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*                                                            * 
*                         CYBERSPACE                         * 
*         A biweekly column on net culture appearing         * 
*                in the Toronto Sunday Sun                   * 
*                                                            * 
* Copyright 2000 Karl Mamer                                  * 
* Free for online distribution                               * 
* All Rights Reserved                                        * 
* Direct comments and questions to:                          * 
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Oh Canada

I joined the dot.com fuelled brain drain to the United States. 
I moved to a Seattle suburb in January. I wasn't chasing the 
almighty American dollar. I was just trying to get away from 
the extremes found in Toronto weather and relationships. I 
figured it would be milder here and maybe American women would 
like me.

I'm reasonably happy. When I look out my office window and see 
snow-capped mountains cresting above tall stands of pine trees, 
I think "wow". But then I remember how much I want to see some 
obscure subtitled film at the Carlton. I know I could see it in 
downtown Seattle but I'd have to battle my way on the city's 
BMW-choked two lane version of the Gardiner. Suddenly I'm happy 
to trade mountains and any number of trees for a cold subway 
station.

At times I feel like I had to give up the very things that make 
me Canadian. I don't pass a single donut shop on my drive to 
work. I can't vote. My destiny is entirely in the hands of the 
American electorate. That sure scares me.

My cable system doesn't carry CBC. That sure bothers me. My 
work visa only lasts a maximum of six years. I don't want to 
walk back into Canada half a decade from now and be like some 
coma patient who wakes up to discover talking apes have formed 
the government, merged all the banks, built the Eglinton subway 
line, and got Hamilton an NHL franchise.

Fortunately, the trusty Internet has been a life line for 
Canadian news, views, and entertainment I'm missing via 
conventional means.

Speaker's Corner
www.cp24.com/speakershomepage/speakerscorner.asp

City TV spoils you. It's irritating to watch a movie and have 
all the perfectly good swearing cut out. The breakfast TV shows 
here are little more than a repetition of the same four news 
stories. How I miss Jennifer Peck painting the faces of 
children one day and being strapped into a Tudor jet the next 
day. Most of all I miss Speaker's Corner. Luckily City TV's web 
site now offers a live peak through the camera's lens using 
video streaming software. Access to uninformed opinion and 
creative uses of minimalist broadcast technology is on demand 
at the click of a browser's bookmark. Well done, City TV.

CBC Real Audio Broadcast
cbc.ca/audio.html

CBC radio has long been an innovator in providing broadcasts 
via the Internet. I remember downloading WAV file versions of 
Quirks and Quarks from the CBC gopher site back in 1994. Real 
Audio now lets me catch Quirks and Quarks, the World at Six, 
and Jurgen Gothe's Disc Drives without having to spend four 
hours to download fifty minutes of audio.

CFNY
cfny.passport.ca

Canadians tend to only recognizing their musicians when they 
hit it big in the USA. CFNY, however, has long strived to 
support and recognize Canadian music with little or no hope of 
ever capturing an American audience. Excellent bands like 54-40 
or I Mother Earth will likely always remain best kept secrets. 
If you can get past CFNY's bloated and busy site, there's a 
Real Audio broadcast as well as a neat section devoted to 
Canadian Indie bands.

Sam the Record Man
www.samscd.com

For the ex-pat Canadian music fan, Sam's click-and-mortar site 
organizes Canadian music into its own section. That's good. The 
site still needs some work. Too many CDs don't have sample 
sound tracks. You'd think Sam's could offer sample tracks for 
an artist as popular as Sarah McLachlan. The site maintains 
your credit card information in your registration profile. I've 
read too many stories lately about hacked ecommerce sites to 
feel comfy about this. A purchase at the beginning of March was 
immediately placed on back order. Okay, they were foreign 
films, Antonia's Line and Cinema Paradiso, but they were Oscar 
winners. And March is Oscar season. Maybe stock up?


Toronto Symphony Euro Tour Diary
www.tso.on.ca/eurotour_topnav.htm

Besides subways and donut shops, I really miss my beloved 
Toronto Symphony. The Seattle Symphony is okay but over the 
years I've made a considerable emotional investment in the TSO. 
I was happy to be able to follow its highly touch-and-go 
European tour at the TSO's Euro Tour Diary page. There are some 
great photographs of the venues, musicians, and cultural 
landmarks encountered on the tour. The diary was authored by 
the TSO's Michael Buckland, the marketing director. He did a 
decent job but it would have been nice to read some personal 
anecdotes written by the musicians themselves.

**********************
* Update May 2, 2000 *
**********************

RE SAM THE RECORD MAN: Still didn't get the videos from samscd.com 
after 2 months so I cancelled via email and phone. Let's see if that 
works. I reordered through chapter.ca. Let's see how that works.

RE TORONTO SYMPHONY EURO TOUR DIARY: The TSO musicians have 
published a selection of tour photos at:

www.tsomusicians.com/whatsnew/euro2000/index.html.

***********************
* Update May 10, 2000 *
***********************

RE SAM THE RECORD MAN: I managed to successfully cancel my order 
with Sam's and reordered via Chapters.ca on May 2. My order 
has a status of "Awaiting Shipment". Okay. I'm aware of that.



***********************
* Update Apr 11, 2001 *
***********************

Far Too Canadian
http://www.columbia.edu/~vl78/index2.html

I found this page recently searching for information about an 
early '90s Toronto Ska band. It's a web page for a radio show 
called Far Too Canadian. Every Wednesday the hosts, Canadian 
ex-pat university students, spin Canadian tunes on a New York 
campus station. They play everything from Age of Electric to 
the Watchmen. You can hear their broadcast in Real Audio 
at www.wbar.org. Well done, eh!

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