Next Workshop....In tandem with the Salish conference

[Jeffrey Kopp]

On Sat, 30 Jan 1999 12:19:18 -0800, you wrote:
>Doesn't have to be Kamloops itself, by the way; within half an
>hour/hour/hour and a half from there there's any number of small hospitable
>communities that would be excellent locations for the Workshop - Savona,
>Chase (Squilax), Salmon Arm, Falkland, Westwold, Merritt (where IIRC the
>Douglas Lake Ranch still uses Jargon in its "working language"), Cache
>Creek-Ashcroft, Lillooet.......each is a bit different/ some with more
>amenities than others (Salmon Arm being the most "urban" other than
>Kamloops itself, with Merritt right after).......

Salmon Arm!  I love it!  Just as visually incongruous a name as
"Medicine Hand."

So, tell us more about the Douglas Lake Ranch.  (I got 187 hits back
from Alta Vista on it, but it's probably be easier to mooch the info
than wade through them.)

>  Cigarettes in flat
>>boxes that slide open,

>National Lampoon's "Canadian Corner" once-upon-a-time described them as
>"cigarettes that taste like forest fires".  They had quite a funny little
>piece about New York's Canadian ghetto and all the people wearing red/black
>plaid mackinacs (pron. "makinaws") and the stench of vinegar from the sides
>of french fries......(nearly all the staff of the NatLamp in those days
>were Canucks; the editors still are).

Oh, yes, I remember that issue, "The Shame of the North"--about the glut
of needlepoint parlors on Skid Road and sneezy bums always cadging
Kleenex from the unwary.  About 1978, I believe.  Back in the "good
years" for the Lampoon, when it was truly Mad Magazine for the literate
and the erudite.

The Canadians do have an interesting humor (or should I say humour),
keenly aware of social quirks and the goofiness of propriety.  A CBC
series called "The Kids in the Hall" was repeated here on a cable
channel for a while.  It's warmer, more realistic and psychologically
illuminating than the English stripe of this humor (such as the farcical
Monty Python).  The only similar sort of keen observation I can recall
finding in an American production (since Ernie Kovacs, anyway) is the
sophisticated veiled subtext and sotto voce wisecracks often seen in the
better episodes of "The Simpsons."

>Flashing amber?  Well, flashing green means that the cross street has a
>flashing red (if anything), which is the same as a stop sign, and that it
>probably has a pedestrian button-signal.  

Yes, flashing green, my mistake.  They should do that here; a number of
pedestrian signals in our fair city display steady green (implying
unequivocal right-of-way) despite the cross-traffic being "controlled"
only by a stop sign.

Well, I've wandered too far off the Jargon for the list, I suppose.

Regards,

Jeff