Learning

I am doing some freelance writing for Marketing Magazine online.
Originally I applied for a copy-editing job, but they needed some extra freelancers.

Although I wasn't much of an expert on the topics Marketing Magazine covers, nor do I have a lot of experience writing for online publications, I've learned a lot about the marketing, advertising and brands in the past couple weeks.

So far, these are the two posts from me: 
Harris/Decima announces EquiTrend Brand of the Year
Mitsubishi chases down new branding campaign

It's been great to step outside my boundaries and work on a totally different style of publication. The hardest part, though, has been writing such short articles. That is definitely a new skill I need to hone.

Enjoy! I hope there is more to come. 

Find out more About Me!

I've made an About Me page. It houses a very catchy, straightforward, accurate biography of moi.

Apocalypse Survival on a Bike

The end of the world is fast-approaching according to some, but anyone on a bike will easily escape
 
llustration by Margaret Beach

There's been a lot of talk surrounding the alleged end to the Mayan calendar, and consequently the fast-approaching fate of the planet. Lately, people have been worried about whether or not a catastrophic event will occur, if the world will end, and if cities will crumble.

If that does happen, cyclists won't have a lot to worry about. If you pack carefully and mount your trusted steed at the first sign of danger, you'll make it out of harms way. You'll be able to live comfortably in the wild with essential survival gear strapped to your bike.

There is a resurgence of Gothic horror and a lot of stories, TV shows, and films featuring end-of-the-world or religious apocalypse scenarios. And just like preparations for possible zombie attacks, we should be preparing for ways to escape any potential urban downfalls.

There are many reasons why you'll be able to escape on your two-wheeled love. The simplicity and human-powered capability of a bicycle will take you way farther than any other vehicle. And while a bike is light and non-complex, it also has the potential to carry a huge amount of stuff.

"Bad Air" by my mum. That's what I'll look like when the city starts to crumble.

First and foremost, a bike will never run out of gas (unless, of course, you do). If it does end up breaking or needs a tune-up, its mechanics are simple enough to learn and relatively easy to fix. Everything is there for you to see, and with a bit of fiddling and practice, any novice and learn to tune their bike like a pro. Regular check-ups can help your escape vehicle last for a long while.

Since you will be on the road for a while, you'll want to make sure you can carry all of the essentials: tents, canned goods, dogs, clothing, camp gear, and tools If you have a trailer, hitch 'er up. Trailers are great for heavy or awkward-shaped items like a camp-stove, water jugs or children. Another great thing to have are a set of panniers and a detachable front basket. On top of all that, a large camping-style over night backpack can also be carried.

If you come to a line-up of abandoned cars or reach a large crater in the road, you can simply take off and carry each pack over or around the blockage before manoeuvring your bike around said obstruction.

It may seem a silly to plan for such destruction and obstructions, but you'll be the smart one as you pedal to safety. Think of your planning and ability to safely bike away from an apocalyptic event as added insurance, like a bomb shelter from the cold war era.

Read my recent article about why apocalypse and Gothic 2012 stories are so prevalent at this time, and how society's fears translate into pop culture (featuring gothic professor Sarah Henstra and horror writer Gemma Files).

Gothic 2012

The following is a short feature I wrote for JRN 500- Journalism and the Arts

Gothic 2012: Horror makes a comeback as we worry about the world ending

Gothic literature may seem like a long-outdated form of entertaining writing, yet it has actually made a come back lately in relation to 2012 apocalyptic, end-of-the-world fears.

In the past few years, there have been numerous shows and movies with the theme of religious apocalypse and world-ending disasters. Horror has also crept into many popular book-series-turned-film-series, whether that is the vampire-filled Twilight series or dystopian world of the Hunger Games trilogy (which made $214 million in its opening weekend as a film).

Gothic, horror, supernatural fiction, dark fantasy and dystopian literature–whatever the exact name, they all have Gothic horror elements–have always been a way for people to live out their worst fears. “Gothic is one of those genres that crosses boundaries,” says Sarah Henstra, an English professor at Ryerson University who specializes in Gothic literature. Because of this cross-genre aspect, Gothic is almost always popular and is ever-present in pop culture.

“It’s really popular during transitional states in society,” Henstra says. While Gothic is ever-present, it tends to become even more popular at times of social change and collective anxiety about the future, such as at the turn of each century and around the time of huge scientific break-through.

Each wave of Gothic fiction explores and plays-out current social anxieties. Just as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde explored fears of new pharmaceuticals and Frankenstein played out society’s fear of technology, the most recent Dexter season explores our worries about religious apocalypse and uprising and the film Contagion plays on society’s extreme anxiety surrounding disease and superbugs.

“But it’s not just about 2012. It’s just a worry about new technologies and such. These anxieties are already in society,” Henstra says. Exploring our fears about the future is easy to do through fictional films and books. “It’s safe and at a distance. It’s a vicarious playing-out,” says Henstra. Seeing our fears become real on a screen or reading about the destruction of the world is a way of releasing our tension about it.

Society’s fascination with its own demise does sound a little morbid, but often getting these fears out in the open is the only way to work through them. “Fear can be both repulsive and attractive,” says Gemma Files, Canadian horror author. “Anything which allows you to explore your fears is healthy.”

“Gothic isn’t a genre at all, it’s an emotion,” says Toronto-based author and journalist David Nickle. Fear and anxiety about the future, about the state of the economy and the earth, about political uprising and natural disasters are all valid feelings. Gothic pop culture simply uses these feelings to entertain us, all the while helping us explore and work through complicated and heavy emotions.

In Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America, Europe and Japan, John R. Hall questions what is so appealing about gothic horror. “Apocalyptic images bring focus to anxieties and suspicions about a world undergoeing dramatic change,” he writes. “But what is the appeal of their seemingly fantastic, almost legendary stories?”

The answer to this question is simply the fact that fictional stories help society’s real problems. “Take the thing you want least to happen, the worst thing you can imagine, and play it through. If you do, it may possibly make your fears far easier to deal with...but even if it doesn't, there's still something to be said for exploring the whys and wherefores of those fears,” Files says. “Horror and Gothic helps with that, too: You play out that consummation in fiction, so it doesn't overtake you in life.”

Gothic may be a popular movie style and many television show nowadays has some sort of end-of-the-world theme, but the rise horror-fiction mirrors society’s wide range of real political, economic, and environmental fears and anxieties.

“We're blundering through the first twenty years of another thousand, with absolutely no idea where we're all headed,” says Files. “But I'll tell you this much--as of right now, the prospective future looks a lot more like Panem than it does like Star Trek.”

Alas, Poor Morgue

My long feature article for the Ryerson Review of Journalism is finally available online.
Alas, Poor Morgue! We knew it well. A fond look back at the old-style newspaper library.

Graphic Reporting

I recently wrote "Graphic Reporting" a short feature for the Ryerson Review's site.

It's been 20 years since Art Spiegelman's Maus won a Pulitzer prize. Since then, many great non-fiction and reportage-style graphic novels have been published, like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, Richard Poplak's Kenk: A Graphic Portrait, Joe Sacco's Palestine, and more recently Chester Brown's Paying For It.


My article looks at how graphic novel journalism has progressed in the past couple decades, and what this means for readers and writers alike.

Also, don't forget to check out my That Was Then, This is Now posts on the RRJ blog. My most recent one is about Jian Ghomeshi and how he started out on the other side of the microphone.

Most Post: The National's Ron Charles and Leanne Hazon

The Ryerson Review of Journalism has been doing a video series on the website called "The Most Tales." Corey Mintz, for example, talked about his most bizarre meal. Toronto Star food editor Jennifer Bain discussed her most dangerous moment in the kitchen

I went to CBC's Toronto headquarters to meet with The National's Leanne Hazon, assignment editor, and Ron Charles, reporter. They both told me about the most memorable story they ever worked on. Check it out on the RRJ web site.

CBC's New Drama, Arctic Air, Takes Flight [Review]

The following is a review I wrote for JRN 500- Journalism and the Arts.

Arctic Air, CBC Television's new series, is only a few episodes into its first season, but this cold-weather Canadian drama is quickly taking off. Based in Yellowknife, the show follows the lives of the workers at a small-time flying companying, both in the air and on the ground.

Bobby Martin (Adam Beach) returns to Yellowknife after years of living in “the south.” Upon his return, he encounters a lot of old friends with mixed feelings about his return. Bobby may be a charmer, with nice smiles and nice words, but when he gets punched in the face during the first five minutes of the show, it becomes apparent that he has some bad history.

Krista Iverson (Pascale Hutton) is an old school-mate of Bobby's, and her father Mel (Kevin McNulty) is actually Bobby's business partner at Arctic Air, simply because Bobby inherited shares. They have a relatively good relationship with Bobby, but that can't be said of Bobby's old love interest Petra Hossa (Lexa Doig) and her father Doc Hossa (Micheal Hogan).


While over-arching plot elements focus on Bobby's past and present personal and family issues, each episode also contains a mid-air flight fright, whether that be a woman in labour, an electrical storm, or a small-scale hijacking. The showy adventures are fun to watch, but the family issues and half-cooked romances seem much more real than those high flying dramatics. It's the day-to-day problems that keep you hooked.

The show also explores bigger social, racial, and political issues. Bobby is a native and a former oil prospector who spent a good chunk of time in the south. More than once, he encounters racial slurs, anger towards the oil industry, and backlash against his supposed northern abandonment.

There are a few cheap thrills and chills, but there are also a few deep-rooted issues and breathtaking scenes of Canada's north. For a born-and-and-bred Torontonian, Arctic Air is as exotic and different in subject matter as it is in northern Canadian scenery. (For the rest of unsheltered Canada, this series is probably just a good bit of entertainment.)

Photo Credit: From CBC Revenue Group, http://www.cbc.ca/revenuegroup/arctic-air.html

RRJ Blog Posts

I'm writing a series of posts with a friend for the Ryerson Review of Journalism's blog called "The Was Then, This is Now." It's a series of posts about the early career days of Canadian journalists.
Check out my first post about John Macfarlane, editor of the Walrus magazine and veteran writer and editor.

Appreciation: Jeanette Winterson

The following is an assignment I wrote for JRN 500: Journalism and the Arts. My instructor seemed to like it, and I enjoyed writing it.

During the fall of 2007, I borrowed “Oranges are Not the Only Fruit” by Jeanette Winterson from a friend who had never read it before. At the time, I had never heard of Winterson, nor had I read any of her other works. The moment I peeled open the pages of “Oranges,” I couldn't put it down. I discovered that each word in Winterson's novel is a delicious, juicy, succulent piece of a larger story.

Up until the age of 17, I thought that poetry and p
rose were completely different forms of writing. One was straightforward and used sensible language to weave a plot. The other was often chaotic, using flowery language to express abstract ideas.
Upon reading Winterson's autobiographically inspired novel, I found that prose and poetry could be one in the same. The phrases Winterson uses are prose in the sense that they build towards a larger plot, while the way she writes, weaves, and creates her story is more poetic than any poetic verses I've ever read.

In “Oranges,” Winterson explores her own upbringing, the realization of her love for literature, and her blossoming sexuality in a household that kept only the bible on its bookshelves. With flowing language she describes stuttering teenage times, and with comedic verses she delves into the sadness and confusion of her youth.
Shortly after reading “Oranges,” I began the lengthy and enjoyable process of devouring every book Winterson has ever written. “The Passion” and “Written on the Body” have climbed to the top of my own recommended reading list.

Each novel Winterson writes is just as poetic as the last. She has a way of using short, sort of surprising phrases next to long, rambling sentences full of commas, parentheses, and dashes. This fashion of forming her sentences is something I have longed- and tried- to replicate, but I will never achieve the poetic level of prose that Winterson has reached.

Furthermore, within all this poetic-like prose, Winterson is never too explicit. Even when writing about sex, death, and blood, she manages to create a soft image, a sideways reference, and a gentle reference with no rough explanations. While much of the poetry and prose created over the centuries has been about love, sex, and death, Winterson is able to describe a huge range of emotions and extremely subtle physical experience with a few well-placed words and simple adjectives.

For months after I read “Oranges,” I urged the friend from whom I borrowed the book to read its intriguing mixture of prose and poetry. I would repeat lines from that novel- and many of Winterson's other stories- to friends and family in order to bate them into reading my favourite novel. I even chose an “Oranges” quote as my high school graduation message: “If you want to keep your own teeth, make your own sandwiches.”
I am still repeating those same lines today.