about to travel to Europe for the first time. He told me it was senseless to compare America and Canada, regionally, the two countries contain as many cultures as there are stars in the sky. He chuckled when I told him I was in Cape Breton for the year.
"Really? You're all the way up there? Hmm...don't you find Cape Bretoners hilarious?"
"They don't seem any funnier to me than people anywhere else."
As soon as I said the words, I regretted them. My thoughts flew back to John Beaton's auto shop, to the fierce moral debate that ended in a hug, to a red truck with the proud declaration, "this farmer drives John Deere tractors" on its bumper, that was proudly my own for four days, and to a family whose faith in mankind's (or strange woman's) goodness was my saving grace the Sunday before. To an American raised in a somewhat brusque culture, this trust does seem a little funny, while to a Mabou man, easy selflessness, like the "love of God" still makes all the sense in the world.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Orientation
I'm heading to Ottawa for the weekend for the Fulbright orientation, so I won't be able to post again until Monday, check back then!
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