Letters to the Editor
December 14, 2005 Dear Everyone: We regret to inform you that the recently available position of NSCAD President has just been filled, by The Bench Society. As of the abandonment of the school by the current president, Paul Greenhalgh, the role of president has been bestowed upon us, by each other, at an undisclosed location…
Love the way we Bitch!
This week’s bitch: Worn out welcome.
LETTERHEAD
Readers comment on Christmas Daddies and the election.
Bit by bit (torrent)
Bit by bit (torrent) With the music industry’s Napster-related shitfit of a few years ago and the billion-dollar movie industry’s ongoing campaign against downloading (though we haven’t seen those commercials lately, the ones where the prop guy is like “You’re stealing from me,” which, sorry anyone working in the movie industry, you’re doing better than…
Urban surf Christmas
The first snowfall of the season and the Urban Surf Kings’ holiday bash are telling signs the holiday season is upon us. The former has already happened, and the latter’s 10th annual is on December 9 at the Khyber. It’s a time of year the band gets especially excited about. “It’s our once a year…
Bed time
Linens-n-Things, “one of the largest specialty retailers of home textiles, housewares and decorating accessories in the world,” has expanded its operations with the opening of a new store in Bayers Lake, at 11 Washmill Lake Court. Linens-n-Things features over 30,000 items, ranging from 125 patterns of sheets and comforters to frames, cookware, candles, storage, cleaning…
Election woes
To the editor, I was saddened this morning to read about the impending fall of the federal government and the upcoming elections occuring this January. As a left-leaning liberal I was extremely dismayed with the conduct revealed in the Gomery report; however, it was clear relatively few Liberal party mem- bers were involved. I think…
Kansas ruffles feathers
To the editor, Jane is just plain boring when she writes her own crap like this article over the use of “Daddies” in a name instead of another title. Get a life, Jane; better yet, get into the Christmas spirit and stop being petty while letting Christmas Daddies do the good work they’ve done year…
Kansas ruffles feathers
To the editor, Jane Kansas thinks the name of the regional CTV charity show Christmas Daddies sucks because it is an expression of “sexist, exclusive language.” There is a reason that Ms. Kansas is the only one to ever complain in public regarding the telethon’s name: Everyone else has the common sense not to take…
Kansas ruffles feathers
To the editor, I think your article about Christmas Daddies is disgusting (“Who’s your daddy?” Dec 1). Clearly a couple of MEN got together and created a really great charity benefiting many people for over 40 years. Hell, why don’t we change the name “Christmas” while we’re at it? This argument over the name is petty…
Aeon Flux
The visual excitement of Peter Chung’s MTV series Aeon Flux is lost in transition from animation to live action. Weird pop art becomes routine. There’s a sincere effort to recreate a cartoon look. Director Karyn Kusama (returning five years after her festival hit Girlfight) imbues horizontal line structures through the designs of Earth’s last city…
Animal-free feasting
It’s hard not to think of a festive feast without thinking of your festive beast. Most holiday tables feature fowl (turkey, goose, duck) as the centrepiece of a meal, or perhaps a prime rib or lobster. But what to do if you’re vegan? No dining on animal products, including dairy and honey—so much for the…
Dough for it
If the thought of Christmas cookies immediately brings a picture of you standing in a kitchen surrounded by bags of flour, pounds of butter, and little dishes of candy sprinkles to your mind’s eye, you might be dreading the upcoming Christmas social round. It can take hours to work your way through the pile of…
Forum moment
Last December, OneLight Theatre hosted a day-long discussion about the state of Canadian theatre in The Crib, its intimate space on Gottingen Street. The response was so overwhelming that this year’s forum has expanded into the Dalhousie Arts Centre for an entire weekend of disussion, philosophies and performances. Beginning on December 10, the event will…
Back to the auteur
Bruce McDonald is Canadian cinema’s enfant terrible. The Kingston, Ontario-born director emerged from the outlaw auteur movement created when Telefilm came into being in the mid-’80s , along with Patricia Rozema and Atom Egoyan. They shared the new face of Canadian cinema; movies for us, about us and made by creative people here who needn’t…
To serve and protect
Maclean’s magazine once called him “Canada’s sexiest cerebral man,” because of “his made-for-TV-looks and effortless eloquence.” But when Michael Ignatieff flew in from Harvard last week for his Liberal nomination meeting in Toronto, he faced a chorus of boos. According to CBC Radio, Myroslava Oleksiuk, the secretary of the local riding association, angrily denounced the…
Art of survival
In the four years Paul Greenhalgh has been president at NSCAD, the school has seen some major changes. Student enrollment has increased from about 600 to 1,000 students. It has begun development of a new campus along the Halifax waterfront, which will house programs such as sculpture, ceramics and glass. And the new fashion and…
SAVAGE LOVE
Getting freaky in a wheelchair, courtesy of Dan Savage.
Head way
Four years ago, The Coast ran a feature story about Paul Greenhalgh (“Class action,” January 11, 2001), who was just starting his tenure as president of NSCAD. Hopes were high that Greenhalgh would be an enthusiastic and long-term president for the school, which had seen several people tackle the school’s top job over the previous…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Define your own quest for truth, Sagittarius, says Rob Brezsny.
Out on a limb
The story would make perfect fodder for the satirical online newspaper The Onion: Oxford, Nova Scotia’s town council passed a unanimous motion on November 28 proclaiming the entire month of December the “Christmas season” because, according to deputy mayor Leonard Allen who introduced the motion, the politically cleansed term “holiday season” isn’t giving Christ his…
Bank statement
There are several tables piled high with fresh produce—organic greens, apples, lemons and potatoes—a cart filled with bagels and bread, and more tables stacked with cans. Cans of soup, cans of tuna, cans of beans, cans of pasta—cans of just about everything that can be canned. And in the next room, there’s a walk-in refrigerator…
A place called Home
The Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children opened in 1921. It was big, a house, really, three floors and lots of bedroom windows, on Main Street, in what is now Dartmouth. Back then it was Preston. The children it took in were orphans, mostly, and not allowed in any of the local orphanages or schools…
Best of Music readers’ poll
Last chance to fill out your ballot to win a $500 shoppping spree at HMV.
A handmade tale
Darryl Besch’s Cool cars and motorcycles were part of Darryl Besch’s childhood, but they weren’t the wee Hot Wheels you raced across the kitchen floor. “My Dad does custom bike and car paint and one of his things is flames, so I grew up around ,” Besch offers, adding he takes inspiration from comics and…
Lend us your ears
We’ve sorted through our carefully alphabetized cd library and plucked from it the 50 best albums of 2005.
Goodwill Shopping
Every holiday season, instead of a Tickle Me Elmo or an iPod or an Xbox 360, Pat Kipping offers the Gift of Peace. The giver makes a donation to Oxfam Canada on behalf of the receiver, and the receiver gets a small card informing them of the donation. It’s not flashy, it’s not commercial and…
Dig Deeper
Give. Give generously. Give blood. Give a little, give a lot, give till it hurts. It’s better to give than receive. This is the season for giving. Forgiving. What can you give? On the phone, through the mail, at the door of the grocery store, people ask a lot of other people. In Canada there…
Ten to One
Top Ten Video GamesBy Peter Baillie Battlefield 2 PC In 2002, Battlefield 1942 became the paradigm for all action games, with its seemingly limitless detailed environments—whether running, driving or flying about. Set in the present day anda near future, Battlefield 2 has no storyline. Rather, players choose to fight as the European Union, China, a…
Reincarnation
Thom D’Arcy answers his cell phone through a sip of coffee. He’s standing outside a convenience store in the town of Hanna. “I don’t really know what province that’s in,” he says, the click of a lighter audible over the line. “Alberta or Saskatchewan.” Hanna, Alberta, is a town of 3,000 two hours northeast of…
