Letters to the Editor
To all the protestors at SMU Thursday afternoon: As a bystander and current student at SMU, I saw a good portion of the protest on campus, and I felt the need to comment. I found it rather disturbing that a lot of protestors were holding signs that said something along the lines of “Religion is…
Letters to the Editor
www.freechrisdabrowski.org By free the man
ANABLOG
We shrieked with delight when a normally dreaded email forward fell into our inbox yesterday. The subject: Interview Opportunity with ELLEgirl Editor in Chief Christina Kelly. Anablog devotees know of our admiration for the formidable Ms. Kelly — the curmudgeonly guiding force of the late, great Sassy magazine; a bastion of credibility in the early…
Late-breaking news
As of press time, word was the city will lease The Khyber Club space to the Khyber Arts Society until February 19 after all, as previously agreed. What will happen after that date is still up in the air. Stay tuned. Search them What began as the fusion of musical talents between three New Brunswick…
Powerful moves
PowerPost Production is moving from its current locations at 1649 Brunswick (in NSCAD’s Academy building) and 2507 Brunswick to the Centennial building at the corner of Sackville and Hollis. “It’s been a long time coming for us,” says owner Rob Power. “We’ve gone though buildings all over the city and this turned out to be…
It ain’t pretty…
You, and many others, have taken comfort from the overall liberalness of the new Liberal/Bloc/ NDP opposition in Parliament. Within limits, I would agree with you. The rub—and it’s a big one—will come along the fault line where national social policy intersects with Quebec nationalism. In areas involving national standards, the Blocs’ progressiveness will run…
Where the wind blows
Dear Kyle Shaw, In the February 2 Upfront, you state that there are “…three left-leaning parties holding the bulk of seats in parliament.” Three? The NDP and Bloc, sure. The Liberals? Please don’t tell me you’ve fallen for their campaign rhetoric! How about their record? From 1993 to 2004, they made Brian Mulroney look like a…
Proof is in the pudding
To the editor, At a recent public lecture by Scott Taylor I could forgive the Halifax Peace Coalition for highjacking the audience while introducing him; after all, they were a sponsor. I could not, however, pardon their blatant effort to deceive the audience. Armed with a handout, the HPC “proved” that the federal government budgets…
Who’s the hoser?
To the editor, I recently read the article “Fire Hosed” in your last issue and I would love to support Chris Dabrowski!! I know exactly what he is going through, as I had rented an apartment from the very same landlord and had nothing but a nightmare from day one. I couldn’t begin to tell…
Letters to the Editor
To the editor, I am dismayed and disgusted by the insinuation that censoring the Danish Muslim cartoons is akin to blocking minority group rights. I think that some people are confused over whose rights are being violated. A bomb in today’s world implies terrorism: an action of extreme violence against the innocent. Depicting a bomb…
My bloody Valentine
About 15 years ago, I decided that I hated Valentine’s Day. I’d spent the day wading through wave after wave of nauseating treats—flowers delivered to classmates, candygram tables in the student union building and those stupid, stupid heart-shaped foil balloons—each of them obviously intended for someone other than me. Each of them reminding me that…
Behind the music
The love song. It is the single most powerful form of expression in musical language. Don’t believe me? Case in point: Chris Martin, a lanky, crook-toothed Brit fresh out of university transformed into a sensitive heartthrob with “Yellow,” a cleverly sappy song that compared the colour of the stars to being in love. From your…
Lying in wait
Long before Oprah bitch-slapped James Frey for the semi-truths in his memoir Million Little Pieces, confessional poetry—made famous in the 1960s by Sylvia Plath, Allen Ginsberg and Anne Sexton—tinkered and toyed with autobiographical truth-telling. Written in “I,” confessional poetry draws on the author’s own deeply personal and often painful experiences. Some critics claim these wordsmiths…
Let me count the ways
Love defies definition. As one of those universal truths we all hold dear, it’s a huge concept that people, time and again, try to boil down or reduce to an easy and digestible idea. So why do people bother trying to nail it down? People try to define love for different reasons, although you can…
Hot type
I’m 35. I’m single. You’d think those two facts together wouldn’t be terribly profound; they’re certainly not unusual, but it does feel like a strange place in which I find myself, and I’ve gone to lengths to change this situation. A year ago I was living with a woman. We were talking about having a…
Love actually
“I’m lookin’ at your face and I just wanna smash it,” says Barry. “I just wanna fuckin’ smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You’re so pretty.” “I want to chew your face,” says Lena. “And I want to scoop out your eyes and I want to eat them and chew them and suck…
Tower of song
At this point in time you could say Canadian song has reached a pinnacle—Leonard Cohen shedding tears as he considered his own journey up the tower of song during his recent induction in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. It was a lovely moment for a highly deserving artist and exemplar to younger artists everywhere.…
That Thing he does
Daniel MacIvor likes the use of the word genesis. As co-writer and co-star of Whole New Thing, opening February 10 in Halifax, he’s well-aware of the good fortune that brought this project together. Working on the script with the movie’s director, Amnon Buchbinder, Whole New Thing was written in two weeks. In an industry where…
When a Stranger Calls/Final Destination 3
At the beginning of the remake of When a Stranger Calls, the camera cranes above a suburban house, where a girl is being attacked inside, until we see an amusement park lit up behind it. A division is made between the agony of being scared and the fun of being scared. That’s as far as…
Smith’s-tastic
I remember being in Smith’s Bakery a long time ago; it was a cluttered, crowded storefront with a jumbled assortment of cake decorations and other baking supplies for sale, and everywhere was the intoxicating smell of fresh bread. The baking bread smells wafted out onto the street and drew you in to find an amazing…
Whither wine?
Candlelight, a bottle of wine, the person you love…it sounds like a recipe for a great Valentine’s Day. But the price of a good bottle of wine can be prohibitive. If you’d rather save your pennies for that bouquet of red roses, you might want to consider making your own wine. According to Jeremy Strong,…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
The harder you have to work this week, Aquarius, the happier you’ll be, says Rob Brezsny.
SAVAGE LOVE
Don’t bother text-messaging Dan Savage.
Daily drama
“Journalism is a state of mind. It’s a way of looking at the world.” The speaker? None other than Eddie Greenspon, editor-in-chief of Toronto’s national newspaper, known in the trade as the Mop & Pail. The Chief Mopster was addressing King’s journalism students last week just days after the Halifax Daily News laid off eight…
Lovesome town
Piping hot I don’t know how juicy it is, but my now fiancee and I met six years ago. I was having plumbing problems; there was water everywhere. I looked like a drowned rat. I called a plumber and George came to the door and fixed the pipes. We chatted the whole time. He had…
Board games
Ah, life on the Canadian National Snowboard team. It’s waking up in the French Alps, and hanging out at the most chi-chi of European ski resorts. It’s photo-ops and media sessions. It’s making friends with fellow athletes from Austria, Finland and Japan. It’s personal trainers and top-line medical care. It’s, it’s… “It’s a lot of…
How the West was numb
The Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus went up in flames Saturday at the hands of protesters angry about a dozen caricatures of the prophet Muhammad making the rounds in the European press. Demonstrations also took place in Gaza City, London and Lahore. Protesters were shot to death Monday in two Afghan cities, more Tuesday.…
The Khyboshed Club
the chalkboard that hangs above the bar of the Khyber Club says everything: “The HRM has decided to close The Khyber Club. Saturday, February 4, is it. No, we don’t know why.” In spite of an agreement made by the city to keep the bar open until February 20, Heather Gibson, manager of The Khyber…
The cleaner
Instead of a doctor for premier, Nova Scotia will have a fisherman. It’s not that John Hamm, now stepping down to make way for the winner of this weekend’s Progressive Conservative convention, brought his stethoscope to work (but the image was used over and over by political cartoonists), or that there’ll be a lobster in…
