Letters to the Editor
Wondering what the real motive is behind this ‘all of a sudden we have a litter problem and we care about it’, economics folks, tourism, plain and simple, they don’t give a shit about you the haligonian but they definetly care about tourists and the money they bring, they have to create the illusion that…
Letters to the Editor
Wondering what the real motive is behind this ‘all of a sudden we have a litter problem and we care about it’, economics folks, tourism, plain and simple, they don’t give a shit about you the haligonian but they definetly care about tourists and the money they bring, they have to create the illusion that…
Lucky 13
One of the most relevant festivals in this province kicks off tonight as the On the Waterfront Theatre Festival and its junior (yeah, we went there) fest Kids on the Waterfront turn lucky number 13. (Same as The Coast! Coincidence? Um, yeah, but we like our pointless statistics. Fourteen percent of our readers know this.)…
Dog Days of May
Halifax alternative rock’s leading buzz act completed tracking for its sophomore record this past weekend. The latest effort from Dog Day—as of yet untitled—is described by guitarist and vocalist Seth Smith as being, among other things, darker and less “boppy” than last year’s EP. “We’re more of a band, I think, this album. It’s definitely…
Canadian pie
Rob Shedden has a new business selling organic vegan pies at the Farmers’ Market. Operating under the name of Waudie’s, Shedden shares space with Selwood Green Organics in the Market courtyard. Shedden’s pies are all made using his grandmother’s pastry recipe, but he substitutes palm oil for butter to make them vegan. Shedden plans to…
The skatepark cometh
Last week, dirt-pushing machines appeared on the Halifax Common to break ground on the new $500,000 skatepark backed by the Halifax Skatepark Coalition. According to Coalition director/chairperson Jacquie Thillaye, the hope is that the new park will be fully skateable by mid-summer. “We’re looking at a two-to-three-month build schedule,” she says. The existing skatepark will…
Where the wind blows
To the editor, I was surprised by Mike Fleury’s rosy-spectacled comments about wind power in Reality Bites (April 20). It seems Mr. Fleury is quite happy to buy into the current “greenwash” around alternative energy that our provincial government and Nova Scotia Power are selling the public these days. Recently, the provincial government has been…
Don’t believe the hype
To The Coast, Man, I never write in to reply to editorials, but Kyle Shaw’s “The mess is the message” (April 20) made me think. Starting from scratch on global warming is exactly what we need. There have been so many conflicting predictions about what global warming has, is or is about to do. Look…
Et tu, Brute?
To the editor, While I was surprised by the fact that the Canadian media largely ignored Stephen Harper’s discontinuation of the One-Tonne Challenge (how do you cancel a challenge?) and took a blase attitude toward Earth Day (April 22) this year, I was downright shocked that the same went for The Coast. Where are your…
Major withdrawal
There’s a banking boom of sorts happening on Gottingen Street. For years the Pharmasave had the street’s only ATM, but now cash machines abound. Near the Gerrish intersection, Joe’s Market, Kit Kat Pizza and the Gottingen Food Market each have one. Further north around Almon, both Needs and Israel Convenience host machines. They’re in a…
Bilge and purge
Once, maybe twice a year you see it on the news. Seabirds on the Atlantic coast, dead and dying, covered with an oily mess, the result of foreign cargo and other ships deliberately dumping bilge oils—the slimy crap that accumulates in the bottom of the ship while at sea—into the ocean. They do so off…
Head games
Does fooling around with numbers make you math-savvy? It must. I convinced myself—a grade 11 honours student—I just “couldn’t do” math. I’ve been using a calculator ever since and now, guess what? I actually can’t do math. My multiplication tables have been erased to make space for information I access more often (Dharma Sushi’s phone…
The trials of Dr. Horne
Her first “light-bulb moment” occurred sometime on a Friday morning in the spring of 1999, probably in the stairwell between her tiny, windowless office on the second floor of the new Halifax Infirmary and the hospital’s Heart Function Clinic two flights up. Dr. Gabrielle Horne was on call at the clinic that morning—the nurses would…
The full Nelson
If Hollywood wanted an archetypal rags to riches storyline, it would be hard-pressed to conceive a more sweeping character than Willie Nelson—singer, hit songwriter, actor, outlaw, author, spiritualist, pot advocate and music industry survivor. Rooted in the rich traditions of country music, blues, swing jazz and Tin Pan Alley show tunes, Nelson’s music has never…
Brick
There’s growing attention on the teenage noir Brick. The low-budget debut (shot for only $500,000) of writer and director Rian Johnson has been anticipated as the next big thing since its 2005 Sundance premiere. It’s easy to foresee impressionable filmgoers holding it up as definitive, but Johnson doesn’t deliver much beyond the initial novelty. @body…
On the lamb
Lamb lovers, rejoice, for spring is here and Nova Scotia lamb is close at hand. Sure, that frozen New Zealand stuff is available year round, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But to really enjoy lamb, you need to get some of the homegrown stuff. My first experience with local lamb came years ago: I…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Use your ingenuity to keep from being burned out by the daily grind, Aries, says Rob Brezsny.
SAVAGE LOVE
Dan Savage takes a hard line.
Tool time
Spring Garden is usually a pretty desolate place on Mondays at midnight. All the shops are closed, few restaurants and bars remain open and most people would prefer to sleep off the first day of work than carouse on a street corner in the dark—especially if it’s pissing rain. This wasn’t the case on May…
INXceSsive
Once upon a time, in the misty years before the internet, integrity was the currency of rock and roll. It was something rock bands lived and breathed, to be all about the music and the fan loyalty and yet also try to make a living in a business famous for leaving the weak to die…
Flight plan
On September 11, 2001, at 10:03am, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Forty-four on board died. United 93, the movie about that flight, was released last Friday, 1,670 days later. It is, of course, not too soon to release a movie about the fourth plane to crash that day. United 93 is the…
Pawn shop blues – Page 2
I always wear it in the way she said will draw people to me. Funny thing, this ring. I haven’t noticed a marked difference in my life. Seems to me I attract and repel people pretty much the way I always have. With a look or a gesture, or a few well-chosen words. For sure,…
On the waterfront
Cirque de CJThe cult of celebrity is alive and well in HRM. This is a town where local weather girl Cindy Day can barely get a cup of coffee in peace and where audiences who shun other homegrown shows will come out with bells on for Cathy Jones’ Cirque de CJ. For the most part,…
