On using the word SHWA!!

Open Letter to Peter Young...
First things first any relation... to Neil?
Peter, I wasn't going to reply to your letter that ran in the Letters To The Editor section, however a few people have come up to me and asked me what my response is to you mentioning a certain music writer and his use of the word Shwa.
So... SHWA... it exists. Simple truth. I take the GO in and out of T.O and when the special transit ambassador annouces the final stop as The Shwa, i cringe and sink further in my seat. But it exists.
Drive up SImcoe Street from the 401 to the Downtown and the Shwa exists. You can change the name of this town to Hope or Welcome or Oshawa but the Shwa still exists.
Drive around the empty factories and step inside the grungy bars and you will see the Shwa. It exists.
See the locked up marina and a bicycle path the police don't recommed using and you will see the Shwa.
But come to the SHWALTZ and you will see Oshawa.
And thats the difference perhaps between us. I know the power of words but the power of action trumps it. My friends and I are changing Oshawa and not just renaming it. It began last night with a PWYC show at the Atria, maybe not a bar you'd frequent and probably as Shwa as one can get. Three bands, Blackjacket and Isles Of Thieves. Plus one from Vancouver, Mass Undergoe. The Oshawa bands gave their portion of the door to the Vancity gang for gas. Nice.
For the next three days it continues.... art and music, newbies and superstars all out to party and celebrate the new Shwa... one where what they make matters and not just what some car plant can suck from them. The Shwa came into being as the spirit of the people in this town was sapped out of them, when they became nothing more than bodies and when that body broke it was junked. Minds are of no matter in the Shwa. Until that changes the Shwa will continue to exist.
I use the word Shwa because people know what that is. So when I say The Shwa has great talent... its extra powerful because it is directed at folks who only see Oshawa in terms of The Shwa. They don't expect talent... just Cracked Out In Oshawa headlines. But we wrap our good news in their terminology, our message in language they understand and we get their ears.
I spent my first twenty years in Dublin, Ireland and the last twenty in Oshawa. I consider my self a Dub, but as Joel Plaskett sings Theres a reason why I love this town.
Come out on Saturday and I will show the new Shwa... in action.
Your man in Shwa-dom

Comments

[Stefanie]

Funniest thing I've heard Oshawa being called is "the armpit of Ontario."