6 LOOKING IN 8 TIME OUT 9 FORUM 11 REVIEWS [Music, Books, Movies] 14 OFF-BEAT
Weird goings on throughout the world
18 PROFILE
Ray Senior: An in-depth conversation
25 CHRIS
A pictorial look at a Nova Scotian beauty
36 SUCKED IN
The pain and pleasures of gambling
42 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CONDOM
The history of man's best friend
44 LOVE FOR SALE
A look at what's new in the market place
46 UNUSUAL PEOPLE
What other people are doing besides .. .
48 MELANIE
A Montreal girl gives you the bare facts
54 FOR KRAVITZ SAKE!
Reflections of young men in a hurry
57 CALL ME FRED
Grotesque ,fiction to make you reconsider
60 THE GREAT SWAPEROO!
Are women the aggressors?
66 TV GLIDE
One man's satirical look at the T.V. scene
WEEKENDERS 73
Places to go for that exquisite feeling
81 MISS NUDE WORLD
A close look at nakedness
88 INSIDE TRACK
Where to go. what to see and do
89 SMALL WORLD
So you think you're unique?
EDITORIAL NOTE
LOOKING IN
Variety may well be the spice of life, as the cliché goes, but when you're
earnestly trying to depict the lifestyle of the ambitious Canadian man in your
first edition, that variety has to be very carefully chosen. It must provide balance,
strength and plain good reading. We think that Elite has all of these, in articles
ranging from ribald humour to pathos, with fiction, reviews, sociology and nostalgia
sitting comfortably in between.
Our fiction requirement has been filled by Dave Thomas' grotesque, absurd Call
Me Fred. Thomas is one of Canada's busiest freelance radio and TV script writers,
a sideline to his work with a Toronto-based ad agency. His most recent work has
found him at work on Dr. Zonk, What's New? and The Entertainers, all for the CBC.
He is a regular contributor to the CBC's Inside from the Outside, into which may
be read some coincidence: Thomas was motivated to write Call Me Fred by a painting
of the same name. Thus we find our fictionist writing from the outside looking
in — to the order of an already-prepared piece of art, rather than producing
his story first and having it illustrated later, which is the usual. But then,
Elite, is an unusual magazine. It seeks unusual ideas.
Humor arrives in abundance. It ranges from sex-oriented articles by Robert Shelley
and Rod Davies to a look at typical Canadian TV viewing by a brilliant young satirist
called Sandy Lemm. The question Lemm poses is: "If people get the kind of
government they deserve, do they also get the kind of television they deserve?"
He answers his own question in our TV GLIDE, and award-winning journalist Shelley,
and Davies, a former biology professor, dispell any doubts you might have about
sex aids in well researched articles suitably inscribed Love For Sale and The
Rise and Fall of the Condom.
In a more serious vain, Elite's editor, Adrian Waller, an established Canadian
author, has contributed a powerful article on the psychology of gambling in which he explores the netherworld of the gambling addict on the one hand, and the glamourous pursuits of the so-called social gamblers of Las Vegas on the other. Waller finds that gambling is a chauvinistic venture, but that women are about to take over ... and this brings us to The Great Swaperoo! Dave Patrick's perceptive analysis of the male-female role-swapping situation of the 70s. Many Canadians will know Patrick through his "insane catalogue" of radio and television assignments
both as writer and performer. Patrick would be the first to admit that The Great
Swaperoo! has been written from the male point of view, but there's nothing wrong
with that. He'd also probably admit that the article most certainly would have
taken on a different dimension had it been prepared by Ms. Ann Berkeley. Ms. Berkeley
finds herself alone this month among a deluge of contributions from the men. But
it perturbs her not. She has begun a regular Elite feature with The Weekenders,
a survey of unusual places in which the elite man may spend a few well-earned
days with girlfriend, wife, someone else's wife, or plain mistress. She writes
with insight and humour.
So does Arthur Bell in For Kravitz Sake! Bell is a Canadian writer now living
in New York where he works for the literary Village Voice and writes for Esquire.
Shortly after the release of the Canadian-made movie The Apprenticeship of Duddy
Kravitz, he found himself talking in his apartment with the author of both book
and movie script, Mordecai Richler. Bell grew up in that part of Montreal now
freely assigned to Duddy; his article comprises not only a chat with Richler,
but much of his own reminiscence. Reading it, you feel Arthur Bell actually went
to school with Duddy Kravitz.
Our movie review this month has been prepared by the Canadian film-maker, John
Bilney, who also happens to be a writer, artist, jazz pianist, and president of
Toronto's Rose-Magwood Productions. Bilney felt it appropriate to glance back
at those movies of 1974 that impressed him most of all. Our Pop Records reviewer
chose the same route. Our book reviewer, however, elected to report on a few of
the fall's releases.
Thus with regular features like Off-Beat, Unusual People, Forum and Inside Track,
the first edition of Elite is complete ... except, that is, for the pictorial
essays. Turn the pages and meet Melanie (photographed by our photo editor Allan
NeUmma-porn-star">Umann), and Chris, found on the sands of Nova Scotia by freelance Roger Cooke.
Both girls are what you might call "Made in Canada", and speak out on
Canadian life. So, too, do the illustrations, all submitted by Canadian artists
and chosen by our art director, Scott Alexander. Scott reports that he has sought
variety in both deisgn and content in each of Elite's 100 pages. The editorial
staff, in turn, reports that this he has achieved.
