Bananas

Myself being of Filipino descent, but being born and raised in Canada, I found Jocelyn Chan's article over at CBC Radio 3(with photos by Kemp Attwood) where she explores her own issues of being a Chinese-Canadian, banana, jook-sing, what-have-you, really quite(and unfortunately) relevant to my own experience of growing up as a Filipino-Canadian. The emotions stirred by Ms. Chan's article, reminds me of the film "The Debut" which explores the issue of being Filipino and growing up in the United States. In that film, the character who plays the family's son is quite entrenched in the American lifestyle, his friends are caucasian, and he doesn't speak Tagalog, while his sister in the movie(who's in preparation for her debut) is quite the opposite of her brother, as her friends are all Filipino. [My own experience has actually been somewhere in the middle, but I don't speak Tagalog.] There are various aspects of cultural identity and relationships explored in the film but in the end has quite an optimistic outlook. If I can take comfort in anything from Ms. Chan's article, it's that I'm not alone in those feelings. Maybe we can start a support group? Ok, I was just joking about that last part.;-) Ms. Chan's article ends on an open-ended note as she ponders whether her disconnection from her Chinese heritage is part of her cultural identity; whether she'll always be separated from "Chinese" with that hypen[attached to Canadian]. My question is, is being a(an) [insert you own ethnic heritage]-Canadian such a bad thing?

From Portishead's official site:

We are playing live for the first time in 7 years as part of a fund raising concert for the Tsunami Crisis in Asia at the Bristol Academy on February 19th - we'll also be sharing a stage
with Massive Attack for the first time. And more artists will be added to the bill very soon.

We'll each play a short set, around 20 minutes and we'll be performing songs you know - very
nearly unplugged. As so many of you are based outside of the UK the whole event can be viewed
as a live web-cast and we'll be posting more details of this here so keep checking the site.

Go here for details about the benefit show.

Also, just before Christmas, Portishead announced plans to finish recording of their new album by the end of 2005.

chartattack reports on the 'reunion' of Wooden Stars.

Just a reminder for anyone in Toronto, but Sam The Record Man on Yonge St. is having a 99 cent sale on a selection of CD's. Ok so alot of it is garbage, but you'll find some interesting finds buried there such as The Soup Dragon's "Hang Ten" , The Hope Blister's "...smile's ok", and Six By Seven's "The Things We Make". Worth a look.