NO 1 • May/June 1985

Contemporary Music An Enc ohn Rea Ethnicity as Post-Modernism

W uovo Barocco Le mythe de railleurs Strangers' Fugue: An Interview with Aldo Mazza Vice Versa Advertising: phone: (416) 367- 3828 Date of Publication: May 1985. Transcultural Magazine pu­ Second Class mail registration blished bimonthly by Les Edi­ No. 6385. All correspondence tions Vice Versa enr. P.O. Box should be directed to Vice Ver­ 821, N.D.G. Station Montréal, sa. P.O. Box 821, N.D.G. Sta­ Québec, H4A 3S2, ISSN tion, Montréal, Québec, H4A AN ENCOUNTER 0821682-7 3S2. Editorial Board: Lamberto Opinions expressed outside of f/t. *m Tassinari, Bruno Ramirez, Ful- specifically marked editorials vio Caccia, Antonio D'Alfonso are not necessarily held by each and every individual Toronto Bureau: Joseph Ma- member of the editorial group. viglia, Antonino Mazza. Mario Godlowski, Damiano Pietro- Manuscripts not accompanied paolo by a stamped, self-addressed envelope will not be returned. Design: Gianni Caccia Typesetting: Les Ateliers Chio- ra Inc. Vice Versa gratefully acknow­ Proofreader: Ann Vergeylen ledges the support of the Ca­ nada Council, and the Minis­ Printing: Payette & Simms tère des Communautés cultu­ Distribution: Les Messageries relles et de l'immigration du de Presse Internationale, Mon­ Québec tréal, Toronto, phone: (416) 928-0099 Cover: Serge Brunelle Read Mary Melfi A Bride in Three Acts

MARY MELFI

III i Capezio Gucmici Editions and Dance and A Queen Is Holding Vice Versa and Words a Mummified Cat

MARY MELFI Capezio : EN IS I The Art rn^Sfi

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fter two years of publication, primarily Contents within the Montreal context, we thought the time had come to move outside Quebec and link our reflections with the wider Canadian spe< num. Vice-Versa is a bi­ monthly magazine published in Montreal since 1983. It covers literature, social criticism and the arts free John Rea, Musician Afrom academic concerns; what characterizes its way of viewing 4 by Laurence Cohen things is an open, non-ideological approach that we call «transcultural». You will notice it in the magazine's choice of topics, in its trilingualism, and in the names of its editorial Zen and the Computer Screen staff and contributors. In Vice Versa, we meet at a cross-roads of various cultural universes, a shifting pe! spe« live whose 6 by Marco Fraticelli boundaries are as wide as those of emigration. Vice-Versa is not only an instrument of change, but a Heels Clicking product of the profound transformations that our society is by Joseph Maviglia undergoing. 7 These are just a few reasons why we think Vice-Versa deserves your attention. And more than that, we hope you will Strangers' Fugue: an Interview with Aldo Mazza adopt it as your magazine.D 8 by Antonino Mazza

Ethnicity as Post-Modernism 10 by Fulvio Caccia

II Nuovo Barocco Read 12 by Antonio D'Alfonso

Fulvio Caccia Immigrant Culture or the Identity of the Voiceless People Irpinia 14 by Marco Micone Surprise in the Archive 16 by Bruno Ramirez

Filippo Salvatore n The Empire Strikes Back I / by Lamberto Tassinari

Suns of Le Mythe de l'Ailleurs Darkness 19 Claude Beausoleil In Search of a Lost Culture 20 by Bruno Ramirez

An Italian Anthology Antonio D'Alfonso 20 by Maria Redi

Black Tongue The Way They Talk in Broke City s^vi 21 by David Homel D.A.F.: a German Minimalist Duo and its Weltanschauung U

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Postal Code Vice Versa Guernica P.O. Box 821, Station N.D.G., P.O. Box 633, Station N.D.G. Montreal, Quebec, H4A 3S2 Montréal, (Québec), Canada H4A 3R1 An Encounter with John Rea, Musician

by Laurence Cohen

is music? Veritable sound paintings, the interplay of structures and forms. From opera to electronic music, his works display great variety. According to him, it is with chamber and orchestral music that his message comes across best. In Corn-possession, he succeeded in Hcreating a 20th century tarantella, a work which, at present, remains the only "detour" into his past — into the Italian Mezzogiomo, land of his parents. "When I wrote this piece," he says, " I understood those words of Jean Cocteau : The more a poet sings inside his genealogical tree, the more he sings in tune. But as I see it, the more he sings, the more he cannot help but sing inside his genealogical tree." Being a painter of sounds, Rea has often been inspired by pictorial works : Hommage à Vasarely ( 1977 ), an optical/kinetic-like work whose topological distribution of orchestral instruments alludes to similar visual grids in the works of Vasarely Treppenmuskid 1982, making reference to the paradoxical staircases — ascents and descents to somewhere/ nowhere — and other strange configurations found in the graphic works of M.C. Escher, where time develops its own consonance beyond our Euclidian logic; and recently, Spin (1984), a quintet inspired by two tableaux of British artist, Peter Sedgley — using the same rhythms (4 minute cycles) of kinetic objects made from mirrors, filters and light projections. Rea often plays with words as with the palindromes in Prologue, Scene and Movement, or juxtaposes them with sounds as in the spoken-opera Le Petit Livre desRavalet. Sometimes his compositions evoke myths: The Prisoners Play, an opera; The Days, a ballet; La Dernière Sirène (The Last Siren), a trio. At other times, they reflect a kind of orientalism. From his travels to Asia ( Indonesia, Japan, China), he has retained a certain point of view. He says that Mediator ( Plectrum ) is a friendly attempt at communication between musical instruments of our tradition and certain sounds and gestures of East Asian musics. Reception and Offering Music, a work which uses expressly the context of Tibetan ritual music, pays homage by way of musical quotations to composers such as Mahler, Bach and others, composers who, he says, may be thought of as Buddhas. One finds musical quotations in his work (again in John Rea was born in Toronto, January 14,1944. After having studied composition in Canada and the Treppenmusik and La Dernière Sirène) in the way one might come United Stales, he founded in 1978, and in collaboration with José Evangelista, Lorraine Vaillancourt, and the to a crossroad where past meets present. This kind of multilayering late Claude Vivier, the Montreal contemporary music society "Les Événements du Neuf" (events on the (of live music, of recorded music and of this music sometimes ninth, at nine; novel events). That same year, he participated in founding another society "Traditions heard again overlapping with the former at the end of a Musicales du Monde" which, during its five years of existence, helped Montrealers get to know non- Western music by way of lectures, films and concerts. He has taught music theory and composition at McGill performance) makes one think of the process of wanting to surpass University since 1973. In 1981, he won the Jules Léger Prize for new chamber music with his work oneself, of magical enchantment, of stretching and contracting the Corn-possession. He has also lectured and written articles on contemporary music. Since 1982, he has been on time through which Rea elaborates his musical compositions. the board of directors for the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec. Between January and July 1984, he was composer-in-residence at Mannheim, Germany.

Q. : You are one of the foun­ the rediscovery of a musical or each event. frontiers as well. came to take such aesthetic ding members of "Les Évé­ visual object which one A.: Yes, for the most part, A.: That depends. Each decisions in our music, to nements du Neuf". For what thought exhausted or empty. because it helps perception. concert has its own inspira­ travel "there" rather than reasons was the society creat­ This is our modest contribu­ When the place changes, the tion. Five years ago, we pre­ "here", so to speak. ed? tion in the field of contempo­ environmental context sented music of the composers Musicians must work with A.: "Événements du Neuf" rary aesthetics. changes and, consequently, so of Les Événements du Neuf: at the nationality of sounds, and was founded seven years ago. Picasso, at the beginning of do the visual and acoustical the time, Vivier, Evangelista that's a fact. Why does music In die beginning and as it still this century, painted works perspectives. Instead of being and myself. sound the way it does? Our does today, the society wished whose images result from the sealed in a traditional hall The concert was entitled compositions tried to explain to, as it were, break away. superimposition of many va­ with a proscenium stage, one "Travel Books". Because our other musics (Indonesian, Ja­ However, without it being a nishing points. There is a might find oneself in another own music had come to show panese, Chinese), not as a revolutionary act, our goal similar procedure at work in space: in the center, or to the the influence of certain non- point of departure but rather was to help audiences better our wish to listen to music by side of a stage or area where Western cultures, we decided as a point of reference for our know and appreciate different way of many perspectives, the action, the visual object or to invite our listeners to make listeners. perspectives in 20th century sonic gesture is unfolding. It many vanishing points. a journey with us, albeit an Well, these were the pers­ music also depends on what music It helps one's appreciation abbreviated one. By way of pectives which crossed each we are performing. The key word here is "pers­ and enhances, if I may say so, certain musical examples and other and fused within our pective": to listen, to see, to one's aesthetic pleasure. Q. : It would seem also that texts read between our compo­ own music and within this consider an object from diffe­ Q. : The place where you the society is interested in sitions, we tried to show our concert. And, since then, all ring angles. It often involves give concerts changes with breaking down geographical audience how it was that we our concerts have had similar kinds of things. Q. : And what about the Q. : Do you see any diffe­ next new generation of com­ rences in the music being posers? You teach at McGill produced in Montreal and University. Toronto? A. : Thai's a very good ques­ A.: There are certainly dif­ tion because music is chang­ ferent "feelings": in the com­ ing from day to day. It is positions, in the way music is unbelievable. With computers, performed, in the desire to for example, one can produce communicatedifferent states a music and a family of sounds of mind. It's rather incredible! which now most of us reco­ Montreal and Toronto, as gnize without difficulty. distinct as two different coun­ Well, these young people in tries! theirearly twenties take the But I think it is necessary to academic courses and, within make a distinction between six months, possess the tools local music and music which to produce a music which one tries to go beyond its own might imagine cold and ste­ borders, that is, a music with rile. sufficient aesthetic tension But no, it's not the case at enabling it to be appreciated all! They have found the elsewhere. means to manipulate the ca­ For example, the works of thode-ray screen in such a way Vivier seem to have this ele­ as to compose and realize a ment and are appreciated else­ music which is quite tactile, where. However, many com­ sensual and substantial! posers in Toronto and Mon­ It is not an affected music treal write music which is so nor is it abstract. For young dominated by local circums­ people no longer are attracted tances that performances else­ to "weird", cosmic music: where are restricted. they would rather compose Perhaps, it is like those something down-to-earth. wines which don't travel. And I wonder if this is due to the it's not just me who is imagi­ influenceof pop-music, encou­ ning such a thing: philoso­ raging young composers to phers and aestheticians are in write music which i.s mme agreement in saying that all sensual than intellectual. I. for art is local art. one, don't believe in this di­ Whether it be the local an of chotomy between sensuality Paris, Berlin, London, Rome, and the intellect. It's a kind a Milan, Montreal, Toronto, pseudo-argument dear to Vancouver or San Francisco. young people. Well-composed The music made in New York music may be both intellec­ is not made anywhere else. tual as well as sensual. I think we can best describe Twenty years ago, there the composers of our time as seemed to be a dichotomy artisans, not as artists: they do between sterile, intellectual a kind of handicraft woik music and music which was because they stay at home. romantic and sensual. Today, Local music here and there, a these categories too have been little like local traditions in broken bringing everyone to the making of lace, or playing the point of confusion, a sure From time to time, if a composer is lucky, he might write music which in a gamelan orchestra. sign of aesthetic impotence. travels. But, in general, his music remains attached to the local On the other hand, there does exist what one might call Young composers today scene/environment, like so many handicrafts in a cottage industry. "international music". Mo­ have a great deal of liberty: in zart's music is a perfect exam­ the extreme, their problem is ple with its influences of Ita­ too much liberty. Someone have been exploded and music Schcenberg's. One day, a composer may lian, French and German mu­ commissions a young compo­ is found everywhere. Distinc­ Was this an anecdotal or work in one of these two worlds sic. ser to write a new work. So the tions are not as clear cut as humouristic sound effect? In and, on the next, work in the And he was a seasoned tra­ composer asks himself: dura­ they once were and everything any event, the young buyers of other. This is what I mean veller. Today, important com­ tion? I don't know; for what seems to overlap. this record will be appreciat­ when I say no man's land. posers like Berio and Stock- instruments? I don't know; on One used to be able to ing the music of Schoenberg. hausen are always moving what subject? I don't know. contrast serious music with Boulez and Stockhausen recom- Following Monteverdi, around. If one doesn't have the You can do almost any­ popular music, the distance posed inside a work by Prince. music evolved to become the chance to travel even a little thing! and that is stressful. For between the two being a vast This may be the first or one of product of this mixture of two bit, one remains isolated. And over twenty years now, there ocean. But, today, so-called the first times that popular styles — one for the Church for an artist, it is to risk deve­ has been a lot of research, and serious composers also write music includes within itself a and another for the Prince. I loping a kind of sclerosis pro­ still more research in thechno- popular music. And compo­ portion of elaborately compos­ believe that we may be in a duced by one's own environ­ logy. But, surprisingly, that sers of "rock" or "punk" sub­ ed so-called erudite music. similar sort of situation: eru­ ment. desire to "communicate" with mit musical scores which, dite, concert music — call it It's really necessary to tra­ audiences has come back into according to me, are quite And the opposite is also sacred if you wish — beco­ vel. During the 19th century, the artist's thinking as he informed, serious and weighty true : there are so-called serious ming transformed by popular, for example, English compo­ searches for an aesthetic or both in their philosophical as composers who exploit the profane/secular music. And sers had to go to Germany, pcetic framework to which he well as sonorous content. harmonies, colours and har­ vice versa. French composers to Italy. can relate. It is in this sense monic progressions of popu­ Much earlier, Dutch compo­ that I believe the future to be Especially in the last ten lar music. What's going on And then there are other sers went to Italy to better very promising! years, these two areas of musi­ today really is taking place influences which make them­ understand the art of the Re­ Q. : For whom is contempo­ cal discourse intersect. It'sa within a no man's land be­ selves felt. One may hear, for naissance. Today, it's more rary music written? For ev­ k i nd of no man's land. To give tween serious and popular mu­ example, inside the music of like the whole world! eryone or for just a few people? you an example of what I sic. Steve Reich the classical mu­ Q.: In so far as your music A. : Indeed, that is the ques­ mean. One day recently while Q. : What do you foresee in sics of the Orient, Asia and has been played in Europe and tion. Not long ago, and for the I was searching for my favou­ the future? Africa. I can say in all honesty elsewhere, would you consider first time in Canada, a contem­ rite radio station, I happened A. : I am not a prophet, but I that sometimes we composers yourself a composer of inter­ porary music festival was held to hear an announcer say : And must say that I too have been are often lost: where are we? I national music? entitled: World Music Days of now for the disco version of influenced by many things. happen to live in Montreal. A.: I wouldn't say that I am the International Society for "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince, My music has become more But, is it necessary to live in an international composer, Contemporary Music, the that month's hit-song. gentle, which is to say less Montreal in order to compose but I have had some occasions I.S.CM. The society was found­ Well, the singer began to aggressive than 15 years ago. our music? A moment ago, I to present my music overseas: ed in 1922 in Austria. Sixty- sing. You could hear the punk But imagine 400 years ago, said that everyone writes local some colleagues have played two years of music and promo­ influence, therock-n-roll, a that genius Monteverdi manag­ music. Well, yes, OK. But, my music in Germany, in tion of contemporary music. little bit of Michael Jackson ed two careers: he composed would one be able to compose Paris, even in Budapest! In 1922. the answer to this etc., and all of it quite energe­ one kind of music for the the exact same sort of music in Church and another kind for Does that make my music question would have been: tic and very rhythmic. When Paris? Perhaps, perhaps not! the Prince. international? I don't know, well, this music is for us. the all of a sudden, during the Composers here, in Paris, in but I have written some pieces composers; or for us, the per­ reprise of the melody, another He was able to separate the Germany, in Vancouver, in which travel. Others have not. formers; and even for us music kind of orchestration appears intentions of a work said to be Japan are all working on this lovers ( understood to be a very new music with its influences And I don't want those and Prince shouts — Let's go religious from the intentions specific class of well-informed i I.I/v! Well, this fellow, the of a work said to be profane. coming from rock-n-roll, works to travel either because people). oriental music, and so-called they do not possess that quali­ composer/arranger of the Well, today, popular music piece, in order to describe a c ( miposers work with the same serious music. I wonder what ty, thai density, that tension But since that time, needless state ol madness, composes our sensibility will be toward which would be necessary foi m say everything has c hanged, tools, the same instruments as two minutes of what seemed to such things fifteen years from iIHII appreciation in Germa­ espe< tally situe the second composers of so-called serious me to be a music as complex .is now? Question markiO ny, France. Italy or elsewhere. World War. All the categories music. Zen and the Computer Screen

by Marco Fraticelli

Although the poem itself could have been simply printed According to the author, the on a piece of paper, the dramatic effect created by the flashing light preceding the darkness, could not. computer may be a tool in the In another poem, the screen is filled with snowflakes creation of a new form of falling. Then we read: writing — visual poetry with Snow flakes movement. Asleep in the rocking chair o some, the merger of haiku and the Record player stuck computer might seem an incongruous one. How could any two things be more diametrically opposed than that monster of plastic and silicon and those dainty three-line poems from the East? This misconception is based as much on an unfounded mistrust of the computers as it is on a misunders­ tanding of the haiku form. A haiku is more than three lines and seventeen syllables. Haiku differs from Western poetry not only in its form, but also in its intent. Traditional Western poetry is much more expository than its Eastern counterpart. The poet attempts to lay bare his thoughts and feelings for the reader to experience. On the other hand, haiku is less poetry of exposition and more an exercise in experience which serves to constantly remind the poet of the moment in which he finds himself. It is this focus on the present moment that haiku share with Zen. "Now» is the essence of Zen. Haiku may be viewed as a Zen exercise in learning to experience each present instant and, as a by product, to capture it in poetry. There are still those who prefer to write their haiku on rice paper about lily ponds, plum blossoms and temple bells. In the North American context, these poems have a hollow ring to them. They appear to have been created more for their value as artifact than as the result of a process attempting to deal with the complexities and ironies in which we find ourselves each moment. In recent years, there have been numerous efforts made to expand the traditionally rigid haiku form. Some poets have been writing haiku of one line, others those of just two words. Another new direction which the haiku has taken in the last few years is into the area of concerts or visual poetry. Within this context, what could seem more logical than the poet's use of the The snowflakes and the poem scroll up the- screen in a computer to further extend the bounds on the haiku and bring it jerking movement which simulates and reinforces the hypnotic into the 1980's. effect created by a) snowflakes caught in a beam of light b) the When I first acquired a computer, I was primarily constant motion of a rocking chair c) a record skipping over interested in its capabilities as a word processor. My plan was to and over. store all my work on computer disks so that I could then print Besides motion, the computer provides the writer with up copies when I needed them or make corrections without control over the element of time. Normally, the poet has no retyping entire pages. control over the rate at which his poems are read unless he However, I soon became aware of the many other possibili­ himself is giving a reading. On the computer, this is not so. ties which the computer presents. One of these possibilities is The writer controls the rate at which words appear or disap­ that of movement. The typewritten page is static, whereas the pear from the screen. He can leave a word or group of words on computer offers words that can move. The creation of Déjà Vu the screen for a few seconds and then add to them or have them was not only an attempt on my part to become familiar with the disappear to be replaced by a blank screen on a new phrase. For workings of a computer, but also to discover its potential as a example, in one of the haiku previously mentioned, these tool in the creation of a new form of writing: visual poetry with words appear in the center of the screen: movement. For those who have not had the opportunity to view the In the darkness disk, it may be a little difficult to imagine what I mean bywords moving across the screen. Perhaps a few examples of what is on The words remain for several seconds before two more are the disk may help. In one poem, the word «light* appears added: hundreds of limes, flashing and giving the screen the effect of a neon light. Suddenly the screen is blank for a few seconds and then the following words appear: In the darkness beside me

This may seem like a minor point, however, the effect of reading the final two words alone, several seconds after the first Power Failure three, is far different than taking the entire line at one gulp. The In the darkness beside me pause puts a stress on «beside me», which then causes it to serve as a bridge between «in the darkness» and «your voice». It is Your voice important to note that in the last time it is not a person, but rather that person's voice that is in the darkness and the pause in the second line helps to set this up. Other elements such as space, color and sound are also at the writer's disposal on the computer. Undoubtedly all these and more will come into play as more work is created for the computer screen. Already, Guernica has published a second disk Rice Wine consisting of prose for the computer screen. As well, The Alchemist, is publishing its next issue on a disk and is looking for work created for the computer. Although the computer is still relatively new, and art for the computer screen even newer, it would be foolish to dismiss either as a fad. To do so would be like a stubborn ancient Egyptian crying «This papyrus stuff will never catch on, real 6 writing has to be carved in stone!» • Read Marco Micone Addolorata

and Voiceless Hells Clicking People (Il Duce Campa)

by Joseph Maviglia

I wonder what they thought to find, gathering courage, packing hearts in kerchiefs, travelling long and hungry miles. Was it hope for a new start or fear dogging their heels? Locked in their memory, a god hangs upside down, UERNICA EDITION his sweet tongue purpled into foam dangling in a cold piazza. Talk of travel fills the air like rabid cats. Francesca says, "Can't you sit still?" as Domenico stuffs a deck of playing cards into his suit-coat Guernica pocket. "I never have!" he answers. "It's in my blood P.O. Box 633, Station N.D.G. to move!" Montréal, (Québec), Canada H4A 3R1 Magnetic teeth slash at Francesca's eyes. The burn of rope on twisted toes returns to haunt her, as Domenico's heels click down the back porch stairs.

// Duce, (Sweet One) was the nickname of Benito Mussolini. emotional territory, a felicitous separateness, from the intended addressee: the biographer. But this is a separateness, and therefore a victory over, and against whom, we may well ask? Who is the «biographer» a Strangers' metaphor for: an invader of privacy, a stranger in the realm, the bogeyman «other» who inveriably, the poem seems to imply, will take great pleasure in none other than in prowling through our lives, to thrust some image of his own making upon one, confoun­ ding, robing one of one's intimate self — and, therefore, must, at Fugue: any cost, be halted in its tracks? Does the contemporary sensibility feel at ease with this An Interview with Aldo Mazza resolve toward the «other» in our realm, thereby accepting also the poem's more subtle implications, or is the new sensibility more likely to question the implied instigations found in it, since, in order to participate fully in this glee, in this victory, the reader must also by Antonino Mazza impart a mask of anonimity and estrangement to this «other» whoever he may be? What if the stranger happens to be, in Preamble or (Prelude) earnest, intent on learning how it was to be living, in this part of the world, in the 20th century, what better subject then, than to here are several explanations possible for focus on Earle Birney ; certainly here he should find a human being what follows. There is the obvious literary who has witnessed modern times lucidly, sensitively, meaning­ one, which might occur to those few readers fully; and how should one turn an anonimous, deaf cheek to this who are alert to the scape of the text late arrival, and say : « Keep your hands off my toys!», or, closer to —they, above all, will saver a rare opportu­ our purpose, «Keep my music off your drum sticks!». Why am I, nity, this writer's attempt at a novel lite­ the contemporary reader — and isn't every late arrival, and rary form : we've all heard of the biographies of the artists and of therefore, every reader, in some way, a biographer — overcome the artist's auto-biography, of the interviews with the artists and of by a draft that chills my skin on reading this last stanza, of Earle the artist's auto-interview, but an artist interviewing his artist- Birney's successful poem, which, peculiarly enough, sheds a new sibling, now that's a choice, first ever... light on those «evaporated traces» — is the vanishment of his human relations a blessing in disguise for the poet, since it And then, there is the anthropological explanation, which, as coincides and/or, ultimately, conspires to fulfil the poet's singular we know, will appeal to another select group of readers — no aspiration: to barricade the «other» and himself from each other? matter their ethno-cultural background, to be sure — since it has to do with roots and identity, and, I might add, not a little pride! This patchwork of readers, as I was saying, will suppose that it At this point the ethno-cultural viewpoint may want to see was love, of one's own, that induced me to interview my brother— Earle Birney's posm as fertile grounds for a condemnation of the the fact that Aldo Mazza also happens to be a musician/composer/ ideology of the dominant Canadian culture; just imagine: the best performer and member of Repercussion, the Montreal-based per­ examples are in the best of them that represent the ideology of their cussion group, whose four members are often cited, interna­ ethno-culture the most; etc... etc... tionally, as «examples of the new virtuoso of the 20th — century: But there may be no such grounds on which to impinge, on the percussionist,» becomes secondary to them. Earle Birney, the colour of inimical personage, after all; And, to But it is this group of readers, in particular, that I must what advantage would anyone wish to turn this, or another poet disappoint the most — though, indeed, I love my brother, with into scape-goat? whom I share much personal history: born in Calabria, therefore So, perhaps, looking into this poem a little more thoroughly outside history; post-war child of immigrant parents; first genera­ may prove the less willful, the healthier attitude. tion of a fathomless line of marginal humanity to receive formal As we know, to use an example, Earle Birney's literary works education; of unclassified mother tongue; teen years in Canada, are in a tradition of modern Canadian writing which has been therefore teenage cultural-orphan; etc. etc... And while I'm aware critical, among other things, of the ecological devastation which 1\ N \ N N that this labour smacks of Nepotism — the national 8th, deadly has gone on, often unabated, on this side of the planet — the result 1\ % N -V X • • • • • sin, certainly — what can this (weigh) on one whose distant, and of the self-indulgent, stultified and stultifying, consumer-greedy 'N \ \ \ N even more recent, Mediterranean ancestors professed paganism? • / X • • activity of modern man. Such opposition speaks highly of the \ % N \ N This interview, with my brother, who is in his early thirties, courage of this generation of artists, and of their commendable • • • • / \ \ \ \ \ therefore, has a more fundamental explanation, of interest, per­ works. Nevertheless, can the attributes which characterize modem • • • X / haps, to readers of post-modem culture. Its purpose is merely to man, in their art, also define man in general, and contemporary draw attention to certain marked changes in the aesthetics that man, in particular? distinguish the younger Canadian artistic expression, radically, It is in this light, I believe, that we may search to explain to from prevailing earlier modernist trends. ourselves this poem's seemingly gratuitous, headlong precipitation I asked my brother for an interview when he was last in towards its inimical, distance generating resolve: Toronto, this past December, but its origins, for me, stem from «and she will not use them certain reflections on aesthetics over some time, which have found to feed your image» a focus, recently again, as chance would have it, in my chance However, even after reading the next-to-the-last compelling reading of the poem, «Dear Biographer», by Earle Birney, in the stanza, in which the poet expresses his awareness of the collection Fill By Fury M & S, 1978, sent to me and bearing the impossibility of knowing who he has been — himself being subject inscription: «For Antonino Mazza, met happily in Kingston, to the effects of relentless time: November, 1984», by its octogenarian and esteemed author. «a few books This poem, in the form of a note, to the would be biographer, but they are all lies lacking nutrition begins by listing an alien heap of documents that have gathered, written by others and make up the writer's «university MS collection»: I once was» «everything insoluble in air and, thereby, to an even less degree knowable to the «other», I still the world blew up around me» have great problems accepting the logic by which the poet elects This is a great frozen «snow-bank-job», the biographer is informed, to welcome his biographer, the new comer to the shores of his since there is in it nothing that is retraceable back to the poet's verse — with stoney silence. closest, and long lost human relations: By reverting to some learned, logical extensions of our own, «but the best friends we may suppose that the poet's defensive, suppressive measure there was seldom need to write was adopted to ward off classical modernist thirst for sensation­ and relatives had nothing to say» alism. But, and herein lies the pivotal point, can we, biographers, And while our first impulse may be to feel the evaporated traces, in readers, the generation of new arrivals on the shores of our the following verses: contemporary, pluri-ethnic, pluri-cultural, pluri-lingistic, post- « whatever was edible industrial, post-modem society accept this distance as belonging dissolved long ago on the ghostly tongues to the onto-logical order of things, or does this defensive, suppres­ of perplexed parents sive attitude, adopted by an earlier sensibility, in the final analysis, and frustrated teachers» smack of distance generating, flagrant lack of generosity: a regrettable loss, both to the author and to posterity, the last meanness? stanza radically dissuades the reader from such sentiments. Ins­ I believe, the contemporary sensibility, too, is aware that tead, in these last, precise lines: there is an order of things, of an ontological nature, that may « only my true love knows remain unknowable to us. But the new sensibility in the artistic, what morsels are left multi-racial, post-industrial Metropolis of the 80's is enticed by and she will not use them another order of things, the pluri-cultural wealth and heritage of to feed your image» our society, indeed, of our planet, which an earlier sensibility may the reader discovers that his participation, in the poem's catharsis, have been adviced, even coersed, perhaps, into ignoring, keeping is wholly dependent upon his complete willingness to align himself us separate — the strangers for it. 8 on the side of the « I» of the poem, that has now secured for itself an The fugue A.M.: «No, we didn't add, as performers; for example. knowing how we were going South America and Europe, V.V. : «The most surprising we simply replaced the two one can't play a Baroque work to go over — I mean, we're and now are going to the Far thing about Repercussion is violins, the viola and the cello, the way a Romantic piece is going down there to play their East, yet the group is generally the broad cultural base of its with two xylophones, and two played, they are two totally music, their instruments — little known in Canada, and in repertoire. Listening to your marimbas; each correspon­ different concepts of making they've got all kinds of ma­ your Province as well ; how do concerts is like going on a ding to the particular register music; this, however, has not­ rimba players in that part of you explain this?» voyage, spellbound, from clas­ of the original strings.» hing to do with the choice of South America — and with A.M.: «You are forgetting sical to modern, from electro­ A.M.: «I've heard you play instrumentation used to inter­ our approach, which is very one thing, we were also, all of nic to African. How did all Bach's Fugue in G Minor, pret the works. visual: choreography, scripts, us, schooled in Conservatories this come about?» Rossini's Sonata #5 in E Flat, So, what we're doing is cros­ smoke machines, etc., we and Universities in Quebec. Its A.M.: «To answer that, we and various other classical sing instrumentation barriers, didn't know if we were a bit a very interesting question, ought to go back a little and pieces, but your repertoire also destereotyping the instru­ apprehensive, it was a bit like both easy and hard to answer. point out the fact that percus­ includes both music and ins­ ments. We do not label music, walking on eggs. And we went The easy answer: we haven't sion is a very ancient medium truments from diverse indige­ for example: «for strings on­ there, as well, prepared to do been live, direct from Carna- in music. I think we may well nous sources, ie: Brazilian, ly», its all music. And it hasn't the whole show in Spanish — gie Hall, yet! say that man's very first ins­ and Asiatic come to mind. stopped there; lately we've we learned Spanish and this But I can answer also with trument was the drum stick, Could you tell me some of the been experimenting with com­ surprised them a great deal. an anecdote. A couple of or, his foot, perhaps. Percus­ history of these musical tradi­ puters, in some pieces we've Imagine them, hearing us months ago we were doing a sion, however, did not play a tions, and how you reconcile gone from completely acous­ speak their language, inter­ show in Chicoutimi, we were major role in western tradi­ these disparate interests as an tic to completely digital — preting their music, alongside being recorded by the CBC. tion for the longest time. This ensemble?» with computer drums, tapes, the music of Canada! It was a After the concert, I looked at great feeling, too, to introduce was not so in other cultures: V.V.: «Both the Brazilian synthesizers, sequences, which the program, and what do I them to our interpretations of African, Indonesian, Chinese and the Asiatic are very an­ we play in our fusion pieces see — right there? — on the Canadian folk melodies, our musical traditions continued cient musical traditions. Bra­ —and they've been a lot of fun program they had printed the Quebec Suite, which always to emphasize percussion. In zilian, the Islands: Caribian to do. All this mixing of bio's of the group, and under brought the house down!» the West, much was done in and Cuban music, go back to sounds, the native and the tra­ each of the names they had the development of harmo­ ditional western percussion African roots. In recent his­ V.V. : «All the members of printed their hometowns, but nics, to the neglect of rhyth­ and digital, makes for a very tory, in the past few centuries, the group, Robert lépine. Chan­ under my name it said sim­ mics. This may be exemplified exciting musical program, however, this music migrated tai Simard, and Luc Langlois, ply: «L'étranger». Well, we by the fact that the xylophone, which fulfills our primary with its peoples to the Ameri­ and yourself as well, though all laughed our heads off! I an instrument which has been objective: to give evidence cas. In some instances, in pla­ you were born in Calabria, guess they saw I was born in with us, in one form or ano­ that percussion is a fully inte­ ces like Haiti, and in the inter­ living in Montreal, via Ot­ Calabria and must have figu­ ther, for thousands of years, grated and fundamentally va­ ior of Brazil, even today, we tawa, some ten years now, red I was a stranger, or some- was never used in a concert set­ still find music which is suffi­ ried medium.» thing.D ting in the West until 1874, you've played to full houses in which is not that long ago. N \ \ \ > / J * * * As students of percussion \ \ > we had to deal with this over­ • • / whelming lack of repertoire. • * Unlike the violinist, the pia­ >> * 1 nist, the flutist, we could only N x ! draw, in the classical tradi­ > * * A tion, on compositions of the \ \ N ! recent past. Only in the 20th \ \ \ N 1 Century really, composers / / • • / y N \ \ \ N N \1 such as Verese, Stravinski, and • •••/••••• 3_ Bartok began to put more em­ >N\N>\\>\\\\\NNN\ ^"^ ^ phasis on percussion. Verese • ••••••••y t-JL * *'*'*' was one of the first to write \\\\\\%N>******+ + &" whole works exclusively for \\\>\\N\N percussion, his best known • ••yyyyx piece, Ionazation, is written \\\>\\>\ for thirteen percussionists. Sin­ ce his time, there has been a lot ciently identical to that found of experimentation and deve­ blem featuring jazz, classical in certain African villages whe­ lopment in mallet instru­ music, or native, on the con­ re it originated. These cases, Coda (The Loop) ments. cert stage. What must be kept however, are not widespread. in mind is the intrinsic de­ Overall, however, 20th-cen­ More widespread and interes­ mands each form makes on us tury classical tradition desi­ ting is the evolution that this V.V.: «You've been to Co­ and I've seen gnates percussion as striking music has undergone in the lombia, Costa Rica, Mexico... instruments, for sound effects, American continent, both in Could you speak a little bit of everything and the like. So, in our re­ terms of rhythms and instru­ your tour there; and the au­ search the temptation to move mentation. In Argentina, for diences, how would you com­ help, though sometimes this music back in time, from the compo­ example, rhythms that had tra­ pare their attitudes with those sitions of the 20th-century. velled from Brazil combined of North Americans?» plays hide and seek, and our planet and to the music of other cul­ with classical European tradi­ A.M. «Perhaps the most tures, remains great. It's crazy, tions, giving rise to the Tan­ interesting thing about those always delights to feel but if Bach had had a xylo­ go. The Samba and Bossa audiences is how, if you're our bare phone wouldn't he have com­ Nova are two forms that evol­ playing a piece of serious posed for it?» ved from these same African music, they'll sit intently lis­ feet, and loneliness, that place sources. In Cuba, you have the V.V.: «You had spoken to tening — you can almost hear outgrouth of the Samba, in them listening — and the next in the heart running me earlier of Bartok as one of Trinidad the tradition deve­ the earliest western composers moment you're doing a Salsa out of breath, everything loped a new instrument: The and they'll get up, in the to emphasize percussion, and Steel Drum. All these new mu­ that his preferences might middle of the concert hall, and sical forms are highly rhyth­ start to dance. And it is uplif­ helps, but only friendship cares, now have been related to his parti­ mical. We may draw parallels cular anthropological inte­ ting to hear their hush of exci­ that I'm young and stripped at in the Asiatic tradition. Here tement; I mean, here are these rests. Could you tell me some­ also, native music lays great thing about his sources, and of four guys, coming from Cana­ last down emphasis on percussion. We da, from Quebec, which for your interpretation of his mu­ can think of the multi-percus­ to the man, I know sic?» them is the North Pole, pla­ sive Siamese and Javanese ying their music. Well, they A.M.: «What Bartok did Gamelan orchestras, the In­ appreciated the diversity of that a bridge is a somersault was very unique among com­ dian tablas, perhaps the most our repertoire; but then, that's posers. He would go through complex percussive musical no surprise. Latin altitudes across the ice, that a ladder is a flight the villages of his native Hun­ system in existence. are less linear, less specialized of flesh in the air that I breathe gary and collect folk melodies, than North American atti­ which he then used as the basis As an ensemble, our interest tudes, they admit more diver­ for his compositions. This pushes us to learn about the sification, even at that level. In that you love to save my life, the way being the case, his composi­ limbers and rhythms peculiar North America, the football only friendship cares, that you climb tions are very rhythmical. to these native traditions, and fanatic doesn't care much for And, although he wrote main­ it might again relate to the fact opera; but there, it was ob­ with me ly for strings, with the excep­ that as students we felt some­ vious that a greater variety of tion of his Sonata For Two what culturally deprived. I people came to see the show to the edge of the earth, like one Percussionists — a very diffi­ mean, we're having fun now, than we usually find in au­ butterfly. Clinging to a cliff* cult work in the traditional for us its been like stepping diences here. To those people contemporary repertoire — out of the strait jacket western entertainment is obvioush our transposition of his String tradition had wrapped our ins- .mother expression of culture. Goodnight Aldo... Goodnight Mr. Quarter «*•/, adapted exceptio­ truments in. Our instruments so they seem to participate Birney... whoever we are on this limb nally well to percussion. One have finally a chance to speak more readily.» would suppose that it was "i i these other languages, and of the planet!... finally written foi percus­ since our fundamental preoc V.V.: How did you feel sion.» c upation, as an ensemble, is to doing VOUl liisl collent loi foreground the pel c ussi\es|X'<- them?» •The poem is entitled Amiciiia. the Italian word for friendship, and I would V.V. : «Did you add any ins­ num. we don't have an\ pro- truments ID thai piii<•?» A.M.: «Yes, ai first — not like to dedicate it to Francine. Ethnicity as Post-Modernism

by FulVJO CaCCia (Translated from French by David Homel)

Change international 2 wake of the renewed interest this is not the only way. If by territory. Depolarized and most recent citizens. Lan­ Fondation transculturelle interna­ over the last years, and that culture is the whole of an deterritorialized, the ethnic is guage imposes its own collec­ tionale, Paris have been able to come to ethnic group's specific char­ ready to either disappear into tive memory on the immi­ Immigrant Autobiography terms with these two antithe­ acteristics, then tradition, another, larger group or dis­ grants' children who are torn William Boelhower. Essedue Edi- zioni, Venice tical terms. religion and language are its cover within the latter the between the repudiation of L'oiseau-chat Ethnicity has always been main parts. These three ele­ basis of his survival and ancestral models and suppor­ Hervé Fischer, Editions La Presse, rightfully regarded with sus­ ments define the collective growth by developing his cul­ ting the values of the lost Montreal picion. It has been considered identity that will later serve as tural specificity. This is the country. L'amour du Yiddish the breeding-ground of folk- a véhicule for nationalist de­ challenge to any minority Régine Robin, Editions du Sorbier, lorism, conservative thought, sires and demands. This pers­ culture. We will return to this The multiethnic paradigm Paris racism, isolationism — every­ pective, an inheritance from question later in this paper. I have come to believe that In Their Own Word», v. II, no. 1 the nineteenth century, holds European Journal of American thing that impedes the deve­ the immigrant self is a double Ethnic Studies, Cafoscarina, Venice lopment and evolution of a that nationalism is the politi­ The deterritorialized construct; this is true of all supposedly modern society. cal ideology of an ethnic ethnic group minority cultures. Which is group seeking to establish the nthropology has al­ Ethnicity is an evil to be The usual destiny of migra­ why the immigrant must tell infrastructure of the nation- ways sought to un­ rooted out. We have only to ting ethnic groups is to be his story and engage in a cease­ state on its territory. cover the specific think of Trudeau's ceaseless absorbed by other cultures. If less balancing act between characteristics of and knee-jerk denunciation of This movement, as we we image territory as a kind of the Utopian rhetoric of the ethnic groups, seek­ what he called "Quebec eth- know, may involve one or magnetic pole, a deterritoria­ New World and its reality. ing universals to nocentrism." And the Quebec several ethnic groups and of­ lized ethnic group will be This endless voyage between intelligensia was just as wary explain the com­ ten takes place through attracted to it, even if another the idealized future and the of it, considering its own eth­ plexity of modern consensus or the domination people already occupy it. present forces him to master nicity as a primitive stage in society. In this way, of one group over another. In two cultural systems within a its national development. This occurs through a kind of ethnicity has served as a pri­ this case, the ethnic groups gravitational overthrow. Let single model. The dual, mary model for understand­ Ethnicity, then, is to be subject to domination atro­ fragmented identity that re­ Aing current behavioural pat­ avoided. A bad memory for phy into regionalisms and sults is analagous to the per­ terns. It is interpreted and some, a breeding-ground of become minority cultures sona created by mass media scrutinized, like those stars at racism for others, most want reactivated by flare-ups of S> and mass cultures. the very confines of space "The multiethnic para­ whose light, the source of digm," as Boelhower calls it, which has long since flickered consists in "the inversion or out, reveals something of our fittionalizaiion of the preten­ own world. This seems to be k sions of represeniationality of the [unction — aproto-histo- the dominant culture." By rical referent — of ethnicity, producing a wave of images whose Greek root ethnos and setting them free in socie­ means "people." ty, ethnic ity destabilizes This function grew with monoc ultural discourse that the displacement of millions would lay claim to being the of people of various ethnic sole possessor of reality. This origins during this century would be the position "of and their subsequent cultural multiethnic theory in the ##f^ post-modern situation, whe­ interchange. Within the so­ cial sciences, the field of eth­ «fc rein the icon becomes facsi­ nic studies has sprung up, mile, presence is haunted by and recently, ethnohistory has absence, representation and production," as Boelhower been developed. Often led by to see it dead or at least banish­ nationalism at regular inter­ the sons and daughters of says. Our mass culture deli­ ed. How can we reconcile vals. However, territory re­ vers the same results, follow­ immigrants eager to know the anachronistic ethnic urge mains the basis of their me explain. In any kind of more of the mechanics of ing the crisis of the great with deterritoriality, inter- claims, which is why these overthrow, what was at the national cultures at the be­ immigration, these new areas changeability, technological minorities tend to display bottom rises to the top; what of study have grown in popu­ ginning of the last decade. transformation, the free circu­ intolerance toward other was hidden is unveiled. In the Protest movements and the larity over the last 20 years. lation of cultures and the groups. native country, ethnic charac­ The current crisis in our civi­ counterculture were the most mass media identity called The immigrant, the exile, teristics were shared by ev­ eloquent symptoms of this lization along with the break­ post-modernity? But ever eryone, and thus not apparent, down of the American mel­ stands at the opposite end of disorder. since massive waves of immi­ the spectrum from minority like the emperor's fine garb in ting pot have their role to gration, something has chan­ the fable. But in the new land, play in this process. Yet eth­ cultures. He or she begins by ged for the sedentary groups: cutting ties with the native these same characteristics be­ The idea of the transcultural nicity is still studied as a the relationship to territory. land and consents to cultural come obvious. Language, Published in Paris by the transitory and ahistorical customs and skin colour sin­ phenomenon, as something death, unlike those cultures Transcultural Foundation, struggling for survival. And gle out the newcomer, this the journal Change interna­ fated to be absorbed into the new Other. dominant culture. Only when Ethnicity and territory so his condition is the mirror. tional 2, though less specifi­ an ethnic group lose its pri­ Ethnicity cannot truly be the inverse reflection of mino­ Exposed to daylight, ethnic cally literary, moves in this mary characteristics and is understood outside its bond rities who see in him the dis­ traits soon wilt. Normally it same direction. Its prestigious assimilated can it accede to with the ancestral land. Terri­ persion they so fear. Yet will lake a generation before international committee that history. A high price to pay tory is its foundation. Ethni­ communication between the immigrant begins to erase includes, among others, Lyo- indeed. city finds its reason for being these two ethnic conditions his own differences by chan­ tard, Deleuze, Guattari, Paul through it, by it, its sense of can exist through the recogni­ ging his name, his physical Virilio, Syberberg from Ger­ tion of this fundamental op- Given a choice between the belonging, its centre of gravi­ appearance, his accent. Top­ many and Quebec's Michèle |M)sition. proto-historical and ahistori­ ty — but also its terrible iner­ pled by the rage to adapt, Lalonde, has looked into is­ tia. The classical scheme- cal tendencies to which ethni­ Though it causes the pain language will be the first to sues of transculturality in its holds that a people's culture city is relegated by the social of parting and nostalgia, this fall, due to the needs of the May issue. can be safeguarded only with­ sciences, we may well choose sudden territorial displace­ workplace and the younger in the borders of its territo­ Toni Negri begins by won­ another path and consider ment does have the advantage generation's school expe­ ry, recognized and legitimized dering if the immigrant is not ethnicity as post-modernity. of restoring to ethnicity its riences. The dominant lan­ through the nation-state, one a "new subject within whom This possibility has been dis­ original state of wandering, guage is the tool through investing the other with ils North and South make cussed by several recent works and stripping away the nega­ which the new country's va­ sovereignty. Though true, contact and join, just as the that have come out in the tive charge conferred upon it lues are transmitted to its different histories of work and production come together." thorny question of language While he argues the pros and during their long exodus cons of the emergence of (his through a variety of cultures. new subject — the immigrant But finally, Régine Robin has is no more a "noble savage" written a fascinating study on than the advance guard of the the subject, aptly entitled working class — he considers L'amour du Yiddish. the fate of the second-genera­ The Jew cannot take lan­ tion immigrant forced to guage for granted, the Jewish "build an identity" on fo­ writer even less so. Torn be­ reign ground. Jeanne Hy- tween Yiddish, German and vrard joins in defining immi­ Hebrew, the writer must grants as "transnationals," choose. A constraint and even these young people who come an impossibility summed up into a new world already pro­ by Kafka in this magnificient grammed by the multinatio­ iripleequation: "impossible nals. An ironic twist of histo­ not to write, impossible to ry, whereby the transnational, write in German, impossible the last avatar of the nation- to write any other way." The state, becomes a source of "any other way" refers to cheap labour for other na­ Yiddish, the language of har­ tions, widening the circle of ried exile, yet the one by ethnic dispersion and crea­ which every writer must de­ ting a crisis of nationality. fine himself or herself. For­ Using the term "transcul­ med from German and He­ ture,*' Jean-Pierre Colin brew, the language was long a contributes an exhaustive his­ source of shame for the en­ lightened intelligensia who torical study of minority cul­ and Bertrand's extraordinari­ lectuals, but concerns the po­ guage itself. preferred the clarity of Ger­ tures and their attitude to­ ly well thought out argument pulation at large, which is the In his opinion, one of the man. An unexpected result of ward the State. From coloni­ in La territoire imaginaire de conclusion of L'oiseau-chat, manifestations of the death this was to hasten the assimi­ zation to decolonization, via la culture. "The future of an investigative novel by wish is the impossibility of lation of the Ashkenazi Jews the exile of oppressed peo­ culture is to be found in the Hervé Fischer. mastering one's own lan­ in Poland and Russia. With a ples, the reader will discover inner movement toward the Evaluating the some 7,000 guage, and he points to the wealth of detail. Robin relates to his surprise that another self... the individual will dis­ answers to the questionaire Québécois' wounded narcis­ the impassioned battle that country lives within France, cover the external world not that is the basis of the book, sism that makes them turn to raged between 1830 and 1930, so famous for her chauvi­ as the pure other, the stran­ the psychiatrist Julien Bigras an idealized Other for solu­ and whose issues sound so nism. At least one-third of her ger, but instead as the has pointed to how the rela­ tions to situations that they familiar to those of us in population can claim foreign strange... which will allow tion to language fascinates can just as well find within Quebec. roots, while (our million fo­ him to throw himself head­ and even obsesses the Québé­ themselves. He also explains reigners now reside within long into the invention of cois. Using a test group, the the limitations of the enquiry her borders. Yet this vitality is other worlds." author has shown that not itself, including the absence Between the Jew and the accompanied by a return to only has the relation to lan­ of transference that makes any traditional ways, as evidenced This movement toward the Québécois struggling to pre­ self usually insures the safe­ guage changed considerably worthwhile psychoanalytical serve their collective identity by the renewed interest in over the last decade, language interpretation impossible. religion. guarding of the main charac­ through their religious or teristics and preserving fac­ is indeed the source of the Methodology is the weak linguistic specificity, what is The author relates the tors of an ethnic group: lan­ Québécois' past humiliations. point of this gigantic "self- the immigrant's role, he who rebirth of the regions to the guage and religion. For both A few pages further on, his portrait," in which the author signed over his own identity restless cultural laboratory of are bearers of the memory and colleague François Péraldi gladly embraces the prolifera­ the day he departed his coun­ the urban centres. From the tradition of a people. reaches the same conclusion. tion of the world's verbiage to try? He has no other choice periphery to the centre, this In his rigourous analysis, Pé­ arid scientific language. but to turn this loss into the current includes the gay mo­ The relation with language raldi points to the respon­ instrument for appropriating dents' great difficulty mani­ vement, a third element in In Quebec, following the If language is the current world culture by adding to his this cultural triangle whose secularization that modern­ pulating the language"that repertoire of languages and allows them to speak their carrier of Quebec identity, configuration seems to be ized society, language has codes. This is, as Julia Kriste- fundamental agressiveness in religion has always constitu­ leading to a new social mode supplanted religion as the ted the specificity of the Jews, va puts it, "the only chance, — if indeed we are willing to only one way, and that is to the only acceptable positi­ cornerstone of identity. This attack the medium" — lan­ a group long deterritorialized. accept the change. Late in the idea is not only dear to intel­ They have always denied the vism in this modern era." • twentieth century, the author tells us, when the world heeds the "transnational call," il will begin to build the foun­ dations for a durable peace. The European intelligen- sia's recent interest in this issue demonstrates just what is at stake here. Deleu/.e and Guattari, if I am not mista­ ken, were the first to recognize the issues in the course of their penetrating study on Kafka. In this transcultural perspective, Quebec- occupies a special position. She com­ bines her post-modern situa­ tion with a minority culture in search of sovereignty, as well as the rich contribution of a multiethnic urban envi­ ronment. Since Quebec has only re­ cently emerged from its solid­ ly traditional background, it comes as no surprise that the transformation has not been a restful one. The trouble in Saint-Léonard and the racial conflict in the taxi business are just two examples. Yet there incidents are not with­ out their creative possibili­ ties. Keep in mind the rela­ tions between Quebec and Canada and Quebec and her own ethnic and native mino­ rities, each keeping up an endless stream of criticism of the other. Though it may weaken na­ tional positions, this burs) of minority energies actually constitutes the strength of the nation. Instead of founding nationhood on territorial grounds, the ethnic group bases it on its own spe< ili< ity. This is the point of Morin il nuovo BAROCCO

Antonio D'Alfonso

Domenica, 27 maggio 1984. L'arte italiana è fondamentalmente l'es­ L'arte italiana è Sant'Agostino. Dunque un testo per Anto- pressione dello spirito barocco. Vivaldi. Caravag­ fojidamentalmente nella D'Agostino con cui, a Roma, ho imparato a gio. L'opéra italiana dei castrati. Forse l'espres­ l'espressione dello apprezzare il barocco. sione incosciente dell'arte italiana moderna del spirito barocco. Mina sta cantando alla radio, la sua voce Québec e del Canada? Corne definire l'arte barocca? Vivaldi. rauca di blues. Sto seduto pensando come devo (Rileggere McLuhan e la storia del barocco). Caravaggio. pulire il mio corpo, sbarazzarlo del suo blues. Mio Il barocco: perla di forma irregolare (dal cugino Tonino dorme, non vuole alzarsi. Mi dice Portoghese); manifestazione artistica del Seicento. che si sente come se avesse portato sacchi e sacchi di Mai lo stesso, né délia stessa intensità in ogni fave. Non ha fatto niente da quando sono arrivato paese. (Nel Seicento c'erano anche Rembrant e qui a Guglionesi. Il suo lavoro è divertire la fami- Vermeer.) Perô un ambiente. Uno stile bizzaro di glia, darle un po' di speranza, mostrarle un'altra vivere, di pensare, di creare. Il barocco: esuberanze, via, una nuova direzione. Per il barocco la vita era declamazione dell'ordine stabilito, délia bellezza importante quanto l'arte. armoniosa, movimenti senza fine. «Il barocco cer- Mina sta cantando: rosa sopra rosa; ed io cava di unificare sfaccettature e esperienze dispa­ ascolto mia zia strusciare con l'aceto il pavimento rate dirigendo l'attenzione verso il punto di muta- nuovo di marmo. Marmo: il barocco; l'aceto: vita mento» (McLuhan, Vanishing Point). amara? riso amaro? Prendere il «momento di mutamento»: il A contatto con la pelle la freschezza délia barocco: la fotografia del Seicento. Penso a Gian- camicia a righe rosse. Ho deciso di non mettere la lorenzo Bernini, alla sua statua esquestre di Luigi camiciola oggi. Ho messo i pantaloni di cotone XIV ( 1670), ai suoi colonnati del Vaticano (1656). comprati a Firenze, le scarpe comprate a Termoli Penso a Francesco Borromini, ai suoi soffitti in — il mare, il mare — , e un paio di calze bianche di mosaico — che guardano Dio — di S. Carlo aile puro cotone. Mi sento veramente italiano qui, Quattro Fontane. Penso. Ripenso. Rivedo. perô ne sono timido. Mi hanno forzato ad avère L'arte come cattura del momento fugace. «I vergogna di sentirmi italiano. Non è permesso musicisti» di Caravaggio. Il teatro délia fotografia. essere quello che uno è in Canada. Devo abi tuarmi Tutto ciô che non serve nella vita quotidiana. a essere quello che sono, malgrado tutte le critiche Come fare per vederel'essenzialità nell 'assurdo? Il che possono farmi. barocco forse è il contrappunto (Bach, sempre Ieri gli Azzurri hanno vinto 2 à 0 contro Bach) dell'essenzialità di cui io parlavo nel 1977 Team Canada. Gli Italiani del Canada per quale per descrivere l'arte come prodotto del ritorno a squadra parteggiavano? Dov'è il patriottismo ca- una natura di «secondo grado» (cioè la natura nadese? Mito americano: l'Eldorado. (O Lado- rivista — retrouvée — dopo una visita alla cultura rada?) modernisticaeurbanistica). Il barocco control'es- Sto leggendo Francesco Jovine. Le terre del senzialità? No. Sacramento. Leggere Jovine è un grande high Il barocco è il riso dell'artista che ritrova la quando uno scrittore molisano lo legge nel Molise. natura innocente. L'artista sa ciô che una cosa è, Guardialfiera — paese del Jovine — a due passi da ciô che è assolutatmente necessario per costituire Guglionesi. La frana di Guardialfiera si vede bene una cosa, senza di cui la cosa non è più quella ma délia mia finestra. un'altra cosa. Il riso come soluzione possibile in Jovine capiva la sua gente, le loro speranze, un mondo troppo serio, troppo ubriaco di teorie

le loro paure. La sua opera, fondata su scene a ( lie non servonoa niente, se non a perdersi ancora dialoghi tipicamente cinemalografici, si présenta di più nell'assurdità dcllaserietà. Il barocco, cioè il corne un mosaico. Il barocco italiano al suo Nuovo Barocco, non va contro l'essenzialilà ma è 12 meglio. un altro modo di capire, di catturare l'essenza sempre piu fugace. appare davanti a me denudato di qualsiasi otti- 5 settembre 1984 mismo e pessimismo, come se fosse provocato da Qui tutto ha un Montreal. S. Vittorino, Pensando a Zio Vit- una forza superiore matematica. senso, anche le torio con cui dormivo bambino nel «letto dei Qui tutto ha un senso, anche le apparenze apparenze porci». dell'inutilità. A questo punto non si puô più par- dell'inutilità. A Ascolto Franco Battiato: On a Solitary lare di fioriture superflue. Tutto diventa un fuoco questo punto non Beach. Ho decisodi andareavanti. Con la mia vita. senza attributi, l'essere nominato. Una nomina- si puô più parlare Nientepuôarrestarmi. Non mi fermerôpiù. D'ora zione senza il bisogno di descrivere la propria sto- di fioriture innanzi, chiunque voglia mi seguirà. Gli altri pos- ria perché il passato si vede dappertutto, sul «viso» superflue. Tutto sonorimanareindietro. Odavanti. (Andareavanti dell'alto fissato, del sentimento catturalo. diventa un fuoco non è un'esperienza che si misura in metri.) Basta II barocco è un lirismo forse ma meno il con questa voglia di morire. Devo prendermi in senza attributi, romanticismo del gesto o l'aulomatismo del l'essere nominato. mano. Con la passeggiata. Sempre la passeggiata. modernismo dove il gesto si pone come la scusa o Come un altro universo che si apre davanti a me. il prodotto deW'ultimo momento. Universo della parola, del pensiero. La passeg­ Nel Nuovo Barocco il gesto non conta più. giata con un poeta del Canada che parla della Il principio e la fine escono dal momento stesso, natura di secondo grado. Dell'essenzialità (Rileg- incorporati in questo, la sua narratività intrinse- gere l'articolo scritto sulla sua poesia non per nar- camente appiccicata alla mutazione. Si puô accen- cisismo ma per sapere se sono cambiato. ) nare ad una metafisica tipo seicentesco inglese — Il termine «barocco» ha finalemente perso dell'Herbert o del Donne — soprattutto perché la sua connotazione negativa. «E' ridivenuto una esiste nel le loro opère questo desiderio pazzo di formula, storicamente individuata, per indicare fissare un processo, includendo il suo principio e un tipo di espressività lirica fondata sull'ingegno- la sua fine e mostrarlo come una manifestazione sità, sull'arguzia, sulla concettosità, volta a tra- dell'essere, meta vivo, meta mono, senza un prima, dursi in forme stilistiche particolarmente raffinale senza un dopo: l'essere manifestato cos"ï nudo con e lussuose, ed a privilegiare, tra queste, in sommo tutta la sua propria storia. grado, la figura retorica della metafora» (CD. Se la modernità esprime una drammatizza- Bonino, // tesoro della peosia italiana. ) zione del momento, cioè la ricerca di eternare il II barocco: periodo tra il 1580 e il 1759. Il «momento drammatico» del gesto artistico, il Nuovo Barocco: periodo tra il 1975 e il — ? Tanti Nuovo Barocco rifiuta il drammatico e prova a artisti da scoprire. Da leggere. Da rileggere. La vita comunicare drammaticamente l'essenza in uno non puô terminare qui. La vita ricomincia. Mi spettacolo vigoroso. Dopo la modernità — la ritrovo a un altro punto. In un altro mondo. Più natura urbanistica, l'urbanistica corne natura — dentro me stesso. Più fuori me stesso. Più dentro viene il Nuovo Barocco che non distingue più alla mia realtà. La realtà di chi ride. Penso a Pier natura e urbanistica, gesto e essenza. Il Nuovo Giorgio Di Cicco. Penso a Marco Micone. Penso a Barocco è la finzione della finzione, la sguardo Maria Melfi e a Maria Di Michèle. Penso a Marco sullo sguardo che guarda, una paranoia creativa Fraticelli. Penso a Fulvio Caccia. Penso a come caratterizzata dalla diffidenza prima della materia sarà bello leggerli in italiano. Non perché non e poi dell'arte (la realtà e la narrazione di questa possono scrivere in inglese o in francese ma perché realtà in termini linguistici). la loro realtà si capisce meglio vista con gli occhi Il Nuovo Barocco prende la modernità e la italiani. tradizione corne parti della stessa realtà, rifiutando Non scrivero più ( in inglese ). Questo diario dunque il metalinguaggio corne possibilità unica dove vado avanti. Da solo, Un passo avanti. Un dell'arte contemporanea. passo verso l'ultima direzione, l'unico cammino. Il Nuovo Barocco come l'arte del clown Scorpire me stesso. Noi altri. Un passo indietro. bianco. (S. Francesco di Assisi. Tutti questi santi II «momento di mutamento»: quando uno come metafore del mondo occidentale. Un lin- diventa un altro. L'istante preciso di una trasfor- guaggio sopra il linguaggio della realtà.) mazione. L'atto fissato, il verbo si metamorfosa in Il riso. (Leggere la storia della commedia. un sostantivo. L'atto e il verbo hanno una loro Leggere Henri Bergson : Le rire. Rivedere i film di moralità che nasce dalla loro interiorità; il freeze Totô e del giovane Fellini. Rivedere e rivedere frame barocco, il sostantivo artistico, al contrario, Francesco, giullare di Dio di Roberto Rossellini, non conosce la moralità; esiste per se e è quello che scritto con Federico Fellini. ) • Immigrant Culture or the Identity of the Voiceless People

by MarCO MJCOne (Translated from French by Giovanna Carnevale)

Photo: Robert Frechette

s a child I believed our kind of society where the forms which followed the re­ tron Saint of the village during These images which haunt that the rest of ihe dominant classes impose a pressive regime of Mussolini the religious processions. the immigrants from Italian world looked like my uniformity of thought to the had neither the scope nor the Among the few men that were soil constitute the foundations village. As an adoles­ exclusion of groups who could celerity of implementation left it was no longer possible upon which one should build cent, an immigrant potentially lay claim to their needed to satisfy the under­ to find four of the same height the immigrant culture. Would in spite of myself, I rights. We will treat mainly privileged classes. The 1951 who could transport the Saint these peasants and artisans wished that Montreal the question of upon what census brought to light a rural on his pedestal (like the have left if the ruling classes could look like my axes rests the concept of im­ population of six million, Church he often leaned to the hadn't seen these massive exo­ village; I rebel against migrant culture and, conse­ having no property and con­ right...). The unhappy Saint duses as a safety valve capable those who erect within the city quently, its overshadowing. It centrated in the south. Follow­ moped behind a retinue of of reducing the pressures contemptible and constricting will also be noticeable that the ing violent peasant revolts dotterign old men, distracted brought to bear upon them? villageAs where those strangers, Italian community will be the authorities agreed to give children, and returning These impoverished rural those job usurpers, those frequently referred to, for not land to only five percent of the "Americans" in their garrish masses, oppressed by authori­ others, those ethnics, those only is it numerically the most needy. As the ruling classes dress, trapped in their camera tarian regimes, represented by allophones imprint not only important, after only the fran­ preferred emigration to shar­ equipment like flies in a spi­ virtue of their amenable char­ their differences but also their cophone and anglophone com­ ing. the drift from the land der's web. acters and their modest finan­ similarities. munities of Quebec, but it is which followed was massive. cial demands an ideal source also the community to which I In a village which in the The countless empty houses, of manpower for foreign capi­ There exists no inferior cul­ belong and which I know best. early fifties was crammed with posessed of a bleeding Sacred tal. In the welcoming countries ture, just as there is no inferior From 1946 to 1980 Canada 2000 people, a decade later the Heart as their only ornament, these characteristics had the individual. There exists, how­ welcomed 4,950.000 immi­ local grade school teacher brought to mind the evacua­ effect of weakening the de­ ever, a dominant culture im­ grants. In Quebec there are faced a single pupil. The mas­ tions of the last war. In others mands of the workers, giving posed by groups of individuals, presently 750,000 individuals sive emigration became re­ the white widows — who for i isi to feeling of hostility and they themselves dominant by belonging to ethnic minorities, sponsible for an unhoped-for five, sometimes ten, years had racial prejudice which only virtue of the economic and 200,000 being of Italian origin. pedagogical innovation — been awaiting the call which served to divide the popular political power they hold. Five million Italians have had individualized instruction. would reunite them with their masses. One can rest assured The present analysis focuses to leave their country since Still more desolate was the husbands — sublimated theil that emigration would never on "immigrant culture in World War II. The social re­ spectacle afforded by the Pa­ need for loving with prayer. have occurred if it hadn't Quebec", too long censured in gossip, and black dresses. served to consolidate the country of origin, the expe­ Québec. They did, in fact, lure economic and political power rience of emigration-immigra­ to their schools almost all the of the ruling classes in both tion, and the lived experience immigrants who were of school the sending and receiving in the welcoming country. age and, consequently, the countries. Knowledge regarding their majority of youngallophones. We find ourselves here in experiences in their country of The Catholic school system, Quebec with hundreds of thou­ origin will bring to light the with their retrograde philoso­ sands of immigrants which level of scolarity, the political, phy, refused all "strangers", the cultural policies of the religious, and work practices, including francophones, that provincial and federal govern­ and the male-female relation­ were not of the same faith. The ments have served to relegate ships of workers coming from parents, meanwhile, continued to the lowest echelons of socie­ the outside. The analysis re­ to live and work with franco­ ty. In the footsteps of "Cana­ garding "emigration-immi­ phones, and when they man­ dian" multiculturalism, whose gration" will reveal their vul­ aged to learn a local language, main objective is to erode and nerability, hence exploitation, more often than not they learn­ lump francophone Quebec as well as the benifits accrued ed the language of their fellow- culture in the folkloric muddle by the ruling classes of the workers. "from coast to coast", the sending and receiving coun­ Until the end of the sixties, péquist policies of cultural tries in the international many of the teachers in these convergence, among other manipulation of workers. Fi­ schools were either immigrant functions, serve as an asset to nally, scrutiny of the lived laymen or men of religion Quebec anglophones. In both experience in the welcoming coming from the maritime cases we scrap immigrant cul­ countries will complete the provinces or the United States. ture, which alone can reveal to picture of the rural immi­ The young people frequenting those who are neither franco­ grants, who besides having to these schools lived in blessed phone nor anglophone their face the usual problems en­ ignorance of Québec, its histo­ real needs and the ways in suing from their insertion into ry, its culture, and its aspira­ which these needs can be satis­ an urban and industrialized tions, and were proud to make fied. landscape, are, in Québec, subjected to the problem re­ up more than 90% of the stu­ Quebec policies of cultural lated to the power struggle dent population. Extremely development put forward once being waged by the two found­ young, manipulated, indoc­ again the image of a "tightly ing peoples. trinated, unwitting marginals, knit" society of pure wool, they thought that the same upon which the ethnic mino­ Thanks to these methods of ratio existing in these mono- rities would embroider some analysis, we will discover the ethnic schools, where they enlivening arabesque. It says points that the various immi­ were busy aping the English further, "It will be unaccept­ grant groups have in common and aspiring to replace their able for the minorities to be­ and the necessary regrouping, parents' "bosses", extended to come the objects of specialized based on these points, so that schools all over Québec. Most services alongside other pro­ they may have more bargain­ of them only succeeded in grams consacrated to the estab­ ing power in the labour mar­ replacing their parents. lished culture, the latter being ket and better conditions of Twenty years later, in spite a whole subsuming different life in general. We will bring of Bill 101, more than 70% of ways of life. It is Quebec cul­ to light those points that they young Québécois of Italian ture in its present state which have in common with the origin still go to English must welcome the fertile con­ Québec working classes, for schools. All the machination tributions of its minorities". the ultimate goal of the en­ have succeeded. On the one gender neither prejudice nor Italian origin are still amongst The intention seems most hancement and appropriation hand the anglophones have chauvinism. themoresocio-economically praiseworthy and most noble. of their culture by the immi­ gained extensive political sup­ We must not, on the other disadvantaged groups in Qué­ Immigrants will not be mar­ grants is to escape margin­ port among the immigrants hand, believe that frequenting bec society. ginalized by the institution of alizing and isolationist atti­ without being threatened eco­ a French school would have "specialized services" ! And let tudes, so they can help one If the Ministry of Education nomically nor bothered so­ constituted a panacae for those those who might see in it a another in their struggle. had taken into account the cially by these allophones, youngallophones. Contrasted factors involved in immigrant Macchiavellian strategy of who because of their socio­ assimilation rest assured, for If, in future, we want to with the marginalization of culture, these mono-ethnic attack the real problems, all economic status conveniently the English schools, for the schools, which only serve to as the same document goes on live in worker's districts with a to tell us "It is not the State but bodies intervening on behalf present, French schools only check integration, would ne­ of immigrants must bear in majority of francophones. On offer assimilation. Thus, of ver have been allowed to exist. Man who creates culture". the other hand, a number of This must undoubtedly in­ mind these three facets of the hundreds of young people They would also never have immigrant culture. francophone Québécois belonging largely to the work­ allowed young people to fre­ clude those men belonging to couldn't ask for belter than The latter has been eroded ing class, besides being deci­ quent English schools in a ethnic minorities! It is obvious that the Italians — and immi­ by the steamroller of the do­ mated by our school system province where the majority that for the péquist govern­ grants in general — remain minant culture, ignored by the (only 9% ever make it to uni­ of the population was French- ment, despite the profession of marginalized, so that they powers that be, and romanti­ versity, as opposed to 43% of speaking. We could, on the faith it makes in the name of might not j>enetraie the strong­ cized by petty politicians and those young people with at other hand, have run original humanism, there exists only holds that have been jealously grovelling notables. The pro­ least one parent who is a pro­ pedagogical experiments at one culture, and it is defined guarded, such as the public blems stemming from this are fessional), they must also suf­ the elementary level, using as and influenced by the state; works sector. although there might exist many. One of the most serious fer the alienating and margin­ languages of instruction the alizing effects of posessing an mother tongue and the lan­ francophone Québec cultures concerns youngallophones. Furthermore, if we analyse (official culture, popular cul­ We must remember that in English education in a fran­ guage of the majority popula­ Bill 101 and the linguistic cophone country. tion. Furthermore, in the ture) there is, nonetheless, no theircountriesof origin the policies of the opposition Greek, Portuguese, Italian, or immigrants had rarely heard higher grades we could have party, we realize that in both If the authorities had kept established courses directed Haitian culture in Québec. of Québec and knew even less cases there is no provision in mind the factors of immi­ There exists, on the other about its peculiar cultural towards their particular back­ checking the marginalization grant culture, they would have ground, so that the pupils and hand, a culture lived by the situation. They were coming and cultural weakening of recognized the real needs of immigrants of these same ori­ to "Canada", or worse, to students could accept their youngallophones frequenting these young allophones de­ differences, thus turning them gins. It is immigrant culture. "America, so deep was the English schools without ever prived and torn between the It has been alive in Québec for ignorance in which they were into assets instead of a source rubbing shoulders with a real expectations of their families of inferiority and lethargy. generations, and needs only to kept for fear they might refuse Anglo-Saxon, and at the same from peasant stock, and the be defined and codified. This to leave. For following the time unable to feed upon Qué­ incessant enticements of an But in Québec, as elsewhere, task falls mainly to intellec­ example of other countries bec francophone culture. urban existence. They might influential people only stress tual immigrants who can free with immigration, Québec of have, in conjunction with the differences between ethnic themselves from the hold of the 1950's had to embellish its The obvious solution would other organizations who are groups in order to further the dominant culture. For the most beguiling myths in order have been a total and progres­ sive unilingualism or, short of working towards furthering divide them. culture of capitalist societies to deroot thousands of pea­ the well-being of immigrant serves no purpose other than sants from their Mediterranean that, the authorities should, at A treatise dealing with im­ the very least, have intervened workers and their families, migrants must bear in mind to deny class struggle and to soil. found the best means of ensur­ reduce to silence all minority by introducing French into the immigrant culture if we the mono-ethnic schools, so ing the Frenchifying, integra­ want to capture the complexi­ cultural expression. The myths It was. nonetheless, in our tion, and knowledge of the of the American "melting Belle Province — with its that these youths would at ty of these people coming least be assured of posessing a particular background of these from foreign places, with all pot", "Canadian multicultu­ semi-autocratic and repressive youths. ralism", and "we are all Qué- regime and its backward insti­ basic knowledge of Québec their differences and similari­ beckers" constitute some of tutions — that a large number culture. It would have also No such thing was ever done. ties. To dwell on their diffe­ the more eloquent examples of Italians established their been desirable for certain sub­ And no one uttered a peep in rences is to play the game of of this. Nullifying history by homes; where, in addition, the jects to be taught in French, as protest. In such an atmosphere those reactionary establish­ retorting "We are all immi­ language of success was En­ has been done for the past ten the dominating ideology sim­ ments, within the ethnic mi­ grants" does not lead us glish. Moreover, the boot­ years in the West Island (a ply continues to dominate. It norities, who have much to deeper in the analysis of this licking and blindness of the posh English neighbourhood), preaches salvation through gain by a consolidation of the question. Duplessis regime in the face of where well-schooled and well- going to English schools in ghettos and the retention of English rule were such that to-do parents demand that North America (forgetting their power. Let us not forget Québec English school autho­ their school commission pro­ Québec). Some may think that that there are fewer differences rities were, in total freedom, vide the kind of schooling that anglicization has permitted between an Italian worker and Only immigrant culture is able to hatch and implement will ensure their children's these youths of Italian origin a French worker than there are in the position to give an the ultimate strategy of aggra­ future. Moreover, the mother and their families to struggle between a worker and an Ita- account of the total reality of vating the minority position tongue should have been up a few rungs on the social lophone practician or profes­ immigrants and their offspring of francophones in the Cana­ taught within the regular cur­ ladder. Nothing could be fur­ sional. It is more than cross­ without atrophying it. It rests dian scene, and increasing the riculum, making sure that the ther from the truth. Mobility breeding, it is a fundamental upon three axes: The immi­ number of English speakers in contents of such a course en­ being what it is, Québécois of similarity. D grants past experience in their Surprise in the Archive

by Bruno Ramirez

he National Photogra­ (Alia.)» I wondered whether phy Collection is some­ the archivist who had catalo­ thing Canadians can be gued these two photos knew proud of. It is a divi­ that «Dago» was (and still is in sion of the Public Ar­ some regions of North Ame­ chives of Canada, hou­ rica) the derogatory term most sed in an elegant buil­ commonly used to refer to Ita­ ding on Wellington lian. It grew out of the stereo­ Street, near the bridge type that associated Italians thai links Ottawa with Hull. with any kind of work invol- For some time I had been ving digging. There Taware of its existence, mainly was no question — I thought because during my frequent — that the Italians labourers trips to the archives' manus­ portrayed in those two photos cript section I had made it a had done a lot of digging, habit to spend my work-breaks though in their own country looking at the photographic they might have been artisans, exibitions on display inside musicians, gardeners, or cart- the building. Finally, one drivers. But to find them clas- sunny Spring day I decided to sidied as «Dagos» in the hal­ delve into this archival trea­ lowed halls of the Public Ar­ sure where important chunks chives, in 1983, was a little of Canadian history could more than I could handle. supposedly be tracked picto- rially through the thousands There was another picture or photographs that make up which drew my attention. It the collection. showed three men belonging to three different national My goal was twofold: as a groups standing one next to recent convert to the value of the other: a Lithuanian, an documentary photography, I Italian and a Russian. I knew simply wanted to check out enough immigration history this archive — see how it func­ to remember that at the height tioned, and assess the quality of the immigration movement of the material. At a more to North America one of the concrete level, I wanted to find favourite pastimes of policy­ all the photographs I could on makers and social scientists the Italians of Montreal of the was compiling racial and na­ pre-World War II period, as I tional typologies. Undoubted­ was completing a book on that ly, it helped them to put some topic and doing research for a order into that Tower of Babel documentary film on the same that was the universe of immi­ subject. Above: "Dagos laying new steel rails, C.P.R. (Alia)". Public Archives of Canada, PA 117)1. Below: "A Russian, a gration. It was part of the Lithuanian, an Italian". Public Archives of Canada, C 9799. effort to help employers, social I must confess that by the workers, police officers and time one of the clerks has The second day Labour, Mackenzie King, pro­ lians in Montreal and look for land lords (just to mention a shown me the ropes, I was My second day of research bably to advance the cause of pictures of Italians anywhere few) distinguish one immi­ truly impressed: by the quan­ was as disappointing and de­ the delicate multinational in Canada. But by the time I grant from the other by attri­ tity of the material ; by the way pressing as the first had been business he was carrying out had gone through all the pos­ buting to each national group it has been classified; and by exciting. Still, I learned a few in Montreal. Of course, he sible classifications and com­ certain «natural» charac­ its retrieval system. It was things about my adoptive coun­ didn't know that King was binations thereof, my learning teristics. modernity and efficiency at try's multicultural heritage — about to nail him by having a experience on Canadian mul- their best, accompanied by an things that confirmed some of Royal Commission set up to ticulturalism was more than I It took just a glance for me extremely kind staff. What the intuitions I had had all inquire into the fraudulent could lake. All I came up with to recognize who the Italian in more could a researcher ask along. In vain I went through pratices of Montreal's impor­ was a little more than a dozen that photo was — maybe be­ for? all the possible classifications ters of Italian immigrant la­ photos, the bulk or which came cause he looked like an uncle That day I learned a lot so as to find photos of Mon­ bourers. Clearly, King had no from Toronto at the time of of mine, or perhaps by the way about post-Confederation treal's Italians in the pre- intention of framing the photo World War I: an Italian living he had positioned his right Canadian life. It was a short of World War II period: absolu­ and hanging it in his living in that city had taken a series arm. It must not have been so anarchic learning experience. tely no sign of life! And this room. Instead, he turned it of shots of a publ ic celebration easy, however, for those re­ As topics came randomly 10 despite the fact that at the time over to the Royal Commission in honour of a group of fellow- searchers who had no such my mind, I traced them Montreal was the leading cen­ as a piece of evidence, and countrymen leaving for the instincts — according to the through the catalogue so that I tre of Italian settlement in from there the portrait found war. He had probably sold or caption the Italian was the could see what these events Canada, that the community's its way into the photography donated the photos to the Lithuanian, and viceversa. population had reached the archive. Archives and that's how they had «looked like» to the eye of By this time I was thorough­ the contemporary witness: the 25,000 mark by 1941, and that had found their way into the its «Little Italy» was a definite I had known about this event collect ion. I f one then excl udes ly convinced that the Italians Winnipeg strike of 1919; the for some time and had even — one of the largest ethnic building of the Cartier bridge; cultural and territorial entity thisgroupof photos, all that is where public events such as written about it, but when it left on Italians in Canada of groups that make up the Ca­ countless photos of Mackenzie turned out that this photo was nadian cultural mosaic — did King giving speeches and processions and rallies were that period is about half a almost weekly events. the only thing I could fish out, dozen items. not have what it takes to make signing bills; western settlers I couldn't help reflecting that it into the prestigious Natio­ posing near their first harvest; One exception was the pho­ it had taken a Royal Commis­ Dagos nal Photography Collection. the conscription riots of Mon­ tographic portrait of a noto­ sion to put Montreal's Italians Of course, the count may treal —and soon. It didn't take As I walked down the ele­ rious Montreal-based Italian into the National Photogra­ vary depending on whether me long to realise that one day gant marble stairway that leads padrone. In 1901, at the height phy Collection. one is familial with the terms of zig-zaging through this to the main exit, I felt like a of his influence as an immi- «Dagos»; for, two of the pho­ visual treasure was not After this letdown, I dec ided historian leaving an archive, granl labour importer, he had tos I have included in my count enough, and so I was back a to continue my inquiry by empty-handed; this time, ho­ sent an autographed portrait carry the caption: «Dagos few days later. enlarging the scope of my wever, I had found a story to the then Deputy-Minister of topics: forget about the Ita­ living new steel rails, C.P.R. worth writing about.D The Empire Strikes Back

by Lamberto Tassinari (Translated from French by Patricia Vergeylen)

f course I had heard I believe that this "disease" is shaped by the French colo­ artistic worth, holds little about Québec before the semi-conscious product of nists' nationalism. This era political values. arriving there in De­ the Québécois intelligentsia gave birth to the myth of the Great literature is linked to cember of 1980. As a rather than a baroque, inevi­ Promised Land, the North as politics. If Kafka's works are schoolboy I discover­ table consequence of history. the site for a future Franco- representative of the political ed ii in my geogra­ I shall attempt to prove my Canadian civilization — this nature of literature and of the phy books. A long hypothesis by retracing the moment lasted for over a cen­ relationship between an silence then settled in ideological process which has tury. author of a "minor" literature — a silence which upheld the dream of indepen­ In the early fifties an eco­ and his community, one can was broken by General de dence through past and recent nomic boom was sweeping easily state that no such writ- Gaulle's famous outcry, O articles on its crisis. Symp­ Western civilization. The ru­ ings evolved in Quebec. "Vive le Québec libre". The toms of the "disease" have of ral lifestyle and values of the These philosophers have al­ entire world talked about it, course always existed within people of Quebec were being ways felt the need to cry out that is about the General. In the society as they resulted rapidly transformed. Mon­ their politics as they have the seventies I made three from the Francophones' so­ treal, a close neighbor of the always been unable to express trips to Quebec from Italy and cio-economic inferiority and United States, was almost be­ the subversive strength of ne­ settled there for personal rea­ colonization. I believe though coming an American city. gation within themselves and sons in 1980. that the Québécois people The elite began its campaign their culture. The writers' have been and are a "healthy" representation of the people is Four years residence may for independence during people! false. It is time to abandon the not seem enough time to dis­ these years. definition of a "people" for­ cuss the grand idea of inde­ In 1964 Michel Van Schen- Its platform was a combi­ mulated elsewhere in histori­ pendence which has been lin­ del was writing in Parti Pris nation of conservatism and cal situations which never gering here for two centuries. about Quebec's own form of utopianism. These intellec­ took place here and never My voice is shaky: my words colonization, "It is easy to fall tuals were conservative by will. may seem superfluous after so back on abstract generaliza­ virtue of their nationalism many books, articles and tions which lead once more to and Utopian by virtue of their These authors are hardly speeches. a rootless universalism when association of the idea of pro­ aware of the existing gap As a reference I will use my no extensive studies have been gress with the nation's im­ between their voice and the own experience and mainly carried out on Quebec's pat­ probable values. One could people — a gap which is first the recent articles I have read tern of colonization and un- already foresee that the nation­ political and then cultural. on the crisis of the idea of der-development". To my al ist ideology was ironically Michel Van Schendel in 1964 independence. Upon my arri­ knowledge this analysis has the only component destined wrote, "The national con­ val here I was struck by two never been developed by the to survive. This ideology re­ science of Quebec has been things: the extreme melan­ intellectuals or if it has, its vealed a flaw within the theo­ lingering and causing serious choly of the young and un­ results have never been put retical and economic analysis consequences as no effective nerving store signs such as : into practice. A "rootless uni­ and a lack of political insight political action can be carried "Maison du Pauvre", "Le versalism" is the classic defect which is often found among out without a close rapport marché du chômeur", "Ma­ of every intellectual avant- avant-garde movements. between thought and action garde: it is the immobiliza­ gasin de l'assisté social", Obviously one cannot and the intellectuals and the tion of an ideology, separated (Markets for the poor, the consider all the influential masses." This relationship from reality. The major diffe­ unemployed, the recipient of factors, such as the socio-eco­ which twenty years ago was rence however between the Social Welfare) — signs nomic conditions of Quebec, deemed political should have elite in Quebec and others is which are not found even in the history of its trade-unions, been cultural as well. No that its ideology has never the poorest regions of Italy. the role of the Church, the process can be overlooked. projected the society towards Anglo-Saxon control of fi­ The intellectuals, unable or To rationalize this victim­ a new beginning but has kept nances, etc. My only concern unwilling to define their ization I vaguely remembered it immobilised, linked to a here is the ideology adopted "people" have on one hand the title of a book: "Les nè­ primordial trauma. burdened them with their gres blancs d'Amérique". by these "philosophers", the strategy which enabled them diagnosis, the disease, and on Since then I have read, observ­ I will briefly trace the to gain an ever-growing, yet the other side have offered as ed, discussed. Thus I have course of the "disease" which fragile consensus and its role an antidote, the denial of the learned that the Québécois led to the ideology. in today's political reality. disease — independence. Mi­ have been and are still an In the nineteenth century chel Van Schendel wrote ethnic minority, conquerors the daily fight for survival An extraordinary literary about the nationalist con­ who in turn were conquered, within this Anglo-Saxon upheaval took place in the science, "...it sought to obtain dispossessed, ostracized, and continent had created a ma­ late fifties and early sixties. a true feeling of community have suffered the injustices laise. The anguish arose from Artists began seeking and ex­ (if not of nation) by laying its which befall all minorities. a real, physical, concrete pressing themselves through own chart of the disease upon In the early sixties this an­ threat and there had never poetry, fiction and essays. the French Canadians and guish and ambiguity has been been the means and time for it They created a political litera­ creating a concept of a "we" referred to as "the disease of to be interiorised and expres­ ture destined to reach the boy-scout which was really an Quebec" in the magazine Par­ sed as an existential malaise. people, yet it rarely succeeded. "I" plural". In my opinion ti Pris. The ideology was then being This literature, beyond its this definition applies as well a Canada that has always per­ 10 ignore that this "void" has agricultural, a bastion against to the Flench Canadian na­ ceived us as a foreign body?" a long history and that this American materialism, built tionalism of the Duplessis era Acculturation here is still Vorldwide American" hu­ by an army of abbots and as to the present sot ial-demo- perceived unilaterally as an manity is part of this modern lords. This is finally the mel­ i rati» nationalism. "assimilation" and not as a era. Moreover, one refuses, or ting point between "Today's The intel let mais were necessary contact and ex- simply cannot realize that the Left" and "Yesterday's aware however of the ambi­ < hange, the tribal fear of values and ac< omplishments Right". guity and risks of their natio­ being ingested by the Anglo­ of this Welfare State democra- nalism. Paul Chamberland in phone remains. cy, the collectivism ol assis­ I come from a country 1964 wrote, "It is true that Marcel Rioux and Pierre tant e, the ( onsumer society, whit h was "other" from 1922 "nationalism", our nationa­ Vadeboncoeur write about the social-democratic slogans, to 1945 so this national inde­ lism represents a danger, a "Americanism" as if Adorno are but a variable of the pendence does not move me. stumbling block. We have and Horkheimer had never "American" way. Now that a separation has never denied it. Nationalism written on consumer society taken place between the mo­ is one of the most eloquent and post-modern capitalism. Marcel Rioux wrote, "if vement for independence and characteristics of our minori­ For ages the "perverse and one charge could be laid its political vehicle, the elite ty, our colonization. It faith­ leveling power" ( Rioux) of against the Péquiste govern­ may resort to different means fully reflects our alienation, consumer imperialism has ment I would accuse it of to realize its objective. But the the petty, barren nature of our been shaping the entire uni­ being unable to declare, more present is not that encoura­ existence; its mediocrity its verse and, Quebec which bor­ clearly, that independence ging- grandiloquences of agricultu­ ders the leader of this huge could insure the creation of a ral committees, or of the homogenization, will witness different society; indepen­ Jean Jacques Simard in "belle province"..." The pre­ the possible abolition of its dence for the sake of indepen- Possibles writes, "...the prac­ sent wave of freedom seems to culture because "sooner or dence, independence to tical aspects of the Québécois be carrying this traditional later Americanism will settle continue this North Ameri­ sovereignty are not very ori­ nationalism to its extreme into our heads and our can society cannot mobilize ginal unless one considers the "...Within objective condi­ hearts"! the most dynamic, strata of religious ardour with which tions of the situation..." Na­ Quebec society... The crea­ it has confounded State and tionalism can only lead to a Throughout the world, so­ tion of a self-ruling society, ciologists, philosophers and nature, public institutions feeling of national responsi­ reconciled with nature, freed and spokesmen for the wor­ bility unless it wishes to re­ economists have attempted to from heteronomy. is funda­ give a Right or L.eft wing de­ kers, technocratic rationa­ turn to its primal onanism". mental." lism and cultural freedom. I To uphold this new nationa­ finition of this unachieved crisis of Progress. Writers like find Simard's portrayal exact lism, the philosophers began except for the reference to the assaulting and disowning this Musil have observed it with a failed towards the mid-centu­ Marcel Rioux writes about fascinating lucidity, poets workers (we have seen that "man of Quebec" who existed ry and gave way to "profit this new society as if it could they can be excluded!) only within their intellectual like Pasolini have attacked it and loss" values in human evolve from a government's and idealistic culture and re­ with a fierce passion and relations. I believe that this is determination and not from a Beyond the "naivety" Si­ placing him with a made in Pierre Vadeboncoeur writes what Vadeboncoeur refers to c ollective commitment and mard has denounced, I would laboratory Quebec identity. about the heart and soul quo­ in his description of the analysis. add that the intellectual poli­ Chamberland describes this ting Stendhal. Mozart, Ra­ "void". The only difference ticians lack "a sense of unrea­ cine. in his essay on James new identity, "By interiori- however is that he cannot But what is this "other" lity ". Mow can one afford to Cain... The times we live in zing the powers which were bear this "non-culture", his society which Rioux writes have principles, values, when have been defined by the causing our disintegration heart bleeds when he states, about? What is this commit­ Americanism is at the door? French philosopher, J.F. Lyo- through cowardise or impo­ "Religion gave the people of ment which would mobilize tard, as a post-modern condi­ tence, we have modified the Quebec and of other countries the most dynamic strata of tion. The debates which have I will attempt to summarize resentment into guilt (self a powerful, philosophical he­ society? The answer is within raged these past years on the the reasons for upholding hate), changed the revolt and ritage which has disappeared the quoted text: it is a "self- "modern" and "post mo­ such an ideology. The elite wish for freedom (life ins­ and has never been substitu­ ruling society" (autarkic), dern" concepts are barely has been unable to see beyond tinct) into masochistic sub­ ted. A strange simplification "finally freed from hetero­ acknowledged here. The ma- the issue of independence as mission and persecution deli­ has taken place everywhere in nomy" (orthodox Québe- its idealism and political will rium (death instinct)". is tainted by nationalist pride. With this plan, the intellec­ Marcel Fournier has recent­ tual and political class has ly wrote a most interesting also been seeking, more or article, "Autour de la spécifi­ less consciously, a place in the cité", in Possibles in which he sun, power. There is also ano­ states that, even though the ther reason, difficult to de­ terminology of the idea of fine, which evolves from so- independence may vary, there cio-psychology and aesthe­ cannot be any ongoing solu­ tics. The nature of Canadian tion to the basic ideology. and Québécois society is that of a rather marginal country. The "disease" worsened The "Nothing happens here" when discussions on Quebec, attitude means that the mi­ its society and identity began. nute details of daily life be­ This ideology had created a come important. What I persistent division between mean is that living here the the elite and the masses even lack of events and upheavals before becoming a party poli­ give me the feeling, apparent­ cy as no real change had taken ly paradoxical, that there is place within the economic more "meaning" here than and social structure. Frustra­ elsewhere. If one looks more tion grew among the people closely however the impres­ as a mystifying identity was sion vanishes. How then do forced upon them as a solu­ politicians elaborate "realis­ tion to their economic and tic" approaches? The politi­ social problems. cians however continue to As we can see today, the challenge this unreality. The history which would have continuation of talks on in­ confirmed this ideology never dependence now plunges us took place. The intellectuals into this unreality. and politicians are still repea­ ting the same old story. Time I isi February the ex-Pé- has eroded their ideology; the quiste minister; Paquette, people of Quebec have kept made in Le Devoir the follo­ on living, without any hyste­ wing statements, "It is not the ria, their "ambiguity" and option which must be re­ "disease" as their own histo­ examined but the means ry, a result of their own iden­ which must be adopted to tity. make the Québécois unders­ Today, Yves Beauchemin, tand that it is the only one on behalf of the "philoso­ thai can lead us and insure a phers", states in Possibles future.'' that the end of the project for He went on, "The electo­ independence was inevitable. rate must understand that a The author makes us believe jor changes according to Lyo- the past ten years, the awa­ coise), "finally reconciled carpenter with only two tools that there may have been a tard occurred in the fifties. reness of culture and culture with nature" (conforming to cannot work as well as one real problem which prevented Vadeboncoeur interprets the itself has been eliminated us racial, linguistic; religious, with twenty tools even if he is the creation of independence, "void" which he finds in among the masses." Vade- economic reality...) conscientious and devoted". an almost ontological diffi­ Cain's "The Postman always boncceur, abashed by the loss We have discovered the What can one say about culty; he goes on with a psy­ Rings twice" as the crossing of the soul cries out for the myth present in many of these this language, this "philoso­ chological interpretation, "Is over to the "post modern" need to return to "nature" texts: it is the myth which phy", this precious fable our death instinct so powerful era. (European: but where is it?), underlies two centuries of which brings us to the roots that our only available solu­ Lyotard believes that the far from American barbarism. religious thinking; the of the Québécois nationa­ tion is a slow assimilation by discussion on emancipation In these writings one pretends French Quebec, Catholic, lism? • (Tailleurs, Técartèlement, le sud han­ tent l'imaginaire de la littérature qué­ bécoise, les livres discutent souvent de Le mythe cette fuite vers les montagnes du nord où vers les autoroutes du sud et c'est toujours le même recommencement des choses qui s'effectue, un mythe est de Tailleurs au centre de ces ramifications, celui de l'effleurement épidermique des con­ Claude Beausoleil sciences, il y a une sorte de beauté dans ces fuites éperdues, ici partir c'est sou­ vent exister, ici écrire c'est souvent s'enfuir — en nous-même, dans le ter­ ritoire du langage, dans l'inventé —, la littérature québécoise s'alimente de partout (courants formels européens, beat generation américaine, philoso­ phies orientales...), il y a je crois une sorte de mixture opératoire qui donne à la littérature québécoise un état par­ ticulier de frémissement, Tailleurs est toujours là pour soulever nos peaux et nos rêves, pour inquiéter nos certi­ tudes, pour nous permettre de survi­ vre sans territoire, vouée à l'imagi­ naire voilà le destin d'une littérature mineure minant la langue et traver­ sant les doses d'inouïs) Claude Beausoleil

««Et la pourpre vêt la véranda rose, Et dans l'Eden de la Louisiane, Parmi le silence, aux encens de rose, La créole dort en un hamac rose.» Emile Nelligan (1899) «Sur la plage de Malibu où folâtrent, la nuit, des stars en bikini.» Paul Morin (1960)

«west hollywood holistic dream sur le sentier des étoiles» Bernard Pozier (1982) «Ils chantaient avec leur sourde musique De Shangaï à Moscou De Singapour à Coventry De lidice à Saint-Nazaire De Dunkerque à Manille De Londres à Varsovie «Et sur les gazons doux comme des satinades, De Strasbourg à Paris» Ceinte d'un voile pourpre aux plis fins et légers, Alain Grandbois (1948) Khrima s'endort au sein des rêves mensongers, Près du yali désert flanqué de colonnades.» «Était-ce à Montréal à Paris à Amsterdam Arthur de Bussières (1931) À Copenhague à Florence peut-être» Jean-Guy Pilon (1960) «Amant de ma tristesse, un plaintif rossignol Affligera longtemps la nuit orientale!» «this is a beautiful game Medje Vézina (1934) caro mio words words words «Cuba coule en flamme au creux du lac Léman...» nous sommes dianétiques ce soir Hubert Aquin (1965) dans un sombre tripot de Macao «Dans les eaux de Curaçao la nécessaire dans tes yeux de diamant 24 carats turbulence du personnage comme une trame je vois passer des cargots suédois» sonore.» Yolande Villemaire (1983) Nicole Brassard (1982) «Zapothèques Mixtèques ravages de l'oubli ville funéraire à l'usage de son déclin Monte Alban «Mais le rêve se perd. — Le castel en ruine du haut d'un escalier de pierre j'écris Passe devant nos yeux fatigués dès longtemps, ruines spectaculaires Comme le Juif-Errant qui se traîne et chemine ruines balayées de vent» En haillons, à travers les âges et le temps.» Claude Beausoleil (19*3) Eudore Evanturel (1878) «Quelque part les cocotiers renoncent: pays du sapin, Laurentides Tropicales. (Orange street dans la mémoire, pyramides de citrons, sueur où vivent les mirages)» Pierre Nepveu (1977)

«L'horizon se catapulte derrière les feuillages tropicaux et asiatiques: Montréal aura eu raison de Bangkok.» Jean-Paul Daoust (1983)

«La Madone aux yeux peints, en simarre de soie Venise de tourment, de volupté, de joie!» Paul Morin (1912)

«Je retourne à Katmandou. À pied. Un camion-citerne me prend sur la route. Passagère silencieuse dans la cabine bariolée. Bardée de formica. Comme une cuisine d'Abitibi.» Louise Desjardins (1983) In Search of a Lost Culture by Bruno Ramirez

Bryan D. Palmer. Working-Class creatively — their conceptual The task Palmer has under­ tive worker" ceased to be an 20th-century trade-union mo­ Experience: The Rise and Recons­ insights to the Canadian con­ taken was not an easy one: abstraction and concretized titution of Canadian Labour, 1800- vement may have promoted or 1980 (Butterworth & Co. Ltd.. 1983). text. Canadian capitalism, much itself in a movement of real weakened an autonomous To be sure, many of them like its American counterpart, people who struggled to rid working-class culture. No t is one of the ironies of write with the Communist has set its roots on a greatly society of company bosses, doubts, Palmer has done a our time that while offi­ Manifesto in the back of their diversified geo-cultural ter­ money-hungry financiers, and great job at showing the histo­ cial statisticsannounce minds; but unlike the tradi­ rain, rendered even more so by crooked politicians. ricity of die category "working- the eclipse of the indus­ tional marxist labour historio­ the successive waves of immi­ The Twentieth century class culture" in the context of trial worker from the graphy, where the working grants — each bringing with it would not witness similar the late 19th century. But his centre-stage of economic class was often a mere theoret­ particular brands of culture periods of class confrontation, treatment of this category is at life, studies on the history ical abstraction or a sort of and mentalités. despite the periodic resurgence best uncritical. of the industrial working raw material to be shaped by a To talk, then, of working- of industrial conflict; and the class have been proliferat­ real or alleged revolutionary class culture — in the singular "movement culture" that sus­ He does not discuss how the ing at an unprecedented pace. party, the new historical pro­ — may strike one as superfi­ tained workers in their strug­ "producer's ideology" articu­ In Canada, as in many other duction sees the working class cial if not artificial. One soon gles of the 1880s and 1890s will lated by the labour movement Western countries, this irony as a historical actor capable of realizes, however, that the gradually disappear. Clearly implied also an ideology of has been rendered even more autonomous collective action. culture Palmer discusses is something must have gone the "reproducers" (i.e., painful by the massive wave of The advent of industrial capi­ one that was activated by the wrong, for the new century women) which helped sanc­ industrial restructurings, talism in Canada saw not only expropriating action of indus­ brought a major expansion of tion the place of women where which, through robotization the transformation of peasants, trial capitalism, the expropria­ the industrial working class capital wanted it most, thus and computerization of work farmers, artisans, and fisher­ tion of time, of social rela­ within Canadian society, making sexism a constant processes, represent the most men into wage-earners; it also tions, and — even worse — the and the gains made by orga­ ingredient of working-class insidious threat to industrial witnessed the resistance of this expropriation of a vision of a nized labour on the institu­ cultural behavior. workers in the history of mo­ nascent social class to the just society. tional front were considerable. dem capitalism. So, while the tyranny that the new system of Nor does Palmer seem working class is "fragmented", production imposed on peo­ This is partly why the stron­ Palmer covers eight decades equipped to explain why the "segmented", "reconverted", ple's life. The patterns of gest sections of the book are of history, up to 1980, looking most visible moments of cul­ or "diluted" (to use some of resistance may have varied in those covering the period 1850 in vain for that ingredient tural vigor in recent capitalist the most current expressions) time and place, but in each of to 1895, during which the (i.e., an autonomous working- history were activated by so­ our knowledge of its historical them, culture acted as a re­ forces of industrial capitalism class culture) that would have cial groups (youth, women, experience is becoming deeper source that workers autono­ swept Canada from coast to transformed the working class students) whose struggles had and more refined. We owe it mously shaped according to coast, engendering forms of into a unified entity; he only little to do with "productive largely to a new vintage of their needs, thus giving mean­ u m king-class resistance that finds feeble echoes of a collec­ labour" and with the ideo­ Canadian historical writing ing and symbolism to their rapidly converged into a uni­ tive memory. He is riglit in logical and valuesystems built for having managed to go vision of a just society. fied oppositional movement. pointing to the advent of mass around it. beyond trade-union history The Knights of Labor (an culture as the new, insidious Palmer feels that the revita- and having placed the wor­ Bryan Palmer is a leading organization born in Pennsyl­ force undermining working- lization of the Canadian la­ king class at the centre of representative of this ap­ vania and that rapidly spread class culture cohesion; and he bour movement can only oc­ Canadian social, economic proach. In his Working-Class with the tide of industrialism resorts to categories such as cur if this movement is capa­ and political life. Experience, he has performed throughout North America) "fragmentation" and "seg­ ble of producing a working- two majors tasks in one: he emerge in these pages as the mentation" to show some of class culture of the type the has brought together into one most authentic expression of the mechanisms capital has Knights of Labor produced The "new" Canadian labour working-class solidarity. Their unleashed to divide the wor­ historians are far from being a work of synthesis a historical during their heyday. But then production that lay scattered hegemony on die late 19th- king class and undermine its one cannot help but see in this homogeneous lot, but many of century Canadian Labour uni­ collective power. them have drawn their initial in scientific journals, mono­ stance a mystifying use of the graphs and dissertation archi­ verse was exercised not only at category "working-class cul­ inspiration from the works of the workplace, but also in But we learn little that has the English historian Edward ves. Secondly, he has skillfully not been rehashed in the pe­ ture", and the signs of a theo­ cast this diverse material into a leisure activities and in the retical impasse in the face of P. Thompson and of Ameri­ community at large. riodic public lamentations on can historians Herbert Gut- marxist/cuituralist mold, thus the decline of labour militan­ the historic transformations granting much credibility to capitalism is bringing about man and David Montgomery, It is as if for a moment the cy. In vain, for instance, one the approach he represents. around us all. • and have applied — often very marxist notion of the "collec- tries to understand how the An Italian-Canadian Anthology by Maria Redi

Italian Canadian Voices: An Antho­ of Italian-Canadian writing to The most interesting aspect sions. Ardizzi's // sapore agro della logy of Poetry and Prose (1946- be published. In 1978 Pier of the anthology, for me, is the With the exception of Du- mia terra. I also hope to see 1983) edited by Caroline M. Di Giorgio Di Cicco brought out inclusion of an early writer, liani's "Nocturne" from La collections of short stories by Giovanni. Oakville, Ont. Mosaic Roman Candles; the poetry Press, 1984 Mario Duliani. This almost- ville sans femmes, and a few CD. Minni and Caterina Ed­ sections in Italian Canadian forgotten figure was publish­ poems by Amprimoz there is wards. Voices can be seen as an up­ his is one of the most ing in French and Italian in no French work included in My over all impression of date to Di Cicco's pioneer important literary pub­ the Montreal of the 1930's and diis volume. It seems that you the book is best captured by work. lications of 1984, but '40's. The prose included by must turn to Quêtes, the col­ the words of Joseph Pivato sadly it has gone unno­ Di Giovanni is varied: short lection edited by Fulvio Cac- from the preface to Italian ticed. To quote Marco The former group of poets: stories by CD. Minni, Cateri- cia and Antonio d'Alfonso to Canadian Voices. Micone, we are still "le Mary di Michèle, Len Gaspa- na Edwards, Gianni Bartocci sample the Iialo-québécois This small selection of gens du silence." I rini, Mary Melfi, Filippo Sal- and chapters from novels: writers. Nevertheless this is a work by Canadian writers of have seen no reviews of vatore, Saro D'Agostino, To­ F.G. Pact's Black Madonna, very impressive collection, the Italian background is both an this collection and I ny Pignataro, Antonino Maz- Maria Ardizzi's Made in Italy, writing is of high quality and introduction to their writing have not been able to find it in za and Alex Amprimoz has and Edwards' The Lion's the introduction by Di Gio­ and a tribute to their creative Toronto book stores, though been expanded by the inclu­ Mouth. vanni and the bibliography by achievement. One reason for Tit has been in print since May sion of Italian-language Joseph Pivato is very useful. the success and the appeal of 1984.1 finally had to go to the poets, Romano Perticarini The thematic arrangement the work by these writers is the and Gianni Grohovaz. Work by many other writers Centro Scuola office in the is included: George Amabile, of the material and the inclu­ immediacy of the human ex­ Columbus Centre to get my perience they record, s The format is bilingual, for Matilde Torres, Celestino sion of notes make this vo­ copy (901 Lawrence Ave., W., all the Italian work excellent Deluliis and Antonio D'AI- lume suitable as a textbook for In many cases it is the'im- M6A IC3). I hope that readers English versions are provided. fonso, but one would have literature courses, Canadian migrant experience in Canada in Montreal, Vancouver and New poems as well as old ones Literature, Ethnic Studies, or that is striking and that is Edmonton are able to get co­ i liked more writers to be ad­ are printed and so we get some Italian-Canadian Studies. accessible not only to Italian- pies of Italian Canadian ded: Marco Fraticelli, Anto­ idea of Di Cicco's poetic deve­ Canadians but to people from Voices. nio Corea, Frank Zingrone, After Italian Canadian lopment from "Italy, 1974," toi Mike Zizis, Silvano Zamaro, Voices I l

Drawing by Marie-Louise Gay by David Homel

n the summer of 1963, an same in Quebec). There were English has been the domina­ country for 300 or 400 years, so guage, a denunciation.» Joual angry, depressed young campagnes de bien parler ting language and, up until black, southern U.S., rural, is language against itself. In man named Jacques Re­ (good grammar campaigns) recently, the language of domi­ immigrant and Atlantic dia­ that contradiction is contained naud checked into a fur­ and the slogan bien parler, nation. Nowhere is this clearer lects are out of the question. the paradox of joual and, nished room on (he rue c'est se respecter (speaking than in joual, in a sense the So are any other ones you can indeed, that of other similar Cherrier in Montreal, and well is a sign of self-respect) linguistic nerve centre of Que­ name. I ended up opting for a dialects, like el pocho, spoken after three days of writing was concocted. So with the bec society, English invades generalized, big-city, working- along the Mexican-American at white heat, produced a rise of leftist nationalist sen­ French, not the other way class, northern, white dialect, border. (Pocho, interestingly short novel entitled Le timents in the late 1950s and around. The fact that we speak­ the speech of people who have enough, means «faded» in cassé — Broke City, in the 1960s, it was no surprise that ers of Engl ish say tête-à-tête or a lot of emotions to express Mexican, as if speakers of this English version that appeared certain writers would want to crêpes suzelte or, on an etymo­ and no words to express them English-flavoured dialect have I20 years later. There isn't much celebrate joual as a literary logical level, «government,» is in, whose frustrations predic­ somehow lost their original to the Broke City plot: a young language by dint of creating nothing compared to the den- tably lead to anti-social ex­ colour). How much can any­ lumpen named Johnny tries works in it. sity of foreign influence pressions. As I was preparing one say using the language of to hold onto his equally in joual. Speakers of joual will to work on Broke City, out of people who have traditionally down-and-out girlfriend First, a few words aboul say II a pogné un flatte or Elle the past came the recollection had nothing to say, who have Mena, loses her to a rival (so l'a pitché dehors or // est sur le of a grade school teacher who been too far down the social he thinks), kills the rival and joual. It is a simple recipe. Take standard Quebec French, chômage, il bomme, not be­ chastized us with these words ladder and too weighted with continues his wanderings cause French words for these when we used «ain't» or some frustrations to even make through a Montreal that is increase the dipthongization, make the grammar remark­ English terms don't exist, but oilier equally guilty ungram- works of art? How much el­ truly cassé. What was out­ because these English words iii.itic ,i I expression: «If you bow room does the writer have standing about the book, be­ ably flexible and add a healthy doseol Anglic isms — or better, better betray the domination, can't speak well, you shouldn't when he or she decides to sides its out-and-out violence both economic and linguistic, speak at all.» It is to her that I inhabit totally the universe of and nihilism, was the langu­ Americanisms. It's this latter addition that gives joual its under which these people live. should have dedicated this joual} Is it even fair to use the age in which it was written. And, in passing, it is no acci­ translation language of a gToup of people Renaud chose to write in joual, spo ial savour and creates mo­ numental problems for those dent that most Anglicisms for whom this very language is the working-class French dia­ refer to actions of violence or Along the way I discarded a sign of humiliation and lect of East End Montreal, and brave and foolish souls who the other possibility of crea­ try to put a jouali/.ing work desparation. poverty and isolation? Renaud in so doing, along with writers ting a new English dialect that himself became aware of this like André Major and Claude into English. For not only What does the translator do would have been the geogra­ does joual accept English problem in the years that fol­ Jasmin, he helped launch the when he or she decides to put a phical and social equivalent lowed. But like all good para­ joual movement that was to words into its lexicon, it also joual book into English? The of joual. I could have gone distons them once they are doxes, there is no clear solu­ pave the way for Michel first thing to realize is that the down to the taverns along tion to these questions. It Tremblay and a whole new inside, in a kind of sabotage act is impossible. English Wellington Street in Point St. action against a linguistic oc­ probably is true that once the literary identity for Quebec. influences and alters French Charles and Verdun on a Satur­ liberating effect of joual was Finally, it seemed, Quebec was cupying force. Pushing in in North America, not the day night, kept my mouth joual is not «pushing» in felt, once this language, so to have its own distinct litera­ other way around. Domination shut and my ears open and typically québécois in its con­ ry language. (Joual, by the English; stépines (step-ins) is always a one-way street. built a dialect around what becomes the word for «pant­ tradictions, was celebrated way, is joual pronunciation There is no adequate transla­ English-speaking people, the and moved closer to the main­ for the French word cheval, ies»; such strange and won­ tion for the domination and equivalents of Renaud's Ti- derful cases abound. stream, it became less impera­ meaning «horse.») This move­ linguistic and economic po­ Jean in the East End, would tive to write in it. Michel ment set off a debate on whe­ verty lurking in the simple say. I suspect that, had I done But this linguistic sabotage, Tremblay's use of joual in the ther dialect can be a literary sentence // s'est assis sur le this piece of research, the though amusing for collectors 1980s is anything but shocking language. And, in the Cana­ tchesteurfilde. Of course, trans­ language of Broke City would of odd morphemes, is not the and revolutionary and, Jac­ dian context, translators had lating jouai may be only not have been very different heart of the Anglicism pro­ ques Renaud has since aban­ to face the problem of how to slightly more impossible than than what it is now. But I blem in joual. Take a simple doned that extremist language put that language into translating any other work of rejected this option precisely Renaud sentence: II s'est assis for something more medita­ English. literature, and with that ra­ because it was research, a sur le tchesteurfilde. He sat on tive, which is not necessarily a tionale firmly in mind, I de­ concocted language, and I the sofa. Yet this straight- progression in the moral or cided to take a stab, so to wanted to get as close as possi­ foward (and perfectly correct) aesthetic sense, but more like speak, at Renaud's Le cassé ble to the white-heat condi­ English rendering does not and an inevitability. This seems to With the energies develop­ (Broke City, Guernica Edi­ tions under which Jacques cannot render the socio-lin- be the lesson of recent Quebec ing during the unquiet era of tions, Montreal, 1984). Like Renaud wrote the work. But guistic complex present in this literary history: joual was the the Quiet Revolution, it was the southern U.S. writer Bob whatever way a translator short sentence. Why Renaud manifestation of a key histori­ inevitable that joual would Houston has said, we don't chooses, il s'est assis sur le saying tchesteurfilde instead cal moment for Quebec wri­ burst upon the scene as a write dialect, we represent it, tchesteurfilde is still «he sat of the standard French divan} ting, but at present, one would literary language, if only be­ and like the writer, the trans­ down on the sofa»; there's not And what does it mean when turn no heads by writing in it. cause of the censorship it had lator has to make a choice of much more that can be done to he does? What is the difference It has truly become a literary always been subjected to. Joual dialects to stand for joual, capture thedomination and of meaning between these two language. Is this the banaliza- had always been considered an and unfortunately, none despair in that simple phrase. terms that both refer to some­ tion or the apotheosis of joual} inferior dialect, a sub-lan­ of the préexistent choices seems thing you sit on? And what do Probably neither. It is more guage, a stigmata of a people to work. The main character In 1967, Renaud said of the we do with this state of affairs like a society accepting itself going nowhere, and it was named Johnny in Broke City language he used, « Joual is when we want to translate into and making literature out of attacked by religious and civil is a northern white and his the language of both submis­ English? its own speech. • authorities (who were more ancestors have been in the sion and revolt, of anger and often than not one and the In Quebec, since the 1760s, impotence. It's a non-lan­ D.A.F. : A German Minimalist Duo and its Weltanschauung

by Christian Roy

unique and fascina­ Unsere Farben sind so grell. ting musical experi­ Links den roten Blitz. ment has come to an Rechts den schwarzen Stern. end last winter with Unsere Schreie sind so laut. the disbanding of the Unser Tanz ist so wild. electron ic "hardcore" Ein neuer bOser Tanz. group D.A.F., a duo Allé gegen aile. Aile gegen aile... that consisted of Ba­ varian Robert Gbrl Our gear is so black. and Spaniard Gabi Delgado Our boots are so beautiful. Lopez. D.A.F. stands for Our colours are so glaring. ADeutsch-Atnerikanische On our left the red lightning. Freundschajt, "German-Ame­ On our right the black star. rican Friendship*'. The biting Our shouts are so loud. irony of this provocative name Our dance is so wild. shows the spirit of anti-Ame­ A new evil dance. ricanism in which the group Everyone against everyone... was founded in DUsseldorf in There is little irony to find the late seventies. This basic here. The hellish, relentless orientation was made plain on rythm of the music forbids it the group's first album, anyway. It is the very principle Nr. 00001 — Ein Produkt der of the Judeo-Christian, social Deulsch-Anterikanischen Good that is trampled by these Freundschajt (Warning Re­ fake SS-men slam-dancing in cords, 1979). where nightma­ the dark. They seem to be rish industrial noise is simula­ acting out the teachings of the ted with traditional rock ins- most rigorous theorist of Anar­ (i uments; on the cover, one chism, MaxStimer. theauthoT can see the Prussian eagle of of Der Einzige und sein Eigen- the coal of arms of Germany tum ("The Ego and his c i in if ied in a frame with tacks, Own"), who a century and a its head replaced by the crown half ago proclaimed: "The of i he statue of Liberty, and people is ded, longlive Me!" the letters D.A.F. inscribed on — And down with the moral its chest... constructs that would smother Me by denying that everything In 1980. Gabi Delgado is good, as D.A.F. in turn brought his distinctive stento­ professes: rian vocals to a by then clearly punk-sounding D.A.F. for the Sei still. Schliesse deine Augen. group's second LP, Die Klei- Bitte denk an nichts. Glaube mir. nen und die Bosen ("The Weimar Republic. Er leckt sich seine Wunden. gado on vexais. "Der Musso­ Ailes ist gut. Ailes ist gut... Little and the Wicked", Mute Under the Bonn Republic Und der Luxus ist im Westen. lini" is a good example of this Records). His lyrics added to ( yet another creature of the Doch der Osten wahrt am langsten. aesthetics they began to deve­ Be quiet. Close your eyes. D.A.F.'s basic anti-industrial bourgeois West), this tradition Der Osten wahrt am langsten. lop on their first "classic Please think of nothing. Believe me. slant a particular concern for is best preserved not, as one Der Osten ist am besten. album. Ailes ist gut (Virgin Everything is good, (bis...) the eroticism lost in the crip­ might think, in the terrorism Der Westen ist am besten. Records, 1981): And yet, iast summer Gabi pling of sex by the imperatives of groupuscules of puritanical Geh in die Knie. Delgado Lope/, warned a re­ of production, that would middle-class youths more or The East will prevail. Wackle mit den Huften. porter from Impulse that "the eventually inspire about half less sold out to Moscow, nor And the East is better off. Klatsch in die Hânde. things that I express opinions of D.A.F.'ssongs. Dominating even in the mawkish histrio­ And the West is better off. Und tanz den Mussolini. about don't belong to a school the group's entire output how­ nics of ecologists à la Rous­ Luxury is in the West. Dreh dich nach rechts. of thought." Indeed, there are ever is the repudiation of the seau, but rather in the immo- The West is satisfied. Tanz den Adolf Hitler. such hidden commonplaces as official ideal of " Lebensstan- ralism of D.A.F. (as well, It licks its wounds. Beweg deinen Hintern. appear to the lucid people of dardssteigerung — schnelle doubtless, as the amoralism of And luxury is in the West. Dreh dich nach links. all times, places, and condi­ Produktion fiir die schnelle Kraftwerk). This immoralism But the East will prevail. Und tanz den Jesus Christus. tions. Republik " ("Increaseof living dismisses the values of the Tanz den Kommunismus... standard — fast production The East will prevail. Beyond Good and Evil Soviet East along with those of The East is better off. for the fast Republic") de­ the American West, alien (and Thus Shakespeare was The West is better off. nounced in the overpowering alienating) as they all are to Bend your knee. saying precisely the same thing Ailes ist gut song "Nachl Arbeit" ("Work the teutonic Mittel-Europa. Waggle with your hips. as D.A.F. in "Ailes ist gut" One can already detect here by night"). D.A.F. is thus the This is signified from the Clap your hands. when he put this reflexion in heir to the great German tradi­ outset on the ironic mode a wicked enjoyment taken in Dance the Mussolini. Hamlet's mouth (11,2): "(...) tion of protest against bour­ '.illicit with music disturbing­ the spectacle of the antago­ Turn to your right. for there is nothing either geois industrial values that ly evoking a gradual escala­ nism of ideologies that are Dance the Adolf Hitler. good or bad, but thinking goes back to the Romantics tion of tension) in the first theoretically opposed but prac­ Shake your buttocks. makes it so: (...)". Neverthe­ and has been represented in song of Die KUinen und die tically interchangeable. This Turn to your left. less, D.A.F. does follow a line our century by the gangs of Bbsen: aesthetic; sol the overcoming And dance the Jesus Christ. of thinking described by Gabi young Wandervôgel ("migra­ ol opposites was to char» te- Dance the Communism... as "the most important deve­ lopment in terms of what's tory birds") who fled the < ities Der Osten wâhrt am langsten. ii/r the m,iiuif output of I lie theme of "Aile gegen happening here" | m Germa­ of Wilhelmian Germain loi ,i (bis.) D.A.K.. once the group had allé" is similar, but throws ny): " people sa\ in g ' no' to nomailic life in 'lie wild. ,uu! Und der Osten 1st am besten. shed most of its members, light on the positive content ol some ol lilt- ellcc Is ol lull MM Und der Weslen isl am besten. lioilmg down to ils veteran this metamoral dialet iî< s: the free-corps °>l demobilized Der Luxus ist im Westen. Robert Gtti I on pin ussion Unsere Kleidung ist so schwarz. tndusti ialization. lis not a soldiers who subverted the Der Westen ist zufrieden .nid synthesizei and Gabi Del­ Unsere Stiefel sind so schOn. hippie tiling; it's more like what we call 'tine neue Inner- Sweat my children. lichkeil', which means the Bum your hands. people are self-aware and re­ Fight (or the sun. ject thinking in terms of pola­ Sato-sato. rities of good and evil. They Thus was introduced to a do what they must do. " To probable following of mere become what one is in the full protesters a Promethean asce­ awareness of one's self beyond ticism of insurrection (to pa­ good and evil: this "new sub­ raphrase Camus on Stirner) jectivity" is clearly reminisi mi ending up in a dereliction that of Nietzsche, whose indivi­ had for all that been at its dualist ( on< i'i us finds a revea­ origin, illustrated as it was in ling echo in Gabi's embar­ the lnsi song <>l ill-- liist song rassment about the lad that of the strictly "existential" some of his songs have bei ome side of Ailes ist gut, "lilt und anthems for young German die Wirklit hkeit", which sums demonstrators: "I've never up the whole trauma ol mo­ liked a hundred thousand dernity as post-Tradition and people singing the same words, radii al ontological uprooting: whether it be Communists, 01 Ich... und ich .im wirklichen... Nazis, or a youth movement. 1 Leben. don'l like it when the identit) of the individual is reduced in Ich... und ich... in der... Wirk-lich- the mass. I am suspicious of keit. l>eople singing the same words. Ich fuhle mich so seltsam. (bis I don't like ideologies." But: bis...) "I just don't think in terms Die Wirklichkeit kommt. (bis, bis...) of'enemies' 01 'friends", whi< li allows Gabi to use fas­ Me... and me... in real life. cist imagery in his exaltation Me... and me... in re-a-li-ty. of the individual, to recupe­ I feel so strange, (bis...) rate totalitarian energies to Reality is coming (bis...) make them serve what they The next song however, on usually annihilate: the Ego, music quickened by the ener­ who comes out on top of this gy of despair and even more synthesis of Anarchy and Fas­ (I ist tubing than the breathless, cism, illustrated on black al­ oppressive mood of Ich und bum covers where Gabi Del- die Wirklichkeit, points to a gado and Robert Gorl strike possible way out of this pro­ arrogant poses... blematic reality whose ap­ proach is so threatening: "Als Me and Reality war's das letzte Mai" ("As if it This is particularly appa­ was the last lime") depicts rent on the cover of the group's exacerbated eroticism as a next album. Gold und Liebe fortress ol human dignity as­ ("Gold and Love", 1981), sailed by industrial civiliza­ where Gorl and Gabi sport tion. One is led here to a black leather gear without thought that evokes that of the sleeves, revealing musclesof Eternal Return: "To desire which they are obviously quite the eternity of desire is to give proud. A number of songs on back to desire its power of the "dark side" of the record affirmation beyond all concu­ are indeed glorifications of piscence and all negativity", physical force: "Muskel" as Claude Lévesque says in an ("Muscles"). "Absolute Kor- essay on Nietzsche, Le puits perkontrolle" ("Absolute bo­ d'éternité. dy control"; no vocals, just electric pulsations evoking Forever... those of nerves), and the awe­ D.A.F.'s last album, ironi­ somely powerful "Verschwen- cally entitled Fiir immer ("For­ de deine Jugend" ("Waste ever", 1982), starts out in die your youth"), an admonition same erotic vein with "Im with distinct Stirnerian and Dschungel der Liebe" ("In Nietzschean overtones: "Take the jungle of Love"), and taps all you want as long as you again the old "fascistoid" one can. Do what you will. You in the next two songs ("Ein are good-looking! and young! bisschen Krieg", "A little Thus New Wave as existential style appears as a new and strong! Waste your youth war"; " Die Gb'tter sind weiss", as longas you're young. " And "The Gods are white" ), before dandyism, still egocentric and saturated with what then? This problem had veering into the new joyful been foreseen on Ailes ist gut irony of such songs as " Wer sentimentality, or even an openly girlish sensibility like and had been given a Futurist- chôn sein will, muss leiden" sounding solution in the song ("One must suffer in order to that of a Boy George... to mention but the best known of "Verlier nicht den Kopf" be beautiful", "because suffe­ countless instances of sexual ambiguity among the idols ("Don't lose your head"): ring... is beautiful !" ), in sharp " Never go back. Never look contrast with the bitter irony of youth... back. Look only ahead. You of Die Kleinen und die Bbsen, are so young (and strong, and and even the cynicism of the good-looking). (...) Don't lose mature albums. This innocent your head." But this is an air pervades the three love impossible challenge, despite songs of Fur immer, and the words to Prinzessin even use one thinks that the first song the decadent intelligentsia of his spiritual ancestors he possible (im)moral applica­ of the "dark side" of Gold und the late XlXth century and the knows that there is nothing to tions of these words; hence the straightforward fairy tale imagery, not twisting it as in Liebe was called "Ich will": expiring aristocratic cycle, but hope for. (What indeed is note ol frantic despair that when one remembers the ca­ at the lower social and cultu­ there to hope for from a prole­ makes "Verschwende deine the earlier "Der R'duber und der Print" ("The Robber and mel-like moralism of Nr. 00001 ral level ol that which defines tarian cycle, a mass-man's Jugend" so disturbing. The and Die Kleinen und die Bo. today's Zeitgeist. Thus new paradise which probably could abortive attempt at conqua ing the Prince", in which the I.IIUI is seduced by the for­ sen; and when one realizes that wave as existential style ap­ not even end with an interes­ mer...): "I am the pirate, .nul the leonine immoralism of pears as a new dandyism, still ting twilight, unlike former time evoked in this song is you the princess. I want to Ailes ist gut and Gold und egocentric and saturated with cycles?) therefore followed by an as­ abdud you. and seduce you, Liebe recedes before the "hoi) sentimentality, or even an Sai ling clear of both elegant sault against spat e, "(.nil oh princess. I am the conque­ Yea-saying" ol Fill immer openly girlish sensibilitx like complacency and dreary nihi- nach den Sternen "(" Rea< h ror, the hero, the general. 1 kill —the child-like innocence of that of a Boy George, to men­ 11MU. D.A.F.. like Nietzsche, lui the st.ns"; "The whole dragons, just for you, oh Becoming restored after I lu­ tion but the best known ol has distilled the fin de siècle Earth and all the stars are pi iii< ess...» lu aw thought of the otherness countless instances of sexual Zeitgeist's purest essence, a yours..." |, that was prefigured of reality: "Ich und die Wir- ambiguity among the idols ol terrific tonic that makes us in the very firsi song of Allés klichkeit". youth since the first manifes­ confront the times and fill their But as Niet/sc he writes: tai ions of éonism of the fore- ist gut. "Sato-s.ito": "Who is the great dragon The Nietzschean role that va< iiiini with the freed Ego, runnei David Bowie. Along­ M hose imperialism is even­ whom the spirit can no longei D.A.F. has played in this late side this nonetheless not al­ Habt keine Angst. call mas let and god? This XXih century when the bour­ tually superseded by another Habt keine Angst meine Kinder. ways tasteless revival of fin de impulse affirming its limits. great dragon is called " You geois cycle of world history is siècle decadence, the punker Schwitzt meine Kinder. should". But the spirit ol the coming to an end should also their necessity, even Necessity Verbrennt euch die Hande. reiterate with the energy of itself — amor fati: "Denn lion says "I will". I 1ms spake be* ome apparent when one despair the revolt of the anar­ Kâmpft um die Sonne. Zoroastei ol the three meta­ thinks that today's popular Leiden... ist schbn!" "Und Sato-sato. Sato-sato. chists of the last century, but ailes ist gut." ("For pain... is morphoses, and that the spirit music, in its more articulate slam-dances instead of thro­ ol D.A.F. has gone through forms, expresses a Zeitgeist beautiful! "And everything Have no fear. wing bombs, because unlike is good. ")0 Have no fear my children. them becomes apparent when parallel to that developed by otittomi..owz(xfte.. !!/ G-UAKP/ÀMO SfMPKE AU'OWzZOA/fE''

M-TERRA tout A'I /vlta'-piEDL

g TUTfi fUtri GUARVMO SfiMPRf AUSORlZZQArtE*!

(c) COPYRIGHT 1965 VITTORIO