Tuesday
Jun052012
Seeking Out the Least Insufferable Thing In the Room
Tuesday, June 5, 2012 
Today is one of those days where I have the urge to lay down some words here, but I don't know what, and insomnia's been killing my will to shine, so this is just going to be one of those ones where I feel my way from one end to the other and see what happens.
Shanan, Drew, the Palinode, and I went to a cultural festival of sorts, Mosaic, with pavilions spread all over Regina to represent certain ethnic groups. They usually have a stage with dancers dancing their folk dances and a food line and some stuff for sale that relates to the culture in question.
The festival depressed me, or at least the pavilions that paid homage to their cultural pasts rather than their presents did. It was depressing.
This will not be a popular view here, but so be it.
I looked at the costumes and the food and the dancing meant to depict where earlier generations had come from and I wondered what point of history each thing referenced. Those folk dances were plucked out of when? A 50-year period just prior to immigration, maybe? It made me wonder what I was watching. Maybe Italian women still dance around with baskets and wave tea towels around in a celebration of pre-electric domesticity, but I doubt it.
It was kind of sad. It felt like we were trying to make up culture out of the few pieces we could transport out of family stories and pictures from some 1960s travel guide. That's not culture, though. We were pointing at clumsy collages of objects and actions that don't exist anymore outside nostalgia. It felt awkward and hamfisted.
Maybe if I still drank, I would have been more amenable to the experience.
There were things I liked, though. The Poltava Ukrainian pavilion had these incredible perogies. They were so good that I can still relive the experience of their texture and flavour in my mouth just by imagining them.
The Indian pavilion was filled with fantastic food, the cutest kids jumping in candy-coloured outfits, gregarious dancing, and mango ice cream with mango sauce:
But I couldn't enjoy myself beyond that.
The other pavilions were loud, the entertainment was by and large jarring and/or weird, and it was barely worth the food to fight throngs of bored-looking people with very little to do other than drink or gaze non-commitally at the stage.
It's easy to be misanthropic, but it's not very interesting.
I can say that 95% of the people I was sandwiched between at various pavilions seemed to be largely unaware, slow-moving, sweaty, disengaged and bored, but I am sure that I looked the same way to them.
I am sure my jaw hung slack as I retreated up into my own head. I moved no more quickly than the next person ahead of me, and that person no more quickly than the one ahead of them. None of us were immune to the heat. We chewed and we gazed and we drank.
We were all caught up in the same conditions.
The drunk people we ran into seemed to be having a pretty good time singing on the buses and joking with newfound friends, but I don't think I'm cut out for this kind of thing anymore. Back in the days when I drank alcohol, I could dope myself into a bright little sphere of excitement that blinkered me to anything outside of my bubble, but, sober, I just felt like I was being herded from one building to another where I felt compelled by self-preservation to seek out the least insufferable thing in the room.
I don't have the patience to call that fun anymore.
Reader Comments (9)
Aw, boo.
Come to Summerland for the Festival of Lights in November. There are no weird dances, just food vendors and happy people chatting on Main Street. :)
I nearly had to leave the theater when we went to see WallE because Chris and I were the only ones who seemed appalled by what had become of the human race. It didn't help that we were sitting next to a family of large people, each with their own giant popcorn laughing at the people on screen. I get it.
But hey! Perogies! Also, it sounded like a good affirmation for your sobriety.
Reminds me of Folklorama in Winnipeg.
Would it be in bad taste for me to suggest marijuana? Just on occasion? Like when there is ethnic food or general pavilion hopping with food. Or music.
Also for sleep. Or Tazo 'Rest' tea. That works also!
I hope you feel better.
I usually enjoy cultural events when they show me the culture as it is today. I think this is becoming more and more difficult as the internet gives us so much information about each other. I'd love to know what life is like for an Italian woman today as she goes through a normal day. While she may be a lot like me, her life is probably quite different. THAT would be a cultural fair worth attending.
My husband's heritage is Polish so pierogies are a regular part of our lives. I think it would be interesting to know what a middle aged (and at 54, I am middle aged if not actually a senior citizen although I don't feel like one) Polish woman's life is like. People are people but their lives are so different.
I do disagree with you, but I also completely see why you would feel the way you do towards Mosaic.
Personally, I love that people pay homage to different cultures. Sure, it would be nice to see what life is like in different countries today, but that's what travel and the internet and Lonely Planet are for. This is celebration of roots and the past.
Young people in Ukraine today probably eat burgers and dance much like young people in Canada. However, there are also folk groups in Ukraine that perform historical dances in historical costumes. To Ukrainians! And then they tour difference cultural festivals in other countries and bring that history and colour to the world.
But yes - perogies are easily the best thing about Mosaic!
Your inability to be just a surface-level thinker is one of my favourite things about you.
I went to a similar thing in the Vancouver area a week or so ago called Eurofest. It somehow felt very sad and dusty. Except for the flamenco dancers. They were sizzling.
ErinH
Yeah, it's been years since I used to live in Saskatoon and go to Folkfest, but it was much the same experience. For the people who were getting loaded at the Australian pavilion (an arena with a poster of a shark and a whole lot of beer) it was a fabulous time. But for anybody sober....well... there were usually a few gems of interesting culture in a sea of meh.