On Palestine Noam Chomsky & Ilan Pappé Haymarket, 2015 In 2010, Haymarket Books published a collection of interviews and essays from Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé that attempted to make sense of the Gaza War of 2008-2009, otherwise known as Operation Cast Lead. The conflict, which lasted three weeks, ended
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cmkl: Bibshorts: MAMIL sausage
Wherein I compare the comfort and usefulness of the various bib shorts I’ve used
Continue readingcmkl: Base layers: the old man and the undershirt
Part two of a series on my search for the perfect all-day cycling kit. Base layers.
Continue readingScripturient: Pasta Books Reviewed, Part 2
This follows from part one of my book reviews, posted on this blog. Please see that post for the introduction. These, with either the Pasta Bible or Pasta Cookbook (preferred) by Jeni Wright, from the first post, are the recommended books. I’ve rated the books from A (highest) to E
Continue readingScripturient: Pasta Books Reviewed, Part 1
While I can’t say my collection of pasta making and recipe books is as exhaustive as it could be had I an unlimited amount to spend and equivalent time to read and make pasta, I have garnered a few useful books over the past month. I wanted to share some
Continue readingArt Threat: Montreal Fringe: Three for the road
Cootie Catcher, written and performed by Lucas Brooks, focuses on Brooks’ close encounters of the transmissible kind. Using a cootie catcher, better known to some as a fortune teller, Brooks regales the audience with tales of all the times he thought he had been exposed to one STD or another,
Continue readingArt Threat: Montreal Fringe: Laureen: Queen of the Tundra
As an American expat unfamiliar with the pop-cultural aspect of Canadian politics, a lot of the jokes in Laureen: Queen of the Tundra went over my head. However, it is to the performers’ credit that this did not distract from their commentary about the fluidity of gender and culture, against
Continue readingArt Threat: Montreal Fringe: Non-conformist jugglers, Mrs. Pirandello, and intense performance art
The New Conformity, from Vancouver circus troupe Cause & Effect, is on its most immediate level a direct commentary on contemporary corporate culture. The performers, clad in identical grey suits, use juggling and physical comedy to tell the story of one man’s rebellion against imposed monotony, which begins with the
Continue readingArt Threat: Montreal Fringe: Dystopia, misogyny, and carrés rouges
2056: A Dystopian Black Comedy takes place in a near-future Canada, controlled by an authoritarian regime known as the Helpers who have, in the wake of an atheist Reckoning, abolished all religion and languages other than English. Like other dystopias, it is based on controlled fear. Written by Keir Cutler
Continue readingArt Threat: Montreal Fringe: The No Bull$#!% History of Canada and Bar Kapra the Squirrel Hunter: No-bullshit reviews
No bullshit, just coffee: Kyle Allatt performs The No Bull$#!% History of Canada to June 21st A tight, well-paced show, The No Bull$#!% History of Canada rips through 600+ years of history in what feels like ten minutes. Given the vast timespan explored in what is actually just under an
Continue readingArt Threat: The outlaw love and godless gospel of roots rocker Rodney DeCroo
Albumn review, “Campfires on the Moon”, by Michael Nenonen. Rodney DeCroo’s latest album, “Campfires on the Moon,” reveals hidden faces. I’ll say more about that in a moment. “Campfires”, released by Tonic Records, is DeCroo’s seventh album (eighth if you count his 2012 spoken word album “Allegheny”, and you probably should).
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Shaping a new democracy of consensus
The Extreme Centre: A Warning Tariq Ali Verso Books, 2015 In 1977, two years before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, political theorist Tom Nairn’s The Break-Up of Britain presciently forecasted the rise of civic nationalism in Scotland. Written before the apex of the neoliberal turn, a
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Can democracy be salvaged?
The Extreme Centre: A Warning Tariq Ali Verso Books, 2015 In the late 1970s, several years before Margaret Thatcher would become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the remaking of civic nationalism in Scotland was underway. The country’s northernmost region – still a stateless nation seeking desperately to achieve sovereignty
Continue readingArt Threat: From Exposé to Opacity: With The Migrant Image, T.J Demos Rethinks Documentary Aesthetics
Though often situated at the centre of grandiose political and activist projects, tasked time and again with capturing visible evidence of exploitation, violence, deprivation, and inequality, documentary, as both a genre and a practice, rests on a fundamental paradox: that of being perpetually too early and too late. If, as
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: There is Power in a Union: Pride
Directed by Matthew Warchus 2014 Warning: This review contains spoilers. Pride, a film about class struggle and the importance of solidarity set against the backdrop of the 1984-85 British miners’ strike, is 2014’s “feel-good” political movie. The film follows the formation and success of the Lesbians and Gays Support the
Continue readingArt Threat: A Changing Chinatown
Julia Kwan’s NFB-produced Everything Will Be (Canada, 2014) examines the gentrification of Vancouver’s Chinatown as an uneasy balance of preservation, assimilation, and creative re-purposing. A flurry of condo development encroaches on the neighbourhood’s familiar faces, such as the witty nonagenarian newsvendor and the members of the senior’s singing club. Meanwhile,
Continue readingArt Threat: Performing Aloha in Queer Times
In 2001, filmmakers Kathryn Xian and Brent Anbe broke new ground with their documentary Ke Kulana He Mahu: Remembering a Sense of Place. The film, which documents the lives, struggles, and aspirations of several queer and trans Kanaka Maoli (Indigenous Hawaiians), also made an important and, at the time, novel
Continue readingArt Threat: Art and photography tackle the conscience and chronology of war
A review of: Conflict – Time – Photography @ Tate Modern, London Conscience and Conflict: British Artists and the Spanish Civil War @ Pallant Gallery, Chichester Brute @ arthouse1, London We have just returned from Tate Modern and the exhibition Conflict-Time-Photography. On the cover of the exhibition catalogue is the photo
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: How Canada gets people tortured
Guantánamo Diary Mohamedou Ould Slahi Little, Brown and Company Following December’s release of the U.S. Senate report on American complicity in torture, Prime Minister Stephen Harper quickly declared, “It has nothing to do whatsoever with the government of Canada.” Despite the CIA’s close relationship with Canadian state security agencies, as
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Idleness, the enemy of progress
Fighting Against Western Imperialism Andre Vltchek Badak Merah, 2014 For the better part of three decades, Andre Vltchek has dedicated his career to exposing injustice. As a filmmaker, journalist, documentarian and poet, the 52 year-old has covered dozens of war zones, lived on nearly every continent and steeped himself in
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