The disco balls that hang above dance floors around the world will spin a little slower tonight with news that former ’70s disco queen Donna Summer (pictured at left) has passed away at age 63.
Here’s a link to the Globe & Mail report. And here’s video of Donna performing one of her biggest hits when she was in her prime “I Feel Love”.
1 SAD ANNIVERSARY Today is the 22nd anniversary of Jim Henson’s death. This photo from his memorial service says it all.
2 WHILE YOU’RE AT IT, BRAD … while you’re so busy defending Saskatchewan’s economic status quo from Thomas Mulclair, maybe you want to explain why Saskatchewan’s manufacturing sector has declined since you took office? (Which would prove Mulclair’s point.) Don’t worry. I can wait.
3 THEN AGAIN, BRAD WALL IS REALLY GLAD THOMAS MULCIAR IS AROUND As long as Brad Wall keeps the press gallery captivated with his Captain Saskatchewan act, he hopes he doesn’t have to answer questions about why the film industry he boosted in 2011 is the same industry he wants to move to Manitoba in 2012.
4 CANADIAN MILITARY SPENDING OUT OF CONTROL If the combat department was as out of control as the military procurement department, I would expect the Canadian Armed Forces to start invading countries on its own.
REMEMBER WHEN THE UNITED NATIONS DIDN’T HAVE NAYTHING TO EMBARRASS US WITH? I haven’t been able to find the clip on line yet, but apparently Senator Mike Duffy, Immigration Minister Jason Kenny, and Sun News Network host Ezra Levant joked about the United Nations senior official who noted the prevalence of hunger in Canada. Those guys don’t look as if they’ve missed a buffet table – let alone a meal – in their lives. But what they would have had to say wouldn’t appear as far on the ridiculous meter as this woman. At least former Report on Business editor David Olive has a conscience about this.
TIME TO SWITCH SIDES, MITCHELL BLAIR Blair is the only Seattle Seahawks fan that I know of. Which is too bad. For him. There’s another team in CenturyLink Field that’s doing better than the Seahawks, but Mitchell may fear getting European-style cooties from them.
YOUR MUSICAL MOMENT OF ZEN For some reason NASA is hiring will.i.am from The Black Eyed Peas to write a song about space exploration. Why bother? The Beastie Boys did it better: Intergalactic.
Each month at Bushwakker, a faculty member from the University of Regina presents a talk on some aspect of science. The talks start at 7 p.m., although people generally congregate earlier for food, drink and conversation.
Tonight’s presentation is by biology prof Chris Somers. The title is Sperm is Cheap: Mating Systems in Animals and Parallels in Humans.
I wouldn’t want to speculate too much on what Somers will be discussing, but it presumably has something to do with the different biological constraints that males and females operate under. It’s not that these constraints predetermine every aspect of our behaviour, but they certainly do influence it.
As part of their biological make-up, males produce millions of sperm a day — each one capable of impregnating an egg from a female and producing off-spring. Females, conversely, have much more limited reproductive capacity. In human terms, they ovulate once a month, and if they become pregnant they’re rendered infertile until they give birth, and even for some time afterwards if they’re breast-feeding. So the stakes for females are typically higher than for males.
We live in the year 2012. But all these biological drivers were set in motion millions of years ago. And I imagine Somers will be discussing how they continue impact on our behaviour.
And now for a slightly more humourous take on the whole situation here’s a link to a classic scene from Woody Allen’s 1972 comedy Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask).
I’m not one to get too pumped up about upcoming music release schedules, mostly because my organization skills for such are matters are next to non-existent and I need to essentially have something in my hands (or, as is mostly the case with press types these days, in my digital paws) before I can get excited about it.
The big exception for 2012 is the new Henry Clay People record, Twenty-Five for the Rest of Our Lives, coming out at the end of June. The Glendale, California band are in that league of Hold Steady-style sing-shouters, a non-stop rock ‘n’ roll band you can yell along to. Their 2010 album, Somewhere on the Golden Coast, was my absolute, hands-down favourite record of that year, and 2011’s digital-only EP This Is a Desert was the best musical thing that clocked in at under 20 minutes.
This Is a Desert also featured the great line “We weren’t born to run, we were born to stay right here”, making clear the twist on the old Bruce Springsteen ethic they’re working with. They’re dudes in their 20s running low on option, without even the hot ride Springsteen’s characters often had to get the hell out of town.
They’ve just released a track from the new album, “Friends Are Forgiving”. You can listen to it above, although I won’t blame you if you don’t actually watch the video.
Last summer, the Saskatchewan Science Centre hosted a touring exhibit called Sex: A Tell-All Exhibition. It was organized by the Montreal Science Centre with the goal of providing pre-teen children and teenagers (and any adults who were interested, too) with straightforward information about human reproduction and other aspects of sexuality.
You can read Carle Steel’s take on the exhibit here.
The exhibit opens Friday at the Canada Science & Technology Museum in Ottawa, but it’s already apparently generated a fair bit of controversy. No less a personnage than federal Heritage Minister James Moore has waded into the fray, chastising the museum for daring to host the exhibit which he said is an affront to, you guessed it, “taxpayers”. He also stated that it was contrary to the museum’s mandate to “foster scientific and technological literacy throughout Canada”.
If there’s one thing the Harper Conservatives are expert at fostering it’s scientific literacy, so I’ll yield to his judgment on that point. In a statement released by his office, Minister Moore encourages Canadians who feel as he does to besiege the museum with complaints about the exhibit — which was assembled with the help of teachers, nurses, doctors and sexologists.
In the Ottawa Citizen article linked to above, Saskatchewan Science Centre director Sandy Baumgartner is quoted as saying that when Sex was in Regina last summer it caused nary a ripple of concern. Obviously, our three Conservative MPs Tom Lukiwski, Ray Boughen and Andrew Scheer were totally asleep at the switch and failed miserably in their sacred duty to protect the impressionable youth of Regina from disgusting material like this by launching their own vitriolic attack on the Science Centre. Shame on them, I say.
Last time I mentioned Hunter Moore on the Dog Blog, the founder of the revenge porn site Is Anyone Up? had sold his pride and joy, one of the most odious corners of the web, to an anti-bullying site.
That hasn’t stopped the controversy for Moore — a Village Voice piece says Moore is under investigation by the F.B.I., a suggestion that prompts Moore to say, “Honestly, I will be fucking furious, and I will burn down fucking The Village Voice headquarters if you fucking write anything saying I have an FBI investigation.” I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve dropped that threat in interviews myself.
The article goes on to outline how one person was probably responsible for a great number of hacked photos on Is Anyone Up? The relationship between this mystery hacker and Moore is unclear. The Village Voice does note that, after their e-mail or Facebook accounts were hacked, the photos of the women in question showed up on Moore’s site in short order.
He’s his usual, erudite self in his interview for the piece. One bit that caught my eye:
[E]ven if Moore’s money somehow found its way to a hacker, he insists he’s not responsible. “If I paid for content, it wouldn’t matter because they submitted it. It wouldn’t matter. It would be like me leaving a fucking $100 bill on the sidewalk and somebody coming and picking that up and fucking throwing a picture on my lawn — it would be the same exact thing. It still comes back on that person who walked by my driveway.”
What an astoundingly stupid man.
I think my love of Combat Improv is well documented. In fact, I even did a preview for their season-ending, two-night extravaganza in the prairie dog a while back. Not only is that article kicking around the internet, but it’s been committed to print. And that lasts forever.
Well, the ensemble of local improv performers are ending another season with another two-night blowout. Judy Wensel, seen left, and all the other talented members of the group will, I imagine, be doing showcase sets and going head-to-head in competitive long-form improv funny-offs. The Facebook event also mentions they’ll be debuting an all-new form, so get psyched for that.
If you’re looking to be entertained today, tomorrow or both, then you now know where to go. I’d throw the idea of not washing your hands and using your stamp from Night 1 to get into 2 out there, but the door will no doubt so low that a scheme like that would be more sad than dastardly. And of course, that’d be a not-cool thing to do to any artist, no matter the price, anyhow.
Judging from an ad that’s scheduled to appear in tomorrow’s edition of prairie dog the Regina Folk Festival has finalized its main stage line-up for the 2012 festival which goes August 10-12 in Victoria Park.
Friday night, Timber Timbre will kick things off, followed by Cold Specks, Shad, Mavis Staples and the Jim Cuddy Band.
Saturday night, Great Lakes Swimmers will be first up, followed by Serena Ryder & the Heartbroken, Elage Diouf, Austra and Stars.
Finally, on Sunday night, the Barr Brothers will open the evening, followed by Pokey LaFarge & the South City Three, Alejandra Robles and Arlo Guthrie, with Emmylou Harris (pictured) closing out the festival.
To get your blood pumping on this Wednesday morning, here’s a link to Austra performing “Beat and the Pulse” at the 2011 SXSW Festival.
A few years ago, Leonard Cohen was brought to the brink of bankruptcy when his former manager swindled him out of almost all his money.
Well, fast forward a few years. Recently, Leonard Cohen was given a hero’s treatment, getting the Glenn Gould Prize from the Glenn Gould foundation. He was also supposed to get $50,000. Now, $50K doesn’t sound like a lot of money to a Canadian pop star, let alone one as famous as Cohen, and given what had happened before, it’s understandable Cohen would have quietly pocketed the cheque and nobody would have said anything.
Cohen instead turned the cheque over to the Canada Council.
This event is being hosted by the Dunlop Art Gallery, and will take place Thursday in Victoria Park. It features two performances by a touring Canadian dance/theatre company from Toronto called Corpus.
The first performance, Les Moutons, will go from 12:30-1 p.m. My French is hugely rusty, but “mouton” is French for sheep, and judging by advance publicity like the photo at left, that’s precisely what the show will be about.
The second performance is called A Flock of Flyers. It runs from 5-5:30 p.m., and with all the kerfuffle around the Harper government’s proposed gazillion dollar purchase of F-35 fighter jets is kind of timely, in that it concerns a Canadian Flying Squadron (the 217th) that is so crippled by budget cuts that it’s left without any planes to fly. Still, the pilots gamely continue to train.
For more info on this unique theatre event visit the Corpus website here or contact the Dunlop at 777-6040.
Touring in support of his latest CD Mannequin, J.P. Hoe (pictured) is a singer-songwriter from Winnipeg. He’s also got an EP The Live Beta Project (2007) and a full-length Dear John Letters (2008) to his credit, and has played the Winnipeg Folk Festival and toured with Emm Gryner.
Tonight, he’s playing a show at O’Hanlon’s Pub with the local band Quick & Dirty. To give you a taste, here’s video of him performing his song “Start a War”.
Stephen LaRose is working on a story for the May 17 edition of prairie dog on the fallout that continues to rain down on the Sask. Party government for its initial decision to kill the Film Employment Tax Credit, and its ill-advised effort at damage control a few weeks later with the offer of non-refundable tax credit that was universally panned as being of zero value to Saskatchewan film and TV producers.
Today, a rally was held at the Canada-Saskatchewan Sound Stage (College & Broad) to try to convince the government to see the error of its ways and reinistate the tax credit. The rally came a few days after a poll was released showing that 60 per cent of Saskatchewan residents opposed killing the FETC, while only 25 per cent supported the decision. In two related questions, 75 per cent of respondents said they regarded the film and TV industry as being important to Saskatchewan, and a similar number said they supported the implementation of a new incentive program that was similar in scope to the old FETC.
Regina filmmaker Lowell Dean was at the rally. After assembling at the Sound Stage, participants moved on to the Legislature where the above photo was taken. After the jump, you’ll find another photo of the rally, along with a third shot showing freelance make-up artist and hair stylist Tracy George with a petition with 8,000 signatures that were gathered by volunteers over the last few weeks to protest the government action. Looking on is Saskatchewan-born actor Kim Coates, star of the hit American TV show Sons of Anarchy, who made a special trip back to Saskatchewan from L.A. to show his support. Read the rest of this entry »
It seems unfair that the great musicians with Memphis-based Stax records got shafted out of a lot of money, including the legendary bassist Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn. And it’s even sadder that most of my generation know him only as the bassist in the Blues Brothers movie, a comedy with about three jokes wrapped around a black-and-white minstrel show.
Dunn passed away in Tokyo yesterday at the age of 70.
And, courtesy YouTube, here’s what all the fuss was about. Playing bass with Booker T and the MGs, here’s Green Onions.
This monthly reading series features local and touring writers. Tonight’s instalment is headlined by Calgary spoken word artist Jen Kunlire (pictured). Later this month (May 21, to be exact) Kunlire will part of a literary event called Monday @ the Mike that will be held at the Fainting Goat Restaurant at 8 p.m. as part of the Cathedral Village Arts Festival.
Joining Kunlire at Vertigo tonight will be Keith Foster, Jamella Hagen and Claire Tacon. Music will be provided by Friendly Folk. It all gets going at Crave Kitchen + Wine Bar at 7:30 p.m.
Jeez what a beautiful day.
The sun was out, it’s warm, everything’s green… just too lovely. I was supposed to be editing crap all day buuut, documentation of this gorgeous speciman of a Sunday was essential and I’ll take any excuse to get outside for a bit.
Many more photos after the jump. Click to enlarge ‘em.
The Raid aka Serbuan Maut aka The Raid: Redemption is a 2011 Indonesian action film directed by Welsh filmmaker Gareth Evans.
Evans works out of Indonesia and this is his second martial arts film. His first attempt was the 2009 film Merentau which was a decent first attempt. The Raid is a simple story about a group of cops raiding an apartment complex trying to arrest a notorious crime lord. The film is essentially an hour and half fight scene. But what a fight scene! Iko Uwais has starred in both of Evans’ films and has a promising start as an action star. Hopefully he doesn’t flake out like Tony Jaa did.
In the spirit of Mother’s Day here is The Raid in 3 minutes done with claymation cats also known as Claycats. A warning, it gives some of the plot away and it might not be safe for work for people who are offended by gratuitous clay gore.
Gareth Evans and Iko Uwais first film Merentau.
Directed by Sean Cisterna, this Canadian film focuses on a socially maladept and somewhat shiftless 23 year old who sets out on a quest to redeem himself in the eyes of his family. What kind of quest? To find out, check out the trailer.
Moon Point screens tonight at the RPL Theatre at 9 p.m.
