Village Squire, 1973-05, Page 29Keith's Ko l u m n
Just no class
I just ain't got no class.
I mean I just ain't with it, I'm a square. (Say, even
use of that term makes me out of it doesn't it?)
I came to that conchision recently after reading an art-
icle by this cat (whoops that should be dude these days) in
one cf those big classy Toronto newspapers. He was telling
us all about those good old never -to -be -forgotten days of
the late 'S0's and early '60's, the days before those long-
haired guys from England came over and shook up the mus-
ic world. He was taking part in that current wave of nost-
algia over the 1950's and recalling the music of the period,
both the good and the bad. Only trouble was, what he said
was good, I remembered as bad; and what I thought was
good, he said was bad. It seems that if a performer catered
to the common taste, the kind of music people liked to
hear, he just wasn't any good. The only performers who
were good were those who broke new ground... even if I
had wished that the only ground broken had been their own
graves. They may have male a racket while the others
presented sweet sounds, but they were great and the guys
I liked were awful.
Of course I've always known I was out of it in most fields.
Take art for instance. I've always liked artists like the
Group of Seven. Of course with real connoisseurs, they've
been out for years. Guys like Harold Town, Andy Warhol
are the big shots today. About the closest I can get to
being in is that I like Colville and Danby, although I've
never seen an original painting by either.
I've never had much taste for high-class music either.
Theresa Stratus always sounded to me like she had just
caught her foot in a door, and couldn't get it out. Cham-
ber music made me think of only one chamber, my bed-.
roo M.
Then there's theatre. I haven't been able to stomach
Shakespeare since high school when we practically learned
every line of every play off be heart. As for modern play -
writes, Pinter gives me a pain. Everybody with class seems
to put down poor old Neil Simon whose doesn't do much
but make money with plays like the Odd Couple. Me, I'vc
always liked him.
Even in literature I seem to have no class. Some of the
great scholars gather dust on the book shelves while I read
what anyone with taste would label trash.
I'm so bad that I can't even live in the right place.
Anyone knows that the place to live is in the city. The
only country life that's in is in those exclusive rural areas
around big cities where the rich live in big country estates.
The city types, and of course they're the only ones that
count in terms of culture (what could we ever know about
culture in rural Ontario) think big buildings and paved
streets are where art thrives. To show you how out of it I
am, I've always thought art had a direct relationship to
nature and that by living in the country close to the grass
and trees and birds and bees, I was being close to the
roots of art.
So, I live in a small town. Of course even among small
towners I have no class. Anyone knows (in larger towns
like Goderich, Clinton and Wingham anyway) that if you
have any class at all, you live in one of the larger towns.
I show my lack of couth by living in a village, Blyth.
Sometimes talking to people from the larger towns, I get
the feeling that Blyth is at the north pole. Oh well, I'll
just have to keep on having no class because for some
reason, I like my life just the way it is.
`Beauty and Quality
at
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