This Magazine articles from November 2004

This Magazine archives from November 2004

News you can use.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... With the American press full of stories from California (about as close to us as Britain, geographically) and Washington (about as close to us, with the present administration, as Uzbekistan), we really look forward to every issue of This...

Good work.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... Really enjoy the magazine. Keep up the good work. Susan Newlove Ottawa

More poetry, please.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... As a subscriber to This Magazine, I am always excited when a new issue arrives in the mail. Right away, I look for the poetry page and I'm seldom disappointed by each issue's choice. In fact, "Cold Lake Karaoke Bar" (July/August) is now one of...

Moore to the point.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... Hear! Hear! for John Degen's bit of opinionating ("Moore is better," September/October), not only about Michael Moore but about the Canadian left's timidity about getting behind the NDP during our own federal election--a million US attack ads...

Free for all.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... I want to thank Arthur Johnson for confronting the troubling trend of sweatshop journalism (aka unpaid internships) in your September/October issue ("Wage slaves"). Valid ethical arguments aside, however, I see no difference between being an...

Get on the boat.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... Drew Hayden Taylor's very witty article "This Boat is My Boat" (July/August) was simply delightful! His clever grace and usual humorous style kept me belly laughing as I read. How refreshing to be gently admonished and reminded of the...

Who's selling?(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... Like Grant Shilling, I believe it's critical for places such as Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, to maintain their uniqueness. However, his article ("Yankee go home," July/August) fails to address a key question--who is selling all this...

The right thing to do.(This Magazine)
November 1, 2004... WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A MAGAZINE of alternative culture in time when alternative culture has become a mainstream concept? It's a question we at This Magazine have been asking ourselves as we embarked on our latest phase of reinvention. It's...

The road less travelled: Bern Grush's smart driving system could be the incentive people need to carpool, skip rush hour or decide to take transit instead.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)
November 1, 2004... Bern Grush has made it his life's goal to change the way people think about driving. And with the help of a little electronic box, he plans to reduce congestion, clean up the air and make the way we pay for driving more equitable. Through...

The truth about aid.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)
November 1, 2004... Parliament will soon be debating the International Policy Review (IPR), which aims to define what Canada's role in the world will be in the coming years. For more than a year, the IPR has been marinating in the bureaucracy. The lead...

Fifties flashback.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)(Advertisement)
November 1, 2004... This recruitment ad ran in the Times-Reformer, a community newspaper in the town of Simcoe, Ontario, west of Toronto. But it's not from the Times-Reformer archive, though the wording harkens back to the 1950s--it ran this past summer. In just...

Burn, baby, burn: why Yukon forest management companies can't see the forest fire for the trees.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)
November 1, 2004... The summer of 2004 was a landmark season in the Yukon. Almost two million hectares of forest--roughly the land mass of Northern Ireland--burned in wildfires across the territory. Unusual, to be sure, but according to biologists and fire experts...

You be the reporter: tired of media concentration? Take a lesson from South Korea.(Media)
November 1, 2004... THE DEATH WATCH FOR THE DAILY NEWSPAPER HAS NOW reached a great old age. Beginning with the widespread popularity of radio, people have been making confident predictions about the imminent demise of The Globe and Mail, The New York Times and...

Shopping mall thrall.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)
November 1, 2004... West Edmonton Mall introduced developers to the value of theme park shopping malls in 1983 and, more than 20 years later, it is still the largest shopping centre in the country, by far. But since then, consumers have been lured out of enclosed...

Bay daze.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)(Hudson's Bay Co.)
November 1, 2004... Champions of Canadian identity have been launched into full battle mode with speculation that US retail giant Target Corp. might buy part of the 334-year-old Hudson's Bay Co. (HBC). While weeping into their striped blankets, critics have been...

Your logo here: how corporate advertising gets Canada Post's stamp of approval.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)
November 1, 2004... Opening my mail recently, I noticed something strange about the stamp in the corner. It was large, red and featured Home Hardware's logo on the right side and one of its smiling, red-shirted employees on the left. It looked more like an...

Holy smokes!(This & that: information, insight & innovation)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... You don't have to smoke to suffer the effects of a pack-a-day habit--just take a stroll through one of Canada's smoggier cities. Calgary's air is hardest to swallow, with levels of nitrogen oxides (NOx) that equal those of-smoking 38 cigarettes...

Bush league.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)(Column)
November 1, 2004... Upon entering my local record shop, I noticed a striking new album. Rock Against Bush? The US president seemed to be under some sort of musical assault on the cover. I flipped the CD over. Excellent bands. Rancid. Bad Religion. Dropkick...

Different drummer: industry outsider Grant Dexter knew almost nothing about being a record executive four years ago when he started MapleMusic.com, which is perhaps the secret behind how his online distribution company has come to challenge an industry raised on robbery, helping some of the country's top indie bands assert their independence.
November 1, 2004... WHEN LOREENA MGKENNITT FOUNDED HER QUINLAN ROAD label in 1985, it was because she didn't think anyone else would bankroll the kind of music she wanted to make. "It was less a career move than it was I'd fallen madly in love with this Celtic...

Collective souls.
November 1, 2004... Co-operative values are catching on among Canadian bands, spawning large ensemble acts of 10 or more members who share the spotlight as well as sharing royalties and responsibility. For some, it's a political statement, a musical manifesto...

Killer cop: Jocelyn Hotte used his elite RCMP training to stalk and kill his ex-girlfriend. Why did police ignore her call for help? And why have they done nothing to address the secret shame of conjugal violence among cops in the years since the attack? What will it take for the hidden abuse to finally hit home?(Cover Story)
November 1, 2004... The mood in the car had been festive until the SUV that was tailing it rammed it from behind, sending everyone flying. Lucie Gelinas, who was at the wheel of the little Hyundai Accent, was panicking. "What do I do?" she asked. "What do I...

The great Canadian literary hunt.
November 1, 2004... FICTION WINNERS 1st Prize ($1,000) Terence Young Dream Vacation 2nd Prize Baijayanta Mukhopadhyay The Science in Loving Art 3rd Prize Andre Rodrigues The Itches POETRY WINNERS 1st Prize ($1,000) Sadiqa de Meijer department...

Dream Vacation.(Fiction * 1st)(Fictional Work)
November 1, 2004... STEVEN WAKES WITH A START. SOMEONE IS OPENING and closing the front door of their rented house. Whoever it is slams it shut only to open it and slam it shut again. Steven is thinking asshole. He is thinking prick. The fan above Steven turns at...

Department store.(Poetry * 1st)
November 1, 2004... everything is cheap at S&R, the elevator operator wants to die. all those sickly pale girl limbs emerging from duplicate tube tops, shoving strollers. mouse-eyed little boys aching for playstation II and the cheetos clinging to the grape drink...

The Science in Loving Art.(Fiction * 2nd)(Fictional Work)
November 1, 2004... B. RECEIVES A VERY PRETTY CARD FROM HIS GIRLFRIEND FOR his birthday when he wakes up with the glow of sunlight on his eyelids. She has left it on the pillow next to him. It has a hand-painted image of snow geese in migration flight on the...

Jane.(Poetry * 2nd)(Poem)
November 1, 2004... Jane i. Have you been a good girl? KEEP OFF THE GRASS. PLEASE DO NOT FEED THESE ANIMALS. Jane ignores the signs. in the forbidden garden she creeps among the daffodils, sniffs their yellow faces ...

The Itches.(Fiction * 3rd)(Fictional Work)
November 1, 2004... Understand. Gordon perches himself, arms cradling knees, toes curling, on the top of the roof of his apartment building, 17 stories up, the wind growing goosebumps on his bare back. It wasn't his fault. It was the two itches on his...

Holes in the backdrop.(Poetry * 3rd)
November 1, 2004... I should bring you the different fevers of things, paint boxes and wrapped bars of them, slight variations of heart, sized appropriately and canned. They dress in many colours, his feet make the dead leaves noisy. And a grey-scale rain would...

Moving target.(Arts & ideas: this is independent culture)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Bodies in motion Jim Munroe likes to keep moving. A successful sci-fi novelist with four completed titles (including his most recent novel, An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil, the Toronto-based Munroe also finds time to run No Media Kings...

Let's rant and roll: now, more than ever, we need music with a message.(Arts & ideas: this is independent culture)
November 1, 2004... IN THE MONTHS LEADING UP TO THE US PRESIDENTIAL election, a small article appeared on the satirical news website The Onion asking: "Where Are You, When We Need You Most, Rage Against the Machine?" The agitprop band is best known for getting...

Oil and vinegar.(Arts & ideas: this is independent culture)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Its too-obvious title (why didn't the publisher come right out and call it Dude, Where's My Oil Well?) seems to suggest that Linda McQuaig's latest book, It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet (Doubleday, 2004) is aimed...

Venous Hum.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Venous Hum By Suzette Mayr (Arsenal Pulp Press) In this dark, deft novel, a high school graduating class deals with horrors seldom seen this side of Carrie, though they're clearly gluttons for punishment as the scene is not their prom but...

Hello, I'm Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Hello, I'm Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity By Hal Niedzviecki (Penguin Canada) For years, Hal Niedzviecki has been the dean of Toronto's alternative culture, kickin' against the masses and rebelling against the...

Cities, Culture and Granite.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Cities, Culture and Granite By Edmund P. Fowler (Guernica) This trim compendium of essays and previously published book reviews captures and communicates Fowler's concern for the social/environmental impact of our cities and their urban...

Get the ball rolling.(Arts & ideas: this is independent culture)(Brief Article)(Theater Review)
November 1, 2004... Ladies and gentlemen! For you viewing pleasure! An evening to engage your mind! Introducing The Wrecking Ball, political theatre in cabaret style! But consider yourselves warned: There will be no tanks filled with water, no pythons, and no...

Apostle of Hustle, Folkloric Feel.(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2004... (Arts & Crafts) The story goes something like this: In 2001, Toronto songwriter/singer/guitarist Andrew Whiteman's Apostle of Hustle project records an album called The Energy of Death, featuring influences from rock to Cuban rhythms....

Royal City, Little Heart's Ease.(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2004... (Three Cut) We all have that song. The song you discover and play over and over again, thinking you'll never grow tired of it. You play it in the morning over coffee; at work, driving your co-workers insane; and at night before you fall...

A.C. Newman, The Slow Wonder.(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2004... (Blue Curtain) The Slow Wonder marks the first solo release by A.C. Newman (aka Carl Newman), known for his work in the mid-'90s with Sub Pop's Zumpano and now as founder and leader of Vancouver-based supergroup The New Pornographers. The...

Public art therapy: how Dyan Marie uses creativity to awaken community pride.(Question Authority)
November 1, 2004... DYAN MARIE'S WORK LIES AT THE JUNCTION OF ART AND activism. The 50-year-old painter, photographer and sculptor has been exhibiting her work in Toronto for more than two decades but, in recent years, she's acquired a reputation as one of the...