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If I were (still) a vegetarian, I'm sure I'd love Herbivore. They've got really great designs and fashionable t-shirts, for the plant-eaters of the world. Of course, I'm a dirty, filthy meat-eater who likes to let the blood of dead animals drip down her chin in an orgy of flesh-lust, so suffice it to say that although I find their merchandise to be nicely designed, I will never buy anything from the Herbivore store.

Except, perhaps, for one of those “All my heroes have FBI files” buttons, because even dirty, filthy meat-eaters like a good old-fashioned shit-disturber.

Disagreements in our food politics aside, Herbivore really does have some lovely clothing. Their goal is to make vegan and vegetarian fashion seem both intelligent and chic, and they've got plenty of t-shirts that express their meat-free mindset, from “I'm vegan and I [heart] you” to “Eat like you give a damn” and even the punny “Praise Seitan!” If you love animals, you'll also love their cute little elephant logo.

Now, to get back to politics for a moment, I have another quibble with the Herbivore clothing line-up. Even if I were a radical vegan looking for creative slogans to emblazon upon my chest, I wonder if I would want to support yet another store that uses American Apparel as their main t-shirt supplier. As we all know, AA is hardly woman-friendly with its “I can't believe it's not porn!” approach to advertising, and thanks to an article in Clamor magazine it's also been pointed out that their claim to being “sweatshop free” is equally farcical. Since 2006, they've been de-emphasizing their claims to being sweatshop-free, and it does consumers a great disservice for Herbivore to perpetuate this myth.

When I contacted the Herbivore peeps to ask them about this discrepancy, they said that “while [we are] familiar with the problems people have with AA, it is not a sweatshop and the items are made on our coast of the USA. That's a good choice for us.” While I can't argue that Herbivore isn't vegetarian or vegan, I don't think their choice of using AA as their supplier is a great idea. There are plenty of other t-shirt makers out there, some of whom must be a better choice (a quick Google search turned up a Canadian company called Just Shirts . I think it'd be worth it for Herbivore to switch. But then again, I'm not their target audience anyway; I'm just some bitchy meat-eater (must be the hormones in that steak I ate, right).

To me, the question is whether or not this company is really worth supporting, regardless of its food politics. I think that if you're just looking for cute t-shirts that will tell meat-eaters to suck it, then sure, by all means buy some t-shirts. If, on the other hand, you're serious about making social changes that will benefit both herbivores and omnivores alike, then I think I'd give this one a miss.

WARNING! Do not attempt to view this website on a dial-up connection. With an enormous number of links, images and web gadgets, this page will surely take eons to load. Even with high-speed access, I found the number of “extras” on this page distracting.

EelKat (aka Wendy C. Allen), the site's author, is obviously a prolific writer, but her overuse of blinking, twinkling GIFs drove me a bit nuts. The design of this page is clearly stuck in a time-warp, referencing the web's early-'90s obsession with spinning and dancing clip-art. For the love of web design, and to reference another '90s obsession: STOP THE INSANITY!

Another distraction from EK's writing is the enormous list of links she includes at the end of each blog entry. As these reference links listed elsewhere on the site (sometimes multiple times), I feel like I'm being constantly hustled as I seek to read this blog. Yes, it's good to promote your writing and to link to other sites where it can be found, but this constant repetition feels less like marketing savvy and more like the telemarketing jerk that won't quit calling you during family dinners. It's quite sufficient to list your links once in the sidebar; people will find their way, particularly if individual sites (rather than articles) are listed in an orderly fashion.

It seems clear that EK's Writing Blog is mainly an effort to drive traffic to her many articles, spread liberally across various social networking sites (Squidoo, Ning, etc.). I can only assume these websites pay the author on a “per-click” basis, hence the constant need to encourage readers to click said links. If this is what qualifies as being paid to write, I feel the author of this blog would do better to scrap the demeaning pay-per-click “work” and focus on writing for legitimate businesses instead. There are hundreds of thousands of websites that pay writers fair wages for well-written work, whether your focus is fiction or non-fiction, and both EK and her audience would benefit from seeing her writing featured at different sources.

xStream: Experimental Poetry Magazine debuted in April 2002 with issue 0, and continued to produce issues until October of 2004. Though issue 0 is the only volume available at the website listed at the top of this review, the rest of the archives can be viewed online at http://www.xpressed.org/xstream/archives.html.

xStream's inaugural issue provides solid entertainment for those who enjoy unique, non-conformist written works. Authors Eileen Tabios, Ian Randall Wilson, Todd Pownell, Roy Parkhurst, Richard Carfagna and Thomas Fink contribute an interesting variety of poems to the issue, with topics ranging from family relationships and artistic acquisition to the inevitable commentary on death and obligatory references to Oulipo techniques.

I enjoyed Eileen Tabios' “Dear Daddy,” though I wasn't a huge fan of the work's accompanying notes. In my opinion, if a work needs explanatory notes, then the work itself ought to be rewritten. While the concept of found material inspiring a fictional work is an interesting one, I didn't think the explanation added anything to the poem itself. The family relationship between an artistic daughter and a fiscally-minded father is clearly troubled, bitter, and the poem captures this with aplomb.

Repetition is a favourite technique in this issue, and several contributors indulge themselves. Indeed, even some of the contributors on the roster are repeated, with Roy Parkhurst contributing four different poems to the line-up.

While poetry is not always my literary weapon of choice, I'd be interested in seeing more from xStream's Finnish editor, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, and will likely rustle through the xStream archives as time goes by. Though Kervinen himself doesn't contribute writing to issue 0, you can view his artistic work at his blog: http://jukkapekkakervinen.blogspot.com.

If you love Edward Gorey, Tim Burton, The Addams Family or Emily the Strange, you're sure to be a fan of Katy Towell's Childrin R Skary. Written, drawn and animated by Towell, a former pre-school teacher from Los Angeles, the website features a variety of grotesque and gothic children hard at work scaring their elders.

With riffs on classic films like The Godfather and Miracle on 34th Street, as well as children's literature like the Harry Potter series, these children are not really intended for young'uns. Instead, they're for the child inside every adult, screaming bloody murder and vowing revenge on our enemies. These children are, indeed, scary! But they're also quite funny, like the miniature Valkyrie who takes down Cupid in the animated short, “Cupid's Last Stand.”

Towell's “childrin” are often dark parodies of popular culture, but some are original characters that stand on their own. Though their messages often depict death and destruction, they can also be hopeful, like the “Katrina Will Pay” character, dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The image captures the aura of swampy New Orleans, and all sales of these prints and postcards are donated to the Red Cross.

Whether you're looking for photo prints, calendars, postcards, books, clothing or accessories to adorn your pad, or just want to spruce up your computer's desktop, Towell offers a variety of free downloads and items for purchase through her online store. For those who feel more comfortable in the dark and whose sense of humour is decidedly black, Childrin R Skary is a cobwebbed playground for mature audiences.

Ever since “Shaun of the Dead” was released in 2004 I’ve had a secret compulsion to be a zombie in a movie. What a great way to stagger into motion pictures through the back door. Then I found a website ready and willing to make me and all the other living dead wannabes into a zombie. This brainchild of Sudbury ghoul-master Rob Sacchetto involves a simple process. Send him a quality photo of yourself and he’ll convert it into a portrait of the brain-eating undead-self you know lurks deep inside. OK, it’s only a skin flap and an eyeball away from being deep, but what a great idea. From a personal safety perspective, there’s an educational poster that portrays the different kinds of living dead AND, to quote Rob directly, “It also describes, in disgusting detail, how to dispatch these undead in the most grotesque and efficient means possible.” YES! Any information the living can get to help splatter our subdivisions with undead gore is fine with me. Rob has lots of other merch on hand, so if you’ve got a ghoul or two in your life, treat them to a good look at the real them! I particularly like the loving couple photos. Would you really do anything for your sweetie on your anniversary, Birthday, Halloween, maybe Valentine’s Day? Zombie Portraits stretches you to think about how far you would go for love. I look at dozens of sites all the time, but this one made me really think about my relationship with friends and family. Would they try to save me if I became one of THEM? Or would they just level a shotgun at my face and pull the trigger? Zombie Portraits get out of my brain! brains! brains!

Writing in the Margins is a literary e-zine published by Nathan Medcalf. If you couldn't tell by the creative title, this e-zine focuses on highlighting the literary works of marginalized cultures of visible minorities, women, homosexuals, and transgendered individuals.

On first impression the e-zine is easy to navigate, simple and to the point. There are no flash pages or anything to download, which I find quite refreshing as it takes us back to our roots to a certain extent. Writing in the margins sticks to the basics and gets its message across without the unnecessary decoration.

I like the idea of including the contributors' page, so the reader can learn about the authors to get a better understanding of their poem or story came from. The only criticism I would have of the site is that the bios are very general and don't allow us to know the author.

The first issue features a diverse array of literature with, multiple poems, a short story, a book review and an interview with Award winning poet Flavia Cosma. The poetry though short, is insightful. I found myself nodding and identifying with the sentiments expressed. Young Yiwei Hu, a grade twelve student, gives us to look at the nuclear family in her short story "When the house burns, the cake burns".

Overall Writing in margins gets an 'A' for effort with its grass roots look and feel. I look forward to reading the newest submissions from issue two in the New Year and seeing it develop and grow.
 
Writing in the Margins is published twice a year and can be found at www.tawimm.com/witm.htm

Bio:
Nathan Medcalf is the publisher of Writing in the Margins, editor of Equipment Journal, and a freelance writer. Nathan primarily writes for newspapers and magazines but is releasing his first fiction in 2009. Moon Mining  2112, a story about a group of people who try to intervene in a company from forcibly removing moon miners from their homes, will be included in an anthology published by Polygraff Publishing.

Nathan lives in Burlington with his wife and daughter; he is involved with local community groups like Make Poverty History and the Green Party.  

Because of his knowledge of the writing industry and his contacts with members in the writing industry, Nathan Medcalf speaks to university students about careers in writing. 

Nathan Medcalf has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Mayday Magazine, Pulse, and In Business Windsor

Originally a print zine in 1992 Morbid Outlook quickly grew at a rapid pace begging itself to reach out to cyberspace. In 1995 this came to fruition with it’s current entity. In 1996 it became 100% web based leaving the twice yearly published paper zine behind, to become collectors items.

If you check monthly you will see a new issue of Morbid Outlook. This is a saucy website with topics ranging from music, fashion and lifestyle, including sections for submissions of fiction and non-fiction short stories and poetry.

When you visit the website you will find it dark, sultry and intriguing. The front page is nicely sectioned into Editor’s Note, New Articles and the Feature. This month it is entitled In Black and White: Aubrey Beardsley by Hima Cherian, a well written and informative article about 19th century artist Aubrey Beardsley.

This month the website also has an interesting array of columnists such as a comic by Roysten Crow, lifestyle column by Danii Garvey, fiction by Edgar Mason, three columns by Mistress McCutchan herself and my favourite, the advice column by Witch Hazel.

Check out Morbid Outlook each month, you won’t be disappointed, and I guarantee, never bored.