Tales of words,
music and food

THIS WEEK, we kick off a new season of  our downtown community web site, The Magpie, with a suite of stories focusing mainly on culture – and how it helps build and maintain communities.

On 107th Avenue – a street with a bad reputation and a big personality – local businesspeople are working to bring Edmontonians up to speed on the area’s culinary and cultural treasures. Ethan LePerle talks to the owner of the Habesha Food Market about a street whose time may finally have come.

Meanwhile, down on Jasper Avenue, The Commodore restaurant, one of the city’s last traditional diners, may be in its last days, unless the owner can find someone to take it over, Kieran Fong writes. 

On the music scene, Gwyneth Bignell tells the story of Mekel Green, a local woman who moved across the country to find her voice, and is bringing it home to CO*LAB Feb. 4.

Finally, we have two stories about the rise and fall of the written word.

While book stores around the world are being beaten up by chain stores, online sales and indifference, Edmonton’s Daisy Chain Book Co. is a rare success story. Theodora MacLeod talks to the owner to find out how she did it.

And Managing Editor Isaac Lamoureux looks back on his time at Le Franco a beloved little french-language newspaper that has been serving franco-Albertans for almost a century … and, like so many newspapers, may  be on its last legs

Brian Gorman PhD,
associate professor, journalism
gormanb3@macewan.ca