Gerard Cosloy, co-founder of the independent Matador Records

Record labels aren’t nearly as fucking smart as they think they are, otherwise they’d have found a way to have done away with these pesky artists. Conversely, who is actually thriving without the benefit of a trad record label?

I came across this article today, the Best Magazine Articles Ever, and was pleased at the quality of the list and, indeed, how many I have read over the years.

But there is a glaring omission. In 1997, the Baffler published in its tenth edition a feature article by Matt Roth entitled Dreams Incorporated: Living the Delayed Life with Amway.

Roth uses his anthropology background to follow the lives of some people who believe that Amway will fill the void, spiritual as well as financial, in their lives. Like the Amway system, he follows the levels from the sad sacks at the bottom to the high-rollers at the top. It’s a sad and angry piece and, 13 years later, I can still recall the elegance of Roth’s writing.

I’m not sure when this happened, but the Baffler has started giving away the first volume, all 17 editions, for free as PDFs. You can find them here.

I don’t yet have an iPad, but this is the perfect thing to read in iBooks. I’ve put them on my iPhone book reader and it’s great bedtime reading.

Dreams Incorporated can be found in Number 10. [PDF] The story begins on page 39.

Brand New has an insightful article on the evolution of the logo of Vancouver’s soccer/football team

Love the Avenir typeface. But it is hard to take the nickname ‘Whitecaps’ referring to the mountaintops rather than the waves.

It’s obviously based on the American experience, but this audio discussion of copyright termination is fascinating.

In it, copyright guru David Nimmer, UC Berkeley Professor Peter Menell and UCLA Professor Doug Lichtman discuss copyright disputes of Superman, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Lassie, and Winnie the Pooh.

Pal Ryan gets the blame, along with Canadian Notes & Queries editor John Metcalf, for the sorry state of Canadian criticism in The Walrus. Ryan is non-plussed.

David Frum

Canada’s newly-built places are often homes to new Canadians. These areas carry too little memory of Canadian history and Canadian accomplishment. Public memorials, statues and other reminders of the Canadian past are crowded into older central cities. As things stand, the Surreys and the Woodbridges could be any suburbs anywhere. They too need their connections to the shared national story — a story their residents have volunteered to join. As with the landscaping projects, there could be a contest to build 100 historical monuments in the country’s 100 fastest growing urban zones: their own memorials to Canada’s wars, to the expansion of democracy and human rights, and to both proud and tragic moments in Canadian history.

It’s a good point, even if it is from a Frum.

Law is Cool)

Some how-tos on visiting Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, North Korea, and Somaliland.

From the Guardian, 1962, ‘How to write a thriller’

I never correct anything and I never go back to what I have written, except to the foot of the last page to see where I have got to. If you once look back, you are lost. How could you have written this drivel? How could you have used “terrible” six times on one page? And so forth. If you interrupt the writing of fast narrative with too much introspection and self-criticism, you will be lucky if you…

Michael Bate, founder of the Ottawa edition of Frank and its longtime editor, is also a fan of Gram Parsons.