1054: Girly Martinis, Manly Scotch

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#1054 / jan 7, 2016 – jan 13, 2016 vueweekly.com

The year to come in film 15 Lucette digs into sounds of the south on Black is the Color 19

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ISSUE: 1054 JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016 COVER ILLUSTRATION: MIKE KENDRICK

LISTINGS

ARTS / 10 MUSIC / 24 EVENTS / 26 CLASSIFIED / 26 ADULT / 28

FRONT

4

Other industries are changing, so why is alcohol still being sold through gender? // 5

DISH

6

Kerala maintains the traditional cuisine offered by its long-term predecessor // 6

ARTS

8

Winter, culture and community get celebrated at Deep Freeze: A Byzantine Winter Festival // 8

POP

11

Adrian Tomine captures sadness and struggle in Killing and Dying // 11

for a better world. 2016

UN Sustainable Development Goals

January 25‒31

FILM

14

Experimenter an absorbing, cognent look into a psychologist’s work // 14

Over 50 free events.

Explore global issues and celebrate cultural diversity!

Lucette delves deep into the sounds of the south // 19

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EDUCATION • 16

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POLITICALINTERFERENCE

FRONT

NEWS EDITOR: mel priestley MEL@vueweekly.com

Ricardo Acuña // ricardo@vueweekly.com

What will 2016 hold in Alberta politics?

Oil prices, the royalty review and the spring budget will top this year's political discussions As the calendar page turns on what will go down as one of the most interesting and transitive years in Alberta political history, it seems like a good time to look forward to some of the issues and topics that will shape the province's politics and policy discussions in 2016.

Although we are unlikely to witness the kind of political excitement and upheaval that we saw over the course of the last 12 months, it is worth noting that we are still actually in the midst of a potentially significant political transition and that there will be no shortage of challenges, controversy and debate as we move forward into the year.

We already know, for example, that the ongoing influx of Syrian refugees to Alberta will continue throughout 2016. Numerous community groups and service providers have already stepped up to welcome these refugees and enthusiastically support their arrival and settlement, but after 20 years of cutbacks and funding restraint it is difficult to imagine how long these groups and public services will be able to continue to do so without a significant influx of new

funding. Given the Official Opposition's ongoing insistence that there is no such thing as good or necessary new government spending, this will certainly create some interesting and contentious discussion in the legislature and media.

We also know that both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party will soon be launching races to select new leaders. Both of these parties have been working hard to rebuild and make themselves politically relevant again since the May 5 election, without much success.

These leadership races may present their last opportunity to woo back a critical mass of supporters from the Wildrose and New Democrats.

If the parties fail to draw big-name candidates and make a splash, then the likelihood that they will slowly fade away entirely is high. Desperation tends to make for interesting politics, and these races are not likely to disappoint in that regard— assuming, of course, that they can get Albertans to pay attention.

There can be little doubt, however, that the biggest political stories of the year are likely to come from the combined triple threat of oil

VUEPOINT

ryan bromsgrove ryanb@vueweekly.com

Uber pricing Being charged $1114 for an Uber ride home on New Year's Eve, as Edmontonian Matt Lindsay was, sounds pretty steep.

But it really says nothing about the service except that you should probably pay attention when you're using it at high-demand times.

What happened was surge pricing. In order to make sure there are enough available drivers, times of high demand result in a short period of extreme pricing. And yes, there are warnings.

Whether you like that model or not (or for that matter, whether or not you like Uber as a company), it's up to the customer to pay attention to the price whenever they're purchasing a product or service. And, as was the case here, regardless of the way that they're purchasing it—apparently Lindsay couldn't get a full-trip estimation because several friends were dropped off along the way.

4 up front

It sounds absurd because you wouldn't normally pay anything like that to get across Edmonton.

Look at it another way, though: you wouldn't normally pay $1000 for wine.

A bottle at that price will get you just as drunk as $20 boxed wine, but if you visit a restaurant and come out with a $1000 bill, you wouldn't blame anyone but yourself— and it wouldn't matter whether or not it was a single $1000 bottle or four $250 bottles, one for each of your friends because you get off on being generous.

I haven't used Uber, and I rarely use taxis. But there's a lot to talk about when it comes to the business of both. Uber has been so successful largely because of the many drawbacks and absurdities of the taxi system, but Uber has its own issues. A few people here and there regretting surge pricing?

That's not one of them.

Besides, public transit was free that night.V

prices, the royalty review and the spring budget.

Albertans have been undercharging for their oil-and-gas resources since Ralph Klein started undoing Peter Lougheed's work in the '90s, and the New Democrats made reviewing royalties and getting them right a central plank in their platform. The appointed royalty review panel, headed by Alberta Treasury Branch CEO Dave Mowat, consulted with hundreds of Albertans and experts over the course of the fall. The government is now ready to release its report and recommendations. The Premier has tried to assure Albertans that the proposed changes will not be controversial at all, while the Wildrose opposition has whipped its base up into a frenzy such that the party will certainly label whatever is proposed as extreme, dangerous and job-killing.

The persistent political and economic power of the energy sector in Alberta makes having an open, frank and adult conversation about royalties next to impossible in this province, and this means that the

DYERSTRAIGHT

New Democrats will likely only have this one chance to get it right.

Will the party err on the side of keeping industry happy and keeping royalties too low? Will it try to use the royalty regime to subsidize industry's survival while prices are low? Or will it damn the torpedoes and bring Alberta's royalty rates in line with the rest of world and ensure a fair return for the resources' owners? Either way, this will be one of the most important issues to be debated and settled this year, and Albertans need to pay attention and get involved.

Likewise, the ongoing collapse in world oil prices has once again exposed the fact that Albertans have been grossly undertaxed for years.

The NDP ran on a platform that included a commitment to change the income tax structure and work towards eliminating the province's historic revenue shortfall. The party's first effort on this front was incredibly timid, and the province is still faced with what amounts to an almost $6 billion structural shortfall, which jumps to $11 billion if you want to meet infrastructure needs in the short-term without in-

curring debt.

Given the current trajectory in oil prices, the government will have to face the prospect in its spring budget of having to signal how it will find $6 billion more in revenues or, if the opposition gets its way, how it will cut out $6-billion in spending, or some combination of taxes and cuts that will add up to $6 billion. That need has the prospect of making this one of the most significant budgets our province has seen in some time.

On all of these issues the government will need to be bold and assertive if it hopes to fulfil its election promises. Failure to do so may result in a rather boring 2016, politically, for those of us watching— but more importantly, it will have serious consequences for Alberta's future economic stability and sustainability. With those consequences in mind, let's hope for an exciting and engaging political year.V Ricardo Acuña is the executive director of the Parkland Institute, a non-partisan, public policy research institute housed at the University of Alberta.

GWYNNE DYER // GWYNNE@vueweekly.com

The Islamic wars of religion

Saudi Arabia's dynastic politics don't necessarily condemn it to future war On Friday, Saudi Arabia's Sunni Muslim rulers beheaded their country's leading Shia Muslim cleric, Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, on charges of seeking "foreign meddling" in the kingdom.

On Saturday, an angry crowd of Iranians— all Shia Muslims, of course—attacked the Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran. And Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, put a cartoon on his website comparing Saudi Arabia's head-chopping orgy on New Year's Day (46 other executions took place on the same day) to the mass executions carried out by the Sunni extremist Islamic State group.

So on Sunday, Saudi Arabia broke diplomatic relations with Iran—and all the pundits started talking about the Sunni-Shia "war of religion" that is about to engulf the Middle East.

This raises two questions. First, what would a Sunni-Shia war of religion actually look like? And second, has everybody in the Middle East taken leave of their senses?

The first question is best answered by looking at the history of the Christian wars of religion, ca. 1520 – 1660.

The Muslim world now, like "Christendom" in the 16th century, is made up of many independent countries. And the current phase of the Muslim wars of religion is being fought out between Shias and Sunnis in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, just as the first phase of the Christian wars of religion was fought out mainly between Catholics and Protestants in individual countries.

From the start of the conflict in Europe, however, each European state tried to help its co-believers in neighbouring countries as well, and alliances were increasingly shaped by religious considerations. In the second phase, these alliances dragged most of Europe into the catastrophic Thirty Years' War (1618 – 1648), fought mostly in the middle of Europe but involving armies from as far apart as Sweden and Spain.

The main battleground, Germany, lost between one-third and one-half of its population. Nobody won, of course, and in the very long run everybody just lost interest in the question. But it was a very great waste of lives, time and money.

Those who live at the geographical extremes of the Muslim world—Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh in the East; Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and even Egypt in the West—will certainly not suffer the same fate, for there are only tiny Shia minorities in these countries. But for those who live in the heart of the Muslim world, from Yemen to Turkey and from Lebanon to Iran, the future may be much darker.

And so to the second question: has everybody in the Middle East taken leave of their senses? Not exactly, but many players have lost sight of the bigger picture.

George W Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003 unleashed the sectarian demon in the region. The "Arab Spring" of 2011 frightened the region's dictatorships and absolute monarchies into increased repression and

VUEWEEKLY.com | jan 7 – jan 13, 2016

greater reliance on appeals to sectarian loyalty. Then King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia died a year ago, and the kingdom spun out completely.

Saudi Arabia under its previous monarchs was very cautious and conservative in its foreign policy. It subsidized various extreme Sunni groups in other countries, but it clung tightly to its American alliance and never engaged directly in adventures abroad.

The new Saudi king, Salman, is 80 years old and infirm, so in practice most decisions are made by his nephew, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef (aged 56), or his son, Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman Al Saud (aged only 30). There is intense competition between the two men for the succession to the throne, and the decisions coming out of Riyadh have been much bolder than ever before.

The past nine months have seen a major Saudi Arabian military intervention against the Shia side in the Yemeni civil war, the creation of a Saudi-led alliance of almost all the Sunni-majority Arab states, and now the execution of a Shia leader in Saudi Arabia that was clearly calculated to cause a diplomatic breach with Iran.

It's just dynastic politics, in other words, not some inevitable geopolitical juggernaut. But it was similar dynastic politics half a millennium ago that triggered the worst phase of the Christian wars of religion.V Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

COVER // BOOZE

I

Girly martinis, manly scotch Other industries are changing, so why is alcohol still being sold through gender?

n the wake of public backlash, major retailers—including Target and Amazon—are getting rid of their gender-coded, pink and blue toy aisles and sections, opting instead for a gender-neutral approach. Yet some product categories remain heavily gendered—particularly alcohol.

"When it comes to those products— especially tobacco, sports cars, alcohol—it tends to be the same male gaze, misogynistic messages that we've seen since the 1940s," says Colin Babiuk, an instructor in Grant MacEwan's public relations diploma program. Peruse some of those oldtimey, early 20th-century print ads, he explains, and you'll find that the alcohol ads mainly targeted men and centred around a "king of the castle" approach.

"Print advertising in the 1940s was really based around the 1940s values, so the man was the king of the house," Babiuk says. "The wife was there to cook and clean, and you know, be a good little wife and bring me my beer, please."

Browse through the shelves of any liquor store nowadays and you won't find those sorts of images and messages anymore (thank you, sexual revolution), but the sexist pandering is certainly still here—it just shifted.

Consider the slew of female-targeted alcohol labels on the market today: Bad Girl sparkling wine, Mommy's Time Out Delicious Red wine, Girls' Night Out wine coolers, Skinny Girl vodka. These products are not only targeted specifically towards a female audience, they also use a diminutive address—"girl" and "mommy." Male analogues, when they do exist—and there are significantly fewer examples—tend to use signifiers of men in authority roles: Grandfather port, Southern Gentlemen whisky, Dad's Little Helper ale.

Why do these blatantly gendered and sexist bottles exist—is it really just because they sell?

"If consumers have this idea that [companies are] using gendered advertising or these things are gendered in order to get me, as a guy or as a girl, to buy something, they generally respond negatively to that," explains Sarah Moore, an associte professor of marketing at the University of Alberta. "But, if they look at it as kind of a positive way to help navigate the marketplace, like: 'I have a no idea what wine to buy ... I'm trying to buy something for my all-girls book club and oh, look, here's a wine that is very clearly for girls—great. It's called Girls' Night Out or whatever it happens to be: you made my decision easy; I'm OK with you identifying me and labelling me as a girl; I'm going to do the same thing and I'm going to choose that product.' So it kind of depends on the context in which consumers are making that choice, I think, how they would respond to the

drink it? At some point you're just drinking a dare."

// Mike Kendrick

marketer's use of those identifiers in such a blatant way."

When it comes to how marketers develop methods of selling products, Moore explains that while large firms certainly have access to demographic information about the marketplace that would ostensibly steer them towards decisions based on actual audiences, the marketer's own biases also come into play.

"If marketers have these kind of unconscious assumptions—that presumably they have because we live in this society where these are prevalent—they engage in certain behaviours that cons us to choose or not choose certain products that we do because we don't want other people to judge us," Moore says. "You can imagine that you could do a really great job of selling alcohol in a nongendered way. You would just have to find some other identity or some other branding thing to tie it to, and it wouldn't be that hard. There are some wines that do a great job of it. ... So maybe gender is just the easy route."

It's not just specific products that are being gendered, either—certain drinks and even entire categories

of liquor have been coded as either male or female. Consider the socalled "girly" cocktails—daiquiris, cosmopolitans, anything sweet and/ or garnished with fruit—and "feminine" types of wine—moscato, rosé, sparkling wine and even the entire category of white wine. These drinks have become so associated with women that many men will shy away from ordering them at a bar or restaurant, despite their personal preferences, and feel compelled to choose something "manly"—a whisky-based cocktail, a peaty scotch, a tannic red wine. When someone breaks these gendered drink lines—a man ordering a cosmopolitan, a woman ordering scotch—eyebrows are often raised; sometimes there's even outright judgment passed.

"I feel like you get some sort of kudos from the men and you get eyebrows raised from the women," says Hayley McRae, an account exectuvie for Vendemmia International Wines, an import agency specializing in Italian varieties. "Some sort of pat on the back from a guy, like: 'That's great!

That's great you're embracing a manly beverage. I'm glad that you're not afraid of some hair on your chest.'"

Her portfolio doesn't include any of the blatantly gendered brands (much to her relief), though McRae has experienced the impacts this has had, on the public as a whole and to herself as a woman in the wine industry.

"Some guy comes in looking for whisky, and they don't usually accept your advice," she says, recalling when she used to work in a retail wine store. "Or you get that they're leery that you're offering them any [advice]—how could you possibly be?

That kind of thing."

McRae has had customers admit that they are too embarrassed to order certain things, purely because of that drink's perceived image.

"There's lots of guys that feel weird because they like moscato, or something a little sweeter, and they feel embarrassed ordering it," she says.

"I've had conversations with men where they're like, 'I'm really embarrassed that I like Riesling.' But what the fuck's wrong with that? Riesling's delicious! You shouldn't feel ashamed. When somebody out there has put into people's heads that if you're a man you should drink more tannic things or more hoppy beers or ... with whisky, how peaty can you

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

Companies may defend their choice of using gendered marketing strategies by arguing that they are targeting a niche market. But that doesn't absolve them of the problems these strategies cause, nor does it explain why we've decided, en masse, that entire categories of liquor are relegated to one gender exclusively.

"Even though I think there's more awareness of these things now— like especially with the toy gendered marketing—I think on average it's still an acceptable strategy," Moore says. "Given that it hasn't changed, you could infer that perhaps more of that, then, is coming from marketer stereotypes than from actual market data. Because I imagine that that has changed: the percentage of women buying and the type of woman buying is maybe more varied than it used to be, and if they're not adapting, then maybe they're just stuck in their oldboy's stereotype."

Beer is arguably the biggest domain of that old-boy's mentality. Beer has long been considered an almost exclusively male beverage, based on the vast majority of ads; the few beers that have been targeted specifically towards women are almost invariably sweet and fruity. This may start changing sooner rather than later, however, given recent events: in November, Bloomberg Business reported that several large beer companies, including Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (AB InBev) and MillerCoors, are trying to attract a bigger female customer base by making beer more "gender friendly." This came in direct response to #UpForWhatever, a recent marketing campaign by Bud Light (one of AB InBev's brands) that described the beer as perfect "for removing 'no' from your vocabulary for the night." The campaign was widely blasted by critics for being incredibly tone deaf to issues of sexual assault, especially among college-aged adults who comprise a major demographic of the beer industry.

Using blatant gender stereotyping is outmoded and, as Bud Light's #UpForWhatever campaign demonstrates, frequently offensive. It also completely excludes anyone not belonging to the traditional male/female dichotomy of gender identity— just one more strike against its widespread use. It's time to abolish these outliers of marketing for the vestigial sexism they are.

"In the end, why does gender matter when we're talking about a beverage?" McRae asks. "We don't do this with fruits and vegetables. ... Why should it matter if you enjoy sweet or peaty or hoppy? It shouldn't matter.

Gender has nothing to do with it."

MEL PRIESTLEY

MEL@VUEWEEKLY.COM

UP FRONT 5

REVUE // SAMBAR

DISH

DISH EDITOR: MEL PRIESTLEY MEL@VUEWEEKLY.COM

// Matt Boisvert

Come down to Indian Fusion–The Curry House and experience Indian food that has delighted the world’s top dignataries.

Each meal is prepared with quality ingredients – to order. With Fijian flavour and wild game options, this will be an unforgettable experience.

Mon–Fri 11:30am–9pm Sat 4–9pm • Sun 4–8pm 10322 111 St • 780-752-5500 www.thecurryhouse.ca

6 DISH

T

Kerala maintains the traditional cuisine offered by its long-term predecessor

ruth be told, after a typically indulgent festive season that seemed to entail an almost constant conveyance of food and drink into my face, including a couple of airport meals that made me fear ever ordering food again, I was not that enthused about going out to eat. All the same, I have a responsibility to my readers (both of you) and thus forced co-diner to join me for an early weekend lunch at Kerala.

The spot inhabited by said South Indian restaurant is the former home of Savoy, a pink-awninged little hole in the wall in a Pleasantview strip mall, where I had my first taste of said ethnic cuisine more than two decades ago. Savoy mixed South Indian dishes like idli, vada and masala dosa with traditional soup-and-sandwich fare and a slate of fresh-made, health-promoting juices. Subsequent years saw various owners come and go, while the menu (including prices) and scuffed interior remained completely unchanged.

If you were accustomed to Savoy's careworn dinginess, Kerala will

likely knock out your eyes. Spruced up with black leatherette booths, a huge, as-yet-unbesmirched mirror, bright walls of green and orange, and colourful art, the space looks brand new, with colourful laminated menus to match. The room looks less cluttered and more cozy, with maybe 30 seats.

I was surprised to see the Energizer and the Body Cleanser—Savoy's two signature fruit-and-veg juice blends—represented on the menu. Gone are the sandwiches and salads, replaced by dosas, biryanis, curries and a surprising array of South Indian and Sri Lankan specialties. Folks who have visited South Indian stand-out Kathir at either of its locations will know what to expect.

It wasn't going to be easy to choose, especially with most entrées in the $8 to $11 range (biryanis close to $13). Luckily, there's always the combo meal—in this case, the Kerala thali ($10) which entitles one to a rounded serving of seven small items uniting to make a balanced meal. Co-diner could not resist the lure of the dosa and or-

dered a palak paneer one ($10.49).

The dosa, a thin, golden brown, crêpe-like envelope for any number of fillings, is often presented rolledup, but co-diner's version had been filled with cooked, spiced spinach and unripened cheese, then neatly folded into an immense equilateral triangle and served with cilantro chutney and coconut chutney. She also received a bowl of the ochre lentil soup called sambar.

My thali was placed before me with a brief description of each ramekin: intensely red-sauced fish curry ("a little spicy"); yogurt raita mixed with cubes of cucumber and tomato; lemon pickle; my own bowl of sambar; a dish I'd never seen called thoran; and a trio of starches—crisp papadum, warm chapatti and a vast heap of fluffy medium-grain rice quite unlike the usual basmati.

Co-diner and I agreed the sambar was excellent: thick and hearty, dotted with mustard seeds and curry leaves, thickened by potato chunks, with a nice cayenne kick.

The fish curry, featuring a few

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

Kerala South Indian Restaurant 11010 - 51 Avenue 780.437.7718 dense chunks of mild-flavoured kingfish steak, was downright fiery, so the soothing raita was welcome, and the acidic, citrusy pickles also cut through the heat. Savourysweet thoran features chopped carrots and onions tossed with coconut, turmeric and mustard seeds, which also might have helped slake the burn. I appreciated the array of carbs, but the serving of rice was way more than I could eat, and we likewise declined the server's offer to top up our sambar.

In fact, the only unsatisfying part of the meal was that we got to sample such a small corner of the menu. But given how long its predecessor doled out South Indian eats, I feel comfortable assuming there will be many opportunities to delve further into Kerala's subcontinental delights.

SCOTT LINGLEY

SCOTT@VUEWEEKLY.COM

TO THE PINT

JASON FOSTER // JASON@VUEWEEKLY.COM

Sexy stout from Canada's finest Aphrodisiaque may not get you in the mood, but it is mighty tasty You might be forgiven for getting your hopes up when you see this beer on the shelves: the cartoon of the alluring blonde on the label; the promise of a deep, rich, velvety stout. And then there is the name—Aphrodisiaque. It seems like everything you might want in a brown bottle and more.

Alas, despite the enticing name, I have to tell you that Aphrodisiaque does not actually act as a so-called mood enhancer. In fact, I'm pretty sure most of the time beer serves as a mood-destroying beverage, especially if drank in quantity.

But don't hold that against this beer. A stout with cocoa and vanilla added for complexity, Aphrodisiaque comes from Montréal's Dieu du Ciel, which may be the most highly regarded Canadian brewery in international beer circles. Like most of its products, Aphrodisiaque does not fail to satisfy.

As all stouts should, it pours opaque black with a pock-marked medium tan head of decent size, laying down a pretty lacing on the side of the glass. The aroma gives off dusty cocoa, sweet vanilla and hints of coffee. Some dark fruit and a bit of chocolate and burnt caramel hover in the background.

Dieu du Ciel Aphrodisiaque Brasserie Dieu du Ciel, Montréal, QC $22.80 for six-pack The first sip is like a mocha espresso, with a sharp cocoa flavour mixed with dark roast coffee and some sweeter edges of chocolate and caramel.

The middle palate brings out some dark fruit character and a drier grain sharpness. The linger offers some dark roast and a noticeable cocoa flavour—it doesn't seem like chocolate, but rather is an unsweetened cocoa note. I get a touch of alcohol warming in the linger. (The beer runs at 6.5 percent.)

This is a well-balanced, assertive and rounded beer that finds a way to remain accessible. The cocoa comes out very strongly while the vanilla plays a more supportive role. I prefer that particular combination as the opposite, with more vanilla, would seem too dessert-like. Even if I didn't know it had cocoa in it, I would rate it well as a regular stout. But knowing there is an addition of cocoa helps explain some of the sharper edges.

Aphrodisiaque may not get you lucky, but you will certainly feel lucky for having tried it.V Jason Foster is the creator of onbeer.org, a website devoted to news and views on beer from the prairies and beyond.

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

#500 The Original in Stout Brown.

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Expensive?

Nope, they get cheaper by the day.

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warm up with a cold beer

DISH 7

PREVUE // FESTIVAL

ARTS

ARTS EDITOR: PAUL BLINOV PAUL@VUEWEEKLY.COM

Stay frosty Winter, culture and community get celebrated at Deep Freeze: A Byzantine Winter Festival

// EPIC Photography

F

or its ninth year on 118 Avenue, Deep Freeze: A Byzantine Winter Festival is upping its nighttime game, making chilling with friends literally your best option for this Saturday evening.

"We have a large inflatable igloo for our beer gardens," says Christy Morin, the festival's producer, highlighting the beer garden as a brandnew element for 2016. "And just outside our beer gardens we have a snow and ice lounge, where you can sit on a snow couch and drink from an ice glass."

There will also be a large ice "luge" for your liquor, where festival-goers can pour their shot of Baileys in at the top and catch their freshly frosted drink at the bottom of the run.

In between rounds, there's plenty to do: skating, "olde tyme" curling, fireworks, snow sculptures and the Melt the Deep Freeze Dance Party inside the Alberta Avenue Community Centre, featuring the gritty rockabilly music of Punch Drunk Cabaret.

After night falls, Deep Freeze is also presenting projection mapping

Sat, Jan 9 & Sun, Jan 10 Deep Freeze: A Byzantine Winter Festival 90 – 94 Street on 118 Avenue, Free Full schedule at deepfreezefest.ca

plenty of music and cultural entertainment, linking the festival to the neighbourhood that hosts it.

"Many years ago Alberta Avenue was a real destination, and still is, for newcomers," Morin says. "The Ukrainian community really moved into the neighbourhood back in the '40s, '50s and '60s. So we thought it would be great to celebrate some of the roots of this old neighbourhood."

The dates of the festival mark the Ukrainian New Year and Saturday showcases Ukrainian traditions and food, while Sunday focuses on the Francophone community, including the official judging of the Tourtière Baking Challenge.

"You'll see elves and ogres running up and down, out of windows and out and around."

// EPIC Photography

8 ARTS

for the first time at the festival.

Cast upon the exterior of the Nina Haggerty Centre for the Arts, this high-tech show basically turns the building's façade into a video screen.

Repeated several times throughout the evening, the demonstration embraces this year's festival theme, "Fairies, Elves and Ogres ... Oh My!" "You'll see elves and ogres running up and down, out of windows and out and around," Morin says. "It's supposed to be magical and really cool. I don't think our city has seen really strong projection mapping on buildings."

In the light of day, Deep Freeze has organized a plethora of family friendly activities on the Ave—from deep freezer races (bring your own helmet) to street hockey, a Viking village to wagon rides to a lamppost-cozy competition. There's also

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

"I think what I love the most is the cultural spin," Morin notes. "So as you're walking on Saturday you're going to hear little kids speaking Ukrainian and then French the next day. It's such a really neat comingtogether of people from all over the world to come celebrate winter, and it's in our neighbourhood.

"It's just trying to find those special groups and those special acts that love culture and love the winter," she continues. "Winter, for me, is not about trying to beat it.

It's about, what is it? Hearing the crunching of snow under your boots when you're walking on the festival grounds—that kind of stuff. And the crispness and the pure white.

It's so much a part of who we are as Edmontonians."

KATHLEEN BELL

KATHLEEN@VUEWEEKLY.COM

ARTIFACTS

PAUL BLINOV

// PAUL@VUEWEEKLY.COM

// Matthew Murphy

Dirty Dancing—The Classic Story On Stage / Until Sun, Jan 10 (8 pm; 2 pm weekend matinees) Sure, it's still kind of a quiet postholiday week for the arts, but nobody puts a touring musical in a corner. So Broadway Across Canada's Dirty Dancing—The Clas-

sic Story on Stage comes barreling into 2016 with all the movie-hits in tow: the story of Baby and Johnny Castle, live and singing (and dancing, but that's a given). If the '80s were your halcyon days, you'll likely be having the time of your life.

(Jubilee Auditorium, $55 – $130) V

Our goal is to exceed your expectations!

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Evening Appointments Available LOCATION: PCL STUDIO, ATB FINANCIAL ARTS BARNS, 10330-84 AVENUE TICKETS: FOR SUBSCRIPTION BOOKINGS OR TO PURCHASE A SINGLE TICKET PLEASE CALL NORTHERN LIGHT THEATRE AT 780-471-1586 OR VISIT WWW.NORTHERNLIGHTTHEATRE.COM

Jasper Ave.

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

10126 - 118 Street Edmonton, AB T5K 1Y4

780.482.4000 empiredentists.com empiredental@mail.com @empiredentists

ARTS 9

ARTS WEEKLY

EMAIL YOUR FREE LISTINGS TO: LISTINGS@VUEWEEKLY.COM FAX: 780.426.2889 DEADLINE: FRIDAY AT 3PM

Dance Come Join the Dance-Sacred Circle Dance • Riverdale Hall, 92 St & 100 Ave • sackerman1@me.com • sacredcircledance. com • Nurture the body, mind, and soul with a variety of songs, music and movements.

All dances are taught. Open nights are for everyone. No partner required • Dec 9 (every 2nd Wed), 7-9pm • $10

dance crush • Mile Zero Dance Company, Spazio Performativo, 10816-95 St • 780.424.1573 • milezerodance.com • Kathy Ochoa; "Dig" • This season MZD produces four performances with some favourite movementbased artists from across Canada • Jan 22-23, 8pm • $15 (MZD members), $20 (non-members)

EBDA Ballroom Dance • Lions Seniors Recreational Centre, 11113-113 St • 780.893.6828 • Jan 9, 8pm

Fortier Danse-Création • Timms Centre for the Arts, University of Alberta, 87 Ave & 112 St NW • Exploring intimate relationships as an equation with several unknowns. Are they Lovers? Clowns? Companions? • Jan 14-15

Misfit Blues • Timms Centre for the Arts, 87 Ave-112 St • 780.420.1757 • bwdc.ca • Featuring dance group Fortier Danse-Creation.

Fortier’s latest dance features himself and Robin Poitras (Regina), with a set by celebrated Aboriginal and Eduoard Poitras • Jan 15-16, 8pm • $35 (general admission), $20 (student/ senior)

Shaping sounds • Alberta Ballet • 780.428.6839 • albertaballet.com • Created

by Emmy Award-nominated choreographers Travis Wall, Nick Lazarrini, Teddy Forance and Kyle Robinson, Shaping Sound is an electrifying mash-up of dance styles and musical genres brought fully to life on stage by a dynamic company of contemporary dancers • Jan 12-13, 7:30pm

Sugar Foot Ballroom • 10545-81 Ave • 587.786.6554 • sugarswing.com • Friday Night Stomp!: Swing and party music dance social every Fri; beginner lesson starts at 8pm.

All ages and levels welcome. Occasional live music–check web; $10, $2 (lesson with entry) • Swing Dance Social every Sat; beginner lesson starts at 8pm. All ages and levels welcome.

Occasional live music–check the Sugar Swing website for info • $10, $2 lesson with entry Swing 'n' Skate • City Hall - City Room & Plaza, 1 Sir Winston Churchill Square • 780.970.7766 • brasko@edmontonarts.ca • edmontonarts.ca/eac_projects/eac_projects_ churchillsquare • The Trocadero Orchestra will be bringing their 18 piece big band sound.

Sugar Swing Dance Club will be on site to help put the boogie-woogie in attendees' step. Music will be broadcasted outside so ice skaters can enjoy it as well • Every Sun until Feb 28, 1-4pm • Free

FILM

women in comics and blockbusters and see how representations of powerful women reflect some of society’s anxieties about women’s liberation • Jan 7, 7-9pm

metro • Metro at the Garneau Theatre, 8712109 St • 780.425.9212 • Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (Jan 7) • 99 Homes (Jan 8-13) • Experimenter (Jan 9-12, Jan 18) • Chasing Shadows - Warren Miller Ski Film (Jan 14) • Victoria (Jan 15-17, Jan 20) • American Sharia (Jan 17) • The Stanford Prison Experiment (Jan 18) • The Culture Collective (Jan 21) • Canada's Top Ten Film Festival 2015 (Jan 22-31) • Dark Star: H.R. Giger's World (Jan 22-23, Jan 25) • The Mask (Eyes of Hell) 3D (Jan 23-24, Jan 26) • Beach!: Muscle Beach Party (Jan 19), The Girls on the Beach (Jan 19); Blue Hawaii (Jan 31); Gidget Goes Hawaiian (Feb 16) • Falling Into Place: Four Films by Satoshi kon: Perfect Blue (Jan 9-10, Jan 13); Millennium Actress (Jan 16-17, Jan 20); Tokyo Godfathers (Feb 6-7, Feb 10); Paprika (Feb 13-14, Feb 17) • Gateway to Cinema: Memento (Jan 27) • Music Doc: Harry Belafonte: Sing Your Song (Feb 2) • Reel Family Cinema: The Iron Giant: Signature Edition (Jan 9); Mr. Peabody & Sherman (Jan 16); The Land Before Time (Jan 23); The NeverEnding Story (Jan 30) • Science in the Cinema: The Crash Reel (Jan 28) • Staff Pics: Alien (Jan 25) • Turkey Shoot: Pixels (Jan 14)

VINCENT VAN GOGH: A NEW WAY OF SEEING • Arden Theatre, 5 St Anne St, St Albert • 780.459.1542 • ardentheatre.com • Made in collaboration with the curators and art historians, the film marks both a major reshowing of the gallery's collection and a celebration of the 125th anniversary of van Gogh's death • Jan 31, 2pm • $20 (adults), $15 (children)

galLeries + Museums ALBERTA CRAFT COUNCIL GALLERY •

Earth's General Store Downtown

BUGERA MATHESON GALLERY • 10345124 St • bugeramathesongallery.com • New Year Show: Featuring work by gallery artists; Jan 1-31

• 10150-104 St • michael@egs.ca • "Just Eat It" Documentary Screening: Filmmakers dive into the issue of waste from farm, through retail, all the way to the back of their own fridge.

They decide to survive on food that would be thrown away; Jan 9, 7-9pm; Free (reserve at Eventbrite) • "GMO OMG" Documentary: How GMOs affect kids, the health of the planet, and freedom of choice; Jan 16, 7-9pm; Free (reserve at Eventbrite)

From Books to Film • Stanley A. Milner, 7 Sir Winston Churchill Sq • 780.496.7000 • epl.ca • Films adapted from books every Fri afternoon at 2pm • Schedule: The Razor’s Edge (Jan 8), Monsieur Ibrahim (Jan 15), City of Joy (Jan 22), Seven Years in Tibet (Jan 29)

Lady Geeks Unites Screening snd Discussion: Wonder Women: The Untold Story of American Superheroines • Happy Harbor Comics, 10729104 Ave • Viewers will trace the evolution of

10 arts

Cafe Blackbird • 9640-142 St • 780.451.8890 • cafeblackbird.ca • Connected 2: artwork by Trueman Macdonald; Jan 3-31

Creative Practices Institute • 10149-122 St, 780.863.4040 • creativepracticesinstitute.com • Above the Clouds: artwork by Aryen Hoekstra; Jan 21-Feb 27; Opening reception: Jan 21, 7-9pm; Reading and discussion group: Jan 24

dc3 Art Projects • 10567-111 St • 780.686.4211 • dc3artprojects.com • Gallery will be open by appointment; Jan 1-30 • Infocus: Curated by Alexis Marie Chute; Feb 5-27

Enterprise square galleries • 10230 Jasper Ave • Open: Thu-Fri, 12-6pm, Sat 12-4pm • Do It Yourself: Collectivity and

Library Main Fl, Sir Winston Churchill Sq • 780.944.5383 • epl.ca/art-gallery • Alberta.

Of Earth and Sky: Paintings by Jay Bigam; Jan 2-31 • Edmonton Arts Council: Artists creating "maquettes," or renderings in the form of miniature sculptures of their public art proposals; Jan 2-31

Harcourt House Gallery • 3 Fl, 10215-112 St • 780.426.4180 • Main space: Natural Science: Jennifer Willet; Dec 3-Jan 21 • Riki Kuropatwa's Collide; Dec 3-Jan 22 Jurassic Forest/Learning Centre • 15 mins N of Edmonton off Hwy 28A, Township Rd 564 • Education-rich entertainment facility for all ages

Lando Gallery • 103, 10310-124 St • 780.990.1161 • landogallery.com • January Group Selling Exhibition: artwork by gallery artists; Jan 6-30

Latitude 53 • 10242-106 St • 780.423.5353 • latitude53.org • Main Space: Clean, Fit, and Decease Free: artwork by Shan Kelley; Dec 4-Jan 16 • ProjEx Room: Win, Place, and Show: artwork by Lisa Turner; Dec 4-Jan 16 • Trope L'oeil: artwork by MarieAndrée Houde; Jan 29-Mar 5 • Work, Play, Sleep ... Repeat: artwork by Paul Bernhardt; Jan 29-Mar 5

McMULLEN GALLERY • U of A Hospital, 8440-112 St • 780.407.7152 • friendsofuah. org/mcmullen-gallery • The Steamfitter's Guide: artwork by Robin Smith-Peck; Dec 12-Feb 7

Albert Place, 5 St Anne Street, St Albert • MuseeHeritage.ca • 780.459.1528 • museum@ artsandheritage.ca • Take Your Best Shot: Youth Photo Contest; Nov 20-Jan 24 • The True Cost of Oil: Canada’s Oil Sands and the Last Great Forest: A photographic exhibition by Garth Lenz; Feb 4-Apr 17; Opening reception: Feb 6, 2-5pm

Nina Haggerty Centre for the Arts • 9225-118 Ave • 780.474.7611 • volunteer@ thenina.ca • Deep Freeze: featuring live musical performances, workshops and a gallery full of original art; Jan 9-10

•

Ave • dave@bleedingheartartspace.com • Waiting Room: A multimedia installation by Alysha Chreighton; Nov 21-Jan 16

Gallery at Milner • Stanley A. Milner

Musée Héritage Museum • St

19 Perron St, St Albert • 780.460.4310 • artgalleryofstalbert.ca • Night Hours: artwork by The Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts; Dec 3-Jan 30 • Art Ventures: Dynamic Diorama (Jan 16), 1-4pm; drop-in art program for children ages 6-12; $6/$5.40 (Arts & Heritage member) • Ageless Art: Creative Collages (Jan 21), 1-3pm; for mature adults; $15/$13.50 (Arts & Heritage member) • Preschool Picasso: Day & Night (Jan 16); for 3-5 yrs; pre-register; $10/$9 (Arts & Heritage member)

Bleeding Heart Art Space • 9132-118

Park • 780.410.8585 • strathcona.ca/artgallery • Portraits: artwork by Corie Side, Claire Uhlick and Marie Winters; Jan 8-Feb 21

51 St, Stony Plain • multicentre.org • Artificial Bionomics: artwork by Stephanie Jonsson; Nov 26-Jan 8

Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) • 2 Sir Winston Churchill Sq • 780.422.6223 • youraga.ca • Tyler Los-Jones: A Panorama Protects its View: Jan 23-Jan 31 • Rough Country: The strangely familiar in mid-20th century Alberta art; Oct 3-Jan 31 • Living Building Thinking: Art and Expressionism; Oct 24-Feb 15 • She's All That: artwork by Dana Holst; Oct 24-Feb 15 • Fabric: Charrette Roulette; Nov 21-Apr 10 • Artist in Conversation: Western Medicine: Social justice, universal meaning and the role of art; Jan 20 • Curator’s Walkthrough: The Blur In Between; Jan 24 • Open Studio Adult Drop-In : Wed, 7-9pm; $18/$16 (AGA member) • All Day Sundays: Art activities for all ages; Activities, 12-4pm; Tour; 2pm • Late Night Wednesdays: Every Wed, 6-9pm • Art for Lunch: 3rd Thu of the month, 12:10-12:50pm

Cinema at the Centre • Stanley Milner Library Theatre, bsmt, 7 Sir Winston Churchill Sq • 780.496.7070 • Film screening every Wed, 6:30pm • Free

Gallery@501 • 501 Festival Ave, Sherwood

Multicultural Centre Public Art Gallery (MCPAG)–Stony Plain • 5411-

10186-106 St • 780.488.6611 • albertacraft. ab.ca • Discovery Gallery: A Place for Everything: artwork by Terry Hildebrand; Jan 9-Feb 6 • Feature Gallery: X3: artwork by Alberta Potters’ Association, Contextural | Fibre Arts Cooperative and the Nina Haggerty Centre; Jan 16-Mar 26; Opening reception: Jan 16, 2-4pm

Art Gallery Of St Albert (AGSA)

Collaboration in Edmonton; Nov 28-Mar 5

8627 Rue Marie-Anne-Gaboury (91 St) • 780.803.2016 • info@wamsoc.ca • wamsoc. ca • Northern Reflections: artwork by Barbara Pankratz; Jan 7-Feb 13

The Carrot’s Poetry Night • The Carrot, 9351-118 Ave • A poetry open mic • Jan 28, 7:30-9pm Edmonton Story Slam • Mercury

chelsea hotel • Citadel Theatre, 9828

Room,10575-114 St • edmontonstoryslam. com • facebook.com/mercuryroomyeg • Great stories, interesting company, fabulous atmosphere • 3rd Wed each month • 7pm (sign-up); 7:30pm • $5 Donation to winner

101A Ave • 780.425.1820 • citadeltheatre.com • With extraordinary new arrangements, six performers play 17 instruments in a knockout tribute to Leonard Cohen's most transcendent songs • Jan 13-24

Lady Geeks Unite Reads: Sex Criminals & Alex + Ada • Variant Edition,

Chimprov • Citadel's Zeidler Hall, 9828-

Literary

10441-123 St • Attendees will be discussing two comics: Sex Criminals (Image Comics) and Alex + Ada (Image Comics). Sex Criminals follows Suzie, a woman who can stop time when she has sex. When she meets Jon – and it turns out he has the same ability – they decide to rob some banks. Alex + Ada follows Alex, a young man who has a realistic android dropped into his life and discovers that she’s more than just a robot • Jan 10, 3pm

Meet & Greet & Book Swap • Strathcona County Library, 401 Festival Lane, Sherwood Park • 780.410.8600 • sclibrary. ab.ca • Meet the Metro Federation 2016 Regional Writer in Residence, Marty Chan. Bring a book to trade and business cards to share with other attendees. Find out about upcoming workshops, and how to connect with Marty for one-on-one consultations • Jan 16, 1-3pm • Free Naked Cyber Café • 10303-1008 St • The Spoken Word: Featuring writers and an open mic for performances for short stories, book excerpts, poems • 1st Wed ea month, 7:30pm Naked Girls Reading • Brittany's Lounge, 10225-97 St NW • 780.691.1691 • There will be different themes each month • Every 2nd Tue of month, 8:30-10:30pm • $20 (door); 18+ only Rouge Lounge • 10111-117 St • 780.902.5900 • Spoken Word Tuesdays: Weekly spoken word night presented by the Breath In Poetry Collective (BIP); info: E: breathinpoetry@ gmail.com Scrambled YEG • Brittany's Lounge, 10225-97 St • 780.497.0011 • Open Genre Variety Stage: artists from all mediums are encouraged to occupy the stage and share their creations • Every Tue-Fri, 5-8pm SCRIPT SALON • Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Upper Arts Space, 10037-84 Ave • A monthly play reading series: 1st Sun each month with a different play by a different playwright

Provincial Archives of Alberta

TALES–Monthly Storytelling Circle

sNAP Gallery • Society of Northern Alberta Print­- Artists, 10123-121 St • 780.423.1492 • snapartists.com • The Lebret Residential Petroglyphs: artwork by Tanya Harnett; Jan 7-Feb 20; Opening reception: Jan 8, 7-9pm; Artist talk: Jan 14, 6pm

Telus World of Science • 11211-142 St • telusworldofscienceedmonton.com • Free$117.95 • Beyond Rubik's Cube; Nov 7-Feb 15 • The Science Garage: new gallery opening in Dec • The International Exhibition Of Sherlock Holmes; Mar 25, 2016-Sep 5, 2016

U of A Museums • Human Ecology Bldg Gallery, Main Fl, 116 St, 89 Ave • museums@ ualberta.ca • museums.ualberta.ca • Thu-Fri: 12-6pm; Sat: 12-4pm • Brain Storms: UAlberta Creates: hundreds of creative and visually inspiring works from University of Alberta Alumni in support of the University of Alberta Alumni Association centenary; Sep 25-Jan 23 VAA Gallery • 3rd Fl, 10215-112 St • visualartsalberta.com • Gallery A: Cultural Exchange; Dec 3-Feb 27 • Gallery B: Alberta Artists Collect Alberta Art; Dec 3-Feb 27

VASA Gallery • 25 Sir Winston Churchill Ave, St Albert • 780.460.5990 • vasa-art.com • Members Winter Exhibition; Dec 1-Jan 29

West End Gallery • 10337-124 St • 780.488.4892 • westendgalleryltd.com • Artwork by Guy Roy; Feb 6-18

Women's Art Museum of Canada • La Cité Francophone 2nd Pavillon, #200,

canoe 2016 • Backstage Theatre, ATB Financial Art Barns, 10330-84 Ave • 780.477.5955 • workshopwest.org • Presented

by Workshop West. This annual Mardi Gras of theatre once again will feature the best boundary-bending theatre performances from around the corner to around the globe • Jan 27-Feb 7

Paint Spot • 10032-81 Ave • 780.432.0240 • paintspot.ca • Naess Gallery: The Texture of Experience; Jan 7-Feb 18; Reception: Jan 21, 7-9pm • Artisan Nook: Marquetry: painting with wood; Jan 7-Feb 18; Reception: Jan 21, 7-9pm • 8555 Roper Road • PAA@gov.ab.ca • 780.427.1750 • culture.alberta.ca/paa/ eventsandexhibits/default.aspx • Voices from Our Past: artwork by Katherine Braid; Sep 25-Jan 23

Jan 20-Feb 7

• Parkallen Community Hall, 6510-111 St • Monthly TELLAROUND: 2nd Wed each month • Sep-Jun, 7-9pm • Free • Info: 780.437.7736; talesedmonton@hotmail.com

Upper Crust Café • 10909-86 Ave • 780.422.8174 • strollofpoets.com • The Poets’ Haven Reading Series: Most Mon (except holidays), 7pm, Sep-Mar; presented by the Stroll of Poets Society • $5 (door)

Theatre 11 O'Clock Number • The Backstage Theatre, 10330-84 Ave (North Side of the ATB Financial Arts Barns) • 90 minutes of improvised entertainment that unveils scenes, songs and choreographed numbers completely off the cuff based on audience suggestions • Every Fri, starting Sep 25-Jun 25, 11pm (No performances on Jan 8 & 15) • $15 (online, at the door) • grindstonetheatre.ca Back To The 80S: A Most Excellent Musical Adventure • Mayfield Dinner Theatre, 16615-109 Ave NW • mayfieldtheatre. ca • Amongst all the bad movies, hairdos, fads and faux pas of this much maligned decade some of the greatest pop tunes of all time were realized • Nov 10-Jan 31

Bravo • Backstage Theatre 10330-84 Ave • By Blaine Newton (a world premiere). A Japanese fisherman caught in the fall out of an American nuclear detonation. A dispassionate anthropologist teaching the effects of radiation on human populations. A cynical politician out to protect his country no matter what the cost.

Weaving back and forth between the notorious 1954 Pacific nuclear tests and the present day, Bravo is a captivating drama that compassionately explores decisions that changed the world and their all too human consequences •

VUEWEEKLY.com | jan 7 – jan 13, 2016

101A Ave • rapidfiretheatre.com • Rapid Fire Theatre’s longform comedy show: improv formats, intricate narratives, and one-act plays • Every Sat, 10pm • $12 (door or buy in adv at TIX on the Square) • Until Jun

Die-Nasty • The Backstage Theatre at the ATB Financial Arts Barns, 10330-83 Ave • communications@varsconatheatre.com • die-nasty. com • Live improvised soap opera • Runs every Mon, 7:30-9:30pm • Until May 30 • $14 or $9 with a $30 membership; at the door (cash) or at tixonthesquare.com

Dirty Dancing – The Classic Story On Stage • Jubilee Auditorium, 1145587 Ave NW • It’s the summer of 1963, and 17-year-old Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman is on vacation in New York’s Catskill Mountains with her older sister and parents. Mesmerized by the racy dance moves and pounding rhythms she discovers in the resort’s staff quarters, Baby can’t wait to be part of the scene, especially when she catches sight of Johnny Castle, the resort’s sexy dance instructor. Passions ignite and Baby’s life changes forever when she is thrown in to the deep end as Johnny’s leading lady, both on-stage and off • Jan 5-10

flora & fawna's field trip • Northern Light Theatre, 201, 8908-99 St • 780.471.1586 • northernlighttheatre.com • In the Fringe smash-hit play, best friends Flora and Fawna (along with their pal, Fleurette) are creating a safe place for girls just like them by launching the NaturElles, a social group with a difference.

• Jan 15-23

Hey Ladies! • The Roxy on Gateway (formerly C103), 8529 Gateway Blvd • theatrenetwork.ca • Edmonton’s premier comedy, info-tainment, musical, game, talk show spectacular that’s suitable for all sexes! Featuring Baking Bad Cakes Gone Wrong, and much more • Jan 22, May 20; 8pm • $25

Improv Open Jam • Holy Trinity Anglican Church, 10037-84 Ave • grindstonetheatreyeg@ gmail.com • grindstonetheatre.ca/openjam.html • A space to share, swap games and ideas. For all levels • Last Tue every month until Jun 28, 7-9:30pm • Free The Social Scene • Citadel Theatre, 9828101A Ave • grindstonetheatreyeg@gmail.com • grindstonetheatre.ca/scenestudy.html • Fellow theatre lovers share excerpts of plays that they have been reading • First Mon of every month, 6-8pm; until Jun 6 • Free Star Warz: A Galactic Rock Comedy • Jubilations Dinner Theatre, West Edmonton Mall, Phase II West Edmonton Mall, 8882-170 St • jubilations.ca • It is a period of galactic civil war! There are rebels with spaceships, Jedi with lightsabers, a princess, a smuggler, and robots, the Evil Darth Vador and singing… yes you heard me… singing of your favorite galactic rock tunes of the 70’s and 80’s.

May the force be with you • Oct 30-Jan 30

TheatreSports • Citadel's Zeidler Hall, 9828-101A Ave • rapidfiretheatre.com • Improv • Every Fri, 7:30pm and 10pm • Sep-Jun • $12/$10 (member) at TIX on the Square Ursa major • Backstage Theatre, ATB Financial Art Barns, 10330 84 Ave • 780.477.5955 • workshopwest.org • Presented

by Workshop West. After a horrific car accident, a retired couple must decide how to best deal with the injuries they've sustained. Based on a true story of the Dart sister's grandparents, Ursa Major is a powerful and moving story of love and devotion, and the strange world that exists between consciousness and unconsciousness • Jan 27-Feb 7

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? • Citadel Theatre, 9828 101A Ave • 780.425.1820 • citadeltheatre.com • An American theatre classic, Edward Albee's scorching tale of an embittered marriage was the Citadel's very first production in 1965. This new 50th-anniversary production will star prominent Canadian actors Brenda Robins and Tom Rooney • Jan 23-Feb 16

REVUE // GRAPHIC NOVEL

POP

POP EDITOR: PAUL BLINOV PAUL@VUEWEEKLY.COM

POPCULTURE HAPPENINGS HEATHER SKINNER // SKINNER@VUEWEEKLY.COM

Wonder Women: the Untold Story of American Superheroines / Thu, Jan 7 (7 pm) It's January, which means all of those New Year's resolutions have started.

If saving money, seeing new films and becoming more social is on your resolution list, enjoy a screening and discussion of the documentary Wonder Women: the Untold Story of American Superheroines, presented by Lady Geeks uNite. Viewers will trace the evolution of women in comics and blockbusters and see how representations of powerful women reflect some of society's anxieties about women's liberation. (Happy Harbor Comics, Free) Falling Into Place: four films by Satoshi Kon It has been five years since his death, but the works of Japanese animator and director Satoshi Kon still make an impact with audiences. Kon completed four films prior to his death, each a stunning piece of visual storytelling that explore themes of identity and perception, all while blurring the lines between reality and illusion. Metro Cinema will be showcasing each of Kon's films: Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika. (Metro Cinema; Perfect Blue: Sat, Jan 9 – Wed, Jan 13; Millennium Actress: Sat, Jan 16 – Wed, Jan 20; Tokyo Godfathers: Sat, Feb 6 – Wed, Feb 10; Paprika: Sat, Feb 13 – Wed, Feb 17)

'T

hat's ... that's great, honey!"

It's in those ellipses—that gap between sincerity and wellmeaning-ness—that Adrian Tomine goes to work. His male characters are often jaded, or abrasively cynical, or faltering in their efforts at enthusiasm, or just aggressively snarky in their face-off against modern life. And so it goes in Killing and Dying, collecting six stories which first appeared in Tomine's comic series Optic Nerve. His handand-eye coordination—minimalist, carefully observant clean-linework; sharp glimpses into (mostly) men's strained relationships or efforts at a cool, knowing remove from a sellyourself 21st-century America—remains unerring. (And the brief flareups of racial anxiety or oblique

racism here say much about some Americans' liberal pretenses in the Obama era.)

"Hortisculpture"—a middle-aged lawn-care guy obsesses over fusing sculpture and plants—merges the four-panel newspaper strip (and every seventh strip here's the fullcolour Sunday comic) with the melancholy, middle-age angst of some adult graphic novels (see, for instance, Daniel Clowes' Wilson). The effect's a wry poignancy, even an amusing pathetic-ness, as wannabevisionary Harold frets, inwardly rages or lashes out (even driving his wife to, Peanuts-like, cry "Waah!").

The title piece sees a grumbling father, soon widowed, try to better deal with his stuttering teen daughter as her sole parent ... only she's

slipping from his protectiveness.

The Raymond Carver-like story "Owls" finds the sputtering pulse in the life of a deadbeat.

Tender tone-poem, "Translated, from the Japanese" unfolds in the stilted English of a Japanese mother's letter to her Japanese-American child, the letter's lines snippeted out among distanced glimpses of airplane, airport and various objects in LA places. This removed, melancholy tone's amplified in "Amber Sweet"—a young woman's haunted by her online doppelganger, a porn star—which doesn't quite succeed because it's too short, with the narrating main character left as a cipher. But the collection ends on the right note of mystery—"Intruders"

Now available Killing and Dying

By Adrian Tomine Drawn & Quarterly, 121 pp, $26.95 is the ghostly story (with nestingdoll-layers of intrusion) of one man trying to feel incognito again.

The cover of Killing and Dying features a roadside Denny's, nothing seemingly special yet an important meeting-place, in its small way, in two stories here. Sure enough, Tomine's tales slip beneath mundane surfaces to reveal a life's thoughtful sadness and peculiar struggle.

BRIAN GIBSON

LGN Reads: Sex Criminals & Alex + Ada / Sun, Jan 10 (3 pm) Lady Geeks uNite will be adding a book club to their roster of events. Attendees will be discussing Sex Criminals (Image Comics) by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky as well as Alex + Ada (Image Comics) by Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn. Sex Criminals follows Suzie, a woman who can stop time when she has an orgasm. When she meets Jon—and it turns out they have the same ability—they decide to rob some banks. Meanwhile, Alex + Ada is a story about Alex, a young man who has a realistic android dropped into his life and discovers that she's more than just a robot. (Variant Edition Comics & Culture) Nerd Nite #24 / Thu, Jan 14 (7:30 pm) Each month Nerd Nite likes to stimulate brain cells with presentations and keep attendees comfortable with a drink. It's really the only way to learn: 20-minute presentations covering all the wonderful nerdy things are held, with the added bonus of an onsite bar. This month's topics include Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Narrative: On Reading and the Virtues of Constant Vigilance; Going Nuts Over Girls: How Chasing Tail Influences Ageing; and Smoke and Mirrors: Unveiling Invisibility. (The Club at the Citadel, $15 – $25) V

BRIAN@VUEWEEKLY.COM

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

POP 11

SNOW ZONE // RESORT

SNOW ZONE

EDITOR: JASMINE SALAZAR JASMINE@VUEWEEKLY.COM

// Royce Sihlis

Revelstoke offers a serene backcountry experience

O

n paper, Revelstoke Mountain Resort has a lot working against it. With only three big lifts and 65 runs, some might assume that RMR isn't worth driving several hours into the Rockies.

They couldn't be more mistaken.

The statistics belie a modest resort on a mammoth mountain that more than makes up in terrain what it lacks in infrastructure—an endless playground with a backcountry vibe that's well worth the seven-hour drive from Edmonton.

When RMR burst onto the skiing landscape in 2007, it was envisioned as a resort with infrastructure and real estate rivalling the likes of Whistler Blackcomb. While those plans are still simmering in its ninth season, Revelstoke enjoys a reputation as one of the best under-the-radar ski destinations in North America.

So colour me excited when my friends and I settled on Revy for our next holiday ski trip—my first chance to visit after years of listening to such superlative word of mouth.

I had a chance to speak with Nico Leenders, RMR's marketing manager, who explained the resort's history and current scaled-down approach. Had the world's economy not collapsed soon after RMR's construction began, Leenders explains, the resort would likely be much larger, the infrastructure more expansive and the skiable terrain likely much more cramped.

"The original plans still exist," Leenders notes. "We dust them off from time to time and look, but it'll be quite some time before we do anything major, like put in another chairlift.

"We have the lowest skier density of any major ski resort in North America. On our absolutely busiest days, there's still less than one skier per skiable acre on the mountain." This, he adds, despite the current lifts working nowhere near their capacity.

Revy was certainly busy through my visit as thousands scratched the ski itch before Christmas. Both the base village and day lodge were packed, but I quickly learned that the mountain's sheer size dilutes any sense of

busyness while you're on the slopes.

From the village, the Revelation gondola takes you halfway up the mountain, with the option to disembark early at Revelation Lodge. A short ski down from Revelation's summit takes you to the Stoke, a quad chair that fires you up to Revelstoke's sub-peak, where you can catch a shallow breath above the tree line before descending back into the maze.

With Revy's lifts being few and far between, once you embark on a run, it can be well over an hour before you can catch your bearings by the sight of another lift. Whether you opt for the steep and deep powder of the mountain's famous fall lines or the intersecting green and blue runs, it's just you and the wilderness, with innumerable combinations to attack it.

But what truly sets Revelstoke apart are the less-trodden areas— the ones not marked by numbers on the trail maps.

"This ski resort was designed for a modern skier," Leenders explains. "We

only have 65 runs but over 3000 acres of terrain, while most other resorts would have 165 runs with that volume of terrain. That was done deliberately so that we could have amazing glade skiing, which we love to do out here."

Revelstoke's glades might be the most essential ingredient in creating its backcountry feel. At almost any moment on a run you can duck off into the trees and push yourself physically and mentally through some of the toughest and tightest terrain you'll find on the mountain, only to emerge on a piste halfway down the mountain with burning quads and no idea where you are.

After spending my first day lapping the Revelation and Stoke lifts, on my second I made sure to explore the Riper side, a similarly massive area serviced by the lone Ripper chairlift and accessed only by a single traverse run or a hike up to the expert-level North Bowl. Over there, a few long and narrow intermediate runs snake through what is essentially one massive glade,

EDGECONTROL SKI SHOP

all under the shadow of the expertlevel North Bowl drop-ins.

There's a certain magical sensibility to Revelstoke borne on this abundance of glades. Perhaps it's because these runs are hard to point out on a map, or simply that being so enveloped by snow-covered trees plays to a childhood longing to visit Narnia.

Either way, skiing Revelstoke is an experience I won't soon forget and for which I will soon return, especially before those long-term plans take hold.

According to Leenders, regardless of any development, those who work and live in the area don't see Revelstoke attaining the same high volumes of skiers as other resorts, given the far-flung distance from major cities and airports, and myriad resort options in between.

"Like many things in life, it may not be the easiest thing to get here, but it's well worth the travel," he says.

"Our reputation lives up completely, and we hear that over and over again."

RYAN STEPHENS

RYAN@VUEWEEKLY.COM

Stop in f or Jasper in January SKI CLOT S P E C I A L S O N SK IS

&

HING

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12 SNOW ZONE

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

FALLLINES

HART GOLBECK HART@VUEWEEKLY.COM

Rack up the runs to win On January 16, Marmot Basin will kick off Jasper in January festivities with a Corporate & Family Challenge. The event is open to skiers and boarders, and teams of four can enter. The fun starts at 11 am, when each team member will receive a passport, which will be stamped for completed runs at the base of Paradise, Eagle Express and Canadian Rockies Express chairs. Each chair has a different point value: one point at Eagle Express, two at Paradise and three at the Canadian Rockies Express. Your team will have to figure out which chair is optimum, considering how long it takes to ski the slope, the length of the lift line and the time spent sitting on the chair. The competition runs until 4 pm, and there will be a lunch break from noon to 1 pm where no points will be awarded. To register, send an email to groups@skimarmot.com. Talk to your boss, sponsors or wealthy family members to raise the $1000 per team that is required to get you into the game. Don't forget to work on your team strategy and fitness, because four hours of non-stop skiing or boarding will wear you down.

Avalanche Awareness Days are here This year's Avalanche Days retrun on January 16 and 17 at Lake Louise, Castle Mountain, Fernie and Kicking Horse Mountain Resorts. The showcase continues the following weekend, January 23 and 24, at Sunshine Village. Numerous events and demonstrations are planned for each day, including avalanche beacon practice, snow-profile talks and the popular avalanche dog demos. If you are into backcountry adventures—or even thinking about heading out in the near future—you should drop by and participate in some of the unique demos at each resort. Avalanche Canada is also hosting a couple of Avalanche Awareness nights at Lake Louise Parks Canada visitor centre (Friday, January 15 at 6:30 pm) and the Banff Centre (Sunday, January 17 at 7 pm).

These are two-hour sessions with the experts that will explain how avalanches are formed and controlled as well as how to get important information about current conditions before you head out. V

Your weekly pick-me-up

Riding Marmot Basin's Terrain Park // Mike Gere

POLITICS, MUSIC, ART, FOOD, FILM AND MORE!

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

SNOW ZONE 13

FILM

FILM EDITOR: PAUL BLINOV PAUL@VUEWEEKLY.COM

REVUE // BIOPIC

You are the test

Experimenter an absorbing, cognent look into a psychologist's work Milgram's experiments, let us feel that we're participants, or if you prefer, accomplices, in Milgram's groundbreaking and, in a sense, ongoing work. Milgram's conclusions about our seemingly hardwired tendency to conform to authority are timely and troubling, but because of its sly delivery and intellectual playfulness, Experimenter is itself exhilarating.

T

his film about the American social psychologist Stanley Milgram can, objectively speaking, be classified as a biopic (a genre I generally dislike). Writer-director Michael Almereyda begins Experimenter with Milgram in the midst of his famous, controversial, career-defining obedience experiments conducted at Yale in 1961; he has Milgram fill in some of the details about his origins, most

notably the fact that his parents were Jewish immigrants who, purely by chance, left Eastern Europe for the US just in time to avoid the Holocaust; and thereafter traces Milgram's professional progress and rise to prominence in tandem with select developments in his personal life. But what makes Experimenter so absorbing and cogent is how Almereyda uses biopic tropes to explore Milgram's legacy in

a formally and narratively meaningful way. Besides being a busy, if not especially well-known, filmmaker (his most notable credit remains his 2000 adaptation of Hamlet, starring Ethan Hawke), Almereyda is also a highly regarded theatre-maker, and his overt use of theatrical artifice, from Milgram's direct address narration of his own life (and death!) to the simple graphics that help illustrate

Those 1961 experiments invited volunteers to conduct tests in which they were to administer electric shocks to a fellow volunteer (in actuality a confederate of Milgram and his colleagues) every time this fellow volunteer gave the wrong answer to a question in a memory exercise. Most subjects continued to administer the shocks even after the man receiving the shocks cried out in pain and asked to exit the experiment. Though most of them were upset and conflicted about their role as quasi-torturers, the volunteers seemed to continue with the experiment because they were told to by an authority figure (in this case, the supervising scientist).

These results speak to all manner of ethically dubious instances of people "just following orders," from such catastrophic events as the Holocaust or Abu Ghraib to more everyday infractions against sense and morals (such as the absurd, Kafkaesque treatment I recently received at the hands of

Sat, Jan 9 – Mon, Jan 18 Directed by Michael Almereyda Metro Cinema at the Garneau  some US Immigration officers). The more famous Milgram's experiments became (especially after he published his book Obedience to Authority in 1974), the more people were outraged, with some accusing Milgram of cruelty for not informing his volunteers of the fact that no one was actually getting hurt (a factor that would have completely negated the purpose of the experiment).

Experimenter takes pains to inform us that Milgram's career went far beyond those early experiments, even though everything he did afterwards was done in their shadow. Almereyda's chief collaborator in telling Milgram's story is actor Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Milgram with a somewhat melancholy, unflappable air and fluidly guides us through his work in layman's terms. Thus everyone who watches Experimenter will have no trouble understanding the terms or conclusions of Milgram's experiments. Which means that everyone who watches Experimenter will have to confront themselves with the inevitable and, unfortunately, unanswerable question, Would I have acted any differently?

JOSEF BRAUN

JOSEF@VUEWEEKLY.COM

REVUE // PSYCHOLOGICAL

Perfect Blue S

atoshi Kon's 1997 debut is, naturally, the first in Metro Cinema's showcase of the late director's four features. But Kon's work isn't about the natural. Perfect Blue, all about posing and imposture, opens a quartet concerned with perception, image, mirage-ripples in reality and leading multi-lives in a worldwide-wired era.

(Kon influenced Darren Aronofsky— who remade Perfect Blue's bathtub sequence in Requiem for a Dream and whose Black Swan echoes elements

Sat, Jan 9 – Wed, Jan 13 Directed by Satoshi Kon Metro Cinema at the Garneau Originally released: 1997

of the film—and Inception director Christopher Nolan.)

After Hokkaido-born Kon (1963 – 2010) moved from manga into anime, his idol, Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo, recommended him for Sadayuki Murai's adaptation of Yoshikazu Takeuchi's novel. The psychologicalhorror film begins with an idol—J-pop star Mima Kirigoe's singing her last show before trying to remake herself as an actress. But amid the mostly adoring crowd prowl judgmental fans,

a few disruptive boors and a ghoulishlooking follower. Soon after Mima starts acting, her agent Tadokoro's wounded by a letter-bomb addressed to her and a screenwriter's horrifically murdered; Mima discovers an online diary, "Mima's Room," uncanny in its details of her days. And after Mima films a rape scene (casually justified

by Tadokoro with a reference to 1988 drama The Accused: "Jodie—what's her name? She had to do it, right?"), her world starts to unravel.

Perfect Blue's white lights—spotlights or the flash of photographers' cameras—can overwhelm Mima, disorient her or burn out like a dying star. She's never in control of her fantasy life (just 21, even her frequently flat, almost vapid attitude seems the product of being manufactured as an ever-smiley, eager-to-please singerturned-actress). It's almost always men talking about her, wolfishly or bossily, or looking on, leeringly or possessively. In the rape-scene, the lights and men's looks ring dizzily around Mima; flashing back and forth from the white-light stage to the moment re-filmed and played out on screens for the men-in-charge in the control room, the scene also implicates us, casually looking on.

Mima's sense of being on show, on the spot, and then surveilled seems to fragment her. Her former popstar persona (girlish, in a short, frilly, pink-ribboned dress) flounces off her computer screen and into the night, cheerily denouncing the actress Mima,

14 FILM

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

coming undone, as "tarnished" and "filthy." (This late-'90s story, that much eerier because it's animation, not liveaction, looks ahead to virtual lives; Mima's self-hood crumbles faster after she starts going online.) The minimalist score, drifting pans, blurring of the filmed, imagined and here-and-now, and sharp match-cuts spiral us deeper into Mima's un-reality—where others casually watch and judge and stalk her, claiming a right to her, all while she's losing her sense of self to imagemakers' and fans' (and perhaps our) predatory desire.

The mood is spot-on, then deliriously spottier. As Mima's sense of what's real dissolves, the film spins mirrorplates of possible realities, shattering them on the set of Mima's film, Double Bind, before a B-movie-ish actionclimax and a too-pat whodunit? reveal.

Still, as both a pulpish, postmodern play on performance and a psychothriller identity-parade, Kon's Perfect Blue is one woozy doozy of a debut.

BRIAN GIBSON

BRIAN@VUEWEEKLY.COM

PREVUE // FILM

Taking a leap (year) in film

A peek at the films set to get cine-funky in the Year of the Monkey

The Revenant—this and more, coming soon

S

pinach-tossing in your bed over Popeye's return? Going Hogwartswild over the Harry Potter spinoff?

Your inner Wookiee shedding fur 'til Rogue One hits multiplexes? Beaming up for another Star Trek? Well, all those and more will be warp-overdrive-hyped through cyberspace in the coming months—but this is a completely different kind of film preview for MMXVI. So let's leap-year right in: JANUARY – MAY Storming down in January is Alejandro González Iñárritu's snowbound (and shot in Alberta) 1820s epic The Revenant, with Leonardo DiCaprio as frontiersman Hugh Glass, bear-

ASPECTRATIO

mauled and seeking vengeance. Charlie Kaufman's Anomalisa, acclaimed after festival screenings late last year, is a stop-motion tale of modern (dis)connection, starring 3D-printed puppets. And in The Treasure, from Corneliu Porumboiu (Police, Adjective), a man's determined to find a cache buried in his grandparents' garden.

Come February, Grimur Hákonarson's Rams will be this year's best film about Icelandic sheep farmers. The Coens' Hail, Caesar! sees the brothers spoof '50s Hollywood as a fixer (Josh Brolin) tries to get a top studio-star (George Clooney) back from The Future, the group that kidnapped him.

Robert Eggers' The Witch tracks a fam-

ily, in 1630s New England, shadowed by black magic.

In Italian auteur Nanni Moretti's Mia Madre, due in March, a social-realist director (Margherita Buy) tries to come to grips with an Italian-American actor (John Turturro) on set and her ailing mother in hospital. Terence Davies' take on famed Scottish novel Sunset Song—about a farmer's daughter in the early 1900s—dawns in April.

Jeremy Saulnier follows Blue Ruin with Green Room, where a punk band's trapped by white-supremacist thugs and their leader (Patrick Stewart).

Luca Guadagnino (I Am Love) lands with A Bigger Splash, an erotic thriller featuring Tilda Swinton.

(Deliver Us From Evil). Seven years in the making, Pieter-Jan de Pue's semifictional doc Land of the Enlightened follows a gang of Afghan kids digging up old Soviet explosives to sell them.

And look out for Sean McAllister's portrait-of-a-wartorn-marriage A Syrian Love Story, online or on disc.

TV Terence Winter's spin on NYC's '70s music-biz scene, Vinyl, drops the needle in February, its pilot directed by Martin Scorsese. Also for HBO, Steve McQueen (12 Years A Slave) draws up Code of Conduct—it's the six-episode saga of a young black man (Devon

DOCUMENTARIES In Where To Invade Next, Michael Moore trots the globe to find social, economic and political programs— paid maternity leave, tuition-free university education, gender-equality guarantees—that his homeland should learn from. PBS airs a triumvirate of true stories in February: (T) ERROR, where a counter-terrorism informant takes filmmakers along on his last FBI job; Stanley Nelson Jr's selfexplanatory The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution; singer-portrait Janis: Little Girl Blue, from Amy Berg

Dear grief

RATED: P.G. MATURE SUBJECT MATTER

A Letter to Momo pairs magical and emotional realism A Letter to Momo begins and ends with drops: three droplets of water fall on Momo on a ferry to her new home; Momo takes the plunge off a bridge to join her newfound friends in the bay. When the film's magicrealism and emotional realism run together, those three droplets—and what they turn into—lead the teen girl to become less timid: three goblins help Momo come to terms with her regret-saturated grief over her oceanographer father's sudden death.

(Momo and her mother, Ikuko, move from Tokyo to an island in the Seto Inland Sea to live next to Ikuko's aunt and uncle.)

Writer-director Hiroyuki Okiura's 2011 film, seven years in the making, was only widely released in North America on disc in 2014. And it's time that washes over the story: stretches of boredom in this strange new place for Momo; the horrible pang of feeling like it was just yesterday when she saw her father the last time, saying to him, upset he was leaving on a research trip, "You're selfish, and you're a liar. I don't care if you come back." But it's when the twinned rivulets of anguish and grief come streaming back in the film's final act—when Momo fetches help

for her asthmatic mother by braving a torrential rainstorm—that A Letter to Momo surges to life.

Not that those goblins—yōkai, from Japanese folklore; such creatures often have animal features—aren't odd, creepy, sad and, mainly, comic.

They're guardians, sent to watch over Momo and Ikuko Miyaura (meaning "Shinto shrine creek"), but these mischief-makers steal food to sate their constant hunger. The leader's deep-voiced Iwa, a topknot-like bump atop his head; Kawa is a frog-man whose supernatural power's been reduced to mere gassiness (he wonders, fairly enough, "What good are farts in a storm?"); little Mame is a forgetful, long-tongued, hypno-eyed snake-monkey. Best of all are those moments when big, butch-looking Iwa straps on a bonnet and does a special spirit-dance or Kawa recalls how Iwa could once "just suck out your guts" and gives him a big kiss to show how, with Iwa then musing, "Ah, the glory days, they pass you by ... " Genderfluid monsters, oh my!

The photo-realist animation and settings—Hiroshima Bay, the location so evocative of loss; verdant, terraced orchards; the town's portside streets;

a forest shrine—nicely enfold this kooky, weird trio looking after Momo (or is she looking after them? The child who feels weird must manage these unruly, weird things ... stand-ins for her own strange, uneasy feelings in the wake of her dad's death?). But the humour can be buffoonish and the story can lapse into jokiness or drag its heels a little. The disconsolate child soon takes a strange comfort in her pesky, impish guardians, though. And when Momo's anguish bursts, and she soon realizes how sad her mother's truly been (after a heartbreaking scene where Ikuko lashes out with a harsh slap, then Momo blurts out sharp words), the film bursts to life. In the climactic actionsequence, blobbing, blurbing gushes of inky, squidgy spirits and creatures form a parade-float-like shield to protect Momo from the lashing, thrashing elements.

In the peace-filled ending, mother and daughter realize they've been tamping too much down—regret, guilt, sadness, grief—because they've been pretending, in their own ways, to be OK or even strong. Okiura's film imparts a decidedly un-Japanese moral: don't put on a face and hold your emotions at bay. V

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

Next week: the film-year-in-preview continues with a look-ahead at animation and other arthouse releases in 2016.

BRIAN GIBSON

BRIAN@VUEWEEKLY.COM

BROOKLYN

FRI 6:45PM SAT–SUN 1:00PM & 6:45PM MON–THURS 6:45PM

BRIAN GIBSON // BRIAN@VUEWEEKLY.COM

Terrell) who suddenly appears in NYC high society. AMC & BBC miniseries The Night Manager, adapting John Le Carré's book, is mission-controlled by Susanne Bier and stars Tom Hiddleston and Olivia Colman. And maestro Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty) oversees American-British-French miniseries The Young Pope, with Jude Law as His Holiness.

YOUTH

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FILM 15

EDUCATION

EDUCATION // ARTS

// KamPix

Edmonton Burlesque Centre offers the art form a teaching home

S

ure, burlesque's been a part of Edmonton's art scene for years— much longer than perpetual talk of "burgeoning revival" would have you believe. It's definitely seen growth in profile the past few years though, and with the AGLC's recent relaxing of some of its previous rules around the art-form, the continuation of that seems assured. Yet the spaces dedicated to learning the craft of bump n' grind have been in disproportionate short supply.

Kiki Quinn had been teaching burlesque here and there for years, but noticed there wasn't any sort of dedicated academy for in the city— at least not for those who weren't already in a troupe. So when studio

space fell into her lap, she and a few others seized its potential: the Edmonton Burlesque Centre officially opened last February, with aims to be the place to learn the ins and outs of the art form's traditional stylings.

"My ultimate goal is to open a performance venue that could also double as a school, a rehearsal space, a multi-purpose art space," Quinn says. "But because I'm so active in the burlesque community, I kind of wanted to make that first, because there was absolutely nothing for us."

There are similar centres in Toronto, Saskatoon and Vancouver, Quinn notes. Calling those places before she opened her own proved encouraging. "They gave me the

EDUCATION

ROUNDUP

JASMINE SALAZAR // JASMINE@VUEWEEKLY.COM

Zine Workshop / Sat, Apr 9 (1 pm – 5 pm): Taught by Edmonton-based illustrator Jill Stanton, this four-hour class teaches you how to make your own 28-page mini zine or comix—small press or self-published comic books— using a single sheet of paper and a stapler. For more information, visit harcourthouse.ab.ca or to register call Stacey Cann at 780.426.4180. (Harcourt House, $30 members, $35 non-members)

16 EDUCATION

Silkscreen Explorations: Digital Processes For Fabric and Paper / Mon, Apr 11 – Mon, May 2 (6 pm – 9 pm) This four-week class (classes held every Monday) explores the possibilities and potential that silkscreen printing offers by zooming in on the techniques of printing on fabric and a variety of papers.

Basic techniques will be taught, but the focus of the class will be creating images that are layered, patterned, repeated and printed.

Register online at snapartists.com/ education (SNAP Gallery, $196 for members, $216 for non-members)

push to do it, which was really cool," she says.

The students drawn to burlesque run a gamut of life experience, Quinn notes.

"We've had people from all walks of life: grandmothers, professionals, lawyers, students. It's kind of an all-inclusive art form, so everybody, as long as they're open minded, they're drawn to it. A lot of them like it, and stick around in one way, shape or form."

Community support for the centre's been there, too: the Edmonton Burlesque Festival awarded the space its Golden Beaver Award— "Given to people who are globally trying to advance our community

Screenwriting / Tues, Jan 19 – Tues, Apr 5 (6:30 pm – 9 pm) Have an idea for a film, but don't know know how to start? The Film and Video Arts Society Alberta (FAVA) offers a 12-week screenwriting course where participants will have the opportunity to develop a film script in an intense but supportive workshop setting. Work alongside other classmates and your instructor to flesh out that script. Participants must have a story outline or first draft prepared prior to the class. Call 780.429.1671 to register. (FAVA, $425)

OLIVER APT WOODWORKING WORKSHOPS

If you went to Royal Bison this past December, then you would have seen the beautiful woodworked items from Edmontonbased company Oliver Apt. The studio offers three workshops at a beginner, intermediate and ad-

and create safe spaces and whatnot for us," Quinn notes—and Vue's own readership voted it first-runner up in studio spaces in the 2015 Best of Edmonton Awards.

The centre's classes include beginner and advanced burlesque—the next wave of classes begins this month—as well as private coaching sessions for those artists looking for an outside eye on a new work, plus a few different fitness classes that draw on the art form as inspiration. There are plans to branch out further: everything from improv burlesque to offering yoga, vocal lessons and more social events, too.

While her partners have stepped back in the past year, Quinn's still got her eyes on expansion: the

vanced level, all of which provide the skills and knowledge to make your own wood-crafted product.

Visit oliverapt.com/workshops for more information.

Serving Board Workshop / Sat, Jan 23 (9 am, 2 pm); Sat, Feb 13 (9 am, 2 pm): In this entry-level class, the boys of Oliver Apt will teach you how to create your own customized serving board. There will be refreshments and treats provided by District Coffee Co. No previous woodworking experience needed, but space is limited to 10 guests per workshop. Register at oliverapt.com/workshops (Oliver Apt Studio, $125 includes materials, instructions and snacks).

Cutting Board Workshop / Sat, Feb 6 (9 am – 5 pm); Sat, Feb 27 (9 am – 5 pm): This intermediate class explores the in-depth process of cutting, planing, glueing, sand-

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

#201, 11803 - 125 St Edmonton Burlesque Centre edmontonburlesquecentre.ca burlesque classes aren't going anywhere, and Quinn has plans to re-shape the space for acrossdiscipline use: a backroom is being soundproofed for band practices; they're offering the studio space up for photographers and private events, too.

"The studio fell into my lap—it's a place we found," she says. "So we started with just a studio. And ideally, it'll grow into something much bigger."

PAUL BLINOV

PAUL@VUEWEEKLY.COM

ing and oiling a cutting board. No previous woodworking experience necessary. Lunch will be provided by the folks at LEVA. Space is limited to 12 people per workshop. Register at oliverapt.com/workshops (Oliver Apt Studio, $195 includes materials, instruction and lunch).

Walnut Bench Workshop / Sat, Mar 12 (9 am – 5 pm): You're bored of making boards and want something more taxing. Try your wordworking skills in the advanced workshop where you will create your own piece of furniture. This advanced class instructs you on the process of building and working with wood to create your own walnut bench.

Since this is a full hands-on project, previous woodworking knowledge is recommended. Refreshments and food provided by LEVA. Space is limited to four persons per workshop.

(Oliver Apt Studio, $600 includes materials, instruction and lunch) V

Wait-listed at your local college in Edmonton?

Consider Northern Lights College in Northern B.C.!

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EDUCATION 17

EDUCATION EDUCATION // ALCOHOL

So you want to learn about liquor?

There's no one-stop shop for an education in wine, beer and spirits There are many avenues to broaden your knowledge of beer, wine and spirits, but the best teacher is always personal experience. Reading and tasting widely will deepen your knowledge more than any single course can—and it's much cheaper. A couple good reference books (check the library first), a list of good websites and blogs (there are countless), a notebook and pen (or the virtual equivalent) are really all you need: start reading about and making tasting notes on everything you drink, and you'll start developing a solid body of knowledge quite quickly.

Depending on your personal and/or career goals, there is some benefit to pursuing more of a formal approach to liquor education. A host of courses and exams are offered in each major category; which one you take is largely up to you. It's always a good idea to do some extensive research prior to enrolling in any program, to determine if it will be appropriate (and if you can afford it).

©iStockphoto.com/Kesu01

BEER Two of the most common beer-education programs offered in Canada are Prud'homme, which is based in Toronto, and Cicerone, which holds exams throughout centres in the US

and a couple in Canada. Both offer three levels of education. Prud'homme offers both classroom (in the Toronto area) and online learning for the first two levels; Cicerone's first level is an online exam while the other two levels require you to travel to one of the centres on their exam schedule.

An alternative is the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP), which is a non-profit focused mostly on homebrewing. But it offers very thorough, in-depth beer knowledge—especially on its technical aspects—and is very affordable. The BJCP doesn't run formal courses, but local groups do— check with the Edmonton Homebrewers Guild for upcoming offerings.

WINE The three most common wine certification programs are the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET), International Sommelier Guild (ISG) and Court of Master Sommeliers (CMS). All of them offer multiple levels of study and certification. The WSET and ISG offer classes locally, while the CMS requires you to travel to one of their course/exam centres (mainly in the US, with a few in Canada). The WSET has more of an academic focus while the ISG and CMS are designed mainly for

individuals in the service industry.

There are numerous other informal courses, classes and tastings around town at various levels of background, as well as a few programs that focus on specific aspects and types of wine—most of the latter will require travel.

SPIRITS There aren't as many formal programs offered for spirits education—the WSET, ISG and CMS all include spirits education in their courses, but the focus is predominantly wine. A couple of places offer bartending classes locally (Ultimate Bartending and Fine Art Bartending), which include classes at various levels of experience and certification—though that certification may not always be widely recognized/ accepted. Both NAIT and Get Cooking occasionally offer casual courses in cocktails and mixology.

Other venues for mixology education include BarSmarts, a training program that offers an online course/test and a one-day in-person course (in the US only), and BartenderOne, which offers courses in Toronto and Mississauga (and apparently soon in Calgary).

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18 EDUCATION

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

PREVUE // ALT-COUNTRY

MUSIC

MUSIC EDITOR: MEAGHAN BAXTER MEAGHAN@VUEWEEKLY.COM

BR EA KING THROUGH LUCETTE DELVES DEEP INTO THE SOUNDS OF THE SOUTH

T

he prospect of facing vast expanses of highway and innumerable hours in a vehicle by oneself would feel arduous for some, but this solitary time doesn't appear to phase Lucette, who uses it to her advantage.

"There's always a pile of records that I'm dying to listen to, but having a full-time job when I come home and friends ... there's always records that you kind of neglect listening to," says the Edmontonbased singer-songwriter, who often tours without the accompaniment of a band. "So I love giving new music the time of day when I'm driving, because I actually have the time to sit and listen."

Lucette (also known as Lauren Gillis) describes the thought of waking up with no one's schedule to worry about but her own as nearly luxurious, but solo touring has also taught her the importance of organization and avoiding "rookie mistakes"—like not factoring a time change into her day and arriving late to soundcheck.

But these slip-ups are par for the course, and certainly haven't slowed her down: she's amassed a solid network of musicians and producers in Nashville and much of her touring has occurred in the US, including several showcases at SXSW in Austin last year.

"It seems like the American market has almost come to me easier than the Canadian market," she says.

"The type of music that I play, a lot

of it is very influenced by southern sounds—alternative country, Texas country, blues, sort of gospel—all those genres of music sort of stem from the southern states."

Indeed, Lucette's debut album, Black Is the Color, is steeped in haunting, pensive tones with strong ties to noir folk and alt-country, drawing on influences like Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson (one of her favourite songwriters) and Townes Van Zandt, with some modern edge—she notes listening to Ryan Adams' Heartbreaker record on repeat around the time she was writing her own album. She had a number of songs written prior to going into the studio with Nashville-based producer Dave Cobb, but they had grown stale to her and the majority were ultimately scrapped. Lucette notes that it was the opening track "Bobby Reid," a mournful tale about love gone wrong, that altered the album's direction from its original '50s/'60s country-pop trajectory.

"What's great about it is it just took that one song to open my world up as far as writing," Lucette notes, adding tracks like "River Rising," "Darkness" and "Muddy Water" quickly followed. "It was just kind of magical, you know? It just sort of came out of nowhere, and the thing with me is I work well with deadlines. If I'm given a deadline I'll get something done, but if not I'll probably sit and let it fester until it's aching to be finished.

Thu, Jan 14 (7 pm) With Mariel Buckley, El Niven Mercury Room, $10 in advance, $12 at the door "Dave uses such great musicians," she continues. "These people heard the song once, and I credit them as much as Dave [for] creating the sound that we created, because they heard the song and that's what you hear. We recorded everything live, so they just get it."

Black is the Color was released earlier in 2015, and Lucette has her sights set on her next record once she wraps up touring with David Ramirez. During her time recording with Cobb, he exposed her to numerous artists beyond the scope she had reached, including Jessi Colter, and those artists have further informed her own style.

"She's one of the only people that I know of that's a female country singer that plays piano, and that's my instrument," she notes, explaining that discovering artists like Colter and Leon Russell have expanded her reach into a soulful sound she'd like to move towards on her followup album. "I think at the time [of Black is the Color] my knowledge of what I loved was just breaking into what I really love, you know?"

MEAGHAN BAXTER

MEAGHAN@VUEWEEKLY.COM

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

MUSIC 19

MUSIC .com/music

PREVUE // FUNDRAISER

Paying it Forward P

GNOME SANE ?

unk and hardcore music have always been great champions of the underserved and underprivileged in communities all over the world. While the bands playing in Paying it Forward on Friday night may not musically fit into those categories, they are embodying the spirit and tradition of the genres.

With cues from electronica, metal and hardcore, the mashup of young local bands will ultimately work toward supporting Youth Empowerment and Support Services (YESS) and the Edmonton Humane Society with all profits raised.

"As a band, a huge part of what we represent is aiding those in need," says Coco Lee, frontman of Eter-

nal Prophecy, the event's headliners. "We wish to help bring unity and harmony; helping anyone we can in any way possible. We want to do this on a massive scale, but of course it all starts at home. So when the offer came up for a charity show with these incredible causes, we could not have been more excited to accept. It has been incredible, the response to the show, and the interest that people share in wanting to come together and help out the community."

Not only will this show be supporting two very important community groups, it's a chance for newer bands in the local music scene to

get some stage time. No Room for Subtlety will hit the stage for the first time alongside Within the Fury, Dead Honey, WTHCNVCTN and Eternal Prophecy, which will be filming a live music video for a song off the band's recent EP, complete with hoop dancers, body painting and more.

"Eternal Prophecy is getting ready to write and record their next album, to be released in 2016," Lee says. "With this album, the approach will be far different; aiming to pave our way into brand-new markets. The band is looking to bring together the EDM scene with the metal/rock/alternative scene.

Putting emphasis on massive, capti-

Fri, Jan 8 (8 pm) With Eternal Prophecy, WTHCNVCTN, Dead Honey, Within the Fury, No Room For Subtlety Mercury Room, $10 in advance, $15 at the door vating choruses, ambient sections, heavy electronic elements, intricate guitar riffs, impactful lyrics and creating an overall engaging, embracing, uplifting, unifying and spiritual atmosphere/experience."

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BRITTANY@VUEWEEKLY.COM

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PREVUE // BIRTHDAY

Zuk Til You Puke III A

t a transitional time in Edmonton's music scene, we should be celebrating those who steadfastly offer their support year after year. Local walking music encyclopedia Christopher Zuk is one such man who is tireless in his mission to collect records, see every band ever and offer encouragement to turn out to local artists' shows. For the past two years, Zuk has been hosting a birthday bash called Zuk Til You Puke, which showcases a small cross-section of local talent.

For this year's celebration, Zuk has enlisted the help of Calgary's Night Committee, Edmonton's Counterfeit Jeans, Cassia Hardy of Wares and the now-defunct Min-

J.P. CORMIE�

strels on Speed. If you weren't around the city's music scene in the early '90s, chances are you haven't seen the Minstrels play. After its farewell show in 1995 with DOA in Jasper and a handful of shows to say goodbye to the Rev (now renamed the Starlite Room) in 2003, the band's been relatively inactive within that particular lineup.

"We have some basic recordings of some tunes and some new songs, but we didn't complete them," says drummer Scott Lingley, who, full disclosure, writes Vue's restaurant reviews. "I don't think the Minstrel thing is going to happen anymore [after the show.]

It's been fun learning the songs for

the show and revisiting them, but the songs you wrote in your early twenties and the songs you want to write when you're twice that age, they don't exactly line up, you know?"

Not only will this be your last chance to see Minstrels on Speed perform, but Night Committee will be bringing its new band member up north to join the group on stage. The former trio has expanded its lineup to include bassist Nicola Cavanagh-Lefevre.

And, word on the street is that there'll be a few extra special surprises to top off what is already a very unique lineup. Look out for a

Sat, Jan 9 (9 pm) Brixx, $14

few musical chair-style switch-aroos on stage and birthday cake.

"I really appreciate Zuk as the exemplar for local music," Lingley concludes. "Edmonton's always had a very rich scene, and it's people like him who kind of keep it going, who insist on supporting local music and supporting local venues so bands have a place to play to actual people."

BRITTANY RUDYCK

BRITTANY@VUEWEEKLY.COM

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MUSIC 21

MUSIC PREVUE // FOLK-ROCK

// Mark Maryanovich

The Lion The Bear The Fox F

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or the impeccably bearded trio that is The Lion The Bear The Fox, 2015 was all about cementing its live show: three distinct voices coalescing to share relatable stories.

"We've experimented along the way with more rocky sounds, folky sounds, but at the end of the day people come to see the band because they love hearing voices together and they love stories in songwriting," says Chris Arruda (The Lion). "It's bombastic and energetic sometimes, kind of stompy and rocky at times, but also very sombre, and you're going to get a really honest performance—love it or hate it, that's what people are going to see."

The reception to that approach has leaned more heavily on the former since the folk-rock group formed in May 2012, when its three members— Arruda, Cory Woodward (The Bear) and Ryan McMahon (The Fox)—were touring together to promote their respective solo careers. They began performing during each other's sets and soon formed a solid friendship.

By the end of the tour they had enough material for their own setlist, and a new band was formed.

The trio released its debut EP, We'd Be Good Men, in 2013. With the touring cycle for the record wrapping up, the group has begun

work on a new album, its focus for the year ahead. The title and release date are still up in the air, but Arruda estimates it'll occur later this summer. The trio has also teamed up with producer Nygel Asselin, a first for group, which self-produced its We'd Be Good Men. Arruda admits he and his bandmates were reticent to do so at first, particularly because he and Woodward do their own production work for their solo projects and they thought it would be like adding another cook to an already crowded kitchen. But the opposite happened, and Asselin has acted as a guiding voice when the band gets off track or struggles to settle on an idea.

"The band really is greater than the sum of its parts, so there's not really any conflict or problem, because generally there's always been an understanding that the band is the first priority," Arruda says of combining three distinct careers into one. "We all do our own solo tours, we all write and record records, but at this point that's just to help feed the band. And the nice thing is that inversely the band helps feed the solo projects, because as the band becomes more established and grows throughout the year it just helps bring awareness to our solo projects."

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

Wed, Jan 13 (7 pm) The Almanac, $15 That's not to say the process hasn't been without its challenges. The trio's members are spread between Vancouver and Vancouver Island, so the logistics of getting together to work on songs can be difficult. Plus, a packed touring schedule leaves little time to work on new material, despite good intentions.

"You know, we always talk about telling the truth: making this record's been really difficult," Arruda says. "We've honestly probably tried to record the album two or three different times, and it just didn't feel right. It just didn't seem to work: we always seemed to be doing too much or pushing in a certain direction that didn't belong.

"In the last four or five months we've written essentially 40 songs and those will become 12, which will become 10, which will become the record," he continues. "And it's been really interesting because it's not the record we expected to make, it's not the record at some point we thought we were going to make, but it is definitely the record we're supposed to make."

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PREVUE // PUNK

ART ANGELS

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Brendan Kelly

Translating the intensity of a fullvolume, high-energy rock 'n' roll set into an acoustic environment is something Kelly embraces, and the strippeddown performance enables him to invoke the teachings of his hero, and one of the masters of the form.

"It's almost super-human the lengths Willie Nelson goes to, to not put in any effort. I mean, you've got him, and then about a zillion people, and then me," Kelly laughs. "I'm not trying to be grandiose and compare myself to Willie Nelson or anything, but he's always been a hero of mine. I don't really dig the whole 'punk goes acoustic' thing that much, because I feel that so much of it is disingenuous. You see some dude just banging the shit out of his acoustic guitar, 'Hey, I'm the singer from the Dildos and here's my acoustic set.' It just doesn't do that much for me.

"With the acoustic shows I do a lot of talking and bullshitting with the crowd, so it's kind of a different intensity," he continues. "When I was younger I remember when we'd play I'd think, 'Oh, man, I've got to jump and show everyone how hard we're rockin.'' but then I was watching Willie Nelson, and he doesn't do anything. And it's so much cooler. Like in those books—How to Influence

Sat, Jan 9 (8 pm) With KJ Jansen, James Renton, Ryan Dix The Buckingham, $17 in advance, $22 at the door People, or 'How to Brainwash Your Enemies'—they say that if you talk just a little bit quieter than what's comfortable, then people will listen so much harder. There's something to that. The solemnity of an acoustic performance can draw out a lot more intensity with a lot less noise. It's a way of measuring which way you bring the thunder, I guess."

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promoter Ben Sir to see where his annual invitation was.

"I was like, 'Hey, it's probably about time for my stupid, ill-advised, middle-of-winter trip up to northern Canada," Kelly chuckles. "But I love it—the last two years I've had such a spectacular time, and I love the city.

I love the guys at the Buckingham, and the fans that I have up there are so enthusiastic and awesome. I'm so stoked to brave the cold to play a cool show for people that give a shit, you know? And it's not like I live in Palm Springs—I'm from Chicago! It's cold here too."

FRI JAN 29

hen punk-rock everyman Brendan Kelly answers the phone, it sounds as though he's nursing a New Year's Day hangover in the middle of a throng of screaming children.

"A newspaper here in Chicago had a big party, so me and my wife went to that. Actually, that's just a fancy way of saying that we went to a bar and got wasted," Kelly laughs. "It's New Year's, what else are you going to do?"

Looking back on his personal highlights in 2015, Kelly cites two standouts. One is musical, as his band the Falcon—which includes his Lawrence Arms bandmate Neil Hennessy, Dan Andriano from Alkaline Trio and Dave Hause—finished up a new record he's especially proud of, to be released early in 2016.

And the other?

Earlier this year it was revealed that the parody Twitter account @nihilist_arbys was, in fact, Kelly's labour of ... love? (Sample tweet: "New Years resolution: give up. Eat arbys. Sit there. Keep sitting. Let the meaninglessness of life envelop. Die. Be forgotten."). With over 168 000 followers—the accounts of his musical projects command maybe one tenth of that—the success of the account has led to some baffling moments for Kelly.

"I really wasn't expecting to do anything other than dick around when I didn't want to be working," he says.

"But when I look back on my life, it probably is going to be one of the definitive things that happened in 2015. I wish that the records I put out would get as much attention and press as this stupid Twitter account. But what are you going to do?"

Flying into our fair city in the stark belligerence of January may seem strange to some people, but Kelly's upcoming show marks his third visit to town, and it's a tradition he's grown to relish. So much so, that this year he personally put the call out to

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

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FESTIVAL PLACE Lurrie Bell’s

Heels (pop); 9pm

Chicago Blues Band; 7:309:30pm; $32-$36

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Thu; 9pm JUBILATIONS DINNER THEATRE

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Star Warz: A Galactic Rock Comedy; until Jan 30

FILTHY MCNASTY'S Wake (metal) with Begrime Exemious and Low Level; 10pm; No cover

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EL CORTEZ Bass Underground

Dancing; runs until Jan 10

1.0, Sinistarr (dance/DJ) with DJ Phatcat and Bop Dylan; 9pm; No cover

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Puppy; 9pm; $5 (door) BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Hair of

the Dog: Connor Regan (live acoustic music every Sat); 4-6pm; no cover BLUE CHAIR CAFE Tony D of

Monkeyjunk; 8:30-10:30pm BLUES ON WHYTE King Muskafa;

9pm BOHEMIA DARQ Saturdays: Industrial - Goth - Dark Electro with DJs the Gothfather and Zeio; 9pm; $5 (door); (every Sat except the 1st Sat of the month) BOURBON ROOM Live music each

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open jam with hosts: Rob Kaup, Leah Durelle

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Dancing; runs until Jan 10 LB'S PUB The Wheel in the Ditch

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Kelly (of The Lawrence Arms), KJ Jansen (of Chixdiggit) with James Renton and Ryan Dix; 8pm; $17 (adv), $22 (door) CAFE BLACKBIRD Around

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Events Showcase; 3pm (doors); $15; 18+ only UNION HALL Borgeous; 9pm;

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Classical CONVOCATION HALL London Haydn Quartet; 8pm; $11.75-$37 WINSPEAR CENTRE Paganini's

Violin Concerto No 2; 8pm; $24-$79

DJs BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: The Menace Sessions: alt

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Nights: Indie rock and dance with DJ Maurice

CASINO YELLOWHEAD Jess Valdez

RED STAR Indie rock, hip hop,

dance floor; 9:30pm

(rock); 9pm

MERCURY ROOM Paying It

THE COMMON The Hugonaut and P-Rex and DJ Echo

most Thursdays; 7-10pm

ON THE ROCKS Grave New World

DUGGAN'S BOUNDARY Mark

RICHARD'S PUB The Big Daddy Thursday Jam hosted by Randy Forsberg; Every Thu; 7:3011pm

RED PIANO BAR Hottest dueling

Mcgarrigle (folk); 9pm

piano show featuring the Red Piano Players every Fri; 9pm2am

DV8 Lordy, Lordy...I'm Gonna

SMOKEHOUSE BBQ Live Blues every Thur: rotating guests; 7-11pm

SHERLOCK HOLMES–DOWNTOWN

TAVERN ON WHYTE Open stage

SHERLOCK HOLMES–U OF A

FILTHY MCNASTY'S Free Afternoon Concerts: this week with The Vanas and with Fear The Mammoth; 4pm

Andrew Scott (alt/country); 9pm

GAS PUMP Saturday Homemade

SHERLOCK HOLMES–WEM Mike

Jam: Mike Chenoweth

"The Party Hog" (blues/rock); 9pm

HILLTOP PUB Open Stage, Jam every Sat; 3:30-7pm

TIRAMISU BISTRO Live music

JUBILATIONS DINNER THEATRE

Doug Stroud (country/pop/rock); 9pm

CROWN & ANCHOR PUB Form Ten

Be F***Ing 40 (metal/hard rock/ punk); 8pm; No minors

LEAF BAR AND GRILL Open Stage Sat–It's the Sat Jam hosted by Darren Bartlett, 5pm

THE BOWER Strictly Goods: Old

MAYFIELD DINNER THEATRE

school and new school hip hop & R&B with DJ Twist, Sonny

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

Your Famous Saturday with Crewshtopher, Tyler M SUGAR FOOT BALLROOM Swing

Dance Party: Sugar Swing Dance Club every Sat, 8-12; no experience or partner needed, beginner lesson followed by social dance; sugarswing.com TAVERN ON WHYTE Soul,

Motown, Funk, R&B and more with DJs Ben and Mitch; every Sat; 9pm-2am UNION HALL Celebrity Saturdays:

every Sat hosted by DJ Johnny Infamous

SUN JAN 10

BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Every Friday DJs on all three levels

DJs

SOU KAWAII ZEN LOUNGE

JUBILEE AUDITORIUM Dirty

CENTURY ROOM Lucky 7: Retro '80s with house DJ every Thu; 7pm-close

this week featuring; Each Fri, 8-10pm; $5 suggested donation

ROUGE LOUNGE Rouge Saturdays: global sound and Cosmopolitan Style Lounging with DJ Mkhai

Y AFTERHOURS Release

every Fri WILD EARTH BAKERY– MILLCREEK Live Music Fridays:

and electro every Sat with DJ Hot Philly and guests

Star Warz: A Galactic Rock Comedy; until Jan 30

Funk, Soul, R&B and 80s with DJ Thomas Culture; jamz that will make your backbone slide; Wooftop: Dig It! Thursdays.

Electronic, roots and rare groove with DJ's Rootbeard, Raebot, Wijit and guests

THE COMMON The Common Uncommon Thursday: Rotating

Doug Stroud (country/pop/rock); 9pm

CARROT COFFEEHOUSE Sat Open

with guests Drooling Band Joes (rock/pop/indie); 8pm; No minors

Fl: Throwback Thu: Rock&Roll,

SHERLOCK HOLMES–DOWNTOWN

Potatohed; 8pm

NEW WEST HOTEL Trick Ryder

BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Thu Main

Display Of Decay, Path To Exinction, Tyrant, Demise Without Reason, Immunize, The Dead Cold, Pyschotix Tantrum, Tales Of The Tomb; 5pm (door), 6pm (show)

Back to the 80s: A Most Excellent Musical Adventure; until Jan 31

pianos at 8pm

DJs

RENDEZVOUS PUB SlaughterFest:

Sound and Light show; We are Saturdays: Kindergarten

RIC’S GRILL Peter Belec (jazz);

with Michael Gress (fr Self Evolution); every Thu; 9pm-2am

piano show featuring the Red Piano Players every Sat; 9pm2am

CAFFREY'S IN THE PARK Mr.

Forward Eternal Prophecy (metal); and more; 7pm; $10 (adv), $15 (door)

RED PIANO Every Thu: Dueling

O’BYRNE’S Live band every Sat, 3-7pm; DJ every Sat, 9:30pm

DJ every Fri

HTAC Open Stage; 7:30-10:30pm

Back to the 80s: A Most Excellent Musical Adventure; until Jan 31

every Sat NEW WEST HOTEL Trick Ryder

ON THE ROCKS Grave New World

HOLY TRINITY ANGLICAN CHURCH

Star Warz: A Galactic Rock Comedy; until Jan 30

MKT FRESH FOOD AND BEER MARKET Live Local Bands

9pm

L.B.'S PUB South Bound Freight

stage with One Percent (R&B/ soul); 8pm every Thu

until Jan 31

ELECTRIC RODEO–Spruce Grove

Night Committee, Counterfeit Jeans and Wares; 8pm (door), 9pm (show); $14; 18+ only

KRUSH ULTRA LOUNGE Open

24 MUSIC

Guests each week!

Dancing; runs until Jan 10 LB'S PUB Nick Samoil (rock/

pop/indie); 9:30pm; No minors

Back to the 80s: A Most Excellent Musical Adventure;

Saturdays

BAILEY THEATRE Songbook Sunday (variety); 2pm; No cover; All ages BIG AL'S HOUSE OF BLUES

Sun BBQ jam hosted with the Marshall Lawrence Band; 4pm

BLUE CHAIR CAFE Brunch:

DUGGAN'S BOUNDARY Monday

Hawaiian Dreamers; 9am-3pm; By donation

open mic

BLUES ON WHYTE King Muskafa;

9pm

JUBILATIONS DINNER THEATRE

Star Warz: A Galactic Rock Comedy; until Jan 30 MAYFIELD DINNER THEATRE

Guitar Classes; Every Sun, 11:30am-12:30pm

Back to the 80s: A Most Excellent Musical Adventure; until Jan 31 MERCURY ROOM Music Magic

Live on the South Side: live bands; all ages; 7-10:30pm

Monday Nights: Capital City Jammers, host Blueberry Norm; seasoned musicians; 7-10pm; $4

DUGGAN'S BOUNDARY Celtic

Music with Duggan's House Band 5-8pm

DUGGAN'S BOUNDARY Wed open

LEAF BAR AND GRILL Tue Open

DANCE CODE STUDIO Flamenco

DIVERSION LOUNGE Sun Night

7-11pm

mic with host Duff Robison

Jam: Trevor Mullen

JUBILATIONS DINNER THEATRE

MAYFIELD DINNER THEATRE

Star Warz: A Galactic Rock Comedy; until Jan 30

Back to the 80s: A Most Excellent Musical Adventure; until Jan 31

JUBILEE AUDITORIUM Shaping

Sound; 7:30pm

MERCER TAVERN Alt Tuesday with

MAYFIELD DINNER THEATRE

Kris Harvey and guests

Back to the 80s: A Most Excellent Musical Adventure; until Jan 31

NEW WEST HOTEL Tue Country

Dance Lessons: 7-9pm • Rodeowind

NEW WEST HOTEL Rodeowind

O’BYRNE’S Celtic jam every

ORIGINAL JOE'S VARSITY ROW

Jan 11-19

Tue; with Shannon Johnson and friends; 9:30pm

Star Warz: A Galactic Rock Comedy; until Jan 30

PLEASANTVIEW COMMUNITY HALL Wild Rose Old Tyme

OVERTIME–Sherwood Park Bingo

Open mic Wed: Hosted by Jordan Strand; every Wed, 9-12 jordanfstrand@gmail.com / 780655-8520

JUBILEE AUDITORIUM Dirty

Fiddlers Association: Acoustic instrumental old time fiddle jam every Mon; hosted by the Wild Rose Old Tyme Fiddlers Society; 7pm; contact Vi 780.456.8510

Live music with the Icehouse Band and weekly guests; Every Tue, 9pm

ROUGE RESTO-LOUNGE Open Mic

SANDS HOTEL Country music

NEW WEST HOTEL Rodeowind

JUBILATIONS DINNER THEATRE

Dancing; runs until Jan 10 MAYFIELD DINNER THEATRE

Back to the 80s: A Most Excellent Musical Adventure; until Jan 31

Night with Darrek Anderson from the Guaranteed; every Mon; 9pm

NEWCASTLE PUB The Sunday Soul Service: acoustic open stage every Sun

SHERLOCK HOLMES–U OF A Open

O’BYRNE’S Open mic every Sun; 9:30pm-1am ON THE ROCKS Nervous Flirts RICHARD'S PUB Sunday Jam hosted by Mark Ammar; 4-8pm

Classical ALL SAINTS' ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL Mendelssohn's Te

Deum; 7:30pm; $16.75-$22 CITY HALL Swing 'N' Skate;

1-4pm; Every Sun until Feb 28 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Laura Veeze with Charles Pilon and Josephine van Lier and Marnie Giesbrecht; 3pm; $40 (adult), $30 (student/member/ senior) MUTTART HALL Northern

Alberta Concerto Competition, 35th Annual; $10-$15

DJs BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Soul Sundays: A fantastic

voyage through '60s and '70s funk, soul and R&B with DJ Zyppy

MON JAN 11 BIG AL'S HOUSE OF BLUES Blue

Mic Night hosted by Adam Holm; Every Mon SIDELINERS PUB Singer/ Songwriter Monday Night Open Stage; Hosted by Celeigh Cardinal; Every Mon (except long weekends), 8:30-11:30pm; Free

DJs BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Blue Jay’s Messy Nest:

mod, brit pop, new wave, British rock with DJ Blue Jay DV8 T.F.W.O. Mondays: Roots

industrial,Classic Punk, Rock, Electronic with Hair of the Dave TAVERN ON WHYTE Classic Hip

hop with DJ Creeazn every Mon; 9pm-2am

BIG AL'S HOUSE OF BLUES

Classical JUBILEE AUDITORIUM Shaping

OVERTIME–Sherwood Park Jason

Greeley (acoustic rock, country, Top 40); 9pm-2am every Wed; no cover PLEASANTVIEW COMMUNITY HALL Acoustic Bluegrass jam

presented by the Northern Bluegrass Circle Music Society; every Wed, 6:30-11pm; $2 (member)/$4 (non-member) RED PIANO BAR Wed Night Live:

Sound; 7:30pm

hosted by dueling piano players; 8pm-1am; $5

DJs

ROSSDALE HALL Little Flower

BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Brit Pop, Synthpop,

Alternative 90’s, Glam Rock with DJ Chris Bruce; Wooftop: Substance: alt retro and not-soretro electronic and dance with Eddie LunchPail

STUDIO 96 The Lion The Bear

BRIXX Metal night every Tue

Kori Wray and Jeff Hendrick; every Wed; 7:30-10pm; no cover

DV8 Creepy Tombsday:

Psychobilly, Hallowe'en horrorpunk, deathrock with Abigail Asphixia and Mr Cadaver; every Tue

THE ALMANAC The Lion the Bear

The Fox (country/folk/rock) with Alameda and guests; 7pm; $15 (adv)

Classical FILTHY MCNASTY'S Jazz Night

BLUES ON WHYTE Rott'n Dan and Abusin' the Blues; 9pm

B STREET BAR Live Music with Lyle Hobbs; 8-11pm, every Wed

DJs

BRITTANY'S LOUNGE Scrambled

BIG AL'S HOUSE OF BLUES Wailin'

BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Blue Jay’s Messy Nest:

Tue: featuring this week: Derek Anderson; 9pm

Mod, Brit Pop, New Wave & British Rock with DJ Blue Jay; Wooftop: Metal Mon: with Metal Phil (fr CJSR’s Heavy Metal Lunch Box)

JUBILATIONS DINNER THEATRE

Star Warz: A Galactic Rock Comedy; until Jan 30 JUBILEE AUDITORIUM Shaping

Sound; 7:30pm L.B.'S PUB Tue Variety Night

Open stage with Darrell Barr;

BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Alt '80s and '90s, Post

Punk, New Wave, Garage, Brit, Mod, Rock and Roll witih LL Cool Joe and DJ Downtrodden on alternate Weds BLUES ON WHYTE Studebaker

John & the Hawks; 9pm BRITTANY'S LOUNGE Scrambled

YEG: Open Genre Variety Stage: artist from all mediums are encouraged to occupy the stage and share their creations • Every Tue- Fri, 5-8pm

Vivaldi & The Other Haydn; 7:30pm; $24-$59

BILLIARD CLUB Why wait Wednesdays: Wed night party with DJ Alize every Wed; no cover BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Alt '80s and '90s, Post

Punk, New Wave, Garage, Brit, Mod, Rock and Roll witih LL Cool Joe and DJ Downtrodden on alternate Weds

JAN/28

RED STAR Guest DJs every Wed

FORT KNOX 5 CONCERTWORKS.CA PRESENTS

ENFORCER & WARBRINGER W/ CAULDRON & EXMORTUS

JAN/29

THE MOOD MACHINE PRESENTS

THIEVERY COPORATION’S ROB GARZA W/ BETTER LIVING DJ’S, SWIM, DAN PEZIM

JAN/30

UBK PRESENTS

FEB/5

UBK, NIGHT VISION, AND DIRTYBIRD PRESENT

FEB/9

KRAFTY KUTS COYOTE KISSES BILLY KENNY & WILL CLARKE PROPAGANDHI CONCERTWORKS.CA PRESENTS

W/ SLATES & STRANGLED

FEB/10

CONCERTWORKS.CA PRESENTS

TRIVIUM

W/ THE ORDER OF CHAOS & GUESTS

BRIXX BAR Eats and Beats THE COMMON The Wed Experience: Classics on Vinyl with Dane

UBK PRESENTS CELEBRATION OF FUNK

W/ FUNKANOMICS & MARTEN HORGER

JUBILEE AUDITORIUM Shaping

Tuesday Night Jam with host Harry Gregg and Geoffrey O'Brien; 8-11pm

YEG: Open Genre Variety Stage: artist from all mediums are encouraged to occupy the stage and share their creations • Every Tue- Fri, 5-8pm

JAN/23

featuring Stefan Kijek (classical/ jazz); 8pm; No cover Sound; 7:30pm

LANDMARK EVENTS SHOWCASE STRIKER ALBUM RELEASE W/ GUESTS

ZEN LOUNGE Jazz Wednesdays:

WINSPEAR CENTRE Mozart,

Wednesdays Jam; Every Wed, 7:30pm; All ages

JAN/22

Open Stage with Brian Gregg; 7:30pm (door); no cover

the Fox (country/folk/rock) with Altameda and guests; 7pm; $15 (adv)

DRUID IRISH PUB Open Stage

Abusin' the Blues; 9pm Jan 11-12

dancing every Tue, featuring Country Music Legend Bev Munro every Tue, 8-11pm

WED JAN 13

TUE JAN 12

Mondays with Jimmy and the Sleepers; 8-11pm

BLUES ON WHYTE Rott'n Dan and

Toonz every Tue ROCKY MOUNTAIN ICEHOUSE

JAN/9

THE STARLITE ROOM IS A PRIVATE VENUE FOR OUR MEMBERS AND THEIR GUESTS. IF YOU REQUIRE A MEMBERSHIP YOU CAN PURCHASE ONE AT THE VENUE PRIOR TO / OR AFTER THE DOOR TIMES FOR EACH SHOW.

VENUEGUIDE 9910 9910B 109 St, 780.709.4734, 99ten.ca ACCENT EUROPEAN LOUNGE 8223-104 St, 780.431.0179 ALE YARD TAP 13310-137 Ave ALL SAINTS' ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL 10035-103 St NW THE ALMANAC 10351-82 Ave, 780.760.4567, almanaconwhyte. com ATLANTIC TRAP & GILL 7704 Calgary Trail South, 780.432.4611, atlantictrapandgill. com "B" STREET BAR 11818-111 St BAILEY THEATRE 5041-50 St, Camrose, 780.672.5510, baileytheatre.com BIG AL'S HOUSE OF BLUES Yellowhead Inn, 15004 Yellowhead Trail BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE 1042582 Ave, 780.439.1082 BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ 9624-76 Ave, 780.989.2861 BLUES ON WHYTE 10329-82 Ave, 780.439.3981 BOHEMIA 10217-97 St BOURBON ROOM 205 Carnegie Dr, St Albert THE BOWER 10538 Jasper Ave, 780.423.425; info@thebower.ca BRITTANY'S LOUNGE 10225-97 St, 780.497.0011 BRIXX BAR 10030-102 St (downstairs), 780.428.1099 THE BUCKINGHAM 10439 82 Ave, 780.761.1002, thebuckingham.ca CAFE BLACKBIRD 9640-142 St NW, 780.451.8890, cafeblackbird.ca

CAFÉ HAVEN 9 Sioux Rd, Sherwood Park, 780.417.5523, cafehaven.ca CAFFREY'S IN THE PARK 99, 23349 Wye Rd, Sherwood Park CARROT COFFEEHOUSE 9351118 Ave, 780.471.1580 CASINO EDMONTON 7055 Argylll Rd, 780.463.9467 CASINO YELLOWHEAD 12464153 St, 780.424 9467 CENTRAL SENIOR LIONS CENTRE 11113-113 St CENTURY CASINO 13103 Fort Rd, 780.643.4000 CHA ISLAND TEA CO 10332-81 Ave, 780.757.2482 CITY HALL 1 Sir Winston Churchill Square COMMON 9910-109 St CONVOCATION HALL Old Arts Building, University of Alberta CROWN & ANCHOR PUB 15277 Castle Downs Rd NW, 780.472.7696 DARAVARA 10713 124 St, 587.520.4980 DUGGAN'S BOUNDARY 9013-88 Ave, 780.465.4834 DRUID 11606 Jasper Ave, 780.454.9928 DUSTER’S PUB 6402-118 Ave, 780.474.5554 DV8 8130 Gateway Blvd EARLY STAGE SALOON– Stony Plain 4911-52 Ave, Stony Plain, 780.963.5998 EL CORTEZ 8230 Gateway Blvd ELECTRIC RODEO–Spruce Grove 121-1 Ave, Spruce Grove, 780.962.1411

ENCORE–WEM 2687, 8882-170 St FESTIVAL PLACE 100 Festival Way, Sherwood Park, 780.449.3378 FILTHY MCNASTY’S 10511-82 Ave, 780.916.1557 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 10025-105 St NW HILLTOP PUB 8220-106 Ave HOLY TRINITY ANGLICAN CHURCH 10037-84 Ave NW IRISH SPORTS CLUB 12546-126 St, 780.453.2249 J AND R 4003-106 St, 780.436.4403 JAVA XPRESS 110, 4300 South Park Dr, Stony Plain, 780.968.1860 JUBILATIONS DINNER THEATRE Phase II West Edmonton Mall, 8882-170 St JUBILEE AUDITORIUM 1145587 Ave NW, 780.427.2760, jubileeauditorium.com KELLY'S PUB 10156-104 St L.B.’S PUB 23 Akins Dr, St Albert, 780.460.9100 LEAF BAR AND GRILL 9016-132 Ave, 780.757.2121 MAYFIELD DINNER THEATRE 16615-109 Ave NW MKT FRESH FOOD AND BEER MARKET 8101 Gateway Blvd, 780.439.2337 MERCER TAVERN 10363 104 St, 587.521.1911 MERCURY ROOM 10575-114 St MUTTART HALL 10050 MacDonald Dr NW NAKED CYBERCAFÉ 10303-108 St, 780.425.9730

NEWCASTLE PUB 8170-50 St, 780.490.1999 NEW WEST HOTEL 15025-111 Ave NOORISH CAFÉ 8440-109 St NORTH GLENORA HALL 13535109A Ave O2'S–West 11066-156 St, 780.448.2255 O’BYRNE’S 10616-82 Ave, 780.414.6766 ORIGINAL JOE'S VARSITY ROW 8404-109 St ORLANDO'S 1 15163-121 St O'MAILLES IRISH PUB 104, 398 St Albert Rd, St Albert ON THE ROCKS 11730 Jasper Ave, 780.482.4767 OVERTIME–Sherwood Park 100 Granada Blvd, Sherwood Park, 790.570.5588 PLEASANTVIEW COMMUNITY HALL 10860-57 Ave THE PROVINCIAL PUB 160, 4211-106 St RED PIANO BAR 1638 Bourbon St, WEM, 8882-170 St, 780.486.7722 RED STAR 10538 Jasper Ave, 780.428.0825 RENDEZVOUS 10108-149 St RICHARD'S PUB 12150-161 Ave, 780.457.3118 RIC’S GRILL 24 Perron Street, St Albert, 780.460.6602 ROCKY MOUNTAIN ICEHOUSE 10516 Jasper Ave, 780.424.3836 ROSEBOWL/ROUGE LOUNGE 10111-117 St, 780.482.5253 ROSE AND CROWN 10235-101 St SANDS HOTEL 12340 Fort Rd, 780.474.5476

SHERLOCK HOLMES– DOWNTOWN 10012-101 A Ave SHERLOCK HOLMES–U OF A 8519-112 St SHERLOCK HOLMES–WEM 8882-170 St SIDELINERS PUB 11018-127 St SMOKEHOUSE BBQ 10810-124 St, 587.521.6328 SNEAKY PETE'S 12315-118 Ave SOU KAWAII ZEN LOUNGE 1292397 St, 780.758.5924 STARLITE ROOM 10030-102 St, 780.428.1099 STUDIO 96 10909-96 ST STUDIO MUSIC FOUNDATION 10940-166 A St SUGAR FOOT BALLROOM 10545-81 Ave TAVERN ON WHYTE 10507-82 Ave, 780.521.4404 TIRAMISU 10750-124 St UPTOWN FOLK CLUB 7308-76 Ave, 780.436.1554 VEE LOUNGE, APEX CASINO–St Albert 24 Boudreau Rd, St Albert, 780.460.8092, 780.590.1128 WILD EARTH BAKERY– MILLCREEK 8902-99 St, wildearthbakery.com WINSPEAR CENTRE 4 Sir Winston Churchill Square; 780.28.1414 Y AFTERHOURS 10028-102 St, 780.994.3256, yafterhours.com YARDBIRD SUITE 11 Tommy Banks Way, 780.432.0428 YEG DANCE CLUB 11845 Wayne Gretzky Dr YESTERDAYS PUB 112, 205 Carnegie Dr, St Albert, 780.459.0295 ZEN LOUNGE 12923-97 St

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

JAN/9

ZUK TIL YOU PUKE

MINSTRELS ON SPEED W/ NIGHT COMMITTEE (CALGARY), COUNTERFEIT JEANS AND WARES

JAN/15

HARD ROCKING WINTER PARTY WITH

FACE FIRST

W/ SARA’S RANSOM & BAD COMMUNICATORS

JAN/21

TERRIAN

W/ LAUREN MARIE & CIARA PROZNIK

FEB/5

JCL PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

FEB/6

VOODO CHILDREN PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

THE BRIGHT LIGHT SOCIAL HOUR

SPARROW BLUE

W/ FORBIDDEN RHYTHM, FINGERTIPS, & CATCH THE DAY DREAMER

MUSIC 25

EVENTS WEEKLY EMAIL YOUR FREE LISTINGS TO: LISTINGS@VUEWEEKLY.COM FAX: 780.426.2889 DEADLINE: FRIDAY AT 3PM

LOTUS QIGONG • 780.477.0683 • Downtown • Practice group meets every Thu

NORTHERN ALBERTA WOOD CARVERS ASSOCIATION • Duggan Community Hall, 3728-

LECTURES/PRESENTATIONS

106 St • nawca.ca • Meet every Wed, 6:30pm

A NEW YEAR, A HEALTHY YOU! THE ABUNDANT HEALTH LIFESTYLE LAUNCH

ORGANIZATION FOR BIPOLAR AFFECTIVE DISORDER (OBAD) • Grey Nuns Hospital, Rm

• Pura Vida, 14920 Stony Plain Road • 780.700.5533 • entrepreneurialfreedom.ca/ abundanthealth • Jan 19, 6:30-9:30pm • Tickets available at Eventbrite

0651, obad@shaw.ca; Group meets every Thu, 7-9pm • Free

POOR VOTE TURNOUT • Rossdale Hall, 10135COMEDY BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE • Underdog Comedy show: Alternating hosts • Every Thu, 8-11pm • No cover CENTURY CASINO • 13103 Fort Rd • 780.481.9857 • Open Mic Night: Every Thu; 7:30-9pm

COMEDY FACTORY • Gateway Entertainment Centre, 34 Ave, Calgary Tr • Fri-Sat: 8:30pm • Paul Sveen; Jan 8-9 • Tom Liske; Jan 14-16

COMIC STRIP • Bourbon St, WEM • 780.483.5999 • Wed-Fri, Sun 7:30pm; Fri-Sat 9:45pm • Battle to the Funny Bone; every Mon at 7:30pm • Triple Threat Tuesday; every Tue at 7:30pm • Bobby Lee; Jan 7-9 • Bert Kreisher; Jan 14-16 DRUID • 11606 Jasper Ave • 780.710.2119 • Comedy night open stage hosted by Lars Callieou • Every Sun, 9pm DJ to follow

EMPRESS ALE HOUSE • 9912-82 Ave • Empress Comedy Night: featuring a professional headliner every week • Every Sun, 9pm

ROUGE LOUNGE • 10111-117 St • Comedy Groove every Wed; 9pm

GROUPS/CLUBS/MEETINGS AIKIKAI AIKIDO CLUB • 10139-87 Ave, Old Strathcona Community League • Japanese Martial Art of Aikido • Every Tue 7:30-9:30pm; Thu 6-8pm

ARGENTINE TANGO DANCE AT FOOT NOTES STUDIO • Foot Notes Dance Studio (South side), 9708-45 Ave • 780.438.3207 • virenzi@shaw.ca • Argentine Tango with Tango Divino: beginners: 7-8pm; intermediate: 8-9pm; Tango Social Dance (Milonga): 9pm-12 • Every Fri, 7pm-midnight • $15

BABES IN ARMS • The Carrot, 9351-118 Ave • A casual parent group • Every Fri, 10am-12pm

CANADIAN INJURED WORKERS ASSOCIATION OF ALBERTA (CIWAA) • Augustana Lutheran Church, 107 St, 99 Ave • canadianinjuredworkers.com • Meeting every 3rd Sat, 1-4pm • Injured Workers in Pursuit of Justice denied

by WCB

EDMONTON NEEDLECRAFT GUILD • Avonmore United Church Bsmt, 82 Ave, 79 St • edmNeedlecraftGuild.org • Classes/workshops, exhibitions, guest speakers, stitching groups for those interested in textile arts • Meet the 2nd Tue ea month, 7:30pm

96 Ave • poorvoteturnout.ca • Public meetings: promoting voting by the poor • Every Wed, 7-8pm

RASC REGULAR MEETING - DARK ENERGY AND THE RUNAWAY UNIVERSE • Telus World of Science, 11211-142 St • edmontonrasc.com • Featuring guest speaker Alex Filippenko • Jan 11, 6:30pm (doors), 7:30-9:30pm (guest speaker)

SAWA 12-STEP SUPPORT GROUP • Braeside Presbyterian Church bsmt, N. door, 6 Bernard Dr, St Albert • For adult children of alcoholic and dysfunctional families • Every Mon, 7:30pm

Done Cafe), 17028-124 St • 780.718.7133 (or 403.506.4695 after 7pm) • Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), free 12-Step recovery program for anyone suffering from food obsession, overeating, under-eating, and bulimia • Meetings every Thu, 7pm

FORT SASKATCHEWAN 45+ SINGLES COFFEE GROUP • A&W, 10101-88 Ave, Fort Saskatchewan • 780.907.0201 (Brenda) • A mixed group, all for conversation and friendship • Every Sun, 2pm

Harbor Comics (10729-104 Ave): Screening and Discussion: Wonder Women: the Untold Story of American Superheroines; Jan 7, 7-9pm • Variant Edition Comics & Culture (10441-123 St): LGN Reads: Sex Criminals & Alex + Ada; Jan 10, 3pm

26 AT THE BACK

Ave • ruby@ihuman.org • Discover what it's like working with youth, and be engaged in the community. Live musicians are encourage to attend • Jan 11, 6:30-7:30pm • Free (RSVP ruby@ihuman. org or Eventbrite)

83 Ave, upstairs • 780.554.6133 • Free instruction in meditation on the Inner Light • Every Sun, 5pm

SEVENTIES FOREVER MUSIC SOCIETY • Call 587.520.3833 for location • deepsoul.ca • Combining music, garage sales, nature, common sense, and kindred karma to revitalize the inward persona • Every Wed, 7-8:30pm

(UN)MASKING SPIRIT: MASK CREATION AND EXPLORATION WITH ELSA ROBINSON • Robertson-Wesley United Church, 10209-123 St • rwuc.org/sac.html • Every Tue, 7-9pm; Jan 12-Mar 22

SHERWOOD PARK WALKING GROUP + 50 • Meet inside Millennium Place, Sherwood Place • Weekly outdoor walking group; starts with a 10-min discussion, followed by a 30 to 40-min walk through Centennial Park, a cool down and stretch • Every Tue, 8:30am • $2/session (goes to the Alzheimer’s Society of Alberta)

SONGWRITERS GROUP • The Carrot, 9351-

QUEER BISEXUAL WOMEN'S COFFEE GROUP • A social group for bi-curious and bisexual women every 2nd Tue each month, 8pm • groups.yahoo. com/group/bwedmonton EPLC FELLOWSHIP PAGAN STUDY GROUP

118 Ave • 780.973.5311 • nashvillesongwriters. com • NSAI (Nashville Songwriters Association International) meet the 2nd Mon each month, 7-9pm

• Pride Centre of Edmonton, 10608-105 Ave • 780.488.3234 • eplc.webs.com • Free year long course; Family circle 3rd Sat each month • Everyone welcome

SUGAR FOOT BALLROOM • 10545-81 Ave • 587.786.6554 • sugarswing.com • Friday Night Stomp!: Swing and party music dance social every Fri; beginner lesson starts at 8pm. All ages and levels welcome. Occasional live music–check web; $10, $2 (lesson with entry) • Swing Dance Social every Sat; beginner lesson starts at 8pm. All ages and levels welcome. Occasional live music–check the Sugar Swing website for info • $10, $2 lesson with entry TAKE OFF POUNDS SENSIBLY (TOPS) • Grace United Church annex, 6215-104 Ave • Lowcost, fun and friendly weight loss group • Every Mon, 6:30pm • Info: call Bob 780.479.5519

TOASTMASTERS • Club Bilingue Toastmasters Meetings: Campus St. Jean: Pavillion McMahon;

WICCAN ASSEMBLY • Ritchie Hall, 7727-98

FOOD ADDICTS • Alano Club (& Simply

IHUMAN YOUTH SOCIETY VOLUNTEER INFO NIGHT • iHuman Youth Society, 9635-102A

SEEING IS ABOVE ALL • Acacia Hall, 10433-

LGNYEG (LADY GEEKS UNITE) • Happy

2023-111 St • 780.440.3528 • 3rd Sun each month; 2:30-4pm • $5

cedmonton@gmail.com • fertilityawarenesschartingcircle.org • First Mon each month (Oct-May), 6:30-8:30pm • $10 (suggested donation) • RSVP at faccedmonton@gmail.com

• An evening of discusion surrounding Georges Bizet's Carmen. Hosted by musicologist Stephan Bonfield, with special guest Camellia Koo, scenery designer for Carmen • Jan 13, 7-8:30pm • Free (RSVp through Eventbrite)

Society of Alberta, 5215-87 St • schizophrenia. ab.ca • The Schizophrenia Society of AlbertaEdmonton branch provides a facilitated family support group for caregivers of a loved one living with schizophrenia. Free drop-in the 1st and 3rd Thu each month, 7-9pm

ILLNESS SUPPORT AND SOLUTIONS • Robertson Wesley United Church Library, 10209-123 St • 780.235.5911 • Crohn's Colitis, I.B.D. Support and Solutions • Every 2nd and 4th Tue, 7-9pm

EDMONTON UKULELE CIRCLE • Bogani Café,

FERTILITY AWARENESS CHARTING CIRCLE • Remedy Cafe, 8631-109 St • fac-

OPERA 101: EDMONTON OPERA'S CARMEN • CKUA, 9804 Jasper Ave • 780.429.1000

SCHIZOPHRENIA SOCIETY FAMILY SUPPORT DROP-IN GROUP • Schizophrenia

780.667.6105 (Willard); clubbilingue. toastmastersclubs.org; Meet every Tue, 7pm • Fabulous Facilitators Toastmasters Club: 2nd Fl, Canada Place Rm 217, 9700 Jasper Ave; Carisa: divdgov2014_15@outlook.com, 780.439.3852; fabulousfacilitators.toastmastersclubs.org; Meet every Tue, 12:05-1pm • N'Orators Toastmasters Club: Lower Level, McClure United Church, 13708-74 St: meet every Thu, 6:45-8:30pm; contact vpm@norators.com, 780.807.4696, norators.com • Terrified of Public Speaking: Norwood Legion Edmonton, 11150-82 St NW; Every Thu until 7:30-9:30pm; Free; contact jnwafula@ yahoo.com; norwoodtoastmasters.org • Upward Bound Toastmaster Club: Rm 7, 6 Fl, Edmonton Public Library–DT: Meets every Wed, 7-8:45pm; Sep-May; upward.toastmastersclubs.org; reader1@shaw.ca • Y Toastmasters Club: Queen Alexandra Community League, 10425 University Ave (N door, stairs to the left); Meet every Tue, 7-9pm except last Tue ea month; Contact: Antonio Balce, 780.463.5331 • Toastmasters Demo Meeting: Highstreet Speakers • Rm 107, Westmount School, 11125-131 St; highstreetspeakers@hotmail.com; 780.454.5001; facebook.com/HighstreetSpeakers; Jan 12, Jan 19, Jan 26; 5-6pm; Free

EDMONTON OUTDOOR CLUB (EOC) • edmontonoutdoorclub.com • Offering a variety of fun activities in and around Edmonton • Free to join; info at info@edmontonoutdoorclub.com

Sat, 10-11am, each month, stand in silence for a world without violence

St • The Congregationalist Wiccan Assembly of Alberta meets the 2nd Sun each month (except Aug), 6pm • Info: contact cwaalberta@gmail.com

WOMEN IN BLACK • In Front of the Old Strathcona Farmers' Market • Silent vigil the 1st and 3rd

EVOLUTION WONDERLOUNGE • 10220-103 St • 780.424.0077 • yourgaybar.com • Community Tue: partner with various local GLBT groups for different events; see online for details • Happy Hour Wed-Fri: 4-8pm • Wed Karaoke: with the Mystery Song Contest; 7pm-2am • Fri: DJ Evictor • Sat: DJ Jazzy • Sun: Beer Bash

persons +18 years in the GLBT community; new members welcome; 2nd and 4th Thu, 7-9pm each month; andrea@pridecentreofedmonton. org • Men Talking with Pride: Support and social group for gay and bisexual men; every Sun 7-9pm; robwells780@hotmail.com • TTIQ: a support and information group for all those who fall under the transgender umbrella and their family/supporters; 3rd Mon, 7-9pm, each month • HIV Support Group: Support and discussion group for gay men; 2nd Mon, 7-9pm, each month; huges@shaw.ca

ST PAUL'S UNITED CHURCH • 11526-76 Ave • 780.436.1555 • People of all sexual orientations are welcome • Every Sun (10am worship)

TEAM EDMONTON • Various sports and recreation activities • All-Bodies Swim: Bonnie Doon Leisure Centre, 8648-81 St NW; pridecentreofedmonton.org; Every 3rd Sat of the month, 9:30-10:30pm • Badminton: Oliver School, 10227118 St; badminton@teamedmonton.ca; Every Wed (until Feb 24); $5 (drop-in) • Board Game Group: Underground Tap & Grill, 10004 Jasper Ave; Monthly on a Sun, 3-7pm; RSVP to boardgames@ teamedmonton.ca • Bootcamp: Oliver Community Hall, 10326-118 St; bootcamp@teamedmonton. ca; Every Thu, 7pm; $30 (full season), $15 (low income or students) • Equal, Fit, Fierce, and Fabulous: Pride Centre, 10608-105 Ave; pridecentreofedmonton.org/calendar; Drop in games and activities for youth; Every other Tue, 4:30-6pm WOMONSPACE • 780.482.1794 • womonspace.org, womonspace@gmail.com • A Non-profit lesbian social organization for Edmonton and surrounding area. Monthly activities, newsletter, reduced rates included with membership.

Confidentiality assured

WOODYS VIDEO BAR • 11723 Jasper Ave

• 780.488.6557 • Sun: Last Sun each month, Woodys Jam Session with the talented regular customers; Jugs of Canadian or Kokanee only $13 • Mon: Massive Mondays features talented comedians • Tue: Domestic bottle beer special only $3.75 all night long • Wed: Jugs of Canadian and Kokanee for $13; Karaoke with Shirley from 7pm12:30am • Thu: Highballs on special only $3.75 all night long; Karaoke with Bubbles 7pm-12:30am • Fri: Comming soon: DJ Arrow Chaser's new TGIF Party • Sat: Pool Tournement, 4pm; Jager shots on special only $4; Coming soon, DJ Jazzy

1600.

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Community Leaders In Waste Reduction Complete a free, 40-hour course.

Learn about composting, recycling & more.

Volunteer at least 35 hours.

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Apply at edmonton.ca/mcrp.

2020.

organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transidentified and queer (LGBTQ) faculty, graduate student, academic, straight allies and support staff • 3rd Thu each month (fall/winter terms): Speakers Series. E: kwells@ualberta.ca

Musicians Wanted

Drummer Wanted Black/Death Metal Band will pay $150 per show for session drummer. Contact www.facebook.com/anthroplaq ue or call 780.292.3397.

LIVING POSITIVE • #33, 9912-106 St • 780.424.2214 • livingpositivethroughpositiveliving. com • In office peer counseling, public speakers available for presentations, advocacy and resource materials available • Support group for gay men living with HIV: 2nd Mon each month, 7-9pm

out Edmonton • deepfreezefest.ca • Uniting Ukrainian, Franco-Albertan, Franco-African, First Nations, Chinese and Acadian/East Coast communities to taste, share and experience the Olde New Year • Jan 9-10 • Free, donations accepted

DEEPSOUL.CA • 587.520.3833; call or text for Sunday jam locations • Every Sun: Sunday Jams with no Stan (CCR to Metallica), starring Chuck Prins on Les Paul Standard guitars; Pink Floydish originals plus great Covers of Classics: some FREE; Twilight Zone Lively Up Yourself Tour (with DJ Cool Breeze); all ages MALANKA: UKRAINIAN NEW YEAR CELEBRATION • Ukrainian Centre, 11018-97 St • 780.434.1690 • judy.lederer@hotmail.com • Featuring a huge Ukrainian Feast featuring roast turkey, meatballs, perogies, cabbage rolls, and more. A traditional Floor Show of dancing, music and pageant dedicated to 125 years of Ukrainian settlement in Alberta will also be presented • Jan 16, 5:30pm • $45 (dinner, floor show & dance), $20 (dance only); Attendance by invitation only

MELT THE DEEP FREEZE DINNER & DANCE • Alberta Avenue Community Centre, 9210-118 Ave • While the fairies and elves take over the Deep Freeze Festivities on Saturday and Sunday, great rockabilly music by Punch Drunk Cabaret fills the community centre on Saturday night • Jan 9, 7-11pm • $10 (kids aged 11 and up), $5 (kids 10 and under); available at the Carrot or at festival info booths

NERD NITE #24 • The Club at the Citadel Theatre, 9828-101A Ave • Featuring the topics such as: Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Narrative: On Reading and the Virtues of Constant Vigilance, Going nuts over girls: how chasing tail influences ageing, Smoke and Mirrors: Unveiling Invisibility • Jan 14, 7:30pm (doors), 8pm (show) • $20 (adv), $25 (door) • 18+ only SCRAMBLED YEG • Brittany's Lounge, 1022597 St • 780.497.0011 • Open Genre Variety Stage: artist from all mediums are encouraged to occupy the stage and share their creations • Every Tue-Fri, 5-8pm

To Book Your Classified, Contact Valerie at 780.426.1996 or at classifieds@vueweekly.com

Bldg, Craftroom, 15 Sir Winston Churchill Sq • 780.474.8240 • Meeting for gay seniors, and for any seniors who have gay family members and would like some guidance • Every Thu, 1-4pm • Info: E: Tuff69@telus.net

INSIDE/OUT • U of A Campus • Campus-based

9TH ANNUAL DEEP FREEZE BYZANTINE WINTER FESTIVAL • Various venues through-

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ILLUSIONS SOCIAL CLUB • Pride Centre, 10608-105 Ave • 780.387.3343 • edmontonillusions.ca • Crossdressers meet 2nd Fri each month, 7:30-9pm

SPECIAL EVENTS

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PRIDE CENTRE OF EDMONTON • Pride Centre of Edmonton, 10608-105 Ave • 780.488.3234 • Daily: Community drop-in; support and resources. Queer library: borrowing privileges: Tue-Fri 12-9pm, Sat 2-6:30pm, closed Sun-Mon; Queer HangOUT (a.k.a. QH) youth drop-in: Tue-Fri 3-8pm, Sat 2-6:30pm, youth@pridecentreofedmonton.org • Counselling: Free, short-term by registered counsellors every Wed, 5:30-8:30pm, info/bookings: 780.488.3234 • Knotty Knitters: Knit and socialize in safe, accepting environment, all skill levels welcome; every Wed 6-8pm • QH Game Night: Meet people through board game fun; every Thu 6-8pm • QH Craft Night: every Wed, 6-8pm • QH Anime Night: Watch anime; every Fri, 6-8pm • Movie Night: Open to everyone; 2nd and 4th Fri each month, 6-9pm • Women’s Social Circle: Social support group for female-identified

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

Legal Services

Final Estate Planning Wills, Powers of Attorney and Personal Directives.

Please call Nicole Kent with At Home Legal Services (780) 729 - 7514 to prepare your Final Estate Planning Documents.

WHOOPS, WE RAN OUT OF ROOM, SO WE’VE PUT THE REST OF THE CLASSIFIEDS ONLINE VUEWEEKLY.COM/ CLASSIFIED/

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FREEWILLASTROLOGY ARIES (MAR 21 – APR 19): John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. His novel Of Mice and Men helped win him the award, but it required extra persistence. When he'd almost finished the manuscript, he went out on a date with his wife.

While they were gone, his puppy Toby ripped his precious pages into confetti. As mad as he was, he didn't punish the dog, but got busy on a rewrite. Later he considered the possibility that Toby had served as a helpful literary critic. The new edition of Of Mice and Men was Steinbeck's breakout book. I'm guessing that in recent months you have received comparable assistance, Aries—although you may not realize it was assistance until later this year.

TAURUS (APR 20 – MAY 20): Remember back to what your life was like during the first nine months of 2004. I suspect that you fell just short of fulfilling a dream. It's possible you were too young to have the power you needed. Or maybe you were working on a project that turned out to be pretty good but not great. Maybe you were pushing to create a new life for yourself but weren't wise enough to make a complete breakthrough. Almost 12 years later, you have returned to a similar phase in your long-term cycle. You are better equipped to do what you couldn't quite do before: create the masterpiece, finish the job, rise to the next level.

GEMINI (MAY 21 – JUN 20): To become a skillful singer, you must learn to regulate your breath.

You've got to take in more oxygen than usual for extended periods, and do it in ways that facilitate rather than interfere with the sounds coming out of your mouth.

When you're beginning, it feels weird to exert so much control over an instinctual impulse, which previously you've done unconsciously. Later, you have to get beyond your self-conscious discipline so you can reach a point where the proper breathing happens easily and gracefully. Although you may not be working to become a singer in 2016, Gemini, I think you will have comparable challenges: 1) to make conscious an activity that has been unconscious; 2) to refine and cultivate that activity; 3) to allow your consciously crafted approach to become unselfconscious again.

CANCER (JUN 21 – JUL 22): Ancient humans didn't "invent" fire, but rather learned about it from nature and then figured out how to produce it as needed. Ropes had a similar origin. Our ancestors employed long vines made of tough fiber as primitive ropes, and eventually got the idea to braid and knot the vines together for greater strength. This technology was used to hunt, climb, pull, fasten and carry. It was essential

to the development of civilization.

I predict that 2016 will bring you opportunities that have metaphorical resemblances to the early rope. Your task will be to develop and embellish on what nature provides.

LEO (JUL 23 – AUG 22): British author Anthony Trollope (1815 – 1882) had a day job with the postal service until he was in his 50s. For years he awoke every morning at 5:30 and churned out 2500 words before heading to work. His goal was to write two or three novels a year, a pace he came close to achieving. "A small daily task, if it really be daily," he wrote in his autobiography, "will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules." I recommend that you borrow from his strategy in 2016, Leo. Be regular and disciplined and diligent as you practice the art of gradual, incremental success.

VIRGO (AUG 23 – SEP 22): Umbrellas shelter us from the rain, saving us from the discomfort of getting soaked and the embarrassment of bad hair. They also protect us from the blinding light and sweltering heat of the sun.

I'm very much in favour of these practical perks. But when umbrellas appear in your nightly dreams, they may have a less positive meaning. They can indicate an inclination to shield yourself from natural forces, or to avoid direct contact with primal sensuality. I hope you won't do much of that in 2016. In my opinion, you need a lot of face-to-face encounters with life in its raw state. Symbolically speaking, this should be a non-umbrella year.

LIBRA (SEP 23 – OCT 22): Around the world, an average of 26 languages go extinct every year. But it increasingly appears that Welsh will not be one of them. It has enjoyed a revival in the past few decades. In Wales, it's taught in many schools, appears on road signs, and is used in some mobile phones and computers. Is there a comparable phenomenon in your life, Libra? A tradition that can be revitalized and should be preserved? A part of your heritage that may be useful to your future? A neglected aspect of your birthright that deserves to be reclaimed? Make it happen in 2016.

SCORPIO (OCT 23 – NOV 21): Fourteenth-century author Geoffrey Chaucer produced a collection of stories known as The Canterbury Tales. It became a seminal text of English literature even though he never finished it.

The most influential book ever written by theologian Thomas Aquinas was a work he gave up on before it was completed. The artist Michelangelo never found the time to put the final touches on numerous sculptures and paintings. Why am I bringing this theme to your attention? Because 2016 will be an excellent time to

JONESIN' CROSSWORD

ROB BREZSNY FREEWILL@VUEWEEKLY.COM

MATT JONES JONESINCROSSWORDS@VUEWEEKLY.COM

"Let Free Entertain You"—you know the freestyle drill.

wrap up long-term projects you've been working on—and also to be at peace with abandoning those you can't.

SAGITTARIUS (NOV 22 – DEC 21): A bottle of Château Cheval Blanc wine from 1947 sold for $304 000. Three bottles of Château Lafite Rothschild 1869 went for $233 000 apiece. The mystique about aged wine provokes crazy behaviour like that.

But here's a more mundane fact: most wine deteriorates with age, and should be sold within a few years of being bottled. I'm thinking about these things as I meditate on your long-term future, Sagittarius. My guess is that your current labour of love will reach full maturity in the next 18 to 20 months. This will be a time to bring all your concentration and ingenuity to bear on making it as good as it can be. By September of 2017, you will have ripened it as much as it can be ripened.

CAPRICORN (DEC 22 – JAN 19): In her poem "Tree," California poet Jane Hirshfield speaks of a young redwood tree that's positioned next to a house. Watch out! It grows fast—as much as three feet per year. "Already the first branch-tips brush at the window," Hirshfield writes. "Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life." I suspect this will be an apt metaphor for you in 2016. The expansion and proliferation you have witnessed these past few months are likely to intensify. That's mostly good, but may also require adjustments. How will you respond as immensity taps at your life?

AQUARIUS (JAN 20 – FEB 18): Centuries ago, lettuce was a bitter, prickly weed that no one ate. But ancient Egyptians guessed its potential, and used selective breeding to gradually convert it into a tasty food. I see 2016 as a time when you could have a comparable success. Look around at your life, and identify weed-like things that could, through your transformative magic, be turned into valuable assets. The process may take longer than a year, but you can set in motion an unstoppable momentum that will ensure success.

PISCES (FEB 19 – MAR 20): Imagine that a beloved elder has been writing down your life story in the form of a fairy tale. Your adventures aren't rendered literally, as your waking mind might describe them, but rather through dream-like scenes that have symbolic resonance. With this as our template, I'll predict a key plot development of 2016: you will grow increasingly curious about a "forbidden" door—a door you have always believed should not be opened. Your inquisitiveness will reach such an intensity that you will consider locating the key for that door. If it's not available, you may even think about breaking down the door.V

Across

1 DIY handicrafts site 5 "If things were to continue like so ..."

15 "The Clothed Maja" painter 16 "Taken" guy 17 Beach bird 18 Tow-away zone destination 19 "10 Items ___" (checkout sign that drives grammarphiles nuts) 21 Ardent admirers 22 They may be collateral when buying new wheels 28 Recede gradually 30 Long-hitting clubs 31 Word before Jon or Wayne 32 No pro show, yo 36 Vigoda who's still alive 37 Big name in toothbrushes 38 Vaccine target 39 Chuck an attempted three-pointer into the stands, e.g.

43 Former British Poet Laureate Hughes 44 Multi-layered dessert popularized in 2015 45 Abbr. after a proof 46 "Go ahead, don't mind me" 49 11th-graders' exam (abbr.)

50 Carter and Spelling, for two 53 Cheat 59 Lying over 60 Gambles 61 "Desperate Housewives" actress Hatcher 62 Summer dress uniform component, maybe 63 Cut down to size

10 Highest Scrabble tile value 11 Animal in a Dr. Seuss title 12 "Chronicles of Narnia" lion 13 Adult Swim fare, for short 14 "Lord of the Rings" tree creatures 20 Ancient Greek portico 23 Place to keep your Tetleys and your Twinings 24 "Mrs. Murphy Mysteries" author ___ Brown 25 Simile segment, maybe 26 Annoys by staying outside the lines?

27 NYSE symbol for the company that keeps going ... and going ...

28 "Support Your Local Sheriff!" actor Jack 29 Benjamin Netanyahu's nickname 33 Full of memorable lines 34 "Gold"-en role for Peter Fonda 35 Paul of "Anchorman" 40 Weight training partner 41 Bargain-basement unit 42 "The Memory of Trees" Grammy winner 46 1990 NBA Finals MVP ___ Thomas 47 Nutcase 48 Give a long-winded talk 49 Sgts.' underlings 51 Edible seaweed used for sushi 52 Roasting device 54 "Was ___ das?"

55 Treasured document?

56 "A Kiss Before Dying" author Levin 57 California red, briefly 58 Suffix with winning

Down

©2016 Jonesin' Crosswords

1 Brand in the frozen breakfast section 2 Go from gig to gig 3 They're represented by fingers in charades 4 Conn. school 5 Half of the '80s synth-pop duo Yaz 6 Comedian Minchin 7 Savion Glover's specialty 8 PPO alternative 9 ___ START (Tobias's oft-misinterpreted license plate on "Arrested Development")

VUEWEEKLY.com | JAN 7 – JAN 13, 2016

AT THE BACK 27

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LUSTFORLIFE

BRENDA KERBER BRENDA@vueweekly.com

Reviewing the year in sex 2015 saw a lot of ups and downs in sex and sexual health It's the start of a brand-new year: a great time to look back and see what happened in sex in 2015.

During the past 12 months, access to abortion was in the headlines a lot. There were many challenges in the US but fortunately some important steps forward here at home. In January, Clinic 554 opened in New Brunswick, replacing the recently closed Morgentaler Clinic. It is the only non-hospital facility in the Maritimes that provides abortion services.

In July, Health Canada approved the use of RU-486 (mifegymiso) for medical abortions. Advocates have been lobbying for approval of the drug for years, as it's used safely and effectively in many other countries.

Mifegymiso could help greatly increase access to abortion in Canada, where many people live in remote and rural areas without hospital services.

In other reproductive-health news, in August the US Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of flibanserin, the first drug created specifically to treat low libido in women. This, in spite of the fact that trials for the drug showed minimal effect and it had been previously denied approval. Although drug companies have been in a race to find a female equivalent of Viagra, it looks as though this won't be it. Prescriptions in the first six months have been in the hundreds, as opposed to over half a million for Viagra.

Sadly, if we thought 2014 was a bad year for celebrity sexual abuse stories, 2015 saw a whole new level.

Ashley Madison, the infamous dating site for married people, was hacked. Millions of online profiles were made accessible to the public, exposing that a lot of well-known, powerful men have been using the site to seek out extra-marital sex.

Among them was Joshua Duggar, reality TV star and spokesperson for conservative group Focus on the Family. This couldn't have come at a worse time for Duggar, as news that he sexually assaulted several girls when he was a teenager had also just become public.

In November, the porn world was rocked when one of its biggest stars,

James Deen, was accused of sexual assault. Deen is the star of many porn movies and a few mainstream movies, and he had become so famous that he was a popular speaker at campus events in colleges across the US. At least 10 women have now come forward with stories of sexual assault by Deen. Many porn groups and producers have now ended their association with him.

The only positive part of both of these abuse stories is that public opinion seems to have fallen mainly with the victims. This represents a major shift from only a few years ago, when accusations of sexual assault against famous and powerful people were routinely dismissed and swept under the carpet.

On that note, at the very end of 2015, Bill Cosby was (finally) criminally charged in one case of sexual assault. This was after more than 20 years of accusations by more than 50 women.

We ended the year with the end of an era. PlayBoy shocked the industry by announcing that it will no longer be publishing nude photos. The move will put an end to more than 60 years of PlayBoy centrefolds.V Brenda Kerber is a sexual health educator who has worked with local not-for-profits since 1995. She is the owner of the Edmonton-based, sexpositive adult toy boutique the Traveling Tickle Trunk.

Dan savage savagelove@vueweekly.com

YOU KEEP USING THAT WORD

I'm a 45-year-old straight male.

Politically and socially, I consider myself an ardent feminist. There is nothing I enjoy more than giving a woman an orgasm or two. I'm very GGG and will cheerfully do whatever it takes. Fingers, tongue, cock, vibrator—I'm in. If it takes a long time, so much the better. I'm OK with all of that. Now and again, though, I really like a quickie, a good old-fashioned "Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am!"

The only ladies I've found willing to engage in those cock-centric acts are sex workers. I'm OK with that, too.

But the last time I paid for it, with a woman I had patronized before, I was just about to slip my cock in doggy-style when her phone rang.

It was in reach, and she picked it up! I hesitated, but she didn't pull away, and in fact pushed back a bit while she answered. I figured this was what I came for, so I proceeded.

Her cavalier attitude toward being fucked from behind while having a trivial phone conversation wound up being a huge turn-on for me. By the time she finished her 20-second call, I was finished as well. I hadn't come that quickly since I was a teen. She laughed that she should take calls more often. What kind of beast am I that I really enjoyed such utter indifference? Does this reveal some dark secret deep in my psyche? How can that mesh with my otherwise feminist views?

Premature Ejaculation Needs Some Introspective View Examined First, PENSIVE, "enjoys giving women orgasms" sets the bar for "ardent feminist" just a bit low. So here's hoping your feminism involves more than penetrating a willing partner with your fingers, tongue, cock and whatever vibrators happen to be lying around. Because if your feminism doesn't include support for

30 at the back

pro-choice policies and candidates, regular donations to Planned Parenthood, backing equal pay for equal work, speaking up when other men say shitty/rapey/dehumanizing things about women (particularly when there isn't a woman in the room whose pussy you want to lick until you come, because feminism!)—and more—then you're not a feminist, ardent or otherwise.

Moving on ... Why did it turn you on when the sex worker took a call during your session? Because it did.

Turn-ons are subjective and mysterious. People who are curious about their turn-ons have to start with "this turns me on" and work backward from there. And to figure out why a particular fabric/adornment/ attitude/scenario arouses us, we use the only tools available to us—guesswork and selfserving rationalizations—to invent a backstory that makes some sort of logical sense, and then we apply it to something (kinks, turn-ons, orgasms) that really defies logic.

So, PENSIVE, if I were to hazard some guesswork on your behalf, I'd probably go with this: being treated with passive contempt by someone that you are supposed to be wielding power over (the woman you're fucking, a sex worker you've hired)—being subtly humiliated and mildly degraded by that woman— taps a vein of eroticized self-hatred that makes you come quickly and come hard.

And while that's wonderful for you, PENSIVE, it isn't proof you're a feminist.

ORGASM ORDER

I'm a 29-year-old gay trans man.

On female hormones, I took a long time to come and usually wouldn't come at all. I always enjoyed sex; I just wasn't focused on coming. My partners would or wouldn't, depending on their preferences. Since starting testosterone a few years ago, I now come quickly and easily.

(Sometimes too quickly and easily.)

My problem is that after I come, like most men, I'm done with sex. And the stronger the orgasm, the truer this is. A while ago, after a really

Use your words, NGASA: "If it's not a problem, I'd rather come after you do—my refractory period kicks in hard when I come and, like other men, I briefly lose interest in sex.

On top of that, I'm a terrible actor.

So let's make you come first or let's try to come at the same time, OK?"

PRESOME PLEASURES

My wife and I are bisexual—we're a man and woman—and we've been tiptoeing right up to the edge of organizing a threesome or swap through 3nder. But we haven't gone through with it yet—too many flakes and fakes. But we have no complaints—just contemplating a threesome has put amazing energy back into our sex life.

Is there a name for the explosive sex you have with your longtime partner when you're anticipating a group scene or threesome? If not, can we suggest the neologism "presome"? Rhymes with threesome!

Married With Anticipated High Jinks

"Enjoys giving women orgasms" sets the bar for "ardent feminist" just a bit low. So here's hoping your feminism involves more than penetrating a willing partner with your fingers, tongue, cock and whatever vibrators happen to be lying around. fun time, I woke to find that I'd accidentally fallen asleep and left my longtime hookup buddy to fend for himself. Other times, I'm just tired and/or turned off. I definitely don't want anyone inside me (it hurts), and while I've tried mustering enthusiasm for blowjobs, hand jobs, etc, my attempts come across as pretty tepid. So in the context of both ongoing relationships of various sorts and hookups, what's the etiquette?

I've found myself just avoiding things that'll push me to come, because I don't want to be rude. And since I've always enjoyed sex without orgasms, this doesn't bother me mostly. But once in a while, I would like to come. How can I do this and still take care of the other guy?

Not Good At Sexy Abbreviations

The phenomenon you describe— the insanely hot sex a couple has before a threesome or other sexual adventure—has been noted by sex researchers and couples counsellors. Dr Margie Nichols, a psychologist and sex therapist, told the New York Times she frequently urges the non-kinky couples she sees to emulate kinky couples. "Kinky couples plan sex," Nichols told Amy Sohn, "and simmer for days in advance."

Many couples in the planning stages of a threesome do a lot more than simmer: like you and the wife,

VUEWEEKLY.com | jan 7 – jan 13, 2016

MWAHJ, they find themselves having hot twosomes in anticipation of the impending (and hopefully hot) threesome. I think "presome" is a wonderful term to describe that kind of sex—I'm officially endorsing your proposed neologism—but I don't think it works as well for four-way swaps, group sex, BDSM play parties, etc, because it obviously rhymes with/riffs on "threesome." But it's an excellent term to describe the situation you and the wife are in.

To describe the sex you'll have in the wake of your first successful threesome, I would propose the term "postsome."

WAXING ADVICE

I thought your advice to SCRAPE, the guy whose penis was suffering due to his girlfriend's shaved-butstubbly labia, was spot-on—except in regards to waxing. As both a former professional waxer and a woman with very coarse pubic hair, I hope you don't mind if I correct you: waxed hair does not grow back as prickly as shaved hair. The hair follicle tapers from its root. When shaved, it is cut straight across at its thickest point. The hair, as it grows, continues to grow from there. When waxed, the hair is removed at its root, and a new hair will grow intact, with the softer taper. I cannot shave without extreme discomfort during regrowth (like needles in my undies!). SCRAPE's girlfriend's postwax stubble may still be too uncomfortable for him, but it will doubtless be an improvement. Honestly, I'd be amazed if she's not currently in more pain than he is!

Smooth Moves Thanks for sharing, SM.V Listen to Dan's podcast every week at savagelovecast.com. @fakedansavage on Twitter

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