(no subject)

Did you think, while listening to the Hamilton cast recording, "If this were a manga, Aaron Burr's kid and Alexander Hamilton's kid would end up together"? No? Just me?

Anyway, magneticwave wrote a modern AU in which 10-year-old Philip Hamilton is a little too quick to defend his honor at school... and luckily, Olivia Pope gets called in.

I'm not standing still, I am lying in wait

I think, as a Canadian who moved to the US at the age of twelve, it was inevitable that I become really cynical about American patriotism and a lot of the baggage around it (especially the whole "we can never have sensible gun laws because of an ambiguous sentence written over 200 years ago" thing); there was a whole lot of "you are not as great as you think you are, you know!" in my head. When I was in ninth grade (we were assigned to read Ayn Rand!) we had to write an essay on freedoms that you have as an American that you wouldn't have elsewhere, and, like, I grew up elsewhere. If you don't want to own a gun, it's not much of a freedom differential.*

And my attitude about the American revolution was fairly colored by the fact that Canada continues to be part of the British commonwealth and, you know, it's fine? I can't remember if I have any Loyalists in my family tree or not, but if you're an Anglophone from Quebec, it's fairly likely that you have ancestors who said "Revolution? Nah, let's not." I think I never learned a way of engaging with American history that wasn't based on a kind of unnuanced, unquestioning cheerleading of the revolution and the constitution and the founding fathers -- the most you could do was put in a little footnote there to say "Oh, yeah, slavery, that was bad."

So, I was joking before about listening to the Hamilton cast recording while filling out my citizenship application, but it was also kind of serious, because besides being some great music, I think it's actually provided me with a different way to engage with that history -- as rap battle, as soap opera, as the kind of thing where you care deeply about these people making TERRIBLE LIFE DECISIONS and it's not about passing judgment on these people as Good People or Bad People, but you can't help but be kind of impressed with all of them. It's total sincerity without the hagiography. And it's a story that feels suddenly really close -- Alexander Hamilton went to Columbia (as Kings College is now known)? I've been there! The Hamiltons are buried at Trinity Church downtown? I've walked past there! I kind of actually want to arrange a little American History Walking Tour for myself (which I might actually do because I have a 4-day weekend coming up?)

I still joke that I'm not actually a Shakespeare person, I'm just a Slings & Arrows fan -- well, I probably will continue to have lots of Complicated Feelings about the US and citizenship, but at least I can be a Hamilton fan?

* There is also some free speech stuff, but if I had been aware of that in ninth grade I definitely would not have wanted to write an essay on the right to hate speech and hardcore porn!