Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 29

BEST COPY AVAILABLE Survivor hits double digits in Pacific paradise C3 BE tol I TV DAN A RT boo ks; THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2005 EDITOR: SHAWN OHLER, 429-5346; culturethejoumal.canwest.com EDMONTON JOURNAL 7 I Macleans: Cosy, like a I chesterfield ILSffl Btrf new editor wants UU to alter that perception GREG S0UTHAM, THE JOURNAL A-Channel won't be so lonely in Jasper Avenue's mostly vacant Bay building after CHUM consolidates downtown. Four channels, 120 workers will move to troubled Bay building TODD BABIAK Journal Culture Writer EDMONTON started we've added people, it's been gangbusters, onwards and upwards. But this change will create four jobs and give us a small presence in Calgary, and from the beginning ACCESS has been a provincial education station, not an Edmonton one." The CHUM consolidation is the second media migration downtown, after CBC moved into the east wing of City Centre Mall. CHUM'S Bay operation will be modelled on the CHUMCity building at 299 Queen Street West in Toronto, with windows openingon to Jasper and a youthful production style that invites pedestrian interaction. A-Channel will be renamed Citytv in the summer to complete the effect.

"This is a tremendously good news story, but the real value, the best news, is animating the Bay building, which has been a black hole on Jasper and really the last one," said Jim Taylor ofEdmon- ton's Downtown Business Association. "It signals the building is now available for smaller clients and all this will definitely have animating effects on the other side of the street If you're going to put live music in the Paramount, youll already have all these hip-hop kids in the middle of Jasper Avenue." The announcements made for a bizarre day at Access's east-end offices. "I'm excited about it because I live downtown and I'll be able to walk to work," said production assistant Kate Hook. "ItH make for a higher profile for us if we have clients come in for the shows. Now they can come downtown instead of driving way out into an east-end industrial park.

It's sad to see friends and co-workers laid offbut apparently we're going to focus more on production and pro-production, which is awesome." tbabiakthejournal.canwest.com nel), we've been talking about consolidating our operations. Downtown Edmonton is on its way to being a very vibrant place and we're getting in on the ground floor." The plans aren't finalized yet, but with their three operations in the Bay building, CHUM will take up about 40,000 square feet on two floors and signifi-candy expand the studio space. In total, more than 220 CHUM employees will work out of the building. The move will happen by July. Two technical functions traffic and master control will move from Access Media Group's Edmonton headquarters to Calgary and Toronto, resulting in 17 layoffs.

"The layoffs are the only downside," said Keast. "It's really a matter of technological innovation, as everything's being digitized. Butlfeel really, really badly about losing people. Ever since we Brighter lights are coming to Jasper Avenue's darkest strip. CHUM announced Wednesday that it will move its Access Media Group's 120 employees from an east-Edmonton industrial park to a section of the old Hudson's Bay building.

The Access Group, which runs the ACCESS channel, Canadian Learning Television, BookTelevision and CourtTV Canada, will join A-Channel and CHUM'S as-yet-unnamed urban radio station in the block-long Jasper Avenue landmark. "We've always been kind of isolated out here, remote," Access Media Group president Ron Keast said of his current 3720 76th Ave. location. "Ever since CHUM acquired (A-Chan First Lemoine since 2003 talks Turk-y Myfatherdidn'treadmagazinesbut he read Maclean's. He subscribed out of a sense of national duty, like vot-ing and referring to a couch as a chesterfield.

grandparents' rnagazme or that mag-is azine they've heard of, flipped through and sniffed at in the dentist's office. There is a layer of warmth and comfort toMaclean's, like herbal tea before bedtime, and an appeal-J ing lack of Torontocentrism. But as Ken Whyte prepares to take over, the magazine isn't widely considered to ,2 be essential reading. "My goal is to make it so people like s-you don'treference your parents when you talkaboutMackan'sWhyte said this week, after Rogers Publishing 1 1 confirmed he would be the new edi-fj tor-in-chiefand publisher next month. I I The former editor of the Sherwood Park News, Alberta Report, Saturday Night and the National Post said he's been squinting at the magazine ever "since he started in the business.

look at Maclean's with a certain leagues compared to where you are." So where is he? Magazines like Maclean's are slim and marginalized today but weren't supposed to survive past the 1960s, when the growth of television I nd broad social change made tradi-f tional media seem withered and 1 quaint Of course, television never ful- filled its promise and neither did the 5 1960s. Even though the only medium J3vith a certain future is digital pomog- raphy, the last 40 years have demon- strated that only newspapers and magazines can do the work of news- papers and magazines. The trouble is making readers care, and subscribe, the way they did in the MacZean's celebrates its 100th an- niversary in October but it isn't clear what this Canadian fixture should be in its second century. A light social and political digest for suburban coffee ta- bles? A collection of analysis, handy theme reports and stiffly written 1 celebrity columns? Or a cerebral gen- eral interest package with clever car-5 toons and short fiction? rv-i LIZ NICHOLLS Journal Theatre Writer EDMONTON See MACLEAN I C2 He listens. He speaks.

He has opinions. He dispenses advice. The centrepiece of Stewart Lemoine's new play, formerly called Stewart Lemoine's New Play and now called The Salon Of The Talking Turk running at the Varscona Theatre until March 5, tickets at 433-3399 or 420-1757 is the most His arrival (disassembled, in a box from Peekskill, N.Y.) in the home of a "20s Long Island socialite creates a sensation. He's smart "People go to see the talking Turk, ask it questions, and get wise answers," says Lemoine, inspired by the dark pre-Victorian fantasies of the German tale-teller E.TA Hoffman, who included automata in many of his stories, as devotes of The Nutcracker already know. Perhaps the author of The Salon OfThe Talking Turk, his first new play since The Margin OfThe Sky in the 2003 season, should make inquiries of the Turk himself.

For example, there's the fez supply itself, never a sure thing even for the most savvy of theatrical costumers, Teatro La Quindici-na's Leona Brausen. Which explains why a flapper from the show (Davina Stewart) is in the Teatro office discussing fez procurement sotto voce on the phone with a close associate. And then there's the whole matter of Teatro scheduling, an unprecedented mixture of science, magic, and Air Miles. By Tuesday Lemoine will be in Calgary, remounting The Exquisite Hour (starring Jeff Haslam and Barbara Gates Wilson) for Lunchbox Theatre. Teatro's hit show about a lighthearted journey into the heart of grief that got raves at the New York Fringe last summer, is back in the Big Apple for three weeks in April, at the Off-Broadway Theatre Row Studios.

Followed by three shows at the Poor Alex in Toronto. Followed by a run at the Alberta Scene Festival in Ottawa. Followed by the mysteriously titled Stewart Lemoine 's Newer Play premiering here in May. Followed by the equally elusive Stewart Lemoine's Newest Play Of AIL All that is currently known of the latter is that it will contain Haslam and Ron Pederson, escaping from LA. in the MADtv off-season in July, and that there will certainly be opening night salty snacks.

Set LEMONEC2 ,4 i I fv: r' I'll 'Mm -i 1 Maclean's magazine: Available I in a friendly dentist's office near you JASON SCOTT. THE JOURNAL He never forgets a fez: Stewart Lemoine, bottom, sneaks a glance at his chatty Turk, Mark Meer. The Citadel 200405 SEASON tickets for sale online at citadeltheatre.com 4251820 i 1. aoosV X'O A Giraffe in Paris.) i V. Vill -MAR 8-1005.