Thanksgiving for gifts that are ours for all time
Iwas surprised to learn it wasn’t until 1957 that the second Monday in October was officially and permanently proclaimed “a day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed.”
Before that, the date for Thanksgiving in Canada shifted around, including a period when it was celebrated simultaneously with Remembrance Day.
That may be part of the reason why it’s hard to find arts-related topics or material related to Canadian Thanksgiving.
Last night, at the regular Friday evening “Movie Show and Tell” the Commons Studio puts on at the Queen Street Commons Café, we showed “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.”
The Commons Studio is a “community tools” project of The Working Centre. Film appreciation is part of the mandate, and part of my job there is choosing a movie to show each week. We have a licence to show any film in the Criterion Collection, a vast cornucopia of film art.
I chose “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” because it’s a Thanksgiving movie. It’s about a man trying to get home in time to celebrate the holiday with his family. But his destination is Chicago, so it’s a U.S. Thanksgiving movie. The obstacle he faces is a snow storm, which is unlikely to happen on the second weekend of October, even up here in the true north strong and free.
The other Thanksgiving connection is rather obscure: The movie co-stars the great Canadian actor and comedian John Candy, and I remember very clearly when he was here in Waterloo and Kitchener to serve as Grand Marshal of the Oktoberfest parade in 1983.
Thanksgiving is a harvest festival, especially here in Canada. According to the Ontario harvest calendar, you can still pick crops like apples, beans, cabbage, cauliflower, pears, potatoes, pumpkins and squash in mid-October. At the end of November, when Thanksgiving happens south of the border, there will not be much left to harvest beyond carrots, kale and Christmas trees.
Arts-related products of all kinds are another kind of bounty. There are seasons, but they are less distinct.
Some artistic products are ephemeral: they come, and then they’re gone forever. There are, however, other fruits of artistic endeavour that can last forever, like sound recordings, printed works of all kinds including books, periodicals, photographs and music scores, and film or video material, like that “vast cornucopia,” the Criterion Collection.
Although there is no specific harvest season for the arts, a measure of thanksgiving is in order for this kind of bounty as well.
For some parts of our artistic heritage, like the fine arts, classical music or film, the term that is commonly used is “appreciation.” The implication is that these are acquired tastes that call for some background knowledge or training.
Culture Days, which happened last weekend, are a kind of Canada-wide thanksgiving for the arts. The aim is to offer a behind the scenes glimpse at “the world of artists, creators, heritage workers, architects, curators and designers,” and to foster “engagement and support.”
For the popular arts, there is no need to foster support or deepen appreciation; by definition, this is artistic bounty that large masses of people all over the world know and love … and long remember: John Candy passed away when he was just 43 years old in 1994, but “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” will be available for people to discover or rediscover forever.
People’s response on social media to Tom Petty’s untimely death this week was an outpouring of affection and appreciation for what he has given us over the years … a kind of thanksgiving for a gift that is ours for all time.