Why we’re still waiting for RU-486
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The quiet one
Shannon, this is an awesome guitar solo:http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3034776103380536828 It’s not artsy-fartsy, but the guy is skilled. Every band should aspire to rock god status, otherwise there’s no point. 😉 Cheers,Marcmwmurphyx@yahoo.com By Marc Murphy
The quiet one
Shannon, this is an awesome guitar solo:http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3034776103380536828 It’s not artsy-fartsy, but the guy is skilled. Every band should aspire to rock god status, otherwise there’s no point. 😉 Cheers,Marcmwmurphyx@yahoo.com By Marc Murphy
A long kiss goodbye
We began this journey back in the fall of 2004. The thought was that, in this horribly accelerating age of the kids and their crazy internets, we would bring things back to the page. Where there were weblogs with weblinks, we would provide a real page with a real link. Both activities centred on reading…
“Fog” bank
There’s news to report once again from the Wintersleep camp. Fresh from signing a management deal with Sonic Entertainment, the workaholics released their second video from their sophomore self-titled album at The Marquee Club on February 24. For “Fog,” the band was finally able to go the animated route it had wanted to go for…
Grill powers
Deco Restaurant at 5518 Spring Garden is changing the theme of their downstairs cafe, which will now be focusing more on barbequed fare. “The place has got a facelift, and it’s now got all the right equipment to do barbeque properly,” says Deco owner Philip Levangie. Levangie describes the thought process behind the new space,…
Proportion of power
No doubt Stephen Harper feels he did the right thing in appointing the unelected Michael Fortier and the elected but politically flexible David Emerson to his cabinet. He had excellent motives —he wanted to provide representation for Quebec and BC in his government—something the election process and the voters inconsiderately failed to do in the…
Stand up and be counted
To the editor, I wonder if Darren Watts’ letter to the editor in the March 2 issue, in which he asserts that Doug Sparks’ new seat was originally going to be at the front of the table, doesn’t miss the point? Perhaps when mediation is completed we’ll have answers to the questions that remain. For…
Stand up and be counted
Dear editor, I would like to commend Stephen Kimber on his in-depth article on Doug Sparks and the school board seating dispute in your February 23 issue. This is a topic where the “mainstream” papers were disappointingly incomplete in their reporting. I know Doug Sparks and I knew the story behind his refusal to take…
For shame
To the editor, I cannot even begin to describe to you the level of horror and revulsion I felt upon seeing the full-page ad you ran in The Coast for a smokeless tobacco product in your February 2 issue. This is absolutely unacceptable. Smokeless tobacco is a major cause of brutal and incurable forms of…
Dirty, dirty bird
To the editor, I almost barfed when I read in the February 23 issue that Liz Feltham considers KFC the best fried chicken. It was not because she referred to it as “dirty bird.” No. It was because of the support this oblivious woman gives to the “restaurant” that uses the most outrageously cruel and…
Anti-Pam
Dear editor, The Junos have chosen anti-fur activist Pam Anderson to host their award ceremony. Her connections to PETA make her unfit to host a show that takes place in a region of Canada where fur is still harvested for a living. This is not the type of person we want in Atlantic Canada and…
Baring the truth
To the editor, As an aesthetician with my own practice and a busy Brazilian waxer, I can attest that this service is far from going “out of style” as Lezlie Lowe claims (March 2, “Wax and Wane”); I do about five of them a day. It is my most-requested service, because I am certified, trusted…
Twisted Sisters
To the editor, I have noticed that most of the individuals supporting the United Gulf proposal live in Dartmouth, Sackville or Bedford. If these people want the towers in their community, then go after it. Don’t support a functionally obsolete structure in my community of peninsular Halifax. Further, it is the salience factor in the…
Twisted Sisters
To the editor, In Kyle Shaw’s February 23 editorial, he urged citizens of Halifax to attend the public hearing regarding the United Gulf development on the former Tex Park site and “put your foot down.” I attended the public hearing and put their foot down was exactly what the people of Halifax did. A wide…
Seasonal disorder
The best one can say about winter, it seems, is a backhanded compliment. Seventeenth century American poet Anne Bradstreet wrote, “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant….” Percy Bysshe Shelley couldn’t muster much better in “Ode to the West Wind”: “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” The penguins…
One-booth wonder
On a recent Thursday I have supper in this one-day diner. A diner. Open for one day. With one booth. Sweet. I bump into the painter-slash-musician Mitchell Wiebe and he says, “do you know about the secret cafe?” Of course I don’t. He says, “well, that’s one place, but friends of mine have this other…
The drug of choice
It’s the drug pro-choicers call an essential public health measure. It’s the drug pro-lifers call a chemical coat hanger. It’s RU-486. If you lived in France or almost any other European Union country, your doctor could prescribe it for you today. Ditto for China, India, New Zealand, Norway, Russia and South Africa, not to mention…
Twisted design
What stops Halifax architects Craig Mosher and Niall Savage from embracing heritage defenders is bigger than the chain-link fence that surrounds the Texpark site on Hollis and Sackville Streets; it’s their imaginations. As modernist architects, both put function before form. They prefer straight lines. They emphasize shape, light and transparency before things like the decorative…
The real McKiel
Jon McKiel personifies what is known in music writer parlance as “unassuming.” In conversation the word is attached to someone or something modest, but in pages such as these, unassuming means quiet, shy and, to pull another favourite from the lexicon, enigmatic. Translation: Dude is humble. McKiel, who came out of nowhere to be voted…
The Friendz giant
After years of success, turmoil, multiple projects and occupations, The Super Friendz have kept it together. They’re back in the studio, recording their fourth full-length album, their first in more than three years. They will unveil some of their new songs on March 11 at the Grawood. “Basically, we were going to play a show…
16 Blocks
Nothing is inherently gay about 16 Blocks or The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, but that shouldn’t make either confusing. Both movies are about the bonds of adult male friendship and the facade of machismo. In 16 Blocks, Bruce Willis is the typical cranky hero that defined his past action hits, except this time he…
Born on the bayou
The cuisine in and around New Orleans has a Maritime connection; it was in the bayous of Southern Louisiana that many exiled Acadians resettled. “Acadian” became “Cajun,” and Cajun cooking is the rustic, country cooking found in those parts. “Creole” is a mix of French, Spanish and African cuisines; considered to be more refined, it’s…
Mmmmaple
Q: It’s been a strange winter. Do you think the unusual weather will affect the maple syrup? A: Our concern is that the trees will bud early as a result of the unseasonably warm weather. The sugar season only lasts until the buds on the trees start to swell, and the syrup changes as budding…
An epic adaptation
It’s not as far from Nick and Relic to the new cinematic version of the epic poem Beowulf as you might think. Director Sturla Gunnarson was born in Iceland, where his new picture Beowulf & Grendel was shot. When he was seven he moved from the North Atlantic nation to Vancouver via ocean-going freighter and…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Respond to the invitations of the cosmos, Pisces, and prepare to experience incredible gratitude and love, says Rob Brezsny.
SAVAGE LOVE
Who will be the Canadian “santorum”? Dan Savage is on it.
On the day before the ashes
Part eleven, the last chapter, of Submerged: An evacuee’s journal by Michael Tisserand The devil stood in the middle of the street, refusing to budge. “I don’t care if a car hits me,” said the devil, tightening up her face. “I’m just going to stand here.” It was Mardi Gras afternoon, and my family was…
Boobie trap
Only at a Mötley Crüe after-party would this moment be possible. Without any warning, two breasts flash before my eyes, followed by an ear-piercing shriek. “Vince Neil just signed our boobs!” scream the two women, holding their bras open for anyone at the nightclub to see. A crowd mobs Vince Neil for autographs and high…
In case of emergency
The “morning-after” pill—commonly sold under the brand name Plan B in Canada—is a form of emergency contraception. It’s used after unprotected sex or birth control failure, and works up to 72 hours after the incident (not just the morning after). Plan B is available over the counter by asking a pharmacist—no prescription needed. Just like…
Present tense
“The central issue in the cartoon controversy is about power,” Paul Bowlby told more than 200 students and professors last week in a crowded auditorium at Saint Mary’s. Bowlby, the university’s chair of religious studies, was referring to the uproar over the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed as a terrorist. “Canadians enjoy the freedom…
Final countdown
The construction company has been selected, the tendering process is nearly finalized and virtually all the funding is in for a sizeable addition to the skatepark currently located on the Halifax Common. The project is a joint venture between HRM and the Halifax Skatepark Coalition, a group of volunteers who have been lobbying for this…
