Alive, well, working
To the editor, The Coast kindly printed my letter on the Department of Education requiring Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Craig Smith to reprint his book, You Had Better Be White By 06:00am to replace the word “nigger” with “n*****” (“Black talk,” Letterhead, August 2). A nice by-product of this was that Cpl. Smith called…
No coins, please
To the editor, I can’t believe that the DDBC can just make up a law and use it to oppress a whole segment of society—and that act is not illegal. I do believe it is illegal—and at the very least it is unethical. I am going to do something about it. By posted at thecoast.ca…
No coins, please
To the editor, As of the last city council meeting, ducks in and around Lake Banook may panhandle for “bread” but people on Portland Street may not. How do I explain to my grandchildren why city council says we can give to the ducks but the DDBC says we can’t give to the street people?…
No coins, please
To the editor, Maybe if we stopped seeing panhandlers as “bums” and obstacles to be avoided and started seeing them as real people with real needs and problems, things might change.
No coins, please
To the editor, Regarding “Begging unpardonable,” by Mike Landry (August 2): While the “panhandling is illegal stickers” are just more of Downtown Dartmouth Business Commission executive director Tim Olive’s typical heavy-handed approach to things, he deserves kudos for at least trying to discourage the practice. At the Spring Garden Business Association, Bernie Smith’s approach, while…
Say it, don’t spray it
To the editor, Let’s figure it out already. We’ve had the barely veiled, and plenty confusing, quasi-endorsement of things marked up for a social cause in your gentrification article (“Where goes the neighbourhood?” by Lis van Berkel, April 12). Then we get a municipal malfunction ticket for a sign that’s been tagged to death (“Ticket…
Win, lose or draw
To the editor, My friend just got added to the vandal registry for drawing a heart and a peace sign on the sidewalk in front of her house so that another friend would know which house was hers. Apparently this is considered defacing city properly. So all you kiddies out there wanting to pass a…
A spirited release
In the five months since The Grass graced a Halifax stage, the Dartmouth-born sextet relocated to Ottawa, embarked on a string of successful Ontario shows and had a main stage billing at the Ottawa Bluesfest. The band also recorded its third album, Calling All Ghosts. “Fans should expect our best album yet,” says drummer/vocalist Dylan…
Smiling coffee drinkers
Fancy yourself a coffee connoisseur? Geoffrey Creighton wants to rock your world. Creighton’s new coffee shop, the Smiling Goat Organic Espresso Bar, is set to open for business inside the Paramount building on South Park during the week of Aug. 20. The shop, which Creighton co-owns with his wife Andrea, will be cozy—the store space…
Gimme a minute
The Atlantic Filmmakers Co-operative has released its annual call for entries for the One Minute Film program, in which novice filmmakers create a one-minute, black-and-white silent 16mm film. It’s an involved six-month process, with workshops running from October through the end of the year, so be sure you’ve got the time to commit. “Super-short films…
Talk talk
Kasi Lemmons and Talk to Me aren’t a meet-cute story. The writer-director-actor first came across the script for the ’60s biopic as a potential project for her husband, the film and TV vet Vondie Curtis Hall (Romeo & Juliet, ER). But she kept coming back to the script, by Michael Genet (She Hate Me) and…
What fuckery is this?
Everyone swears, don’t they? I don’t mean that “COCKSUCKA!” Deadwood brand of extreme profanity. But everyone swears—toe stubbing (quick out of the mouth: goddamnit!), telling your kid to get her shoes and sweater on and finding her 10 minutes later in underwear reading a book (under breath, teeth clenched: jesus, jesus, jesus), getting doored on…
A better beer fest
Where will you be August 11? Chances are if you’re an Atlantic “beer geek,” you’ll be at the Seaport Beer Festival on Halifax’s waterfront. Previous efforts, including the East Coast Festival of Beer (1999) and the NSLC Beer Gala (2004, 2005) have left much to be desired, the former marred by bad weather and the…
Hot Rod
“Everybody else just grew up and got boring and sold out,” love interest (Isla Fisher) tells amateur stuntman Rod (Andy Samberg). In other words, they turned into the audience for Knocked Up. Hot Rod has been buried by the summer’s high-profile comedies, but it rises above Judd Apatow’s self-importance and The Simpsons’ familiarity. That the…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Scream, laugh and dance, Taurus, says Rob Brezsny.
SAVAGE LOVE
Dan Savage puts a square peg in a round hole.
Two Hours’ time
Alec O’Hanley can’t multitask. One ofTwo Hours Traffic’s singer-guitarists tries to give an interview while relaxing in his parents’ pool, but decides mid-sentence that cordless phones and chlorinated water don’t mix. “I’m distracted by this pool,” he says, water splashing in the background. “I should get out, actually. It’s too nice to concentrate.” O’Hanley deserves…
The first time’s the charm
It would not be unseemly to compare your first Evolve experience to losing your virginity. It’s both glorious and uncomfortable at the time. You wish you could have gotten more sleep. And two days after it’s over, the after effects linger; a bit of euphoria, a bit of residual soreness, and overwhelmingly, the desire to…
The space between us
Those of us who imagine our lives as glamourous Hollywood movies with ourselves in the starring roles might have felt a tiny twinge of relief last week on hearing of the deaths of two famous European film directors. Sweden’s Ingmar Bergman and Italy’s Michelangelo Antonioni died on the same day—a noteworthy coincidence since, as Dan…
Tar trek
One of Aftab Erfan’s workplace colleagues is a man with five children. Four of them have moved to Alberta for the “oil rush,” attracted by the lure of steady, well-paying work and a new life. But is it a better life, when you leave your home, family and friends behind? “From the perspective of the…
Catching cliches
—from Saskatoon and New Zealand Finding out how others see you is educational—you get to discover how out of touch they are. Articles from different ends of the planet help make the point. First up is a piece in Saskatoon’s Star Phoenix about riding the train from Montreal to Halifax to take part in a…
On the rocks
Some smart person named this newspaper “The Coast” because there’s nothing more emblematic of Nova Scotia than the coast—the actual coast, the seashore, the place where the continent meets the ocean. Truly, Nova Scotia is the coast. Our plucky forebears scratched out a living along the coast, building hundreds of fishing villages and a way…
