Blog » Culture is your breakfast and more.

Posted on 5/11/2007 by Sam Varteniuk

Culture is your breakfast and more.  Culture is an opening sentence that the Marketing Director for Edmonton’s Cultural Capital Program sends you, prompting you to write a blog entry on the topic of culture.  Culture is that hastily written blog entry, typed furiously as you try to eat your shredded wheat and thank yourself that you had the brilliant idea to add raisins. 

Culture is adding the word ‘blog’ to your Word spellchecker so you don’t have to stare at all those squiggly red lines, trying to make you think you’re making a mistake when it’s really the software that hasn’t caught up with the times.  Culture is pausing in your blogging to draft a quick note to Microsoft, informing them that they need to have more active updates to their spellchecker so that words like ‘blog’ and ‘googling’ and ‘bi-podding’ are included, that language is not a static thing on a page but a living, growing organism of expression.  And isn’t it odd that spellchecker knows to capitalise Microsoft?  That ain’t culture.  That’s branding.

Culture is making it up as you go along.  Culture is not pausing to consider what others might think of your cultural output.  Culture is not self-conscious, nor does it depend on the approval of others.  If culture were a person she would walk around naked when it got too hot for clothes.  Culture would probably get thrown in jail.

Culture is the person you admire for being funny, witty, irreverent, attractive.  Culture is not being jealous of that person, but deciding to watch them, appreciate them, learn from them.  Culture is nothing without an appreciative audience.  Culture IS an appreciative audience.

On a rainy Wednesday afternoon, culture knocked on my email. 

“Hey Culture,” I said.  “What’s shaking?  What’s the word on the street?”

Culture brushed past me without saying hello, poured herself a bowl of shredded wheat, and sat at my computer beside me.

“You should add some raisins to that,” I said.  “It’s better.”

“I like it just fine like this,” says Culture.

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