April 2, 1979

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COVER STORY

The War on Drugs

They are called mules and they carry the nose candy and smack in their various orifices, taped below navels, between cleavages of breasts and shoulder blades, strapped to legs, hidden in shoes, stuffed animals and suitcases. There’s no stopping imagination. By Warren Gerard14 min

24b

NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL

Bookmakers

Even if you're a book lover, you've probably never given more than a passing thought to the process that makes the ideas from a writer's imagination available to you. Book publishing in Canada is a growing industry and is a far more complicated operation than you'd ever imagine.

36b

Technology

The chip way of life is here

The rush-hour traffic swarms around him. The man pushes the button marked ARRIVE on his car’s computer keyboard. Instantly he’s told he won’t get home until 6:35 p.m.—20 minutes late. Traffic isn’t letting up, so he manipulates the car’s on-board traffic computer to show the fastest way home. By Allan Bailey9 min

24d

NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL

A cross-country calendar of events

Canada's first National Book Festival is planned to be a nation-wide book bash in which everyone, in large communities and small, can participate. On Sunday, April 8 at 4:30 pm across Canada the CBC television network will broadcast a special half-hour program on Canadian children's books, produced in cooperation with the National Book Festival and the Children's Book Centre.

Letters

I found Robert Stall’s article A Man, A Tree and an Ocean to Cross (Mar. 5), on Geordie Tocher’s voyage, very interesting, especially the anthropological implications. However, I would like to point out that the statement suggesting that it was the first such voyage in 1,400 years is not accurate.

Books

Of fat cats and fates and Quebec’ Moby Dick

Michel Tremblay’s first published work was a bizarre science-fiction encounter involving an innocent Québécois abroad, his inherited West African village and an omnipotent glass egg. Then came the cycle of plays—Les Belles-Sœurs, Hosanna, St. Carmen of the Main—that made him a celebrity. By Mark Czarnecki5 min

People

In her five years as the divorcee daughter of TV’s virago Maude, actress Adrienne Barbeau tried hard to advance her cause as libertine—but mother seldom approved. Recently, however, the 33-year-old Barbeau cut the apron strings, donned a deep purple Frederick’s of Hollywood corset and, with a look more New Orleans French Quarter than upper suburbia, has taken her place on the walls of the nation alongside pin-up posters of Cheryl Tiegs and Farrah Fawcett-Majors. By Jane O’Hara5 min

24f

NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL

Do you happen to have a copy of...?

Of all the myriad business relations in our modern society, the one between book buyer and bookseller remains the least disturbed by modern technology. The essential relationship is still one-to-one. Bookselling is not a service the average supermarket manager is preared to give. By Gerald Levitch5 min

Canada

Warding off the Margaret factor

In Ottawa it was the talk of lunch tables and cocktail parties. When Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau stayed home for two days with flu, it was presumed to be the reason. A top campaign strategist called it “the X factor.” The cause of the kerfuffle: the peregrinations of Margaret Trudeau who last week, appropriately, turned up in Walt Disney’s Florida fantasy world. By Robert Lewis4 min

24f

NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL

Breaching the blank page barrier

When you're a poet or a writer faced by a blank sheet of paper every morning, how do you get going? Alden Nowlan writes his poetry only in black notebooks; he bought hundreds of them when he learned that his favourite brand was to be discontinued. By Katherine Koller4 min

March 261979