THIS MAGAZINE: BECAUSE EVERTHING IS POLITICAL

Search for:

• FEATURES
• THIS & THAT
• ARTS & IDEAS
• FICTION & POETRY
• LETTERS
• BLOG THIS
•  
• SUBSCRIBE
• BACK ISSUES
• SUPPORT THIS
•  
• ABOUT THIS
• CONTRIBUTORS
• CONTACT THIS
• ADVERTISE
• SITE MAP

Home » Blog This

January 12, 2009

'Whopper Virgins' campaign leaves a bad taste

Posted by Graham F. Scott at 06:19 AM ET | Comments (3)

This might be old news to some: Burger King's "Whopper Virgins" ad campaign has been running for a while. Here's the promo:

I felt intuitively icky about the whole thing before but couldn't quite define why. Luckily, blogger Evan Calder Williams has articulated that feeling very nicely already, so I'll just let him take it from here:

The core of it seems rather to be: these are ads that hinge on the support structure of those subjects who do not grasp advertising, who are "pure." Encoded in this, then, is the oddly self-aware stance of the corporation: look, we know that your consumption habits are so mediated by advertising — as we want them to be, we're not suggesting that you change that, good God no — that you no longer can even taste things correctly. So we're bringing in a pinch hitter, the global dispossessed, to function as the externalization of the sensual apparatus you all used to have.

[Thanks Steve!]

More entries on: Advertising | Cultural industries | Development | Globalization

January 08, 2009

Rinky-dink ink tinkering isn't the answer

Posted by Graham F. Scott at 11:57 AM ET | Comments (0)

A Dutch design firm has released a new computer font, Ecofont, that they say uses less ink, and can therefore reduce the e-waste that results from depleted toner cartridges. It's a regular-looking font except that it's riddled with holes, and the firm, Spranq, claims this reduces toner use by up to 20 per cent.

Their hearts are in the right place, but this is clearly public-relations bunk. (And I realize I'm playing into it by linking to them.) There are plenty of environmental problems in the world, and technology waste is some of the most difficult to deal with. But the real effect of this font is statistically insignificant, and no one should be fooled into thinking it's a real solution to any of our pressing environmental problems.

This kind of "environmental" measure is increasingly common — easy to implement, emotionally gratifying, socially acceptable, and totally ineffectual. You would be better off turning on the ink-saving features now available in every modern printer; even better would be choosing not to print that two-line email in the first place.

This morning on Twitter I linked to a new advertisement from the World Wildlife Fund that makes a crucial point: consumers and end-users are being constantly scolded to change their behaviours and reduce their environmental footprint while government and industry continue to allow damaging beahviour to go unchecked. Individual efforts like installing compact fluorescent lightbulbs and downloading an "Ecofont" are fine, but they won't get us where we need to go unless the biggest and baddest polluters are brought to heel.

More entries on: Cultural industries | Environment | Planet Earth | Time Wasters | Visual art

December 19, 2008

The airing of the grievances

Posted by Melissa Wilson at 11:29 AM ET | Comments (0)

Happy Holidays, bloggers.

It's less than a week until Christmas and Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah is coming even sooner, which means it's just about time for me to start proselytizing about how much I despise the term, "Happy Holidays." I have a couple reasons for this, and none of them stem from how my love for gingerbread, apple cider and reindeer.

First, when people say, "Happy Holidays," what they're really saying is, "I am wishing you a Merry Christmas, but cheapening the term so as not to offend you, in case you don't enjoy Santa and pine trees as much as I do."

No one ever says, "Happy Hanukk--oops! I mean, Happy Holidays."

Don't believe me? Why are red-and-green Fruit Loops called "Holiday Fruit Loops" when they are obviously for Christmas? The same goes for Rice Krispies. Why is it that the CBC's "Holiday" programming schedule consists of a few hockey games, an episode of Little Mosque on the Prairie (one that features a group of Muslims humourously trying to include Christmas festivities in their Eid celebration--on tonight!) and over thirty Christmas movies? Thirty!

Why even bother with the PC terminology when even the CBC hasn't included any non-Santa programming? And then there's the fact that the all-encompassing nature of the phrase (that is plastered across every over-crowded mall in the country) implies that all December holidays have sold out to the evils of capitalism and consumerism when, last time I checked, Christmas is the only one to make that deal.

I understand that the nature of the term is meant to keep from isolating and alienating those who do not celebrate Christmas (undoubtedly the majority holiday in Canada), and inclusive language should always be a consideration in the "cultural mosaic" that is supposed to be Canada. However, I'm arguing that if that's the case for "Happy Holidays," then the buzzword is not doing its job.

Secondly, and more importantly, I feel that the term promotes a sense of homogeny within our society. Instead of recognizing each other's differences, we are ignoring them. Instead of celebrating the notion that there are different traditions and religions, we are lumping all winter holidays into one neat, red package and pretending that we are all the same. We are not all the same, and this will never be acknowledged as long as "Happy Holidays" is the greeting of choice.

Why can't we learn about each other's differences instead of whitewashing them? Why can't wishing someone a Merry Whatever be considered an act of sharing, instead of an ignorant slight? In a perfect world, I would love to see this exchange happen:

Tom: Happy Hanukkah, sir!
Harry: Oh, thank you very much, but actually, I celebrate the winter solstice.
Tom: Oh, really? Wonderful! What have you got planned for that?
Harry: Well, we...
[Conversation to follow about the pair's differing holiday traditions]

However, I recognize that this is not a perfect world, so if you don't think you can wish people a Happy [Your Holiday Here], I propose we ditch "Happy Holidays" altogether and rest back on the laurels of Canadian politeness: "Hope you have a wonderful evening."

And finally, so everyone's on the same page, the dates of all the December holidays this year (my apologies if I have forgotten any):

Eid al-Adha: December 8 - 11
Winter solstice: December 21
Hanukkah: Sunset December 21 - Sunset December 29
Christmas: December 25
Kwanzaa: December 26 - 31

And for the rest of us, Festivus is celebrated on December 23.

More entries on: Cultural industries

December 06, 2008

CITIZENShift is looking for podcasts

Posted by Lindsay Kneteman at 11:23 AM ET | Comments (0)

So there you sit, frustrated with Canada's current political situation and wondering how you can show the country what you think of this whole mess. Sure, there's rallies you can attend, Facebook groups you can join or letters to the editor you could write but for you, none of those things are quite right. Well then, why not express your feelings and ideas via a podcast?

CitizenShift, the National Film Board of Canada's "participatory Web platform exploring today's crucial issues through films, photography, articles, blogs and podcasts" is currently looking for podcast proposals on almost any topic.

The podcasts are being coordinated by This Magazine contributor Tim McSorley (watch for his profile on Quebec's Socially Acceptable Acts of Terrorism in our January/February issue) and he's interested in both new ideas as well already completed pieces.

For more details, including how to get in touch with Tim, check out the call for submissions below.

**** CITIZENShift Podcast: Call for submissions ****

Do you have a piece of audio or visual journalism or documentary that you want to share? Would you like CITIZENShift to help you get it heard or seen? Perhaps you have a recording that highlights an issue you care about or an interview with a media-maker you think deserves more attention.

CITIZENShift is looking for exciting and dynamic audio or video pieces to distribute through our podcast. Rough or slick, long or short - as long as the content is engaging and fresh, we want to hear it.

We accept both proposals for original content, as well as already finished pieces.

Podcast Proposals:

Proposals should be short and to the point - no more than 300 words. Please include information on the subject; why it is relevant to CITIZENShift's mission; voices, sounds and/or images you plan to include; how long the piece will be; and any previous experience you have in audio/video (experience isn't necessary though!)

Also make sure to include your full name, e-mail and daytime phone number.

Finished podcasts:

If you have an already completed audio or video piece you think would be of interest to the CITIZENShift podcast, you can upload it to our site; just attach a note in the "Short description" field saying you would like it considered for the podcast.

Also make sure to include your full name, e-mail and daytime phone number.

Content:

We're looking for socially engaged audio and video pieces (documentaries, interviews, discussions, experimental) of varying lengths that reflect the goals outlined in our mission statement. If you haven't already, please explore our site at http://citizen.nfb.ca, to get a sense of what we do, have a listen to our previous podcast episodes and take a look at our editorial policy.

How to submit:

Please send your proposals to citizen@nfb.ca or call us at 514-283-9513

WHY SUBMIT TO CITIZENShift?

* Visibility, access and community with other mediamakers
* Interaction with other multimedia content
* Free outreach on your behalf
* Feedback and statistics on who is accessing your work
* Possible stipends (for original pieces only, upon completion) and short-term equipment loans

--
Tim McSorley
Podcast Coordinator/Online Communications Officer
NFB/ONF
CITIZENShift
(514) 283-9513
http://citizen.nfb.ca

More entries on: Cultural industries

September 10, 2008

Elect a Tory, kiss net neutrality goodbye

Posted by mason at 01:11 PM ET | Comments (0)

In a statement published on international peer-to-peer news site p2pnet.net, the NDP's Charlie Angus has brought the net neutrality issue into the federal election campaign. He begins by outlining what he calls the ruling Conservatives' ignorance toward digital innovation and the recent axing of the New Media Fund. The Harper government falls into line with the pro-free-market U.S. administration when it comes to copyright legislation, he continues, before extolling the virtues of his party as the only one defending Internet freedoms in the House of Commons.

"There are key urban ridings across Canada where the issue of copyright and Net Neutrality could spell the difference in winning or losing the riding," Angus writes. "This provides a unique opportunity to the arts, education and innovation community to get active and organized. The Conservative party needs to know that the digital community will push back against their corporate agenda."

Full text of the statement here.

More entries on: Copyright/left | Cultural industries | Election 2008 | Harper Index | Interweb

February 06, 2008

Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten

Posted by derek at 01:35 PM ET | Comments (0)

Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, a recently-released film about the Clash front man who died in 2002, opens with a young and fierce looking Strummer in the recording studio. Headphones on, he starts spitting out the lyrics to White Riot: "An' everybody's doing / just what they're told to / an' nobody wants / to go to jail! / white riot - I wanna riot! / white riot - a riot of our own!" After a few verses acapella, the soundtrack slams in. The effect is jarring and exhilarating, kind of like hearing the Clash for the very first time.

At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival two summers ago, I saw a play called Being Joe Strummer. The play tells the story of two friends growing up together, being politicized by anti-fascist struggles, the rise of Thatcherism, and most of all, by The Clash. As they get older, they, like all of us, face many different pulls - towards a "secure" life, "realistic" politics and the like. But Joe Strummer's music is always there, acting as a powerful "bullshit detector" - buzzing them warnings about the lies they tell themselves to make their lives a little easier.

It's this kind of influence that makes The Future is Unwritten a gotta-see for all of Joe's fans. As the film shows, Strummer knew that to change the world, you had to live in it and engage with it, even if this meant a loss of some mythical "purity." Of course this engagement is fraught with dangers and pitfalls - As the man himself used to warn us, "he who fucks nuns will later join the church."

Recounting how the Clash eventually collapsed, sending Strummer into a self-described "wilderness period" before his redemptive return near the end of his life with the Mescalaros, The Future is Unwritten is a loving tribute to a man for whom art had to mean something, in this world, despite the messiness involved.

PHOTO: WWW.JOESTRUMMERTHEMOVIE.COM

More entries on: Cultural industries | Film | From the intern desk

January 23, 2008

Persepolis

Posted by derek at 03:30 PM ET | Comments (0)

Oscar nominations are out! In keeping with the spirit of the event, I would like to personally thank the Academy for its inclusion of the powerful and timely Persepolis, which has been nominated in the Best Animated Feature category.

The hand-drawn cartoon, directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, is adapted from Satrapi's graphic novel of the same name. Autobiographical in nature, the film tells the story of Marjane, growing up as a little girl in Iran just as a revolution against the hated Shah regime is beginning to sweep the country. Through the story of her exile and return, we learn about how today's Iran came to be - a history full of dashed hopes and personal and grand tragedies.

Persepolis is the perfect antidote for the current political climate that depicts people from the Middle East as mindless fanatics. The film is deeply humanizing, recounting how a people's hopes for joy and love and respect and fun came to be smothered, but not extinguished, by theocratic rule.

PHOTO DIAPHANA FILMS

More entries on: Cultural industries | Film | From the intern desk | Religion

October 08, 2007

This season's new Black? Racism.

Posted by calvin at 02:28 PM ET | Comments (0)

While the tidal wave of F/W 07/08 floods retailers with fresh stock, inciting everyday consumers to buy and accessorize for this seasons latest must-have fashions, there is a growing concern of the whitebreading of fashion to levels not seen since the 60's. Paris, long the bastion of pomp and pretension, recently presented the latest collections and angry industry watchers are already crying foul. A foul of blindingly white proportions.

Asia's return to global significance, largely in part by the robust consumer base in rising China, has lead to notable Asian beauties into the fashion pack. Few girls have achieved the unbiquity of household-name, supermodel status, and fewer still are male, but there is at least identifiable progress from years ago when there was not a spot of Far Eastern heritage on the catwalks of Paris, Milan nor New York. Yet, with the launch of Chinese Vogue, it was indeed a white supermodel, in the form of Australian Gemma Ward who centred the premier cover issue. Admittingly strange, but perhaps an artistic contrast? Unfortunately not. India, the latest country to enter the Vogue fold, has recently launched and featured the exact same formula- a white model flanked by local ethnicities. And that white model? Again, Gemma Ward.

Not to personalise this against Ms. Ward, who has quite a reputation as a lovely girl aside from being ridiculously good-looking, but does it not obviously reak of "beauty colonialism?"

Never to be outdone, feisty supermodel Naomi Campbell is also focusing here formidable energies towards the issue with the recent decline of assignments for black models in editorial work. Rallying equally high profile support from a racial justice league of supermodelfriends, including Iman, Liya Kebede, and Tyson Beckford, she chides the industry of the rapidly decline of black exposure, confessing even her own obstacles against the closed industry.

"There's a fine line between artistic vision and discrimination," Anna Park, a regional attorney for the Los Angeles District office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, told the New York edition of Metro. "If a designer chooses to define a certain vision as all white or all black, you run the risk of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964." With the increase of heightened global interconnectiveness, it seems a bit last season to envision something so sadly undiverse.

More entries on: Cultural industries

June 19, 2007

If Starbucks is the new record store please just shoot me now

Posted by Lisa at 06:11 PM ET | Comments (10)

I have to admit that I don't pay much attention to the CDs for sale at my local Starbucks. I'm usually in desperate need of caffeine and trying to figure out whether eight grams of fat in coffee cake really does make it "low fat." Does it?

I know they're currently selling some sort of new Paul McCartney CD cause his face is all over the gift cards they're selling. Unless it gives the buyer insider access to his dirty divorce details, well quite frankly I'm not interested.

I'll pay more attention to the music selection from now on after learning that my beloved alt-rock band Sonic Youth is doing a CD for Starbucks. Nooooo! Say it isn't so.

The band is asking fashion designer Marc Jacobs, some random actors and musicians like Beck and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy to pick their favourite Sonic Youth songs which will then appear on the compilation, along with one new track from the band. Sounds like a kind of cool project and I'm sure bandmember Thurston Moore is being sarcastic when describing Starbucks as the "new record store", but something about the union of Starbucks and Sonic Youth seems wrong. It's creepy, like when Bob Dylan did those commercials for Victoria's Secret. Yuck.

More entries on: Cultural industries

February 27, 2007

my crystal's alright Jack

Posted by john_d at 06:31 PM ET | Comments (9)

Sleepy-eared this morning, I wasn't sure if I was hearing right when William Thorsell, emperor of the Royal Ontario Musuem, was quoted on CBC radio slagging Toronto mayor David Miller's request for a reasonable return on the sales tax monies collected in Canada's largest city. Miller's One Cent Now campaign has been big news lately (we sure do live in the era of politicians launching policy like it's a product line, don't we?).

Thorsell's disagreement? The ROM didn't get one cent from the City of Toronto to build its magnificent new crystal dangly thing on Bloor Street, so why should a large successful city like Toronto need part of the federal GST cache? The CBC tried bravely to hold this precarious mass of illogic together, like some sort of dangly crystal thing hanging over a sidewalk, by pointing out that Miller has put Toronto's arts and culture front and centre in the campaign. That's the connection. Miller speaks of arts and culture; Thorsell has proven that GST revenue is unnecessary for arts and culture... as long as you have incredibly rich donors who want their name on a crystal. It all makes sense now.

Say, didn't Toronto build a subway station right in front of the ROM and name it Museum? Don't Torontonians spend a whole bunch of money to bring themselves and their kids to the ROM? A family of four ordinary Torontonians can reasonably expect to drop $100 for a ROM experience (food and special exhibitions included) -- that's also including the $12 per kid rate. It's probably not relevant here, but shouldn't a large successful museum be able to afford itself without charging kids for admission?

Miller actually wants this money for all sorts of things, like improved transit and the fulfilment of climate change obligations, parks, shelter and housing, recycling, recreation facilities, libraries and so much more. Things most people can see -- when their vision isn't obscured by smog or gigantic dangly crystal things -- are good for all the people who regularly pay (a lot of) money to go to the ROM.

I mean, if Thorsell can make pointless rhetorical linkages, why can't we all?

More entries on: Cultural industries

February 14, 2007

the amateur/professional line in art

Posted by john_d at 04:59 PM ET | Comments (0)

Lots of talk on the old Internet tubes about the de-professionalizing, or even 'democratizing' of art (and journalism, said the blogger). It is the age of the self-taught amateur, yes? Good for all of us.

What do we mean when we talk about professionalism? For the professional freelance writers I represent in my day job it has a lot to do with formal education, experience, hard work, being paid for the work, being paid fairly for the work, and doing enough work and being paid enough for it to make that work your primary source of income (so you don't have to do other things for money that might take you away from the work you love).

But somehow in the age of the amateur, such considerations carry with them an air of elitism and crass commercialism. For working artists, the pressure to give it away for free is coming from both sides -- from the traditional producer sectors whose contracts are trending less and less artist-friendly, and from the user-advocate sector who want to make sure the Internet doesn't suffer a permanent lockdown. It's all very fascinating and, for working artists, a little nerve-wracking. An illustrative anecdote:

image courtesy Nightwood Editions

This is the cover of a novel I wrote (professionally). The photo on the cover is by a Canadian photographer named Katie West, who was paid by my publisher for the use of this shot (complete contract details known only to him and her). Ms. West, while still a student in art school, is a professional photographer. While mostly self-taught (I think), she sells her photos through a web-store. You can view her extensive portfolio on the photo-sharing site Flickr (http://flickr.com/photos/katiewest/ -- be forewarned, there are some saucy images).

Katie West does not licence her work under the Creative Commons, but rather uses the standard, and somewhat old-fashioned Copyright symbol and the message All Rights Reserved beneath her photos. Nevertheless, despite some minor technical protection measures on the Flickr site, it is not that difficult to simply take one of her photos from Flickr. She trusts that you won't. She is not against appropriation art; in fact she enjoys when others make art based on her photos.

The other day, Ms. West uploaded a new photo on Flickr, and labelled it with a long story about an art show featuring some of her work in Windsor, Ontario. While attending the show, she was drawn to the work of another featured photographer. Something about it was oddly familiar. She talked to the artist about the work, and was told stories of the shooting sessions and models involved -- but something wasn't sitting right. With a little research after the show, Ms. West discovered that the oddly familiar photos were in fact the work of another online photographer named Lara Jade Coton, who was not the "artist" at the show. The photos in the show were for sale, and any money made was certainly not going to Lara Jade Coton.

Art fraud was not invented by the Internet. Certainly not. But the fantastic explosion of creativity the digital age has enabled is presenting unique challenges to those who would endeavour to live by making art. Would the fraudster in this anecdote have even had access to the work of Ms. Coton without the Internet.

The new Creative Commons standard of Some Rights Reserved does offer legal protection from unauthorized commercial use, and I doubt flat-out fraud is even a licencing issue. Nevertheless, I celebrate Ms. West's use of the All Rights Reserved notice, even as I celebrate the Internet's "democratizing " tendencies. Democracy may, at some level, be about sharing and equal access, but it's also about protection of individual rights. And individual rights really should be as important to amateur artists as they are to professionals.

More entries on: Cultural industries

December 14, 2006

capital download

Posted by john_d at 10:02 AM ET | Comments (7)

It's my birthday, and as I officially become a middle-aged crank, I wish to marvel at the incredible Dorian Gray act of someone older than me (if it's even possible to be older than me).

Ted Rogers, namesake and honcho over at Rogers Media, has kicked off the shackles of time and age and joined with the cool kids. He's not only selling our youth MP3 phones -- um, so they can be even more annoying on the streetcar? (that's the crankiness starting) -- he's actively encouraging them to engage in the sharing of digital music files, without compensation to record companies or musical artists. One of Rogers' holiday TV commercials has a young woman gleefully describing how she bought a phone for her boyfriend and then had all her friends load it with their music. You see actual file-sharing going on -- sensitive artist-types avert your eyes.

Yes, old Ted has become an activist for peer to peer file sharing and free-as-in-beer culture. Why? Presumably because if a whole bunch of kids-these-days buy one of his inexpensive combination music player telephonic communications devices, he will make even more money than he already has. No, that can't be it. He's sticking it to the man -- to all those corporate capitalists who are trying to imprison our culture.

How much money does corporate capitalist Ted Rogers currently have? How far away is Mars, in centimeters? Mr. Rogers just recently offered a man $126 million dollars to play baseball for the next 7 years. That's how much money he has.

So, the question for my birthday is -- how do we young kids feel about denying musicians fair compensation for their work, while simultaneously buying Ted Rogers another small country?

The longer I live the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us. -- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

More entries on: Cultural industries

October 27, 2006

Grunge Pays. Who Knew?

Posted by Lisa at 02:34 PM ET | Comments (3)

So Forbes just released it's annual list of the top earning dead celebrities (surely you've been craving such a list for a while now). The top spot went to Kurt Cobain. Fifty million dollars. Wow. He'll surely be on the list again next year since his sober (ahem, cough, cough) widow sold 1/4 of the Nirvana song catalogue to Primary Wave, a company that will place the band's songs in television shows and commercials. Could be a bit of a challenge for a song like "Rape Me," but I have faith that if anyone can find a way to make it happen Primary Wave can. For those worried the band will be selling out (something they were always so scared they were doing), the company's CEO is quoted as saying,

"You will never see Kurt Cobain's music in a fast-food hamburger advertisement -- that won't ever happen. We're looking at things that relate to cutting-edge technologies, products that are green and eco-friendly, products that Kurt would have liked to have his music represented by."

Right. Coming soon to an episode of The Gilmore Girls, "Smells like Teen Spirit." It's the perfect background music for those touching mother and daughter moments.

Here's the list
1. Kurt Cobain ($50M)
2. Elvis Presley ($42M)
3. Charles M. Schulz ($35M)
4. John Lennon ($24M)
5. Albert Einstein ($20M)
6. Andy Warhol ($19M)
7. Dr. Seuss ($10M)
8. Ray Charles ($10M)
9. Marilyn Monroe ($8M)
10. Johnny Cash ($8M)
11. J.R.R Tolkien ($7M)
12. George Harrison ($7M)
13. Bob Marley ($7M)

More entries on: Cultural industries | Ear candy | Signs of the Apocalypse

September 13, 2006

Bush, Borat & International Diplomacy

Posted by annette at 04:07 PM ET | Comments (1)

It's no surprise that Nursultan Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan, is none too happy with Sacha Baron Cohen's popular yet politically very incorrect character Borat. What is odd is that Borat has apparently been deemed worthy of an "official talk" item when Nazarbayev meets with Dubya, president of the good old US and A.

I'm sure Bush will be able to smooth everything over. He's SO diplomatic, especially when it comes to understanding foreign cultures.

Ironically, the Kazakh government's public displeasure with Borat is landing tons of free press for the upcoming Borat movie. Hmmm...

For what it's worth, I was able to check out the Borat movie last week, and politically correct or not, it's one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Like Cohen's other character, Ali G, it's all very tongue-in-cheek. Clearly not meant to be taken seriously. Brace yourself for the "hand party" scene. And the remarkable banana hammock (see photo).

I want to make thank you to Gary R. to bring this news to the attention of me.

More entries on: Cultural industries

September 11, 2006

bitchin' Stitchin'

Posted by Krisztina at 01:12 AM ET | Comments (0)

Tired of all that boring old painted on graffiti? Bored of tagging with sharpies on old stickers and mail labels and plastering them around town?

Why not try knitting? Yup, a new brand of street art is popping up, and it's made of yarn. Knitta, is a self described "tag crew of knitters, bombing the inner city with vibrant, stitched works of art, wrapped around everything from beer bottles on easy nights to public monuments and utility poles on more ambitious outings."

They hit up the streets of Seattle while I was there last weekend, even managing to wrap a scarf around one of those concrete Monorail towers. Mainly in the States so far, all it takes is a couple of needles and some left over yarn to bring this trend northward.

More entries on: Cultural industries

August 25, 2006

the whine of globalization

Posted by john_d at 11:17 AM ET | Comments (5)

In the latest Walrus, Don Gillmor writes about how Canadian winemakers in the Niagara region are betting heavily on the Pinot Noir grape to carry their business a few more rungs up the ladder of global wine success. According to the article, the Canadian wine industry's domestic sales represent only 44 percent of the total wine market in Canada, a figure familiar to anyone working in a domestic "culture" industry. Canadian magazines, for instance, currently represent only about 45 percent of what you will find on the (above) average Canadian magazine rack.

But what exactly is "Canadian" wine? A Canadian magazine, like The Walrus, or THIS, need not concern itself solely with Canada, but it tends to be located here, employs Canadians, sells itself primarily to Canadians and tills Canadian soil for much if not all of its product.

Much has been written in the food and drink press about the years of winter kill to the grape harvest in Niagara, resulting in "Canadian" wines with increasingly large amounts of non-Canadian grape in the bottle. Gillmor writes about "Mexican and Jamaican field workers tend[ing] to the vines" in Niagara, and about how Vincor, Canada's wine giant was recently bought by an American... well, global... supergiant, Constellation brands, "the largest wine conglomerate in the world."

I also recently published an article about Canadian wine. In the July/August issue of Cottage Life magazine I go on a bit of a Quixotic quest through southern Ontario cottage country, tasting all manner of "interesting" alcohol calling itself wine -- pumpkin wine!... I know, I know; it sounds dreadful, but it does the job. I met with many small grape growers and winemakers all over the lower part of the province; tiny operators whose annual output is the smallest fraction of what some monster like Constellation will flood the market with. The difference, of course, is that what my subjects produce is unquestionably 100 percent Canadian wine.

My story was a fun piece for a fun magazine, but my interview notes and quotations (the ones I didn't use) contain a remarkable amount of anger and disgust at the juggernaut process of wine globalization. If I were to sum up what I heard from Ontario's struggling micro-producers, it is this: small craftspeople dedicated to creating a unique product with unique character are mere prey to giant global corporations interested primarily in creating as homogenized and uniform a product as possible.

The large corporate goal is to sell more "very good" wine at prices more people can afford. This globalizing democratic impulse is not bad in itself (as a friend of mine says, "I don't care about my wine's heritage, or what it will be like after years in my cellar -- who has a cellar? I care that it tastes good today."), but it seems to only be possible by destroying the marketability of potentially "great" interesting local wines being produced through different economic models.

Gillmor's article references the 2004 wine documentary Mondovino, which charts this same tension, only between France and California. While I have always been mildly and amusedly suspicious of wine-expert claims that one can taste the region in the glass, I can't help feeling something uniquely Canadian, a real domestic cultural industry, is being crushed out in its infancy.

The wine producers of Prince Edward County, a small almost-island in Lake Ontario (just south of Belleville) are for the most part all under a decade old, yet they are producing wines of distinction. By Chadsey's Cairns, a county winery is run by a couple of benevolent crazy people who sincerely want to express their locale in their product. Try finding their product at your LCBO. You won't. Between their fields, and the shelves at the local outlet closest to them, global forces are at work ensuring it is far easier to find an Australian and a Californian wine (that taste almost identical), than it is to find the unique wine made down the road.

Does it matter? I mean, I know where to go to get By Chadsey Cairns wine, and their business survives. If the bulk of Canadian wine consumers just want something deliciously alcoholic with which to wash down their Alberta steak and their PEI potatoes, why not provide a cheap, tasty product, marketed to make them feel they've travelled the world and seen kangaroos?

More entries on: Cultural industries

August 04, 2006

Isolationism: lost in translations

Posted by john_d at 10:47 AM ET | Comments (5)

image courtesy Slate magazine

There's a good debate going on over at the Euston Manifesto site concerning how the left should think about Israel/Lebanon.

While the good folks of Euston figure out my opinion on that, I've been doing some more thinking about another of my geo-political preoccupations - Americanism, minus the anti. The following discussion would get the EM stamp of approval. I think.

The Times Literary Supplement recently published a fascinating short essay by Lawrence Venuti, Temple University English professor, in which he identifies and discusses the United States' reluctance to learn about the rest of the world through its various literatures and cultural exports. Venuti writes:

"Seventy-five per cent of the films shown worldwide are made in Hollywood, while the number of foreign films available in the US remains negligible. Every year translated books range between 10 and 25 per cent of total output in most European countries, while in American publishing the figure hovers around 2 per cent. In 2004 this meant roughly 4,000 translations out of 195,000 books, including some 800 works of foreign fiction. The numbers may seem high, but don’t be misled. In competing for advertising, reviews and shelf space, foreign books always lose out, ultimately sinking like stones in the immensity of print."

This is no surprise to the average Canadian traveling in the States. Bookshelves at Barnes and Noble look remarkably similar to bookshelves back home at Indigo, just minus the obligatory Canadian content. The Paramount (Toronto) Chapters/Indigo has a Politics section containing every single Ann Coulter book, while the Carbondale, Illinois Barnes and Noble hasn't, as far as I could tell, a single title by Janice Gross Stein. Venuti continues:

"The charge of cultural imperialism does not seem all that exaggerated. Some observers might go further: the patterns established over the past fifty years have apparently created American readers with provincial tastes, unable to appreciate work from foreign cultures and beset by feelings of inadequacy when confronted with it. Hence readers turn suspicious, if not downright xenophobic, and retreat into the comfort of the familiar."

"...Has the will to achieve global dominance been nurtured by the exclusion of foreign cultures at home? Would greater openness to cultural differences have led to a more circumspect policy in dealing with foreign governments?"

The essay goes on to describe how translations of American works abroad - the writings of Tom Clancy, the films of Woody Allen— also contribute to a skewed understanding of American culture throughout the rest of the world. Apparently, translators hold immense geopolitical power. It reminds me of Honey Huan, Gary Trudeau's Chinese translator character in Doonesbury, who makes her immediate translation decisions based on her own peculiar political beliefs.

If anyone wants the full essay, apparently I am allowed to e-mail it to you, though most TLS content is behind a subscriber wall. For some free opinion by Professor Venuti, check here:

Words Without Borders

More entries on: Cultural industries

May 29, 2006

Heather Reisman at it again

Posted by ron at 11:34 AM ET | Comments (9)

Most people have heard this by now but Chapters/Indigo has pulled this month's issue of Harper's off its shelves. It seems that Art Spiegelman's critique of the Danish Muhammad cartoons that angered many in the Muslim world is also too hot for the delicate sensibilities of management at Chapters.

DB Scott over at the Canadian Magazines blog looks at Reisman and Co.'s spotty track record on censorship. The chain banned Mein Kampf and the Western Standard, who also published the Danish cartoons.

What worries me is that you have Canada's largest bookstore acting almost as a censor. Harper's is easy enough to get, especially in larger cities with many independent bookstores and magazines stands but what about in smaller towns, suburbs or bedroom communities, where the local Chapters/Indigo at the mall is the local bookstore?

You have libraries and you can order books and mags online so is Chapters/Indigo's censorship even a problem?

More entries on: Cultural industries

---

 Subscribe to the feed

---

Blog This Must-Reads

---

---

---

Blog This Archives

May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
March 2000

---