Dec. 08, 2010 - Issue #790 : Holiday Guide
Gifts
• First up, notebooks you can easily make yourself are a gift that any writer, aspiring writer, musician, world traveller or generally forgetful person would love to have near them. Plus, since you made them yourself, they cost next to nothing. Click here for instructions on how to make these handsome notebooks.
• If you’re feeling a bit more flush than that, the Log Bowls from Loyal Loot make a thoughtful and striking gift. Made exclusively from reclaimed trees—trees that have fallen or been cut down due to infrastructure, re-landscaping, droughts or stormy weather—they are then turned into bowls by members of the collective or local craftspeople. Coming in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours, the bowls are available through loyalloot.com or Carbon.
• It’s not too late to begin an advent calendar—in fact I like to start mine a little late so that I can get a big payday on the first day—and Jill Stanton’s "12 Days of Christmas" calendar is perfect, especially if you’d like to limit yours or someone else’s sugar intake during the holiday season. Made up of 12 small muslin bags that are screen printed with Christmas images, the bags can be filled with small gifts of your choosing. Go to jstanton.ca for ordering information.
• If a Christmas vacation to somewhere warm is out of the question for you or someone you know, get them the next best thing—or perhaps the most torturous thing—with Dallas Thompson’s book Punkies Cubanos: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Tour Through Cuba, documenting the trip that SLATES took down to the island as part of Solidarity Rock, a non-profit organization focused on facilitating cultural exchange, music and fraternity between Canadian and Cuban musicians. Punkies Cubanos is available at SLATES shows or through punkrockpedagogy.wordpress.com.
• Know someone who has a whole room dedicated to comic-book reading? Stop making fun of them for a few days and grab some comics produced by James Davidge and Bob Prodor. Their first, The Duchess Ranch of Old John Ware, tells the story of freed slave and Calgary cowboy John Ware, while the second, Thirteen Minutes, they describe as a "20th century tale of eugenics, Dadaism and hockey." Both are available at Happy Harbor Comics on 124 Street.
• If you know someone who likes their books with more words than pictures, consider something from NeWest Press. We grabbed Murder in the Chilcotin by Roy Innes, Drift Child by Rosella M Leslie and Extensions by Myrna Dey for our purposes, but heading over to newestpress.com will give you a complete idea of all the titles available.
• If you know a kid who’s into books, consider Q Without U, a book about the awkwardness of love by local rapper Assault of Knowledge. Illustrated by Josh Holinaty, the book chronicles the breakup of the letters Q and U and comes with an album you can download through a special code inside the book. Go to assaultofknowledge.com for ordering info.
• Art your thing? The Art Gallery of Alberta is offering gift memberships that not only get the recipient into the gallery for one year, but also offer discounts at the gift shop, on framing, at the gallery’s Zinc restaurant, invitations to fabulous event previews and plenty more. Head to youraga.ca to find out how to get one.
• And if music is the gift on your special someone’s list, then you can’t go wrong with new local music by the likes of Falklands, Ben Sures, Ben Disaster, the Depression or any number of local artists. Just head into your nearest local record store and ask what’s new and local. We got all of our stuff from Freecloud and the new Permanent Records, but aficionados can also find great records at Listen Records, Blackbyrd Myoozik and Sound Connection.
More stories in the Holiday Guide »
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