The Short List- West
Josh Stubbs (Vancouver, BC)
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Marcel needed food for his hypoglycemia.
He scanned the menu for something equal to the cash on him.
"I'll have a Happy Meal," he said.
Biting into the meat, the salt, the grease, the imported German onions, Marcel was flooded with 7 volumes of memories.
He recalled his first Happy Meal. It was an identical MacDonald's except maybe Constable Big Mac still existed but that detail wasn't as powerful as the involuntary recall of Ketchup scraped off cardboard cartons.
The memory invoked others:
Final episodes of Cheers and Seinfeld. His first walkman, then Diskman, then iPod, then cellphone, then blackberry, and then wanting something next. The grunge, rave, gangsta rap, swing kid, indie beard fashions he had rotated through.
Reminiscences rushed past so quickly he saw his television size grow, its thickness shrink, while his SUV's volume doubled like a Pillsbury oven croissant.
Marcel saddened. His memories were decided by various marketing teams. Had he ever made a choice freely?
But then the final taste of sweet white hamburger bun lifted from his tongue. He decided to order a sundae and see the new movie based on the cartoon that was based on a toy he once got for Christmas.
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How It Works
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Write In!
Out of hundreds and hundreds of entries, just twenty Canadians made it to the Short List and won themselves an audition with Canada Writes. Then eight semi-finalists were picked to play in the Eastern semi-finals and Western/Northern semi-finals.
Read their winning songs, blogs, ads, rants and movie pitches!
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On March 14th and April 4th, tune in to GO! on CBC Radio One at 10 am (10:30 am NT) for the Eastern and Western/Northern semi-final games in Halifax and Vancouver. The finals will be held in Toronto on April 18th. Or join us at any of the three shows to root for the contestants in person. Go to cbc.ca/go for tickets.
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The Canada Writes 09 Online Challenge is now over. Thanks for playing!
Updates
(Toronto, April 25, 2009)
It was a very tight race in the end. Our four finalists fought it out by blog, song, ad and a three-line story. First, they each drew a blog topic, from “the best hundred dollars I ever spent” to “one fact I would like to ‘un-know’”. Challenge number 2 was to re-write a song by Queen, with Valerie Stanois from the musical We Will Rock You bringing power vocals to their surprising new words. Then judges Geri Hall, Terry O’Reilly and Darrell Dennis sent Kaveh Mohebbi through the infamous Trap Door. Challenge number 3 was the radio ad. Clever ads for Cornhobbler’s Crematorium and Juice Bar (obviously not a real business) and Christmas greetings from the makers of Flank Chainsaws won Katie Sanders and Laurie Schwartz a last chance at writing glory, but it was Margaret Beach’s turn to go through the Trap Door. Finally, Laurie and Katie had to come up with the first two lines of a three-line story… on yellow writing pads on their laps…and in 90 seconds….
After weeks of effort and tension and achievement -- from the writing contest in January, through the auditions, the short list, the semi-finals and the finals – it was all over in a couple of minutes. Katie pulled ahead by a crucial point -- and became the winner of Canada Writes 09! Listen to the show! Read the blogs!
For more photos, go to http://www.cbc.ca/go/photogallery.html.
Winner of the Online Challenge! Ontario's Heather Smith is the winner of this year's People's Choice Award. Her winning entry was a re-write of the ABBA song 'Waterloo.' Take a look!
Western semi-finalist 09
