I just finished an excellent book by Wayson Choy called 'All that Matters'.  This is Choy's second novel, the first was 'The Jade Peony'.  The Jade Peony is the story of a Chinese family that has moved to Vancouver in the 1920's.  Each section of the book tells the story as children are born and the family grows.  All That Matters is about the same family but this time from the perspective of the oldest son.

What an excellent idea!  I loved this book because it is beautifully written but also because a great story is told from another angle.  As a reader I appreciated Choy's decision to write this novel.  It is as though we are standing in the family's house again, this time in a different spot in the room.

Choy is another example of the great new group of writers from Canada who are writing about the immigrant's experience.  I look forward to more and more of this literature.  I get a little tired of the 'Margaret Atwood is our best writer' school of thought.  I like Atwood but her experience growing up in 1950's Leaside to third generation Canadian parents and summers in the Canadian woods is not shared by all Canadians (including me).  I am more excited to read novel's like Choy's and also writers who chose Canada to be their home like Michale Ondaatje, M.G. Vassaniji and Rohinton Mistry.

Once upon a time youngsters around Canada raced home to watch VideoHits on the CBC hosted by none other than Samantha Taylor.  For many, this was the only place to watch music videos because MTV was not available in Canada (generally) and Much was still new too.

What a great show that was.  Who doesn't recall the first time they saw A-Ha's 'Take on Me' video on it?  The other day the T. was YouTubing and he found the video to star Toronto band BluePeter's track 'Walk on Past'.  I had never seen it before.

So content owners?  How do I legally see the BluePeter video again?  And what do I owe you?  And what do we owe for a clip someone uploaded of  David Lee Roth sing Jump with a bluegrass band?

I really find the discussions around content missing a key point.  Media companies have too much content.  They don't have an efficient way to share it and gain revenue from their extensive back catalogue.  I can understand why MuchMusic, for example, would lose revenue or be concerned with current day top 40 videos on YouTube.  If you can watch this on YouTube then what does the big cable network offer. 

The back catalogue has always been the huge money making revenue for media companies (How much revenue did they earn from releasing The Beatles "1" cd?) And I can see opportunities for media companies in releasing video (the old 80's TV shows now occupying most of HMV).  But really the entire back catalogue... a video site is the best way to show this.