1900 Paris Expo and Canada

French Exposition still from YouTube.
from this haunting era film/video

You know, before I discovered the Nicholson Letters in 2004, I had little understanding and no interest in the Laurier Era in Canada. (Perhaps this is because my high school history book, Canada Then and Now, had only two paragraphs on the era. Or more likely, because all the old grandmas around were relics from that era, with their smelly old Persian lamb coats and sensible shoes

My mother did, however, like Sir Wilfrid. When we lived in Rosemere during my high school years she often threatened to take me up to St. Lin to visit his childhood home.

Later on, in school, I studied the Pre-Raphaelites and Art Nouveau and became intrigued with the era, but only in Europe. La Belle Epoque. The Edwardian Era. And that was the time that famous mini series, Upstairs Downstairs played on TV. And since I studied early film, I probably saw that Jean Renoir film, you know, the one Gosford Park is based on. (Why does the title escape me? I saw it a while back and it is far better than Gosford Park, which is very good in its own right.)Oh, I looked it up, Les Regles de Jeu.

Up until a few years ago, I am ashamed to say, I couldn’t have told you when women in Canada got the vote (Maybe I should have asked one of those old ladies. Had I met Edith Nicholson in, say, 1966, on, say, the 62 Clanranald bus, and chatted her up, I’m sure she would have told me. Maybe she would have been with Blair, her great-nephew and my future husband.)

All to say, I’ve long been entranced with the glamour of 1900 France. And, lately, I was thrilled to find a hazy film of the 1900 Paris Exposition on YouTube as well as some beeeeooootiful pictures by a Robert Bonnin on Flickr.

And, yesterday, reading a 1900 copy of the Canadian Magazine off archive.org, (for yet more background to my story Flo in the City, about a girl coming of age in 1910, based on the letters of http://www.tighsolas.ca/ )I read all about the Canadian Pavilion at the 1900 exposition.

And, frankly, it was disturbing. It was disturbing to read how little has changed with respect to Canada’s image abroad.

The pavilion itself, it is written, was ugly and hidden by too many trees. (What WERE they thinking: this was Paris 1900, the home of all things beautiful.)Well, the pavilion was near the Eiffel Tower.

It contained a natural history exhibit, with a lot of mooseheads, and an agricultural exhibit, with a lot of pre-wheat boom (Ontario) wheat and apples and berries (but no Blackberry) and a mineral exhibit, gold from the Yukon and asbestos from Quebec, yawn. It contained an exhibit on our forests, double yawn, and lots of fish and wood for sale. Oh, and maple syrup, maple syrup, maple syrup. Oh, and some petroleum products, although who in the heck needs that?

The article begins by saying Canada’s image (snow, ice, snow and more ice) has improved on the world stage lately because of our involvement in the Boer War… and so it’s time to sell stuff to the world.

One item being pitched got my attention. Pelee island wine. Imagine! I just discovered the stuff myself last year. Not bad. I’m sure the French were as impressed with that product as they are today. (Except that the idea of a country outside of Europe pitching wine to Europeans seems, well, so before its time. I bet there was no California wine back then. Today, everyone is making wine and pitching it to the planet. Russia, Argentina…

Pelee Island Wine Exhibit.

If you are Canadian, do you find this depressing? Anyway, they also had a railroad exhibit with pictures of our countryside designed to attract tourists. Hunting tourism was the big sell.

Oh and there was another exhibit:an education exhibit. There was a reproduction of an Ontario Classroom with notebooks and textbooks. All designed to show the French we weren’t yokels. (They still don’t believe us.)

I can imagine this pavilion didn’t excite visitors, who were too busy hopping on and off Edison’s moving sidewalk. (There’s also a film of that on YouTube.)

Still, I imagine Edith, Marion and Flo (who was 8 in 1900) read all about the Exposition. In 1912, Marion was invited to visit Paris with family friends, but she didn’t have the money. Her friends brought her back a gift, so she writes in a letter. “Imagine me wearing a fancy Parisienne blouse.”

Both Edith and Marion made it to Paris in their lifetimes, Marion for a 1946 UNESCO Conference, as a Representative of the Canadian Teachers Association. She died the very next year because of a heart attack. Two decades later, in old age, Edith and Flo would visit Expo67, Montreal’s Universal Exhibition.

Expo67 wasn’t so much a ‘marketing’ Expo as an educational and cultural one. The Canadian Pavilion was a sprawling space and it featured no mooseheads or wine. Just a Katimavik, an inverted pyramid, and a fake maple tree with orange-tinted pictures of Canadians for leaves. And it had a rusty dragon out back. And it served whalemeat and maple syrup in the high end restaurant. Well, some things never change.

And although there were 50,000,000 visits made to the Expo islands between April and October 1967 (you can read about it in my play Looking for Mrs. Peel at www.tighsolas.ca/page745.html)
very few Europeans came, a mere 2 percent of visitors to Expo were from outside North America.

I’ve never been to France, but I spent four hours in De Gaulle last week. I intend to go next Spring, and see Montmartre and Le Moulin Rouge. Until then there’s always Google Earth Street View.

Canada’s Food exhibit at Paris Exposition

For the article, page 387 http://www.archive.org/ (Canadian magazine.. canadian libraries)

The magazine is here

Slate to iPad

My Kindle has been sent out, but it hasn’t arrived. Must be held up at customs. My son asked me why I bought the Kindle when I had the iPod. I said I bought it because of the iPod.

I have not read nearly as much since my eyes started to go on me, about a decade ago. I simply get woozzy (is that the word?) when I read with bi-focals.

I started to read Room with A View on the iPod and found it rather easy on the eyes and I know the Kindle will be even easier.

Working on computers does stress the eyes. No doubt. That’s another reason I don’t read as many books as I used to, my eyes are tired at the end of the day after working on the computer.

Anyway, for fun I turned that story I wrote The Quilt into PDF, loaded it onto my Tigsolas website at www.tighsolas.ca/page4.pdf.pdf and then transferred it to the iPod.

And I have to write an essay for my Heritage Course, easy enough, except I my best time is early in the morning. I’m clearheaded then. But I’ve been sleeping in.

It’s funny, a few years ago I wrote an education essay, saying that ‘slates’ have evolved into laptops, but I spoke too early. Slates have evolved into iPads. Just think of HOW MUCH MORE an iPad can do than a slate and you have a great symbol of how the growth in knowledge and access to knowlege has increased exponentially.

I talked to my kid again today on Skype. He’s in Instanbul, in a hostel in the ‘tourist’ area and he said it is full of French Canadians, so he feels right at home. He was on the rooftop of the hostel (so as not to bother the other visitors in the common area) and he showed me the view. A roof with a view. Anyway, the picture was breaking up a bit and I suddenly recollected that scene from a Space Odyssey, where they girl talks to her Dad in the space station. I recall thinking “how neat’ when I watched that movie. I knew this was going to happen sometime in the future.. Indeed, the Telephone Pavillion at Expo67 had an exhibit with video phone. My gosh, how far we’ve come. And yet so much stays the same.

That’s why I think the letters of http://www.tighsolas.ca/ are important. They teach us about now, they are relevant. My Heritage course explains why to be significant, any heritage artefacts, buildings, intangible stories or folkways (traditions, beliefs, etc) must have something to tell us now. Well, duh.

My son said he lost 15 pounds on these post grad travels, because, as a vegetarian, he couldn’t find much to eat in the Ukraine. I told him the only phrase I recall from Russian lessons years ago.. Hachoo Myca. I want meat. He said he learned one phrase. Nyet Myassa. No Meat.

He had been warned that it would be difficult to eat vegetarian in Turkey, but he says the warnings were wrong. I said, I assume it would be easy. In Canada Lebanese food is a staple for vegetarians, humous, lentils, etc.

.

Looking for Mrs. Peel Part 2

I was tall at twelve, which is a theme of this play: My grandmother was tiny. You can find the play at www.tighsolas.ca/page745.html

LOOKING FOR MRS.PEEL: a Play for Radio with new information on the Double Tenth Incident at Changi Prison (Civilian Internment Camp) during WWll. Based on a true story. Dialogue by people is recreated by me, generated from my -or my grandmother’s -point of view and is speculative and not intended to cast anyone in a bad light.Based on a true story, as they say, or a ‘re-imagining of a mostly true story with some fictional elements based on historical memory and record, personal memory and family myth.’All Rights Reserved Copyright Dorothy Nixon 2008. Students and Teachers may download and reproduce any part for educational purposes (not for profit). “The keynote of this whole case can be epitomized in two words: Unspeakable horror. Horror, stark and naked permeates every corner and angle of this case from beginning to end….Opening speech for the prosecution. Double Tenth Trial as reported in Malaya Straits Times.”Click for Looking for Mrs. Peel blog with audio visual links

“Cross my hand with silver pretty lady, if you’d see, What the future holds in store for you and how soon you will be free,

Cross my hand with silver (if you have none don’t be shy)I’ll take it out in food or booze (or Gordon’s Special dry)

Just cross my hand with silver or call at Cell FifteenWith any simple offering, (be sure you are not seen)

No cumshaw ever comes amiss but if you have it handyThe fates show true benevolence if first well laced with brandy,

The lines engraved upon your palm are clear as mud to me,There’s fame and food and fortune and a journey on the sea

But a lurking danger threatens and a white-haired lady frowns, (It isn’t Eve or Nella and it isn’t Mrs. Chowns.)

Fate draws a veil across the name, but one thing’s plain to see, The danger is averted if you put your shirt on me.

“Scene One: Nixon Living Room Montreal November 1967

SOUND: Television, (Murdersville episode of The Avengers TV Series from November 1967) someone being dunked in water and crunch of eating

Voice on TV: (sx water) You could spare yourself this Mrs. Peel. (sx splash)You know what we want (sx Splash) Who knows you are here?

Martha: Dorothy , depeches-toi,come say goodbye to your grandmother. This is your last chance to see her. She’s leaving for the airport very early tomorrow morning

Dorothy : (sx crinkling of cellophane bag,crunch of junk food being chewed)

Martha: And, adjust the rabbit ears on the TV for Heaven’s sake,
All that interference. Mrs. Peel’s face is covered in snow!

MUSIC: Red Rubber Ball. The Cyrkle 1966

Scene Two: 2008 kitchen near Montreal Canada

SOUND: food sizzling on stove, radio din, cell with Ode to Billy Joe ringtone.

Dorothy: Blair. Get my cell, would you?

Blair: (distant)grunt

Dorothy: Aghh. Geez. (sx clunk of pan) Hello?

Denise: Dorothy. It’s your Aunt Denise.

Dorothy: Hi. I know. I was just thinking of you, actually. I’m listening to a BBC Documentary – about My Lai. On my laptop. 40th anniversary of the year 1968.Big year in the US. Of course, 1967 was our big year -here in Canada.

Denise: Radio Four, I presume. We never miss The Archers. I’ve rung to say that I received Mother’s war memoir in the post today. I want to thank you for returning it so promptly.

Dorothy: Wow. That’s fast. I just scanned the pages and saved them to CD. I still have a tonne of research to do before I can make any sense of it. Especially the spy business. Did you see that snippet I sent you from the 1963 Malaysia Who’s Who?

Denise: Yes, I did.

Dorothy: But did you notice the twenty year gap? It says Dorothy Forster Nixon: Born 1895 County Durham; Quaker Co-educational School; land girl in forestry WWI. Then it jumps to librarian, Kuala Lumpur Book Club 1935-present with mention of internment at Changi. Nothing about her domestic life as a rubber worker’s wife.

Denise: No I didn’t. Odd. Well, I can’t thank you enough for all you are doing for my mother.

Dorothy: Well, Granny didn’t get the recognition in the UK. No OBE or flattering obit at her death like the others involved, But she’ll have this, my humble family tribute. I’ll dedicate it to everyone written out of history.

Denise: Yes, to think that the grandchild with whom she had the least rapport is doing the most to keep her memory alive. Must ring off. Short of breath these days. Give my love to your mother.

Dorothy: I will. Bye now. Hmm. The grandchild with whom she had the least rapport. That’s one way of putting it, I guess.(sx plunk of fan, frying sound turns into applause)

Scene Three: Clanranald Elementary Auditorium,Montreal 1967

SOUND: Applause

Teacher (sx mike): Good work Mark Luxenberg and Rebecca Birenbaum. The top students at Clanranald Elementary for 1966/67 . Assembly dismissed. Have a great Expo summer. And please don’t lose your report cards on the way home. Here’s Bobby Gimby to trumpet you home (sx scratch of record CA NA DA Song on cheap record player over PA system)

(sx vague sound of birds, children and car radios fade in and out as Ingrid and Dorothy walk by.”C’etait Bits and Pieces par le Dave Clark Five. A Suivre Light MyFire, Les Doors… US President Lyndon Johnson meets today with Russian Premiere Alexsei Kosygin in New Jersey at what is being dubbed the The Glassboro Summit….

(sunny ID-jingle) CFCF 600 Montreal…

Silky Woman’s Voice:There’s a new look in telephones. The new look is the princess phone. It’s little, it’s lovely, it’s light. It’s so slender it can fit anywhere.)

Dorothy (VO): 6th grade down. One more year of elementary school to go. I walk the two blocks home to my family’s untidy upper duplex apartment on Lemon Creek Road in the dingy Snowdon district of Montreal (with its row upon row of unadorned brick buildings and only two landmarks worthy of the designation: the glamorous bejewelled Art Deco Snowdon Theatre and the glaring globoid Orange Julep Drive-in Restaurant)in the company of classmate and neighbour Ingrid Singh. Bombay born, Ealing raised, one of the many exotic new Canadians coming to live in my neighborhood.

Dorothy: Let me see your report card Ing.

Ingrid: Let me see yours first.

Dorothy: Nothing to see. Very good in every subject. Not one teacher comment.

Ingrid: Well, I got five excellents.

Dorothy: And a page and a half of teacher comments, I bet.”Ingrid talks back in class and teaches the little ones how to say words like douchebag. Please wash her mouth out with soap.”

Ingrid: H! Ha!. So, what do you want to do when we get home. Go up to Queen Mary Road and play Monkey See Monkey Do?.

Dorothy: Nah, too hot.

Ingrid: Wanna go see if that one-legged hobo is still living in the backseat of the blue Firebird in the used car lot?

Dorothy: Not allowed. And he’s not a hobo. He’s a war veteran.

INgrid: Spy vs. spy then?

Dorothy: Ok. But I wanna be Emma Peel this time.

Ingrid: No. I get to play Emma. I’m from England. You can be Agent 99 or Honey West.

Dorothy: I wanna be Emma. You’re from India. I’m the one who’s REALLY English. I’m a tall Yorkshire girl, just like Diana Rigg. My dad says.

Ingrid: You said you were born here in Canada. And your father in K-u-a-la Lum-pooor.

Dorothy: Makes no difference. My grandparents are from Yorkshire.

Ingrid: Is you grandmother tall like you and your dad?

Dorothy: I dunno.

Ingrid: Well,I’m much much MUCH prettier than you, so I still get to play Mrs. Peel.

Dorothy vo: Right, then. So Ingrid,with her shimmering swell of jet black hair, flawless mocha skin and blossoming Swedish curves, gets to be Emma Peel, as usual. That’s because Emma Peel is really Diana Rigg, an English lady who is undeniably the most beautiful – and possibly the best TV actress on either side of the pond. At least according to critic Cleveland Amory in the April 28, 1967 issue of TV Guide Magazine, the very same issue I have tucked away as a keepsake because April 28, 1967 was also the opening day of Expo67 Montreal’s wonderful World’s Fair.

Ingrid: So, Emma goes undercover at the British Pavilion at Expo where she hides out with the Mary Quant mannequins. She’s watching out for Russian spies who want to kidnap…ah…Queen Elizabeth when she visits in two weeks.And Honey is a double agent working in the Russian Pavilion.

Dorothy: I’ve been to the Russian Pavilion. All it has inside is machines. Why can’t Honey hide out in Thailand? Their pavilion is shaped like a golden dragon boat.

Ingrid: Don’t be daft. Nothing happens in Thailand. So, my flat is the British Pavilion and your flat is the Russian Pavilion and our bedrooms are where we send our top secret transmissions. On pink princess phones.

Dorothy: I don’t have a princess phone.

Ingrid : It’s pretend!

Dorothy: Next week I won’t even have a bedroom.

Ingrid: Why?

Dorothy: Because my Yorkshire, well, Malaya, grandmother is finally coming for a visit and she gets my brother’s bedroom and he gets mine.

Ingrid: Is she coming for Expo? Is she coming to see the Queen?

Dorothy: I guess.

Ingrid: Where are you going to sleep?

Dorothy: On a cot in the dining room.

Ingrid: So, then. You’ll finally find out if she’s really tall or small.