When you sell the rights to your final days to OK!magazine, that's the sort of headline you can expect. It's also the most extreme case of the celebrity culture that's taken over the world. Read it here.
"It is not night when I do see your face"
So says Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and when the world sees yet another alleged portrait of her creator, we expect it to reveal something. The Bard's work explains why it never will. Read it here.
"I did big wooohoo for Justice Ginsberg"
That was the substance of aU. S. senator's tweet and an explanation of why politicians are taking over Twitter: If you need to talk but have nothing of substance to say, 140 characters are all you need. Read it here.
The man who ruined the novel
Alain Robbe-Grillet turned the masses against inventive fiction. Now that he's dead, will experimental writing make a comeback? Read it here.
"You bring dishonour even to the white shirts you wear"
So snarked Michel Houellebecq to Bernard-Henri Levy, proving once more that there's no literary feud like a French literary feud, and that a terrific insult opens the possibility of genuine dialogue. Read it here.
The state of the culture is … scared?
Wall Street isn’t the only place with a fearful lack of understanding these days. Whether it’s horror in Hollywood or Mumbai, the digital era has become boxed in to the unknown. Read it here.
"Prophet of the New World, I"
Here's why Louis Riel's defiant stanzas and the battle of the Plains of Abraham deserve to be recited and re-enacted: They're national moments of madness in a country that has precious few of them. Read it here.
Canada: Horatio to Obama's Hamlet
We have the best seat in the house for America's dramas, but for them, we barely register – that's something for Britain to think on. Read it here.
The 2009 alternative Oscars
Esquire's tenth annual heaping of praise for Hollywood's most overlooked. Read it here.
"We are here amidst broad public anger"
Pity the bankers who must prostrate themselves before politicians, but reserve some compassion for the U.S. and Britain as they drive talent away from the institutions that so desperately need it. Read it here.
"I acted in a youthful and inappropriate manner"
Michael Phelps's lukewarm apology reminds us that marijuana use has become a normal transgression, that athletes can never be role models and that ordinary stupidity is impossible to keep private. Read it here.
"We don't want to strike, but we will"
The York University strike won't be the only labour unrest we see in the near future on Canadian campuses unless the issue of dependence on sessional intructors and TAs is addressed by governments. Read it here.
Neighbors Without Benefits
America's relationship with Canada has been a wildly fortunate one: What other country in the world has had the luxury of never giving a moment's thought to its neighbor? Read it here.
What's so bad about socialism anyway?
Just like they don’t really know what the Che T-shirt means, Generation O doesn’t really care if you call them — or their new president — socialist. They want answers beyond the message. Read it here.
"We have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world"
Barack Obama is the United States' first celebrity president, and he has plenty in common with one the celebrants from his auguration evening, hip hop star Kanye West. Read it here.
"There's probably no God"
Atheists have started advertising. The most talked about ad campaign in England, now plastered across the outside of 800 British buses, declares: "There's probably no God, so stop worrying and enjoy your life." Read it here.
Sorry, minus 12 just isn't that cold
Is the water in your eyes freezing? No? Then it's simply balmy. But here are a few tips on coping with the chill, Canadian style. Read it here.
Has the polygamy obsession taught us to love our families again?
It may have started with Big Love, which starts up again this month, but blue-sky depictions of second-wife syndrome in the culture reveal a change in the American home. Read it here.
For staying cool during the bubble
Our derided ex-PM, Paul Martin, set a fiscal course that could save Canada from the worst of this meltdown. Read it here.
"I've never seen such uncertainty"
That's what a newly chastened Stephen Harper said this week, and the man has a point: 2008 could very well be the year that humans gave up all hope of understanding money. Read it here.