Suit Yourself suits itself… and you.
A fixture of the Halifax Farmers’ Market (1496 Lower Water Street) since 1993, Suit Yourself (420-9358) actually expanded in May 2009, now offering even more Canadian designers than ever. “There’s always a 50-70 percent off sale going on,” says owner Lori Pearce, who says though her regular hours are fixed (12pm-5:30pm Monday-Friday and 9am-2pm Saturday)…
Love, Me Boutique’s Second Annual T-Shirt Event on Display
Regular Shoptalk readers will recall that we reported on Love, Me Boutique’s Chara Kingston launching her T-Shirt Event in February, inviting readers and customers to submit t-shirts to participating designers—Kim Munson of Orphanage Clothing, Veronica MacIsaac, Jennifer Young of Pip and Pipper—to be redesigned. Well, those recreations are now complete, stylishly reimagined and very eco-friendly,…
Construction Saviour, You Rock!
We ran out of gas, you loaned us a gas caddy and saved our day. I learned that E means E. You are a knight in shining armour and restored my faith in Halihumanity! Cheers —C, of the little silver chariot
My lover.
I hate how you’ve come into my life and gotten so far under my skin, that my head is constantly spinning. Me, the queen of detachment is so in love with you, I can’t think straight. I miss you so much it hurts, and you’re not even gone yet. I know you have to leave,…
I’ll find that whiskey if I have to wait all night for it
WTF Nova Scotia!? The liquor stores close at 10? Am I a little child who needs to be told when I can have a drink? I’ve lived here for almost two years and so far I’ve been told that I can’t park my car on the street, I have to pay at least 2.50 for…
BEP Tickets Giveaways already starting
That didn’t take long. The concert gets announced, the public decries their disgust in choice of band, and then the radio stations start giving away tickets. Next stop, Kijjji.—BEPoff
Definition of underclass
I see the comments unfolding across the posted mouldings some montreal method man playing with the opinions the bitch poster trolls are displaying. (your an art project and hes an outsider collecting flys, a spider) The same people writing, fighting and citing. Nothin new really, just 4 syllable strangers really; or synonymous could be anonomous…
Dear aliens: stop
Stop abducting me….I am not your pet. —reluctant abductee
Psssst….
I miss psssts. The old psssts. The old psssts that were so pleasant to turn to on that page in The Coast (or that page on the web), where they were tucked away between a generic advertisement for a garage sale and another someone looking for a guitar player for their Country-Swing-Punk band. Squeezed uncomfortably…
Downtown = Dumpster – Raise Parking Rates
So, according to the CBC, The Mayor and Council thought it a great time to increase parking rates downtown. Perhaps they should look at doing something to attract people downtown rather than find another nail to bang into the coffin of the city core. It isn’t as if downtown is parking friendly at the best…
New North End Craft Studio opens
Up and running since early March, North Pocket Studio (5926 Hillside Avenue) is the working studio of three textile-based artists: Joanna Close, Keeley McLean and Rilla Marshall. McLean is a screen-printer and stitcher, while Close and Marshall are both handweavers. Set up in their shared working space are two floor looms, an industrial sewing machine…
April 17 Record Store Day round-up: Random Play
The last music man standing on that stretch Barrington—now that CD Plus and Sam’s across the way are history—Random Play (1587 Barrington Street, 445-1056) has also gotten into vinyl in the past year, offering 300-400 new and used records on top of the majority of their music, which is on CD. The used is ‘70s…
Seth Smith’s New Problems
Dog Day frontman Seth Smith has made a solo album and he is sharing it with us through an online stream. Pretty neat. You can listen here. But wait! There’s more! A video for the song “Transformer” awaits your hungry eyes below. It is romantic and sort of sad and sweet.
The Pharcyde Won’t Be Passing Us By
these men brought us j dilla. you will like them. Now mind you, I haven’t heard anything official about this yet, but a sneaky little Facebook page claims that my second-favorite group of chronic Californians (after Cypress Hill) will be heading this way on June 12th as part of a cross-Canada tour. The location is…
This Is Not A Halifax Post, Sorry
I know, I know, it seems like I probably have a giant boner for bands from Southern Ontario right now (and Colin Medley’s music videos) but here’s another one anyway—-Kingston, Ontario’s P.S. I Love You. In addition to many fine universities and prisons, Kingston has a great art/music scene and this band (culled from the…
April 17 Record Store Day round-up: Taz Records
Taz Records (1593 Market Street, 422-5976) is turning up the volume for Record Store Day with six acts playing in-store, including Christina Martin, Molly Thomason, Chris Martin and Ryan MacGrath, with a couple more to be confirmed. We should prepare to “be surprised,” at the added names, says Taz’s James Donnelly. To sweeten the whole…
Dearest Doppelganger
For the past couple of years I’ve had friends and family complain about how I didn’t say “hi” to them the-other-day or that I didn’t invite them along to (event) but that’s because they saw you, my doppelganger. Strangers have even approached me, calling me by your name and sometimes remain convinced we’re the same…
To my second family at the Spartan…
I never thought that losing a restaurant could be equivalent to losing a person, but eating breakfast at the Spartan on Saturday and Sunday taught me differently. Thank you for your wonderful hospitality, not to mention the best rice pudding and home fries I’ll ever get the chance to eat. —SJ
To the red head in the Den at SMU on Monday night
Grow up. We’re all stressed, but you don’t see the rest of us throwing papers around, gabbing on their cell phones then taking off the head of the lab monitor who comes over to remind you there’s no cell phone convos allowed in the labs. Go back to kindergarten if you can’t behave any better…
Exams
Go fuck yourself! Oh and profs who don’t give ANY feedback until exams are over, you can fack-off too!—A+, maybe an F student
Just Mind Your Own Business and Let Security Guards Do Their Job
I am not some rule crazy bully who has nothing better to do than pick on skater kids and beggars. I pride myself on my manners and I know when to give someone a break. So when I am in the middle of an argument, it’s safe to assume it’s because the person’s being unreasonable…
Love for HALI
To Hali & it’s great people: I love Halifax its such a great place to live and people are so helpful. From the first day at Dal and I was lost someone took me right to the building. When I lost my storage-device someone took it to the lost and found. No where else have…
MSVU bus stop kind soul
Friday, April 9, 8:30 a.m. The #18 came, I got on… little did I know I’d dropped my work ID/security pass thingy as I boarded. You grabbed it, stopped the driver and passed it to her. She called out my name (I felt really cool at that point) and returned it to me. I shouted…
L’Homme de Montreal, please go home
Hey Moderator, get this so-called intellectual jack-ass off the site. His spewing is offensive and condescending and doesn’t fit the point of LTWWB at all.—Booer
Keys are important!
Listen, from time to time I too have forgotten my keys and have been locked out. However, making this a weekly occurrence is not good roommate etiquette and is bothersome for both you and myself. Also, not locking the door when you leave and I am not home either is not appreciated. I have things…
Spell Check
What is wrong with creators of the most popular browser in all the world that inline spell check just doesn’t exist?—Typo
Tonic Water
Why is it so difficult to get Tonic water? Honestly, why is it that I have to travel to a fucking grocery store to get a bottle of Tonic water? Sure, it’s random enough to not expect it from a convenience store, but at least I should be able to get it from a pharmacy,…
“An Interim Report from the Field”
Before laying out the strategy as embodied in “The Grid” as mentioned in my last post, I think it appropriate that the regular readers of my submissions should be informed about the events on that “darkling plain” as they have transpired so far. Since the battle is not yet over, I have entitled this post,…
To the bitch who puts LOOKS first!
I went on eharmony and was matched up with you, and we were very compatible. We didn’t exchange pictures right away because we both agreed that we should focus on our non-physical attributes. We got along amazingly and talked on there everyday for over 2 weeks. We then moved our interactions to the phone. After…
Burn me once, shame on me, burn my kid…
You know who you are…you’re the jerk who I used to send my kids to after you’d bullied me into it, despite my better judgement. You took them to a home that makes Hoarders look like a cakewalk, (and it wasn’t even yours!) sent them back to me, winter coats literally dripping with urine, feces…
Closing time?
This one is for the “staff” at a certain co-ed gym in CP: I understand it’s Saturday night, I understand you might have a life… but I have paid good, hard-earned money to be a member of your over-priced (towel-less) gym, and I expect to be able to use the facilities during the posted hours.…
Too much sensory information…
Guys wearing shorts should never sit in the confines of waiting rooms with their legs splayed wide unless they are absolutely certain that everyone else in their vicinity wants to smell their crotch odours.—Oceanlady
April 17 Record Store Day round-up: Select Sounds
The vinyl that flies off the shelf at Select Sounds (1475 Bedford Highway, 835-3274) is largely in the realm of ‘60s and ‘70s rock, primarily. “And heavy metal… mainly classic stuff,” says co-owner Michael James. He says its very hard to get customers interested in buying new bands on CD, but its no problem selling…
Laura Chenoweth sale
As Shoptalk reported, local designer Laura Chenoweth will be sharing space with Heroine (5775 Charles Street, 420-0328) this season, and Chenoweth is about to have a spring sale at Heroine. Called “Spring Fresh,” it takes place Tuesday April 20 and Wednesday April 21 from 10am to 5pm, and will include new stock and scarves. The…
April 17 Record Store Day: Obsolete Records
In this era of closing music and media retailers, former CD Plus assistant manager Ian Fraser is kicking at the darkness until it bleeds daylight, as Bruce Cockburn once sang. He’s starting a new north end music store in late April/early May—opening in the old Parade Antiques space—called Obsolete Records (2454 Agricola Street). The name…
Dancing in confined spaces…
To all the BeeeYOUtiful people who came out to the Gypsophilia video release: Where the hell did you come from?! Mine eyes have never beheld so many at one time. Props to the bands that night, making sexy folk groove in mass quantity. Let’s make a vow to leave these winter caves and hang more…
Freckle Eyes
Spending time with you has been a wonderful surprise. You can make a walk through woodside industries seem like a stroll through a rose garden. I guess this is what luck feels like… Happy b-day! xoxo—A modest man
Love from the land downunder
Halifax I miss you. Not even the devils can keep me here for ever. Nutmeg, Hezza, and all the rest of the peeps – keep the faith.—Transportee to Van Diemen’s Land
We can start over!
Mrs. Carter, You are my dream girl. I took the job at Scotia Square. Lets start over!—V.Carter
“Applying the Underclass Markers: Targeting the Redneck Strutters”
Someone once said, brilliantly I thought, that “Intelligence resides in the ability to make distinctions.” Maybe it was me. Anyway, in conformity with proper pedagogical practice, a little contextualization is required. “Applying the Underclass Markers: Targeting the Redneck Strutters” is the third installment in my masterful reflections on the Underclass in Halifax. The first, you…
Finger Lickin’ Good
Why does this place stay open at night? This is the third time in a row that I have gone in after work (usually about 1 hour to 1/2 hour before they close) and asked for a bucket of chicken, only to be told that they none. The first time, I just left disgusted. The…
Classy…
Hopefully berating a panhandler on SGR this morning made you feel like a real man. Buddy was just asking for some change, if you aren’t going to help him out, why not just keep walking or say ‘no’? Instead, you launched into a tirade about how you “have a company” and “hire people to work”.…
Restaurant etiquette for those who need to know
Hey Halifax! I know, another restaurant bitch, however… Some helpful tips: 1. Please reserve for large groups. Time and again 15-20 people just walk in on a busy lunch or dinner and expect to be seated, then bitch they don’t like where they’re sitting. C’mon. Most places you can book hours in advance if you…
Not hungry after all
To the guy that asked us for change for “pizza” last night: Fuck you! We had just gotten back from the grocery store, and we didn’t have any money – but we had food. Upon receiving some food, you proceeded to throw it over the fence. If you didn’t like the fruit we gave you…
Pure disgust
i call this number “fat man in gray mini van” you blossom every summer like a shit-wart from the gutter the noises that you make i dont quite agree with if had my way, you’d have no prick to pee with—Haha… that’ll teach ya
Lets start over?
We started out as flirty friends and eventually took it to the next level. I thought things were going well, until you decided you weren’t ready for a relationship. I never meant to put that kind of pressure on you. I miss your voice. You’re leaving and never coming back, I’m stuck here for years……
Charles street Baker
Rain rain go away, Carrot Cake Muffins, Yum. YUM. Yum —My hairs on fire
80 Halifax
You got on the 80 heading to Halifax last night on the last bus in to this city. You were too cute in your under the influence ways. You were sitting at the front of the bus and couldn’t find your bus pass. I was willing to give you money if you needed it.—Here’s to…
The new Palaces
In the BLIP it’s known as the Indian Buffet Palace (8 Oland Crescent, 405-8909), but the second location in Dartmouth is simply India Palace and can be found at 972 Cole Harbour Road (444-8252). As with the Bayers Lake location it offers a daily all-you-can-eat buffet for lunch (11:30am-3pm, $11.99) and dinner (5pm-9pm, $13.99). Open…
You must have needed my things more than I did.
To the asshole at that gym in Scotia Square who enjoys going through other gym member’s belongings: Yes, I’m stupid for not locking my locker. I’m fully aware. I now have a lock… So today, I go to the gym, workout and then come back to my locker only to find my gym bag has…
$20 bills
Why, ATM, Why? Why do you only give out $20 bills? Everyone wants to pay all the time with their $20 bills, and I have no change. Where do you expect me to get change from when EVERYONE gives me a $20 bill? I have come to hate the site of them and have started…
Fool me once….
I noticed once again you have promised front row access for those who are willing to shell out extra money for VIP concert tickets. I believe I have seen (and fell) for this little scam before. Your promotion tactics are sleazy to say the least, you promise the best, collect the money from unsuspecting fans,…
WHERE IS THE MODERATOR?
The Bitch Board is being swamped by some little arsehole who posts nothing but crapcrapcrap to outrage and offend. Please remove this stain of society from this board so we may continue as we were. This little shit intends to come back in different personas – get his goddamn IP number and kick him off,…
NDP: Like having family pick your pockets
I am a life-long NDP supporter. I was elated when the NDP got in. After a few months of this ridiculous NDP government I will never vote NDP again and will cancel my party membership.—NDP is dead in NS
Why does it always go up with the temperature?
108.3 REALLY????? Does it ever go down anymore???—wishing there were more bike lanes, cause I would do it!!!
The Garbage Room of your Apartment Building
This goes out to the folks in my apartment building; the one that overlooks a large downtown hill… I know the garbage room is small and there are barely enough bins to put stuff in… but… but… But… C’mon! You can do better than this! Every week I go in there and see shit thrown…
Got my town back!
To my ex who left after years of being over me!!! Glad you no longer work or live in the city!!! So tired of seeing your car drive by my house on a weekly basis when there is no need to go this route reminding me of the pain you caused me!!! I feel free…
Dog Poo
I am bitching about 2 things; the people who don’t pick up after their dogs and the lack of garbage cans to dispose of it!!! Maybe if the city had more on the streets more people would pick up!!!!Maybe not!!! Seems to be someone with Big dogs that are not picking up!!! Whoever it is…
Shitty promoters
Hey you, Halifax concert promoters: FUCK RIGHT OFF!! Pull your goddamn heads out of your asses and get with reality. you freaking suck shit when it comes to getting good music to this city. How many more washed up, has-beens, and just generally sub par musical acts are you going to parade around this lovely…
Halifax MP calls for help to save climate bill
Halifax MP, Megan Leslie calls on Nova Scotians to phone or e-mail Liberal and Conservative MPs to ask them to support NDP climate change bill.
Curtains open for Cloudburst
“I don’t know what form something will take when I start to write,” says Thom Fitzgerald, the award-winning filmmaker of movies such as The Hanging Garden, The Event and 3 Needles. “I start with a thought, and it usually becomes a bunch of dialogue…I just seem to write in dialogue.” This may explain why his…
Old Man Luedecke on Q Today
Apparently Old Man Luedecke will be bringing his banjo and charms to Q this morning. You can listen on the dial at 90.5 at 10am Atlantic time, stream online live or grab the archive episode here. Enjoy. Related Stories
Spartan Closes, Louly’s opens
A fixture on Quinpool for over four decades, the Spartan Restaurant (6403 Quinpool Road, 429-6858) will close on Monday, April 12. “Right now we’re going to take it easy,” says co-owner Maria Kyreakakos about her and her husband Nick’s retirement plans. With help from their son Peter, they’ve run the popular eatery on the corner…
April 17 Record Store Day round-up: CD Heaven
It’s been three years since Candace Redden took over CD Heaven (118 Wyse Road, 464-0123)—though the store has been at its location in the Dartmouth Shopping Centre for 15 years—and in that time the store has hosted 200 all-ages, free in-store shows. That’s going to continue, she says, especially since she has an agreement with…
Rotten apples!
What is with all the fucking Red Delicious apples being brown and rotten in the middle???? They look fantastic on the outside, perfect and oh-so-red, then to find out they’re rotten on the inside. I’m so fucking sick of chucking out a perfectly “good” apple. I hate you Red Delicious.—Bye bye RD
Where are all of your job jobs?
Hey Halifax, where are all your job job’s? You know what I mean? Like landscaping, or dish washing, or serving. I’m not a nanny with 5 years experience, or a sous chef with a gold seal. Where I came from you could get a job because you need money, without waiting for a month for…
fucking fuck
im so PISSED…theres nowhere to study in the fucking building. everywhere else on campus has a shit internet connection andn the one place I can go with BOTH a connection and an outlet is always in use for some seminars!?? jesus. i go to a computer lab since my laptop is useless and 30 MINUTES…
Black Eyed Peas…
Black Eyed Peas…—Black Eyed Peas
Okay Starbucks…
Not only are you ridiculously expensive, you are also ridiculously miserly. The coffee machine is broken again at the Scotia Square Starbucks, so they are offering Americanos at the price of a regular coffee… Here’s the catch: If you are a regular who sometimes orders Americanos they’ll charge you full Americano price. That’s right. Same…
Retired Returnees Should Pay User Fees
What really pisses me off are people who are raised and educated in Nova Scotia, go West for their careers (where they pay taxes for years to other provincial governments) then return to Nova Scotia for their retirement to become a burden on the rest of us with their aging health care expenses. They should…
Chocolate
Hey chocolate… Yeah you, good ol pal. You’re making me fat. I wish I could resist you but I can’t. I just fucking can’t. You’re so goddamn delicious I want to plop all 200 pounds of you on my bed and cuddle with you and eat you all night. C’mere you. I’ll hate you in…
Grow The Hell Up!
Dear Ex, and your silly little friends! After you and your friends moved out, and then after ONE month, you guys get evicted. You then decide to bring your friends home where your mother not only has to put up with you, but you stupid little friends! You guys have no respect for her stuff,…
Zip it
To all the drama queens out there with the ridiculous facebook status’s hating on the men they are dating or trying to date. (you know the chick that then deletes her status’s later because she realized how completely insane she sounded.) Obviously the men made the right choice. Have you ever heard of the phrase…
Personal Space…
There is a ‘2.5’ person seat at the back of all the Link buses, which runs perpendicular to the rest of the seats. Can I suggest that when the seat is already occupied by 2 people, respect our personal space and do not fucking shoe-horn your fat ass into the seat – it’s rude, disrespectful,…
Parental Alienation for sale
I am a single mother. My child is 10. She lives with my parents. They have guardianship, which apparently gives them the right to forge documents and make it impossible to get ahead in life so I can, again, parent my offspring. I make too much money to apply for legal aid. I make too…
To the Grey SUV Who Went Through The Red Light at Brunswick and Cornwallis Wednesday Morning
Do you think you are exempt from the rules of the road, you fucking jackoff? A red light means you stop, arsehole, not pause and drive on through a solid red when you feel like it. I wish the cops would roast your useless, self-entitled ass on your radiator. People like you ruin the roads.—Outraged…
Just get to work!
Just because it’s your last week of work before you go away doesn’t mean you get to stop working completely. And everybody knows you had drinks at lunch – you’ve NEVER been that giddy. —I don’t need to know what kind of clothes you packed
Voting Liberal next time around.
Dear party in power, Re: BST (it wil always be the bs tax to me) raise. Drop dead. Sincerely,—Former Supporter
Fed Up!
I’ve been at the same job for almost 3 years now and I wanted to make a career of it, but if YOU remain here much longer, that isn’t going to happen. For fuck’s sake man, this is an office, and what I thought was a job with some professionalism involved. The last thing I…
Go local in Dartmouth
Wyse Buys 195 Wyse Road, 464-0010 Long known for having some of the best quality used furniture around (which can be delivered to your door), Wyse Buys is also getting into new chesterfields, beds and table sets too, “Comparable to what’s available at Leons or The Brick,” says manager Steve Richardson. You can also find…
On Patrol
What’s wrong? Lots of garbage in Hemlock Ravine park. Who’s responsible? Steve Rice, HRM’s supervisor of major parks, 490-1903. REMARKS Reader Sarah Dawson alerted us to this trash-strewn stretch of park behind two apartment complexes on Lodge Drive. The garbage runs all the way down the ravine and collects in the creek below, says Dawson:…
Black Eyed Peas to Crush Common with Lady Lumps
start working on awkward poses now The Chronicle-Herald and Metro have both confirmed via Twitter that the Black Eyed Peas, Weezer and Classified will all be tearing the shit out of the Common on July 24. The cost? Your soul. More acts TBA, as well as announcements for the July 23rd show (Stephen Cooke says…
Measuring Metric’s happiness
Emily Haines is unhappy. The lead singer of Metric is doing the telephone equivalent of a press junket and I’ve been allotted 15 minutes. Ten minutes in, I ask about some controversial shirts Metric had created in efforts to raise money for Haiti. Part of the text on the shirts read “Help! I’m Alive”—a reference…
Green jobs
As a result of the global recession, jobs have been lost at an alarming rate around the world. In addition, with the state of the environment, people need to focus on making serious changes. Green jobs are a potential solution for both of these problems. As was brought into focus at the Copenhagen climate change…
Women, guitars and the big screen
While Emily Haines was still enjoying Raffi, Joan Jett had already zipped up her red leather suit, chopped her shag hair and tossed beer bottles back at pissed crowds. Jett’s early rock antics are captured like a lipstick sneer by Floria Sigismondi in The Runaways, opening this weekend. In a recent Sundance Film Festival interview,…
Going to the source
A fisherman can sell product right off the wharf,” says A. Estelle Bryant, senior planning and development office for the province’s department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Aquaculture. She goes on to tell us that a number of Nova Scotia fishery businesses are set up with retail operations right out of their factories. It may seem…
Delizioso!
“I have two rules in the kitchen,” Luigi Velocci, president of the Italian Canadian Cultural Association on Agricola Street, tells me. “Use the best quality ingredients, and you have to be authentic. You gotta get San Marazano tomatoes. If you can’t get them, don’t do it. We make out own sausages, pasta and sauce. Same…
The perfect pint
The perfect pint Getting tired of the usual fare? That’s why we’ve headed off to find the perfect pint. And, thankfully, Halifax has a lot to offer. With an impressive selection of microbreweries and brewpubs, it’s not hard to find a great mug of grog in this city. Check out these places for genuinely tasty…
Daniel, Fred and Julie strike off the band
Many bands form as structured entities. Members are sussed out for their possible contribution to the project, while other bands are mere coincidence and fate. Some bands aren’t even bands at all—just a few people who happen to make a record together on a sunny afternoon. Daniel, Fred and Julie are the latter. They’re playing…
Bicycle Diaries
A book about bicycling from musician David Byrne (of The Talking Heads) sounded like a perfect match. Looking at biking through a handful of different cities from Byrne’s home of New York to Manila to Istanbul, the book’s premise is great, but the actual bicycling content is minimal. Byrne starts each chapter, organized by city,…
Working for Workman
Kim Munson is a huge Hawksley Workman fan. So devoted, the fashion designer used to make shirts for the Toronto-based musician, which she’d leave behind at his live shows. Then one day Munson saw an ad promoting Workman’s Canadian tour. He was wearing “shirt number two,” a smart black-and-white cowboy number. She called his manager…
Artisans that use recycled materials
Five Surprises fivesurprises.com Haleigh Sheehan takes previously loved clothing—especially anything in natural fibres with an interesting print, texture or colour—to make handbags, tops and dresses, and cuts down on waste by using up all the scraps in smaller projects like scarves and cuffs. Worn-out bicycle tires are utilized on the soles of shoes and sandals.…
Apollo Ghosts
An entire album with replay value was beginning to feel like a strange memory from childhood, until I put on Mount Benson. Opening track “Wakesiah” packs a punch of nostalgia that could compete with any of your old Nintendo cartridges. The whole album comes and goes within 25 minutes, as if Jay Reatard possessed the…
Grow Organic: A Simple Guide to Nova Scotia Gardening
Cookbooks and gardening guides shouldn’t make you feel like a useless toad, or make you wish you lived in another city. But Peirce’s Grow Organic: A Simple Guide to Nova Scotia Vegetable Gardening is a boost of confidence, even if you’ve only ever grown mould. Peirce doesn’t expect that you know a till from a…
Crime in Stereo
It’s official: Crime in Stereo have ditched their Lifetime and Kill Your Idols vinyl. Their previous effort, Is Dead, was Brand New worship; Trying has them emerging from their post-everything identity crisis. While vocalist Kristian Hallbert still strains like a Revolution Summer-era Ian MacKaye, this feels more like a rite of passage than a Rite…
Harbour View
At a Halifax nursing home overlooking the water, the lives of residents and staff come in constant contact, physical and emotional. In such a setting, the present should do more than trigger excursions into the past. Whether staff or resident, these characters are stuck in the past, particularly the mythologized aspects of this province’s history:…
Johnny Cash
The American Recordings series of Rubin-Cash collaborations has been exceptional—this latest, supposedly last, is no different. It is exquisite. It is heart wrenching. And it would be unbearable at times, if not so beautiful and lovingly tender. Even if you didn’t know Cash died shortly after this recording, it’s impossible not to after discovering the…
Sub Rosa
With a sharp pen, fierce intellect and ferocious take on sex, sex work and sexuality, Amber Dawn’s first novel Sub Rosa is a page-turner. Some books take on humanity, others merely relay a story. Dawn’s Sub Rosa does both and is explosive. With a brashness akin to Michelle Tea, Dawn explores sexuality, sensuality and subtlety.…
Tindersticks
An (if not the) originator of the indie pop orchestra, Tindersticks opens its eighth album with a skulking R&B groove; the band’s warming up for something special. By the third track, “Harmony Around My Table,” you know this is something special. In that song, Stuart Staples sings a desperate father’s wish for his family’s happiness,…
Hello daddy, it’s The Runaways
Anyone who knows director/photographer Floria Sigismondi’s music videos for David Bowie and The White Stripes would have expected her first feature-length film to be oversaturated in colour, exotic, torturously detailed. But Sigismondi pulls her contemporary aesthetic back to the more naturalistic look of 1975, when a shaggy 15-year-old Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) co-founded The Runaways,…
Isolation
Looking at artist Jessica Korderas’ artwork titled Isolated Thoughts fulfills that need to be a nosy neighbour. The four-storey brick apartment building stands unassuming from its outside windows, with the art of people and spaces painted on a thin, polyester film, then layered in acrylic resin, giving it a 3D and glassy appearance. If you…
Erykah Badu
Already a contender for 2010’s summer album, Badu’s Part Two is filled with breezy, relaxed jams that beg for late night rooftop patios and sweaty beers. Badu effuses confidence, even when she seems fragile: This is a woman who’s obviously confident in her own skin, as witnessed by the controversial video for “Window Seat.” Closer…
Biomass pros & cons
Of all the different ways Nova Scotia plans to meet its renewable energy goals—25 percent carbon neutral by 2015—the one we hear about most is biomass. The kind of forest biomass they’re talking about in Nova Scotia works by burning wood to convert it to energy. Supporters say biomass is carbon neutral: unlike fossil fuels…
Martel’s sense of history
On April Fool’s Day, Yann Martel and I played phone tag. After punching in the 15-digit phone number, the answering machine of a London publishing company picked up several times over. I thought the joke was on me. Finally, we connected. Days before he begins his North American book tour, Martel is in England with…
Tarek Abouamin’s past present
If viewers feel there’s a particular freshness to Tarek Abouamin’s short film Gawab, it’ll partly owe to the fact that the documentary is fresh in a literal sense. A couple of weeks before its April 14th screening as part of the Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival, its creator says he’s still “cutting like mad.” But a…
Bullfrog power brings new green alternatives
We know we have green choices about food, methods of transportation and waste, but now Nova Scotians also have a choice about power. Bullfrog Power, started in Ontario in 2005, is a company certified by Environment Canada as 100 percent green that puts power from wind farms and low-impact hydro facilities into the regional grid.…
Meet CoastReads, our new Twitter book club
Hey lit nerds, tired of book clubs that fall apart after one meeting, or make you feel crappy for not finishing that 700-page doorstop? Not us. Our Twitter book club, twitter.com/CoastReads, encourages lazy couches, snacks and great books. For this first round we’ll vote on a book from this list of award-nominated Atlantic Canadian books…
Awarding the scribes
The Atlantic Book Awards and Festival runs April 10 to 18, and right in the middle of the regional literary celebration sits the awards ceremony. Hosted by Newfoundland comedian and author Berni Stapleton, along with CBC Radio’s Costas Halavrezos, the ceremony will dish out 13 awards, with shortlisted authors including first-time novelists Shandi Mitchell and…
Free Will Astrology
Happy Birthday! ARIES(March 21-April 19) It would be a good week for you to perfect your ability to crow like a rooster, Aries. I also recommend that you practice your skill at leaping out of bed in the morning fully refreshed, with your imagination primed and ready to immediately begin making creative moves. Other suggested…
Choice Nova Scotia white wines
Green Halifax asked Alanna McIntyre, sommelier at Bishop’s Cellar, to recommend five Nova Scotia white wines available at her store that will perfectly compliment your meal. “It’s a cool climate,” she says, explaining why Nova Scotia whites are so fine. “It’s a moderate amount of sun and heat, the variation of daytime and evening temperatures.…
King’s Theatrical Society’s Dead in Wawa and Endgame
In King’s end-of-season double bill, we have young playwright/director Griffin McInnes’ ode to absurdism Dead in Wawa and Samuel Beckett’s nihilistic masterpiece Endgame. Together, they make for a thought-provoking—and long—evening of theatre. McInnes has created memorable characters who tackle life’s big questions while drinking and drugging atop a grave. The charm of the rough and…
Ken Reashor: safer to jaywalk than to use a crosswalk
A week ago Tuesday night, someone tried to kill me. I was walking across Thistle Street in Dartmouth, in the mid-block crosswalk that leads from the Sportsplex to the Common. There was a car coming down the hill, but I had plenty of time to get safely to other side. As I crossed, however, I…
The myth of compostable containers
“No one comes to us first,” said a source in the HRM solid waste department, who preferred not to be identified for this story. Disappointed that businesses don’t consider the HRM guidelines for what can and cannot be composted, he explains that many local restaurants and cafes are trying to focus on their efforts to…
Don’t be doomed to lousy sex
QI’m a young, straight feminist male, and I’ve been dating my feminist girlfriend monogamously for almost two years. Recently, I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that I am turned on by rape fantasies. Of course, I find the idea of actual rape repugnant, and this is probably, of course, an important reason why…
Nearby Farms & farmers’ markets
Halifax Farmers’ Market Brewery Market, 1496 Lower Water Street, 492-4043, 7am-1pm, Saturdays The Halifax Farmers’ Market (AKA The Brewery Market) is ground zero for anyone who wants to eat fresh, local food that is grown in a conscientious and sustainable way. The local restaurant industry relies on it to offer local food for its dishes,…
Radical cheap
Some people associate environmentalism with Haight-Ashbury hippies with trust funds and time to kill, but the reality is, big money is bad for the environment. The dropout generation was cluing into that, but the rat race has sucked many of its children back in. Our brand of environmentalism is too often boiled down to more…
The most fuel-efficient cars on Halifax lots
City Mazda 2672 Robie Street, 453-4115 Mazda 3 (2L) City: 8.1L/100km Highway: 5.9L/100km Starting Price: $15,995 Colonial Honda 2567 Robie Street, 888-232-1218 Civic Hybrid City: 4.7L/100km Highway: 4.3L/100km Starting Price: $27,350 Hillcrest Volkswagen 3154 Robie Street, 453-2790 Golf TDI Clean Diesel (automatic DSG transmission) City: 6.7L/100km Highway: 4.6L/100km Starting Price: $24,975 MacPhee Pontiac Buick GMC…
crown v. corporate
In his column, Bruce Wark asks if it would be possible to set up a provincially owned power corporation that would issue bonds in exchange for the shares now held by private investors (“People power,” Editorial, April 1). While this may be possible, I would ask why would we want to? We’ve been there and…
Convention central
Once again Tim is the Woodward and Bernstein of Halifax—drawing a clear and revealing line between this decidedly unserious plan and the thwarted Commonwealth Games scheme. Thank you Tim! —John Wesley Chisholm, Musquodoboit Harbour Related Stories
Convention central
Convention central So mayor Peter Kelly thinks the proposed new convention centre is a no-brainer (“The convention centre rescue plan” by Tim Bousquet, April 1). I didn’t know that no-brainer meant colossal white elephant. What a waste of prime real estate and tax dollars! The proposed design reminds me of an updated Scotia Square (already…
To Market, To Market….
In Alajuela, there is a central market open six days a week, with foods of all kinds, but the Farmers’ Market is on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, and it’s terrific. Folks load up shopping carts of produce. There are about 550 colones in a dollar.
