I don’t know how I did it, but I did it. I found my last reserve of energy and walked down to Ginger’s to see if I could find Christopher, then back up to The Attic to catch Chixdiggit. I have seen Chixdiggit about a billion times, back when I lived out west. That first […]
Cultural Festivals
Posted inArts + Music
Trick or street
It’s difficult to talk about downtown Halifax’s erstwhile Halloween Saturday Mardi Gras party without getting bogged down in details like debating the relative merits of a traditional wine skin versus hiding a pint bottle of lemon gin down your pants. Perhaps that’s why it’s so difficult to pin down when Mardi Gras started (sometime in […]
Posted inArts + Music
Get out
Christ, I’m in such a mood just thinking about all this. In 2005 I am shocked (shocked! Say it in a high operatic voice tinged with contempt) that gay, lesbian, bisexual or just badly confused people still want to keep their sexualities as dirty little secrets. Cowards. Worse. As in the case of Ida Ho […]
Posted inArts + Music
Out and about
The side yard of the Parker home is a pleasant escape from the bustle of the city. Despite being located on one of Halifax’s busiest streets, the vine-wrapped gate at the side of the house leads into a lush green garden surrounded by high fences that manages to create the illusion of tranquility. But the […]
Posted inArts + Music
Cruising 101
In almost every town and city in the western world there are cruising areas. They can be well-known public landmarks or parks, or unobtrusive locations such as public toilets (AKA t-rooms). Cruising and cruising grounds came about as a way for queer men to meet other men in public settings—for predominately sexual purposes—without arousing too […]
Posted inArts + Music
Sex and the Pope
Long before the Material Girl claimed she had a dick in her brain, years before any of the grrls started rioting or Peaches donned a beard, there was Carole Pope. The former singer of Canadian band Rough Trade, self-described as “crude, lewd, rude and socially unacceptable,” has made a career from pushing, yanking and twisting […]
Posted inArts + Music
Till divorce do us part
It’s the classic story of love gone wrong. Ontario, the early ’90s. Girl meets girl, girls fall in love. For 10 years, the girls maintain a common law relationship, until that glorious day in June 2003 when the Ontario Court of Appeal finally recognizes the validity of same-sex marriages in that province, a decision the […]