Ron Nurwisah, Boy Reporter

That was a lot of fun guys and gals. See you in London.

Photo from the Drake Hotel’s Flickr feed.

52 in 52 is a project to read a book a week in 2010

[Note: I'm actually not behind in my reading, but I am behind in writing about these books. Whoops.]

Nicolas Dickner’s Nikolski was the only book that grabbed me from this year’s Canada Reads list and after giving it a read I want it to win the whole damn thing.

Nikolski is the story of three young people drawn to Montreal and the book explores ideas of personal identity, family, history and place. Leavened with the author’s healthy obsession with marine life, archaeology, maps and pirates. It all sounds heavy but Dickner’s playful writing makes it a real joy to read.

In fact, all these themes are why it makes a perfect candidate for Canada Reads. Immigrants, long-time Canadians, First Nations, Quebecers, non-Quebecers, Western Canadians, Eastern Canadians, all have a stake in this book and in some small way are all represented. This is a big country and Dickner tries to cram it all in, to strange yet beautiful effect.

One of the key objects in the novel is an odd book made up of parts of three others stitched together to create a unique object. I couldn’t think of a more beautiful metaphor to describe this book or the country that it’s trying to sum up.

Note: Pal Nic Boshart is defending this book as part of the Keepin’ It Real Book Club. Go Nic.

Food52 is an ingenious publishing idea thought up by Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs. Each week Amanda and Merrill pick a different theme and then allow a community of home chefs and food enthusiasts to send them their best recipes. They’re tested, judged and then voted on by the community. The winners get included in a book that’ll be published by HarperStudio.

It’s a brilliant idea for so many reasons. Amanda and Merrill have plenty of food writing experience, having written books, for the New York Times and a number of magazines, but letting the crowd have input means they get to tap into the food expertise of hundreds if not thousands of people.

The open and crowdsourced nature of the project also means the book is building the kind of pre-publication buzz that any publisher would kill for. It’s not just the winners that’ll be telling their friends and family about the book, a lot of those who submitted recipes will undoubtedly do the same.

The model won’t work for a lot of books, a crowdsourced novel will probably suck, but crowdsourced photo anthologies, how-to-books, craft books, etc. would be exceptional.

Pals Jesse Brown and Ian Daffern put together this great video on why the newspaper deserves saving… or doesn’t. Be sure to check out Jesse’s great show Search Engine.

What do Facebook, Wal Mart and Apple have in common? Other than the fact they’re worth oodles of cash? Fast Company considers them some of the most innovative companies out there. Lots of good reading here from FC.

Robot bartenders! The future is here! If you don’t tip him he’ll shoot you with a laser.

Finally, birds and guitars. Thanks @helenspitzer for the video.

No better way to start a week than a cup of coffee. Am I right?

Full size image (and prints) available at Shorpy.

I’ve liked many of Chris Jones’ features in Esquire but his profile on Roger Ebert in this month’s Esquire is one of the best profiles I’ve read in a long time.

Here’s the start of the piece:

For the 281st time in the last ten months Roger Ebert is sitting down to watch a movie in the Lake Street Screening Room, on the sixteenth floor of what used to pass for a skyscraper in the Loop. Ebert’s been coming to it for nearly thirty years, along with the rest of Chicago’s increasingly venerable collection of movie critics. More than a dozen of them are here this afternoon, sitting together in the dark. Some of them look as though they plan on camping out, with their coats, blankets, lunches, and laptops spread out on the seats around them.

The critics might watch three or four movies in a single day, and they have rules and rituals along with their lunches to make it through. The small, fabric-walled room has forty-nine purple seats in it; Ebert always occupies the aisle seat in the last row, closest to the door. His wife, Chaz, in her capacity as vice-president of the Ebert Company, sits two seats over, closer to the middle, next to a little table. She’s sitting there now, drinking from a tall paper cup. Michael Phillips, Ebert’s bearded, bespectacled replacement on At the Movies, is on the other side of the room, one row down. The guy who used to write under the name Capone for Ain’t It Cool News leans against the far wall. Jonathan Rosenbaum and Peter Sobczynski, dressed in black, are down front.

“Too close for me,” Ebert writes in his small spiral notebook.

Read the rest on Esquire’s website

What follows is a revealing, emotional and powerful account of a great critic and journalist battling with his body. Ebert is courageous and strong and an example of living with cancer and Jones is a great writer for getting this across.

Ebert responds to Jones on his blog.

It was an inexplicable instinct that led me to agree when Chris Jones contacted me requesting an interview. The idea of Esquire appealed to me. I did a bunch of interviews for them in the 1970s, when it was the crucible of the New Journalism.

What goes around, comes around. I’d read some of Chris’s stuff. He’s good. You sense the person there. He’s not holding his subjects at arm’s length. I knew I’d have to play fair. I’ve done interviews for years. This was no time to get sensitive and ask for photo approval, or an advance look at the piece. I’d been the goose, and now it was my turn to be the gander. I’ve never known what that means, geese-wise.

Jones talks about the writing of the piece for About.com

“You’re writing about a great writer, and I was terribly self-conscious about that,” Jones says in a phone interview. And then the Canadian comes up with the analogy he’s looking for: “The idea of him reading my stuff - it’s like having Wayne Gretzky watch you skate.”

The Newspaper Club is a U.K. group that lets you make your own newspaper. Sadly, it is not a club that gathers daily/weekly, etc. to read, share  and talk papers, although that might not be a bad idea, either.

The club doesn’t seem particularly difficult. Write and design yer paper, upload a pdf and then they’ll print it for you. Judging from some of the posts on their blog, the idea might work for small-run art pieces, programs, etc.

Here’s what they do in their own words:

And if you want us in a nutshell it’s this; we think the web is wonderful and printed newspapers are a tremendous, highly-evolved way of reading stuff. We think combining the two is a good idea. We’re not about news or any particular form of content, we’re about ink on newsprint. Whatever you think would be good to print that way; we think you’re probably right.

Sadly, they seem to be a U.K. only service… although I’m sure there’s a local printer/jobber that’ll do this for you.

Lovable celebrity chef Jamie Oliver takes the stage at TED and talks about why Americans (and most of the developed world) are eating themselves to death.

Here’s the video:

and a summary of talking points if you’re too lazy to watch it.

Boing Boing found this great quote about journalism. Guess when it’s from:

“America has in fact transformed journalism from what it once was, the periodical expression of the thought of the time, the opportune record of the questions and answers of contemporary life, into an agency for collecting, condensing and assimilating the trivialities of the entire human existence, [...] the frantic haste with which we bolt everything we take, seconded by the eager wish of the journalist not to be a day behind his competitor, abolishes deliberation from judgment and sound digestion from our mental constitutions. We have no time to go below surfaces, and as a general thing no disposition.”

An interesting article that ponders if the iPad could actually cannibalize the remaining print readers of newspapers instead of spurring new ones.

ACL points us to a great vintage vid of some Ivy League winter carnival thing. Sorry, no Bonhomme.

Dartmouth Winter Carnival from Michael Williams on Vimeo.

False Creek changed in ’86 The year Expo exploited her shore It’s been twenty two years laying down bricks And there’s no room for me here any more. - Said the Whale

With the Olympics now in full-tilt, it’s useful to think back to the last big event held in Vancouver, Expo 86. This was before my family moved to Vancouver, but I think the fair opened up Vancouver to the outside world.

From Flickr user Jasperdo

The Sunday Best has a great guide about Vancouver. Useful for those of you who are brave enough to visit during the Olympics but also good reading for those planning to visit (and heck even locals too). Also, check out that Maira Kalmanish banner on Thom’s site.

Want, want, want! Postcards of Penguin covers. A better look at them here.

There was a huge sporting event last night. Yep, the Puppy Bowl. Peyton and Drew have got nothing on this.

Whales are awesome. Duh! Here’s a book that tells you why.

Photo from the Flickr Commons