This Magazine articles from November 2001

This Magazine archives from November 2001

Under the hood: same difference.
November 1, 2001... A POPULAR ALASKAN BUMPER STICKER ASKS THE QUESTION: "IF IT'S TOURIST SEASON WHY CAN'T WE shoot them?" Why indeed? By all accounts they're demanding, environmentally devastating and just plain tacky. And they aren't just hated in Alaska,...

I was a protest tourist.
November 1, 2001... ON THE AFTERNOON OF JULY 14, AS I EMERGED from Berlin's Frankfurter-Tor metro station, I suddenly found myself being searched by police officers. The orders were clear: all musical instruments were to be confiscated. As Berlin's finest patted...

Haven't they seen MacGyver: (government policy on Arab students).
November 1, 2001... IF A REPORTED DOUBLING OF HATE CRIMES against Canadians of Arab descent isn't enough evidence that Canadians are putting their worst foot forward in the wake of September 11, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has made it official...

Bad trips: (branding countries).
November 1, 2001... IN AN EFFORT TO SCORE SOME OF THE $744 BILLION THAT'S SPENT ON INTERNATIONAL tourism each year, many countries are now "branding" themselves, creating easy to digest personalities to sell to the rest of the world. National brands are usually...

How-to draw a crowd.
November 1, 2001... HAVE YOU EVER DREAMED OF BECOMING THE next Walt Disney? Have you thought building the world's largest rubber duck in your yard might make you a mint? Do you believe that if you build a ball-park in your cornfield, they will come? If so, you...

Insecurity measures.
November 1, 2001... ALL SET FOR A RELAXING VACATION, YOU ENTER the airport, walking the gauntlet of security guards and dogs trained to sniff out drugs and explosives. You empty your pockets of all sharp objects. Your suitcases are opened and meticulously...

Post-mortem (of the National Post).
November 1, 2001... WHEN CONRAD BLACK SOLD OFF HIS Southam papers and half of the National Post last fall, our national media were quick with the usual disingenuities: a great newspaperman; Canada needs more of his type; will be sorely missed, etc. In his...

Nowhere of home: forget plot, character setting - they're all passe. ... how a new wave of artists is confronting a bleak new world where everything is different, but the stories are the same.
November 1, 2001... I BOUGHT THE NEW NOVEL BY SCOTTISH writer James Kelman in Calgary just before reading from my own new book to the 10 people in the city interested enough to drag themselves away from the continuous loop of jets ramming 100-storey buildings. I...

House of cards: as the world economy teeters on the brink of collapse ... is there anything we could have done to soften the blow ...
November 1, 2001... IT WAS AS IF EACH LEVEL OF THE ECONOMY was collapsing upon the next, one after another, just as the twin towers imploded on September II. Tens of millions of travellers abruptly cancelled their flights. Several major airlines, facing immediate...

Het, big spender: in a supposedly horizontal society, airlines are one of the few places where capitalism nakedly and crowingly celebrates the divisions between classes ...
November 1, 2001... IT WAS PROBABLY THE ROW OF SINGLE-MALT SCOTCHES THAT STRUCK me the most. Or possibly the enormous spread of freshly cut fruit, the crystal tumblers, or the kitchen attendant in an airline uniform, who sat around waiting for me to pick something...

Welcome to Niagara Falls, population: bitter. Growing up in motel hell.
November 1, 2001... MY HOMETOWN IS A LOT LIKE ANY OTHER SMALL TOWN IN Ontario, except that it is world famous. More than 15 million tourists come to see Niagara Falls every year, and kitschy celebrities from Marilyn Monroe to Superman have helped make the town's...

Travel in time.
November 1, 2001... TRAVEL, THE SAYING GOES, BROADENS THE mind. But history doesn't always support that view. Since the birth of large-scale tourism in the 18th century, travellers, as often as not, have used their journeys simply as a way to get confirmation of...

Tourism trap: for Jamaican vendors, selling crafts to day trippers is one of the few ways to get a piece of the global economy ...
November 1, 2001... IF YOU HAD STEPPED OFF YOUR CRUISE SHIP AT OCHO RIOS IN Jamaica a few years ago, and taxied down to the Taj Mahal duty-free shopping mall to get one of those coconut purses your niece told you about, you might have run into something you didn't...

Animal attraction: with free trade and falling food prices, Canadian farmers have a tough roe to hoe ... turning tilled earth into theme parks.
November 1, 2001... THE WORDS "FARM LAND" USED TO REFER TO DIRT UNDER cultivation. But before long, Farmland--as in the country cousin of Disneyland--might have more resonance for city slickers. It's not that the keepers of that ubiquitous lobally-over-endowed...

Remaking history: at a memorial to Canada's immigrants, Rinaldo Walcott finds out checkered past is getting a bit of whitewash.
November 1, 2001... ON A SNOWY DAY IN FEBRUARY, I SET OFF FROM MY HOTEL JUST SOUTH of the Citadel in Halifax, down the slippery roads leading to the waterfront to visit Pier 21. The pier, inaugurated on Canada Day 1999, is a memorial to the European immigrants and...

Leave only footprints: we travel to make sense of home. But what if home no longer makes sense?
November 1, 2001... THE HOUSE AT 939 RAYEN, TEMUCO, CHILE, IS BUTTER yellow and of global importance. It feels cozy, or it did, at least, when I visited. I could walk from the front door through the living room and kitchen and then to the clothes line out back in...

From across a river.
November 1, 2001... WHEN SHE IS THREE. BREATHLESS. FEVER PRESSES HER FOREHEAD LIKE A HOT AND heavy hand. Her father sits on the edge of her bed, a silver razor blade pinched between his thumb and forefinger. "The blood is sick," he explains gently as he clasps...

Native poetry in Canada: a contemporary anthology.
November 1, 2001... Beyond a cursory nod to Chief Dan George or Rita Joe, the CanLit canon hasn't included many First Nations writers, which makes NATIVE POETRY IN CANADA: A CONTEMPORARY ANTHOLOGY (Broadview Press, 2001) all the more valuable. Edited by English...

Passengers & Tour Guides: (exhibit by Kevin Rodgers and Derek Sullivan).
November 1, 2001... Toronto artists Kevin Rodgers and Derek Sullivan have never been west of the Rocky Mountains, but that didn't stop them from using the West Coast as the inspiration for their latest collaborative work. Their current installation draws on...

Sackcloth and ashes: the ostrich dies on Monday: Submission Hold.
November 1, 2001... They've been kicking around the music scene for almost a decade, but Vancouver's SUBMISSION HOLD is still one of the most intense and extreme bands spewing out albums today. With Sackcloth and Ashes: The Ostrich Dies on Monday, these cats have...

Trade.
November 1, 2001... "Can I be Left and Queer?" asks Peter Kingstone in the Autumn 2001 issue of the Toronto-based zine TRADE. After providing the reader with a brief history of the often oppressive relationship between Marxism and homosexuality (both Stalin and...

(Toronto comic artist Matt Blackett).
November 1, 2001... Comic maven Joe Matt is facing stiff competition in the suddenly burgeoning field of unabashed autobiographical etchings, as Toronto's Matt Blackett continues to garner much merited ink for his up-and-coming comic M@B. The artwork is...

Lines on the postcard: all winter, we receive photochrome cards of southern getaways, art and kitsch scrawled with telegraphic exclamations ...
November 1, 2001... 1. Postcards may be the only paper mail we get now, except bills. Friends will always be going away. 2. "The salutation. Explication of attraction. The description of site. The indecipherable statement. The travel itinerary. Meal comments....