CANADA 150: Two long strange trips
It looks like each of us is going to celebrate Canada 150 Day in our own way – or not, as the case may be. It’s a free country. Edmonton novelist Janice MacDonald is marking the occasion with a new book called Confederation Drive, detailing two cross-Canada journeys: One the author and her mom took […]
Sigmund Freud dissects the joke
In Sigmund Freud’s 1905 book Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious, the father of modern psychiatry claimed there are only seven jokes that have ever been written – and that includes dick jokes. Hey, it’s Freud. Of course he meant there are seven types of wit. The popular interpretation boils down to these: Absurdity, […]
Stop the Acronym Pandemic!
The straw that broke the camel’s back was an AHS staffer at the RAH who didn’t know what CASA stood for. It’s enough to drive you CRZ. As is this recent political news story: WTF LPC FTW JT XOXO CPC FUBAR RIP NDP SOL LOL! Does anyone know what’s up with the TPP? To what […]
COMICS: Heart of Wonderdick in Edmonton
A Torontonian taking the piss out of Edmonton? Break out the machetes! Relax, it’s just cartoonist Mike Winters, who may call the Centre of Canada home now, but his heart clearly resides in Dirt City. Winters’ weekly comic strip Cartoon Machine offers up caustic views on millennials, toxic relationships and … Edmonton Oilers draft picks? […]
Expo-ing Stan Lee
Some say that that Stan Lee isn’t a human. There are online rumours that the iconic geek-chic god is like something from one of his own comics, some sort of machine that has the ability to create gold. Gold in the form of ideas that turn into heroes that turn into some of the biggest marketable brands […]
LITERATURE: 40 Below an Edmonton winter experience
Edmonton has to be the only city in the English-speaking world where residents complain about the weather ALL YEAR LONG. In most social circles in other places, weather talk is small talk. Here, it’s a passion up there with politics. Oh, sure, it’s nice here in the fall, according to Ian Tyson, but the only […]
Can a novel just be a novel?
For the star of Come Barbarians: The Hollywood Blockbuster, author Todd Babiak doesn’t hesitate to cast Ryan Gosling – playing the suave but troubled security agent Christopher Kruse, who falls into a pit of political skullduggery at the hands of the Corsican mafia. “He can own this thing,” Babiak says of Gosling. “He could bring […]
INTERVIEW: Dan Savage makes punditry cool
On Christians and the whole gay marriage thing, Dan Savage says, “Jesus Christ Himself condemned divorce, yet we’re not amending state constitutions to prohibit people getting divorced. It’s hypocritical of these people to say that they cannot come around on the gay issue because of the Bible when they ignore so many other parts of […]
COMMENT: How about an author on City Council?
You know what might be interesting to see on the next Edmonton City Council? Someone who can get to the heart of the story – who’s not a former newspaper reporter. Candas Jane Dorsey has been creating and collecting stories for decades. The award-winning novelist has thrown her hat into the ring for the upcoming […]
COMICS: Art mart’s smart start
If the average Chapters bookstore had been built for the demographic that worships The Big Bang Theory, it probably would have looked something like the inside of Happy Harbor Comics, a strangely tasteful esthetic of functional display, enough pop culture to make you think you’re in Tokyo and a real-life, real-time comic artist in one […]
