Juno News - Reclaiming our culture

00:00:00.000 I've gone out for two activities, two experiences in society, that I haven't done for over a year

00:00:12.040 and a half. I went to an art gallery to see the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario,

00:00:17.740 and I went to the movies to see a new theatrical release. And I gotta tell you, it felt really good

00:00:23.820 to do them. Not just in terms of getting out of the house and doing something that I love to do,

00:00:28.720 that I've loved to do for many years, and unfortunately haven't done for a year and a half.

00:00:33.060 Not just because it was enjoyable to see that art exhibit, been looking forward to it, to see the

00:00:38.600 movie and so forth, but it felt good to have a communal arts and culture experience. To be with

00:00:45.480 people. No, I didn't know them, I didn't chat with them and so forth. You're pretty distanced at the

00:00:50.300 movie theater. When I was at the Art Gallery, of course, you're just sort of flowing through the

00:00:53.900 exhibit. There's people in front of you, there's people behind you. But there's something about

00:00:57.980 the communal experience, that's, well, that's why we do them in the first place. That's why these

00:01:02.340 things have existed for as long as they have. Even though, yes, you could just look at stuff on your

00:01:06.660 phone or on your computer, we still choose to go and have those arts and culture experience that have

00:01:12.880 been lost for a year and a half. Yes, go into the movies, go into the Art Gallery, go into the live

00:01:18.000 theater, so many other live performing arts events, concerts, even just the street festivals,

00:01:22.560 the cultural festivals that have been put on pause for a year and a half, all throughout Canada,

00:01:27.920 all throughout many parts of the world. How do you quantify that, the meaning of that? Well,

00:01:32.780 you can't, at least not as easily as you can quantify the cost of small business closures.

00:01:37.740 People, of course, put their life savings into a business because of lockdowns. Tragically,

00:01:41.260 the business falls apart. Awful stuff happening there. You can definitely quantify all of that,

00:01:45.780 but we don't talk much about what it means that we've put our broader culture on hold and the

00:01:51.940 sharing of that cultural experience. The Toronto Blue Jays back doing their games in the Skydome.

00:01:58.120 They were playing elsewhere. Now they're back in Toronto. I have a friend who's a big Blue Jays

00:02:02.140 fan, loves baseball. I love it too. I love watching the Blue Jays and we were texting while the game

00:02:05.700 was on and he just said, it's so good to see them there where they belong, right there in the Skydome.

00:02:12.060 And I know, you know, he wasn't actually in person. He didn't have tickets for it,

00:02:15.960 but even just to know they were there and to watch the game on TV and to know they're where

00:02:20.060 they're supposed to be for that collective Toronto baseball fan experience. I mean, it's right.

00:02:26.780 It's how it should be. And when you take that stuff away, as we did, I mean, it does sort of,

00:02:32.440 sort of eat away at your various municipal cultural values in terms of Torontonians rooting for

00:02:38.700 the home team, rooting for the Maple Leafs, for the Blue Jays, for the Raptors and so forth.

00:02:43.460 The art galleries, of course, what that all means. I mean, there are people out there who their great

00:02:47.060 passion in life is going to the symphony, for instance. And of course, that's been put on hold

00:02:50.980 and that's been taken away from them and all those people who make up that ecosystem. So let's not,

00:02:56.880 let's not underestimate, understate what it meant to have those things on pause. And let's also not

00:03:02.660 understate what it means for the fact that they are back and they are so important for us as a society,

00:03:07.760 so important for our communities.

Juno News - August 08, 2021