Scooped
To the editor, I am an avid reader and big fan of The Coast and look forward to the Hot Summer Guide, which I keep on hand throughout the summer. I just wanted to bring your attention to what I consider an unfortunate omission on your part: the section about ice cream does not mention…
Tough love
To the editor, I’m a fair-weather Coast reader, but Savage cracks me up, so when I pick up the paper I head for the rear, which I think he’d approve of. In the case of the July 5 issue, reading the paper from back-to-front was clearly reading from best-to-bad. Brent Sedo’s cover story on the murder…
Liquor logic
To the editor, I’d be tempted to be more persuaded by Bruce Wark’s editorial against Sunday alcohol sales (“Spinning the bottle,” July 5) if it wasn’t placed opposite a full-page ad for Corona Extra. But then again, there has never been proven to be any causal relationship between alcohol advertising and alcohol consumption. Similarly, there…
Burning Ears for Tuesday
A big meeting and a medium-sized government grant have Canadian tongues wagging. Joel Plaskett inspires righteous indignation from the States. And a reader’s tip warns about English people retiring here in droves. Full links apres jump. GET YOUR MEET ONfrom TorontoThe Assembly of First Nations started its annual general meeting today in Halifax. What’s on…
Good day, starshine
The shortlist for the Polaris Music Prize — which translates to $20K for the best Canadian album of the year, voted on by critics/wankers like ourselves; Final Fantasy won the inaugural pot last year for He Poos Clouds — was announced this morning. Applaud heartily or throw up your hands in righteous anger as we…
Burning Ears for Monday
This town’s on fire today. We’ve got star harpist Loreena McKennitt, political rat Stephen Harper, international accolades, kids who won’t eat their vegetables and more. Yes, by “more” I mean the requisite big boats mention. Full links apres jump. HARP LIKE KNIVESfrom New BrunswickFans of New Age/Celtic music, rejoice! CanadaEast says piano-, accordion- and piano-playing…
Jane decided only cowards stay, while traitors run
Twas no Sassy, but Jane Pratt’s follow-up, Jane, was a scrappy addition to the bloated women’s mag market in 1997, and remained as such until our hero Christina Kelly left. Pratt herself got the heave a couple years back, and today the mag was shut down completely. We haven’t read it in years, but it…
Deathly boring
I stopped caring right around the time that I accidentally ate an earwax-flavoured Bott’s Bean. But I may be alone. According to the Globe, all 300 Mac’s Convenience Stores in the “three prairie provinces and British Columbia have been denied permission to sell the newest, and last, instalment of the popular Harry Potter series when…
Here’s to you, Mona Robinson
You were a horrible mother on Who’s the Boss, but you looked hot doing it (and you were kind enough not to push Johnathan on the gay thing). I’d love to see you and Blanche Devereaux in a Dynasty-style catifght. I think you would win. Keep workin’ it, lady.
Burning Ears for Friday
It goes from bad (Stephen Harper’s visit) to worse (a Haligonian killed in Afghanistan) for the city. But you gotta love those Tall Ships. Full links apres jump. MILITARY MIGHTfrom Winnipeg and TorontoStephen “I can’t believe he’s the prime minister” Harper was in town yesterday, handing out a piece of pork worth billions. “Canada’s 12…
History lesson
Post-hardcore act A History Of kick off their upcoming eastern Canadian tour at Reflections Cabaret on Wednesday, July 11. They’re supporting their debut EP, Victory Atlas (Noyes Records). Made up of Noel MacDonald, Jeffrey Parker, Lance Purcell and Andrew Gordon Macpherson, A History Of brings “frantic energy built on angular rhythms and fiery guitar attacks.”…
Cafe notte
Timothy’s World Coffee owner Ross Miller says the decision to close the Spring Garden location of the coffee-shop chain was purely economical. “It’s beneficial to the overall health of the business. There are still two locations remaining open.” (On Barrington Street and in the Historic Properties.) The lease on the storefront at 5686 Spring Garden…
Twenty times a Lady
Summer theatre is off on its merry way these days, and jumping into the pool this week is Festival Antigonish, celebrating its 20th frakkin’ season. (That’s for all you Battlestar fans whose Emmy hopes were dashed by an inside source this week.) It’s kicking off musical-style, the best kind, with No Way to Treat a…
The writing on the wall
What a week at council…Not only do our councillors have time to entertain fanciful, secret dreams of Justin Timberlake (and let’s face it, who hasn’t?), they still found time to get down to brass tacks. The real nitty-gritty. The truly pressing… Graffiti! Arghhh! Yeah, you’d better scream, bucko. Graffiti will seduce your children and make…
The silent killers
It’s closing time at a Halifax bar and in the parking lot a fight breaks out. It’s over in seconds and the combatants scatter, except for the one they leave behind, the one they say started it all. The last they know, he’s on the ground, but they don’t think they’ve killed the guy. But…
Roxy rolling
From the street, you might not even see it. The anonymous line of semi-detached houses gives no indication of the cinematic venue behind: You need to walk through the “hole in the wall,” a driveway at 2480 Creighton, that leads from the street to the rear. There you’ll see a communal vegetable garden, a few…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Be free not to be you, Leo, says Rob Brezsny.
SAVAGE LOVE
Dan Savage will curb your appetite.
Live Free or Die Hard
Die Hard has been the high-water mark for action-hero movies during the past 20 years: the best and the most influential. Bruce Willis’s John McClane has been a defining trademark, with other films capitalizing on its hero vs. terrorists dynamic by changing the settings. Speed was described as Die Hard on a bus, Under Siege…
Home town
Morgan Davis is in love. Over the phone from his home north of Deep Cove, the veteran blues guitarist is rhapsodizing, his soft, whiskey-rough voice taking on the reverent tone of a man who is living in a dream from which he hopes he will never awaken. But what could be the object of his…
Dim and dimmer
One Thursday night last month, a remarkable thing happened in London, England: At 9pm local time, the lights went out. For the first time since the blackouts of WWII, the neon advertising signs in Piccadilly Circus were turned off. The Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace went dark and building managers and home owners joined…
Digging deeper
We don’t usually see the consequences of Canadian mining companies operating abroad—especially not in intimate portraits. Marlón GarcÃa Arriaga, a multimedia artist from Guatemala, shares the story of the small Guatemalan town of Panzós, the Q’eqchi’ people and Inco, a large Canadian mining corporation, through his poignant exhibit, Panzós: 25 Years Later, opening July 12…
A rich tapas-try
A tapas and wine bar has been on my restaurant wish-list for a long time now, so I watched the opening of Mosaic with great interest and bated breath. With a culinary all-star team (the owners of Seven and Opa, and the Bertossi Group) backing Mosaic, expectations are high and with a few months of…
Spinning the bottle
I was tempted to pour myself a stiff drink when I heard that the provincial government is allowing 51 liquor stores (27 in Metro) to open seven days a week, starting this Sunday. Dozens of rural convenience stores will also be permitted to sell booze from noon to 5pm on Sundays. The Nova Scotia Liquor…
Bombs away
Senator Roméo Dallaire wasn’t thinking much about nuclear weapons when he got a call inviting him to become the Honourary Patron of the Pugwash Peace Exchange. But it didn’t take much convincing. “What I was working on (at the time) was massive crimes against humanity, which I continue to work on,” says Dallaire on the…
