These are a few American things

Last weekend I went to see Inherit the Wind, which I had always thought was a quintessential part of every American education.  After all, I saw it myself in 7th or 8th grade, and I lived in (very recently) China.  Alas, neither of the Americans that I told about going had seen the film, and none of the people I was going with (one Canadian, one English) had either, so I think I was the only one who knew the whole story.  Kevin Spacey played the lawyer for the defendant brilliantly.  Yes, Kevin Spacey.  He’s the artistic director at the Old Vic Theatre, where he normally stays behind the scenes while bringing classic 20th century theater, often American, back to the stage.  The rest of the characters were all fantastic, and I only had reason to suspect that any of them were faking American accents on a few occasions.  My favorite character was the reporter from Baltimore, who had the characteristic film and theater accent for reporters in the early 20th century, which I have never heard spoken naturally.  I wonder if television producers made it up, or if it was in fact just the way people altered their voices to speak on the radio (as anyone who has been involved with radio knows many speakers still do).  Overall a great production, and I actually felt the desire to give a standing ovation, though I am often the one person in a crowded orchestra section who is still sitting, because I believe that our highest form of performance praise should be reserved for the highest quality of performance.  Interestingly, in this case, I was the only person standing until the second curtain call for the two leads, at which point about 1/3 of the audience stood.  Very strange.  I figure that either people are more inspired by musicals (my normal fare) or that there is something about the production that touches the American psyche, in the same way that images of Mao do not affect westerns as they do the Chinese.  That or it just made me feel happy to hear so many American accents :). 

That wasn’t the only American adventure this week.  I’ve also done a bit of grocery hunting for my housemate’s Canadian Thanksgiving party (we’re having both – a bit of competition!) and discovered that, horribly, canned pumpkin is not in stock anywhere (“coming soon,” they said, if they were a specialty store, “what?” they said otherwise), and worse, that many Canadians have never have had pumpkin pie.  To have lived and not had pumpkin pie… is it to have lived at all?  In an equally disturbing trend, it seems that chocolate chips are not quite so ubiquitous as they are in America.  Of all the things I thought would be hard to find, chocolate chips were not on the list.  It turns out that if a grocery store (fortunately not specialty store) has them, they come in a container about the size of a spice jar, with enough chocolate chips for 2 cookies.  I guess people don’t make cookies very much!  I may try to make some of my favorite recipe, if I can find the ingredients, but given my difficulty making pancakes (I had to try three times with English ingredients before getting them about right) it could be a disaster.