Thoughts on the future of media, books
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You are currently browsing the Ron Nurwisah, Boy Reporter weblog archives for March, 2007.
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Mar 28, 2007 in Media
Parents, if your kids tell you they want to be magazine writers/editors/publishers tell them to do something smart with their time and energy, lest all of their hard work get mocked by websites like this.
Who knew Entertainment Weekly was in so much trouble?
Mar 26, 2007 in On-line
The end result is a nice little five minute animation Bottle Shock buy Pokemon: The Movie 2000 hd for the new This American Life TV show.
Apparently it’s airing on Showtime (and no it’s not available online, although I’m sure you could bittorrent the damn thing). No word on when it’s coming to Canada. C’mon Showcase or Bravo must want to pick it up.
Mar 22, 2007 in Media
Horton Hears a Who! film 10 Items or Less dvdrip Final Exam full movie The Clan of the Cave Bear divx Judge Dredd movie download 
Everyone’s favourite Iranian Canadian broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi is hosting the new CBC radio afternoon arts show.
A couple of notable things about the show is that it’ll replace Freestyle, a show that I think is a waste of time and radio frequency. It will also be named after everybody’s favourite omnipotent Star Trek alien…. Q.
My friend Tori Allen will be working on the show and she always has good taste so there is hope for this show after all.
It’s also the second show on CBC named after a letter of the alphabet (the other being late night, alternative culture show Zed).
All I have to say is. Y. O. Y.
Mar 22, 2007 in Writing
One of the questions I get often is “Ron, I want to write for magazines. Where do I start?” There’s the usual advice:
1) Read the damn magazine
2) Know the damn magazine
3) Pitch to the damn magazine
Well D.B. Scott over at Canadian magazines has come up with a list of Writer’s Guidelines. So now, you can read the guidelines, figure out what exactly the magazine is looking for and pitch accordingly. Oh, publicists, you might want to read this too. Just in case you have to pitch your stories to these places.
Mar 22, 2007 in Books
My next books column in This magazine looks at Michael Ondaatje’s new novel, sort of. I never actually read the book (it hasn’t come out yet). Instead, I use my column to tell my readers to ignore Ondaatje’s new book for a little while and give some new novelists a chance.
So in the next few months, while you’re slowly building a list of book to take the beach/cottage/summer vacation consider the first-time novelist. There are plenty of good first-time novels on the market right now. Below, a short list. The first three were the subject of my recent column and will be available at your local bookseller soon:
Anthem of Reluctant Prophet, by Joanne Proulx
Missing the Ark, by Catherine Kidd
The Milk Chicken Bomb, by Andrew Wedderburn
Lullabies for Little Criminals, by Heather O’Neill
The Letter Opener
The Band from Hell buy , by Kyo Maclear
The End of East, by Jen Sookfong Lee
Bang Crunch, by Neil Smith
Im Not There I’m sure there are many, many more. These are some of the books that have caught my eye for one reason or another. Buying a first novel is a good idea in so many ways. It helps a young author get their footing as writers, lets you discover a new talent and sends a message to publishers that they shouldn’t be driven by blockbuster books and safer authors.
Mar 21, 2007 in On-line
My friend J. Kelly Nestruck has taken up blogging for the Guardian! Mr. Nestruck is now their music blogger. For his first post making friends with rock stars, sorta.
Enjoy.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King download
Mar 20, 2007 in Ideas
Tap water is something we all take for granted. Unless you don’t have it (i.e. you forgot to pay your bill) or it goes wrong (you live in Walkerton, Ont. or Vancouver after a bad rainstorm) In most developed countries tap water is available everywhere, think about it. How many faucets and showerheads do you have in your house and how often do you use it in a day? I hope at least twice, to brush your teeth in the morning.
This is why the Tap Project Flyboys psp
is such a great idea. On March 22nd restaurants in NY will charge a buck for water. All the cash goes to UNICEF to help provide clean water in the third world. I hope this spreads to other cities.
Mar 19, 2007 in Me Me Me
My desktop died. I think it’s the power supply/fan…. sigh. A part of me desperately feels the need for an upgrade and then of course it hits me that I don’t have much cash…. soooo I’m sure I’ll take Benji to the shop and try to figure out if it’s time to put him down.
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Mar 18, 2007 in On-line
I pay attention to the NCAA basketball tournament like I pay attention to the weather in Halifax. It’s interesting I guess, but hardly relevant to me. Until this year. My friend and co-worker Mason Wright decided to try to sucker me into a pool on Facebook (or as I call it The Book). He succeeded and as a result I’m now cheering for random schools that I vaguely only know and like because of geography (go Georgetown!) or vague positive associations (go UNC!). Sadly my vague knowledge of basketball has already failed me twice.
1) Duke may have had a good basketball program but they suck this year and have completely messed up my West bracket. Same goes to you Villanova!
2) Getting sports advice from the president on the West Wing (Always pick Notre Dame) is like getting your stock advice from that drunk guy on the corner of Bay and King.
download A Good Nightnd Good Luck. movie Man-Thing ipod 
One “sporting” event that I can get behind is Torontoist’s recent send-up of March madness.
The crew there have created amazing matchup of various themes near and dear to Torontonians. I’m quite pleased that Jane Jacobs was able to overcome Yonge-Dundas and even more pleased that Miller’s Hair managed to triumph over the now tired Zombie walks. We get it, you’re dead, and you eat brains and you walk around. Sheesh.
Mar 13, 2007 in Writing
download Elvira, Mistress of the Dark dvd The new issue of Esquire features their annual music awards (the Esky, also what we call the football team in Edmonton, no?), which features Chris Jones’ patriotic defense of Canadian music. Jones argues that “Canadians are born promoters, not protectionists. We want people to listen to our bands. We have a desire, desparate, that borders on sickness.”
Humanitys End ipod He proceeds to highlight a few Canadian bands he loves including the Weakerthans, whom he calls “the greatest band ever to come out of Winnipeg, Manitoba… make the Decemberists sound downright illiterate.” Oh really Mr. Jones? We’ll just see about that. Without further ado the Decemberists vs. Weakerthans literary challenge.
| Name | John Kristjan Samson, lead singer of the Weakerthans |
Colin Meloy, lead singer of the Decemberists Surfer, Dude buy Beowulf & Grendel trailer Stone Cold full movie  |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Literary Cred | Two-time winner of Canada Reads, runs his own leftist publisher, Arbeiter Ring | Sister is critically acclaimed novelist Maile Meloy | Point Samson |
| Lyrical Content | References one hard-to-read French cultural theorist (Foucault), activists, Winnipeg, the plight of gentrification | References Modernist art (Marcel Duchamp), one Greek muse (Arethusa), hot young author (Myla Goldberg), Romeo and Juliet | Point Meloy |
| Characters in Songs | one cat named Virtue, awkward activists, arctic explorers, Elks (the order, not the animal), Winnipeg ex-pats | Legionnaires, whalers, chimbley sweeps, prostitutes, barrow boys, poor Japanese farmers who find wounded magical birds | Point Meloy |
| Literary Style | Spare, well-observed writing that illuminates contemporary life | Gothic, faux-Victorian, neo-Dickensian | Draw; Point Meloy if you like Dickens, Point Samson if you were tortured by the man in high school |
| Winner | Samson has got the literary indie cred vote all wrapped up. The man is an activist (Propagandhi, G7 Welcoming Committee), and runs a leftist publishing house named after a Jewish socialist group | Meloy is like the precocious grad student at some small liberal arts college in some random northeastern town (look at those glasses and the tweed jackets he wears on-stage), some people would argue he tries to hard. | Meloy gets the gold star and the A+ for being such a good student, but somehow I don’t think Samson cares too much and probably will just go back to photocopying his pamphlets and organizing the next anti-globalization rally. That and writing really, great songs. |