Canadians Among Us: Cansplaining with Jeff Breithaupt featuring Malcolm Gladwell

PILOT EPISODE!
Canadians Among Us: Cansplaining with Jeff Breithaupt
(featuring Special Guest Malcolm Gladwell)

Can·splain (verb; practiced exclusively by Canadians): to compulsively point out (usually to Americans) the nationality or birthplace of anyone “from Canada” who has achieved international recognition, renown, and/or notoriety.

What do Neil Young, Marshall McLuhan, Margaret Atwood, Drake, Mary Pickford, Glenn Gould, Joni Mitchell, Frank Gehry, Alanis Morissette, Martin Short, Leonard Cohen, Ryans Gosling and Reynolds, Alice Munro, Oscar Peterson, Lorne Michaels, Avril Lavigne, Christopher Plummer, Malcolm Gladwell, and the inventor of basketball have in common? Let us Cansplain…

Canada’s population is a mere three times that of New York City, and yet our neighbors to the north have historically played an outsized role in shaping American popular culture. The former Head of Culture and Communications at the Consulate General of Canada in New York and producer of the long-running Canada Day celebration at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, host Jeff Breithaupt is an ex-pat Canadian, author, lyricist, and Vice President at Manhattan School of Music. His new podcast, Canadians Among Us: Cansplaining with Jeff Breithaupt, will unpack Canada’s pervasive stateside influence, discussing the contributions of prominent individuals and isolating clusters of Canadian influence: in early Hollywood and the worlds of singer-songwriters, short story authors, movie stars named Ryan, sketch comedians, and more.

The podcast’s pilot episode examining a century of Canadian icons, from Mary Pickford to Drake, will be recorded before a live audience at SubCulture. Malcolm Gladwell, a recipient of the Order of Canada, the author of such ground-breaking books as The Tipping Point, Outliers, and Blink, and a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1996, will join the discussion as a very special guest, offering a Gladwellian take on the quiet power of Canada’s cultural reach.

There are Canadians Among Us; find them here.