Listening to soulless Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper diss “the arts” put me in a pretty foul mood yesterday. But a couple of things have me back in reasonably good form today:
1) Margaret Atwood's article in The Globe and Mail: To be creative is, in fact, Canadian. Mr. Harper is wrong: There's more to the arts than a bunch of rich people at galas whining about their grants.
2) Watching David Letterman tear a strip off John McCain for canceling his appearance on The Late Show, pointing out that McCain lied about his reasons for ditching the show as Dave discovers that at the very moment McCain should be in the Late Show studio he's being interviewed by Katie Couric, just three blocks away at the CBS News center.
1) Margaret Atwood's article in The Globe and Mail: To be creative is, in fact, Canadian. Mr. Harper is wrong: There's more to the arts than a bunch of rich people at galas whining about their grants.
2) Watching David Letterman tear a strip off John McCain for canceling his appearance on The Late Show, pointing out that McCain lied about his reasons for ditching the show as Dave discovers that at the very moment McCain should be in the Late Show studio he's being interviewed by Katie Couric, just three blocks away at the CBS News center.
You can read about the Letterman-McCain story on the New York Times Politics blog or Nikky Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily.
And I'll end on some of Margaret's words of wisdom:
Mr. Harper's idea of an ordinary person is that of an envious hater without a scrap of artistic talent or creativity or curiosity, and no appreciation for anything that's attractive or beautiful. My idea of an ordinary person is quite different...I suggest that considering the huge amount of energy we spend on creative activity, to be creative is “ordinary.” It is an age-long and normal human characteristic: All children are born creative. It's the lack of any appreciation of these activities that is not ordinary. Mr. Harper has demonstrated that he has no knowledge of, or respect for, the capacities and interests of “ordinary people.” He's the “niche interest.” Not us.
