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Vancouver (March)
It's turf-talking time again at Vanmag, which trumpets its "Suite and Lowdown" package of realty tips and tricks. Included: Some rare skinny on the post-RAV market. Steve Burgess announces the end of Canuck Cool, citing both Paul Martin's lack of political nerve and that-somehow-Canadian musical embarrassment Rush crept back into the news recently. In another assured, sweeping dispatch, Jamie Maw goes all culinary ambassador on us: "Vancouver has become one of the foremost food labs in the world," Maw writes, "a factory of rarely constrained invention and barely restrained alchemy-but always a place to eat." A role-playing games convention coming to town? Matt Mallon is psyched: "Totally. Freakin'. Awesome." Danielle Egan follows a geeky-intrepid group of "urban explorers" who cultivate the thrills of B&E-but carefully eschew theft or vandalism. Plus, Jacqueline Moore treads the snowshoeing scene. Vancouvermagazine.com
Geist (Winter)
The literary quarterly bursts with the usual smart scenarist bits: Adam Lewis Schroeder in an LA karaoke bar-"where LA's broken spirit is mended," for example, or Jill Mandrake on the life and death of an aspiring ice cream truck driver. Kevin Chong keeps a diary of his day as a vegan. A jargon watch tracks the retail argot of "mall-ternative" ("pop music played in retail stores") and "shoppertainment" (don't ask). An affecting photo montage of Kabul in fall 2003 reports the return of kite flying, karate and other forms of play previously banned by the Taliban. There's a splash of classic Canadian hand-wringing: A former Governor General's Award jurist finds that Canada's foremost writers, like the general public, are guilty of inconsistent spelling. Annabel Lyon puzzles over the unsettling pleasures of JM Coetzee's "weird position" in the literary world, saying "he's hard enough to get your mind around, let alone imagine as your friend." Geist.com.
Adbusters (March/April)
In an anxious pre-electoral turn, the culture jamming cadre churns out its Whither the Left? issue. Much gawking abounds: At campus Republicanism, at the Gubernator and at the naked glee of Yankee military adventurism. As for the Left? "Too many talkers, too few walkers." The truly adventurous and interesting reads here come from a fusillade of frank self-critiques of progressive thought at a standstill. One great spread on the lackluster state of the "smart" news print media takes no prisoners, decrying The Nation's "lustless political analysis" and faintly damning The New Yorker for "bombshell feature[s] every now and again." Nick Rockell exposes how Greenpeace higher-ups have fled ship to shill for multinational baddies. The real highlight is an insert-like section, "The New Age of Terror," which takes an unblushing look at state persecution down through the ages, juxtaposed against the war porn of today. In related news, Adbuster Numero Uno Kalle Lasn announces World War IV. Adbusters.org.
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}
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