Series: Summer 1997

Bit. Bit. Bit. The electronic pulse fires across the matrix, sending digit after digit down the gold and copper wire, to the server’s snaking cord and the fibre-optic cable that runs right out to the sea. Bit. Bit. Bit. The currency of information shoots around the earth and the value of the writer’s words increase… Continue reading Show me the money

Last summer, as I walked along a tidy residential street in Vancouver’s upscale Fairview Slopes, I wondered whether I had been given the wrong address. As a young journalist whose interests are outside mainstream journalism, I had decided to volunteer for a few months at Adbusters, the subversive quarterly magazine dedicated to undermining the kind… Continue reading Biting the Hand that Misleads Us

Andrew Coyne is so excited that he barely touches the brick-grilled chicken on the plate before him. When he does come up for air, he stabs the chicken with his fork, ripping at the meat, in too much of a hurry to use a knife. Olives and small chunks of tomato fly off the plate.… Continue reading Mighty Mouth

Last summer’s Eden MusicFest, held just northeast of Toronto, was the largest music festival in North America since the original Woodstock. It spanned three days and featured more than 60 bands. Perry Farrell’s Porno for Pyros was one of the most popular groups appearing. So it’s no surprise that The New Music, Canada’s 18-year-old rock-journalism… Continue reading I’m With the Band

It’s just about 7:30 on the night before Halloween, and the 30th anniversary gala of Homemaker’s magazine (now known as HM is beginning to roll at Guvernment, a trendy club in downtown Toronto. Sally Armstrong, editor-in-chief of Homemaker’s, for the past eight years, is working the room wearing an iridescent-green wrap-around blouse, a short black… Continue reading When Homemaker’s met Sally