Letters to the Editor
While I was surprised by the fact that the Canadian media largely ignored Stephen Harper’s discontinuation of the One-Tonne Challenge and as well took a blase attitude toward Earth Day this year (April 22 for the droves who don’t know), I was downright shocked that the same went for The Coast. Why aren’t your guns…
Letters to the Editor
While walking with my toddler along Cambridge Dr. in Point Pleasant Park, I was disgusted by the amount of dog excrement left by thoughtless pet owners. I can think of no excuse for this. There are bags available at the Park entrance. Some might argue that their dogs are defacating when off the leash and…
Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, “I have more things to worry about right now, I don’t have time to save the world,” seems to be the common excuse for people not taking even a moment out of their daily lives to open their tired eyes, see that Mother Nature is pissed off, and do something that will make…
Screen saviours
ViewFinders attendees (and their parents), take note: this moviemaking business is a real, live career! Head to Park Lane at 6pm on April 20 for a screening of nine films by graduates of NSCAD’s film program. They include documentaries by Grant Bagnell (DOA: Depiction of Addiction) and Courtney O’Hearn (House of Blues); dramas from Cailin…
Come what Mays
For those who have picked up Sam Roberts’ latest, Chemical City, and haven’t read the liner notes yet, I’ll save you some work. Matt Mays appears on track five, “Uprising Down Under,” which he recorded with his buddy last year during Australia’s beautifully warm winter months. “I went to Australia and went surfing for a…
Pasta Cafe and Dofsky’s Catering not closing
We repeat. NOT CLOSING. Shop Talk reported on April 6 that “The Pasta Cafe and Dofsky’s Catering in the Hydrostone market are closing at the end of the month,” and that they are “hoping” to re-open in a new location, but this statement has been (understandably) misunderstood by concerned Pasta and Catering clients to mean…
Winds of change
Remember fossil fuels? Like, oil? They were these things we used to use for energy until the resource became too scarce and the cost became too crazy expensive. Good thing we came to our senses and started using other sources of energy…:::like in April 2006, when Nova Scotia Power announced their intent to make a…
It’s private, promise
Dear Kyle Shaw, I loved your big brother editorial about the CANPASS Air program (“Looking forward,” April 13). Our march towards 1984 is well on its way and few people seem frightened by that. Or maybe they are but are afraid to say. But what about page 7? Don’t you think The Coast Market Survey…
Hamm-fisted approach
Dear editor, John Hamm sounds like he’s out of touch with Nova Scotia youth and what it’s like finding work in today’s job market. As recent graduate I would have loved to have had the opportunity to stay in Nova Scotia. I grew up in Nova Scotia and lived in and around Halifax for 24…
Hamm-fisted approach
Dear editor, I am absolutely appalled. Former premier Dr. John Hamm has suggested that university graduates who leave Nova Scotia to find work should be asked to pay back Nova Scotia taxpayers for part of the cost of their education. This from the man who so viciously cut funding from post-secondary education over the last…
Midnight Massive
Break out the party hats, streamers and birthday cake: From modest beginnings to three-floor parties and jammed clubs, dance music fans will celebrate the 11th anniversary of Massive Productions, a local company that has been bringing top-name DJs to Halifax for over a decade. More than a birthday party, the show at Rain this Friday…
Watching and talking
Let us first do away with the term “chick flick.” Unless we are going to institute the term “dick flick” for every male-driven film that treats women as caricature—that would be most films, then—let us read no more of Peter Travers’ “chick flick hell.” The whole world is dick flick hell, dude. Find a new…
Scary Movie 4
The Scary Movie franchise provides the same service American fast food chains do for tourists in foreign countries—it’s not especially rewarding, but the menu is easy to interpret, and you get what you’re accustomed to. Only prior experience with this series makes it satisfactory that Scary Movie 4 is just reasonably OK. A full half…
Coach’s corner
“The fish and chips is to die for!” an enthusiastic voice roars behind us. We’re reading the menu in the entrance to Coach’s, a pub and grill that has taken over the former Mike’s location in Lower Sackville. We turn around to thank the voice for the recommendation, and I immediately decide we’re going to…
Cafeteria culture
Q: The province will launch a “new Food and Nutrition in Nova Scotia Schools” policy in the next few months, but your school seems to be ahead of the curve. What inspired you to change the food and drink at Dartmouth High? A: I attended a lecture given by my niece, a pediatrician and anti-obesity…
Little’s lone figures
Whether by choice or circumstance, some people live in isolation, but even these lone figures eventually find connection in, and to, this world. Linda Little’s second novel Scotch River offers readers a chance to contemplate this idea through her two main characters, Cass Hutt and Pipe Holmes. “For me one of the main themes is…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Prepare to enter the Season of Unleashed Desire, Scorpio, says Rob Brezsny.
SAVAGE LOVE
Dan Savage says keep those teenage porno tapes to yourself.
The mess is the message
The Holocaust happened, right? We know it did, even though a few purported experts are in denial. Same goes for smoking. Despite the cadre of persistent doubters, there’s widespread understanding: You’re not doing your lungs a favour by inhaling fumes from a burning mix of tobacco and chemicals. So what’s the problem with global warming?…
Bin there, done that
Every April since 2000, mayor Peter Kelly has kicked off a “community clean-up campaign” on behalf of the city. Sometimes the campaigns come with snappy slogans (“Put Litter in its Place!”), sometimes they’ve been coordinated with non-profit group Clean Nova Scotia and sometimes they’ve had a specific focus, like cleaning the Sackville River in 2004.…
Peep this
News on the stale Easter candy front: those five Marshmallow Peeps hardening on your kitchen counter aren’t the last of this year’s flock. The little fellas left millions of sickly sweet brothers and sisters back at the factory. And here they come now. Marshmallow Peeps—the toxic-yellow sugar-encrusted baby bird-shaped candies—are no longer hatching just at…
Jon Epworth’s second act
Jon Epworth doesn’t want to talk about his alter egos. He’d rather not talk about his various musical incarnations or how he spreads himself perhaps a little too thin. By now, the concept’s boring. This is just his life. Epworth states it simply: “I do a lot of stuff.” But it’s a little hard to…
