This Magazine articles from November 2005

This Magazine archives from November 2005

Alberta hurrah.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2005... Thanks for printing an article that shows the other side of Alberta's personality ("Alberta the Good" September/October). I've been here since 1979 and have concluded that Albertans are generally more conservative than most Canadians. But...

Church matters.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2005... I congratulate Sabitri Ghosh's concise and helpful article about the United Church of Canada and the dilemma ministers find themselves in ("Organized Religion" July/August). Ms. Ghosh is the first writer I have read in many years who...

Do the iPod shuffle.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2005... I just read Richard Poplak's piece on the iPod (Holy) Shuffle ("Pod People" July/ August). It was awesome. I even looked up ontology and found a name for my recent thought obsession. Thanks! And keep up the good work. Magda Wojtyra ...

No bull.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2005... It's wonderful when oppressed groups finally receive the freedoms and protections they deserve, but awfully depressing when they perpetuate the oppression of others ("Out West" September/October 2005). Rodeos are rife with cruelty. From the...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
November 1, 2005... In our September/October issue, the article, "Offered, Wanted, Taken" by Kelly McCarthy-Maine, referred to an online group run by Charmaine Jensen and David Voisine as Free Reuse. The name of the group is FreeTOreuse. We apologize For the...

Let's play "Spot The Canadian".(canadian culture and american culture)(Editorial)
November 1, 2005... Ashtray. Jackass. Palm tree. Sorry. About. House. What do these words have in common and--aside from looking like an experimental poem--why do they belong in This Magazine's annual culture issue? The first three are the words on which my...

Yippee Tyee: get connected to B.C. news.(David Beers opinions)
November 1, 2005... When people want old-fashioned, muckraking journalism, they generally turn to newspapers, magazines or news radio programs. But in British Columbia, many citizens have instead begun to rely on an upstart news outlet on the web--just as David...

Screw the news, more Brangelina.(periodical publishing concentrating on celebrities rather than on social issues )
November 1, 2005... Magazines like People and Us Weekly make it their business to showcase celebrities. While there is no shortage of folks who want to read about the latest events in Brad Pitt's love life, it's reasonable to expect that the front section of a...

Ditch TIFF--you're coming with us!(Toronto International Film Festival)
November 1, 2005... When it comes to film festivals, Canada is famous worldwide for one thing: the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). While it is frequently touted as the most important film festival in North America (if not the second most important in...

Twin city.(movie locations in canada)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... From Mary Pickford in the silent era to the not-so-silent exploits of Jim Carrey, Canada has consistently exported its film talent to Hollywood. Yet some of the country's best performers aren't actors--or even human. In fact, Canadian cities...

At a theatre nearer to you.(film festivals)
November 1, 2005... Queer Celluloid Nearly every major city in Canada has a gay and lesbian festival such as Calgary's Fairytales International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and Vancouver's Out on Screen Queer Film & Video Festival. Even smaller cities have...

The billboard effect.(human advertising )
November 1, 2005... In a world where advertisements lurk around every corner, it's hard to imagine that untapped advertising spaces could still exist, but marketing masters are indeed finding new and unexpected places to get their messages across. The latest...

Licence to spill.(bill introduced to reduce the oil spills by big companies)
November 1, 2005... The government of Ontario has introduced a new bill to ensure that large companies that create environmental spills will be fined immediately--up to $100,000 a day. Bill 133 comes in response to an alarming rise in industrial accidents in...

Koda-crime! A eulogy to Super 8 Kodachrome.( )(Column)
November 1, 2005... Recently, my wife was phoning shops from Vancouver to Nova Scotia trying to make a score but everyone gave her the same reply, "Sorry, we're sold out." She was both sad and furious and I, like a good husband, was doing my best to sympathize....

Ladies get in free? Not even close: putting pressure on politicians to count women in.(womens rights)
November 1, 2005... Complicity with discrimination against women is political suicide these days. Politicians would rather walk into a propeller than refer to women as "girls" on camera. Their glossy brochures always picture the requisite number of women. And...

Text, lies and celluloid: does a film take a book to the end of its lifespan or revitalize it? Liev Schreiber, Atom Egoyan, Clement Virgo, Tamara Faith Berger and Michael Turner discuss the pulp-to-picture process.(Panel Discussion)
November 1, 2005... "I hate it when people compare books and movies just because they have the same title," says Toronto novelist Tamara Faith Berger when I interview her alongside her film-writing and romantic partner, Clement Virgo. Berger is the author of a...

The real deal: you may be able to thank the internet for the success of the big-screen doc, but don't be too grateful. The rise of the real has a dangerous side.
November 1, 2005... Sure, there was the Michael Moore phenomenon. Then the media proclaimed 2004 The Year of the Documentary. Now, it's clear the once-neglected documentary film has feature staying power: on our televisions, in our cinemas and on DVDs. But so...

Two cultures: one cheque the real Hollywood North: two solitudes are alive and well in the Canadian film industry. Richard Poplak explores the English/French divide in terms of audience, authorship, attitude--and l'argent.
November 1, 2005... Upper vs. Lower Canada. French vs. English. A country divided. While Quebec has a booming indigenous film industry, English Canada can boast nothing of the sort. The contrast is stark and in many respects this is the age-old Canadian cultural...

To Ogre, with love: the desperation of the Reagan era, the darkness of industrial music and one devoted teenage fan: a Skinny Puppy-smitten girl survived through her writing.(Nivek Ogre)(Jolene Siana)
November 1, 2005... 14 February 1987 I'm Jolene. I'm 17. I'm a senior at an extremely boring school. It's packed full of heavy metalers. Do you like heavy metalers? Sorry to say but I don't get along with them too well. I hate this school.... My mother hates...

Great Canadian literary hunt '05.
November 1, 2005... THE WINNERS Fiction 1st: Five-Fifteen by Sunita Popli 2nd: Boy Dancing by Marjorie Celona 3rd: The Long-Haired Dog Girl by Cathleen With Poetry 1st: Still Life by Matthew Tierney 2nd: Optic Nerve by Matthew...

Five-Fifteen.(FICTION: 1ST)
November 1, 2005... I'm waiting for my sisters in the train at Union Station. It's 5:10. The train leaves at 5:15. Nisha finishes her classes the same time as I do but is never on time, Nina will be at the Dairy Queen. On Fridays ice-cream Blizzards are...

Still Life.(POETRY: 1ST)(Poem)
November 1, 2005... Still Life His picture whacked up with pacing tape on the clock tower door outside the mall; some punk, a smoke angling from his mouth. Candle wax on the concrete below. I set down my briefcase, step closer. His...

Boy Dancing.(FICTION: 2ND)
November 1, 2005... Philip stares at the word piston, takes a short breath and spits the word into the small classroom. "When ready for flight," he begins and licks his lips, "the rocket's engine is pushed into the top of the psstin tube." He looks at Mr....

Optic Nerve.(POETRY: 2ND)(Poem)
November 1, 2005... Optic Nerve Evenings, I criss-cross King Street and avoid the panhandlers, spare a glance to see whether I'm being tailed. My route, plotted on x-y axes, tracks supply and demand to its conclusion. Home ...

The Long-Haired Dog Girl.(FICTION: 3RD)
November 1, 2005... What made the Great Indonesian Mirth sideshow bermutu tinggi was a melange of tourists and gawkers yelling in Bahasa Malay, Indonesian or Thai, animals screeching, roaring, food sellers cooking satay sticks, crushing cane for sugar juice,...

Slide Show.(POETRY: 3RD)(Poem)
November 1, 2005... Slide Show In the dark, we line the couch, watch motes shine like wayward constellations in the bright triangle of light. This next one shows our northern hill. Precise electric fencing frames two tiny specks...

Art Attack #8.(art piece reminding people about terrorism)
November 1, 2005... A still-smoking wreck of an SUV sits in a public square, pedestrians stop and stare at the scene of destruction. It looks like a news story from Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan. But it's actually right in the middle of Yonge-Dundas Square, one of...

The antiques wordshow.(The Iron Whim by Darren Wershler-Henry being criticised)
November 1, 2005... "Typewriters may have been consigned to the dustbin of history," writes Darren Wershler-Henry in the introduction to his new book from McClelland & Stewart The Iron Whim, "but their ghosts are everywhere." Tracing not only the historical, but...

Unite the write? Why new attempts to bring the lowly freelance writer into the union fold may be wrong.(ARTS & ARGUMENT)
November 1, 2005... This was my first job after school: trying to sell a few articles to pay my rent. Harder than it sounds when you're paid by the word and the words come slowly. That blank page is cruel, and it always takes longer than it should to fill it. It's...

Don't fear the Ripper: nothing is sacred in Velcrow Ripper's film, ScaredSacred.
November 1, 2005... Nearly a year after its first screening as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival, filmmaker Velcrow Ripper's Scared Sacred drew a full house to its Vancouver theatrical release this September. Ripper's film has been a prize-winning...

The SmackDown! Michael Holmes gives the lowdown on wrestling and race.(BACK STORY)
November 1, 2005... Outrage, in professional wrestling's alternate universe, is almost always marketable. Careers, and fortunes, are made by wrestlers--and companies like World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), the publicly traded, virtual monopoly that controls the...