Suck it up blondie
Blonde on the #1- At the end of a tiring workday on a full #1 bus, you are sit on an outside seat and give your small grocery bags the honor of the inside seat – blocking access for any tired human who may want to rest their gams in that beautiful empty spot. Do…
HPX day 1: OK ready let’s go
I live right around the corner from the Atlantica (AKA the HPX box office) and I really got to get right into the Halloween-for-adults-feeling of everyone running in to the hotel to get their passes last night. My first question to anyone reading this is what to do with my bracelet. Or rather, my arm…
The Works closes and re-opens UPDATED x 2
Despite feeding upwards of 4,000 mouths a month, The Works Gourmet Burger Bistro (5431 Doyle Street) announced yesterday that its grills were off for good. “We were forced to close due to a lack of support by the brand,” says Alan Garner, who managed first Atlantic Canadian location of the Canadian franchise alongside his wife…
Go Fuck Yourself Asshole Bus Driver
You make eye contact with me when you drive past me as you come 3 minutes early. Its not like I live on a busy street with lots of traffic or that there was anyone behind you. No you its not like its the only bus that comes on this small section of street only…
How It’s Made: 22 Minutes edition
Continuing with the comedy avalanche that is a major part of the Halifax Pop Explosion, This Hour Has 22 Minutes Presents: Meet The Writing Team Behind the Comedy pulls back the curtain to reveal the wizards behind the long-running political comedy show (Thursday, October 24, 7pm, The Seahorse Tavern, $15). It’s one measure inside baseball,…
Killer style
Of Killer Mike’s July set at Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival, journalist Greg Kot wrote: “Atlanta MC Killer Mike puts his stamp on the festival as he gets choked up talking about hip-hop as a lifeline deeper than any political party or religious institution. He threads stories about his life through the songs, displaying a rare…
No wonder nobody invests on Cape Breton
Today some 100 or so dummies decide that they have to protest the demolition and construction site of the Sydney river bridge on Keltic drive. These dummies are an organized group who using threats of violence and group intimidation shut down the job site because they felt the jobs at the site should be for…
Why are we waiting?
We elected a majority Liberal Government, and they’ve just been sworn in and appointed all the Cabinet Ministers. I’m waiting for the traditional speech ‘We’ve checked the books and those lying Socialist bastards screwed us/you over worse than we were led to believe, so you can go get blowed for all the things we promised…
Library love
You work at the library. Tattooed, muscular, and a killer smile. You have a great personality and I love the small chats we have while you’re checking my stuff out. I look forward to that every visit, you make me weak in the knees.. I wanted to ask you out, but I’m too shy, or…
Punctuality
It’s a well known fact that if you’re late for a bus that just so happens to be on time, then you missed it. Well apparently I’m wrong to assume this. Why you ask? I will tell you. This particular bus ( 100+85 ) decides to fucking SIT at the bus stop 6 minutes beyond…
it must be the water…..
Halifax is awesome. Haligonians (well some) are mostly shit. Apathetic behaviour is like an after school activity in this town. And why do you all get so angry at each other for driving around the city just like everybody else. Foolishness. You actually have laws that force you to stop for pedestrians to cross the…
Brunette at the Farmer’s Market
For the past couple of months I have just been going to the Farmer’s Market just to see your face and smile. You are unbelievably beautiful. You are short, darker skinned and have these amazing eyes. I recently stubbled upon you at Canada Games Centre and I have not been able to shake you off…
Awesome Possum
Thank you for always being patient and loving. You are my favorite part of every single day, and I think about you from the moment I wake up to the minute I fall asleep. I never imagined that a year ago when I walked through your door that I was going to find the love…
what are we doing??
you broke up with me a long time ago, and it broke my heart. i haven’t been able to move on from you, and it turns out you haven’t either. when you had a few drinks in you, you spilled all these wonderful feelings and thoughts about me and us. you are such a fantastic…
You’re the worst person I’ve ever known
I really appreciate you admitting to me that you’ve been screwing the guy upstairs. It really makes me feel great to think back on all the early mornings I left for work and all the times he came downstairs after I left to put the blocks to you. That was a nice little detail. I…
Just Tired
First of all, my apologies for posting anonymously – repeatedly. I don’t have another outlet except this. I’ve chosen to take this on alone. When does a person gracefully accept the inevitable? When does a person stand and fight? I hate being sick every goddamn day. I know I should fight, I want to kick…
Taxi Industry/Debit Machine
There has been lots of complaints in the Taxi Industry over Debit/credit card machines…What Customers don’t realize all Debit/credit card transactions go to the Brokers Bank Accounts not the Taxi Drivers Account…As a Taxi Driver we are expected to wait till the following Tuesday to get paid as a 20 year Veteran.80% of calls is…
Cyclesmith goes north
You have until next fall to adjust the bike route you take to get to Cyclesmith (6112 Quinpool Road). The Quinpool institution (it’s been a resident of the strip for 27 years, peddling bikes from its current location for 18) will be moving at the end of its current lease, to make room for the…
A look at The Nook
A peek behind the papered windows at 2116 Gottingen Street reveals reclaimed wood, walls slathered in clay-based paint, letterpress table tops and curtained-off floor seating with bright jewel-toned cushions. They’re just a few of the details that’ll make the rustic-looking The Nook on Gottingen a cozy place to chill out. Mark Pavlovski and Katie Roux…
Slutty costumes
They should just rename Halloween “slutfest.” We get enough of this crap from the media, from assholes on the street, from our classmates and coworkers, and even from our friends, but every Halloween there are hundreds of women who think that’s not enough, so they objectify themselves, dressing up in slutty costumes. Well guess what?…
Mr. Bouncer Thank You LD
Thank you for your kindness by getting my friend to help me early Saturday evening, lack of food and sleep did not help my over indulgence. I truly appreciate your professionalism and discretion. —Saturday
Certain Internet Company in Halifax
Don’t tell me every month that you are putting my student discount on and “forget” each time. I am busy and tired and sick of how much you are about to waste my time tomorrow when I have to call you with this issue. I hate your always busy phone line and the eons of…
Train Derailments
The recent jump in train derailments in Canada are false-flag, problem-reaction-solution events that are the first stage in using the importance of transportation and safety to unify the US, Mexico and Canada into the North American Union giant super-state. By creating a situation of ‘something must be done’ in the minds of the people, the…
Not even Yoda deserves a third chance
I am not going to be your low self-esteem punching bag any more. You dramatically broke up with me—twice. And each time, you made me feel like it was my fault – You said I made you feel bad about your life and your lifestyle. Don’t project your insecurities on me. Your bad feelings about…
Well that was fun
Exploitation at it’s finest. Nothing but the best! Keep laughing. You’re just as bad. Don’t waste my time. —Hope you enjoyed the show.
The Exorcist needs an Exorcist
You’ll have to forgive me. I don’t understand the subtle ins and outs of advertising the way you obviously do. So let me see if I’ve got this straight. Your strategy to convince me to buy a product is by showing me the same 20 second ad every seven minutes during a two hour online…
There’s always some bad in the good
is thinking about hitting the Nocturne thing tonight but the key is not to drink too much before hand. Some of the artsy types might mistaken my drunken slowness for some bullshit like I’m a “republican” or something like that. I could end up thrown into an argument while next to an artpiece and actually…
Drug store
To the beautiful girl who works at the drug store and makes everyone feel good about themselves, you’ve stolen my heart. I often times just go in to buy a chocolate bar in hopes that you’re working. —curious
Desperately Seeking Manners
To the desperate housewives all glitzed and glamoured, who so rudely cut in line at Fri Oct 18th, in front of 20+ hungry and very tired commoners who had already been waiting in that very long line at least a half hour… who do you think you are? Your manners are atrocious. The senior lady…
Don’t Make Me Change My Number
Looking back upon our break-up. I can say in confidence that your actions towards me continually demonstrated an exceptional disregard for my mental wellbeing, not to mention a continual disrespect of your girlfriend who likely had no idea that you remained in my life for months following the end of our relationship. The acknowledgement of…
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
I’m the second person in a DINK marriage. We can’t have kids. He is infertile…completely. It’s not a choice that we can’t have kids. It’s a choice that we aren’t going to have kids. It’s not something we planned. When we were dating, we would talk for hours about our future kids. These fictional kids…
Your smile is radiant
We have seen each other not once, not twice, not even three times, and each time we do, our eyes lock, almost like they are speaking the words our mouths will not. We smile, we say hello with either a good morning or good afternoon…we spend our work weekdays in the same building on Barrington…
Get yours today!
350,000 are waiting to get their Canadian citizenship and may have to wait up to five years. Get on the fast track courtesy of Mr Harper: It might hurt a bit but what the hey! —Igotmine
Visiting buser DID go to the bar
October 11 – you sat beside me on the #80 from Bedford – Almon Street. I enjoyed our conversation and “Alzheimer/Dementia empathy” and laughing at the signs on Bedford Hwy. You blessed me as I got off the bus and your kindness made my day. My friend and I did go to the bar on…
Thank God your fuckin’ gone
I did everything make I could for you. Loved you, held you, feed you and all I got was heartache, stress and debt. Well fuck you! What did you think that letting me fuck your ass would be payment for being a selfish bitch. Be diffention that you a hoar. You suck in bed. the…
We’ve got a gourd thing going
It was so fun to celebrate your birthday with you, mon courgeron. Falling in love with you has been so easy – sometimes I feel like I’m waiting to be pumpk’d. You even let me play Old Mother Hubbard in your kitchen. We’re like a Fairytale in Provence, buttercup, and I’m looking forward to the…
real red head to fake red head
Your fake is a reflection of your fake. —If I did have a carpet, it would match the drapes.
Hundreds of fracking protesters take to Halifax streets
Yesterday, some 40 anti-fracking protesters, mostly from the Elsipogtog First Nation, were arrested in New Brunswick. The protesters had been blocking a highway in order to prevent seismic testing in preparation for shale gas extraction through fracking. Their supporters say the RCMP’s enforcement of an injunction against the blockade was heavy-handed, while the RCMP claim…
Open season
So many places to go, so many things to eat. A lot’s been happening on the restaurant scene this week and last, here’s a quick round-up of the new kids on the blocks. The second iteration of Flipburger (1565 Argyle Street) is now open (late) for business, serving up quality patties and cold beer until…
To the Break and Enter Artist, I need my keys and address book
Dear misguided soul who busted the windows in 5 vans on Thanksgiving weekend and stole our specialized tools and climbing gear. We know you need the money to support your lifestyle or put food on the table and you didn’t think you were hurting a big corporation. Guess what, insurance doesn’t cover my $1200 in…
Airline Bitch
This is to the airline. You advertise on your website “bereavement ” discounts and how understanding your company is when death occurs and that you make it easy to book. So I call. You tell me that the price to Manila from Halifax return with bereavement is over $2400.00. That is more than the regular…
Blackberry to close Bedford office
Blackberry announced last week that it is closing its HRM office, where 350 people work. A handful of the local workers will be offered the opportunity to work at home, said the company, but the vast majority have been given notice that January 10 is their last day. The company has been in a tail-spin…
Convention centre design review farce continues
With more of the cart-before-horse planning process that has characterized the Halifax convention centre from the start, construction has started on the site, even though a final design for the project has yet to be officially approved. When Halifax council approved the HRM By Design planning policies for downtown in 2008, it specifically included a…
Bad music mars market visits
Have you ever sat outside at one of the tables at the Seaport market?There are these speakers attached to the Port Authority Building that play what has to be the WORST SELECTION OF MUSIC EVER. Worse than the worst FM light-rock station; we’re talking hold-the-line muzak level bad music. It’s pretty ironic that you can…
EMT Angels
To the two amazing EMT’s that helped my dad and I yesterday (?) with my mom who has dementia: Thank you times a thousand times for being so kind and patient. I know you are thinking that it is only ‘your job’ but it met the world to me and dad. Thank you for everything…
Lucy Pullen swings and hits
“There’s this thing that happens where you can’t believe you are walking on this piece of sidewalk again or that you recognize this particular crack, you know?” It’s one week before art lovers take to the streets in the frenzied rush called Nocturne and visual artist Lucy Pullen is describing her connection to the city…
Nocturne: Not to be missed
Nocturne Survey & Critical Race Two artists will take on Nocturne 2013 in an attempt to see, critically review and photograph all 91 projects located across Halifax and Dartmouth using Twitter as the competition medium. The first artist to visit all the pieces and cross the finish line at Anna Leonowens Gallery will be the…
Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad
There’s romance and comedy aplenty in Michael Melski’s Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad, but this two-hander ends up being more than just a pleasing “romantic comedy”. There’s real depth to the story of a couple of single parents who connect at the local rink (very local for the Halifax crowd, as this production is set on…
The Fifth Estate
It’s too soon to judge the historical impact of Wikileaks, but true to its subject matter, The Fifth Estate is coming out anyhow. Everyone’s new boyfriend Benedict Cumberbatch stars as the white-haired Bond villain Julian Assange, here viewed through the eyes of German hacker Daniel Domscheit-Berg as they build their Wikileaks empire and start to…
Six pack
Wave Lengths Centennial Pool, 1970 Gottingen st Veronica Simmonds (radio maven and Coast contributor) and Katie McKay (photography wunderkind) create an “audiovisual ode to swimming,” a three-minute looped audio slideshow documenting the intensely personal feelings surrounding swimming by Centennial Pool members. Projected on the side wall of the pool, it will seduce you to indulge…
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
There are some intense moments of true horror in the Shakespeare by the Sea/Misery Loves Company collaborative production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but it’s also refreshingly funny. The show is stylish and stylized, filled with wonderful physicality and delightful absurdity. Bill Wood and Mary Fay Coady beautifully capture a myriad of characters, economically…
Carrie
A near word-for-word remake—second credited screenwriter Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa must’ve added the internet stuff—of the 1976 horror classic, Kimberly Peirce’s version of Carrie is an unnecessary update with its own charm nonetheless (and 100 percent less full-frontal nudity, thankfully). Chloe Grace Moretz is Carrie, the high schooler who gets her first period in gym class—with even…
The Plan, boss, The Plan!
Yet again, Halifax Pop Explosion has spurred a much-anticipated reunion of a seminal local band. This year, The Plan, a post-hardcore group featuring members of North of America, Equation of State and Cold Warps, will end a 12-year period of inactivity by performing at the festival. The band’s original lifespan was a scant and feverish…
Go for the Gold
Gone are the days when serving something on a silver platter was the best you could ask for, on Thursday, October 17, Halifax is getting Gold Medal Plates. A fundraiser for athletes and a fine dining culinary competition that unites the competitive spirit of the Olympics with the culinary skill of some of Canada’s best…
Acting out to force a break-up
Q My boyfriend and I have been together for two years and we live together. Recently, his ex was killed in a car accident. They were not on good terms, and he often made scathing statements about her. I made the mistake of saying the following several days after her death (after offering him my…
Free Will Astrology
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIBRA! (September 23-October 22) “The door to the invisible must be visible,” wrote the surrealist spiritual author Rene Daumal. This describes an opportunity that is on the verge of becoming available to you. The opportunity is still invisible simply because it has no precedents in your life; you can’t imagine what it is.…
Killer Wavves
This isn’t Stephen Pope’s first HPX: he graced the stage as bassist for the late Jay Reatard’s set at the Marquee Club in 2008. “Halifax is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve been to,” Pope recalls of his previous visit, amongst other memories: “I remember falling off the stage and splitting my pants right…
Obits and bites
“Ninth Street, we need a right,” says Sohrab Habibion, guitarist for Brooklyn-based rock outfit Obits, as he and his bandmates scour Philadelphia for a particular Burmese restaurant. “It’s cool to kind of discover things in other cities that we either don’t have in New York or that make us feel at home,” he says. “We’re…
Inventions’ classical swagger
Bryn McLeod, director of operations for the Halifax Music Co-op calls its showcase Inventions “a coming together of two musical worlds, bringing the bar scene into a concert hall and adding everything that entails.” In its 2013 manifestation, the HMC has paired two new composers with local indie artists Gianna Lauren and Hermitofthewoods (AKA Michael…
We don’t need money to win the war on skin cancer
The fact that tanning beds can give you skin cancer is the most ingrained cliche on our disease-prevention radar. The vast majority of us are proud to say we’ve never used one and even prouder to say our province bans them for people under 18. But after my aunt, Ginny, was diagnosed two years ago…
Letters to the editor, October 17, 2013
Orange peeled The provincial NDP was a rudderless ship under Darrell Dexter. The party ran to the middle, in what most viewed as a disengenuous ploy to retain power. That said, they did some good things: cap prices on generic drugs, expand dental care to older kids, waived ambulance fees to the poor and seniors,…
Farewell, to Nova Scotia
We all have a basic understanding of the deal. You hit send on a text message, it travels through the atmosphere, gets triangulated by a satellite or a tower and hits your intended destination. LOLs ensue. Calgary’s art collective Sophie Farewell wants to add a step to this time-honoured process. The large-scale sculptural installation However…
Escape Plan
The handcuffs are extra tight in the sexually-charged gay drama, Escape Plan. Sylvester Stallone plays a prison escape artist who is tapped by the government to test the security of a new ultra-prison. Suddenly, everything goes wrong. Stripped of his humanity, Stallone must find a hole out while being flogged daily by leather masked guards…
Happy birthday, dear Woozles
The story of Woozles children’s bookstore (1533 Birmingham Street), a wonderland of knowledge and imagination, began back in 1978. That makes this October its 35th, and also makes the downtown Halifax institution Canada’s oldest children’s bookstore—a pretty big deal if you ask us. And deals this big call for celebration. This Saturday, October 19 Woozles…
Brian Posehn clears the air
Most comedians may be former class clowns, but few can school the teacher like Brian Posehn. Long before his appearances on cult TV hits like Mr. Show and The Sarah Silverman Program, before his 2013 comedy special The Fartist and before his headlining set at the Halifax Pop Explosion, Posehn was cracking wise as a…
