Wandrin' in a Winter Web-erland

Toronto is one big snow day today--or "snowmageddon" as those meterological wags like to call it. So it's a perfect day to stay in with good web reads, with some print thrown in for old-school nostalgia.

• Over at digitalmediatree, Sally McKay and Lorna Mills have started their annual, and annually enjoyable, top-ten fiesta. Best so far is RM Vaughan, who uses Britney's lack of panties to demonstrate how we are all celebrities. Or something like that. All folks, self-designatedly famous or otherwise,are welcome to submit, so toss that snow shovel aside, do a shot of eggnog and type away.
• Year-end best-of lists also show up at Akimblog, which has their critics from Vancouver, Halifax, Montreal, Calgary and Toronto weigh in for a nice cross-Canada feel.
• EYE Weekly and Toronto Life art critic David Balzer offers his view on '08. I don't share the same vitriol he has for museum panels and larger exhibition venues, but overall his stance, as always, worth reading. 
• My part-time boss, Canadian Art editor Richard Rhodes, offers his top ten of 2008 at canadianart.ca
• And in case anybody in Canada is interested in what's happening in New York--how unlikely is that?--Peter Schjeldahl's top ten shows of the year provides a guide.
• No best-ofs but definitely some good info over at the recently launched shotgun-review.ca, which brings more frequent reviews from Alberta to the nation
• The Coast reports on how Halifax arts orgs are being impacted by Harper's late-summer arts cuts
• On a related note, Canadian Magazines reports that the Canadian Conference of the Arts is urging Canada's finance minister to stimulate the economy through arts funding
• Museum 2.0, as ever, delivers interesting peeks behind the scenes of museums' attempts to get accessible

And, in old-school print:

• The 100th edition of C Magazine launched in Toronto last night. (In a strange feat of synchronicity, it's focusing on pedagogy/education, just like the winter issue of Canadian Art. Stranger still that Border Crossings and Canadian Art both had Marcel Dzama on their fall covers.) I got my hands on a copy prior to the launch, and have so far enjoyed reading Gabby Moser's feature on curatorial programs, as well as Earl Miller's summary on the state of art criticism--though he almost completely excludes the web from his considerations, what up? Lydia Perovic's report on private art philanthropy was also informative.
• Border Crossings's winter issue, themed on photography, is also out. So far the interview with Philip Lorca diCorcia, though somewhat overlong, was worthwhile for me. 
• The winter issue of FUSE is also out; I've only skimmed it so far but look forward to the article on the Textile Museum's excellent Afghan War Rugs exhibition
• As previously mentioned, the winter issue of Canadian Art is out. So far I recommend John Kissick's essay on failings in art education.
• Artforum's year-end issue is something I'm still wading through. I did like the geographic reports a lot: Caroline Busta and Linda Yablonsky on New York, Walead Beshty on Los Angeles, Emily Pethick on London, Dominikus Müller on Berlin, etc.

And, in a strange admixture of web and print:

• I self-consciously recommend some old articles from the Canadian Art archives that I scanned and put on their website. Call me an eighties queen, but I loved seeing old photos of now-well-established artworld figures, as well as old photos of those whose legacies have, well, pretty much evaporated. Here you can find links to articles on Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto; and here's one on Halifax/NSCAD, all full of 80s goodness (just click through the slideshow till you get to the article.)

Happy reading!

UPDATE Hill Strategies just released a report on museum and gallery revenues. It's dry as hell but has some interesting stats -- like that attendance at 113 public museums and galleries was 10 million last year. Nice.