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Computer Science is beginning to create beauty.

Is this a new Rembrandt? Or the advent of a new way of copycats?

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The Polymath Review staff are working to our favourite cinematic moments today, and Liz can’t pause without this iconic scene from one of the most underrated movies of all time.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is close to perfect.

What’re your favourite movie moments? Hit us up on Tumblr, or @MacroMicroCosm on Twitter: #CinemaGold

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Leontina gasps as the carriage rolls over a root, jolting her and her fellow passengers. With an effort, she breathes slowly through her nostrils. She wants to show poise suitable for her station, but her nerves have gotten the better of her since the coup. The road is old and seldom used. Thought she can’t see it with the shutters latched tightly shut, she can feel the ancient path beneath her as the carriage winds through the forest. The air is damp and heavy. This wilderness will smother them. The countryside is not the idyll she envisioned. She starts again as they jostle over another bump. They’ve rattled over unseen obstructions since trundling under the canopy, but each one startles her all over again. She can’t get used to the lurching creaking. Each time, an axel could break, ruining their narrow chance of escape. And each hurdle brings them a little closer to their pursuers, who are not confined as they are to a box on wheels. They must be closing in. Damn them all! Stop it, she thinks. It’s no use thinking of that. She has to seem confident. No matter what happens, the children must not panic. She can spare them that at least, she resolves, pressing her fingers into her temple. “No!” she snaps, lurching forward and heaving her youngest boy away from the shutters by his jacket. The child spares her a sulky glance, his eyes glistening in the dim light. “Kleon, darling,” she continues more softly. She forces a motherly smile. “We must not fuss with the windows. You remember this, don’t you, duckling?” Read the whole story in Double Faces

Flight from the Capitol (Excerpt) by Savanna Scott Leslie

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We are proud to share Grain Magazine’s Short Grain contest with all our contributors and readers.

Visit Grain Magazine for details.

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Double Faces is Live!

The Polymath Review Vol.1 Issue.2 is live for sale!

Double Faces is out, featuring Terry Trowbridge, Bethany Hughes, Liz Ratajczak Ratel, Kenzie Christiansen, Kat Vucic, Derrick Fernie & Savanna Scott Leslie.

Grab your digital copy via Magzter, or pick up a print edition at The Vraeyda Store, and by clicking the link below.

Print a book from PDF (function() { var p=document.createElement("script");p.type="text/javascript";p.async=true; var h=("https:"==document.location.protocol?"https://":"http://"); p.src=h+"d3aln0nj58oevo.cloudfront.net/button/script/148539035158012598.js"; var s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(p,s); }).call(this);

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The question of Copyright, Censorship & Piracy with The Writers’ Union of Canada Executive Director John Degen. As creative professionals, we need to be up on what Canada’s doing with our content.

This is his article, as published by the Ryerson Centre for Free Expression.

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For all the journalists, writers and creative professionals out there, this is a must-read.

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A Canadian team of scientists have begun the process of removing CO2 from the polluted air we breathe. Obviously a must read article, this is the sort of business that grants our planet a beneficial future.

What would you like to see built to clean up our atmosphere? Hit us up on social media for a chance to win a free issue of the Polymath Review Journal!

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(via Polymath Review Magazine - Get your Digital Subscription)

Have a last-minute gift conundrum? Get them a digital subscription to Western Canada’s hottest new Professional Development/Cultural Review Journal, The Polymath Review. On sale at Magzter. 

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Uncork the Holidays

with WSET Certified Sommelier Kat Vucic & wine loving lay woman Liz

Welcome to the Holiday edition of Uncork with Kat & Liz. We’re demystifying the wine world and its’ lingo, guiding you through shopping, wine list reading, drinking and celebrating good grappa. The spectacular world of fermented grapes has more variation than the origin of species, and for this Winter Holiday (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Yule, Insert Celebration Here), we’ve got three stellar BC wines which will make your season shine.

How to Taste (Or Sample Wine):

If you’re going to pop into a wine tasting, you need to know what to do without looking like the wide eyed doorknob in the room. Swish a red. Swish a white. Never swish a bubble. Always go with your second sip.

The first sip is a cleanser, like washing your face or brushing your teeth. The second sip is the flavour your mouth is waiting for, and what you’re actually tasting. The tip of your tongue is sweetness, the sides are acidity (pucker, anyone?), the back is bitter and savoury flavours come to the middle of the tongue.

Have fun with it! If you smell bacon and taste a dirt road, there you go. Keep a mental note (or a written one) on what you found with which wine. You’re never wrong. People assume you’re supposed to be tasting certain things. Wine is about your experience, and it’s subjective. Different grapes give you different flavour profiles, and different years produce differing levels of complexity and flavour.

It’s a wide wonderful world. Time to uncork.

Bubbles: Summerhill Cipes Rosé, $26.95

Kat: Strictly 100% Pinot Noir, these grapes are organically grown specifically for making sparkling wine, nothing else. Why is that important? They want more acidity to be present in these grapes, so they will give a refreshing quality to the wine in the end. It will last longer, because acidity preserves wine.

Tasting Notes: Subtle notes of strawberry, raspberry, a little bit of cranberry, delicate red fruit and a nice acidity. The Cipes Rosé makes your mouth water, without being totally dry and without a cloying sweetness. A little bit of creamy texture.

Food Pairing: Always try popcorn first.

Liz: Every holiday needs its’ bubbles. When I go for a celebration wine, it’s Summerhill’s Cipes Rosé. My personal favourite bubbles (and favourite varietal: Pinot Noir), I like that it’s less dry than some of the mouth-puckering champagne-style ones, and yet it’s not as sweet as something like Baby Duck, which to me tastes like sugary pop with booze. My partner loves the Cipes Rosé, too, and we’re planning on using it to toast our wedding this spring!

Red: Osoyoos Larose Petales $25

Kat: First of all, this is a red blend of five grapes, a bordeaux style. The five grapes are Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec. The Merlot and Malbec are your fruit driven wines, which give balance to the tannins and the weight of the Cab Franc, Cab Sauv and Petit Verdot. Without them you would just have a very heavy, not finessed wine. And a lot of tannins. You would not be able to drink it, unless you aged it for a decade. It would suck all the moisture out of your mouth. This blend is pristinely balanced, a perfect holiday classic.

Tasting Notes: Black cherries, ripe black plums, a little bit of tobacco and leather, medium tannins, and a medium finish. Deliciousness!

Food Pairing:This wine has elegance and subtlety, it is approachable to sip on its’ own, yet heavy enough to pair with roasts and other heavier meats. Even pizza, if you want to go and step up your game and have some fun with your wine.

Liz: Osoyoos Larose Petales is one of those wines I love to bring to a friends’ house or girl-time gathering. I love the balance in it, and it’s a crowd pleaser for the wine newbies, the casual drinkers (who know wine as ‘tasting good/bad/eh’), and the enthusiasts. When I make my beef wellington, or sunday roast, this is one of the wines I most reach for.

White: Quail’s Gate Chasselas, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris $20

Kat: A three grape blend that is appropriate for any occasion and absolutely any food, be it spicy, poultry, ethnic, no steak. It is off-dry, but not sweet and not dry. In the middle, right?

Don’t know what a guest or hostess likes to drink? Bring one of these. It’s a mass appeal wine. Green apples, ripe red apples, peach, pear, melon on the nose and palate.

Liz: I love introducing new wine drinkers to a white like this. It tends to be an easier introduction to a wine’s great taste and it’s easily approachable with no prior experience to go on. That being said, the real enthusiasts in my life love this, too (if they go for whites), as the Chasselas and the Pinot blends dance in a beautiful waltz on the palate.

Shopping Guide:

If you are buying for people these holidays and don’t know what kind of red or white they drink, always buy a blend. This is why we did a red and white blend for our tasting, we definitely like to help you shop. Live in Metro Vancouver and need help? Come visit Kat at her Okanagan Estate Wine Cellar in Langley, BC right off the 200th Street Exit of HWY 1. You’ll get a fantastically curated selection of BC wines to choose from, within any budget.

About the Uncorked Girls:

Kat Vucic is a European-born Sommelier, whose early life adventures brought her from Eastern Europe, to South Africa, to the great outdoors of BC, Canada. She’s a WSET Certified Sommelier, and the owner of the Okanagan Estate Wine Cellar. Kat teaches classes on wine, and would love to conduct tasting parties for your friends’ night, corporate function or party.

Liz Ratajczak Ratel is the award-winning CEO of Vraeyda Media, a multimedia corporation dedicated to corporate & commercial film, letter/speech writing, design, branding & marketing, publishing speculative literature, and planning corporate, cultural & charitable events. An amateur musician, author, producer and avid home cook, Liz fell into the wonderful world of wine, when she stopped in at Kat’s store for the first time several years ago.

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Column: Uncork with Kat & Liz

Uncork with Kat & Liz

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The Polymath Review is a quarterly Professional Development & Cultural Review journal celebrating culture creators and teaching valuable business skills to artists. It’s time to subscribe via Magzter for your digital edition.

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Book Review: Second Start Second Chance Second Wind

Second Start Second Chance Second Wind: How to Restart your Clock; Regain your Purpose; Recapture your Passion; Renew your Dreams; and Really Restore the Thrill of Living Again. by Danny Moe My rating: 5 of 5 stars There are a lot of books about purpose on the self-help market. None of them are like Danny Moe’s Second Start Second Chance Second Wind: How to Restart your Clock; Regain your Purpose; Recapture your Passion; Renew your Dreams; and Really Restore the Thrill of Living Again.. Second Start Second Chance Second Wind does what it promises: It restarts the clock and teaches its readers how to find the thrill of living with a refreshed, real point of view. For anyone whose tasted failure or down times, Second Start is the cup of cold water we need to recoup, and restart our dreams. Danny Moe’s cadence as a writer is identical to his cadence as a motivational speaker: the prose is refreshing, conversational and fun. I can’t speak enough about how much fun I had with Danny’s lessons in Second Start Second Chance Second Wind. Where other inspirational books can be staid, unreal or full of the detritus of ‘five easy steps to life fulfillment’, Second Start Second Chance Second Wind is effortless in execution, and builds a reader up. Full of real world examples and his own life story, Danny pulls no punches and lives without fear. There isn’t a whole lot I can say negatively about the book, as it’s both well written, well edited and well put together. It’s the sort of book I wish other motivational books could be. It’s worth the cost of admission, and as appropriate for teenagers as it is for 50+. Definitely worth a read. View all my reviews

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Novel Review: A Theory of Expanded Love by Caitlin Hicks

A Theory of Expanded Love by Caitlin Hicks My rating: 5 of 5 stars Hidden within the context of America’s volatile 1963-1964, A Theory of Expanded Love by Caitlin Hicks is the sort of novel I wish came my way much more often. Annie, the protagonist and narrator is a spunky 12 year old Catholic girl in 1960’s California surviving her gigantic family of 13 kids, tired mother and military father. I think of Annie as a sort of American Anne of Green Gables mixed with The Catcher in the Rye, if Anne weren’t a windswept orphan in PEI. Annie is spunky, doubtful, vigorous, hard working and alive. She is quintessential ‘growing up’ and her quest is both full of mundane and life-altering importance. Her family is vivid, overwhelming & intense. I wanted to re-read it the minute after putting it and my bookmark down. I can’t find a single fault in this novel. It took me through the horror of forced adoption, misogyny and into the exhilaration of hitchhiking, kittens and the realizations of growing up. I had to lock this book in my car, to stop from reading it at my work desk. Caitlin Hicks is a true and undoubted treasure, both as a performer and as an author. She brought this coming-of-age tale to true and vibrant life. I struggled and rejoiced with Annie, Madkap and Clara. I hated John-the-Blimp and the strict hypocrisy of 1960’s catholic misogyny and the Shea family patriarch. Every woman should read this book to feel that shared connection of the feminine experience, and every man should read this book to remind them of how far we’ve come and still need to go. Fantastic, Caitlin. View all my reviews

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Restaurant Review: Oak and Thorne

The Oak and Thorne Public House Joseph Richard Group

20384 88 Ave, Langley, BC V1M 2Y4

Rating:

Food 5/5 Drink 5/5 Service 4/5 Ambience 5/5 Other 4/5

It’s a beautiful moment in time when a restaurant for the new crowd of young professionals and happy villagers opens up in town. With all the glitz of an old-world water hole, Joseph Richards’ Group have sprung forth with a duly anticipated upgrade to the abandoned Swiss Chalet on 88th Ave and 202nd. 

The Oak and Thorne has all the hallmarks of a modern throwback establishment, with gastronomically pleasing food and a litany of draft beer spouts that defies any imbibe to turn away without a familiar friend or new favourite. For those who find the draft beer not in their liking, the shelves of craft beer, spirits and wine are aimed for a myriad collective of tastes and pleasures. I got the instinct sitting at the bar that if I asked the bartender for a cocktail or obscure collection of liqueurs shaken over ice, I’d get it, albeit I and he might have to ask what the concoction would cost. The ability to find great service in a pedestrian town like Walnut Grove, Langley is a joy tantamount to Nirvana, although I do find myself sitting in the only creaky chair barstool in the establishment. There’s always one mislegged chair at a bar, right? My Moody Ales Smoky Porter tasted aged in smoked oak, laid to rest in the bowels of a good man’s hands and struck forth with a frothy, flavourful head and deep yet bitter body. It made me think of my best friend off in Kamloops with her husband and the stout conversation which would chase a fine pint. That got me thinking that the Oak and Thorne in Langley, BC is a keepsake in waiting, a restaurant gastro-pub for the adult in us, to keep in trust as a bounty and beloved future relic for the future generation which holds most of Walnut Grove in the palm of its’ sweaty, pre-nubile hands. 

I ordered pizza from their Naples-style oven, which at the heights gets to 900 degrees fahrenheit and produces arguably the best pizza in all Walnut Grove. It also gave me a breath of gracious relief - my intolerance to dairy products was handled with a no less oblige. The bartender double-checked and yes, I could have all the pizza sauces but one, and yes, I could at no further cost to myself switch out the cheese for another wonderful topping. 

What I ended up with was a fire-cooked pizza with fresh arugula added to capicola, prociutto, spicy tomato sauce and kalamata olives on the thinnest, most flavourful crust I’ve had outside of Amsterdam’s Schipol airport. 

This is not the place to bring your kids, it’s a place to be a quintessential adult and enjoy a conversation revolving around current events, literature, sports or whatever you please.  

The Joseph Richards Group in itself is an intelligent restaurant group with the ability to read the pulse of its’ constituent location surrounds. A fresher feel than Edith & Arthur, or Joseph Richards downtown, the Oak and Thorne has the easy sensibility and brilliant fashion sense of a conglomerate which looks ahead to what it is and will be in five years time. As a business owner myself I can but admire that level of market research.

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Usurper Kings—a 5-Star Circus of Creation Sapha Burnell’s first collection of poetry, Usurper Kings, is a splendid riot of expression. From her amazingly visceral opening of Let There Be Light to her final haunting echo in the book’s Epilogue, Burnell’s voice jumps off the page, much like a microphone-wielding circus MC standing center ring. And though you might not catch all that’s going on at first read, you’re made deeply aware that Burnell’s motions and movements are all carefully aimed at studying what it means to be feminine, regardless of one’s gender…

Kevin Hogan (Excerpt. Read Polymath Review for his Full Piece)