This time, it’s…historical?
Every year since 1988, the U.S. National Film Preservation Board has selected 25 films to add to the National Film Registry, housed in the Library of Congress. The list of additions for 2008 is broad in terms of both subject matter and era, but most news outlets are seeing only one name, and seeing it less in terms of broadness than straight-out-of-left-fieldness: The Terminator (1984).
January 16, Vancouver—Here’s an intriguing concept: photographic performance art. Running for a three-month engagement at UBC’s Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, the free exhibit “Action-Camera: Beijing Performance Photography” is a display of photographs and videos by over a dozen accidental artists.
Boxing Day. In Canada, the tendency every year come Dec. 26th has less to do with tidying the home and more to do with ‘cleaning up’ on big-ticket bargain$. It only makes sense to get value for our dollars in economic times such as these. Still, DRIVEN would like to think that the final few days leading up to year’s end could be spent looking inwards. Let’s examine this noble idea in the context of the other kind of boxing: the noble sport itself.
DECEMBER 24, 1968:
“Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there! Isn’t that something…”
—Apollo 8 crew member Frank Borman
If you haven’t read the gritty yet gregarious short story written exclusively for the December issue of DRIVEN by 2008 Giller Prize-winner Joseph Boyden, give yourself a little gift and devour it now: “Three Wiser’s Men” (pp32-36 of the magazine).
But that’s not all…
Montreal, QC—Current economic turmoil aside, planetary forces seem to be aligned for Honda. Car buyers have been switching to smaller vehicles en masse. So significant has been the extent of the big-car exodus that Honda’s Fit factory in Suzuka, Japan, couldn’t make enough of the 2008 model: All 16,000 units designated for Canada were gobbled up well before the 2009 version was ready for sale. And the dealership near the DRIVEN offices started taking delivery of the ’09 Fit before pricing had even been confirmed.
Posted verbatim and without editorial comment, a paragraph from Elliott Chaze’s noir crime story Black Wings Has My Angel (1953):
“But about the gentleman thing.” She waved her glass. “I want to make it plain as the nose on your face. I can stand anything in the book but gentlemen. Because I’ve spent a lot of time, too much time with them, and I know why gentlemen are what they are…
Read More
The year’s end nears, and the best-of music lists come out of the woodwork; if DRIVEN had compiled one, Brooklyn-based alt.noise quartet Parts & Labor would have been on it. But we decided to do things a little different…
January 3, Toronto—A member of DRIVEN’s extended family, motorcycle racer Lawrence Hacking has been selected to receive an award for his non-fiction adventure book, To Dakar and Back (co-authored with Wil De Clerq).
Read More
American satirist Paul Krassner coined the phrase “Twinkie defense” in reference to the infamous mishandling of Dan White’s trial for the 1978 murders of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. The December edition of DRIVEN contains an interview with Krassner, and an overview of the Twinkie Defense’s ramifications (p23 in the magazine). Exclusive to this website, here is one of Krassner’s additional theories for why Mr. White’s sentence was so unusually light:
