home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: misc.writing
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wupost!spool.mu.edu!agate!rsoft!mindlink!a710
- From: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian)
- Subject: Re: support for the arts in the US
- Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
- Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 01:31:57 GMT
- Message-ID: <18413@mindlink.bc.ca>
- Sender: news@deep.rsoft.bc.ca (Usenet)
- Lines: 31
-
- I tend to agree with Curtis Yarvin's hostility to government support for the
- arts. As a Canadian writer working for the US (commercial) fiction market, I
- don't get many breaks and don't expect them. I'm not a big fan of our Canada
- Council, which is the de facto patron of a great many Canadian writers,
- painters, and other artists.
-
- But bear in mind that without the Canada Council we would be utterly swamped
- by a tsunami of American crap. All it takes for an American publisher to
- corner the Canadian market is to run the presses another 30 minutes. For a
- Canadian publisher to compete is damn near impossible; the Americans can
- underprice their product and drive the local publishers right out of
- business.
-
- As a Yanko-Canadian I am keenly aware that folks in the Old Country turn
- stone blind whenever they look north. American narcissism (if not downright
- solipsism) combined with enormous wealth makes it very hard for Canada to
- maintain the separate identity which it does indeed possess. So we have
- created institutions like the Canada Council and the CBC (both now under
- steady attack by our Tory government) so we can get a word in edgewise in the
- deafening uproar caused by our noisy neighbors. And institutions like those
- are so much better than the market-driven equivalents in the US that most
- Americans would be ecstatic to enjoy what we produce for ourselves in sheer
- self-defence (note Canadian spelling!)
-
-
- --
- Crawford Kilian Communications Department Capilano College
- North Vancouver BC Canada V7J 3H5
- Usenet: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca
- Internet: ckilian@first.etc.bc.ca
-
-