Lost in North America : The Imaginary Canadian in the American Dream

Table of Contents

• CONTENTS 8
• INTRODUCTION 10
• 1 DEATH BY METAPHOR: IT'S NOT WHAT YOU SAY, BUT HOW YOU SAY IT 22
• In the Beginning Was the Word 22
• California Dreaming 23
• The Welfare Trap 24
• The Wrath of the Canadian Victim 27
• Adam and Eve 29
• Catch You with Another Man, That's the End 30
• A Window of Opportunity 32
• Analogue and Digital 33
• Thugs 36
• A World of Our Own 39
• 2 THE IRON PEOPLE AND THE EARTH PEOPLE: A TRAIL OF CROSSED SIGNALS 42
• Space Travel 46
• Crossed Signals 48
• Witches and Demons 50
• An Endangered Species 52
• Out of the Woods 54
• 3 THE HIDDEN PEOPLE: ENJOYING THE INCOGNITO LIFESTYLE 56
• Down in the Dumps 56
• Not Quite the Global Village 60
• Preemptive Insulation 62
• A Bunker of Cheer 66
• A Traditional Disgrace 67
• A Nice Guy 71
• 4 THE VISIT: A DOMESTIC WILDERNESS EXPERIENCE 74
• Family Pets 74
• A Mixed Reception 77
• A Frightening Experience 79
• Quite a Girl 81
• 5 A TALE OF TWO VILLAGES: SAVIOURS WITH FORKED TONGUES 84
• Outside 86
• Oh Baby Allons 84
• Up for Air 87
• Dancing to an Old Tune 89
• Angels of Deliverance 91
• Martyred by the Hyphen 92
• Star Gazing 93
• Disastrous Majorities 97
• Up for Air (Reprise) 100
• 6 THE EXTRA GANG: THE NATIONAL DREAM, REMEMBERED 102
• You Are What You Recall 102
• The New World 104
• Frontier College 106
• The Servants's Entrance 107
• John Adam 108
• Ant Work 109
• A Canadian Miracle 110
• 7 GETTING VAGUE FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: A VIEW OF THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE 114
• A Figment of the Imagination 114
• Where Is Here and Where Is There 116
• The Best Laid Plans 118
• The Errant Canadian 122
• Lies My Father Told Me 125
• Watch the Adjectives 127
• 8 HOW TO MAKE THINGS WORSE: A CANADIAN RECIPE FOR DECAY 130
• Vital Signs 130
• To Hell in a Hand Basket 132
• Friend or Foe 134
• The Birth of a Bureaucrat 135
• The Decline of the American Empire 138
• The CBC and Who 140
• Fingerpointing on the Titanic 142
• The CBC and Me 144
• 9 NORTHERN ANXIETY: THE DELICIOUS TASTE OF DREAD 150
• The National Emotion 150
• Diminishing Returns 154
• An Old Joke 159
• Anxiety and Hope 161
• 10 FRESH HALLUCINATIONS: GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL 164
• Eclectic Lifestyle 164
• Who Wants to Go to Ottawa 166
• Let Us Go to Denmark 167
• Friends of Danish Culture 168
• 11 CONSUMER OPTIONS: HOW TO MAKE THINGS WORK 172
• The Gap 172
• A Vague Uneasiness 174
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being Canadian 177
• And Now... This 178
• Two Nations 179
• Brought to You By... 181
• The Cultural Clear-Cut 185
• How to Make Things Work 190
• EPILOGUE 192