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RIP WACKO JACKO

by SHANE NEILSON

The world reacts with disbelief at the death of the King of Pop -- but who are we kidding?

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EARPLUGS UNPLUGGED

by SALVATORE CIOLFI

Musicians revile them and everyone else thinks they’re for worrywarts, but in a world of escalating urban noise, those cheap foamy substances are nothing to laugh at.

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REVOLUTION OF THE TWO AHMADS

by ABOU FARMAN

As Iranians protest President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election, Abou Farman looks back on his childhood in Tehran and gives a firsthand account of young idealists caught in a revolution

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PIMP MY ORIFICE

by KATE NACY

What should you do when you’ve acquired so many diamonds you’ve run out of places to keep them? Fortunately, there’s hope.

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I LIKE MY BEEF BEEFY

by ALESSANDRO PORCO

When it comes to hip hop, the best things come in big packages.

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WHY VIDEO GAME RESEARCH IS FLAWED

by CHRIS LAVIGNE

Studies that spread the idea that video games are harmful to children are conducted by researchers whose knowledge about video games is embarrassingly poor.

"THAT KID SHOULD BE IN THE CIRCUS!"

by SUSAN BRISCOE

Susan Briscoe’s son didn’t run away to the circus—she drives him there, five nights a week

Nathan was always a happy kid—cheerful and angst-free—until a year and a half ago, when he fell into a funk. Depression, he called it. I hoped it was one of those stages that would pass in its own mysterious way, but the months dragged on. “I’m just ...

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GOD HELP THEE: A MANIFESTO

by JOEL THOMAS HYNES

Novelist, playwright, and actor Joel Thomas Hynes kicks against the pricks (and everything else within boot range).

Fuck the Narrows. Fuck Amherst Rock, the gull shit, the Castle. Fuck Marconi. Fuck the charming little hippy-stained row houses in the Battery. Fuck the Battery. Fuck your harbour clean-up. Fuck the bubble. Fuck the other bubble and fuck the harbour squid. Fuck the Scademia. Fuck the whales and fuck ...

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THE TALE OF A POET ADDICTED TO TABLOIDS

by DANIELLE DEVEREAUX

An interview with Shannon Stewart

When 63 women disappear and their body parts are found scattered about a pig farm, what can we say? Cringe, then go about our business? Against the disposable, flat world of our daily news, Shannon Stewart offers her own brand of witnessing. Her latest poetry collection, Penny Dreadful (Signal Editions ...

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FRINGE GOES TO THE MOVIES

by JOHN SEMLEY

July 2nd, 2009

Canada Day marked the kick-off of Fringe Toronto, the annual alt-theatre fest that runs until July 12. As part of Fringe’s reliably eclectic programming, the festival has teamed up with the Bloor Cinema and put together a fairly interesting shadow-cast program. If you’ve never seen a shadow-cast before, it’s basically a fan practice where a film is screened with actors pantomiming in front of the screen. It’s a staple of what writer Jeffrey Sconce would call paracinema—a ten-dollar academese word that refers to any sort of film, from Swedish arthouse pictures to sword-and-sandal epics, that encourages patterns of reception divergent from those provided by mainstream cinema—and it’s generally good fun.

While shadow-casting, like ...

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Summer

ISSUE 32

Summer 2009

ON NEWSSTANDS

  • Net Loss

    by PETER DARBYSHIRE

    Why the Canadian government must step in to keep the internet free from control and open to innovation.

    [Full Text]

  • The X Factor

    by BRUCE LIVESEY

    AIDS researchers have struggled to find a cure for the disease for thirty years. But what if they have it all wrong?

    [Full Text]

  • No Man's Land

    by REBECCA COLLARD

    Egypt is shooting them. Israel won’t recognize them. What’s a poor refugee to do?

    [Full Text]

  • In Praise of Devastation

    by JON EVANS

    As developing nations come into their own, environmental destruction may be a necessary part of the cost.

    [Full Text]

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

  • Mongolian Invasions

    by DAVE BIDINI

    In 1206, Genghis Khan forged an empire that stretched from Korea to Kiev. When Dave Bidini visited the country 800 years later, he found a land that dreamed of reclaiming domination—this time with pucks.

  • The Year the Lights Went Out

    by MATTHEW KRUCHAK

    Severe power outages are killing Nepal’s few remaining industries. Matthew Kruchak on life without electricity in the world’s youngest republic.

  • Neither Celebrated Nor Forgotten

    by BY ÉRIC BÉDARD

    The sovereigntist protests over a planned re-enactment of the pivotal 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham offer an opportunity for Quebecers to forge a new relationship with their own history.

  • Whoa, Calgary!

    by TADZIO RICHARDS

    With oil workers laid off and construction halted, Canada’s fastest city has discovered the Slow movement.

  • Be Afraid

    by CHRISTOPHER WATT

    Do you believe that illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs? Or that sexual deviants lurk in every neighbourhood? You’re not alone.

    • [see full issue contents]