gI love female Quebecoise pop stars who do terrible versions of English hits,h Mark Steyn confessed Wednesday night from a secure location ? a heavily police officer-patrolled makeshift stage at Indigo Books & Music at Bay and Bloor. gBut if you donft have a shared pop culture, then itfs much harder to bond a society.h
This week, it was Steyn who became the pop culture, at least as much as an author published by Americafs self-proclaimed leading publisher of conservative books could ever be. America Alone: The End of the Word as We Know It, while published in September 2006, was lavished with publicity uncommon for a book thatfs been on shelves for longer than the Democratic Presidential nominee race has been running.
gWe typically like to take a blitzkrieg sales approach,h explains Regnery Publishing president Marji Ross. Their biggest New York Times bestsellers have included titles by right-wing talk host Laura Ingraham, and books exposing John Kerryfs service in Vietnam and the biases of CBS News. Coming next week: How I Helped O.J. Get Away With Murder, written by his former agent. gItfs a direct marketing approach, maybe even a guerilla approach, where wefre convinced that our authors are passionate enough about the topic can make it a bestseller.
gBeing based in Washington, DC gives us a different perspective,h says Ross. gRather than talking to other publishers in New York, wefre talking to our market.h
Steyn self-published newspaper column anthologies, primarily sold through his website, but the only book he wrote from scratch was about stage musicals, Broadway Babies Say Goodnight. While initially an arts critic for The Spectator in the UK, a shift to political commentary made him a favourite of publisher Conrad Black ? who naturally gave Toronto-born Steyn placement in the National Post.
America Alone was actually commissioned by Ross, who noticed the growth of Steynfs online following ? even as his platforms became more scattered as Black was gradually indicted out of the business. Getting into Canadian bookstores posed a greater challenge for a publisher specializing in American patriotism, though. Macleanfs to the rescue ? ex-Post editor Ken Whyte hired Steyn as the "books" columnist to help salvage the weekly, and was glad to run a 4,800-word excerpt.
And thatfs how, some 20 months later, Steyn became a real celebrity for a week.
The main event was an appearance on TVOfs The Agenda, where three of the Osgoode Hall law students ? whose class project evolved into a complaint with the human rights commissions ? were booked in the wake of the Canadian Islamic Congress offer to withdraw the complaints if Macleanfs prints a rebuttal.
This was after Barbara Hall, former Second City coat check attendant and mayor of Toronto and now head of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, condemned Macleanfs ? while conceding that the case couldnft be legally heard. (The tribunal hearing in British Columbia is slated for June 2.)
Steyn was already flying in from his New Hampshire stead to promote the paperback release of America Alone (gSoon to be banned in Canadah is stamped on the cover) and he was finally wrangled on the show, hosted by Steve Paikin [and YouTubed here].
Problem was, the students who repeatedly called for a public debate, refused to appear alongside Steyn on TVO ? an accommodation he failed to comprehend.
gIfm just one big, flabby, overweight Islamophobe and theyfre three fit young people,h he said in the quasi-Aussie accent that lives up to the sneering rhetoric. (Itfs a voice that, despite a hometown following that dates back a decade, was rarely heard around here, although Steyn claimed that hefs rarely been invited.)
But the second half of the show found Steyn and the students engaged in that two-way discussion ? a live on-camera detente detailed by Paikin on his blog.
The Agenda, more likely to be taunted by Steyniacs for the hostfs public sector salary than actually watched by them, scored a hit. gTwo ladies stopped me in mid-traverse to say how much they liked the show,h wrote Steyn. gAppearing on The Agenda is evidently like guesting with Uncle Milty in 1954. Ifm impressed.h
Paikin insists TVO wonft be cranking up the Fox News-style rhetoric any further, nor does he believe that he was played by Steyn for the sake of book promotion.
gI donft think thatfs his game,h says Paikin. gI take him at his word, and he believes the biggest transformation of our time is not being debated adequately.h
That transformation surrounds the fact that birth rates in multicultural-minded countries are dropping precipitously, and immigrants shouldnft be counted on to make up the difference. That was the main topic of discussion at the Indigo store.
Heather Resiman, the storefs gChief Book Lover,h conducted the interview before a packed house of the very people who wouldnft have been impressed with her decision to keep the Danish cartoon edition of the Western Standard from being sold in her store, much as she was once revealed to have banished Mein Kampf.
Steyn delivered nonetheless: gYou canft be multicultural in Saudi Arabia. I canft go to Riyadh and say, Ifm uncomfortable with the alcohol prohibition here and Ifd like to open a Hooters and hold wet T-shirt contests on Friday night to celebrate my culture. Theyfd say, eSee you later.f And chop my hand off on the way out.h
This sort of gold-timey vaudeville,h as Toronto Life blogger Douglas Bell described it, was accompanied by Steynfs desire for more domestic babymaking. Too much education is getting in the way of women who oughta be knocked up.
He points to a cousin of his wifefs whofs been in university the entire time theyfve been married, about 15 years. Steyn figures art suffers for it, too: gIf Mozart were alive today, hefd have never left college ? and never written any symphonies.h
Steyn backs his assertions with a well-stamped passport: gIfd much rather be in a souk than a mall in Hamilton. But the better society ? the one with a chance for fulfillment, and greater health care ? is the society that built the mall in Hamilton.
gJust because our society is wealthy doesnft mean we can tolerate unhealthy pathologies,h he said.
gNot a lot of people want to go around stirring up moderation. Itfs hard to say what youfre against until you know what youfre for.h
But it was Reisman who ended the show on the hot seat, explaining her rationale for keeping certain things out of Indigo, a right backed by Steyn. After all, the store is as private a property as Macleanfs, who refuse to be legislated into running editorial content under the guise of being good for Canadian society. Her statement on the matter went over like a lead zeppelin with the audience, which queued up to books signed by Steyn ? a line that took him two hours to satisfy.
Tarek Fatah, the founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress (a frequent rival of the CIC) who has ruffled feathers of his own with his secular perspective, seemed to enjoy Steynfs show.
gThe diagnosis is right,h says Fatah. gItfs the prescription that I disagree with.
gYou have this boy band that initiated the campaign against Steyn ? school kids having fun, who ended up shooting themselves in the foot. These twits have to be confronted and their real agenda needs to be exposed. The notions of armed jihad, Sharia law and wanting an Islamic state werenft being addressed, even in the debate on TVO. As a Western society, we have no clue whatfs happening.h
The law students who appeared with Steyn ? even if they refused his invitation to go to dinner, they stuck around the TVO studio to talk for an extra hour ? are widely seen as just gsock puppetsh of the Canadian Islamic Congress.
Fatah claims that the females on the panel, Muneeza Sheikh and Naseem Mithoowani, deferred to their male counterpart Khurrum Awan when answering many questions ? an indication of where they were coming from, religiously. (Paikin thinks any deference was because Awan was considered the expert.)
The interest Fatah had in watching this most unusual book tour coincided with the publication of his Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State.
gSteyn can give credit to the Canadian Islamic Congress for all the attention he received,h he says. gMaybe I should ask them for advice on how to sell books.h
Previously on the Scroll: Kathy Shaidle live
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