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josh o'kane

@joshokane.bsky.social
2.7K followers 337 following 336 posts

I write about the people and institutions shaping Canadian arts + culture and also wrote a book called Sideways: The City Google Couldn't Buy that is mostly explained by its subtitle. Pls send tips to jokane@globeandmail.com

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Reposted by josh o'kane
Andrea Woo @andreawoo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
BREAKING: A BC Supreme Court judge has sided with Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx, who operated an illicit-drug compassion club (Drug User Liberation Front), were convicted of trafficking, and challenged the constitutionality of Canada's drug laws. Trafficking section ruled invalid, convictions stayed.
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josh o'kane @joshokane.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
New: Eva Respini and Sirish Rao named permanent co-CEOs at Vancouver Art Gallery theglobeandmail.com/culture/art-...
theglobeandmail.com
Eva Respini and Sirish Rao named permanent co-CEOs at Vancouver Art Gallery
Pair have been interim co-CEOs for the past 18 months after Anthony Kiendl’s departure as director and chief executive officer
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Doug Johnson 🇨🇦 @smikooman.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Did you wonder just who would be impacted by Trump's 50% tariffs on Canadian fur, bone, horns and other animal products? Many artists from First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities have been disproportionately affected.
theglobeandmail.com
As tariffs hit art, Indigenous artists face frustrating roadblocks and a sputtering art market
Trade war with U.S. disrupts not just income stream, but hurts cross-border ties central to First Nations, Metis and Inuit creators
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 26/09/2026
Alberta’s self-image as world’s only rat-free region shattered by discovery of rat
theguardian.com
Alberta’s self-image as world’s only rat-free region shattered by discovery of rat
Province’s rat patrol called in to investigate as town of Bowden announces discovery of dead vermin
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Sub Pop Records @subpop.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
10 years of LVL UP's Return to Love! LVL UP are guitarists Mike Caridi and Dave Benton, bassist Nick Corbo, and drummer Greg Rutkin. The music itself grows from a shared melodic and experimental sensibility, as well as a nod to influences like Neutral Milk Hotel and Mount Eerie.
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josh o'kane @joshokane.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/pe...
theglobeandmail.com
Ticketmaster gatekeeping pricing information needed to follow price cap rules, resellers say
Some resale platforms say it’s hard to prove original pricing
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josh o'kane @joshokane.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Putting aside all the critical arguments On Here about this best TV of the 21st century list, lmao at only qualifying True Detective's first season as worthy (while celebrating the entirety of the similarly anthological White Lotus) www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
The 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century
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josh o'kane @joshokane.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Here's a story on the past, present and future of Vancouver's Nettwerk, the powerhouse indie music company that embraced technology – cue the synthesizer – from the jump Nettwerk has adapted to every technological shift since – including the algorithmic age. Now it's worth more than half a billion
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vish khanna @vishkhanna.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
1138! Rick White & Julie Doiron hear Kreative Kontrol ⬇️ 🍎: podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/e... 💰: www.patreon.com/kreativekont... ☁️: overcast.fm/+AA3_ntXS3Bk vk: vishkhanna.com/2026/09/24/e... 🌲: linktr.ee/vishkhanna @bluefogrecordings.bsky.social
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J. Kelly Nestruck @nestruck.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Ed Sheeran tour defector Aaron Rowe was in Toronto at the Drake Underground and @bradwheelerglobe.bsky.social went to check him out. www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/arti...
theglobeandmail.com
Ed Sheeran tour defector Aaron Rowe addresses the pro-Palestine elephant in the room in Toronto
Irish singer-songwriter talks about his decision to leave the Loop Tour after rapper Macklemore was dropped
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Dean Jobb - True Crime Writer @deanjobb.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Publishers stand by Haitian-Canadian author accused of using AI to write award-winning novel /via @theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...
theglobeandmail.com
Publishers stand by Haitian-Canadian author accused of using AI to write award-winning novel
Origins of Thelyson Orelien’s C’était ça ou mourir have sparked a debate about race, literary merit and originality in the French literary world
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Isaac Callan @isaaccallan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
What input did Therme or Live Nation have (if any) crafting the MZO that was eventually issued to bypass approvals for Ontario Place? We’ll never know. And somehow it took the government two years to decide those communications were privileged. #OnPoli
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Barry Hertz @hertzbarry.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"This goes way beyond Chris Hansen – the concept of public punishment, of the spectacle of punishment": I talked with PRIMETIME's Lance Oppenheim, the director of the moment, about how the road to Hell is paved with memes. www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/film...
theglobeandmail.com
‘This goes way beyond Chris Hansen’: How Primetime’s Lance Oppenheim turned the tables on trash TV
The film dramatizes the rise and fall of NBC’s controversial To Catch a Predator reality series
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josh o'kane @joshokane.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A tech company, you say? Trying to build a city in its image, you say? www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/w...
nytimes.com
Tech-Utopian Movement Praxis Says It Has Found a Home in Uruguay
After a sprawling world tour, Praxis, a New York-based, crypto-backed “digital nation,” has signed a deal to build a physical city in Uruguay.
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Barry Hertz @hertzbarry.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
From its inaugural market to its "international" People's Choice Award, there is a clear pattern inside TIFF of introducing a new problem for itself instead of finding a solution to the challenges it already has. My take on an up-and-down #TIFF26: www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/film...
theglobeandmail.com
TIFF 2026 exposed festival’s stellar cinematic taste, and worst institutional instincts
This year’s festival felt as if it was using a handful of exhilarating moments to paper over many, larger structural fissures and fault lines
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Harry McCracken @harrymccracken.com · 18/09/2026
Maybe using AI should require a license that confirms a minimum level of competence, like driving a car. I am not really joking. www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/politics/us-…
cnn.com
Exclusive: US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say | CNN Politics
The episode shows the risks of using this new, relatively poorly understood technology in the middle of the Iran war
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liz pelly @lizpelly.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I loved this interview with Sweeping Promises about moving to Kansas, using their label advance to buy a house & turn it into an affordable studio for DIY bands, how they learn about new music from musickers crashing at their house, love of record stores & more www.patreon.com/CriticalList...
patreon.com
Episode 24: Sweeping Promises | Critical Listening
Welcome back to another episode of Critical Listening, DIY Lifers edition. For our third installment of Listening Habits, our series where w
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The court filing dug up by @kint.bsky.social is the most They Admit It i have ever seen in my life www.404media.co/doom-loop-op...
404media.co
‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft
"Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions."
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Niko Stratis @nikostratis.com · 18/09/2026
I like the sad Beck records partially because i think it heightens the core Beck experience in contrast, which is to say the Beck that feels like he made a bet with the devil that before he dies he will find a word that rhymes with orange buried in a pile of Game Boy sound chips
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josh o'kane @joshokane.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Now home to the great True History Brewing
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josh o'kane @joshokane.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
New from me: 50% tariffs on artworks crossing into the U.S. are crushing Canada's art market – threatening the livelihoods of visual artists and the dealers, galleries, consultants + shipping companies that depend on them www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/art-...
theglobeandmail.com
U.S. tariffs are throwing Canadian art sales into trade-war chaos
For decades, art freely flowed across the border, but that ended once Trump began his second term
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Cʜʀɪs Sᴛᴇɪɴ @chrisstein.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
interviewmagazine.com
Legs McNeil and Blondie's Chris Stein Swap Punk War Stories
The two old friends met up to smoke a bowl, reminisce, and discuss McNeil's new memoir, Resident Punk.
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The Associated Press @apnews.com · 15/09/2026
BREAKING: The Kennedy Center board votes to close over financial woes and branding dispute with President Trump, AP sources say.
bit.ly
Live updates: Trump goes after Supreme Court for rejecting his push to restrict mail ballots
President Donald Trump criticized the Supreme Court on Tuesday after it rejected his push to let the US Postal Service restrict mail-in voting in this year’s midterm elections.
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Judith Pereira @heypereira.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
The June, 2024, heist of FACTOR’s funds, by someone who gained access to the non-profit’s Scotiabank account five months earlier, was one of the largest thefts in Canadian cultural history." @joshokane.bsky.social reports on the settlement. www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/musi...
theglobeandmail.com
Scotiabank paid music funder FACTOR $11-million in heist case settlement, documents show
Scotiabank, FACTOR had previously declined to reveal value of settlement stemming from $9.8-million theft from music funder’s account in 2014
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The Globe and Mail @theglobeandmail.com · 14/09/2026
theglobeandmail.com
Scotiabank paid music funder FACTOR $11-million to settle heist case, documents show
Scotiabank, FACTOR had previously declined to reveal value of settlement stemming from $9.8-million theft from music funder’s account in 2014
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josh o'kane @joshokane.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
New: Scotiabank paid music funder FACTOR $11-million in their settlement over the heist of $9.8-million from FACTOR's account Neither would reveal the value when I broke the settlement story in June. But it was buried in FACTOR's just-published annual report www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/musi...
theglobeandmail.com
Scotiabank paid music funder FACTOR $11-million to settle heist case, documents show
Scotiabank, FACTOR had previously declined to reveal value of settlement stemming from $9.8-million theft from music funder’s account in 2014
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Judith Pereira @heypereira.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Join @theglobeandmail.com for this event at Hot Docs cinema on October 5. Bob Fife will be interviewing Ben Macintyre. @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social #books #reading #booksky #ColdWar globeandmailevents.com/benmacintyre...
globeandmailevents.com
In Discussion With Ben Macintyre
From the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor comes the ultimate true-life Cold War thriller: the untold story of a Russian double agent with a desperate secret and the key to preventing a nu...
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Thousands of immigrants did the hard, dirty work of clearing rubble and toxic dust and debris from Ground Zero. Many were undocumented laborers sent to work every day with no special PPE, and got cancer as a result. Now some of those same people are living in fear of ICE. www.npr.org/2026/09/11/n...
npr.org
They cleaned up ground zero. Now many are hiding from ICE
After 9/11, thousands of rescue and cleanup crews went to work at ground zero. They were exposed to toxic debris and experienced psychological trauma. Today, many say they live in fear of deportation.
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josh o'kane @joshokane.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjnA...
youtube.com
William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops
YouTube video by Trevor Music Annex
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The Globe and Mail @theglobeandmail.com · 11/09/2026
theglobeandmail.com
Canadian AI firm Cohere in advanced talks to raise up to $3-billion, sources say
Deal would value the company at $20-billion and rank as the largest on record by a private Canadian startup
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kate conger @kateconger.com · 11/09/2026
Over six months, we tracked the appearance of child sexual abuse material on X. We found images from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's database, which is considered one of the most highly vetted and which many tech companies block on upload. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/11/t...
nytimes.com
Elon Musk Has Pledged to Rid His Platform, X, of Child Sexual Abuse, but It Persists
Reviews by the Canadian Center for Child Protection and The New York Times found that explicit images of children remain on the social media site owned by Elon Musk.
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Alyshah Hasham @alyshah.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Have you seen the giant bear statue near Eglinton and Don Mills that some people call Bearbraham Lincoln (or perhaps Abearham Lincoln). Well, it is now at the centre of a copyright lawsuit: www.thestar.com/gift-redeem?...
thestar.com
Gift-redeem
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Manisha Krishnan @manishakrishnan.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Geese actually had a pretty chill response to our psyop story in their new Rolling Stone interview. They wondered the same thing! www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...
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Toronto Star @thestar.com · 10/09/2026
The family of a teenager injured by a car outside his Toronto school is suing, alleging the removal of a nearby speed camera contributed to the crash. According to the statement of claim, the 15-year-old suffered a traumatic brain injury, skull fractures and ongoing cognitive effects.
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Bradford Pearson @bradfordpearson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
all these 9/11 remembrances reminded me of one of the most flabbergasting paragraphs I've ever read, which was somehow in a story about a Ben Kweller song
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Writers' Trust of Canada @writerstrust.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Announcing finalists for the 2026 #HilaryWeston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction— congratulations to Richard Kelly Kemick, Robert Moor, Trina Moyles, Julian Brave NoiseCat, and Dan Werb. $75K winner announced Nov 10 at the #WTAwards writerstrust.com/WestonPrize
2026 #HilaryWeston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction finalists: Richard Kelly Kemick—Decadence, Robert Moor— In Trees: An Exploration, Trina Moyles—Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival, Julian Brave NoiseCat— We Survived the Night: An Indigenous Reckoning.
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josh o'kane @joshokane.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
"Perhaps somebody had to pay for the Nan Goldin fiasco..." Kate Taylor weighs in on the departure of Stephan Jost:
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josh o'kane @joshokane.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
For those following the AfD's surge in Saxony-Anhalt elections today: seven(!) years ago, I reported from Brandenburg an der Havel on the ways the far-right party plays off a very specific strain of anxiety local to states that once formed East Germany www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...
theglobeandmail.com
State elections in Germany bring anti-immigrant fury to the fore
As the far-right AfD gains in the polls ahead of Sept. 1 votes, Germans worry about political polarization, resurgent racism and Merkel’s future
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josh o'kane @joshokane.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Coworker asked if I ghostwrote this editorial, lmao (I've never written an editorial + I'm still on leave) Very much seems written by someone who doesn't go to many small-cap concerts where more intense music fans tend to be a lot more respectful The real culprit by a mile: Boomers at arena shows
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Barry Hertz @hertzbarry.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Every filmmaker, at one point in their career, swears their work is the result of years’ worth of blood, sweat and tears. But few can attest to putting their actual bodies, and the fluids within them, on the line quite like members of the New Toronto Bizarre. www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/film...
theglobeandmail.com
No TIFF, no problem: Meet the bleeding-edge filmmakers behind the New Toronto Bizarre
How a collective of young, brash Canadian directors are building a cinematic movement from scratch – despite, as Barry Hertz reports, barely making next month’s rent
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Exclaim! @exclaimdotca.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Halifax's Gus' Pub Replaces AI Show Posters with No Name Brand Template
dlvr.it
Halifax's Gus' Pub Replaces AI Show Posters with No Name Brand Template
Gus' Pub is a staple of the Halifax live music community, and it's aiming to respect artists of all kinds by absolutely clowning on
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Exclaim! @exclaimdotca.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Rogers Stadium Hit Hard by Toronto Storm
dlvr.it
Rogers Stadium Hit Hard by Toronto Storm
Like clockwork, Toronto has had its big one in terms of annual rainstorms, and the carnage is everywhere — including Rogers Stadium, the
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Exclaim! @exclaimdotca.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
SeatGeek Fined $25,000 Under Ontario's Ticket Reselling Laws
dlvr.it
SeatGeek Fined $25,000 Under Ontario's Ticket Reselling Laws
Ontario has banned reselling tickets above face value, but it's proved difficult to enforce; Ticketmaster complied with the law, but other
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josh o'kane @joshokane.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/arti...
theglobeandmail.com
SOCAN sues AI music platform over alleged unauthorized sampling
Lawsuit claims Suno’s platform has infringed on copyright by using human-created works without consent or licence
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The Globe and Mail @theglobeandmail.com · 01/09/2026
theglobeandmail.com
Stephan Jost to depart role as Art Gallery of Ontario CEO
AGO accessioned more than 18,000 works of art since Jost joined in 2016
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Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
"While people at AI firms are prone to theorize data center backlash in terms of broad AI fear and risk, local opposition to data center construction is more obviously motivated by a sense of plunder, powerlessness, and pointlessness," @jwherrman.bsky.social writes. nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com
The Data-Center Backlash Looms Large Ahead of the Midterm Elections
The playbook for Democrats was already easy. Trump is making it even easier.
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Niko Stratis @nikostratis.com · 31/08/2026
If pubs are doing ranked lists they should only let one person write it. It should always be 100 items long and done in one day. you should be able to read the writers long descent into madness as they near the top ten. By the time they hit One it should be theories on how to trap & kill God.
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aisling murphy @aislingmurph.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Scoop: Randolph College for the Performing Arts has closed after failing to renew its accreditation with the Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security. Story @theglobeandmail.com: www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/stag...
theglobeandmail.com
Randolph College for the Performing Arts closes after failing to renew its accreditation
On Tuesday, 86 enrolled students received an e-mail from MCURES stating that the theatre school can no longer operate as a career college
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Alexandra Posadzki @alexposadzki.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Canadian securities regulators decline to oversee sports, entertainment contracts for prediction markets www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/ar...
theglobeandmail.com
Canadian securities regulators decline to oversee sports, entertainment contracts for prediction markets
Regulators say the bets don’t belong under securities law and won’t be offered through regulated investment platforms
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The Globe and Mail @theglobeandmail.com · 26/08/2026
theglobeandmail.com
Canadian Museum for Human Rights board was divided over Nakba exhibit, records show
Some board members were particularly worried about the new Palestinian display linking historic events of the 1940s to the present-day war between Israel and Hamas, but their concerns were rebuffed by museum management
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