‘

CANADIAN ‘CULTURAL

MAGAZINE

New Frontiers to hit

stands in

A NEW CANADIAN cultural
magazine, tentatively named
New Frontiers, was announced
last week, with publication date
set for early December. ‘The
Prospectus issued by the spon-
soring group, dedicate the mag-
azine “to the building of a Can-
adian people’s fculture in a world
at peace.”

The magazine invites Canadian
writers, artists and musicians to
submit manuscripts and works
of art for publication. It also
makes an appeal for financial as-
sistance. Until. permanent edi-
torial address is arranged, MSS
and donations should be forward-
ed to Room 2, 556 Bathurst St.,
Toronto 4. : :

The Prospectus notes that the
name New Frontiers “is the re-
sult of much preliminary think-
ing. However, alternative sug-
gestions are still welcome for the
final name. Comment and sug-
gestion on the Prospectus will
also be welcomed.”

* * *

HERE IS THE text of the
Prospectus:

New Frontiers will be a mag-
azine dedicated to the building
of an independent Canadian peo-
ple’s culture in a world at peace.

Aware of the grave dangers
in and to Canada of fascism and_
war, it will speak, through the
creative arts, for peace and na-
tional independence., It will com-
bat the war-inciting, dehumaniz-
ing “Yankee dollar culture” that
is part of the economic and poli-
tical domination of ‘our country
by the United States, and which
has nothing in common with the
real culture of the American peo-
ple.

The report of the Massey Royal
Commission proves how vitally
necessary it is that there shall be
an-independent voice of the peo-
ple in the arts, which alone can
advance the cause of a Canadian
people’s culture,.

It will be a cultural magazine
with its roots in the lives, strug-
gles and dreams of the producers
of Canada; and it will Provide a
new people’s audience for Cana-
dian writers and artistis who are
now denied a medium for honest
creative expression by a system
that puts profit above art, dollars
above truth.

x * *

NEW FRONTIERS will seek

to bring to life through the cre- -

December

ative arts the heritage and tradi-
tions of our people, a heritage
deepened and broadened by the
struggles for peace and for social

and economic freedom, coursing”

through our history.

It will be a voice of the people
and their cultural aspirations
which reflect, as they inspire, the
strivings for a social order based
upon peace, freedom and secur-
ity.

It will be a medium for writing
and’ art that grows out of. and
serves the cause of full equality
for the people of the French-
Canadian nation within our bord-
ers. -

* 2g *

IT LOOKS TO the new civili-
zation arising in the Soviet Un-
ion, the People’s Democracies of
Europe and People’s China, where
one-third of mankind, free from
centuries of bondage, is building
great new cultures dedicated .to
peace and the brotherhood of all
mankind,. New Frontiers will be
a medium of cultural exchange
between Canada and this new
world, seeking to strengthen un-
derstanding and: friendship be-
tween its peoples and ours. —

Many writers, artists and musi-
cians in our country desire to
contribute to the building of a
Canadian people’s culture. We
invite them to submit MSS and
works of art (original or repro-
ductions) for publication, There
is no restrictions as to subject
matter; we ask only that in con-
cept it be devoted to the real
interests of the people,.

Short stories, poetry, reproduc-
tions and sketches, plays, articles,
reportage, review, criticism, songs
are wanted,, |We have set 3,000
words as maximum, recognizing
that there will be exceptions.

* * *

IT IS PLANNED—finances and
contributions permitting — ‘that
New Frontiers will publish early
in December, in 48 pages with
Separate illustrated cover, on
good book stock, in size 61% by
9% inches. It will sell at between
40 and 50 cents. Deadline for
material for the first issue is
October 15.

The following group is spon-
soring this prospectus; it is plan-
ned’ to establish a list of editors
and contributing editors upon
publication: Margaret Fairley,
Frank,Park, David Kashtan, John
Stewart, Hal Griffin,.

ON THE SCREEN

‘The Song of Bernadette

/

is a disappointing film

Re-issue of The Song of Berna-
dette, now showing at the Studio,
begins with the legend: “For
those who believe in God no ex-
planation is necessary, for those
who do not no explanation is
possible.” For the writer not
only is “no explanation possible”
but also no explanation of the
title is possible—no songs appear
and theme is the opposite of the
joyousness of song.

‘The picture deals with the Mir-
acle of Lourdes in 1858 wherein
the “heavenly vessel”, Bernadette
Soubirous, during the course of
repeated visions of the Virgin
Mary uncovers a healing spring.
The Grotto, in which the spring
Si located, remains a Catholic’
mecca to this day. *

The picture is heavily weighted
with capable Hollywood perform-

ers and the sets and costumes are
excellent. Nonetheless the end-
less repetition of dogma and sup-
erstition and the slow pace of an
overly long production cause the
most extreme boredom.

APACHE DRUMS

‘Another lurid and defamatory
attack on the American Indians.
The scare advertising alone
should be sufficient to guarantee
non-attendance.

ON THE RIVIERA

Danny Kaye, still one of the
funniest, is more Hollywooded
than ever in his latest musical.

STEEL HELMET

Still lurking about the subur-
ban theatres this bloodthirsty
Saga of American neo-fascism
justly deserves your boycott,

to reconsider its
—____

"URS ee *
This kind of advertising for
Hollwood movies still gets by
Canadian censor. boards.

FUNDS DIVERTED

Citizens oppose
library move

Despite sharp public opposition,
Vancouver City Council is scrap-
ping its branch library program
and’ proposes to ~use the funds
originally allocated for that pur-
pose to purchase the site for the
new central library building.
With only seven branches com-
pleted of 14 branch libraries pro-
jected in the Ten Year Program
starting in 1947, council’s action
has struck @ severe blow to
thousands of book lovers in sey-
eral densely populated areas of
the city.

Once again a council majority
Las demonstrated its bias against
the bigger “half” of the city, the
east end. On August 4 negotia-
tions will begin for the purchase
of the Burrard-Robson property,
the proposed site,

For the great majority of Van-
couver citizens in East and South
Vancouver this location is out of
the way, and will considerably
reduce their patronage. There
are at least two or three sites
east of Granville that would be
more suitable; for example, the
block bounded by Homer, Hamil-
ton, Dunsmuir, and Georgia
streets, a part of which is owned
by the city and is located one
block from the largest bus depot
and near the proposed new post
office buliding, or the present
location could. be considered
along with the slum clearance and
new housing development pro-
posed by Dr, Leonard Marsh in
his survey.

Opposition to this double-bar-
relled proposition of © diverting
branch library funds and pur-
chasing an expensive (about
$300,000) and inconvenient site
has been registered by delegations
of property owners and commun-
ity groups. More delegations and
resolutions, with Council badly
split on the issue, could even at
this late date compel that body:
decision,

‘meee

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SOCIALIST LITERATURE

of men who know what they fight

Soviet writing shows

—

faith in mankind

THE MONTHLY magazine So-
viet Literature which you can
get through the People’s Cooper-
ative Bookstore, 337 West Pen-
der Street, presents, in ‘English,
a selection of the finest writing
produced in the Soviet Union.
Novels, short stories, poems,
film scenarios, critical essays and
commentaries — they are ail
there, and reading them is like
opening a window into the fu-
ture, this is the literature of the
future;. socialist literature.

What makes this socialist lit-
erature so different from’ the
bourgeois literature that floods
our bookshops and news stands?
It is not any new :slickness of
construction or subtlety of style.
The difference can best be sum-
med up in three words—truth,
faith, and joy.

All great writing must tell the
truth. Not a duplication of na-
ture, for that is impossible; but
the artistic truth, so that when
We read it, our eyes are opened
to a deeper and more penetrat-
ing consciousness of the world
around us. Bourgeois literature
has long since stopped short of
portraying the truth, and by now
its chief function is to present
a completely distorted and mis-
leading picture of the world.

By contrast, socialist literature
portrays men and women in all
their infinite richness and com-

- plexity, living out their real lives

as industrial workers, farmers,

for and love what they know.

Take the case of Pavlov, the —
Soviet scientist. In the film that ;
bears his name (the full scen-
ario is given in the January is
sue of 1949) he is shown as a real
and appealing individual, and at
the same time a hero of mag-
nificent stature. The greatness
of this new kind of heroes lies in
the cause for. which he fights.
He ‘is not a rugged individual
fighting a lonely struggle £0
some personal “success.” He i8
One of millions of fighters for
the greatest cause in all the
world—the fight for the libera-
tion of mankind. Therein lies
his greatness and his faith.

Re Se

THERE IS ALSO a new joy
shown in this literature, a dé
light in the wonder of man and
the heights to which he can rise.
Simonoy in @ report on “The
Fighting China” expresses this
when he tells of the heroism of

‘the Chinese People’s Liberation

Army.* His story is told against
the background of feudal China
with all its cruel suffering and
hideous exploitation. But just’
because he is telling of the end
of that suffering and exploitation
and of the building of a glorious
New China his writing ‘expresses
a joy that makes the proverbial
“happy ending” of bourgeois
literature seem trivial and in-
sipid—DON FRASER.

fishermen and sq _ on.
* *” *

A SPIRIT OF faith, of cour-
age and confidence breathes
through all this literature. There
is none of the neurotic despair of
the bourgeois highbrows such as
Orwell and Koestler, nor the
brutal callousness of the crime
novel. The men and women in
this socialist literature have the
stature of real heroes, they have
the courage and self-assurance

COLE and ZLOTNIK

SERVICE

- A Completie

INSURANCE
SERVICE |

501 Dominion Bldg.
(opp. Victory. Square)

Phone PA. 9374

STANTON, MUNRO & DEAN
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FORD BUILDING
(Corner Main & Hastings Sts.) ©
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SUITE 515

- Notaries
193 E. HASTINGS

A Public Address By

Jacob Penner

Winnipeg Labor Alder-
man recently returned
from a tour of the
Soviet Union

8 P.M. |
Pender Auditorium

‘THE SOVIET UNION
AS | SAW IT’

Friday, Aug. 10, jg

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — AUGUST 8, 1951 — PAGE 10