beyond magazine :: blogify

Persepolis

Contributing writer Doug Cummings, keeper of the Beyond feature Film Journey and the blog of the same name has picked ten of his favorite films from the Toronto International Film Festival. Persepolis is mentioned among the ten:

"I had high hopes for the cinematic adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's endearing graphic novels of her youth under the Shaw and during the Iranian Revolution and subsequent war with Iraq, her emigrated and difficult life among European slackers, and her return to her family under religious totalitarianism. Thankfully the film not only maintains the novels' distinctive pen-and-ink aesthetic and wry slice-of-life perspective, but translates them to the screen in imaginative, deeply engrossing ways. The film is yet another standout in a year rife with ambitious animated films like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Tekkonkinkreet, and Paprika, but for my money it's the most consistent, humanist, and historically relevant of them all. Far from a cynical dissection of Iranian culture, the film--like the books--celebrates the Iranian people's vibrant, progressive, and diverse passions developed over the past millennium. Despite its stylized design, the film projects an infectious, modern sensibility (young Marjane's dreams are filled with dialogues with God and Karl Marx just as her days are filled seeking bootleg rock 'n roll tapes) and a universal spirit that should help counter the lack of human imagery and abundance of negative diplomatic propaganda that permeates the Western world in regards to Iran. Like Kawase--who is her age--Satrapi is a young woman with plenty to say about her own cultural heritage. I'm really glad this film has distribution from Sony Classics, and look forward to its reception by those as yet unfamiliar with the intelligence, wisdom, and charm of her work."

Look for Doug's upcoming article on the hidden gems of animation in the next issue of Beyond. Subscribed yet?

Blood, sweat, and tears.

Ani Difranco has released her first retrospective, Canon,  celebrating nearly twenty years of making music. Her website says the following:

"After over a decade of hard work, Ani DiFranco's career has blossomed into one that is successful in the rarest forms. Ani has proved that if you shed enough blood, sweat, and tears, you really can do what you want in your own way."

We have heard this many times as we wander around making a piece of independent media and talking to others doing the same. We're just wondering if we could change the "blood,sweat, and tears" part to chocolate chip cookies, milk, and naps. Just this once?

TIFF 2007

We've been waiting patiently for a few capsule reviews to come in from some our contributing writers who attend the Toronto International Film Festival each year. We weren't sure if it would be possible to actually write anything during a week long schedule that includes 30-40 film screenings but Darren of Long Pauses has posted his impressions of Days 1- 3.

If you don't have a film festival in your town, take a look at these. Think about making your own mini festival during the long winter ahead. No talking allowed. Please take your stray popcorn kernels with you as you leave the living room.

Typewriters

Uppercase Gallery also posted this. If you click on their image, you can see a beautiful  typewriter slideshow. Mmmmmm, typewriters.

New Show!

Last week I took a trip to one our favorite places, Uppercase Gallery, to pick up our book, The Shatner Show and get a glimpse of all the work before it came off the Uppercase walls.

A new show begins this week featuring the amazing Doug Fraser.

We wave goodbye to the show and give a continued tip of the hat and a "Live long and prosper." to the book by featuring an old blog post, The Captain is a Man, by contributing editor, David Shepherd.

Word on the Street

Just a reminder to those in Halifax, Calgary, Kitchener, Vancouver, and Toronto - Word on the Street is coming your way. It's a great little festival filled with all kinds of publishers and book tables and literacy associations. I only wish it would expand to other cities and there would be more places where words would spill out onto streets.

I like that they gave Calgary this little flying saucer for our section. I'm not sure what it has to do anything but hey, flying saucers and magazines and words. It's all good.

The story behind magazine awards.

Stephen Osborne of Geist magazine wrote about the barriers that face small magazines when it comes to entering award contests:

As the recent leaf storm of magazine awards fades completely but not quite from memory, I can still (barely) recall observing aloud the day before the so-called gala evening of the National Magazine Awards that cultural magazines can barely afford to participate in these events in a meaningful way—a meaningful way being to enter as many contenders in as many categories as possible—as Maclean’s and The Walrus have demonstrated (once again): if you spend a lot of money you can make the awards “meaningful.”

We are still very fond of the gold star that one of our readers sent to us. We've also tossed "Good job!" stickers around the office from time to time.

And our congratulations to Geist. We're about to reboot our website and we noticed that they have have a lovely new web presence. Up with magazines. And balloons. And airplanes. And some birds.

Weird Weight Converter

We like the Weird Weight Converter. Sometimes when we're sitting around, trying to figure out how many chests of gold dubloons we need to keep developing a piece of ads-free independent media, we like to distract ourselves by guessing how much a human eyeball might weigh. And then we like to wonder how many eyeballs it would take to make up the weight of let's say, a baby grand piano.

It's like the wikipedia of weighty things. Frees us up to move onto that inhabiting Mars idea. Oh and the question of those gold dubloons.

(1 baby grand piano = 8465.7504 eyeballs)