SHARE:
The Tyee.ca
Geist (Fall)
The esteemed Canuck culture mag decks itself out for its 50th issue. Dig the poetics of the sonograph, the Sears portrait studio of the womb. Hit Penticton's Elvis festival with a helpful Harper's-like index. It abounds with lines carrying the piercing ring of truth: "Number of Priscilla Presley tribute artists: zero." Memoirs of technophobia, Elvis in the Yukon, regression hypnotherapy and Dawson City highwaters: Geist exceeds at the scenarist bits. There is a worrying guide to stain planning. All the stars are in alignment for this issue, including fiction by Lynn Coady and Adam Lewis Schroeder. Alberto Manguel visits with Van Gogh, Annabel Lyon eyes the great expectations which accompany an epigraph, and Lorna Crozier looks back at Carol Shields. The capsule reviews are polite and mannered, and a jokey back-page "CBC Map of Canada" comes up short and unentertaining. Maybe that's the point. Geist
Western Living (Nov)
The West's shelter rag of record defies drab winter hues with its "sunshine issue." A novel travel piece scours the equator for Canadian-owned getaways. Dine at a Moroccan-styled housewarming feast. An austere photo-spread on Asian-influenced home design imparts readers with some ascetic humility for their own dwelling. There are quaint pieces on urban gardens and meandering byways near Ladysmith. But it's the bewitching pics and gut-check narrative of Charles Montgomery's South Seas travel journal that make for the real gem of the issue. At one point the writer is proffered a sacred bevvie, consisting of masticated shrub roots, the "pulpy remains" of which are deposited onto handkerchiefs--and voila!--the drippings are yum-yum ready. The Westerly, a new front of book section, is a <wince> breezy, pretty lifestyle sampler. A realty watch sets foot in Squamish to report on pre-Olympics land fever: "Squamish in the Salish language means 'mother of the wind'--and the mother of all winds, the 2010 Olympic bonanza, is poised to inflate the sails of this hardscrabble town. Or so goes the hype." Western Living
RicePaper (Fall)
The Asian-Canadian rag's fall issue (summer cover pictured here) features an expose on the Japanoise experimental music scene: "Dissecting dead animals on stage, using flamethrowers and broken glass ... [the Boredoms] make so-called 'shock-rockers' like Marilyn Manson look like pigeon-toed schoolgirls." The art-heavy coverage also makes room for some detailed discussions of trans-racial adoption, the wartime atrocities of Nanking and a profile of "cultural warrior" Roy Mah. A mixed-race comedy troupe interviews itself, and doesn't hold the mustard: "When everyone's finished eating, Alexis snaps his chopsticks in half--at 7:30 precisely--like the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange." RicePaper does a bang-up job covering the Asian-Canadian beat--although some may miss the less arty, more gleefully swank Banana--and deserves points for its editorial variety, but the identity politics-speak leaves even this grad school geek cold. One also longs to beg the art director to end the typographical torture which endures within: each page features an optically bruising array of harrowing leading and serif-fic pain. Spiffy logo they've developed, though, and a website reaches better than the likes of certain local mags: Don't forget to sign up for their events webzine while you're there. RicePaper
Jeff MacIntyre is regularly heckled, from dangerously near and glamorously afar, at jeffmacintyre.com ![[Tyee]](/design-article.thetyee.ca/ui/img/yellowblob.png){kind=small}
Tyee Commenting Guidelines
Comments that violate guidelines risk being deleted, and violations may result in a temporary or permanent user ban. Maintain the spirit of good conversation to stay in the discussion.
*Please note The Tyee is not a forum for spreading misinformation about COVID-19, denying its existence or minimizing its risk to public health.
Do:
Do not: