This Magazine issue explores new frontiers of Canadian culture

This Magazine has published a "cultural issue" annually, but this year decided to do something out of the ordinary. A release from the magazine is sufficient to describe its new perspective on culture:

 “We didn’t want to do the traditional, Canadian culture fare: the copyright issues, the CanCon woes, the nine-person music collective whose conceptual shows will blow your mind,” says This Magazine Editor Lauren McKeon. “The problem wasn’t that we felt these things were un-worthwhile, it was that we felt like we’d already read the ending a gazillion times. It was the kind of line-up everybody expected from a culture issue. Where’s the fun in that?” 

Lauren McKeon

Instead, This Magazine went abstract, pushing the very boundaries of culture, how we perceive it, and how we define it—as if the things we classified as culture and its matters were accepted on the loosest possible conditions. That means stories on masturbation (or lack thereof), video games that make you smarter, lingerie football, burlesque “flesh” mobs, vegetarianism, and more.

“These stories are weird and wonderful,” McKeon says. “And while they are nowhere near a complete exploration of the new frontiers of Canadian culture, together they help show us what matters now in the world. So, welcome back, culture. We’ve missed you.”

 (The issue, on newsstands now, also contains the results of the magazine's annual Great Canadian Literary Hunt contest. So it also offers what would traditionally be considered "cultural" content -- poetry, short stories and non-fiction articles.)