The Ampersand Party of Canada

“What’s with the ampersand?” “Why do you guys all wear ampersands?” “& what?” All valid questions with only one answer (a much disputed, discussed & fought/negotiated over one) as we see it. From now on, this will be the official story, the one that is pointed to when laying down the law regarding the issues & the one that can not be disputed with. As with all such writings, it is filled with glaring inaccuracies, ineffable contradictions & blatant errors. Enjoy:

It all started one sunny afternoon when we signed ourselves up to play at an outdoor charity event on campus called Rock for the River. After a few weeks of preparing, practicing & looking forward to the show, we were informed by the organizer that he had overbooked & as such we would not be able to play our set as promised. He tried to console us by giving us a table next to the stage that we could do whatever we pleased with. So, we took it, not knowing what to do with it, but just to make his life more difficult for messing with our would-be awesome show. One problem persisted: we were & still are primarily a band that makes music, & at the time we had no merchandise to sell (& it would have been incredibly presumptuous to sell any if we had since we were relatively unknown & weren’t actually playing at the event). We toyed around with playing acoustically, but discarded the idea because a) no one would hear us (we were right next to the speakers surrounding the stage) b) we could never get a good sound balance when playing acoustically & c) a) & b) are both really good reasons. So we decided that since it was a concert to promote a cause (saving the river or some such) that we would come up with our own cause to endorse.

After some brainstorming, head-against-wall bashing & general abuse toward Oliver’s notoriously bad suggestions we came up with the Save the Ampersand cause. We wrote a manifesto in the form of a petition outlining our cause for concern regarding our new favourite endangered symbol & what we thought should be done about it. We received over 150 signatures supporting our cause. A friend of the band printed eight foot tall ampersands on paper with our band name on it to put on either side of our table. We became known as the ampersand people soon after Sam & Etienne made fimo ampersands for all the band members, which we all wear with the conviction of the genuinely concerned. Consequently, we all get asked a myriad of stupid, obvious & occasionally moderately intelligent questions regarding them which gives us the desired opportunity to spread the word of the ampersands desperate need for our help. So, please, join us & help to preserve one of grammars most precious symbols by signing our petition so we can put the ampersand back in its rightful place & out of the hands of those fat-cat, symbol grabbing, English teachers & back into those of the common writer.