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The Citizen, 1991-07-10, Page 5^iArthiir Black 0 Canada we shop abroad for thee I don't watch The Journal any more. I can't stand any more shots of Toyotaloads of Canucks funneling through U.S. border checkpoints, practically salivating on the upholstery because they've got a chance to spend their money in American shopping malls. My TV also shows long daisy chains of the same cars coming back into Canada, laden to the rocker panels with everything from frozen turkeys to laptop computers; from cartons of Marlboros washer/dryers. But it's not the border depresses me. It’s not even junk the shoppers bring back. It's the rationalizations they come out with. They talk about how they're "fed up" with the high cost of living in Canada. They growl that they're damned sore" and they're "not gonna take it any more." They tell Barbara on The Journal that this is their way of "screwing Mulroney for the GST and all those other taxes." To hear them tell it, you'd think cross- border shoppers were some kind of credit­ card Cavalry, leading the charge towards a to Maytag crossing that the mounds of The International Scene Not too much Wolfgang BY RAYMOND CANON In case you didn't realize it, 1991 is the 200th anniversary of the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who, during the past decade, has become the most popular of classical music composers. While I admit that Mozart has written a great deal of wonderful music, I put this popularity down to the reception accorded the film on his life - "Amadeus" (which won a number of Academy Awards if I am not mistaken). While the film did take a number of liberties with the facts, there is no doubt that it brought the composer's music to a large number of people who may have thought up until then that Mozart was the name of a German car or ski resort. Hardly had the year started when I found myself invited to attend a performance of Mozart's last opera, La Clemenza di Tito, which I must confess never to have heard before. I was curious to see what it was like and, in spite of some uneven singing, I did enjoy the music. How I will feel about Mozart by the end of the year is, of course, problematical. To give you some idea of what is going on in the world, 1 can honestly say that every angle of Wolfgang Amadeus' short but productive life is being shamelessly exploited. His father can be said to have started it all; when his son was only six years old and he realized that he had a genius on his hands, he look him on a now celebrated tour of well-known courts and palaces in Europe. The young boy may have found all this fascinating al first; by the lime he had grown up he was complaining that too many people, especially the French, were still treating him as if he were the little boy of his first tour. I sometimes have the feeling that he was the Liberace of the 18th century with the main difference being that Mozart did, after all, write his own music. Mozart was not the brighter, bargain-festooned future. It is to guffaw. A cursory glance at the despicable government this country's endured for the past seven years tells anyone with eyes to see that The Grand Muldoon does not lose sleep over who's buying their flame­ retardant living room drapes at a Buffalo discount mall. Cross-border shopping doesn't hurt The Boys On The Hill. They've got a regular pay cheque — at least until next until next election. No, the people who are hurt by cross- border shopping are folks like Ed, over al the Pro Hardware store and Sylvia who runs the variety and smoke shop. Not to mention everybody at the supermarket, Eaton's and The Bay, and all those folks manning all those downtown cash registers. You want to know who gets kneed in the groin by cross-border shopping? Go to the local baseball game, or the next meeting of the Lions/Kiwanis/Rotary/Knights of Columbus. Take a look around. You know these people. You vole in the same polling booth. You see them in lineups at the barber shop and the bank machine. Your kids go to school with their kids. You used to do all your shopping at their stores. But that was before Free Trade of course, and all those fabulous Stateside bargains. O Canada. Are we destined to become the glitzy young thing that his concerts purported io display; he could be extremely foul-mouthed and insufferable. At least this came out in "Amadeus" but during his lifetime it was not the case. However, to give you some idea of what is being done to celebrate the event, the Lincoln Centre in New York is going to perform during the course of the year every piece of music that Mozart ever wrote. Luzern, in Switzerland, plans to give 46 concerts of his church music. I must remember to keep away from this most idyllic of Swiss cities since, while it may be easy to get to, the narrow streets and parking problems are ingredients for horrible traffic tie-ups. But it is in Austria that understandably much of the emphasis is being placed this year. I say understandably because the Austrians will be very quick to emphasize to anybody who is not quite sure of their facts on Mozart that he is, after all, an Austrian and not a German. The city of his birth, Salzburg, and Vienna are going all out to present as many concerts of his works as they can, which is saying something, considering what I have already said about New York and Luzern. The administration of those two cities is also trying to keep a lid on some of the more tacky exploitations of the composer's name but that's to be something of a losing battle, considering what has happened in other places that wanted their celebrations to be a Letter writer says thanks THE EDITOR, The Brussels Community Thrift Shop Committee would like to thank the Funfest Committee for allowing us to use the B. M. & G. Community Centre to host the Flea Market/Garage Sale on Saturday, July 6. We rented 28 booths at the sale and were able to start a fund for our non-profit Thrift Shop for Brussels as well as make a donation for Funfest. Thanks to all who participated in the booths and we hope everyone had a good time shopping there. We hope to open the Thrift Shop in first nation in history to commit suicide by shopping? It's not just Canadian dollars we're shovelling over the border. We're sending flesh and blood, too. I can think of four people who gave up on Canada this past year. They've chucked their passports, buried their Canadian heritage down by the compost heap and moved to the States. I heard one of these eager emigres on Peter Gzowski's Morningside radio program not long ago. He talked about the entrepreneurial spirit and how there was more free enterprise in the U.S. What he meant was he could make better money down there and he could keep more of it for himself. When the man finished talking, there was a long, painful silence and then Gzowski said, very quietly: "Canada is about more than money." Damn right. Not that money isn't important. Ask the Washington couple who were in court recently for failure to pay their medical bills. They have a daughter with a rare bone disease. She's had dozens of operations and needs more. Trouble is, their medical insurance ran out. All $2 million worth of it. We don't let that happen to people up here -- which is one reason life is more expensive in Canada. Sure, it costs more to be Canadian. Isn't it worth it? Isn't it at least worth more than a carton of Luckies, a tankful of cheap gas and a set of flame-retardant drapes? class act. Given the urge of many would-be entrepreneurs to make a quick buck, it is not surprising that some pretty awful kitsch has already made its way on the market. My spies in Austria inform me that first prize in this category must go to a chamber pot that is currently being marketed. This pot has a picture of Mozart on the outside, which is bad enough, but there is one of Salieri on the inside. The producers of "Amadeus" must be shuddering at that one. Like a lot of other composers, there are certain selections of music that have been played to the point of tedium and thus should be mercifully omitted from any program. Unfortunately they will not but there arc some of Mozart's music that is seldom heard but is worth playing, with his piano concertos, to my mind, being deserving of attention. There is one thing, though, that sticks in my mind. When I think of Mozart, and Schubert and Beethoven too, for that matter, all of whom did their best work in Austria, I am struck by the fact that all three had distinct handicaps. Both Schubert and Mozart were constantly on poverty's doorstep and both died early and untimely deaths. Beethoven lived much longer but suffered from growing deafness. If suffering such as they experienced brought out some fine music, perhaps a little suffering might not do any of us any harm as a means of rising above our mundane existence. October 1991 and will be asking for community support and donations of good, clean, used clothing so please keep us in mind when you houseclean your closets. Our storage space is limited at present and our future site is not yet finalized but we hope to make this volunteer-run community service a reality if everyone will pitch in and care and share. The winners of our draw will be posted at the Golden Lantern Restaurant. Sharon Horst Brussels. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 10,1991. PAGE 5. Letter from the editor A new view of things BY KEITH ROULSTON Sometimes things happen that give you a whole different perspective on your life and the things around you. I got a bit of that last Saturday when I stopped in to lake pictures of a group of Japanese tourisls al the Bly th Festival. While most of us in Huron Counly, particularly around Blyth, are still a little amazed by the success story of the Festival that success is seen in a new light when you realize that 15 Japanese came to Canada primarily to visit Blyth and the Festival. Halfway around the world to visit Huron counly! It gives you kind of a different perspective on the place you live. Blyth was the destination of these tourists because of the success of a play that is synonymous with the Festival, even though it didn't actually premiere here. The Tomorrow Box actually got its first production al the Kawartha Festival in Lindsay but because its author Anne Chislctt (Roy to many around Blyth) was, with husband James, a founder of the Festival, and because louring productions from Blyth made the show popular across the province, people naturally think of Blyth when they think about the play. The play too is very Huron County. We know people like the farm couple in the play where the wife jumps up to get the tea when the husband laps his spoon on the edge of the cup. People wouldn't be shocked to see some farmers they know "surprise" their wives by selling off the farm and buying a condominium in Florida without consultation. But it isn't just Huron Counly people who recognize the people in the play. The Tomorrow Box is one of the most produced plays in Canada, having been done by just about every summer theatre in the country and most winter theatres as well. The one place it hasn’t been done is in the big city of Toronto because it wouldn't be relevant there for the urban audience that wants to tum its back on things rural. But a Japanese businessman in Canada saw the play, translated it into Japanese and persuaded his friend, a director, to mount the play in Japan. Now the story of that Huron County farm family has been seen by more than 100,OCX) people in Japan. Japanese women, who make up 70 per cent of the audience in Japan, can strongly relate to the plight of the farm wife caught in a male-dominated traditional society. It says something about the universality of the way people react to given situations. No doubt we could find plays from Japan that would speak equally to the lives of people in Japan. But in a country that is dominated by imported culture from south of the border, and where Canadian culture is generally dictated by the tastes of decision-makers in big cities, the idea that this story of Huron Counly should find such a wide audience in Japan, that people from that country would travel all the way here to see the home of that play, is a little startling. Blyth Festival has always been famous for telling local stories and attracting crowds from near and far to sec those stories but this is a little farther than you can generally imagine. Il should tell us that we have important things to say, not just to our <>wn people but to people everywhere. It s ould also tell us that even separated by thou., inds of miles, a completely different cultural background and different languages, people have a lot in common.