And why, for that matter, go to Canada?

Music is sound displayed through the permanence of soul. As often as the sound of a generation will alter, there will be decades of musical history which have shaped the music we hear today. I use the term 'Japanese' to define a style measured through rhythm and melody. Some may say everything can be defined as electro-pop. I define the everything and the ether surrounding it as jazz-funk. With the classicism of flamenco and street sense of hiphop.

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And why, for that matter, go to Canada?

So here we are, in the middle of Beijing, observing the incomprehendible. It's a map of the city, and although its partly in English, the street names all look the same on this grid.

On the other side of the intersection, a university. I can't tell you which one, but there seemed to be one or two in the area.

I hear an, "Excuse me" in a feminine voice with a western accent and figure to stop listening to the voices in my head before they start taking up more of my life than reality itself. When she repeats herself I turn from the map to see a gorgeous young westerner looking at us like the tourists we are. But what gives this woman the licence?

She asks if we're lost. I say not especially.

I ask where she's from. She says Canada.

This wasn't the first time I had come across this style of person from the never regions latched on to Seattle and New York. I had met a girl named Caroline who came to Sydney from that part of the world, around the time when Outkast had a song out of the same name. Yes, she's mighty fine (Caroline!). Okay that point may be a bit cheesy...

She was always the one to serve me at a local haunt, and she served me in a way even the Prince of Denmark could hardly expect. And I wouldn't be surprised if such service for a mere beverage will ever happen to me again.

And no it wasn't sexual. It was simply... 5 star service. Maybe that's what I can expect if I go to Canada. I would prefer such service at a hole in the wall style bar rather than a hotel. The type where the waitress sees you sit down, already knows what you want, and comes back with a triple threat - youtr drink, a smile, and a 'How are ya?'

So, they're good at hospitality and tourism, and good at looking good. Okay time for a masculine touch (can't believe I just wrote that.)

Stuart McLean is an author from that part of the world, and a bestselling one at that. At least that's what the cover said of a book that was in the $1 box outside Gertrude and
Alice Cafe Bookstore. I figure 'Vinyl Cafe Diaries' would be suited to my mid-arvo coffee so I order and sit back for some breezy reading.

I'm not sure how, but I quickly realised this McLean guy uses a 'tone', or writer's voice, which reminded me of my own. So I ripped into it and enjoyed the style of creative non-fiction which I guess I'm riding the wave of these days. We need a name. Like the beat generation. Like... the matter-of-fact creators or something like that.

It certainly isn't fantasy.

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