Call it the P9 Summit. Now there’s a media-friendly moniker for the national gathering of nine poets laureate from across Canada taking place in Halifax. “It’ll be a chance to compare notes and see how the poet laureate’s post is treated in each region,” says Shauntay Grant over the phone. As HRM’s current poet laureate […]
Sean Flinn
Posted inArts + Music
Happy Tears
Jayne (Parker Posey) and Laura (Demi Moore) deal with the onset of their father’s dementia. Rip Torn, whose own demented door-knocking made so-called celebrity news, raucously plays Dad. Posey returns to form, portraying a stressed-out socialite and big spender. She was in danger of becoming a caricature of herself, a status Moore suffered. But she […]
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This Cake is for the Party
Embedded in each of these stories, though not bluntly stated or clumsily constructed, is an everyday moral dilemma to be considered. In the opening story, “Throwing Cotton,” questions on the role of rivalry in friendship (is there any such thing as friendly rivalry?), especially among men, arise. Later, in “Prognosis,” the author queries when and […]
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The Roots
On their last release, Rising Down, The Roots angrily vented. With that behind them, the band reflects on How I Got Over. Midlife and end of life come into view. Black Thought has always closely considered emotions and states of mind rather than narrating action and creating characters. Instead of hiding behind a persona, he […]
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Alex Cuba’s code
Alex Cuba has taken a break for lunch. The Cuban-born-and-raised singer/guitarist is between two workshops on Sunday at the Stan Rogers Folk Festival in Canso. He’d already worked on two others the day before and played the festival main stage on Friday night. “They got me working,” he jokes. Along with Kieran Goss and Lynn […]
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Pegging down the Jazz Fest tent
After this year’s Halifax Jazz Festival wraps up, it’s curtains for the tent at the corner of Queen Street and Spring Garden. “Right now the jazz festival takes up that whole corner. Clearly that’s going to change,” says Susan McLean, deputy CEO and director of public services for Halifax Public Libraries. The new Central Library […]
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Oceans of Hope
This is an artifact, really, of the Pier 21 museum’s first decade in operation. The 25-minute film screened in-house from the start in 1999. For the museum lover, there’s a kitschy, nostalgic appeal to the costumed actors playing immigrants from different countries of origin and historical eras from Pier 21’s original operation (1929-71) and the […]
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Cigar Box Banjo: Notes on Music and Life
Paul Quarrington passed away in January of this year. He’d already been working on a book about his life in music when he was diagnosed with advanced, terminal lung cancer. This became his “new thematic material” for a book that became about his life, as seen and heard through music. The novelist, who won the […]
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Ways of Staying
Johannesburg journalist Kevin Bloom illustrates a post-apartheid South Africa united in fear. White and black people both perpetrate and suffer violence and psychological injury. Writing through the three years before players took to the pitch for the World Cup, the author walks shifting ground. Taking a good look around, Bloom considers the murder of his […]
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Gord Downie and the Country of Miracles
This is a huge improvement over Downie’s first two solo albums, which often sounded dissonant (that almost-shrill register of his voice he favoured then) and disjointed. Downie dwells in his deeper tones here and his lyrics have depth without trying to be deep, or opaque for what sometimes seemed like opacity’s sake. Thematically, Downie appears […]
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The Messenger
The daily life and work of Casualty Notification officers back in America is original and interesting. But Woody Harrelson’s role as captain Tony Stone, the veteran of this home-based unit, makes the movie. Going door to door to let families know of their losses over there is how he fights his war. The story’s downfall […]
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Paris
Director Cédric Klapisch and actor Romain Duris reunite for this film centering on Duris’s character, Pierre, a former dancer. Pierre’s heart is failing and he’s waiting on the transplant list. Meanwhile, life goes on around him, everywhere, especially in a city of the size and scope of Paris. Klapisch captures the city’s density. People cross […]