Sheila Fraser may very well be Canada’s most popular civil servant. After filing her February 2004 Auditor General’s report outlining, among other things, the shameful and probably criminal pilfering of public funds that we’ve come to know as “the sponsorship scandal,” Fraser started receiving cards and letters of thanks from Canadians. A couple from Cape […]
The Scene
Posted inArts + Music
Knowing your history
I’m a sucker for magazine special issues, so the January/February edition of The Atlantic had my attention from the first line of the editorial. “With this issue The Atlantic Monthly begins a year-long celebration of our upcoming 150th anniversary,” the editors write. “Fifteen decades is a long time; only a handful of publications anywhere have […]
Posted inArts + Music
Sticking with the Policy
Having returned from a short three-date Maritimes stint with friends Wintersleep, rock group Folds of Policy are heading back to the studio with the intentions of finishing work on their sophomore effort, tentatively titled Trouble on the Wall. Bassist Charlie Coolen says while there are no huge, conscious format changes from Stay in Your Homes’ […]
Posted inArts + Music
It takes a hero
Our experience with Reader’s Digest extends mostly to dentist waiting rooms and airplanes, though we often marvel at how some version of RD is printed in a couple hundred countries. But an eagle-eyed reader pointed us to the January 2006 issue, featuring dreamy diver Alexandre Despatie, and its rather earnest feature on reader-voted Heroes of […]
Posted inArts + Music
North by no way
After a single year of promoting under the clever spoof label NXNE, the North by North End festival, featuring local bands playing in north end Halifax venues, will be legally forced to modify its marketing strategy for 2006. The huge North by Northeast festival — held annually in Toronto — smacked the organizers of the […]
Posted inArts + Music
JT LieRoy
Back in October we alerted you to an excellent piece by Stephen Beachy in New York magazine, which wondered, “Who is the Real JT LeRoy?” The story implied that the cult author of Sarah and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things — whose much-touted backstory as a Southern ex-hooker rescued from the parking lot […]
Posted inArts + Music
From Gods to kings
Discouraged by bands with similar — or identical — names and anxious to put a year of hardship behind them, The Porcelain Gods aspire to freshness in 2006 with the same songs and a new brand. Halifax’s reigning kings of power-pop will henceforth be known as Their Majesties. “It conjures images of grandeur, pomp and […]
Posted inArts + Music
Bribezillas
In an interview with Chronicle-Herald reporter Michael Lightstone last month, HRM councillor Dawn Sloane revealed that, four years ago, a local developer offered her a roll of bills in a private meeting. After the story ran, further coverage revealed that two other HRM councillors had been offered bribes during their tenure, all by local, as […]
Posted inArts + Music
Thom Take
Take One — the magazine about the Canadian film and television industry — has recently released a $24 special edition (available at better newsstands near you and online at www.takeonemagazine.ca) that purports to have chosen the “1001 Greatest Canadian Films and Filmmakers of All Time.” “All time” is a bad concept for lists. It’s out […]
Posted inArts + Music
Kick-grass
The latest product of Darmouth’s consequential alt-country tradition are the kind of like-minded friends who perpetually have their instruments in hand. Whether the members of The Grass are sitting in their living room or around the kitchen table, there is rarely a moment of dead air in their Vernon Street flat. Strangers and acquaintances alike […]
Posted inArts + Music
Letters to the editor
Comments on all aspects of the paper’s performance and city life.
Posted inArts + Music
ANABLOG
The craziest statistic we read this time last year was over 1,000 magazines launched in 2004. Most of them didn’t make it, of course. But we’re still here, a year and change later, and it’s been quite a freakin’ year. Like every other overpaid columnist in every publication in the world, we will now offer […]