The Globe and Mail's Leah McLaren on the realities of covering something like TIFF.

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From a notebook item by The Globe and Mail's Johanna Schneller:

For a few years now, Canadian reporters have been pretty much shut out of print interviews with the biggest stars, having to cadge quotes from press conferences while their U.S. colleagues hog the one-on-one slots.

Now there's further evidence that print is a dying medium at TIFF: Even some of the biggest American print outlets seem to be feeling the pinch, with management shortening the purse strings on reporters' expenses.

Four staffers from People magazine, who used to stay at the Marriott on Bloor Street, have been bumped to the cheaper Marriott on Bay. ...

How are those poor bastards supposed to have any feelings of self-respect whatsoever if they find themselves isolated -- no, marooned -- way down at the Marriott on Bay?!?! That's by the Eaton Centre, for Christ's sake! :)

Some enterprising souls have started up Trash Palace, billing itself as "Toronto's classiest cinema." :)

They will be showing 16mm versions of some classic B cinema.

The one that caught my eye is Macon County Line, which will screen on Nov. 9 (the theatre's location is a closely guarded secret. You find out when you buy the ticket).

Max Baer Jr. (Jethro of The Beverly Hillbillies TV show fame) wrote, produced and starred in this 1974 tale of a nasty southern sheriff who mistakes some road trippers for murderous thugs.

One reason I remember this is because Baer suffered some reversals of financial fortune in the period before the film. This quote from one interview stuck with me: "I'm gonna make so much fuckin' money, they'll never be able to take it away from me!"

One should note that Macon County Line came on the heels of 1973's Walking Tall, starring Joe Don Baker. The two of them inspired a succession of southern hell movies. One would think Walking Tall should be coming to the Trash Palace at some future point. And what about Billy Jack?!?!

Another that caught my eye is Leslie Nielsen starring as a kung fu assassin in the 1978 film Project: Kill ("this is not a comedy," the flyer warns).

Do with this information what you will.

Peter Butala, a rancher in southwest Saskatchewan and husband of noted novelist Sharon Butala, died recently. Here's what caught my eye in the Globe and Mail obit:

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Still can't get into the control panel.

Take your time, Tucows. This has only been going on for weeks.

News about the passing of Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti broke after midnight today.

The Globe and Mail did well to hustle the following onto page A17 of its Toronto edition:

Beloved tenor, Pavarotti, dead at 71

The left-most column of page A17 was the A book's In Brief section. Unfortunately, it contained the following as the second item from the top, putting it adjacent to the main Pavarotti story:

Pavarotti's health reportedly failing

AP

September 6, 2007

Rome -- Luciano Pavarotti's health has deteriorated and the tenor was in serious condition, suffering kidney problems and losing consciousness, a local Italian TV station reported yesterday.

The AGI news agency said the 71-year-old tenor, who has pancreatic cancer, was in "very serious condition." It didn't name its sources.

At least one former BGMI colleague noticed the juxtaposition as well. However, I call it a "there but for the grace of God" moment.

From NYT.com:

If more proof were needed that the rich are different, it could be found on aSmallWorld.net, an invitation-only social networking site.

“I need to rent 20 very luxury sports cars for an event in Switzerland on the 6th September,” a member wrote recently on the Forum, aSmallWorld’s popular nucleus. “The cars should be: Maserati — Ferrari — Lamborghini — Aston Martin ONLY!”

Another announced: “If anyone is looking for a private island, I now have one available for purchase in Fiji.”

Founded four years ago, the site, promoted as a Facebook for the social elite, has grown from about 500 members to about 150,000 registered users. At a time when Christina Aguilera has 466,550 MySpace friends, aSmallWorld has attempted to create an Internet niche by cultivating an air of exclusivity.

The site functions much like an inscrutable co-op board: its members, who pay no fee, induct newcomers on the basis of education, profession and most important, their network of personal contacts. Sleeker than MySpace or Facebook, aSmallWorld.net is not the type of site where one is likely to come across videos of amateur motorcycle stunts or girls in bikinis.

I can't really manage my blog right now because Blogware is having one of those afternoons.

Former CBC journo Claude Adams tears a strip off John Honderich over the latter's dealings with Rwanda. He raises wider questions about the best way for Canadian journalists to help Rwanda develop a culture of media freedom.

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Legendary B.C. radio broadcaster Rafe Mair did his first Internet-based broadcast today. Here's a blurb from his site: Rafelive.com:

This is not a “radio” show as I’ve been accustomed to but something quite different. There’ll be no newscasts, sports and weather – and no ads during the one hour program!

The show will always start with the editorial as I have done over my radio career. You will always be invited to respond by phone or by email (numbers and email addresses to be provided soon). In fact, once we get rolling the theme of the show will be your feedback. We will try to have one guest per show with, again, your feedback welcome either on the phone or online.

At this point just let me close by saying that “netcasting” is the way of the present and future. I'm very glad to be 'online' and streaming live to you 3 times per week.

He also had this to say in a Tyee article:

The experiment is worth running, Mair says, because the offerings of today's advertising-dependent corporate media are so tepid. "Looking for an opinion has become like finding a needle in a haystack," he says. "We'll be all about holding government's feet to the fire."

For more than two decades, MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence service, kept an eye on George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. They suspected him of being a communist. Hey, the guy dressed like a bohemian. He was practically begging to be put under state surveillance.

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Virtually the entire economic foundation of the online publishing business rests on advertising. So let me tell you about a little program called AdBlock.

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And by doing so, Google preps the ground for selling ads alongside the content on its fully-automated news aggregator.

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From CP via globeandmail.com:

She's run a newsroom at a daily newspaper but now she wants to build a co-op brothel, run by and for prostitutes.

Jody Paterson chuckles when she considers the career change from managing editor to madame of Victoria.

But she says it was the people and stories she encountered on the news beat that ultimately led her to help the people she considers society's classic underdogs, sex workers.

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Some interesting factoids from a Globe and Mail story:

• Farmers spray hops with various pesticides an average of 14 times in a growing season
• One could power a TV set for 20 minutes with the electricity used to make a glass bottle. In comparison, making an aluminum beer can would take 180 minutes' worth.
• Paper-free labels are another way to reduce the eco-footprint of a bottle of beer.

"In the name of the environment (and, arguably, flavour), opt for unpasteurized, unfiltered, certified organic beer, free of preservatives and additives. ... Ultimately, supporting your local microbrewery will also drastically cut back on the amount of fossil fuels used to truck that beer to your fridge."

U.S. and British troops have reportedly recovered Chinese weapons after clashes with the Taliban. Britain would like China to explain how this could be so.

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Starbucks' pumpkin-and-cream-cheese muffin is back. Starbucks never sells that unless it's (gulp) ... fall!!

The Toronto Star had a look at TIFF buzz films. The paper followed up to day with some capsule reviews of selected films.

Very helpful, except the deadline for advance ticket orders was Friday at 1 p.m.

Some of the ones they tout are gala films, which are pretty much sold out, according to the chatter in the TIFF box office down at College Park.

And for those looking to buy tickets next week, many more films will be sold out as the advance pass buyers get first crack.

Ultimately, the Star is advising what films to see at a time when your probability of being able to see them has dropped precipitiously. They should have published this stuff on Thursday.

Now had 70 capsule reviews that day. I guess they were trying to be useful to their readers.

I shouldn't go soft on the Globe. It has really low-balled its advance TIFF coverage this year. The Seven Days pullout had one story that mentioned 11 films plus another that mentioned CanCon titles, but again, many of those were already sold out by the time a prospective TIFF-goer saw it. Most of the Globe's coverage focused on star-watching. The paper does promise 50 capsule reviews next week, which will be helpful for the rush crowd, I guess.

Remember the Battle for Panjwaii, the relatively bloody Canadian success story of September 2006? The New York Times is reporting that the Taliban are back in Panjwaii and Zhari Districts.

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I'm not sure what happened, but the images didn't load at the Beeb when I went there. And it looked a little something like this:

To that, I say, "Ewwwwww."

Update

The site went down completely for me. That's a rare thing for the Beeb. It's generally been technically exemplary in terms of stability.

When it came back, the pix were gone again. Oooo-eeee-oooo.

The Brockville Recorder and Times newspaper knew about bizarre practices at Grenville Christian College nearly 20 years ago, but then backed off the story when abandoned by terrified sources and threatened by a high-powered Toronto law firm.

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From the BBC:

Sweden's embassy in Pakistan has expressed regret over the publication of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a Swedish newspaper.

Pakistan had complained about the cartoon, which depicted the head of the Prophet on the body of a dog.

Sweden's government said it regretted any hurt but could not apologise as it was not responsible for the drawing and could not prevent its publication. ...

The new drawing depicting the Prophet's head on the body of a dog was published in the Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda on Sunday.

The cartoon's creator, Lars Vilks, told the Associated Press news agency the drawing was art.

"I'm not against Islam. Everybody knows that," he is quoted as saying.

From the BBC:

China is taking action on the English translations of its restaurant menus in its campaign to brush up the country's image for next year's Olympics.

The Beijing Tourism Bureau has released a list of 2,753 dishes and drinks it thinks could do with a wording rethink.

Translations such as "virgin chicken" for a young chicken dish and "burnt lion's head" for pork meatballs are confusing for foreigners, it says.