Category: News: Arts & Entertainment (Page 15 of 25)

I was reminder today that April is Cancer Awareness Month. This fact struck me in two ways. The first is that the statistics are staggering, doctors diagnose over 1 million new cases of cancer every year. I don’t know anyone who has never had a friend or family member diagnosed with cancer. In the Vancouver blog scene, we’re all rooting for Derek K. Miller. The second is that my step-father died of brain cancer in April 1997. It’s hard to believe that he’s been gone for 10 years. I remember crying through an English exam the morning he died. I decided that it was easier for me to write the exam and be free to grieve than to try and explain with less than 24-hours notice that I needed to reschedule the exam, which I would then have to write 3 months later. It’s strange the decisions we make in stressful times.

So for those who have survived, Raincoast published a brilliant book last year called Picking Up the Pieces. It’s about how to move forward after the doctors have given you the all-clear, after there’s no more medications. That’s a strange time. Sherri Magee and Kathy Scalzo, the authors, talk about how that holding period can disrupt your life. You’re not 100% but you’ve survived. People can’t understand why you’re not gleeful, why you can’t just pull yourself together and get on with life. The first day back in the office is what stuck with me. People don’t know how to respond to you. “Hey, great to see you back. Now about that stats report …”

Here’s the link again: Picking Up the Pieces by Sherri Magee and Kathy Scalzo.
There’s a podcast you can listen to with them talking about the book and their research and work with cancer survivors. It’s good for the survivor but also for family and friends.

Several months ago Patricia Storms of BookLust created this amazing bookplate for me.

I love it.

And, you might come across it in Geist issue 63.

What do you think of my little ad? Do you love the bookplate as much as I do?

Hey Kids! General Motors is running the Great Canadian Writing Contest .

The contest is open to kids across Canada in Grade 5 or Grade 6. You just write a short story (200 words) in English or French on the contest theme of family, and you illustrate a book cover to go along with it.

The contest runs through to April 16, 2007.

Here’s the contest details:
http://www.abc-canada.org/gmac/en/

Giles Slade, author of Made to Break, was on CNN last Sunday on “In The Money”.

Here’s a transcript of the segment:

http://ernestoche.blogspot.com/2007/02/romans-all-right.html

The fine folks at Random House have created BookLounge.ca, which I thought was fantastic from the beginning. It’s a bit of a virtual book club/library/aggregation of cool book things.

Today I received an email promoting new stuff on the site: podcasts, sneak peaks at upcoming publications, author interviews. It was an ok newsletter–clean design, easy to read. It’s a great way to remind me to check out the site. But what intrigued me to click through to the site was “Let our insiders give you a window into the publishing industry.” It’s a great set of blog posts from employees. The first is from Marion Garner, publisher of Vintage Canada, who writes about one of her titles being an Oprah pick, or “Oprahtunity” as she calls it.

Fun Stuff. Check out the site.

Over the past couple of years I’ve noticed a more concerted effort by Canadians to actually celebrate Black History month. In my imagination at least, Black History month was more prominent in the US and not something Canadians reflected upon too much. Perhaps it’s a matter of where I live in Canada. Asian Heritage month in Vancouver is widely publicized, however, this is the first year I’ve seen media pointedly remarking on Black History month.

To that end, I’d like to recommend Lawrence Hill’s latest novel The Book of Negroes. I haven’t read it yet, but a friend recommended it last week and I was intrigued by a Montreal Gazette article this weekend.

Quote: Donna Bailey Nurse, Montreal Gazette, February 3, 2007:

The Book of Negroes: Author Lawrence Hill is passionate about black Canadian history and is the Canadian novelist whose work most articulately and imaginatively explains what the history of slavery has to do with us Canadians. He is a touch exasperated by how little we still seem to know about our black past, how desperately we cling to the image of Canada as a refuge for slaves. “It is a myth that Canada was simply the Promised Land and nothing else.” Hill explains. “How typically Canadian that we don’t even know the very first back-to-Africa movement is coming from Canadian shores,” muses Hill. “We Canadians had the first back-to-Africa movement in the world,” says Hill. “And that is just such a fascinating story.” —Read the article.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling will be published around the world in the English language on Saturday, July 21st, 2007.

Read the details on the Raincoast blog.

Super exciting!!!!!

Wednesday, January 31, 7:30 pm
Presentation on Made to Break by Giles Slade
Alma Van Dusen Room, VPL, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia

Giles Slade, who I’ve written about before, will speak at the Vancouver Public Library next week on tackling the problem of e-waste and the inception of our culture of consumption and waste.

Quote: From: Harvard University Press, the publisher:

Made to Break is a history of twentieth-century technology as seen through the prism of obsolescence. America invented everything that is now disposable, Giles Slade tells us, and he explains how disposability was in fact a necessary condition for America’s rejection of tradition and our acceptance of change and impermanence. His book shows us the ideas behind obsolescence at work in such American milestones as the inventions of branding, packaging, and advertising; the contest for market dominance between GM and Ford; the struggle for a national communications network, the development of electronic technologies–and with it the avalanche of electronic consumer waste that will overwhelm America’s landfills and poison its water within the coming decade.

The Tyee has an extensive article on why net neutrality needs more attention in Canada. Quick save the internet!
Digg this story.

On January 17, Bryan Zandberg wrote an article on The Tyee about net neutrality and the lack of attention this issue is getting in Canada.

Quote: Canada Sleeps Through War to ‘Save the Internet’
Pitched battle in U.S. over ‘net neutrality’
Digital democracy at risk if telecoms get their way say opponents.

What’s Net Neutrality?
It’s the internet as we know and love. A data network that does not discrimate or allow degraded service for one group of people (or companies) over another. Meaning, downloading a video from YouTube is the same as downloading a video from CNN and the same as downloading it from my website. Same costs, same amount of time for you as a user–same costs and time for me, CNN and YouTube to upload the info. It’s neutral.

The controversy is that the telcos want to create tiered service. So maybe CNN pays the telecos a bunch of money to get preferred service but YouTube doesn’t. For you as a user, you can quickly download video from CNN but try my website or YouTube and churn, churn, churn.

There’s not a good reason for hierarchical service. There’s not a shortage of bandwidth. There’s just a shortage of ideas within telcos on how they can make more money.

My explanation is less sound than those in The Tyee.

Read the article here.

Or at least read these highlights:
Quote: ‘In 2005, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) redefined “broadband,” recasting it as an information, rather than a telecommunication, service.

‘ “It sounds like an innocuous change, but it isn’t,” explains Ben Scott, a spokesperson for net neutrality for Free Press, a media democracy NGO based in Washington, D.C. With the stroke of a pen, Scott says the decision undid the entire regulatory regime attached to telecom services, thrusting them into “a category that has virtually no regulations.”

…

‘Whereas previously telcos were legally obliged to deliver packets of bits and bytes blindly, as an information service that restriction was no longer in force. This opened the door for what Scott calls a “CEOs-go-to-Wall-Street” scenario: almost immediately, the major carriers began to toy with the idea of creating a two-tier Internet, replete with a fast-track for content creators willing to pay for preferential service, and a slow lane for everyone else.

…

‘Just like in the States, net neutrality in Canada hovers in a state of legal limbo; the threadbare language of the Telecommunications Act means that two-tier Internet is more than a distant possibility; it’s already here.

…

‘[Kevin] McArthur goes further. He says companies are in effect creating a problem so they can charge to fix it. “[Even] if everyone paid for a tier-one service, it would be THE EXACT SAME service we have today,” he wrote by e-mail. “Quality of service only works while someone else is getting screwed.”

‘”It’s an attempt to extract more rent out of your server,” [Michael]Geist summarizes, “even if it comes at the expense of both their users’ interests and the broader interest of the Internet as a whole.”‘

Absolutely fantastic!

The first three minutes of the 3-Day Novel Contest: The Series is available at YouTube and at BookTelevision.com.

Here are the links:
Watch it on YouTube

Watch it on BookTelevision.com

3-Day Novel Contest is an annual marathon to write a novel in 3 days. The winner gets a publishing contract. September 2007 is the 30th anniversary of the contest and as promo BookTelevision has created a mini series based on 12 writers from last year’s contest.

The 12 writers holed up in an Edmonton Chapters for 3 days, writing their novels, sleeping and eating, doing word challenges and competing against the clock.

This is reality TV with enough of tongue-in-cheek to work for me. BookTV is really hitting the right notes with this promo. It’s from a trusted source (I was sent an email from a friend, and I like BookTV), it’s a message tailored to my interests, and it’s funny enough that I want to pass it on–so it’s viral. Those are the top 3 requirements for this type of online campaign to work. I’m a fan. Good work.

Here’s the plug for the TV series (although I hope they continue to release teasers before the show airs and then post the entire segment after):

The 3-Day Novel Contest – The Series airs on:

BookTelevision
Sundays starting February 4th @ 9:30pm ET / 7:30pm MT

Access
Tuesdays starting February 6th @ 8:00pm MT

CLT
Wednesdays starting February 7th @ 9:00pm ET / 7:00pm MT