Got Faith?
“I owe my career to the internet, which is awesome and scary at the same time,” says Faith Erin Hicks, animator extraordinaire (whose serial Superhero Girl you may remember from The Coast’s comics page). But she’s not bragging. “The fact that I’m making comics as a living is astonishing,” she admits. After heading to the…
Black firefighters and Halifax fire department bury the hatchet
Last Thursday, the Halifax Association of Black Firefighters and the Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency Department officially buried the hatchet, effectively setting aside a human rights complaint the black firefighters had filed against the department. As The Coast detailed in 2009, the black firefighters’ complaint cited a series of racist incidents dating back to 1996…
The Doppler Effect Presents: Heartwood
Laura Burke is a generous soul. As Heartwood’s playwright and star, she allows the audience a window into her difficult journey through mental illness. The journey is a roller coaster ride, one that has the audience gripped by fear one moment, laughing the next. In one particularly stunning scene on a bus, Burke experiences the…
Friends
We’re friends, both attached. I have such a mad crush on you. —Let’s Paint a Picture
At Wintersleep
You were the tall, handsome man wearing a leather jacket, beard and ponytail and you stood by me for a couple of songs during the Wintersleep set at the Marquee on Friday. I was the short, leather jacket wearing girl that you stood beside. I think you’re beautiful and if I see you again I…
Pogue Fado says so long
Weekends on Barrington Street just got a whole lot quieter. After over 10 years of offering a venue for rowdy nightlife, live music and quality pub grub, the Pogue Fado announced today via Facebook that it’d be closing its doors permanently, effective immediately. This is a pretty shocking blow to the bar scene, mourned loud…
Metal sheep on my mind
From the first Yoga class, that I went to with you. I knew you were legit, By your warrior two. When I look in your eyes, I can’t help but melt. I can no longer disguise, how strongly I’ve felt. Brains, body, and brawn, and funny to boot! How can someone so awesome, be so…
Hit and run
At first I was angry…now I’m just utterly disappointed and upset. Last week someone SMASHED into my car, the car that I worked so hard for…a car that my late-father had always wanted. This happened downtown on Wednesday evening between 5-6pm while I was at the gym. —Deductible Ridden
NSCAD grads show off. UPDATE: Congrats Torrance Beamish!
It’s that time of year again: piles of free stuff on the sidewalks; premature flip flops; throngs and throngs of newly graduated students flooding stoops and patios everywhere. Among them are this year’s NSCAD graduates, who also invite you to take in their year of work at the NSCAD Graduation Exhibition 2013. Curated by Natalie…
To the barista that looks like Leonard…
at TIBS in Dartmouth, you make the best hot chocolate. Your smile makes me melt inside. I don’t make it in often but, I see you all the time. —Melt
Meet your Makerspace
Halifax’s first Makerspace is in the making. Following the brilliant model that cities across the country and world have, a small group of keen Haligonians is beginning to build a community lab, workshop and collaboration station. “None of us could afford a shop, but 30 of us could afford a kick-ass shop,” says Rob Hutten,…
Step two, doggie baggers!
Halifax hearts you all over, dog owners, for having learned that essential skill of bagging the poops of your charges, but now there’s a surprise: a step two!! And that, dear ones, is the taking of the little bags away somewhere, not leaving them on the street sides, people’s gardens, lawns, the Commons, Citadel Hill,…
Culinary champs
Nova Scotia has often been lucky when it comes to food. There’s a certain remarkable quality to the food here that’s hard to find anywhere else in Canada. Culinary Team Canada obviously gets it; they’ve selected two Nova Scotian chefs, Luis Clavel and Peter Dewar, to be part of the team. Culinary Team Canada is…
Hey Willie!
Thanks for the jams! 🙂 —Bus Chick
My mom is too good for you
You’re an asshole and my mom can do better. She’s a caring woman and always has been. She gave me a good home and a great life now, and even back when she was legs up on me. I hope she will finally take my advice and dump your ass. —Loving Son
Dianne Swinemar to retire
Looking back at nearly 25 years as the head of Feed Nova Scotia, Dianne Swinemar says she is most proud of the Learning Kitchen employment training program. “I felt like a proud mother the day I realized a former student had her own business,” says Swinemar. “That’s the reason why you keep doing it.” Swinemar…
To be continued
I am working up the courage to say hi. You are so magnetic and I can’t help but look your way when I see you. It may be a bit creepy just staring…but I can’t help it; you are so attractive. —Shy Redhead
Oliver your ass belongs to us
Hey Joe Oliver, don’t mind James Hansen. He’s just the adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University He’s just a guy who was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1996. He’s just a guy who received the 7th Annual Heinz Award in the Environment (endowed with US$250,000)…
Dear ginger candy,
I still love you, I hope this isn’t over. Let’s learn from our mistakes and make it work this time. I love you. —Pumpkin Pie Blizzard
Know your own happy hour
We understand that your happy hour specials may change but you either need to stay on top of the specials that are being advertised for you or you need to accommodate when someone SHOWS YOU that your happy hour specials are advertised a certain way. Saying ‘sorry, it’s incorrect information.’ is not acceptable. It’s not…
STILL TORN
Ever since we meet for that coffee on that Monday night I can’t get you out of my mind. We knew going in that I had recently started dating someone else but met anyway. I can still see your smile and your beautiful looks. I still have goosebumps from when you reached accross the table…
SG weirdo
To that guy that roams around SG Rd from store to store moaning and going on about his personal life to any random sucker that will listen…stop! No one cares. I want to go into a place, sit down and enjoy my food not listen to your bloody Jerry Springer-sequence life story and neither does…
New phone, new number?
I came to you when my old phone broke and you got me a new one. What I really wanted was a new number to put in it. I couldn’t stop staring at your eyes, even when you weren’t looking.One would think getting a new phone would be the best part of the day, but…
#90, just 300 feet more!
C’mon Metro Transit – just add one more stop to the #90 for all those who have medical appointments and jobs in the strip mall at the end. Just one more stop, please. Not much to ask. —Gimpy Impatient Patient
If I Were a Blackbird: The Concert
Could a play about beloved folklorist Helen Creighton become Nova Scotia’s answer to PEI’s tourist-drawing Anne of Green Gables? That question could be answered in time by playwright/filmmaker Glenn Walton and his new work about Creighton’s life entitled If I Were a Blackbird. It’s early days for the project, but Halifax is being treated to…
Time flies
A year seems like such a long ass time, but with you it has felt like only a week! You still find ways to absolutly astonish me! I have never met anyone like you and I love you so much. I will some day get you to see how beautiful you are!! —Lanky Lady!
Selling your house? Maybe clean it up before taking pictures…
How many houses do I see on MLS that have disgusting pictures of the inside. One even had pictures of people sitting around a dirty card table in the kitchen. Crap strewn everywhere, filthy looking carpets, wallpaper hanging off walls… god, if you want to sell your house, clean it up! Where are these people’s…
Broken hearted bitcher from April 24
Since the comments were closed on your bitch for some reason, I figured this was the next best way to respond. You did good, kid – real good. Holding your head up in the presence of a lover-turned-enemy is hard, but you did it anyway. You’ve learned two things with that episode: the kind of…
Dawghouse
yo dawg i got a mad crush on you and i don’t know what you are feelin but ASK ME OUT ALREADY —Courtside
Mustacheless deadbeat from the north end
Seriously your parents should be utterly embarrassed about what you did to your kids and family. Instead they enabled you, watched you cheat and hid it for years. I am going to tell all of Halifax what your all really like. While you tootle off for beer and chicken wings your kids are doing with…
You put a found wallet in the Canada Post Box, and you’re awesome!
On Saturday April 20 my husband had to attend work-related meetings downtown. That was a shitty enough start to the day. He was in a rush and his wallet slipped out of his jacket pocket. He noticed it was gone immediately and went back to look – no luck. Sadness. BUT YOU!! you found said…
F you Halifax real estate
Do NOT classify yourself as a ‘pet friendly’ apartment or house if you don’t take a god damn dog. It’s so hard to find a nice, reasonably priced apartment or house in this city that doesn’t charge out the ass for a fucking dog. My well behaved dog is a problem and you insist on…
Only the humble
Please Halifax, don’t be so gullible as to think some hybrid between Jimmy Swaggart and Some pseudo guru, with a bank account the size of God’s, actually has something valid to offer. The single most reliable thread that runs through any worthwhile spiritual teaching is humility. If you don’t agree, try doing the research for…
Sadly
I have to say that (sadly) I have lost all respect for the Coast. A bitch had been posted regarding the spiritual charlatan that was coming to town. I didn’t have to say any names, and from the comments it is obvious he is fooling no one. Yet, the post disappeared after being up and…
Five books
Yikes, a sweet girlie girl that took the time to show an interest in what a broke down old guy was reading, War and Peace. And my silly pursuit, five books before I die…Moby Dick, War and Peace, Ulysses, The King James Bible and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Without laughing at my pompous…
To those who wish I’d gain weight…
I am NATURALLY skinny and bony. That’s just the way my body looks. If you paid attention, you’d know that I eat A LOT. If someone offers me chocolate, or a cookie, or a random plate of spaghetti, I will take it. I adore food. So why do people assume I’m not eating enough because…
People are great
Sometimes, people do horrifying, disturbing, seriously wrong things. But I firmly believe that folks are, for the most part, good. It’s not hard for me to believe, since everywhere I go I meet people who are kind-hearted, open-minded, loving, and accepting. Thank you to these people for helping me not to lose faith in humanity…
Thanks for reminding me about patience!
To the younger guy driving the silver car ahead of us in line to get our morning drive thru coffee fix in Cole Harbour Monday morning – thank you. We were both in a cranky mood driving in from our house up the shore, we had been behind someone driving 25km UNDER the speed limit…
The shame of slut-shaming
The Rehtaeh Parsons story has brought out a lot of attention on bullying, but not enough on what I think is the core issue: misogyny. The misogyny comes before the bullying, and the bullying doesn’t happen at all without the underlying misogyny. While the guilt or innocence of Rehtaeh’s alleged rapists is a matter for…
Always a slice
I have to say, every time I go to Michael’s and see my lovely babies play in their bands – it’s a delicious time. Great beer, great staff and great music. I wholeheartedly recommend catching some pop-punk or grunge rock next time, you might be surprised. Always enjoying the fact that you guys give small…
Venus Envy’s 15
Can we all agree that Venus Envy looks damn good for its age? It sounds like we’re sucking up to the beloved, award-winning sex toy and book store, but we’re not. And even if we wanted to, there wouldn’t really be a need for it. In celebration of 15 years of carving out an important…
Love has two wheels
You: short skirt-wearing brunette beauty with vintage seagreen bike. Me: awe-struck blonde beard on Spring Garden. Everyday I see you whizzing by, and I can’t figure out how I’m going to get your attention. You’re breathtaking. Turn your (awesome) riding cap my way, little bird, and make my month of April (or May or June).…
Stuck in two deep wells
You’ve got a flashlight to help you see in the dark, and I’ve got a rope to help me escape. My problem is that I can’t see a way out, and your problem is you see the solution before you but cannot act. I’ve an idea. Call out to me! Yell my name at the…
Coast up for Canada’s biggest journalism prize
After nearly 20 years of coming out on Thursday, The Coast has lots of good memories associated with this day. There’s Thursday, June 17, 1993, when the first-ever issue came out. And Thursday, April 24, 1997, when we graduated from biweekly publishing to come out every week. And a bunch more. But today might just…
Our first coffee
When I met you on April 8th for our coffee at Starbucks I knew my heart would be even more torn. I can still feel your touch. Ever since that day I can’t keep you out of my mind. I returned to that same place two weeks to the day hoping you would come through…
Calling all brides
As spring starts to creep in, so does wedding season, and just as brides and grooms to be start tearing their hair (and each others’ hair) out in plan-mode, in swoops Boutique Joliette ( 1870 Hollis Street, 405-4057) with a little assistance. The Petals & Pearls event is a special one day soirée that’s ideal…
Brand new Nocturne
With a theme like space and time, there is no doubt Nocturne 2013 is going to be out of this world. Curator Eleanor King chose the theme in hopes of creating a cohesive flow for the nighttime festival. Being the first ever curator, King got the position after being approached by the Nocturne board. Guilty…
I need this to come to fruition
I don’t care that you’re a drug dealer, I don’t care that I have a boyfriend, I don’t care that I shouldn’t want you. I do. I can’t help it. I need to know what your lips taste like.. what your body feels like against mine. Get at me 😉 —Unmixed Signals
Left wishing on your star
I wished upon a star, on a cold April night. It asked for time with your heart, under sun’s light. With dislocated chance this wish fell to the ground and its urgency required for it to be painfully found. I really shouldn’t try to Right with my write for the risk. If I used my…
Class of 2013
The prodigy Cardboard Houses’ Izzy Dempsey up-cycles thrift-store finds and transforms them into youthful, trendy outfits. At the age of 15, Izzy Dempsey opened an Etsy account under the name Cardboard Houses and started selling her handmade, vintage-inspired clothing line. Four years later the young designer continues to make one-of-a-kind pieces with international sales from…
Homegrown humour
The Ha!ifax Comedy Festival is in full swing, and the only downside is that you can’t get to every single show. One you definitely don’t want to miss is Thursday’s Homegrown Show, where you can support exclusively Halifax-based comedians. The show will be hosted by the hilarious Bill Wood of Picnicface fame and will feature…
Eman Mustafa’s unstoppable style
Eman Mustafa is a consummate fashionista. Immaculately put together, the young designer can’t stop thinking about clothes. “I fill my sketchbook with random stuff,” she says. “I’m not great at drawing but I make my own notes and figure out how to translate it.” Nothing is safe from her appraising eye: a metal chair at…
Let’s turn our city into a local food paradise
I too think it’s crazy that we aren’t growing food everywhere. There are hungry people out there. There are people without jobs.When we remember that basic wealth is generated when sunlight hits chlorophyll, that for most of human history plants have provided our economic basis, we should be growing useful things everywhere. Especially in this…
The Disappeared
It’s tempting to call The Disappeared a mixture of The Perfect Storm and survival-horror one-note Open Water. Doing so would give you a sense of how the unflinching film follows six fishermen adrift in the North Atlantic. But it would also be a disservice to the powerful and raw movie director Shandi Mitchell has made…
And now for some good news
DEAR READERS: Last week was made of problems. The bombing of the Boston Marathon, the explosion that leveled a small town in Texas, the rising tide of anti-gay violence in France, the North Koreans being North Korean. And when I sat down to write this week’s—while the manhunt was still under way for the second…
Secret Agency
The gallery’s quiet, which makes the whirring of Robert Hengeveld’s two installations even more striking. “Kentucky Perfect” (pictured) is a length of sod contained in a narrow aluminum structure. A wheeled light travels its length, periodically interrupted by a reel mower or a misting of water. Despite the automatic timing, the lawn is dry, brown…
Letters to the editor, April 25, 2013
Star brights I miss being able to go out in my backyard to do some gazing (“Turn the lights down low,” Voice of the City by Dave Chapman, April 18). Since my neighbourhood became overrun with car dealerships and their bright lights on all night, I’m greatly reduced as to what constellations I can see.…
Free Will Astrology
GEMINI (May 21-June 20) I’m passionate about doing whatever I can to make the world a better place. How boring it would be if I only thought of satisfying my own needs. But I also remember what Aldous Huxley said: “There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and…
Think Out Loud
After graduating from Concordia, Colby Gaudet relocated to Halifax in 2008 and has been building a niche of writing and artsy folk ever since. Working at The Khyber for a six-month work term, he was tasked with planning a more regular performance event and writing was a natural go-to. “Before I worked at the Khyber,…
Wintersleep is coming
Wintersleep drummer Loel Campbell was barely of age when he started going to (sneaking into) rock shows at the Marquee Club on Gottingen. He remembers Yarmouth rock giants Burnt Black playing a New Year’s Eve show where he met future Wintersleep bandmates Paul Murphy, Tim D’Eon, and by extension, the energy and brains behind Dependent…
Secret service
The next time you’re at a Japanese restaurant and having trouble deciding between the shrimp tempura and gyoza and 50 other dishes that sound equally tempting, try asking for one thing instead: omakase. The word roughly translates to “I leave it to you,” and when used in a Japanese restaurant it means your meal is…
Get your Goatwhore
“People like to put things in categories,” says Ben Falgoust. “We call it extreme metal, but there are so many different variations. We’re taking a lot of different elements and blending them together.” Falgoust makes up one-fourth of Goatwhore along with Zack Simmons, James Harvey and Sammy Duet. Coming out of New Orleans, Goatwhore has…
Heart to Heartwood
It’s a grey, damp Saturday in Halifax, and Theatre Nova Scotia’s Living Room space on Agricola appears hushed and dark as well. Inside, Annie Valentina and Laura Burke have put in a long day of rehearsal on Burke’s one-woman show Heartwood, and they’re winding down. Burke, a pig-tailed blonde sporting graceful feathered earrings and casual…
Home is where the laughs are
There’s something funny going on in Halifax. Almost every night of the week there are people getting silly all around this city—-Mondays at Gus’, Wednesdays at Yuk Yuk’s and Bearly’s and Sundays at The Company House, funny people are getting down and cracking us up. This week the Ha!ifax Comedy Fest will be in town…
Pain & Gain
Michael Bay proves himself as disastrous with “small pictures” as he is with blockbusters in Pain & Gain—the beach bod true crime flick that’s oozing with machismo. Based on the Sun Gym gang Miami murders, P&G finds a pumped up Mark Wahlberg as a dimwitted personal trainer who “believes in fitness.” To get out of…
The Colony
A sci-fi movie of the week somehow ends up at your local cinema in the embarrassing Canadian horror film, The Colony. In a future where artificial weather has blocked out the sun, blanketing the planet in constant snowfall, a small group of survivors huddle together in an isolated bunker. Once a neighbouring colony goes radio…
The Big Wedding
One of the more cognitively dissonant films in theatres, The Big Wedding is an astounding train wreck of a romantic comedy. When their adopted son’s biological mother comes from Columbia for her child’s wedding, divorced parents Robert De Niro and Diane Keaton must pretend to still be married lest they offend the Roman Catholic’s strict…
How much money do dead people have? And how much of it is stolen?
How much money do dead people have? Remarkably, we’re finding it difficult to get an official answer to that question. Of course, the dead can’t take it with them, which is why we have the byzantine probate process, which regulates how wills are administrated, and what happens if someone dies without a will. Today, we…
To my stargazing skatergirl
The other day we bumped into each other at the oval and peered deep into the stars together. I fell in love with a skater. You board with a parka and cruise like a champ. Do you remember when the time we lost our feet in the sand? I said I rode more goofy, but…
The death of snail mail
I am hearing news reports these days about the potential death of our national door-to-door postal service, apparently because the volume of snail mail is doing a nosedive. Of course, email and ecommerce and e-everything else have played the biggest part in putting the boots to paper mail. But Canada Post and ultimately, its overseers,…
Did my love just dawn on you?
I woke up at dawn just to write you a song about how I might try gracefully to right you my wrong. How bout a mangled cliche or a simple love trope? I feel like doing more at the risk of sounding like a dope. Lost some me some sleep, but I found you these…
St. Pat’s-Alexandra screw-up is more costly than the concert scandal
The Trailer Park Boys franchise finished filming its third movie at St. Pat’s-Alexandra last Wednesday. The production paid the city $1,000 a week to use the former school, giving HRM $6,000 in revenue over the course of the shoot. But that cash is only a drop in the bucket when the city seems to be…
Doorstopper
Oh my gosh. I want you so bad. I’ve been able to feel my heart beating in my genitals for weeks. Your scent is burning into my brain and your stare into my retinas. I WANT YOU. I want to forget about everything externally and experience you. But I know future-me could be all like…
Power trip
Seriously?! I drive 10 km/hour, tops, over the speed limit and that gets me a $200 speeding ticket?!! Are you fucking kidding me! How much of an asshole cop are you to bother stopping someone barely going over the limit and slapping a $200 fine on them? I should have got a warning at the…
Gaining courage
Time and space are pretty silly, and I know we agree on that much. Finding things we don’t agree on is one of the things I love about our conversations. One of these days I swear I will have enough guts in me to tell you how I feel, instead of what I think. I’m…
Grateful south end girl
This Friday past, I went to my mailbox and found in it a little bubble envelope with my name and info but no return address. I opened it, and there was… my boyfriend’s missing iPhone, a month after a leprechaun presumably nipped it during a drunken St. Pat’s downtown. It had been completely unlocked and…
To the Earth
I sometimes doubt you, I will admit. But you always seem to bounce back. I hope you continue to do so. I hear rumours of us humans moving to a different planet. I don’t want to lose you; please heal and continue to support me with your trees breathing air into my lungs and the…
