Cuban Assassins and Myles Deck and the Fuzz found that cooperation makes it happen
Cuban Assassins The two bands release their split 7inch at Gus’ Pub this Friday, November 27 with The Dead Pinkertons and The Nuclear ($6).
Halifax’s “tax reform” favours wealthy with higher value homes
A report released by city officials overseeing the so-called “tax reform” proposal could not have been better designed to inflame urban vs. suburban strife. The one-page document, which was handed out at a Tuesday workshop for councillors, shows the effects of “tax reform” by electoral district averages. For example, using 2007 numbers, under “tax reform”…
A good old fashioned crosswalk bitch
Who the hell thinks of putting a crosswalk (actually 2) on one of the busiest roads in the HRM – Spring Garden. Theres fuckin lights 20 feet down road. Also, when you are stopped at these things the flow of poeple is nonstop. Fuck you crosswalks.—Jim the Hammer
Corn
You know what really grinds my gears? The people at the grocery stores who feel they have the right to go up to a pile of corn husks and tear them apart right there in the grocery store to check the kernels. What a fucking mess. I don’t even eat corn and this offends me.…
To that motherfucking beast that left that mess on my lawn
What the fuck? I come out of my house, and I SEE A FUCKING DEAD CROW ON MY LAWN! Feathers all over the damn place, the wing all fucked up. Whatever the hell did this, tore out its chest, and pretty much ate it alive, leaving this mass of red gunk from its chest, all…
To the more of a someone than most everybody else.
I want for you to know what you want, and then tell me. Although I do love you anyway, even if it is just a friendly love. Confused or otherwise.—?
Harper and His Conservative Bible Thumbing army at it again
Here we go with the Christian bible thumbing army using one thing to take away the rights for all of us. Oh save the kids, no more child porn. This is clearly a case of Harper and his useless tits in government to get started on the ISP invading the privacy rights of all Canadians…
Parade of Litter
I recently moved to Halifax and decided to take in the Parade of Lights, and I was absolutely disgusted by the amount of litter left along the curb by parade attendees. Come on Halifax! The city just put on a parade for your enjoyment- you attended- so why not show a little gratitude by picking…
New location for Core Essentials in Dartmouth
Living in Dartmouth and feeling as though you deserve some added wellness? Core Essentials Fitness & Sport Conditioning has moved into a new space (50 Queen Street, 830-8052, in the Union Protection Building, the same place as Carousel Rubber Stamps) and call themselves “HRMs most holistic personal training studio.” Expect to find fitness training of…
bus load of bitch
To the bearded fool who was yelling at his girlfriend, FUCK YOU. I heard you say she made you miss the bus? Who cares? She was obviously trying not to set you off any further and looked extremely upset as she was taking an earful of your bullshit. You made a complete dick out of…
Get the fuck out!
To everyone who whines, and complains about how much Halifax/Nova Scotia sucks, and how terrible it is: If you don’t like it, MOVE!!! May I suggest going to a third world, improvished country so you having something legitimate to bitch about. —I love this town
To a wonderful sort of person
I’m in love with you in a funny sort of way. I’m in love and in a relationship with someone else quite happily. But I admire you from a distance – or up close, when we have our great discussions – and am so happy to know you, and a little bit crazy about you,…
2 Awesome Girls
To the 2 lovely girls working at the convenience store on Coburg Road last night: you did the right thing by kicking out that drunk moron who insulted you by saying “someone call the fashion police” and destroying everything in sight while you dealt with the parade of lights crowd. that guy was an asshole…
Screw You Copy Girl
Thanks to the copy girl at Staples in Dartmouth Crossing Sunday who kept me waiting for 30 min while she watched the copies roll off the photocopier for 30 min and then told me they couldn’t do what I needed on a Sunday.—Frustrated by Lack of Common Sense in Society
Lame-Ass Parade
I definately wasn’t the only one who thought that attending the Parade of Lights was a huge waste of time… People were LEAVING all over the place! Oh my God Halifax, put on a better show… 10mins between floats? Sooo ridiculous! I won’t be wasting my time next year that’s fo sho.—Me
Bike-unfriendly barriers, Dartmouth waterfront trail.
[image-1] What’s wrong? Bike-unfriendly barriers, Dartmouth waterfront trail. Who’s responsible? Terry Drisdelle, Waterfront Development Corporation, 422-5115. REMARKS The new “chicanes” were required by CN, says Drisdelle, because travelling through them requires facing one direction, then the opposite, so that it’s almost impossible to not see that one train a day rolling at five km/hr down…
Did Hillier’s “murderers and scumbags” comment encourage Canadian arrests of innocent Afghans?
Rick Hillier, former chief of the Canadian defence staff, dodged questions in Halifax on Saturday about the torture of prisoners handed over by the Canadian military to the Afghan intelligence service. Hillier was asked by The Coast why the Canadian forces followed a cumbersome six-step method of informing the International Red Cross each time a…
To the needy drunk who came into a store on Saturday
We think that there are a few lessons you need to learn unless you would like to stay a man-child forever. 1) Just because you are drunk doesn’t mean that you can smash bags of chips on the floor in a store and drink entire bottles of Gatorade without paying for them. 2) Your behaviour…
Christmas Parade Smackdown!
Why is it that when people have children they become total assholes to the people around them? Last week it was some dude with his kid shoving his way through the crowd at Grand Parade and this week it’s a group of rude parents at the Christmas Parade. I’m standing at the curb on Spring…
To the poltergeist in my house…
… Please stop throwing shit about.– Cant.Sleep
Why does my coworker have to be such a douche?
I may be a little out of it but when you go to work aren’t you supposed to actually do something all day long related to the job you’ve been hired to do? My coworker is a total douchebag. They have perfected the art of doing the least amount physically possible during the day and…
Theatre Review: Return Ticket: Halifax-Abadan-Halifax
There’s a point in Return Ticket where it really hits home that playwright Shahin Sayadi (played by Theo Pitsiavas) has put himself in danger by returning to his hometown in Iran. He has been interviewing people for a play he hopes to write about his uncle, a “sacred martyr” in government terms, but an intriguing,…
No sleep in Fairview
To the assholes who decided it’s appropriate to have construction continue all night long on the Fairview Overpass, Thanks for the great decision. There’s nothing like the sound of jackhammers at 2AM (and 3AM and 4AM…) to really lull a person to sleep. I know that apparently you’re behind schedule because of some screw-up with…
the road that fell from orbit
As usual, the patch jobs and roads around Halifax look like they were built by some walmart type contractor in space, and then dropped from orbit to become what they are now. Space garbage. Does anyone in Nova Scotia really know how to build a road? Ever heard of concrete HRM? It works better than…
Lane/BLVD Hoppers at Bridges
WTF while the rest of us wait in traffic you go around the boulevard to make an illegal right turn. Why is your time more important than ours? May the Traffic Fairies piss down on you when tou least expect it!— Tired of being bypassed
sleepy head =)
all i can say is wow, there is something about you that just makes me smile..and i cant even help it. i am so attracted to you!! every time you leave, you look right at me with those sexy piercing eyes and give me this little grin that makes my heart melt. i even start…
Spam in the psst section
The stupid ads in the PSST section are getting annoying. Hey ‘Coast, fix that shit!—ILTRAPP
Shoot somewhere else
To the fucking people who are crowding the Killam right now playing counterstrike on campus computers. GO THE FUCK HOME. People are trying to study, and you guys are shouting who to shoot next across the learning commons. Some people want to get some work done.—The Anatomy of the Ear is Hard Enough
Disaster
What the hell happened to you over the past couple weeks. Your facelift is an absolute abomination to my cozy neighbourhood pub. The hideaway booths tucked into the back were the ideal meeting spot for everyone’s secret rendezvous. The old wooden pillars around the bar brought character and life to the place. Now that it’s…
To Mr. Short-changed and Short-tempered
This is to the man who insisted on being a complete and utter jerk at my counter – not once, but twice – over the passed week or so… I did not short-change you. If I had made a mistake, I would have happily (and rather apologetically) fixed it for you. I didn’t appreciate, however,…
Yet Another H1N1 Bitch. Sorry But….
No I do not plan on getting the vaccine. And no, that does not automatically place me as public health enemy number 1. Allow me to point something out you fucking sheep. Just because you got the vaccine does NOT mean you won’t get the H1N1 flu. Yes, it probably will reduce the severity of…
recycling in blue bags
Having just moved here from New York, I’m confused at to why I have to buy a blue trash bag just so I can throw it away when I put out my recycling. This blue bag idea must have been thought up by someone who does not really want Halifax to recycle. Can we get…
Effluent from the sea
I have had it this awful city and I haven’t been able to properly word how I feel until I looked Halifax up on urbandictionary.com. Everything written below accurately describes my feelings for Halifax. Enjoy 🙂 “The capital of Nova Scotia and the largest city in Atlantic coast Canada. Also the dreariest place in Canada,…
What the wow? The Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock in Halifax
Finding a decent picture of Glen Matlock is no picnic Billed as: “An intimate performance from the man who penned such classic songs as, ‘Pretty Vacant,’ ‘God Save The Queen,’ and ‘Anarchy In The UK,'” Glen Matlock (The Sex Pistols, The Rich Kids, Vicious White Kids, The Philistines, The Flying Padovanis, Slinky Vagabond) comes to…
A little ditty I wrote for Last Call Chernobyl
Last Call Chernobyl won the Warped Tour competition,Last Call Chernobyl won the Warped Tour competition,Last Call Chernobyl won the Warped Tour competition,And they are too busy to answer my dumb questions. All they gotta do is put their minds to it, knuckle down, buckle down and do it, do it, do it*. *”It” being have…
We, The Undersigned and their “Quest for Protest”
Sure, they’re laughing now… The lengths that Fredericton’s We, The Undersigned are going to go to to play with Protest the Hero in Halifax for Megafest (Thursday, November 26 at The Cunard Center. Featuring Protest the Hero with special guests Iron Giant, Children of Eve, Black Moor and, of course, We, The Undersigned) are sort…
How do we get a good library design?
Is the new Halifax library going to be an interesting and compelling addition to the city fabric, or will it be a designed-by-committee dud? And how, exactly, to you get a good public building? Those questions came front and centre when architect Brian MacKay-Lyons went on CBC’s Information Morning to blast the city’s selection process…
Basia Bulat plays Halifax this February 10
Basia made a mean apple cake in Halifax last time Basia Bulat brings the snowshoes and plays St. Matthews United Church on February 10 as part of her 2010 Canadian winter tour in support of her new album, Heart of My Own (to be released January 26).
Congratulations HRM
This bitch goes out to everything that is wrong with the HRM, because we know a lot of stuff around here is run in the most inefficient way anybody could think up. Congrats, HRM, for being a fuck up on so many things.—sick of this backwards region
Spare some change?
Please anyone with some good ” spare change” stories, I’d love to hear them. This is an ongoing epidemic that is getting way out of control. I am quite annoyed day in, day out being asked for spare change. If it isn’t the bums, you’ve got the street charities, organizations calling you..and the list goes…
Street Cleaning at 1:AM???
Thought I was having a bad dream until I realized I was not asleep anymore thanks to the loud roar of the street cleaner outside my window…at ONE A.M. in the morning! I know we all get our chance at this necessary service but never thought it would be performed when most folks are trying…
Is it Mothers Day yet? (Whose cats?)
Whose cats are they (really) when a mother finally agrees to get cats for her teenage children years before they move out on their own, and refuse to take any responsibility for the animals? Does it become (just) the mothers responsibility, for the rest of time, to care for family pets after years of caring…
Tips
To the girl behind the counter at the Scotia Square coffee shop who threw my change into her tip jar without even asking….I’ll be buying my coffee somewhere else from now on.—Java Guy
Torch Relay Leechers!
You annoying as hell seal hunt protesters following around the Olympic torch like a god damned parasite. You vultures scavenging off the scraps of media attention left behind by our deserving torch bearers. Are you really so desperate that you need a GIANT SEAL BALLOON in addition to your bloody shock value posters? I have…
Asshole Shoving at Grande Parade During Olympic Torch Event
Do you really need to get home so fast that you need to shove your way through a massive crowd during the national anthem? Everyone had stopped to stand and listen respectively during the national anthem but you had to shove your way through the crowd to try to beat the traffic. You’re an asshole…
People Who Wear Sunglasses Indoors
You look like fucking idiots.—It’s true.
Like Rubber Lips on a Woodpecker
To that fucking crummy radio commercial that uses ‘like rubber lips on a woodpecker’: if I were the sponsor, I’d fire the idiot who wrote that script. Woodpeckers don’t have fucking lips, they have beaks, dumbshits, if you hadda said ‘like a rubber beak on a woodpecker’, it would have been much funnier and not…
But you are Canadian first, right?
Italian Canadian, Indo Canadian, Irish Canadian, Scottish Canadian, Afro Canadian? Etc etc. What the? No No No. We are Canadian. Welcome! Please learn one of the national languages and integrate into Canadian society but never isolate yourself. Share your culture but please leave your baggage at the door. Thanks for coming, thanks for contributing, and…
Cell phone saver
Thank you so much to the girl who found my cell and the Tim Horton’s people that kept it there. The girl left a funny message on my home phone letting me know you found my cell at Tim’s in SMU, and got them to hold it. You saved me so much money and hassle.…
walk tall and carry a passport
nova scotia has the most ridiculous driver’s licenses i have ever seen. seriously, they look like the $5 “souvenir” ones that you can buy in any major city. the information on the back is on a goddamn clear sticker! WTF?! i have yet to travel anywhere outside of atlantic canada without getting harassed about the…
thank you for hurting me at Star-bucks.
So hear we are at star bucks enjoying our 4 date. everything going well until you point out that your not ready to Commit to a Relationship in this point of your life.you could’ve told me that like two weeks ago when we went to Peggy’s cove together were snuggling on a rock and kissing.…
Growling at Motorists
While stopped at a red light on Robie St, I glance to my left to see two girls mimicking bears and growling at me while threatening with their powerful front paws. Keep up the good work, it’s incredibly charming but only when done in dense traffic by cute girls. —Hairy-Minded Pink Bare Bear
People let me tell you about my best friend
I can’t believe I have known and loved you for 7 years now. Other than family, that’s a record for me. I know we sometimes go long periods without seeing/talking to each other, but every time that happens I’m still thinking about you and carrying you in my heart. I hope in 7 more years…
Mosaic Social Dining Lounge changes hands
Mosaic Social Dining Lounge (1584 Argyle Street, 405-4700) recently changed ownership, and Shoptalk was informed by DJ/promoter Cameron Harding that while much of what has made Mosaic a downtown destination will remain the same—bartender extraordinaire Cooper Tardivel isn’t going anywhere—there’ll be a new and special emphasis on live music and the atmosphere it brings. For…
Wanted: people who own their own home
For a story I’m working on concerning tax reform, I’m looking for a handful of moderate-income people who own their own home, with the house valued at less than $180,000, and who would agree to an analysis of how the tax reform proposal would affect their property taxes. The ideal candidates would be professionals or…
Brian Borcherdt: Two Records: Free: Now
One of the keenest musical minds ever to come from this province has released two digital pockets of home recordings available for download here. Get them today and learn the songs in time for Borcherdt’s Paragon show with Julie Fader tomorrow night.
Best of Food awards party photos
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Sidney Crosby and the Olympic flame
“These shots were taken in front of the citadel. The crowd was going nuts, and you could tell that as big of an international star Sidney is, he was feeling the moment and was wearing his pride on his face with a smile ear to ear,” Coast freelance photographer Riley Smith says. “I ran along…
4.48 Psychosis at King’s
Okay, there is no Play of the Week Award, but if there were, the King’s production of 4.48 Psychosis would win it. It’s a brilliant piece of playwriting by Sarah Kane, an enfant terrible of the British theatre scene before she hung herself in 1999. By all accounts, it is a challenging play to stage…
How to get the best library design?
In today’s paper I mention that I’ll have a longer post about the library design in this space. That post is in the works, and will be up this afternoon. Please come back.
The monogamy files
Q I am a happily married, happily non-monogamous male. We are not wild swinger types. For us it’s more about the fact that monogamy does not work than about nailing everything that walks by. Anyway, I have encountered an odd situation a few times now, and again last night, where I’ll be flirting with a…
Torbert and troupe
Music and food have always co-existed in Jeff Torbert’s life.He busked for several years at the Farmers’ Market. “I had long hair and a beard,” he recalls. “I was in the corridor near the fish guy.” A childhood friend took over his family’s farm near Windsor. Torbert has visited to hang and to help out.…
Love, Me Boutique’s Chara Kingston
Having studied to be a contemporary art curator, Chara Kingston decided she didn’t belong in that world: “It didn’t feel real.” Kingston moved from Ontario, worked at the Nova Scotia Cultural Network then decided she wanted to make her own stuff, so she started a label called Simply C. “Through that I met so many…
Extinction Song finds inner child
Some adults have an uncanny ability to tap into the child within. They’re able to access memories and emotions that have been muffled or extinguished in most people by time and grown-up responsibilities. Ron Jenkins and Ron Pederson are two such adults. Through Jenkins’ writing and Pederson’s acting, they bring to life James, a troubled…
Peace
The press release for this says “File under: Indie/ The Fall,” which I wish it didn’t, because now I can’t hear anything else (and also didn’t realize The Fall was an entire genre). Certainly, it’s not a bad comparison when somebody could get confused with Mark E. Smith. Less weird, more rock ‘n’ roll than…
Halifax holiday craft fairs
The Nova Scotia Designer Craft Council Christmas Craft Market The NSDCC Christmas Craft Market is a juried craft market that takes place at towards the end of November, featuring artisans working in pottery, decorative art, glass, jewellery, textiles, leather, organics, wood and metalwork. November 20-22, Cunard Centre, Pier 23, 961 Marginal Road, 423-3837 nsdcc.ns.ca/main/Christmas_market.html Show…
‘BURB BARS: On the out of town
Working downtown has its perks—offices that are walking distance from a plentiful number of bars and restaurants is one—but if you live outside the core, the commute’s not an easy feat. Next time you’re headed home stop into one of these three joints to relax and wait out the traffic. They’re just a few of…
Tegan and Sara
After the major critical and commercial success of 2007’s The Con, Tegan and Sara Quin could have recorded cats crying and taking poops on napkins and people would still be into it. Thankfully, our strange little sisters emerged with Sainthood, another album that explores those time-tested themes—relationships and fucking them up—with beautiful precision. Songs like…
Hey you! Get involved
Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, Nova Scotia Chapter See story on page 58. 1888 Brunswick Street, Suite 806, 877-999-5907, ballens.ca GPI Atlantic See story on page TK.535 Indian Point Road, Glen Haven, 902-823-1944, gpiatlantic.org Clean Nova Scotia The environmental non-profit encourages local businesses to be sustainable. 126 Portland Street, 420-3474, Dartmouth, clean.ns.ca Ecology Action…
H&T does pub food right
A crisp, chilly evening necessitates some hot comfort food, so a friend and I venture into the Hart & Thistle Gastropub and Brewery on the waterfront. Though full of booths made for large groups, we find a table tucked away in the corner next to the inviting fireplace. The restaurant is pretty calm on this…
Dead Wrong: Halifax’s unsolved murders
OK, boys…Pack it up…Back to what you were doing…We’re done here… Tom Martin had known it was coming. Call it his experience or—perhaps, more to the point—his boss’s lack of experience. Whatever, Martin had guessed this morning’s outcome even before Bill Hollis, the staff sergeant in charge of major crimes, descended from the department’s executive…
GPI Atlantic
It’s called the Genuine Progress Index, offering a more accurate picture of our progress as a society than any Gross Domestic Product calculation could do. It takes into account things that we haven’t considered in our measures of success, like volunteerism—how much does it add to our overall wealth? The GPI also measures how the…
Nance Ackerman’s mission
“I guess I try to do stories on people who really need a voice, and need to tell their story,” says Halifax photographer/filmmaker Nance Ackerman, the director of 2006’s Cottonland, a story of addiction and struggle in Cape Breton. Her new NFB-produced film, Four Feet Up, features eight-year-old Isaiah and his family living well below…
Sean Gallagher on buying local food
Like many people from Ontario who visit Halifax for school, Sean Gallagher got hooked into Halifax pretty quickly, and decided to stay. “I was in university doing commerce co-op and a lot of entrepreneurial work terms,” says the Ottawa native, who enrolled at Dalhousie seven years ago. “I figured that I should just start something…
Blind Sided by the bourgeois
Despairingly ignorant, The Blind Side never gets off its bourgeois perch. Based on the teen life of Baltimore Ravens lineman Michael Tuohy (Quinton Aron), the colossal black youth is rescued from poverty when concerned white mom Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) allows him to live with her family. The Blind Side’s take on race relations…
Look out for the “local-wash”
What does “local” really mean? It’s a bit of an ill-defined term, so it would certainly help to try and offer some guidelines for what we’re getting at when we urge you to spend a healthy portion of your dollar at local businesses. We believe calling a business local means it is headquartered in Nova…
It Might NOT Get Loud
It Might Get Loud Don’t bother with earplugs—Davis Guggenheim’s music doc It Might Get Loud, playing Friday and Saturday at midnight, never hits 11. This is surprising, considering that An Inconvenient Truth was a world-altering film. No pressure, dude. The idea is rock-solid: three generations of guitar rock heroes—Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White—muse…
Where your Mac dollars go
MacBook Pro $1,399 purchased at MacEast 6 percent profit (approx. $100) $10 Pure Profit Mortgage on the space Condo fees Utilities Staff x3: sales, technician and sales/management MacBook Pro $1,300 purchased at apple.com $100 Leaves the province MAC EAST SUPPLIERS Apple is the biggest supplier: 65 percent warehoused in Toronto, 35 percent is warehoused in…
It Feels So Good When I Stop, Joe Pernice (Riverhead)
If some movie adaptations are better left as books, it’s best to stick with Pernice’s novel soundtrack (available on CD) for It Feels So Good When I Stop, rather than the novel itself. A nameless protagonist in his mid-20s withdraws to a small corner of Cape Cod to escape his failures in life (mainly a…
Wicker Emporium’s Madan Kapahi
In a province that has a documented lukewarm relationship with immigrants, Madan Kapahi is a spectacular success story. Born in India, he came to Canada to study law. He met his wife and opened the first Wicker Emporium in 1972 in Scotia Square. “Coming from Asia we were very familiar with wicker and basketware, and…
Marc Bell’s Hot Potatoe: Fine Ahtwerks: 2001-2008, Marc Bell (Drawn & Quarterly)
If you’ve wondered what the former Coast comic artist has been up to the last couple of years, this 276-page, glossy, hardcover book will satisfy your nostalgic longings (it also doubles as a weight. Heavy!). Spend hours trying to peel back the layers of Bell’s drawings, comics, typography and mixed-media cardboard pieces, but you’ll always…
The Trail Shop’s Joachim Stroink
Joachim Stroink has left Halifax six times. The last time, he was on top of a mountain when he had an epiphany that Halifax was where he needed to be. “The Trail Shop has been in business for 43 years,” he says. “I bought it, going on year five.” The Trail Shop has just opened…
The Prescription Errors, Charles Demers (Insomniac)
A dark novel centred around an obsessive-compulsive young Vancouver man, Daniel struggles to maintain his own fragile sanity while those around him fall apart. Also an activist, Demers skillfully weaves in lesbian parenting and free-speech arguments, aging activists and neighbourhood politics, seeming sincere and not forced—the way politics entwine our real lives. Demers’ Vancouver settings…
Pro Skateboard’s Jon Swinamer
Pro Skates has been keeping people moving for 23 years. Zach Tovey and Jon Swinamer, the current owners, have been working at the store almost since the beginning, and in the past decade they’ve taken over the operation—and expanded it, with Pro Girl just up Blowers Street and another Pro Skates on Quinpool Road. “It…
Library design spat
Is the new Halifax library going to be an interesting and compelling addition to the city fabric, or will it be a designed-by-committee dud? That question is at the heart of a controversy that played out on CBC’s Information Morning last week. First, architect Brian Mackay-Lyons (pictured) complained that the city’s tightly controlled procurement process—which…
Auf der Maur one witchy woman
“I’ve been living in the shadow of larger figures my entire life,” Melissa Auf der Maur says. Even during an interview to promote her most recent project, the former bassist for Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins speaks warmly of the larger-than-life people that spurred her interests in music and art in the first place. Among…
Buy local video games
Years ago, Willie Stevenson worked in the film and TV business for Salter Street Productions. He was a producer on the popular fantasy series Lexx. Eventually, the compromises of that world started to get to him. “I always wanted to get into this sector,” he says, but wondered if it was a viable thing, an…
Bouncer bill looms
A proposed overhaul of the security industry in Nova Scotia could mean fewer in-house bouncer jobs. Justice minister Ross Landry introduced a bill on November 5 that aims to require all bouncers be licensed and professionally trained. If the bill passes, the licence will cost about $60 and will require about 40 hours of training,…
Monty Python: Almost the Truth: The Lawyer’s Cut
The first two discs contain a six-part documentary about the groundbreaking British troupe. Despite the use of new interviews with the six members, and other sources such as a hilarious Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden’s singer), there’s not much new ground covered. Who wrote with whom and who fought with whom have already been explored. There…
$39-million ice bill
After the federal and provincial governments bailed, the city is left holding the entire bill for a four-pad hockey arena in Bedford, leaving municipal officials to cobble together a makeshift financing scheme. The $39-million arena complex on Hammond Plains Road was originally envisioned as an economic stimulus project, with a third of the cost paid…
In Mannequin’s head
According to one bio, “Wax Mannequin is the fighter…He is music of the biggest fight style.” Or at least he used to be. Like the title of his latest release, Saxon, suggests, Wax is now a veteran reflecting on battles past. And certainly Hamilton-bred Chris Adeney, the man behind Wax, is a veteran of the…
Tree-mendously safe
It’s that time of year again—the holidays are almost upon us. And the pressure is on to spend, consume and waste. The Ecology Action Centre, on the other hand, is busy prepping for its annual preemptive damage control effort. The Annual Organic Christmas Tree and Chemical-Free Wreath Campaign invites people to green their holidays by…
The Danger Bees
Former Coast “best new music” honourees The Danger Bees have packed up house and moved to Toronto. Before leaving they played a final show featuring tracks off their one-night-only release, Bee-Sides. Recorded between 2006 and 2009 from primarily four limited-release recordings, Bee-Sides removes the clutter to offer a palatable presentation of these hidden gems. These…
Capital Health unions earn their naps
“Where’s the nap room?” is the running joke over at Capital Health, as employees scurry around the hallways and peer through doors and windows in the faux-search for the celebrated, but elusive, “private rooms for napping.” The nap rooms were cited by Toronto publisher Mediacorp and Maclean’s magazine as reason why the Capital District Health…
Black Feelings
Montreal post-punk power-noise trio Black Feelings focuses its energy on establishing and expanding a sense of volume, both sound and space, in their music. At this point at least, they’re little concerned with variation in melody and tone. Drummer-vocalist Owain Lawson’s voice lacks character other than he’s held at a distance in the mix. Guitarist-keyboardist…
NDP Fails Regarding Seal Hunt
It was with shock and dismay that I read Bruce Wark’s “Sealed and delivered” (Editorial, November 12). I have been a supporter of the NDP all my life, but no more. They have let us down and betrayed us in their quest to be like the other parties. For Sterling Belliveau to get up in…
Joyce MacIsaac, bridge ambassador
Joyce MacIsaac has the blinds open in her toll booth on the A. Murray MacKay Bridge. She’s doling out quarters and counting the axles on semi-trailers and watching, watching, watching…always watching: cars, passengers, lanes, drivers pulled over talking on cell phones, cargo vans rumbling at her down Highway 111, dogs popping their heads out of…
Prairie Cat
Cary Pratt’s Prairie Cat has stepped out of bedroom pop and into the world of pure pop. Ring-tone rappers and Rock Band rock stars may infest the industry, but Pratt has a formula that will save his soul, and his listeners’ alike: have fun and stay human. Sparks is an album built up from two…
New! Free Will Astrology at thecoast.ca
Scorpio (OCTOBER 23-NOVEMBER 21) “There’s nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly,” said philosopher Buckminster Fuller. I encourage you to make that your personal motto in the coming weeks, Scorpio. From what I can tell, you are capable of generating a transformation that will look impossible to casual observers.…
Enjoying the Tweets
Tuesday is my favourite day—I get to read all the hilarious city council tweets from Tim Bousquet. Thanks for having an excellent and much-needed Twitter commentary on the hijinks at City Hall and for making me laugh all day!—Rose Allen, Halifax
Nouveau Restaurants
Ray Bear may have left town, but the restaurant that once bore his name is still in operation. Though David Tabah is still the owner, you will notice a few changes. Of course, there is a new chef, and a new name: it’s now called TwelveFortyOne (1241 Barrington, 425-2327), and new general manager Ken Henry…
