Toronto’s downtown has been abandoned by government and police. The rich have fled to the suburbs, and put up a barrier to keep all those nasty poor people from leaving the middle of the city. Nalo Hopkinson’s first book, Brown Girl in the Ring, takes this simple and […]
The show’s opening sequence starts with a woman in a black bodysuit facing off against a hulking monster. When she finishes him off with a jump-kick, the music swells and the words “Game Over” come up. “Did you ever wonder what happens after the game ends?” a voice […]
Nat Taylor invented the multiplex cinema and was one of the founders of the private film-industry lobby in Canada, so feel free to despise him. But since the guy just died this past February 29 at a helpless age 98, why not remember him for his virtues – […]
While I wait in the lobby of one of the largest game studios in the world, I watch someone go through to the inner sanctum. The shiny barrier, with transparent doors that whir apart at the wave of a card-pass, looks familiar — I think I’ve seen the […]
I’m fairly suspicious of nostalgia, and I hate how advertisers leverage our emotions to sell us the same products twice. So while I’m happy that people are rediscovering videogames from their youth, and that the games and their blocky aesthetic are mushrooming up all over the culture, I […]
The following Q&A first appeared, in condensed form, in my column The Panelist for Toronto’s Eye Weekly. Here’s a special, extended version of the conversation. Collecting every Peanuts strip Charles Schulz ever drew, The Complete Peanuts will take a whopping 25 volumes and more than 12 years to […]
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The Cultural Gutter 