The Canadian Fame System and You

by Jillian Leigh, Ampersandology



Do you know one thing that is utterly charming? One thing that I can bank on in this increasingly bankrupt, white-noise racket of a modern din that I love and loathe in the same breath? 


Here is a spoiler: it is the fact that you may one day befriend a Canadian Famous Person.*

Yes. This picture of Margaret Atwood and George Stromboulopoulis just shootin' the breeze and posing for this extremely sassy photo op proves the abstract concept of 'vindication.' Seeing Canadian celebrities hanging out isn’t as bizarre as its American counterpart: that is, the moment when you learn of a bizarre celebrity connection and must face the truth that that yes Virginia,  Hollywood stars do, in fact, befriend each other. That is weird! I assumed that Hollywood celebrities could only function contained within some kind of immaculate vacuum in which only their own individual fame exists, disabled only on location, Vanity Fair Oscar parties and the set of the Oprah Winfrey Show. How else can they live?!? It is a surreal high school experience that will never end: an ouroboros of ego.


But in Canada, there's none of that. I just assume that everyone who is famous in Canada meets annually at a secret convention just to compliment each other on doing a bang-up job managing the delicate balance of being both Canadian AND famous. Heck, who knows: maybe one day you -- YES, YOU!-- may one day BECOME a Canadian famous person. And really, why not? There's something so attainable about the prospect of chilling with our Canadian glitterati that, in my opinion, makes us a much cooler and accessible culture. 


In related news, God bless Margaret for being adorable in her spare time. Full time, of course, she's busy blowing my fragile mind and making me jealous of all the words she put together to make babies before I had a chance to put those words together to make babies. It's one of those vicious cycles I keep alluding to that people think are just jokes but in fact are CRIES FOR HELP. 


Photo courtesy of the Margaret Atwood blog. Sidenote: 70 years old and she's got a blog. Stop being incorrigible, you endearing septuagenarian  moppet!  It makes it difficult to concentrate on my very important-type work stuff. 




*Unless they are, in fact, deceased. In which case, don't be morbid. 

100.

Worship is a devil of a thing to explain, especially when it comes to culture.

I’m sure we’ve all got our little secret cultural love affairs, tucked away in quirks that require an hour’s backstory to untangle. Yeah, those memories that latch onto an ingredient with the singular focus of fetish, making that the signifier of a whole slew of emotions. Mickey Mouse comes to represent trips to Disneyland when parents were still together; Hunter S. Thompson was a like-minded strangeness in an adolescence made of the same; a childhood sled is implanted the smudged memories of a simple life made exceptional. It’s not logic, or rationale: it’s worship.

Mine is directed towards the usual suspects: blue-eyed wonders, the abstract concept of film, European scooters. It’s not hard to figure out where most of them are rooted: it’s all a tangle of mythology, mystery and modness.

But there’s one that no matter how hard I try, won’t leave me alone: my idolatry of Margaret Atwood. And try as I might, I can’t explain it. I’ve tried and failed many times. Her words just burrow deeper inside me than my self-awareness can reach.

I tried badly not to advertise it, especially when I was growing up and felt acutely that a healthy appreciation of her work was something that they mailed to you along with your Canadian passport: it felt almost cliché to have so much of myself wrapped in someone who had become a nation-wide institution before I’d even been born. I even tried to deny it, but all it would take was a handful of her sentences to turn me into the kneeling supplicant at the Altar of Atwood.

You see, she says things like this:

“The childhoods of writers are thought to have something to do with their vocation, but when you look at these childhoods they are in fact very different. What they often contain, however, are books and solitude, and my own childhood was right on track.”

And fleetingly, my own childhood, my own strangeness, is printed on a page somewhere. And it doesn’t feel stolen; it’s a reflection. It's a secret message. It's a well-timed encouragement. And it’s what drives me to own every book, read every phrase, consider every salient or nonsensical point she makes with an affectionate patience that’s usually only granted to lovers.

It’s worship. It doesn’t have rules. What’s yours?

Sidenote: I’ve just noticed that this marks my 100^th post on Ampersandology. Happy postday to me? And thanks to all my readers so far: I dig hearing from you and knowing you're out there.