(I’ve discovered a new funny author…)
“He worked as a jazz musician, living off the avails of his art, which was the annual salary equivalent of two Smarties and a piece of string.” p4
“…he understood certain expatriate secrets, such as where Alberta was and how it felt to be treated like a doofus in Manhattan for being Canadian, as if we were a nation of cheerful, unimportant people with Down’s syndrome.” p5
Yes! That’s it exactly! That explains Americans’ puzzlement at our outrage at Trump’s off-hand comment about becoming the 51st state. How fucking insulting their view, their puzzlement. I recall protesting to my American landlord when I rented a place in South Carolina for the winter that ‘I’m actually quite intelligent’ thinking at the time it was necessary because he was underestimating me because of my sex, but I understand now, this doofus-with-Down’s-syndrome was also in play. (And he was a lawyer. That is, part of the American intelligentsia. Asking me then where exactly Ontario was in relation to Toronto.)
“why pregnancy books all refer to women’s stomachs as ‘tummies’, as if being pregnant regressed you to the age of five.” p103
Another yes! That’s it exactly!
“who thought the song ‘Smoke on the water, fire in the sky’ actually went ‘Slow-talkin’ Walter, fire engine guy’ …” p104
Well, it could’ve. I mean, really, it’s not far from “I rode through the desert on a horse with no name” or “Someone left the cake out in the rain.”
