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[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Covetous Torontonians aren't likely to take kindly to another set of commandments, but that's the premise of a lecture series tied to the ROM's highly touted Dead Sea […]

This spring's inaugural Open House Festival--spearheaded by Random House and modelled after the New Yorker's autumn shindig--trots out 30-odd wiseacres, historians and novelists. A bland slogan ("a celebration of fact […]

In her exhaustive Massey Hall lecture and accompanying book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, Margaret Atwood shares her innumerable thoughts about currency. She argues, among many other […]

Whether you cope by hitting the beach, hightailing it to cottage country or braving the steamy pavement to hoist a patio pint, we'll help you make the most of this […]

Canadians are traditionally softer on white-collar crime than our punitive neighbours to the south. Con artists, as a result, love it here: they've taken up residence in Montreal, Vancouver, and […]

Unless tuna and salmon swim wild in the sewers, there's no explanation for why Bloor between Bathurst and Spadina is sprouting sushi restaurants. The five short blocks are home to […]

If you have to ask, you can't afford the new luxury condos slated to pop up along the Toronto skyline. These aristocratic boxes will have maintenance fees higher than most […]

Your choice of cottage country says a lot about you--and your bank account. Whether you prefer few creatures and plenty of comforts (or vice versa), a suitable home away from […]

Loving thy neighbour is so much easier when the family on the other side of the fence worships the same deity. Thus, a number of Toronto faiths have entered the […]

The average, run-of-the-mill perfect day now costs up to $50,000 and requires the organizational savvy of a D-Day commander. So it's no surprise that busy Toronto dyads are divorcing themselves […]

Since every rung up the Bay Street ladder means less downtime, an increasing number of executives are now outsourcing their to-do lists, paying concierge services between $50 and $200 an […]

Last summer saw the debut of Cru, Toronto's first male-only spa, proof that masculine vanity has finally gone mainstream. The queer-male gaze has made it less acceptable to be schlumpy, […]

The drunk punk girl with faded red and yellow hair spits in the face of her drunk punk boyfriend. He pauses for a moment--not as shocked as one might expect, […]

With her art-project-cum-bookwork MY DEMANDS, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design student Emily Holton has created a series of 19 pseudo-haikus that twist and tangle our envies and desires. [...]

Larger packages of convenience foods encourage overindulgence.

Only three tracts old, the POCKET CANON is already proving more popular than its publisher anticipated. Anais, the debut zinebook (which pokes fun at Ms. Nin) is in its second [...]

The downtown leg of the world's longest thoroughfare is a traffic-jammed wind tunnel bounded by crowded sidewalks and hostile cliffs of skyscrapers. After a couple of centuries of life on […]

It seems that CANZINE--the annual festival of independent publishing--offers better regional representation every year. This year, almost 150 exhibitors from across the country made the trip to Toronto to hawk [...]

Fostering a visible arts community is often difficult, and without something to document it and encourage a dialogue between participant and observer, even the most vibrant city cultures can lose [...]

Article examines how clever new advertising techniques may serve to strengthen consumer resolve to ignore them.

Content is king, internet visionaries once boldly proclaimed, but even at the height of dot-com mania, content fit for a queen proved more difficult to find. Post-meltdown, text-driven sites have [...]

IBM, better known as Big Blue, launched an advertising campaign for its latest server in fall 1999. The ad campaign, which targeted business executives, was unusual because of IBM's decision to use 'magical realism' that captured the existing zeitgeist perfectly. In the wake of the phenomenal success of author J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter book series, IBM's strategy can be considered an attempt to anticipate psychological, social and economic needs and provide for them. If it succeeds, Big Blue might have pulled of the toughest magic trick of all.

The author discusses how advertising agencies in post-recession Canada are dealing with the challenge of creating high-quality campaigns with smaller budgets. Featured agencies include: Vancouver, British Columbia-based Rethink led by founding partner Chris Staples, Montreal, Quebec-based Cossette led by creative director of branding and design Barbara Jacques, and the Toronto, Ontario-based Projektor Brand led by principal John Furneaux. Comments by advertising executive Shin Sugino are also presented.

The author reflects on the trend of food becoming as popular as bands as of July 2012, claiming that indie food from new restaurants and high-end food trucks in Toronto, Ontario have been soaring in popularity. He shares that food might have replaced musicians, actors and artists, becoming the new trend, as depicted by "The Grid" magazine, which featured a bartender and a chef on its cover. He says he has not engaged in foodie rituals such as taking a photo of a meal and posting it online.

The article presents an interview with actor and author of the book "An Object of Beauty," Steve Martin, in which he comments on his inspiration for the novel, use of illustrations and references to Andy Warhol in the book.

The article focuses on the journal Walrus. The cover of issue number one features a dull-gray, grainy photo of a steamship to illustrate an over-long, 10,000-word investigative feature on activist Paul Martin. The Walrus is particularly sharp on world politics, equipped to discuss preservation of Bauhaus architecture in Tel Aviv, China's mishandling of the SARS crisis, Moscow's homeless children and the German obsession with Native Indians with equal insight and strength.

This article discusses the Luddite movement. New is gee-whiz nifty and shiny, but it isn't always faster, better or cheaper. This epiphany forms the philosophical impetus of an emerging group of techno-skeptics: call them modern Luddites. Where the original Luddites smashed English cotton mills, modern ones like Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of MIT's Media Labs, prefer to espouse the merits of appropriate technology. Modern Luddites have learned to speak softly lest they be labelled "laggards" -- communication scholar Everett Rogers's term for the technologically stubborn. In his seminal book, Diffusion of Innovations, Rogers describes five different groups responsible for how new gadgets trickle through society: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and, last and least, laggards. Despite numerous virtues, being a modern Luddite isn't always cheap. Any dollar store will sell you a notebook, but the au courant Moleskine-brand journal, purported to be the idea receptacle of choice for Hemingway and Breton, costs 10 times as much. Of course, not being enslaved by technology is a status symbol.

This article discusses the band One Ring Zero and their use of Margaret Atwood's lyrics. We recognize Margaret Atwood as a novelist, poet, literary critic and children's book author, but rock lyricist? And yet, the Canadian wordsmith, along with 17 other popular fiction writers, recently donated lyrics to One Ring Zero--a quirky two-man Brooklyn band with a klezmer-meets-indie-rock sound. The duo, Michael Hearst and Joshua Camp, gleefully set the authors' curious submissions to music, and the result is a new album entitled As Smart As We Are. Frankenstein Monster Song, lyrics by Margaret Atwood:. Doctor, doctor you're the one to blame/you put me together/you forgot the name/sew me a lady/sew me a lady/sew me a monster lady/just like me/I've got a dead man's heart and a dead man's brain/I look in the mirror and it's pure pain.

This is an article that focuses on new words and their definitions as discovered by writer Paul McFedries. Toronto writer Paul McFedries is the linguist behind wordspy.com--a Web site devoted to discovering and documenting new words. Since its debut in 1995, the site has accumulated 2,200 entries, including "fauxhawk," "bridezilla" and "metrosexual." McFedries, 44, has even parlayed his love of language into a book, which is also titled Word Spy. Latte factor is part of a larger concept that says if you watch the small expenses, you can save money over the long haul. Viagra divorce: Definition: n. A divorce granted on the grounds that a husband is behaving aggressively or unfaithfully after taking Viagra or some other anti-impotence drug.

January 2003 issue of 'Metropolis,' an American architecture and design magazine, features cartoonist Ben Katchor's “The Crumb Trap.”The full-page comic describes how collectors from cities' small waste division are given keys to apartments so they can harvest the little bits of bagel and pumpernickel left by people in toasters and transfer “the collected particles of bread” to a central factory where a sorting machine takes over. Katchor enlarges the tiniest details of daily life, imbuing them with a curious but consistent logic.In his book 'Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: The Beauty Supply District,' one gets to learn about the newest retail trend: free-associative stores. George Saunders is a New York City-based short story writer whose characters struggle to maintain their dignity in a world they did not create. Both authors providereaders with an opportunity to consider how comfortable we feel aboutthe gentle slope toward acceptable consumer insanity.

Explains the role of images in understanding the seductive imagery of consumerism. Photographers' role in imagery; Features of photographs by British photographer Martin Parr.

Discusses the marketing strategies adopted by various business enterprises. Strategy adopted by Steve Sanger in to promote the Lucky Charm cereal launched in 1975; Decision of offer a variety of ketchup flavors by ketchup company Heinz Co.

Comments on the influence of database marketing to the consumer culture and lifestyle in Canada. Modification of the book 'Life Style' to the Canadian lifestyle as influenced by technological marketing; Double purpose of data mining; Irony in living life in a luxurious way.

Discusses how consumerism has evolved into something akin to religion. Consumer familiarity with brand and product names; Satisfaction and happiness shopping brings to consumers; Strategies used by marketers of creating and presenting a diffuse message for brands.

Comments on how seemingly peculiar products provide consumer insights. Concept of brand loyalty and brand recognition; Background on the theory of brand resignation; Views of anthropologist Paul Lukas in inconspicuous consumption; Examples of peculiar products and profile on the consumers patronizing them.

Criticizes intrusive audio logos which feel like afterthoughts as compared to past classics. Appearance of audio logos at the end of advertisements; Jazz composer Raymond Scott's introduction of the term audio logo in the 1950s; Lack of statistics to prove how successful Scott's audio logos were.

Focuses on changes in corporate culture within the Canadian marketing and advertising sectors within the New Economy. Overview on the branding strategies utilized by various Canadian marketers and advertisers; Psychological tricks that advertising agencies are developing and testing; Comparison of the basis of brand management theories in the past and present.

Opinion. Examines the impact of advertising on the media ecosystem in Canada. Definition of ecological footprint (EF); Effect of EF on actual consumer benefits; Factors affecting brand name products advertising; Enumeration of companies concentrating on manufacturing and inventory innovations.

Reports that songs have become more integral in advertising. Success of Coke's `I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing'; Technique of `borrowing interest,' transfer of emotion from music to the product; Development of counterculture.

Discusses the cultural and consumption patterns of the 20- to 29-year-old demographic. Attitudes toward advertising; Indications that young adults' frustration with the limits of consumer culture is slowly seeping into the mainstream; Re-examination of the brand-based belief system; Diesel Jeans' advertising catalog.

Discusses the use of animals in television commercial films. Inappropriateness of dogs as `spokesanimals' for telephone technology; Cat-ruler scenario with overtones of `Planet of the Apes' for Levi's jeans; Factors credited for the jump in sales of Hush Puppies Co. shoes.

Discusses concerns that the strength of the `new economy' may be limited by people's ability to remember Web addressees. Added pressure to electronic contenders; Importance of testing URL recall; Advertising.