02.11.2002 || 20:06

a list

Whenever I go somewhere, I surreptitiously watch the citizens and the bustle, trying to get a feel for what it would be like to consider this strange place or that foreign city as normal and as home. I like to find any excuse to speak to strangers and ask directions or their opinion on a local restaurant -- anything really. Some cities I go to repeatedly for one reason or another (NYC springs to mind), others I don't go back to for a long time, but I have liked being in each of them, even if the place was a whore that treated me like dirt.

Over time, I have compiled a little tongue-in-cheeck list of what makes true citizens of the cities and countries I have visited.

And because I know that everybody cares what cf thinks, here it is, in alphabetical order:

Anaheim, CA
To be a true Anaheimer (Anaheimian?), you must wear oversized T-shirts with big belts, and leggings underneath. Top it off with Keds or similar shoes. You must enjoy seeing nothing but bugalows and palm trees from here to the horizon. Everyday must be sunny to be perfect, and rain must have the power to knock you into a deep depression.

Baie-Comeau, QC
The true native of Baie-Comeau must be missing at least two teeth and be strangely proud of the fact that the Baie spawned the least popular Prime Minister in Canadian history.

Boston, MA

Ah, Bostonians, I love Bostonians. I want to sleep with the whole town. As a true Bostonian, you worship LL Bean, talk like you've got something stuck to your upper lip, and spend every week-end from your 18th birthday to your 21st in Montr�al, where the drinking age is 18. Bostonians have a love of hockey, though definitely not a love of Les Canadiens. Apparently, you have a different team.

Los Angeles, CA
In order to be a true Angelino, you *must* believe that LA is the centre of the world. You must also get a job waiting on tables (while being paid under them) while you wait for your big acting break and the green card that will come with it. Like a third of the 'industry' there, you're probably Canadian. You know that there are a lot of other vapid sun-worshippers struggling through the choking smog of LA and pretending to be thespians, but you also just *know* that someone's going to notice *you.* You spend your meagre income on meals at Spago's because you think you'll get picked up by some dining producer or something.

Mission, BC
Flower child, you just don't understand that the world's moved on, do you? You're strangely proud of the published fact that you live in the town with the world's densest hippie population. sit down on that indian rug in the corner and repeat after me: 'This is the twenty-FIRST century, this is the twenty-FIRST century...'

Montreal
Ah, the dark, gothic Montr�alais and Montr�alaise, you love to wear black, slinky things and strut about like you've got it for sale. You know that Montr�al's time as the Paris of North America is gone, gone, gone, but you don't care because It's your town! You are a snob about what constitutes a real bagel and about Toronto. You don't care what stupid language you get served in at the Secnd Cup, and when asked directions by Bostonians looking for the way to the next whiskey bar, you answer in the unintelligible mix of French and English that is the native tongue of the Montr�al downtowner.

You are neurotic about politics, easygoing about money, and unreservedly, enthusiatically perverse.

Nantes
You are friendly, helpful, and you dress like normal people do. In other words, you are the antithesis of the Parisian. You make great cr�pes and serve cider in earthenware mugs. You are a Celt who still bristles over the fact that, though nantes was once the Capital of Brittany (You've got proof in the form of that big old castle on Place du Bouffay), those damned self-centred Parisians moved the border on you and now you're not even Breaton anymore.

New York, NY
To be a real New Yorker, you must have a packet of neuroses or psychoses big enough to require weekly visits to a therapist, or be addicted to at least one designer substance (alcohol counts). If you can hit both of these, you're golden. You live in the Centre of the world -- Really. Your neighbours keep telling you so. Your city's crumbling to pieces around you but you've got flags tacked up everywhere to keep everything together, and you think it's normal that the subways clank and creak. You think you know a great bagel when you see it, and that no one can fool you. You will never stop telling everyone in the world how great your city is -- Really -- long after they've drifted off and are snoring. Paris of North America? Bah, You're in NEW YORK FUCKING CITY!!!

Ottawa
Yeah, we know: Capital of the Confederacy. Look, it's still a boring little town, no matter how you cut it. Don't take that haughty tone with me, I'm from Montr�al.

Paris
Your city's still the Paris of Europe, and you want everyone to know about it. you live surrounded by 30 million of your closest carbon-copies. man, you ware so much black, slinky stuff that you look like a Montr�alaise. Just kidding.

chances are, you drink French wine and smoke French cigarets. You wear French designer clothes and french perfume. You drive a French car and listen to British musicians, watch American movies, then write to your representative with your German pen on paper made in China to complain about how this whole Euorpean Union thing is diluting French culture (by which you really mean Parisian culture).

Quebec City
As a citizen of Qu�bec City, you are white and francophone. You are used to civic beauty and gaze with pride at the National Assembly, which is the only reason your beautiful town still sees any commerce at all. You're still embarassed about Parizeau's drunken speech in which he said that the Referendum was lost because of 'money and the ethnic vote,' even though you've never seen an ethnic person in your life. You feel the same way about Montr�al as they do about Toronto.

Toronto
You wouldn't want your city to be the Paris of north America because then you'd have to learn French. You are, however, perfectly happy claiming that your city's the New York of Canada because, being Canadian, you can't describe your city in any way other than to compare it with a bigger, more famous foreign one. Colonialism is still alive in the Dominion of Canada, eh?. You're happy that the UN considers Toronto to be the most multi-cultural city on the planet, but really wish you could do something about all these damned Chinese.

As the true Torontonian, you've been paying into an RRSP since your 12th birthday.

Vancouver
As a Vancouvrite, you have a healthy disrespect for Central Canada, and a healthier respect for hydroponics. You come from fuel cell central, though you don't use them yourself. You're still mourning the bear you accidentally drove over while backing out of your North Vancouver driveway last week, and you actually vote on things like zoning bylaws. You don't understand Qu�bec and you hate those self-centred Torontonians.

Winnipeg
You're macho about the cold and whiny about heat. You have a gun-rack in your pickup, but no guns. you wear a ten-gallon hat on tuesdays and a baseball cap on wednesdays. You actually know what a prairie oyster is, and you hate those self-centred bastards in Toronto, eh?

You also know that the reason your province's mtto is 'Friendly Manitoba,' is because the Good Lord in Heaven keeps reminding you all of your humility via the liberal application of floods, droughts, plagues of caterpillars and locusts, and the occasional tornado.

At the End of the Day, Americans, as Jonathan Larson said it, are what they own, whereas Canadians are the sum of their fruitless dreams.

There it is. I'm going to eat.



||Gods save the Queen,
||cf

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