Canadian

The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson

A compact edition of an award-winning best-seller -- more affordable than the celebrated original, but otherwise identical.

At a critical time in Canada's history, the Group of Seven revolutionized the country's appreciation of itself by celebrating Canada as a wild and beautiful land. These paintings of the wilderness evoke the same response in viewers today as they did when first exhibited.

The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson includes many never -- before reproduced paintings and presents the most complete and extensive collection of these artists' works ever published. The 400 paintings and drawings reveal the remarkable genius of all 10 painters who at some point were part of the movement. Tom Thomson, who died before the Group was established, was always present in the public mind. Included are works by:

• Frank Carmichael
• Frank Johnston
• A.J. Casson
• Arthur Lismer
• Le Moine FitzGerald
• I.E.H. MacDonald
• Lawren Harris
• Tom Thomson
• Edwin Holgate
• F.H. Varley
• A.Y. Jackson

The artwork is organized by the various regions of Canada, with additional sections on the war years and still-life paintings. Introductory essays provide a context for a greater understanding and appreciation of Canada's most celebrated artists.

Ghost Towns of the Pacific Northwest: Your Guide to Ghost Towns, Mining Camps, and Historic Forts of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia

Tiki Road Trip: A Guide to Tiki Culture in North America

Get a Life! (Star Trek)

For years, William Shatner's attitude toward Star Trek conventions was strictly professional: he'd typically fly in the day of his appearance, go straight from the airport to the stage, and then leave as quickly as possible. But when he went on an extensive tour to promote Generations, he became "Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning." Soon he was talking to fellow cast members, convention organizers, and the fans themselves, discovering how love of a science fiction show had helped create a tight-knit community.

In the course of this book, Shatner gives us a short history of Trek fandom, reveals the thinking behind Paramount's decision to kill off James T. Kirk, briefly explains the origins of the infamous Saturday Night Live sketch that gives the book its title, holds a seminar with the three other starship captains, and even takes lessons on the proper way to imitate Kirk from the master, Kevin Pollak, an actor/comedian. (Among the insights gained: those dramatic pauses in Kirk's speeches were the result of Shatner trying to remember his next line.) And there are plenty of jokes at the expense of Leonard Nimoy, as well as a few skewering Shatner. (The "elephant story" is a classic in itself. Once, when Shatner was on a photo safari in Africa, an elephant did number two on his head. He tells the story at cons, and the fans seem to love it, for some reason.) But the most touching segments of Get a Life! are Shatner's interviews with the fans, particularly those to whom the show and the fan community have given a social and emotional lifeline. Once you've read the conversations with the shy veterinary student who made friends by dressing his cats in Star Trek uniforms, or with a young woman whose severe emotional and sexual trauma had led to the development of multiple personalities that included three healing presences in the form of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, you will never be able to make a Trekkie joke quite so readily again. --Ron Hogan

Get A Life! with the possible exception of "Beam me up, Scotty," is clearly the most repeated catchphrase in the history of Star Trek®. Poking fun at Star Trek's gung-ho fans and conventions in a now infamous Saturday Night Live sketch, William Shatner's comic rallying cry has been indelibly emblazoned into the collective psyche of trekkers everywhere. Through the years, the phrase has spurred laughter, anger, controversy, and far more than its fair share of debate. It's now also given birth to an honest, sentimental, insightful book.

Uncomfortable with speaking onstage, William Shatner had spent the better part of the previous quarter century steadfastly avoiding convention appearances. However, to publicize the release of Star Trek Generations, Shatner agreed to a rare series of speaking engagements at Star Trek conventions around the globe. He was jolted by an unavoidable dose of reality.

Shatner was met with wild enthusiasm, love, and good humor at convention after convention. Touched and fascinated, he was overwhelmed with the realization that in almost three decades of starship hopping, he'd never really taken the time to enjoy or understand Star Trek's fans or their conventions. That's when the light bulb clicked on; that's when "Captain Kirk" dove headfirst into action.

For the past several years, William Shatner has been treating each Star Trek convention like an enormous research project. Interviewing fans, dealers, fellow castmembers, convention organizers, and promoters -- even going undercover beneath alien makeup -- Shatner's been scouring convention floors. Having grilled trekkers and trekkies in all corners of the planet, Shatner's had his eyes opened and his mind boggled. He's amassed a small mountain of research material, and cultivated his findings in Get A Life!

This is a first-person journey of discovery told with self-deprecating wit, unflagging honesty, and his trademark enthusiasm and humor. Get a Life! tells William Shatner's own story of how the actor who played the now deceased starship captain, James T. Kirk, can finally come to grips with his past, his fans, their love, and his own intergalactic legacy.

Peter Doig: Works on Paper

This full-color monograph showcases Doig's first show in a public gallery dedicated solely to his paper works of the past 14 years. An artist who credits such inspirations as Hopper, Munch and Matisse, Doig re-works and re-interprets images drawn from photographs, film stills, postcards, paintings and even album covers to explore notions of memory and fantasy. Doig's haunting and atmospheric work is often compared to the early 20th-century paintings of the Symbolists and Surrealists and is seen as having revived the Romantic spirit. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1994 and has been featured in the 54th International Carnegie Exhibition as well as many leading museums including the MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Tate, and the Dallas Museum of Art. Exhibition Dates: Dallas Museum of Art beginning September 13, 2005 The Gallery of Windsor beginning December 4, 2005 Art Gallery of Ontario beginning March 8, 2006.

Emily Carr: An Introduction to Her Life and Art

"Some can be active to a great age but enjoy little," observed Emily Carr shortly before her death in 1945. "I have lived." The impressive scope of Carr's art and her unorthodox life are the subjects of art educator Anne Newlands' latest book. In a text that skillfully blends selections from Carr's own writings with illustrated commentary, Newlands creates a delightful look at one of Canada's best-known artists. Emily Carr: An Introduction to Her Life and Art will lead you to the West Coast, where Carr spent much of her life in a world of richly drawn First Nations villages and totems, dark, haunting forests, wild beaches and vast skies. There, you will meet the unconventional woman -- "the little old lady on the edge of nowhere," as she called herself -- who helped define the face of Canadian art.

Stones, Bones and Stitches: Storytelling through Inuit Art (A Lord Museum Book)

Did you know?
-Cape Dorset boasts the largest number of artists per capita in Canada (22.7 percent — almost one-quarter of the labor force and thirty times the national average!)
-The word Eskimo is a derogatory term meaning “eaters
of raw flesh”
-Some Inuit artists quarry stone for their sculptures in the winter, but have to wait until the summer to bring it back to their workshops
-An igloo uses the same design principles found in the great cathedrals of Europe
-According to legends, the stone figures, called Inukshuks, protect travelers and point them to the safest pathway
-The Inuit have been carving for over 4,000 years

Stones, Bones and Stitches is a fascinating and beautiful introduction to the art of the North. Focusing on several important works from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, curators Shelley Falconer and Shawna White take you on an impressive journey through the artistic landscape. The evolving character of the North is explored through the lens of some of Canada’s most significant Inuit artists, past and present.

Included are eight different works from sculpture to prints, each highlighted with introductions to the artists, the materials they used, geography, legends, and stories. Photographs together with intriguing facts give the reader insight into the artists’ lives, communities, and working conditions along with brief histories of the region.

The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson: An Introduction

An introduction to the artists who symbolize the Canadian spirit.

Canada's most renowned artists, the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, celebrated the country's wild beauty. They saw in the untamed land a reflection of the national spirit, and called themselves "adventurers in paint."

For decades, their work has been instantly familiar to Canadians. But in the early part of the 20th century, these artists were engaged in a struggle for acceptance, mocked by critics and the public alike.

In The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, author Anne Newlands explores the ambitions and visions of the artists, capturing the cultural and historical realities of their time and bringing to life their artistic response to the Canadian wilderness. The book is illustrated with 40 color works of landscapes, portraits and urban scenes, as well as black and white archival photographs. Readers are introduced to the artists as well as their locations -- turn-of-the-century Toronto, Ontario's wilderness, the Rocky Mountains and the Arctic.

Writing with insight and enthusiasm, Anne Newlands offers an informative introduction to the lives, the work and the times of these important artists.

Blame Canada!: South Park And Popular Culture

Now running into its tenth season, South Park has still not "jumped the shark". Satirically edgier than The Simpsons, South Park responds immediately to cultural controversies: four days after Saddam Hussein's capture an episode lampooned it, and the show has no fear in tackling subjects like Terri Schiavo, The Passion of The Christ, and Michael Jackson, while co-opting disparate elements such as Kill Bill and Janet Jackson's nipple into one episode. Its mixture of iconoclasm, cultural referents, and intertextuality makes it the perfect lens through which to examine contemporary popular culture in America - and television's role in the creation of that culture.

Blame Canada! is a smart, readable book that will appeal to the show's many fans as much as to scholars and researchers of contemporary television.

The Book of Small