Let’s keep calling it the Apple Tablet

Alright, get the iPad naming jollies out of your systems folks. Remember, people made fun of “iPod” too, and we all saw what a flop that was.

In spite of the questionable name, the iPad is pretty exciting. With iTunes, the App Store, a built-in speaker for movies and music, and Wi-Fi/3G capability, the latest from Apple isn’t so much an ebook reader as it is an entertainment centre.

(It also includes re-tooled versions iWork, Safari, and Mail for those who need to actually get something done. Between games of Paper Toss and lolcat videos, of course.)

“金山”

Ever since I started reading Paul Yee’s Chinatown, I’ve been thinking about Chinese Canadians and cultural identity, “we” versus “they”, homeland and immigration, the measuring of hope for a better life against fear of the unknown.

I’ve been thinking about how hard it must have been for my parents to relocate in the ’70s from urban Hong Kong to the little city of Kingston, Ontario. About how it must have been infinitely harder a hundred years earlier for men from Guangdong and beyond to leave their wives and parents and children, to come to a country that valued them only as laundrymen and railroad workers and cheap labour. About how they learned English, and were sheltered from sickness by local churches and a few kind strangers. About how their scanty sources of work were slowly legislated away. About how they formed communities of their own and fought, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, for fair treatment.

Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Mashups are fun. You take something familiar, and something else that’s slightly less familiar (or completely different), mix thoroughly and bake for 40 minutes at 375 F, and voila. Something that’s both recognizable and foreign. Not that these mashups are always well-executed. But even if it’s horrible, there’s sure to be that moment where your brain takes a moment to consider and identify exactly what it is that you’re hearing or seeing. And that’s often when you might just get hooked into something new and exciting.

WOTS09: In Which Stuart McLean Helps Me in My Job Hunt

That is a bit of an overstatement. Let me backtrack.

The Word On The Street National Book & Magazine Festival celebrated its 20th today with the usual mix of author readings, live music performances, kids events, marketplace booths, and book sales. The “national celebration of literacy and the written word” was first held in 1990; this year it took place in Vancouver, Kitchener, Halifax and Toronto.

Last year, I was a volunteer at the kids activity tent. It was a humid, messy affair, packed with mad scientists, melting crayons, and ranks of worn-out parents. Children bursting out of the tent seams. But it was a rare opportunity to experience books and learning from a child’s perspective so I had fun. I also walked away with an illustration by Jeremy Tankard, a leftover easel drawing from his mini-art lesson for the kids. Still, I missed a lot of events during the day because I was volunteering, so this year I was a plain old festival attendee.

Ragdolls and Reverberation

First off, another article for Suite101.com, this time a review of Shane Acker’s epic animation (although not so epic at 79 minutes long), 9. Check it out here: Movie Review: Shane Acker’s 9.

Secondly, U2 swept through Toronto this past week and I was fortunate enough to score a free ticket from a friend. I know, there goes my magic wish power for the next year or so. The performance, the stage, the songs–everything was phenomenal.

A big day in publishi–Just kidding

Along with Patrick Swayze, Taylor Swift, the Zune HD and Jay Leno, Dan Brown has made it onto the top ten trending topics on Twitter. In honour of this most auspicious day in publishing (well, auspicious for Doubleday even though others are more skeptical), and pop culture in general, a haiku:

Happy Dan Brown Day!
More Langdon shenaniga–
KANYE WEST WAS HERE

Addendum: Two minutes after this was posted, Dan Brown was shunted off the top ten by TechCrunch50.

GoodReads review: Twilight

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars homeruns in a vampire baseball game

Although it was an engaging enough read, I can’t remember much of Twilight at all – probably because there was so little substance to begin with. It’s like a tamer and less imaginative version of Tithe by Holly Black.

Anyway, Twilight is the tale of a girl named Bella* who moves to the drizzly town of Forks and meets a vampire hottie named Edward (this is hardly a surprise, but I checked off the ‘contains spoilers’ option anyway). Some 400 pages of googly-eyed conversations about irresistable body odour later, the story picks up again.

Rebuilding what ain’t broke: Evangelion

I just watched the first installment of the new Rebuild of Evangelion series. This 4-movie remake of the Evangelion franchise began with the release of Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone in Japanese theatres in 2007 (North Americans won’t get it until sometime this summer/fall).

1.0 combines and reworks episodes 1 to 6 of the original anime series from the ’90s. There’s some new content, and the plot has been tweaked to make it more understandable, but much of it is largely the same. Visually, it’s stunning; the producers have really taken advantage of new animation techniques/technology. There’s some spiffy new music (Utada!) and a lot of new growly noises coming out of the EVA 01 when it goes berserk.

Bye Bye Pages 1979–2009

Today is the last day that Pages Books and Magazines on Queen Street West will be open. I’m ashamed to say that while I passed by dozens of times, I never actually went in to take a look until last week. I always thought that I would stop in some other time, when I wasn’t  running errands or whatever I happened to be in the middle of at the time.

It was a pretty sad sight when I finally visited: almost empty shelves stocked with remnant books and discounted Christmas cards, yet full of shoppers who clearly loved the store. Everyone offered an encouraging word or regrets about the store’s closing to the cashier as he rang up their purchases. I ended up with a copy of Spacing (the suburban issue…how could I not take it home?) and a few blank greeting cards.

Even though I wasn’t a regular customer, the knowledge that an independent bookstore like Pages was available was a comforting thought. Unfortunately, admiration from afar and the support of loyal book lovers isn’t enough to save the store from the skyrocketing cost of renting their current location.

So here’s to 30 years of selling books and bringing together local authors, artists and residents. This Is Not A Reading Series lives on! Bookmark this page for upcoming sessions.

Busy busy busy

Sort of. Leading up to my trip to New York, things got pretty hectic: dinners, weddings, errands, worlds to save, etc.

But once I got back, things were pretty dull, leaving me plenty of time to mull over my resume and the dearth of job postings. Oh yeah, and to fulfill my commitment to Suite101. Here are the last few articles that I needed to reach my quota. Hopefully I can do better next time. It’s hard to think of appropriate topics and to maintain the proper tone when I’m so used to blogging about whatever crosses my mind in a totally casual way. Anyway, here they are.

Hong Kong Comics: Ngau-chai (a.k.a. 牛仔): I loved this comic as a kid, and I still do. The little kid is adorable and his dad does a pretty nice job raising him. Gotta love the spiffy hair and outfits on Mother and 大小姐. Unfortunately, the Suite101 editing pane doesn’t display Chinese characters properly. And the copyright status of Ngau-chai is in shambles. As far as I can tell, at the time of Wong Sze-ma’s death, the comic was licensed by Bo-yi Publishing, which was eventually sold (?) to SCMP Publishing, which in turn shut down all operations in 2008 and relinquished all copyright back to the original authors…? It’s all in Chinese so I’m having trouble deciphering the situation. Hence, no images in my Suite101 article.