At my day job, I'm fortunate enough to
meet a lot of new people all the time. My particular circumstance
for the past few months has been that I have seen my place of work go
through almost a complete turnover of employees. That means meeting
and having to get to know new people very frequently, which of course
results in the development of methods of approaching certain
individuals with whom you take an interest. Are you from Toronto?
Did you go to University? Do you have a boyfriend, etc... One of my
favourites, due to the response's ability to speak volumes about the
speaker who has unintentionally offered such information is, “So,
what music do you listen to?”
The twentieth century made this
possible. There are currently two types of people who can be
immediately categorized based on their responses to the previously
stated question. There are music lovers and there are other
people... and if you're a music lover, you know exactly what I mean.
If you're a music lover, you've spent many good hours of your life
with headphones on, pressing them into your ears to make it even
louder than it already is, blaring out of the ipod, cellphone,
laptop, walkman, stereo, 8-track, whatever. You're open to hearing
the most experimental of genres, and you have a deep appreciation for
the classics from ages of the past. There are of course many
sub-types under the category of music lover, but if you happen to be
one, and you meet another, you know that you understand each other
on some level as a result. It's quite the fantastic thing about our
generation's interpretation of the music industry.
The Canadian music scene has, in the
past ten years been so impressive in quality and quantity that it has
managed, in the opinion of many, to out-do their American
counterparts. I'm obviously not talking about Nickleback or Celine
Dion... everyone knows that's mainstream bullshit created by an
American audience who can't get the image of Canadian culture being
nothing more than old men “rockstars” with terrible style and bad
facial hair. It's barely even worth mentioning in Canada because
we're so embarrassed of our unfortunate association with this
horrifying image. *Sigh*
Since I moved to Toronto last January,
I've been engulfed in the shockingly impressive underground music
scene which not only exists here, but in the other major cities like
Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary. Windsor was different. Windsor is
the type of city that has its own little scene that is completely
contained within the city limits. The music was fantastic, but it
didn't have the potential for national exposure like some of the
artists I've met and seen in Toronto.
So what kind of influence foes this have
on the way people dress? Off the top of my head right now I can
think of at least ten of my male friends who all dress exactly the
same. Though it's kind of funny, I have to ask myself why this
happens. What is it about these people that makes them all dress and
act in similar ways?
As I walk down the crowded downtown streets of Toronto I look around at a sea of skinny jeans, cardigans and, now that it's winter, pea coats, and scarves, I wonder what's coming next and what all of these same people will be wearing five years from now.
Until then!
V
