News « artsforum.ca

The best of writing, photography, art, and argument – on everything from film to foreign policy.

“Ever dreamed of subscribing to a cultural magazine that doesn’t seem to be eating out of the hand of half a dozen media magnates? Something pluricultural and unassuming but nonetheless covering everything worth seeing, reading, doing or listening to for a season? Well, it exists, and in Canada to boot!”

“There is no on-line version or web site, which either makes John a dinosaur or a man of character. (I opt for the second, since the editorial team occasionally has a kind word for me.)”

John Howe — Canadian artist and co-conceptual designer on all three “The Lord of the Rings” motion pictures.

* Editor’s Note: The age of the dinosaurs has at last come to an end — with the arrival of this website!

Bumpkin of the Week

On May 29, 2018

A political ‘platform’ in ten words or less, from the bumpkin of the week (in the current Ontario election campaign): “You know me, folks. I’m for the little guy.” Moral of the story: If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, then ‘getting tough on crime’ takes second place in […]

The Lamentable President

On February 28, 2018

In an interview with Larry King prior to the November 2017

“This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine.” (So saith President Trump in February 2017; but, he didn’t specify what kind of machine he had in mind.) Illustration © 2017 by Linda Arkelian.

presidential […]

On Arms and the Man: Distorted Notions about the Right to Bear Arms in America

On February 27, 2018

Should teenagers be allowed to have machine guns? Yes or no? It’s really as simple as that. The carnage wrought recently at a Florida school was perpetrated by a disturbed teen in legal possession of what amounted to a machine gun. In a sensible world, those words, […]

The Case for Intervention in Syria

On February 27, 2018

Popular protests in Syria during the ill-fated Arab Spring in 2011 turned into a bitter civil war that is still raging seven years later. It’s a pity the West failed to intervene in a meaningful way in the beginning, before things turned intractably violent. The conflict has […]

The Transformational Yukon

On May 10, 2017

“I am among the giants. They loom below, immense, silent, and

insouciant – their unbowed crowns cloaked in the whitest of ermine, their enormous shoulders cast of rock primeval. I have come to the world […]

Of Mortal Life, The Flower

On February 14, 2017

“So passeth, in the passing of a day, / Of mortal life the leaf, the bud, the flower, / No more doth flourish after first decay, / That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower.”

On […]