Douglas & McIntyreJoshua Knelman’s Hot Art: Chasing Thieves and Detectives through the Secret World of Stolen Art explores the evolution of the international black market in stolen canvases, sculptures, and antiquities through alternating stories of crooks and coppers from two continents. Hot Art, published earlier this month, is being widely described as non-fiction that reads like a novel; it’s been favourably tweeted by Margaret Atwood, among others, and Knelman has embarked on a promotional tour of morning television and talk radio shows across Canada. All of which makes everyone at The Walrus rather proud, because the story that inspired the book happened right here at this magazine. The author explains.
MATTHEW MCKINNON: You worked as head of research at The Walrus when you began investigating international art theft. Where does the Hot Art really start?
JOSHUA KNELMAN: Before the magazine launched, way back in 2003, I was sent to write a short piece about two burglaries at an art gallery in Toronto. The first of those burglaries, by the way, was discovered on the morning of September 11, 2001. When I showed up at the gallery, the owner was apprehensive about moving his story into the public arena. “I don’t know much about this world of art theft,” he told me. He did, though, give me the phone number of a cultural property lawyer based in Toronto — Bonnie Czegledi. “Apparently she knows something,” he said.
Czegledi agreed to meet. It was a lucky break. She turned out to be one of only a handful of lawyers in Canada, and one of only a few in the world, who was focused on understanding how the international black market in stolen art operates. (more…)
Recommended browsing selected from the blogroll for the weekend of August 28-29
“The swimmer” by Sam Javanrouh (Daily Dose of Imagery)
“The missing and murdered women of Vancouver deserve an inquiry” by Libby Davies (Rabble.ca) 
Davies, the MP for Vancouver East, makes an impassioned case for a public inquiry into the actions of law enforcement regarding her city’s multitude of missing — and presumably murdered — women, many of whom are sex workers.
“Writers are naturally drawn, chimpanzee-like, to the color and the music of this English idiom we are blessed to have inherited. When given the choice we will usually try to use the more vivid and tuneful among its words.” “Thomas Pynchon on plagiarism” (Letters of Note)
“Video Messages From Trapped Chilean Miners” by Alexei Barrionuevo and Robert Mackey (The Lede) The three-week-old rescue effort to reach miners who have been trapped in a collapsed shaft beneath Chile’s Atacama Desert is moving at the pace of a British Petroleum recovery effort: industry experts estimate it will take another three to four months of continuous drilling to reach the men. Rescuers, however, have managed to lower a miniature video camera through a four-inch feeding tube. On Thursday night, Chilean national television broadcast a video message recorded by the thirty-three miners to their loved ones. (more…)
“CBC waging ‘faith war,’ Conservatives say” by Jane Taber | Ottawa Notebook
This week, Marci McDonald’s The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada (the fruit of a seed planted by “Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons,” her 2006 feature for The Walrus) became the must-read book of the political season. In related news, as sure as May flowers, Harper’s mandarins are mad at the CBC.
“Movement mounting against Reisman receiving honourary degree” by George Murray | Bookninja
Suddenly, Indigo CEO Heather Reisman is the new Ann Coulter — unwelcome on a Canadian campus.
“Cover of the Year Nominations” by Scott Sellers | Covers Sell
Spotted on Covers Sell, a new blog by newsstand circulation expert Scott Sellers, a readers’ poll to select the best of this year’s National Magazine Award–nominated cover designs. (Shorter version: Vote for us!)
“Barrick Gold blocks mining book from B.C. small press” by Stuart Woods | Quill Blog
Censorship is a warm drill. For the time being, Talonbooks has halted work on a book called Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of Choice for the World’s Mining Industries. The stoppage follows an aggressive legal challenge from Barrick, the Toronto-based mega miner, that has publisher Karl Siegler fearful of losing a catalogue of some 500 books. Talonbooks, Quillblog reports, is now receiving pro bono legal assistance from the BC Civil Liberties Association.
“Flavorwire: The Dion Abides” by Carl Wilson | Zoilus
Three years ago, Céline Dion was the subject of Wilson’s tiny, tremendous book Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste. This week, the Toronto writer, blogger, and editor spoke to New York’s Flavorwire about her status as America’s favourite singer (still). There’s no rust on his blade: “She makes the sentimental music that’s the soundtrack to courting, marrying, and burying. It’s music for the wedding dance floor and the family-video montage.” (more…)
1. "Greening the Games" by David Suzuki | The Mark
Canada’s preeminent environmentalist compares the carbon footprints of Olympic Games past, present, and future.
2. “16 Years of International Hockey Memories” by Mike Chen | From the Rink
On the eve of tomorrow’s shinny showdown — Canada vs. USA on the big pond — look back on the best of Olympic and World Cup men’s hockey since 1994. (Or worst, depending on rooting interest: the video gallery begins and ends with Sweden winning gold.)
3. “John Babcock, 1900–2010, R.I.P.” by Milnews.ca | The Torch
Contrary to hasty reports, Gordon Lightfoot endures, but this week still ends with one less hero. Rest easy, John Babcock, the last Canadian veteran of World War I.
4. “Bowerbirds / In Our Talons” by Jeff Hamada | Booooooom
Booooooom notices an old-but-very-good video for Bowerbirds’ infectious “In Our Talons.” Director Alan Poon employs stop-motion animation to maximum effect here — and again in Zeus’s “Marching Through Your Head,” a more recent project that he co-directed with Walrus contributor Adam Makarenko.
5. “Road scholarship: the slippery facts about road salt” by Nick Taylor-Vaisey | This Magazine
Everything you never wanted to know about the substance that’s been officially considered harmful to the environment since 2001, yet shows no sign of disappearing from winter roads any year soon.
6. “Way Too Similar?” by Jörg Colberg | Conscientious
Literary plagiarism is easy to spot; artistic poaching is harder to prove. Vancouver photographer David Burdeny is under scrutiny over similarities between several of his pictures and earlier compositions by several of his peers. Click this link to decide for yourself.
7. “In defence of Jim Jones” by Shaun Usher | Letters of Note
Nine months before Jones orchestrated the mass suicide of more than 900 of his cult followers, San Francisco politician and gay activist Harvey Milk sent this odd letter of support to Jimmy Carter: “Rev. Jones is widely known in the minority communities here and elsewhere as a man of the highest character, who has undertaken constructive remedies for social problems which have been amazing in their scope and effectiveness.” Milk’s unrelated murder happened ten days after the Jonestown Massacre.
8. “The Hidden History of Resistance in Womens’ Prisons” by Danielle Maestretti | Utne Blogs
In The Walrus’s March issue, Marian Botsford Fraser writes about prisoner Renée Acoby in the feature “Life on the Instalment Plan.” In this post, Maestretti points to related stories — including one of her own, about prisoners who self-publish zines — in recent issues of New Politics and the Utne Reader.
9. “Four Infographical Morsels No. 4” by David McCandless | Information is Beautiful
There’s a lot to recommend in this post, but the dazzler is “Timelines,” an elegant, painstaking survey of films and television shows that mess with time travel.
10. “NBC confuses Terry Fox and Michael J. Fox” by Craig Silverman | Regret the Error
Hey, America: Bill Clinton sucked in Parliament, and George Clinton was your second-worst president ever.
(Photo by focusedcapture available via Creative Commons license)
The third in a weekly series of recommended links from The Walrus Blogroll…
1. “Parliament Prorogued Until March” by Connie Crosby | Slaw
The co-operative law blog picks up one of the sharpest reactions to Stephen Harper’s facepalming of Parliament: University of Toronto political science professor Nelson Wiseman, interviewed by CBC News Now’s Carole MacNeil, shakes with the thunder of an aggrieved taxpayer.
2. “The Short Parliament” by Andrew Coyne | Capital Read
The post heard around the Canadian blogosphere. The national editor of Maclean’s suggests that “those MPs who wish to do the people’s business” should rebuke the Prime Minister’s decision by meeting with “those [MPs] with other loyalties” in absentia.
3. “Regent Park Project” by Adam Bemma | Rabble.ca
An eight-minute audio podcast about the ten-year revitalization plan for Canada’s oldest housing project.
4. “I wish I could spare Nancy from this painful experience” by Ronald Reagan | Letters of Note
On Nov. 5, 1994, the fortieth U.S. president handwrote this open letter to America, which discloses his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease with honesty and eloquence. Three days later, the Republican party took control of the House of Representatives and Senate for the first time in forty years, kicking off an era of partisan posturing.
5. “64 Photos by 64 Photographers” by Jeff Hamada | BOOOOOOOM!
[Insert 64,000 words.]
6. “Matthew Fisher interviewed about Afstan” by Mark from Ottawa | The Torch
The Torch provides an MP3 link to a bone-chilling analysis of Canada’s Afghanistan mission by CanWest’s Middle East and South Asia bureau chief. Also discussed: a hostile Pakistan, which Fisher labels “the world’s scariest problem,” and the Afghan detainee scandal, which he calls “preposterous.”
7. “The Imaginarium of Spin-Doctor Marshall” by Ed Hollett | The Sir Robert Bond Papers
Is a bustling economy driving Newfoundland and Labrador’s rapid population growth? The province’s Minister of Finance thinks so. According to SRBP, though, “the reality is something other than what the provincial government claims and the conventional media dutifully reports.”
8. “The R3-103 Year-End Countdown!” by Craig Norris | CBC Radio 3
Do you want to hear CBC Radio 3’s favourite 103 songs of 2009? Silly question — of course you do. Click through to stream them all.
9. “Should You Drink Raw Milk?” by Sharon Astyk | ScienceBlogs
Astyk, a former academic turned food writer (Depletion and Abundance, A Nation of Farmers), delivers a well-considered essay on the ups and downs of quaffing unprocessed milk.
10. “How to Read a Book a Week in 2010” by Julien Smith | in over your head
“It feels awesome. It gives you an amazing amount of ideas. It helps you think more thoroughly. It’s better than TV and even the internet. It makes you understand the world more. It is a building block towards a habit of completion… whatever, just do it already.” Challenge accepted.
And now our holiday fun is done. The Walrus Blog will resume posting original content next week.
The second in a weekly series of recommended links from The Walrus Blogroll…
1. “2010 Olympics: Picking Team Canada” by James Mirtle | From the Rink
The Globe and Mail’s resident hockey expert scores an early goal with this meticulous analysis of what is about to become the country’s most debated topic: which NHL stars should compete for Vancouver’s goldest medal.
2. “Celebrating Saturnalia” by Ethan Siegel | ScienceBlogs
A theoretical astrophysicist traces the historic origins of the Christmas holiday to the Second Punic War (218–201 B.C.) and the Roman festival of Saturnalia.
3. “Sex and the City is Not a Feminist Boon” by Lauren Bans | The XX Factor
In Tuesday’s Guardian, Naomi Wolf made the case for Carrie Bradshaw as “the first female thinker in pop culture.” On Wednesday’s XX Factor, Bans slashed that argument to silk ribbons: “The [Sex and the City] ladies are so clichéd and one-dimensional hailing them as feminist icons is like arguing that Beavis and Butt-head define manhood in all its robust glory.”
4. “A Jersey Shore primer: what you missed while it was becoming a phenomenon” by Scott Stinson | The Ampersand
Speaking of dubious television programming, The Ampersand surveys the newest sensation in minstrelry: MTV’s Jersey Shore.
5. “Afstan: Typical Canadian reporting—balderflippingdash” by Mark From Ottawa | The Torch
The group blog about our national military fact-checks Canadian Press reporting about Canadian Forces activities in the Afghanistan battle zone: “…no wonder so many Canadians — public, pundits, and politicians — are so ignorant of Afghan realities when this is the sort of stuff that appears in our major media. Fie.”
6. “A heartwarming work of edifying genius” by Morgan Clendaniel | GOOD
A Q&A with Valentino Achak Deng, the real-life “Lost Boy of Sudan” cum visionary educator who inspired Dave Eggers’ novel What Is the What, a 2006 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.
7. “Interview: B.C.’s ‘Prince of Pot,’ Marc Emery” by Paul McLaughlin | This Magazine
Weeks before reporting to U.S. prison, where he’s now serving a five-year sentence for selling marijuana seeds by mail order across North America, Canada’s premier pot activist gave an interview to one of the country’s premier questioners. Their conversation appeared this week on This.org.
8. “A Very Special Sedaris Christmas” | This American Life
It’s already Boxing Day, but never too late to unpack this radio gem, originally aired in 1997. Click through to hear fifty-six minutes worth of side-splitting holiday comedy.
9. “The responsible communication defence: What’s in it for journalists” by Dean Jobb | J-Source
The author of Media Law for Canadian Journalists explains the Supreme Court of Canada rulings that give reporters and editors “the right to be wrong” — and why that’s a good thing.
10. “Can non-profit journalism make it in Canada?” by Bilbo Poynter | J-Source
The executive director and founder of The Canadian Centre for Investigative Reporting poses the question that stymies our masthead’s collective sleep. His answer? “What we need are funders who share our vision, are willing to partner with us long-term, and can see the value in funding independent investigative reporting as a part of their legacy of giving back to Canadians.” Amen, brother.
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