The year in disappointment
5. Simpsons reruns from 1989-1994 in syndication Why are you torturing me, Fox? What did I ever do to you, Comedy Network? I pay my cable bill to get good cable, not episodes from when I was in grade 6 and my teacher banned all anti-authority Bart t-shirts. Once the season is available on DVD,…
Letters to the Editor
I feel afraid for my life with the corrupt police force in Halifax. I can’t wait until I’m able to move. I lived here most of my life, though it just isnt safe anymore and I dont think it ever will be. By anonymous
Culture vultures get fed (but not by the feds)
That choral swell you’ll hear this week will be more than just people finding gaming consoles under their trees—try hundreds of Nova Scotia artists celebrating the creation of Culture Nova Scotia, an arm’s-length arts council privately funded by an anonymous coalition of Nova Scotia-bred artists who may or may not live here. Almost $2 million—close…
SAVAGE LOVE
Dan Savage dishes dirt on swaps, flops and props.
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Happy Holy Daze to one and all, wishes Rob Brezsny.
The Darkness
When I was six years old, my father sat me, my brother and sister down on a park bench and told it to us straight: “There is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy and no God. Questions? No? Ice cream?” I was already sort of hip to the Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy racket,…
Echoes across time
The 9/11 hijackers created a real-life Towering Inferno in midtown Manhattan. But televised images of smoke and fire don’t mean much on their own. All movies, even real-life disaster flicks, need soundtracks to help viewers make sense of them. And for some reason, the hijackers left the sound track to George W. Bush and his…
Mr.smith goes to Spring Garden
When tall, lean Bernard Smith walks down Spring Garden Road, pitched forwards slightly from the hips, younger men in suits breeze by. “How ya doin’ Bernie?” they ask. Teenagers nod, storeowners wave. The panhandlers acknowledge him, too. Some say hello: One complains someone is panhandling on his turf, another that the private security guards hired…
Living positive
There’s this pamphlet. It’s called HIV and Mental Health. And there are two happy white people on the inside back cover riding a red tandem bicycle. They’re coasting along a sunny downtown street. And they are smiling; they are glowing, like they’re in an ad for milk or toothpaste. The woman, on the back of…
Until morning
I remember standing there, staring at the back of him. His slouched shoulders, the irregular shape of his head. Marco was always at the kitchen window, after supper when he got back from the gym. He’d come in and plunk his kit bag down on top of me, the smell of barbells and wet socks,…
Home version
Wet white bombs fell from the trees, making craters in the soft snow below. The sun heated up the icy wires, sending glassy chunks to the pavement, fragmenting with sharp reports. Linda and Bill Borkus sat silent in their minivan idling on the street. A very large shard hit the ground with a stiff slap.…
Finders, keepers
“The lights should come on in a minute or two,” came a loud but unamplified voice from the far end of the arrivals hall. Allie sighed and kicked the baggage carousel, the rubber toe of her boot bouncing back at her. “Unbelievable,” Marcus said. He was not the type to deal well with this sort…
Warping paper
Download Kate O’Connor’s Coast wrap (yes, the one from the cover).
Savage special
I was curious about the letter from the girl who said her boyfriend’s face goes numb…my boyfriend has a similar reaction when he comes from oral sex… sometimes it is just a tingly “pins and needles” feeling in which his eyelids flutter and all his muscles contract involuntarily while other times he says it’s so…
Sweet Revenge
I’m sorry officer, for my judgment error,but Terry’s Chocolate Orange makes a delightful“SMACK!”— wrapped in a Christmas stockingswung on the windshield of a car. No, it’s not my first time.That was Valentines Day. 1996.Red-hot candy hearts, crushed into molten powdererupted from my ex’s gas-tank ?with tongue-numbing glee. Then there was Easter. 2001.The perky bottoms of white chocolate…
Copy that
Rule #1: Catwalk Avoid wearing anything too slinky or sexy—this isn’t Halloween, you hussy. Instead, add a sparkly belt or perhaps a fancy hairdo. From Animal Hairstyles D.I.Y. (a do it yourself guide), Sonia Edworthy Rule #2: Well bread Never show up to a party empty-handed, as accurately demonstrated here. George Costanza: “So you’re telling…
