Vancouver: the opening.

With the help of video and the ability to view things at leisure, everyone can watch the opening ceremony even if you did not watch it live.

After I watched the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, I figured that future opening ceremonies would be affected by that awesome display. The Vancuover Olympics bear this prediction out. Similar to the Chinese show, the Canadian show used the technical elements of screens that can be raised and lowered, light projections, great sound effects and colorful costumes. The Canadian show managed to put forth the best of Canada (as the Chinese show paid tribute to the best cultural aspects of China) without being preechy and remain superbly entertaining. The arts being dominated by Lefties, they were sorely tempted to preach multiculturalism, but thankfully they resisted the temptation.

Personally, I love the romance languages, especially Italien and French. Hearing someone speak French is pleasent to me, especially when I know the subject of the talk, when I can pretty well understand what they are saying and still appreciate the flow of the sounds.

The opening ceremony was eye and ear candy from beginning to the end. The opening scene was a duet (Bang your drum) and it showcased the drums as sound, the singing, people dressed in colorful Iindian costumes, even dancing and speaking. It was the tribute to the North in general. The second theme was the trees and forests of Canada, Fall and its colorful maple leaves, and dancers galore. Th fiddlers and cloggers and dancers of Nova Scotia introduced everything from River Dance to clogging, tartans and some tap dancing. The duel of the fiddler on the roof with his shadow on the moon was very well done and entertaining. The floor of the stadium was transformed via the magic of projections into a sea, traveled by orcas blowing plumes of water and eventually turning into the stylized representation of orcas in native drawings. We saw amber waves of grain, horses traveling across the plain as we arrived to the representation of Western Canada; its mountains and snow sports. Only the verbal presentation of the idea of Canada by the country's poet laurate seemed to be out of place, because it was a bit preechy and stood out in a non-verbal presentation as somewhat jarring.

Bob Costas and his fellow commentator asked the question whether the presentation lived up to the Beijing openening ceremony. Their conclusion was YES. We can not use measures as to whether the spectacle lived up to or even surpassed Beijing. You can not measure such events on that scale. But, we can say that just as Beijing presented the best face of China in the opening ceremony, Vancouver presented the best of Canada and Europe in a Winter context. Yes, it was succesful, enjoyable with considerable intellectual context.