ivoting continued
To the editor, Thank you for as fair and researched an article on iVoting as I have seen in a long time. South of your border, my company is part of a consortium of voting systems and standards experts who have worked for over four years to develop The Okaloosa Distance Balloting Pilot which is…
More ivoting debate
Dear Tim Bousquet, The point should not be whether one can trust Mr. Smith—it’s whether voters should have to. A fully auditable system like the one Canada already uses is better, because election officials then can audit it, and have a way to prove—not just ask people to have faith—that the votes were counted as…
The ivoting debate
Hi Tim, I read your story about Intelivote and e-voting and I want to thank you for your level reporting. Often our business creates animated discussions, and offering both sides of the situation (and the borders) is usually not something we get from reporters. I thought your attention to detail and the equal treatment of…
The iVoting debate
To Tim Bousquet, I was interested in reading your “iVote” feature about internet voting coming to Halifax (Sep. 18), and you did not disappoint. I have worked many municipal and provincial/federal elections (as inside agent, poll clerk, DRO and supervisor) and have heard of the problems associated with internet voting. It’s a scary path we…
Tom Fun Orchestra
Tom Fun OrchestraSunday, Sep. 21, 1:26am, at The Marquee photo Scott Blackburn
wannabe women
to the guys at the lower deck wearing so much colugne and axe that you all smell like a bunch of 80 yr old women at a saturday nite bingo hall.on the other hand we are having a good laugh at your expense,lol.are we desparate to attract women or what? cantbelievethestink
pisses me off
people at work and other places who pisses me off. some people do it deliberately i think donna
Tim’s lineup
Why is it in the Tim Hortons line up people stand back 5 feet from the counter waiting for their turn….it’s not a bank lineup people, move up already! always want to say something…
E-BAY SUCKS
Sure you can get better prices on line, but nothing beats the face-to-face transaction when you are buying something. PAYPAL SUCKS TOO
No way we can get this done in six hours.
This is to my fucking boss who thought we can get five changing rooms done in six hours with the swing machine, plus the regular work we need to get done that night. You will probably yell at us and say we were slacking off. So you know what FUCK YOU. No wonder you guys…
Get over yourselves, AFF!
If I have to watch the Atlantic Film Festival staff pat themselves on the back one more time, I am going to puke (and not because of the one free drink ticket). Seriously, you guys can be as self-congratulatory as you like behind the scenes, but not in public (or with filmmakers and delegates). We…
To the lovely 5 dollar bitch
Where in the hell do you get off treating someone at a local store like that? You present a $5 dollar bill … only half there. The girl kindly explained that she couldn’t take it… and you LOST it.. holy fuck. I only hope you’re not in customer relations or something. And I really hope…
Cough….COUGHHHH.
Why do SO many people in this city SMOKE! and WHY do they have to blow their smoke right in my FACE. You have the right to destroy your health, but not to destroy mine. Be considerate! Wish to Breathe Clean Air
Downtown council election
I have a piece in tomorrow’s Coast about the election for Halifax’s District 12– the district bounded by North, Robie and South streets and the Halifax Harbour. I interviewed each of the four candidates, and you can listen to each of the unedited interviews here: Dawn Sloane, interviewed in her Creighton Street home. The bell…
Port business down still further
Through the end of June, the Port of Halifax reported a 19.6 percent decline in business from the same period last year. But today, citing unnamed sources, allnovascotia.com reports that figures from July show that port business is down still more– 20.2 percent, compared to the same period last year. And: More alarming is that…
What?!
So reading this section, and going from post to post, i noticed a trend of the same people posting the same replies to most of the posts. Mainly meaningless and useless non-political crap. Like the don’t pull it!! post. I wonder if you all act the same way in public? Even better, do you actually…
To the jack@ss who peeled my car open like a sardine can last week:
Are you so incapable of knowing the boundaries of your vehicle that a tight right turn turns into a smash-up derby? Did you honestly not hear the scream of the bending metal, and the loud crash of the front end of my car hitting the ground? Didn’t you feel the drag on your rear bumper…
Open letter to Mr. Harper
I doubt Harper reads my column but in case he’s looking for arts news, I received this letter today from Chris O’Neill Open Letter To Stephen Harper Your recent quotes about the relationship of “ordinary Canadians” to the cuts to the arts your government has made were a cynical play to the lowest common denominator…
Nova Scotia Music Week nominations announced
Friends and soon-to-be friendly rivals David Myles and Old Man Luedecke lead the pack at this year’s Nova Scotia Music Week for their respective LPs On the Line and Proof of Love. Other multiple noms went to Tom Fun Orchestra with four and three each to an impressively diverse array of artists including Wintersleep, Christina…
Seahorse’s Shite Soundtech
Unbelievable. First it was embarrassing when you were snarky on the house system with the humble, gentle, talented musicians at soundcheck on the 20th. Then, after Petunia and the Loons consciously rose above your deliberately awful sound and delivered a profoundly swinging show to the delight of the dancing crowd, crashing onto the stage and…
To the group known as the NSAO
Now that I have time to respond to your lovely little post on the coast.ca, I am going to do so. I don’t know if it was one of your current members or a previous member, but someone was trying to basically tell me to die. I have not bothered with the NSAO for over…
Animal Cruelty
Why are there so many stories in the news these days involving severe cruelty to animals? Cat in the microwave. Cat set on fire with lighter fluid. Most of these acts appear to be caused by children. What kind of values are parents and teachers instilling these kids with that they do not see the…
Wishing for some Cricketts
How the fuck do people raise reptiles in this city? I live in the South End and use to travel to Aqua Creations for cricketts but now they’re closing for renovations and I have to go all the way to Bayer’s Lake! WHAT THE HELL!!! Owner of some starving toads
Fucking Downtown Leeches
Has anyone noticed that the bums downtown have tripled over the last while? Have you also noticed they are all able-bodied white males and most of them smoke? You can’t walk anywhere downtown without one of those goddamn leeches rattling a Tim’s cup under your fucking nose. They are fucking everywhere, the Grand Parade, Barrington…
I Hope You Enjoyed That Power Trip
You NEED to have you receipt for a return ANYWHERE. I am not permitted to do a return without one. That’s where my manager comes in. Why would you NOT save your reciept? Perhaps you didn’t actually PAY for them? I’m so sorry that apparently your daughter couldn’t take the damned pre natal vitamins. Which…
CKDU funding drive on now
The CKDU Funding Drive officially began yesterday, and we thought you might like some highlights from the action-packed week ahead: TONIGHT CKDU News Collective Dance Party: News for the People10pm at Gus’s Pub (2605 Agricola), $5-$20w/Flags of Convenience, Intelligent Mother Fuckers as well as Raising the Rates (a 30 minute-long OCAP film) and DJs Anderoc…
ARSE-CMP in Bridgewater
First of all I know that technically I was in the wrong here but come the fuck on! You knew that there was a wedding going on and chose to start pulling cars over for fucking seatbelt violations. Half of the people that were supposed to go and be in pictures and take pictures and…
Please take out the trash
I want to give a shout out to the dirty garbage truck driver who gave a shout out his window to me and my sister down on Quinpool on Monday. First let me give everybody a quick lesson on using a vehicle horn: You’ll want to honk this horn when there is a danger on…
The best Halifax election site ever
Is of course, at The Coast: here. Kudos to our web editor, Andy Murdoch, who has brought a veritable ton of information together in a readable and interesting fashion.
You suck
Hey dicklock, I heard all about you puking all over my neighbour’s apartment, getting more beer, drinking more, and then puking some more (again, missing the buckets), and then after being told by my neighbour to maybe go home, mouthing off to him like a 17 year old brat who is so hardcore because he…
Not so considerate Nova Scotians
Having moved back home from Ontario I’ve noticed something. Cars will stop for pedestrians to let them jaywalk pretty much anywhere, but the majority of people on buses are hugely inconsiderate. Bus etiquette: • Give up your seat to the elderly, pregnant or disabled (I’m especially talking to you 20-something man-children, just because you’ve got…
I’m allowed to turn!
So here’s to the asshole guy in the crosswalk on South Park and Spring Garden the other day: Yes, I have a right to turn. Yes, I know I’m in a car. This apparently makes me an evil motorist or something , clearly, a state of affairs you tried to prove with your glare and…
Shitty campaigns
It pisses me off that with all the fucking lackies working for the candidates in the up coming election, wether paid or volunteer, there is not enough intelligence among them to create a decent campaign ad that DOESN’T just bash the other candidates. What the Fuck? This is the level of competence we get to…
Amelia Curran has a record deal
One of Halifax’s favourite troubadours, Amelia Curran, will finally get the support system she deserves now that she’s been signed to crackerjack Toronto label Six Shooter Records, which is also home to Jenn Grant, Elliott Brood, Luke Doucet and Christine Fellows. “We’re gonna re-release War Brides before going ahead with the new record,” says Curran…
Intelivote Attack
To the talentless hack at the Coast who compared – with obviously no research done – Intelivote to Diebold. You dont have a clue! This is left wing fear-mongering at its worst. If you did some research on the technology you’d quickly realize you are comparing apples to elephants – the models are completely different.…
FUTURE INN HOTELS ..
GO FUCK YOURSELVES …….. maid is in the crapper
Hard to Paint in the Rain
To my neighbours who are sniffing with distaste because the paint job’s not finished: Remember August? And the end of July? That’s right, it was raining. It rained every day and/or every night. And maybe you aren’t aware of this — maybe you don’t have to do your own painting — so I’ll help you…
Meet the Nova Scotia Arts and Culture Partnership Council tonight!
Funny, how with all this talk about federal arts cuts and municipal election bidness, it’s easy to forget the province’s role in arts and culture. (Anyone catch Bill Dook’s speech at the film fest gala? Just sayin’.) Well, tonight, for the first time, the Nova Scotia Arts and Culture Partnership Council is doing a town…
no apartments for dog owners!
a big FUCK YOU to all the landlords who make a blanket statement of no dogs in their apartments. just like tenants often need references, a pet can have references to support my assertion that my dog is clean, quiet, and well-behaved. (some) students and lots of other asshole tenants will damage your place, party…
Wyse Road Save Easy
Hello, I would love it if The Coast did a story on the Save Easy on Wyse Road. They are owned by the Superstore but they charge more for the same product. Examples PC granola bars are $1.99 at a Superstore but $2.19 at the Save Easy, PC Chicago Deep Dish Pizza is $7.99 at…
Local Celebrity Schooled
Oh come on now, before we feel too sorry for our trailer park heroine. How “smart, intellectual and well travelled” can this woman really be? Enough to know that the climate for teaching positions in this province is extremely competative? She had herself a job, said inapropriate things in a local paper and was removed…
Bike People
I know that it is great to save the environment, and save money on gas, parking, insurance and repairs…but remember you are a delicate egg in front of tonnes of 60kmph metal. One thought should be in all of your minds the second your ambitous ass hits that seat…DEFENSE DEFENSE DEFENSE !!! , you may…
Pictures perfect
Well, that’s all over with. I’m in my house clothes (I successfully wore a dress for every day of AFF), eating fresh food and watching the Emmys. Jeremy Piven again? Really? Speaking of which, the “real-life” Ari Gold was in town for AFF (apparently his name is stitched onto his Reebox): Gold is a filmmaker…
With options like these…
What if they held an election and no one came? Vote ‘none of the above’
The End…
Hey everybody, I saw fifteen movies this fest – how many did you catch? It has been a great time and I have a few thank-yous to give out before I start rattling off my bests and worsts. First and foremost, I would like to thank my fellow bloggers, Carsten Knox and Sue Carter Flinn,…
WTF: Reporters kept away from demonstrators? This is Harper’s Canada…This is Harper’s democracy!!!!
Reporters kept away from demonstrators? This is Harper’s Canada…This is Harper’s democracy!!!! I saw this on the CTV news this morning that reporters were kept from interviewing demonstrators by the police and were told instead to interview Stephan Harper instead. Is this Canada?? Is this a democracy? WTF??? Sacrifice freedom of speech in the name…
Shoptalk
Earlier in the month we said a sweet farewell to Scanway-owned Sweet Basil Bistro (1866 Upper Water), though that hasn’t slowed down owner Unni Simensen as she announced earlier in the week that Scanway (6088Quinpool) will have a dedicated kitchen at the Four Points by Sheraton (1496 Hollis) to cater all events in the hotel’s…
Sweet Sheraton
Earlier in the month we said a sweet farewell to Scanway -owned Sweet Basil Bistro (1866 Upper Water), though that hasn’t slowed down owner Unni Simensen as she announced earlier in the week that Scanway (6088 Quinpool) will have a dedicated kitchen at the Four Points by Sheraton (1496 Hollis) to cater all events in…
Last Day
I was just in at the Park Lane, preparing to line-up for rush tickets to the nameless shorts presentation that included Chasing Wild Horses and The Book Lady, but the lineup was long and I felt my chances of getting in very slim… leaving me right up front if there at all. It’s my own…
To the person in the crosswalk…
You can’t just push the button for the flashy lights and then walk out into the crosswalk of a 4 lane road at rush hour without looking. I honked because you appeared out of nowhere, out of instinct- Not because I couldn’t stop in time. For clarity, I apologized at the time for obviously scaring…
Water wasteres
Every day, the Prince George Hotel has someone spray water at every leaf, cigarette butt, and bit of trash on the sidewalk. They continue spraying until the “offender” has reach the gutter. The water wasted is offensive. Please try a broom! AreYouSerious
Your mother should be proud
To the cab driver who waited while I let myself into my front door last night – thank you. To the rest of you who have dropped me off late at night after a long work day and can’t wait the 30 seconds it takes me to unlock my door and get safely inside -…
Democracy 250.1
I recently found out that the HRM councillor in my district will be uncontested in the upcoming municipal election. To say the least, this is a disappointment. Had I known this was going to happen, I might have thrown my hat in the ring, just to create some competition for this guy. I’m pretty damn…
Bitch bitch
Even though The Coast is full of biased crap issues mainly of interest to the staff aka best friends for life, I still pick it up to read the bitches. This week, you cut off a bitch. I mean, if you are going to hire your friends, please ensure their editing and layout skills are…
I’d Like to Thank the Academy…
Hey everyone, I spent the morning at the Deluxe Toronto Awards Brunch. Nice morning, though, the actual brunch was a little curious: a stick of ham, cherry tomato, pineapple, and potato. Very odd. Anyways, highlights included meeting some of the people I have only seen from afar or know through their films. I had a…
Pitch me, my friend
So you think you can write? One of my favourite (and cringe-inducing) events at Word on the Street is Pitch the Publisher, where authors try to sell their book idea to a group of local publishers, who have seen it all. If you have ideas, book space at apma.admin@atlanticpublishers.ca or 420-0711. WOTS is September 28…
Plants and Animals at the Marquee
Christmas comes five days early this year when Montreal buzz band (is there any other kind?) Plants and Animals drops by the Marquee on December 20. Advance tix for $12 are on sale now, it’ll be 15 bucks at the door if there are any left (doubtful).
Vacation Pay
Thanks to my former work place at very small ‘university’. I really didn’t need my almost $1000 of vacation pay on time at all- especially since you know my EI claim hasn’t been processed since you STILL have not processed my ROE more than 2 weeks after I finished working there. This is exactly why…
To you
Bumper tumper temper teen, is all I have to say to you haters out there in this city. An everyday individual
Rock ‘n’ roll high school
Nursing a 3:30am bedtime the night before, yesterday I went to go see music legend Seymour Stein’s keynote speech at the Delta (how very rock ‘n’ roll of me). Stein started his music career at 13, working for Billboard and later went on to form Sire Records, which basically makes him responsible for all the…
Back up to three a day…
I only saw one movie yesterday, A Christmas Tale, but made up for it today with three films, Patti Smith: Dream of Life, One Week, and Waltz With Bashir. Yesterday was a kind of catch up day for all the things I have been neglecting amidst this orgy of movies, movies, movies, like school and…
Friday Possibility
Hello, loyal blog readers. I received a message from Kazik Radwanski, a fresh-out-of-film-school filmmaker from away, bringing his first short to our illustrious festival, who wanted to tell everyone they should check out his film: Princess Margaret Blvd., a docudrama about a woman struggling with Alzheimer’s. It played at TIFF, and now it’s in Canadian…
i only sell them.
When you are shopping for shoes (or anything else) and the sales person informs you that they do not have your size THIS MEANS THEY DONT HAVE YOUR SIZE. We want your money plain and simple and if we could sell you something we would.. Bitching to me about the fact “these would be sooooo…
Here’s to the little people … again
So I’ve seen a lot of the people here for the Atlantic Film Festival, I’ve been an extra on films, and taken part on an ad aired in the Atlantic provinces.. I’ve met actors at my bar…. man/woman… why are they so small? I’ve realized Hollywood and Canwood are nothing but a universe of little…
So many miles
A splitting headache took me out of the afternoon screening of Patti Smith: Dream of Life early, but what I saw I enjoyed. I know my fellow bloggers were there in the darkness, so I’ll let them take this one, as they got to see more of it than I did. I’ll say that the…
Crosswalk safety
First, let me spread the love…I love cyclists, I love pedestrians. Clearly, they are doing the right thing, the green thing, the thing I wish I was doing. But I’m not. At least, not all the time. However, when I’m not, I really have no intention to run a pedestrian over. I want them to…
The COASTal Blues
ok its not bad enough that we now have to “log in” to reply to a bitch. Despite the fact that anyone, whether logged in or from the planet Neptune can POST a bitch. But now, when i try like bloody mad to “register” a name and email with this stupid system, all i get…
Don’t You Know Who I Am?
To a certain gay danceclub: If you’re gonna change the standards and force people to have 2 peices of ID you’re gonna have to advertise it better because finding out while standing in line is not cool. I’ve been going to your bar for over 10 years and a driver’s license has always been good…
GET OFF THE CROSSWALK!
This morning as I walked to work down Titus and Dutch Village to Bayers Rd, traffic was bumper to bumper, barely moving, with mere inches between cars. And every single crosswalk, at every intersection, had a car sitting on top of it. It’s bad enough that you block the crosswalk, but you can’t even leave…
to the fuck whips.
thanks for letting me go after two days of employment i’am sorry if ican’t do the same level of cleaning that you fucks can do. i ‘am sorry go fuck yourselves…………… this is in you suck………
Long and short of it
I thought that Atom Egoyan-Kevin Smith would be the weirdest double-feature I’d see at the festival, but coming in at a close second was Man on Wire and Wendy and Lucy, two movies I adored for opposite reasons: Wire is shot like a caper film and although you know Petit survives walking a tightrope between…
Small Man Syndrome
Hi. You may not remember me, but I remember you. The tiny man who so senselessly insulted me as I made my way into a certain bar on Saturday night. “You’re too tall to be here”. What does that even mean? Yes, I’m 5’11, no I don’t wear heels (I don’t need to ), but…
stroller on the bus.
Yes i know i have a stroller on the bus and maybe my child might be in the way of your fat ass trying to get on, but dont make a stupid comment loud enough so that i can hear it about how i shouldnt be bring my baby out and how i shouldnt be…
Rodney MacDonald’s non-existent environmental policies
The Ecology Action Centre “applauds” premier Rodney MacDonald in a press release issued this morning, for MacDonald’s participation in the New England Governors / Eastern Canadian Premiers meetings held in Bar Harbor, Maine this week. The govs and premiers approved a Transportation and Air Quality Action Plan, with the following commitments: By 2020, at least…
Taking off the Yellow Jacket
Indie rock trio Yellow Jacket Avenger, which has, under the direction of Geoffrey Pye, reared its head in many different incarnations over the years, will part ways with a goodbye show on September 19 at The Seahorse. The key reason is the departure of drummer Nathan Elliot-Doucet to Korea, but Pye himself flew the Halifax…
Hey shorty, it’s your birthday
Waltz With Bashir is not for someone expecting an animated picture to provide gentle escapism. The film actually deals in how the mind enforces a certain escape when the memories are too difficult to metabolize. Here it’s the guilt that a number of Israeli men, all of whom participated in the invasion of Lebanon in…
no more cheers please
working in retail is a good fit for me for the most part. I like to see the variety of people in the world. But enough with the overuse of the word cheers. If you say it once, whatever. If you say it twice, it’s annoying. If you say it three times or more in…
Fire boat accident
Chronicle: A CALIFORNIA-MADE boat the Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency Service had planned to buy despite warnings from local boat builders flipped on its third day of test runs Wednesday, briefly dumping eight men into Halifax Harbour. The 8.5-metre, 500-horsepower boat overturned in perfect conditions about 150 metres from a Dartmouth coast guard pier where…
Slash
SlashSlash with Anthony BozzaHarper Collins’Tis the season when publishers load our holiday-gift plates with rock ’n’ roll autobiographies like Marianne Faithfull’s (this one’s too cold) and Ron Wood’s (too old). As far as salacious, dirty stories go, Slash is just right. I don’t want to read how the Crüe lads degraded legions of female groupies;…
Sitcom
SitcomDavid McGimpsey(Coach House Books)This is not a book of poems about TV as much as it is about the memory of TV, the way time spent in front of the tube bleeds into the time spent away from it. What you get in former Coast TV columnist McGimpseys Sitcom is a resonant image of the…
Concrete Reveries: Consciousness and the City
Concrete Reveries: Consciousness and the CityMark Kingwell (Viking Canada)The author begins by reconsidering, if not defending, concrete as an architectural material, not to mention the style it’s often identified with—Brutalism. That alone is valiant. The fuller project: a philosophy of architecture. More than housing residents and workers, architecture, Kingwell argues, shapes our consciousness as it…
iVote: Can electronic voting save democracy?
The three weeks from October 14 to November 4 are something of an election marathon: The Canadian federal election is October 14, Nova Scotians elect their municipal councillors and school board members October 18 and the US elections, when Americans vote for president, all congressional positions, a third of the Senate and a host of…
Be it resolved…
Given the number of candidates in this upcoming federal election who’ve already had to suddenly slink off in disgrace because videos had surfaced showing them driving while doping, or skinny-dipping while (or while not) erect, or blathering mindlessly in their blogs about how gays and women must begin packing heat to protect themselves from predators…;…
In a Mist
In a MistDevon Code(Invisible Publishing)I could have sworn Devon Code was American, not from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The now Toronto-based writer’s debut collection of short stories would fit nicely beside John Updike or Raymond Carver. In fact, Code’s paired-down stories are reminiscent of 1970s American “dirty realism.” While reading these meticulously constructed and intelligent stories,…
Life on the Refrigerator Door
Life on the Refrigerator DoorAlice Kuipers(Harper Collins)Maybe you don’t have a teenager, but you were a teenager so you’ll probably get something out of Alice Kuiper’s intentionally slim novel Life on a Refrigerator Door. Kuipers, who is originally from London, UK, now lives in Saskatoon. It’s a story told completely in refrigerator-door notes between a…
Phonogram: Rue Brittania
Phonogram: Rue BrittaniaKieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie(Image Comics)Phonogram is a comic borne from the authors’ nostalgia for the Britpop phenomenon of the ’90s, and an interest in magic and fantasy. This could be trite, but it’s not. Aging British scenesters have magic powers gained from tapping in to the energy of music; 10 years on,…
Great Atlantic Blues & Beyond Festival
Dartmouth is going to get down and dirty this weekend at the first Great Atlantic Blues & Beyond Festival, which brings together a whole lotta musicians from here and around the world, including big names like Edgar Winter and his brother Johnny. But if you’re in desperate need of soul, look no further than Bettye…
Big White Knuckles
Big White KnucklesBrian Tucker(Vagrant Press)It’s a testament to Brian Tucker’s writing that I had to put White Knuckles down several times. Not because it’s a terrible book—not at all, but because Tucker’s bloody, squishy, crunchy fight scenes are wincingly vivid. Lucky for me, Tucker isn’t afraid to deploy his sharp sense of humour too, which…
It’s So You
[image-4]Published February 21, 2008.It’s So YouEdited by Michelle Tea(Seal Press)Fashion is a feminist issue. Queer-lit icon Michelle Tea and 35 other feisty fashionistas explain why. Six Feet Under writer/producer Jill Soloway; Sonic Youth’s bassist Kim Gordon; transgender author, performer and gender theorist Kate Bornstein; writer Trina Robbins; novelist Beth Lisick and other fashionable females offer…
The Learners
The LearnersChip Kidd(Simon & Schuster)Chip Kidd is one of North America’s most famous graphic designers, named in Time’s top-100 most influential people. Best known for his DC Comics publications (he’s obsessed with Batman), Kidd is an author, too: His hilarious first novel, The Cheese Monkeys, is set in a 1950s American college where naive narrator…
Otherworldly media coverage
Just after 10pm on October 4, 1967, 12-year-old Chris Styles spotted something weird through his bedroom window overlooking the Dartmouth side of Halifax Harbour. “It was a round object, glowing orange, the colour of iron heated in a forge,” Styles writes. He ran down to the harbour to get a closer look. From a distance…
Gina Byrne
Email: information@ginabyrne.comWebsite: http://www.ginabyrne.comTelephone: 488-5638 (cell) About Gina moved here with her husband from Alberta in 2003. She is a former city councillor – in High River, Alberta. She and her husband run a Boston Pizza in Sackville. Read more on page 16 of Feedline, the Halifax Fire Department’s newsletter. Goals and Issues Her main goals…
I Tania
I TaniaBrian Joseph DavisECWI always thought that it would be a great idea for an author to provide a soundtrack to accompany a novel and then I found one, on brianjosephdavis.com. As much as I approve of Funkadelic and Chrome, his music choices left me as cold as his experimental “highly fictionalized true story,” I,…
Quintet
QuintetDouglas Arthur Brown(Key Porter Books)Quintet could refer to five separate strands of story: identical triplets (Rory, Cameron and Adrian) coping with the sudden death of their parents in a train wreck; the lasting effects of growing up in Cape Breton; a Halifax carpenter (and choir singer) struggling with 30 years of addiction and caring for…
We Could Be Like That Couple
We Could Be Like That Couple Sarah Steinberg(Insomniac Press)In her first book, Sarah Steinberg does certain things really well. For one, there’s her brevity and sparse style: language is smart and pared back and sentences are mostly simple constructions that read smoothly. This is also helped by the book’s design, by former Haligonian designer Gillian…
Green biz
Considering the revolving door of retailers in this city, I’ve always figured you’d have to be nuts to start a business here, especially one of those socially conscious hippie enterprises. Turns out I was wrong. “Last year the hundredth monkey theory kicked in,” says Sean Gallagher, owner of three-year-old Terroir Local Source Food. “We got…
Tim Hosford
Email: timhosford@ufcw.ca Website: n/aTelephone: 237-9786 Goals Tim wants to be “efficient and effective. are tired of the hearing the same things over and over be it with the missteps surrounding the Commonwealth games, Dog & Cat bylaws, Twin towers, HRM Core and taxes. simply want council to work.” Issues “No doubt roads, transportation, Planning and infrastructure…
Glass Voices
Glass VoicesCarol BruneauCormorantIn Halifax writer Carol Bruneau’s last book, Berth, her main character Willa sacrifices a comfortable life as a military wife and mother to follow a mysterious man who lives in an isolated lighthouse on the island of Thrumcap (based on McNabs). In Glass Voices, 71-year-old Lucy Caines copes with a stroke-ridden husband, a…
Coming Attractions 07
Coming Attractions 07Edited by Mark Anthony Jarman (Oberon Press)Oberon Press’ Coming Attractions 07 showcases three emerging Canadian talents. It opens with its strongest stories by BC author Julie Paul. In her hilarious and sharp-witted “Boring Baby,” a new mother, already fed up with the trappings of motherhood, compares her newborn to an end table. Anik…
Blackouts
BlackoutsCraig BoykoMcClelland and StewartAt 28, Craig Boyko’s stories have been nominated for the Journey Prize several times and published, it seems, in every Canadian literary magazine. Blackouts, his first book, is a collection of short fiction. It travels from Stalinist Russia to WWII-era London to banal, contemporary Canadian suburbs. Boyko is a skilled, articulate writer,…
Savage Love
Q: Is it possible for a man to insert his balls into a woman? It’s a topic I don’t want to Google. A few months ago, I was making out with a guy and he whispered to me that he wanted to insert his balls into me. I said, “What?!” and he moved on to…
Beverly Miller
Email: hfxpeninsula@hotmail.comWebsite: www.beverlymiller.ca Telephone: 429-9540 About Beverly ran in the last election against Sue Uteck and lost. She holds an MA in history and an MBA from Dalhousie University. She teaches part-time in the marketing department in the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s. Goals and Issues Beverly is a fan of infilling, or…
The Office: Season Four
[image-4]Published September 25, 2008.The Office: Season Four Directed by: Developed by Greg Daniels(Universal Studios)Oh, season four of The Office: You could have been so terrible. After seasons of keeping made-for-each-other Office-mates Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) circumstance-crossed, show helmer Greg Daniels and his writing crew finally threw fans a bone in season three’s…
Life of Pi (Illustrated edition)
Life of Pi (Illustrated edition)Yann Martel. Illustrated by Tomislav TorjanacKnopf CanadaI love the paperback cover of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi: a bared-teeth tiger’s head floating between a tomato sky and a turquoise sea. It’s an iconic cover—like Heather O’Neill’s Lullabies for Little Criminals or James Frey’s kinda-memoir A Million Little Pieces—that is immediately identifiable.…
Remembering the Bones
Remembering the BonesFrances Itani(HarperCollins)Georgina Danforth Witley is late for her date with the queen. She was invited to Buckingham Palace for an 80th birthday lunch, as one of 99 Commonwealth guests sharing Queen Elizabeths birthday. But while driving to the airport, Georgina crashes through a guardrail and is thrown clear from the car into a…
The Baroness
The Baroness Sarah Slean (The Nerve!)Poetry can sing without sound. Known widely for her orchestral piano-pop musicality, Sarah Slean is a communicative artist, even without instruments and microphones. Evoking her fictional alter ego (aptly titled after her latest album), Slean questions philosophy, modernity, religion, geography and love in her second volume of poems The Baroness,…
I Still Have a Suitcase in Berlin
I Still Have a Suitcase in BerlinStephens Gerrard MaloneRandomHouseLocal author Stephens Gerrard Malone’s first novel, Miss Elva, was nominated for a Dartmouth Book Award, but latest, I Still Have a Suitcase in Berlin, would be better suited on the Governor General’s list. Beginning on the shores of Point Pleasant Park in 1932, young Haligonian Michael…
Doug Poulton
Email:doug.poulton@ns.sympatico.caWebsite: none Telephone: 823-3418 (h); 826-1966 (w) About Doug is a baker. He runs the White Sails Bakery in Peggy’s Cove with his wife and has done so for 19 years. He has lived in the area (Glen Haven) for 19 years. Goals and Issues Transportation and planned development are Doug’s main concerns. He calls…
The City of Words
The City of WordsAlberto ManguelAnansiWe like to think our cities don’t have walls anymore. In the 2007 CBC Massey Lecture, Alberto Manguel would have us think otherwise. Though an important tool to build (that is, to identify and name) cities, language can be used and abused so that barriers—invisible yes, but no less effective—still go…
Skim
SkimMariko and Jillian Tamaki(Anansi)Skim, a collaboration between cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, is not the first coming-of-age graphic novel, but it’s one of the best, ranking up there with Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis as a spot-on telling of teenage angst and a reminder of why you wouldn’t go back for a million bucks. Told in three…
Krazy!
Krazy!Curated by Bruce Grenville(Douglas & McIntyre)Pop culture fans don’t need to travel past the Rockies to enjoy KRAZY! The Delirious World of Anime+Comics+Video Games+Art, an exhibition at Vancouver Art Gallery running until September 7. Although the institution, which invited six curators to select works (including Seth, Art Spiegelman and Tim Johnson—who directed the famous 3D…
Almost Green
Almost Green James Glave(Douglas & McIntyre)In the 1986 comedy The Money Pit, home renovator Tom Hanks laments, “Here lies Walter Fielding. He bought a house, and it killed him.” Flash-forward two decades, replace house with Eco-Shed, and there’s James Glave nearly breaking his arm using a wild hole-saw while his radio blasts classic rock. In…
Bruce DeVenne
Email: bruce@bdevenne.comWebsite: www.bdevenne.com Telephone: 23-ELECT. About Years ago, the tainted blood scandal (specifically Hepatitis C infected blood) motivated Bruce to get political. The Commonwealth Games got him angry about the way government spends tax dollars. In fact, he was a vocal opponent of the Games and often appeared in the local and international press. A…
Abstract Painting in Canada
Abstract Painting in CanadaRoald NasgaardDouglas & McIntyreSplendid. A big book—432 pages with 200 illustrations in colour. It’s much easier to reel off the names of American abstract painters: Newman, Still, Pollock, Rothko, Kline, Gottlieb…on and on. Canadians? Not so much. Borduas, Martin, Molinari, Shadbolt… uh, who else? This book puts the Canadians on the wall.…
Falling
FallingAnne Simpson(M&S)The first sentence of Griffin Poetry Prize-winner Anne Simpson’s novel begins with a fall. Teenager Lisa tumbles off a four-wheeler, her body pinned underneath in a small stream while her brother, Damien, drunk on swimming and sun, dozes nearby. A year later, Damien and his mother Ingrid travel to Niagara Falls, a place that…
Essays in Love
Essays in LoveAlain de Botton (McClelland & Stewart)Even when falling in and then being in love, some people can’t shut off the analytical parts of their brains. Where passion exists, so does reason—always and forever. The protagonist in Alain de Botton’s Essays in Love certainly exhibits this condition. Though it purports to be a piece…
The Goddess of War
The Goddess of WarLauren Weinstein(Picturebox inc.)The goddess of war gets sick of her job, takes a personal day and broods about the past while getting drunk on the blood of sacrificed virgins in this graphic novel. American comics artist Weinstein deserves more recognition than she’s received with her two previous books, and perhaps with her…
Glenn Dodge
Email: info@glenndodge.caWebsite: www.glenndodge.caTelephone: 444-4544 About Glenn has lived in this district his entire life. If fact, he still lives on the same street he grew up on. He is a fourth generation district 14’er, so one could say he knows the geography of the area pretty well. He is a small business owner (which one?)…
On Performing
On PerformingBob SniderGaspereau PressThis companion volume to the folk singer’s 2005 book On Songwriting comes across as a looser collection of thoughts on a career in music than that first book. Bob Snider built an argument for clarity and simplicity in songwriting in his first offering; here he recognizes the same fixed structure is harder…
Looking For Anne
Looking For AnneIrene Gammel(Key Porter)Irene Gammel’s Looking for Anne isn’t so much a biography of Montgomery’s life but an outline of her process during the time she wrote Anne of Green Gables. Gammel portrays Montgomery as a serious and ambitious writer but asserts it was profound loneliness and emotional isolation that drove Montgomery in her…
Wild Plants of Eastern Canada: Identifying, Harvesting and Using
Wild Plants of Eastern Canada: Identifying, Harvesting and UsingMarilyn Walker(Nimbus) This is a wonderful book for those mildly, moderately or massively interested in identifying, appreciating, gathering and (carefully, responsibly) using wild fauna. At its heart, it’s a celebration of a major part of the Atlantic region’s natural heritage and ecological diversity. An associate professor at…
Free Lab
Free LabChristine Macy (Tuns Press)At the risk of oversimplifying, writers of books on architecture (like architects themselves) select from two options: Going big and elaborate, or keeping it short and simple. A practitioner and professor at Dalhousie, Christine Macy thankfully elects the latter. In Free Lab, covering 15 years of work (1991-2006), she succinctly and…
Sean Phillips
Email: sean@voteforphillips.caWebsite: www.voteforphillips.ca Telephone: 422-2244 About Sean has lived on Duncan Street for more than 30 years. His neighbour is fellow candidate Jennifer Watts. He looks like a young James Cromwell. He currently works as a realtor and has worked in sales and marketing most of his career. Apparently he has political experience as a…
Devlin Kuyek
[image-4]Published January 03, 2008.Devlin KuyekGood Crop / Bad CropBetween the LinesThis slim book (124 pages) is a manifesto, a call for Canadians to rise up against the cabal of multinational corporations that have hijacked national agricultural policies. For thousands of years, seed development was in the hands of farmers, who saved seed from each harvest…
Before Green Gables
Before Green GablesBudge Wilson(Viking)Anne Shirley is the unquestioned champion of her own life in Budge Wilson’s Before Green Gables, the Montgomery-estate approved prequel to Anne of Green Gables. Wilson tells a tragic story of abandonment, misuse and abuse in Anne’s early childhood but never once allows her to give in to her circumstances as she…
Be Good
Be Good Stacey May Fowles (Tightrope Books)Sometimes fear of becoming a Montreal hipster novelist is the quickest way to stop daydreams of moving, after another fruitless Halifax day. For those of us who never drank at Montreal’s dive bars while attending McGill, those books can be like banging your head against a screenprinted gig-poster-adorned wall.…
Spaced: The Complete Series
[image-4]Published September 18, 2008.Spaced: The Complete SeriesDirected by: Edgar Wright (BBC Warner)Early on in British series Spaced, procrastinating writer Daisy (Jessica Hynes) manically suggests the idea of throwing a party to her new roommate, Tim (Simon Pegg). “We could have a glitter ball! I could make one out of tinfoil!” she enthuses. The hilariously lame…
Katie Campbell
Email: katie.campbellHRM@gmail.comWebsite: katieforcouncillor.blogspot.comTelephone: 219-0866 About Katie’s profession is as an information, change and knowledge manager. She has worked for the Dept. of Foreign Affairs, the Dept. of National Defence, Care Canada and Canada Post (under contract). Goals and Issues Katie wants to run a green campaign. Instead of putting up signs, she wants people to…
Long Story Short
Long Story ShortElyse FriedmanAnansiElyse Friedman brings on-the-job skills to her fiction. As a former radio writer and producer for YTV and CBC’s Definitely Not the Opera, among other things, she’s developed an amazing ear for dialogue and visual descriptions (like radio-vet Heather O’Neill, I’m sure Friedman’s stories make great readings). Long Story Short’s title fits—it’s…
The Angel Riots
The Angel RiotsIbi Kaslik(Penguin)Anyone who has an allergy to hipster fiction would be forgiven for tossing Ibi Kaslik’s book down after a reference to Pitchfork—music-wankery website supreme—appears on page 13. It doesn’t help when you read in the press notes that Broken Social Scene named a song, “Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)” after…
Get It Ripe
Get It Ripejae steele(Arsenal Pulp Press)The best parts of jae steele’s entertaining vegan cookbook, Get It Ripe, are what’s missing from its pages: No judgmental preaching and lists of expensive ingredients that you’ll never find in Halifax anyway. steele, a registered holistic nutritionist, spends a good chunk of the book breaking down food choices, nutrition,…
Omon Ra
[image-4]Published September 18, 2008.Omon RaThe Halls of Medicine(Fixture Records) Omon Ra’s first album on Fixture Records, The Halls of Medicine, sounds as if it was recorded inside an astronaut’s suit. Daniel Miller and Zachary Fairbrother’s psychedelic folk is filled with contradictions, such as mixing Sonic Youth-inspired drone with lyrics that could come out of a…
Nancy Sievert
Email: sievert.D10@gmail.com Website: Telephone: 452-9197 About Nancy has run Kirnan Accounting Solutions, an accounting services business, for the past 16 years. She is a Certified Quickbooks ProAdvisor. That’s a type of accounting and bookkeeping software. She also works as a business advisor for the Centre for Women in Business at Mount Saint Vincent. She is…
A Covenant of Salt
A Covenant of SaltMartine Desjardins (translated by Fred Reed and David Hormel)Talon BooksBefore nutritionists blackballed salt for causing high blood pressure, it was the most valuable and holy of dietary staples. Pure, incorruptible and potentially deadly, salt is the central theme in Montreal author Martine Desjardins’ macabre historic thriller, A Covenant of Salt. The novel…
The Ravine
The RavinePaul Quarrington(Random House)If there’s anything harder than writing a good novel, it’s writing a bad novel well. But it’s this feat that Canada Reads 2008 winner Paul Quarrington accomplishes in his latest comedic romp. A book within a book, The Ravine is egomaniac Phil McQuigge’s attempt to write a memoir. An “enthusiastic amateur alcoholic”…
Jerome: The Historical Spectacle
Jerome: The Historical Spectacle Ami McKay (Gaspereau Press)Jerome, in production at Two Planks and a Passion Theatre until Sunday, is a juggernaut of Nova Scotian talent: The play’s written by Ami McKay (The Birth House), and stars Zuppa Circus’s Ben Stone and Susan Leblanc-Crawford. Now Jerome is published by Gaspereau Press, the creator of books…
Jerome Downey
Email: jeromedowney@eastlink.ca Website: jeromedowney.caTelephone: 444-4263 About Jerome was raised downtown (he was born in Toronto – hey, don’t hold that against him), attended St. Patrick’s High School and was a football all-star. He went to Mount Allison University and completed a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. He works as an Account Executive with a…
The Late Hector Kipling
The Late Hector KiplingDavid ThewlisPenguinHey! Poking about for a kicking novel with hyper-charged entertainment values? Current as tomorrow? Torrent-paced? With a carnage of truly whacked-out characters, which include a crazed dandy stalker and an American punk-poet love goddess who spells orgasm “S&M?” Similar in tenor to Ricky Gervais’s, iconoclastic British actor/writer David Thewlis serves up…
Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself
Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing MyselfRussell Wangersky(Thomas Allen)Certain professions are overly romanticized in popular television and film—does the world need another canoodling medical drama or corrupt cop flick? The best in those genres, like The Wire, are written by those who have actually done the job. Russell Wangersky’s book about his years…
Martin Belanger’s body talks
One of the things that makes dance so magical—and oftentimes so moving—is its ability to transcend language. Using movement, a skilled performer can make us feel and understand things at a level that can’t be reached through other means. That same ethereal quality, however, can sometimes make dance hard to talk about, especially for a…
Burn After Reading
Burn After Reading is so in the moment that I didn’t realize I liked the film until it finished. The Coens’ follow-up to No Country For Old Men busts the hope of anyone wishing that the brothers are now completely serious. Their gift for comedy operates with the same quick wit as their dramatic features.…
Dolly Parton peddles books in The Book Lady
The opening frame shows a shoe with a towering heel on a bouncing foot. A familiar piano riff chugs along over top of the image. The song is “Nine to Five” and the stiletto belongs to Dolly Parton, who settles into a chair, ready to be interviewed, in the opening sequence of The Book Lady.…
Yet at a Distance—Father Poems from the Maritimes
Yet at a Distance—Father Poems from the MaritimesVariousBorealisThis anthology, launching on January 25 at Local Jo Cafe, opens with the parable of the prodigal son. Gary Burrill, the collection’s editor writes an opaque foreword about why “father poems” proliferate in the Maritimes. Attaching a regional basis is debatable. The biblical passage suggests all sons are…
Hall of Best Knowledge
Hall of Best KnowledgeRay Fenwick FantagraphicsWhen Ray Fenwick’s Hall of Best Knowledge ran in the back pages of this paper, it was simply a beautifully constructed, amusing, obsessive typographical comic. But as you enter the Hall in book form and wander through its dense corridors, there’s more depth and narrative than a weekly serialized comic…
Historic indecision: Waterside Centre
The controversial Waterside Centre development proposed for the heart of downtown Halifax’s historic district remains in limbo. A public hearing spread over two weeks heard spirited arguments from 59 people on the project, leaving little time for Halifax councillors to discuss the matter among themselves at Tuesday’s meeting, so council moved back its vote on…
Righteous Kill
Something’s not right when a movie stars the esteemed thespians Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, and the only person who comes out of it with dignity is John Leguizamo. If I wanted to pretend I was an idiot, I’d say that Righteous Kill asks provocative questions about when police brutality is justified. Stock the…
Gervais’ Ghost Town
“He had three rules going into it,” says director David Koepp of his Ghost Town star Ricky Gervais. “The first rule was ‘I won’t kiss anybody, nobody wants to see that.’ Second rule was ‘I won’t talk to myself alone in a room no matter how much it helps the plot. And I will ruin…
Around the World in 57 1/2 Gigs
[image-2][image-3][image-4] (click for larger version)Published January 31, 2008.Around the World in 57 1/2 GigsDave Bidini(M&S)After 26 years of performing to a devoted fan base without mansions or mainstream fame, The Rheostatics called it quits, leaving rhythm guitarist, singer and writer Dave Bidini with a soul-deep dilemma: what does a middle-aged musician, whose identity is so…
Troubled
Troubled RM Vaughan(Coach House Books)In 1999, Toronto writer and artist RM Vaughan had a crush on his therapist, often referred to as transference. But when his therapist showed up at the opening night of one of Vaughan’s plays, a real sexual relationship began. Troubled is a memoir of an inappropriate union, and its emotional, psychological…
Climbing B.A. Johnston’s Stairway to Hamilton
It’s hard to relive the thrill of witnessing the wild antics of born showman B.A. Johnston for the first time. He’s like James Brown on a shoestring budget, where the shoestring is re-used every gig. There are costume changes, funky aromas, pools of sweat, playful confrontations with the audience and spastic verging-on-rhythmic dance moves. And…
The joke’s on us
So Gerry Ritz a made stupid, tasteless, offensive joke. Two actually. Is that any reason for Stephen Harper to fire him? My answer would be no. Most of us—well, me at least; thee may be more pure—have, in the heat of an overheated moment, or in a moment of frustration, or in the inevitably mistaken…
Acadiana Soy tries to keep it fresh
At the Soy Deli stand at the Halifax Farmers’ Market, George Pickford points to a sign taped to the counter: “Notice! Our produce is still available at Pete’s Frootique in Halifax and Bedford.” “We just want people to know they can still get our tofu,” he says. George’s wife, Anna Anderson, started Acadiana Soy in…
The Book of Other People
[image-4]Published February 07, 2008.The Book of Other PeopleZadie Smith (edited)(Penguin)If youre a commitment-phobe who likes to be sure of an author before putting out cash, this book of short stories serves as a fantastic sampler of contemporary authors and comic artists. The premise is simple: Editor Zadie Smith (White Teeth) asked 23 contributors for stories…
The Withdrawal Method
The Withdrawal Method Pasha Malla(Anansi)”I should probably tell you,” she said, swallowing coffee, “that I’m about to lose my skin.”That opening sentence— from the first story, “Slough,” in Pasha Malla’s remarkable debut collection The Withdrawal Method—is a sign (or warning) of things to come. When reading, for instance, Barbara Gowdy’s stories, you expect characters with…
Ojingogo ink
Last weekend, most of us probably slept in, drank some beer, hit the market or watched a little TV. Last weekend, Montreal artist Matthew Forsythe toured the Pixar studios in San Francisco and contributed artwork to a high-profile tribute show for Japanese artist Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away). Oh yeah—and on the way…
Death by a thousand polls
How many thousands (millions?) of dollars will Canadian news organizations spend polling public opinion in the leadup to the October 14 federal election? How much of that would have been better spent explaining the concepts and relative merits of competing environmental policies like the carbon tax or cap-and-trade emissions policies so the public opinion they…
