Stand up Comics
The hero of the Dartmouth comic book shop scene, Giant Robot Comics’ Darryl Wall, says he’s never really grown up. “I love comic books and toys, and I didn’t want to get a regular, nine-to-five office job, and being able to talk to people about comic books all day sounded pretty awesome,” he says. Wall…
Darklands lights up
From out of the shadows of Barrington Street comes Courtney Rafuse’s badass vintage line Darklands. Sunday (from 11am to 5pm) marks the first of what will hopefully be a monthly series of pop-up shops out of 1665 Barrington Street (just above Little Mysteries) that’ll show off her meticulously collected pieces of women’s clothing, that until…
Simmonds makes his mark
It took one night in Marko Simmonds’ home studio—a small, carpeted office with a desk, armchair and keyboard, on bus route 52 in Fairview—for the North Preston-raised R&B producer to write his new single, “She’s The Greatest”, and another year to produce and record the track. It’s a catchy, repetitive earworm with relatable lyrics and…
Time for the Last Minute Christmas Craft Show
Now that I have the attention of both procrastinators and local loving folks: have you signed the Buy Local Pledge yet? If so, good for you. If not, you probably should. And if you still haven’t pledged, chances are you’ve put off starting your holiday shopping, too. It’s OK, the people behind the Last Minute…
DaCane Surf Shop closes
And yet another blow to Blowers Street: we’ve just gotten word that DaCane Surf Shop (5239 Blowers Street) has closed up shop. Dacane’s not down for the count though, owner Lance Moore says they’ve simply moved everything online, stating that 30 percent of its business was done via the internet. “We are still running surf…
Smooth sales at NSCAD
In the spirit of buying local, it’s your duty to peruse two of NSCAD’s annual department show/sale hybrids. Offering an array of wonderful examples of the talent that lies between the walls of our beloved art school, these two exhibits are perfectly timed for holiday shoppers like me who are all like, “Riiiight, Christmas is…
Oland’s bottle debacle
If there’s a hoarded pile of empty two-fours in your basement doing nothing but collecting dust and smelling like must, listen up: the Oland Brewery needs you. It’s not a complete crisis (“We’re not going to run out of beer,” assures Labatt Breweries of Canada’s Wade Keller) but the Oland bottle shortage is an interesting…
Healthy food=Free yoga
This Saturday, (December 15) Moksha Yoga (1512 Dresden Row) asks that you dig into the back of your pantry, or make an extra trip to the grocery store, and contribute to their seasonal food drive. Dropping off three non-perishable (healthy, please) food items to the studio is a pretty easy thing to do, but they’ve…
Bus courtesy
Thank you to the gentleman with his hands full who gave up his bus seat to me, an able bodied young women. You may have noticed my concern of hitting the young girl seated near me with my large purse, or my inability to keep my balance—but either way thank you. Your courtesy showed what…
Glamoflage courage
I should have done this much sooner… You came over to tell me you think I’m cute (after your friend ran reconnaissance), but I didn’t stop dancing to talk. I looked for you at the end of the night because I wanted to tell you how awesome that was. Approaching a random person to give…
The Western Common is a colossal mess
I often hike around the Five Bridges Lakes Wilderness. The Bluff Wilderness Trail is simply amazing, but lately I’ve been poking around the Old Coach Road, which was a 19th century stage road across the Chebucto Peninsula. The remaining bits of the Old Coach Road stretch from the Indian Lake Golf Course in Goodwood to…
Class
I’ve watched as some people on here have been nasty through “loves” and “bitches.” Even made comments myself on what I thought about the situation. What I noticed is that even though you have been called terrible names such as BITCH and stalker, you never said anything mean in return. What shows the character of…
Tea time!
To the dude with the totally rad red beard/hair at the awesome tea shop on Spring Garden: Thank you once again for your generosity on Tuesday, I was short on my purchase and you told me you would cover it and not to worry. You put a smile on my face and now I am…
Oh, to be great in my own mind
Oh yes, I am a certain person, that thinks I’m great, but only in my little mind. Gee, how come no one wants to play with me anymore? Seems that all my woes and ailments are falling on deaf ears, does nobody care, oh woe is me? There are times when I think that all…
My first girl crush
You work in the same building as me and I’ve only seen you a few times but god, I can’t stop thinking about you. I think my heart stops every time you walk in the room. Those tattoos are amazing. I’m supposed to be straight. But now I am questioning that. I know you’re only…
Welcome to Halifax
Recently moved to Halifax and just have to mention that it is the most sexist city in Canada. Their only defense if you point it out is you took it the wrong way. Just because you are too ignorant to acknowledge it doesn’t make it right. My mind is blown coming here. Grow up Halifax!!!…
De minimis non curat lex (legal principle)
Where there are irregularities of very slight consequence, it does not intend that the infliction of penalties should be inflexibly severe. If the deviation were a mere trifle, which, if continued in practice, would weigh little or nothing on the public interest, it might properly be overlooked. In other words, if the mayor Rob Ford…
EXCUSE ME, but where are YOUR manners?
I was entering a store in Cole Harbour, and as far as I could tell, no one else was coming into the store. I saw no one in my periphery, and heard no footsteps behind me. When I was in the store a lady starting calling “Oh my God. RUDE RUDE.” I turned and realized…
Learn some pool etiquette moron!!!
Hey hot dog with the silver swimming goggles on, yeah you, the one with the hand gear on as well. This morning when you took over the slow swimming lane to prove what a flash you are in the pool you nearly drowned a couple older swimmers. One guy is 89 and just had a…
I am sorry for what people are saying about you
Why would everyone keep calling you a loser? I know you feel you don’t have much to offer. So here’s a poem to cheer you up: Oh dear, or dear, what should you do? Your life is a mess and you should feel blue You are quite pitiful and not at all bright, you can…
Dollar store girl
You met me at the dollar store in Dartmouth.You told me I had pretty eyes. I said “So do you and that’s a pretty dress you’re wearing.” You were going to a wedding you said. I said :Are you getting married?” You said “NO. I’m divorced.” You were the prettiest woman I’d seen in a…
So glad my mom never had a cell phone!
To the young mother with the two beautiful toddlers on the 64 leaving the bridge terminal just before 4pm on Tuesday: If you take your earbuds out you can actually hear your young child trying to talk to you! I really don’t understand what is wrong with some parents these days. Every day I am…
Good vibrations to the rotary lady
Good vibes to the nice lady on the rotary that told us our brake lights weren’t working—just when I lose my faith in humanity, someone retores it—thanks so much for making us aware of this potential hazard. —A Grateful Passenger
Big Truck > Bicycle
To the cyclists in this city: take some responsibility for your safety. Don’t be stupid and buy the $3 red light you clip onto your backpack because you think you’re meeting the minimum traffic standard. When I pull out, my truck is much larger than you are. If I can’t see you, I will win.…
Christmas roadblock
I realize Christmas Daddies is a good cause which is why I call in and donate to it every year. I also go to my family’s house to watch it. This time I was late. I assumed there was a huge accident on the Bedford Highway because cars were backed up as far as I…
Tired of couriers
I’m so tired of courier guys coming in to work and hitting on me, especially a new courier who works in the west end of Halifax. He comes in and hits on me, I must admit I grew fond of him and it seemed the feelings where mutual. I decided to look him up on…
Too many loser shitbags in this city
To the shitbag(s) who broke into my SUV, I hope you enjoy the $1.50 in change you got. I especially hope you enjoy the two coffee cards you stole… Joke is on you loser, one hasn’t been reloaded so the balance is ZERO and the other has $0.45 cents…enjoy. —Laughing at the Losers
Windy out
So I end up going home with this chick. Met her through work. Dated a few times. Ended up at my place and we get into a romp. We are in the rack going at it 69 and she farted right in my face. Not like a massive loud thunderous clap… just a regular “Oh…
Childish and sad
Being composed and cool isn’t an ice queen act, it’s called being an adult. You enjoy hurling your toxic shit like toys from your stroller, dear. —Happy in Spite of Your Best Efforts
Say hello to Oliver’s
Sherry Smithers has certainly blazed a food-trail around the HRM. The original owner of Ducky’s on the Waterfront, which she ran for 10 years before selling in 2007, and the brains behind Alderney Landing’s Oliver’s Deli has most recently given Bedford a taste of her long-loved cooking. In case you hadn’t heard Oliver’s Casual Dining…
Top ten reasons to go to No Reason For The Season
Tomorrow this is happening. The fourth annual No Reason For The Season (Saturday, December 8 at the Khyber, 1588 Barrington, 10pm, $7). Featuring Bad Vibrations, Dyscontrol, Psychic Fair and JFM you really shouldn’t need any convincing, but here’s a fun list for you anyhow. Reason #10 Your apartment is cold and you need the body…
Divorce season
Isn’t it crazy how often this bitter and bleak season can inspire you to not leave the house. Divorce Records apparently recognizes how much better being a shut-in can be if you’ve got great music, its Into the Darkness and Cold makes it real easy for you to work on your record collection in time…
Cloudburst‘s home run
Local director Thom Fitzgerald’s feature film Cloudburst has burned through the festival circuit since its release in 2011, snagging awards left, right and centre, winning the audience award at the 2011 Atlantic Film Festival, following that up with 25 more audience awards at film festivals all over the world. Starring Oscar-winners Olympia Dukakis and Brenda…
Cheers to your beers, Garrison
It’s been 15 years of great beers at Garrison. And to celebrate that, the Halifax brewery has added yet another rich brew to its resume. Today the 15th Anniversary Malt, Vanilla & Cocoa makes its way into the brewery and onto many a weekend shopping list. The perfect warming beer for the winter season, the…
Halifax and youth crime: a case study
“People have every reason to be angry about this case,” writes judge Jamie Campbell at the beginning of a 38-page decision involving a 17-year-old boy who was involved in the brutal killing of an elderly woman in Dartmouth two years ago. I could write much about this situation, but I prefer to simply post the…
Sugah’s got good taste
Sweets, wine and beer: these are a few of Sugah’s favourite things, and tonight the confectionery is celebrating the most wonderful of flavours with its Holiday Tasting Spectacular. Accompany your stocking shopping with samples from local vineyard Avondale Sky (and its winemaker Ben Swetnam who’ll be on hand for tips and questions), pair your sweet…
Second Storey time
If there’s one thing we can all be sure of this holiday season, it’s that Halifax loves second-hand. One of the newest additions to the burgeoning scene, Second Storey, (1526 Queen Street) is tucked away in a small corner on a nondescript second floor on the section of Queen Street that should be better known…
Do-nothing council: more pay but less work
City councillors recently received a bump in their pay, and are now receiving just over $77,000 annually. The work load at city council meetings, however, has been slashed to unprecedented lows. In the four meetings since the October elections, council has dealt with just one significant issue: the Skye Halifax proposal. Otherwise, the collective council…
NintendoLand
The shiny new Nintendo console is out, and there’s no better way to show it off than the NintendoLand compilation. A collection of 12 mini-games illustrates how the WiiU’s controller, the touch-screen, motion enabled quasi-tablet works. And it works pretty well. The game is at it’s best when you’re playing with a group (who use…
Give Guide 2012
Every year at holiday time, The Coast produces a Give Guide to help connect readers with worthy local charities. There are of course many, many charities dealing with a range of issues, and we encourage you to give the charities that feel right to you. But there has been a series of events this year—the…
The Snow Child
From the snowy mountains and harsh landscape of Alaska comes The Snow Child. Inspired by the Russian fairy tale of the same name, the novel follows elderly couple Mabel and Jack who, upon suffering the ultimate tragedy—the loss of their child—escape their friends and family, move to the middle of nowhere, and attempt to make…
Camelot, the Panto
Every year at this time, the Theatre Arts Guild pulls out all the stops with its family pantomime. The shows are consistently delightful, filled with music, comedy and with plenty of opportunity for audience participation. This year’s offering, Camelot, the Panto, may well be my favourite of the many pantos I’ve seen at TAG. Veteran…
Poison Shy
Brandon Galloway is an exterminator living in a depressed Ontario town, whose life consists of killing a six pack and trying to care for his schizophrenic mother. That all changes when he meets Melanie Blaxley after spraying her apartment for bedbugs. Melanie has a penchant for getting blackout drunk, having unprotected sex with strangers and…
Year of rad
You know how cool Ice Cube sounds when he says he had a good day? Imagine if he’d had a good year. For a collective of musicians from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec, 2012 has been a super productive 365 days. They reunite on Friday for a real pal party at Gus’ Pub. As…
Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made
Over seven summers in the 1980s, a couple of kids named Eric Zala and Chris Strompolos painstakingly recreated Raiders of the Lost Ark in its entirety on Super-8 film, utilizing crude homemade special effects and a cast of neighbourhood kids. The often-tortured production is lovingly chronicled in Alan Eisenstock’s book, which plays out like a…
Modern men
After moving to Halifax three years ago, singer-songwriter Tom Terrell went about making friends in the city’s modest bluegrass and roots scene. Meeting a group of like-minded musicians eager to release an album, he formed The Modern Grass in November 2010 in the hopes of recording a one-off Christmas album. Holed up in Halifax’s Fort…
Dirty Projectors
Often a year-end EP release serves as a cleansing of inferior material. This is thankfully avoided with Dirty Projectors’ About to Die EP, as the art-rock band continues its evolution into more melody-friendly terrain. Since the sunshine-pop title track was already a highlight on the magnificent Swing Lo Magellan, it’s easily the best song here.…
Someone special
Rose Cousins will be fresh off a tour with Ari Hest when she makes her way to The Carleton for her three-day spread early next week. And touring with Hest was all kinds of awesome. “He’s freaking dreamy,” says Cousins. “I wish his voice was a sleeping bag and I could crawl into it.” It’s…
Needles//Pins
Vancouver’s Needles//Pins kicks off 12:34 with the somewhat nihilistic “I Don’t Mind” (which appears to be a testament to the healing powers of a hook-up) and the rest of the album shimmies along accordingly. Needles//Pins is strumming our pain and embarrassment through tight garage songs, chronicling drunk-dials, hating on exes, getting too high, getting the…
Spotlight on schizophrenia
Last April, Andre Denny received a one-hour unescorted pass from the East Coast Forensic Hospital. The next day, he was charged with the second-degree murder of gay activist Raymond Taavel. Denny has paranoid schizophrenia. He was committed to the forensic hospital after being found not criminally responsible on a charge of assault causing bodily harm…
Steven MacDougall
The lead singer from Slowcoaster steps forward with substantial Cape Breton support, with tunes designed to make you hum later at unexpected moments. On first listen, MacDougall sounds like a poppier version of Gordie Sampson, who co-wrote “Don’t Hold Your Breath.” Jamie Foulds (Remember Realworld?) produces and plays piano. JP Cormier also pitches in. The…
Shirley Jackson & her Good Rockin’ Daddys
On their third full-length album, Jackson & the Daddys stretch out to let all seven pieces show what they can do. Guitarist Marc Doucet is a scorcher when given an opening. The title track features Dave Harrison on trumpet, Dawn Hatfield on baritone and Jackson on tenor saxes, each soloing amiably and economically. An engaging…
Poly wants all the crackers
A Sometimes I kick the proverbial hornet’s nest intentionally—”bullshit in the Bible,” for instance—and sometimes I kick the hornet’s nest accidentally. I honestly didn’t expect the outraged response I got after I wrote that poly wasn’t a sexual identity in the “sexual orientation” sense of the term. Some people identify as poly, of course, just…
Playing for Keeps
Women continue to enjoy the presence of Gerard Butler, which is just one of dozens of baffling, uninteresting aspects to the pathetically titled Playing for Keeps. Butler stars as that failed sports star in every town that was once bound for glory before reality crashed his life into an endless wasteland of banging housewives. Luckily…
Olde School
If you’re as weary as I am of having your holiday mixed to the tune of last year’s Bieber Christmas album then Réjouissance’s fourth annual Christmas concert is appearing at Bethany United Church just in the nick of time. “Réjouissance,” just FYI, is French for “rejoicing” and that’s exactly what you’ll be doing if you…
Cloudburst
It’s always refreshing to see an aging couple star in a movie, and even more so when the couple in question is a lesbian couple, Stella and Dot (Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker)—the former liberates the latter from a nursing home so they can elope in Nova Scotia (it is directed by Thom Fitzgerald, after…
Generation Change
“We want to help everyone out there who feels like they have no one—we want to put a stop to all bullying,” says Toni Nicholas, a 14-year-old student from Dartmouth. Nicholas was inspired by the tragic suicide of Amanda Todd to start Generation Change, an anti-bullying initiative for people in HRM. It started as a…
Building a working life
It hasn’t always been easy for Cathy Finley. After years of battling mental illness, she wound up in the hospital in 2009. After that, it was a struggle trying to re-establish herself in the working world. “My occupational therapist thought LakeCity would be an excellent place,” Finley says. “I had never known of them.” That…
Arirang’s rice dreams
SUSHI REVOLUTION. The words are big and bold, lit by the dull glow of a neon “open” sign in the windows of Arirang. The revolution is a quiet one: the dining room is empty when we arrive. We are quickly greeted by a smiling server, who ushers us to a table and hands us menus.…
Acid river
In the 1980s, acid rain was a wake-up call. The idea that the sky could open up and rain poison on us, and it was our own fault for being energy pigs—it’s mainly caused by sulfur and nitrogen compounds from electricity production, cars and factories—was a shocker. Acid rain’s impacts were obvious. It killed animals…
Free Will Astrology
Happy Birthday! SAGITTARIUS (NOVEMBER 22-DECEMBER 21) If you thoroughly shuffle a deck of cards, the novel arrangement you create is probably unique in all of human history; its specific order has never before occurred. I suspect the same principle applies to our lives: Each new day brings a singular set of circumstances that neither you…
Youth and mental illness
Suffering for years from depression and psychosis, Michael Smith was finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2006. After six months in the Nova Scotia Hospital in 2008, he heard about Laing House. He says dropping by was one of the best decisions he’s ever made. “Initially, it seemed like the only place I could go.…
Game theory
Can video games be art? Film critic Roger Ebert once infamously stated that “no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists,” and that “Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an…
De-stigmatizing mental illness
Much of the direct help for people suffering from mental illness comes through government-funded programs. We’ve directed your attention to several of the charities that work in social and community support roles around that work, in hopes that you would contribute your time and money to help those groups. Yet one of the biggest obstacles…
Weightless World
They are weightless, majestic and beautiful. The women in Steve Richard’s The Sensual World float in a dark, mysterious world. Through elaborate staging, Richard successfully gives a modern spin to the classic aesthetic of the female body in his underwater fine art photography. The models pose in flat water with a black background and velvet…
Mailbag December 6 2012
Market values “It was unrealistic to think that a three-hour farmers’ market could immediately turn into a seven-day-a-week operation,” says Frank Schwartz (“Investors may be ‘toast,’” Reality Bites by Tim Bousquet, November 29). Finally, someone said it. When they first said that the Seaport Farmers’ Market was going to run all week, my first thought…
Go for Gold
Pull out last year’s glitzy New Year’s outfit that you thought you’d never wear again and stock your wallet with good will because it’s time to put your money where your eyes are and level up. “We try to focus our fundraising so that we don’t have to nag people throughout the year,” says gallery…
