May 31, 2008
Burma benefit, short shorts and a fest on the Rock
Yes, it really is June already. So go ahead, check out the June Film Club Newsletter. If you’re in the Toronto area, mark this coming Wednesday on your calendar: there’s going to be a special benefit screening of Mystic Ball to support Burmese cyclone victims at 7pm at The Bloor Cinema. It’s just $10, and director Greg Hamilton will be in attendance. Other June film highlights include... [More >>]
May 18, 2008
China in Africa, urban renewal in Baghdad, guilt about fish
Forget the old colonial powers. The country with surging interests in Africa is China. Photographer Paolo Woods has this fascinating photo essay on Chinese experts who work in Africa. That’s a nice looking golf course… just watch out for the mortars, and the suicide bombers and the friendly fire. The U.S. has big plans for the Green Zone. Montreal author Taras Grescoe talks about the coming... [More >>]
May 15, 2008
From the magazine: Shopdrop and roll
By Kalli Anderson On a Saturday night, in a supermarket in Montreal, Natalie Reis picks up an 89-cent can of peas and carrots. She pulls one of her original drawings–a grey-and-red sketch of birds in flight–out of her purse and wraps it around the can. She secures the drawing with a single piece of transparent tape, places the can back on the shelf, steps back, snaps a photo with her digital... [More >>]
May 14, 2008
From the magazine: Five charities that are worth it
By Lindsay Kneteman It’s a tough world out there for a charity. In Canada, you’re competing against some 80,000 other organizations, and if you don’t have the budget for a big, slick campaign it’s easy to be overlooked. So we’ve decided to help the little guys out by spotlighting five registered Canadian charities that are all doing some great work, despite their lack... [More >>]
May 4, 2008
Cormorant carnage
Cormorants are black, oily-looking birds. Some people find them beautiful. To others they’re an ugly scourge. I’m rather fond of them, having grown up on Lake Ontario where you see the odd few on rocky bars in Hamilton Harbour. But on Lake Erie, their population seems to have exploded and now may be causing some serious ecological damage. Estimates peg the population at well over 100,000... [More >>]
May 4, 2008
Weekend links: Posters from 68, dissecting a legendary magazine cover, talking to Moshe Safdie
This edition of weekend links is an homage to everyone’s favourite decade: the 1960s (Blame the Boomers and their mythmaking machine) The Hayward Gallery in London (that’s UK sadly, not Ont.) is showing this great exhibit of posters from the 1968 student movement in France. Further proof that revolutions, failed or not, need good graphics. Click on the red gallery tab for a bunch of posters. While... [More >>]
May 1, 2008
IJNR day 3: The Dead Zone
It’s my third day on this circumnavigation of Lake Erie’s environmental challenges, and once again I’m on a boat and wishing for a decent cup of coffee. Which I won’t have for some time. This time, it’s a trawler among islands around in Put-in-Bay, Ohio, where the Americans decimated the British fleet in 1813. There are no canons on this particular boat. The biggest gun... [More >>]
