I'll be watching developments over the next few months because I'm curious to see if these changes are noticeable at the consumer level. Meanwhile, what do you think? Keep me posted if you see any shifts in the book biz in your community ... Email me

Me Barbie…You Ken: I always thought that girls collected Barbies, and boys went for G.I. Joes, but what do I know?

Using the Vietnam War as a cultural springboard, Vancouver artist Lorraine Weideman is challenging these assumptions in a show called the "Joes I Know." "Using the devices of commemorative portraits, Weideman photographs the dolls in the collection as individuals, with an atmosphere of poignancy and loss -- the toys resemble tragic heroes of mythic proportions. The Joes are bear identical facial scars, yet their eye colour and shape and skin colour varies, as does their fetishized accessories - dog tags, plumed helmets, weapons - these heroes are highly decorated."

According to the artist, the dolls first came on the market in 1964 at a New York Toy Fair - prior to that a 'doll for boys' was viewed with mixed feelings. Weideman claims her work chronicles "a fascinating study of the representation of race, ethnicity, nationality and masculinity in popular culture."

You can check out the work online or in Vancouver:

Reaction: My column yesterday on theatre critics ... and in particular The Globe's Kate Taylor ... has already generated some reaction from one of our participants in the dialogue. Check out this email from Wendy J. Schweiger:

Cathleen,

What a good question! That woman is utterly shameful as a reviewer. I've long felt that a reviewer's mission, especially in this day and age, should be to get bodies into a theatre so that people can make up their own minds. It would seem that her mission is to, as you point out, discourage people from so much as setting foot in the place.

Not to belabor the Paul Gross as Hamlet thing, but she was the only reviewer who trashed his performance, and did so against a backdrop of "I don't pretend to understand Hamlet the play." Huh? A reviewer for the Globe and Mail (or the Glob and Mule, as I call it) who isn't cultured enough to understand Hamlet? She wore it like a badge of honor and then proceeded to rip the entire production limb from limb.

As Paul said in a later interview, "in the end, her opinion is just one in 1,800 on any given night. Hers just happens to have been written down." Good that he can be so philosophical about it, but at a time when people are more reluctant than ever to spend their leisure time appreciating live performance over mind-numbing film and television, it's destructive when someone in her position of influence doesn't use that influence to change behavior -- namely, to get people interested enough in theatre to judge for themselves. Our culture depends on it.