Many claim that Alex Colville is Canada's most famous living artist. Tonight you'll have the chance to decide for yourself when CBC runs Studio: The Life and Times of Alex Colville.

The 80-year-old realist painter is different than many others working in the visual field. Rather than cull his inspiration from abstract experiences, Colville is remarkable in that he only paints what he knows, people he's known, and what he's experienced. One of the artist's most recent paintings is somewhat painful to experience -- it's a remarkably candid realistic self-portrait.

Fascinated (and obviously somewhat repulsed) by the indignities foisted upon the flesh by the vagaries of old age, Colville bravely stands stark naked, to be judged (and perhaps to share) his own interpretation of human physical decline.

The painter's work is geometrically precise, yet haunting in composition. I imagine we've all seen his famous painting of the goalie waiting in the crease. The creepy Jason mask, the tense stick and the scent of anticipation weeps out of the work and into our collective Canadian consciousness. While anyone in the world could appreciate the technical merits of this particular work (which are considerable), only Canadians can really understand what it means. I'm not a big hockey fan. Yet there's something in this painting that reaches out and touches the Canadian in me. The goalie is vulnerable, yet waiting for the chance to play. Oh shucks, the next thing you know I'll be crying about the NHL expansion.

Check out The Life and Times of Alex Colville tonight on CBC at 7 p.m.

More Books! There's a festival starting in Banff today and it's a real one-of-a-kind. The Banff Mountain Book Festival (its 7th season) assembles a vast international group of writers, readers, photographers, publishers and editors for one simple purpose: to explore the world of mountain literature. Here's a sampling of some of the Grand Prize categories: Mountain Image, Adventure Travel, Mountain Literature and Mountain Exposition.

They certainly picked the right place for the festival. The Banff Centre (located in Canada's first national park) has some of the most beautiful mountain scenery in the world.

Heres a sampling of some of the finalists just for Mountain Literature:

Climbing the World's 14 Highest Mountains - The History of the 8000-metre Peaks, Richard Sale & John Cleare (The Mountaineers Books)

Extreme Rock & Ice - Garth Hattingh (New Holland Publishing (South Africa)

Life and Death on Mt. Everest - Sherry Ortner (Princeton University Press)

Pushing the Limits: The Story of Canadian Mountaineering - Chic Scott (Rocky Mountain Books)

A Slender Thread: Escaping Disaster in the Himalaya - Stephen Venables (Random House UK)

View from the Summit - Edmund Hillary (Transworld Publishers)

Virtual Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La from the Himalayas to Hollywood - Orville Schell (Henry Holt and Company, Inc.)

Are you a climber or lover of mountain literature and imagery? Check out the site or better yet make the trek.

Maggie! Western fans of Tennessee Williams should be sure to see the latest incarnation of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Williams' famous play about life on the southern plantation is enjoying a provocative postmodern interpretation, thanks to Polish director Tadeusz Bradecki. Bradecki brought the house down at the Shaw Festival with his experimental reworking of Heartbreak House. This sounds like one hell of a hot night.