It doesn’t help me not to think about Harper’s when ex-Harper’s editor Paul Tough is announced as a new contributing editor in the issue I’m supposed to review of this west coasty magazine of fictional and factional writings. The Harpers-esque short blasts of anecdotage that front the pages make most perfect toilet reading; some sappy, some witty, some windy. Then you move into after-dinner reading with longer pieces, short stories or, as I prefer to call them, LIES! And there are highfalutin’ cartoons and prairie gothic collage narratives. If W.O. Mitchell were editor instead of Lewis Lapham, Harpers would be a lot more like Geist. You can take the literary magazine out of Canada, but you can’t take the Canadian literary imagination out of the baby’s bathwater without breaking a couple eggs. Or something like that. (TD)
magazine, vol 9, #37, 54 pages, $4.95, Geist Foundation, #103, 1014 Homer St., Vancouver, BC, V6B 2W9, www.geist.com