vue weekly 789 Dec 2 - Dec 8 2010

COVER

INSIDE

IssuE no. 789 // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

UP FRONT // 3/ 3 4 5 5 6 6

BECKETT SHORTS

Vuepoint Media Links Dyer Straight In the Box Issues Bob the Angry Flower

DISH // 11/

// 14

Surreal SoReal Theatre offers eight glimpses into a brilliant mind

SNOW ZONE

13 Veni, Vidi, Vino

ARTS // 14 18 Hopscotch

FILM // 20 21 Screen Caps

MUSIC // 24/ 29 Music Notes 30 New Sounds 31 Old Sounds 31 Quickspins

// 7 SLIDESHOW

BACK // 33 34 Free Will Astrology 34 Queermonton 34 Lust for Life

LISTINGS 19 Arts 23 Film 26 Music 33 Events

Wool on Wolves Sat, Nov 27 / Pawn Shop VUEWEEKLY.COM/SLIDESHOWS >> for more of Paul Blinov's photos

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IssuE no. 789 // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010 // Available at over 1400 locations

2 // UP FRONT

Editor / Publisher.......................................... RON GARTH // ron@vueweekly.com MANAGING Editor............................................. EDEN MUNRO // eden@vueweekly.com associate mANAGING editor................... BRYAN BIRTLES // bryan@vueweekly.com NEWS Editor........................................................ SAMANTHA POWER // samantha@vueweekly.com Arts / Film Editor........................................... PAUL BLINOV // paul@vueweekly.com Music Editor....................................................... EDEN MUNRO // eden@vueweekly.com Dish Editor........................................................... BRYAN BIRTLES // bryan@vueweekly.com creative services manager.................... MICHAEL SIEK // mike@vueweekly.com production.......................................................... CHELSEA BOOS // che@vueweekly.com ART DIRECTOR....................................................... PETE NGUYEN // pete@vueweekly.com Senior graphic designer........................... LYLE BELL // lyle@vueweekly.com WEB/MULTIMEDIA MANAGER........................ ROB BUTZ // butz@vueweekly.com LISTINGS ................................................................ GLENYS SWITZER // glenys@vueweekly.com

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VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

CONTRIBUTORS Ricardo Acuña, Steve Anderson, Mike Angus, Meaghan Baxter, Chelsea Boos, Josef Braun, Rob Breszny, Jonathan Busch, Gwynne Dyer, Brian Gibson, Hart Golbeck, Tamara Gorzalka, James Grasdal, Joe Gurba, Michael Hingston, Sharman Hnatiuk, Brenda Kerber, Maria Kotovych, Fawnda Mithrush, Stephen Notley, Roland Pemberton, Bryan Saunders, Dave Young Distribution Todd Broughton, Alan Ching, Barrett DeLaBarre, Mike Garth, Aaron Getz, Raul Gurdian, Justin Shaw, Dale Steinke, Wally Yanish

UP FRONT

EDITORIAL

Vuepoint Bold move samantha power // samantha@vueweekly.com

W

ith three resignations from the Alberta Health Services board in the last week, the provincial government may be dealing with opposition from more than one corner. And from boards that normally toe government line. If this week's vote by the Edmonton public school board is any indication, it seems that it is next on the list of potential challengers.

The school board, with a vote of seven to two, declared a moratorium on school closures for the next two years.

It's a bold move from a board beholden to the provincial government's doling out education tax dollars and a government that, in the past, has not been afraid to shut down entire boards. In fact, with a review of the School Act going on, the rumours that the provincial government is thinking of shutting down elected school boards altogether continues to crop up—rumours Education Minister Dave Hancock denies.

So the decision to make such a strong pronouncement this past week should not be taken lightly. It's a weighty policy

YOURVUE

GRASDAL'S VUE

decision that could backfire. Two years is a long time, and as one board member pointed out, aging infrastructure is not going away. With the review of the School Act due out in the spring, the provincial government could quickly render this vote moot, declaring new directions for schools, or specific plans for the education tax dollars it has control over.

So this week's vote is a clear indication that this board is more likely to vote in line with its community than the province. The intention behind the moratorium is a direct result of last spring's closure of five schools. The closures were controversial decisions, and could be said to be the direct impetus for this fall's election of six new trustees elected to the nine-member board. It could be taken as an indication of a greater desire for a more regional approach to decision-making. But the fact the vote actually happened is evidence of a board that is willing to demand what it needs, instead of what it thinks it can get from the province—something public organizations used to swaying to government purse strings should be doing more of in this province. V

Your Vue is the weekly roundup of all your comments and views of our coverage. Every week we'll be running your comments from the website, feedback on our weekly web polls and any letters you send our editors.

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE VUEWEEKLY.COM

WEBPOLLS go to vueweekly.com and have your say

Last week

This Week

Should MLA Raj Sherman be let back into caucus?

Is WikiLeaks right to release classified government information?

COMMENTS FROM LAST WEEK'S WEB POLL "He should be begged to come back to the Conservative caucus and Liepert should be forced to apologize for the mess in health care."

Yes

56%

No

18.9%

Give him a cookie 24.3%

"He should be re-elected for his stand on the health of Albertans and for revealing the true health of democracy in our province."

"Shouldn't be let in ... but that doesn't make him any less right."

Yes No

// Chelsea Boos

Vote and comment at vueweekly.com VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

Journalist Gwynne Dyer was in town this past week to speak on his newest book Crawling From the Wreckage. Dyer speaks with his usual frank candour and looks to the signs of hope amidst the disasters of climate change and the war on terror.

Listen at vueweekly.com/podcasts

UP FRONT // 3

COMMENT >> CANADIAN MEDIA

Let's infiltrate the CBC

Open Media works for a participatory media model for the CBC On October 21, the brisk morning air met an assemblage of the media innovation vanguard as its members made their way into the CBC/Radio-Canada's Annual Public Meeting (APM) in Vancouver. The plan was unspoken, but the wry smiles exchanged amongst us were more than enough to edia.ca acknowledge our purpose. raticm democ @ e v After all, while insidious, ste Steve our goal was quite simple; on n A ders infiltrate the CBC and make it more community-based and participatory.

Not long into the meeting executives of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation described their network as a "public space." They also noted that Canada is at the centre of a revolution in media, with more opportunity for citizen participation than ever before. "We want what Canadians want," said CBC President & CEO Hubert Lacroix, "a vibrant CBC/Radio-Canada that gives voice to a creative nation."

Were they on to us? They were speaking our language, but why?

To get to the bottom of this I took advantage of the APM question period to ask CBC Vancouver's managing director, News Day, a program that allows stuJohnny Michel, whether the Corporadent reporters to cover the stories that tion planned to experiment more with are important to them. participatory media, and if it planned to partner with community-based media While there was evidence of a shift in organizations like the W2 Community thinking at the CBC, it didn't feel tanMedia Arts Centre. Michel could not gible enough to satisfy us. We mingled confirm future plans due to uncertainwith local CBC personnel after the ties surrounding funding, but he did cite event. Several of us innocent looking

another blurted out. "Use web tools to engage people and provide a platform for creativity and dialogue" another chimed in.

I motioned for us to make our way to the door—we'd done all we could here.

But our work wasn't finished yet. We needed to find out if there were people on the inside who agree with our media worldview.

We set out to find an open-minded CBC person we could invite into our Fresh Media community, and evaluate.

We chose Steve Pratt, director of CBC Radio 3 and CBC Digital Programming.

We would host him at our next Fresh

MEDIA

LINKS

The best way for the CBC to ensure its survival is to build a community of supporters that truly has a sense of ownership over the organization.

"citizens" encircled a CBC person and repeated our points while trying to avoid giving away our secret plan to make the CBC more participatory. "One of the best ways to ensure the CBC's survival and growth is for it to be more community based" one of us said earnestly. "Yes, why not partner with community groups to cover local stories?"

Media ReMixology event.

On November 8 at 5 pm the festivities began. Live DJs, a Twitter wall that displayed comments from the audience and the Internet, a live web TV feed that enabled anyone on the web to watch and comment on the talk, cash bar and snacks: would this prove to be just too awesome for Pratt to handle?

It turns out not.

Pratt said things like: "Turn the keys over to the audience, and start empowering the audience to help each find what they want and give up control."

NewsRoundup TASTES LIKE CHICKEN

IN MEMORIAM REJECTED

I

T

T

4 // UP FRONT

he Advertising Standards Council ruled the content of an ad by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers is not misleading the public after a complaint by the Sierra Club of Canada.

CAPP had released an ad with Shelley Powell of Suncor stating tailings ponds are, "Essentially like yogurt, and if left on its own, would take decades to settle."

The Sierra Club filed a complaint under a provision of the advertising standards code stating advertisements must not "contain inaccurate or deceptive claims" and must not "omit relevant information in a manner that, in the result, is deceptive." "The recent deaths of ducks in tailings ponds clearly and accurately demonstrated the tailings are toxic and definitely not yogurt," says John Ben-

processes is a good way for the CBC to get started.

Let's not sit on the sidelines and wait for the CBC to move in the right direction. Through engaging with the CBC, particularly the elements most conducive to participation, we can enable it to act as an open platform for media innovation and community collaboration.

Let's infiltrate the CBC to be more participatory. V Steve Anderson is the National Coordinator of OpenMedia.ca.

SAMANTHA POWER // samantha@vueweekly.com

HEALTH COMPLICATIONS f the three resignations of the Alberta Health Services board, the dismissal of Stephen Duckett and the public comments by former PC MLA Raj Sherman were not bad enough for the PC government's position on health care, the official opposition has revealed leaked documents exposing a move toward private health care by the Alberta government.

The 27-page document reveals a proposal to de-list health services that are currently covered by public funds and legalize private insurance. Sherman, who was earlier voted out of the Tory caucus due to his statements criticizing the government's approach to the current ER crisis, confirmed the authenticity of the leaked documents. The documents were revealed just hours before the Alberta government released it's new five-year health plan. The plan, titled "Becoming the Best" proposes to reduce wait times for hip surgery by 60 percent, and faster treatment at emergency rooms. The short-term plan has AHS adding 360 more hospital beds and expanding continuing care spaces by 2300.

Pratt also talked about how "Radio 3 is an innovation centre for the public broadcaster" and added, "we're not a radio station, we're a music discovery service."

He may not have known it at the time, but Pratt was one of us. Turns out we have a whole project within the CBC that has put innovation and participation at the forefront.

The best way for the CBC to ensure its survival is to build a community of supporters that truly has a sense of ownership over the organization. As Steve Pratt put it, "Empower the people and you'll get a level of trust and ownership you never thought possible."

Incorporating digital tools and open

he Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal have refused to print an "In Memoriam" for a Mexican anti-mining activist killed last year after being shot outside his home. Several men are awaiting court appearances in relation to Mariano Abarca's death. Abarca was a strong opponent to the Calgary-based Blackfire Exploration mine operating outside of the Mexican

city of Chicomuselo, where Abarca lived.

Abarca opposed the mine's impacts on the environment and climate change. He had just finished filing a complaint about the mine before his death. The state environmental ministry has since closed the mine. The Journal and Herald refused to run the "In Memoriam" classified ad that had previously run in The Globe and Mail and was sponsored by Common Frontiers, a non-profit advocacy group.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

nett, Executive Director.

Although the Sierra Club lost the complaint, CAPP pulled the television ad shortly after the complaint was filed.

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

“Where was this concern about privacy when climate scientists' emails were being stolen? And Bush was illegally wiretapping?”

—Naomi Klein commenting on WikiLeaks Dec 1, 2010

COMMENT >> INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

COMMENT >> HOCKEY

A necessary enemy Gerber, baby Difficult to punish North Korea and not threaten stability in Asia

South Korea's defence minister, Kim It was understandable. They were the Tae-Young, was forced to resign after first generation of South Koreans to criticism that he was too slow to respond scramble back up to a decent standard when North Korea attacked the island of of living after the devastation of the KoYeonpeong on Tuesday, killing at least rean War—by 1953, per capita income four people. But what was he supposed in Korea was lower than in what is now to do? What can his replacement, former Bangladesh—and they feared that rechairman of the joint chiefs of staff Kim unification would knock them back for Kwan-jin, do? Not much, really. another generation.

South Korean artillery fired back, They had watched the reunifidropping 80 shells on North Kocation of Germany, and they rean gun positions along the knew that had been very excoast facing Yongpyeon, so pensive. But West Germans honour has been served. But outnumbered East Germans om .c ly k e we now North Korea is warning by more than three-to-one, e@vue n n y w g e n that the joint US-South Korewhereas there were only 45 n y Gw an military exercises that began million South Koreans to bear r e y D just off that coast on 28 Novemthe burden of 25 million North ber (and include a huge US nuclearKoreans. Moreover, West Germany powered aircraft carrier) are pushing the was far richer than South Korea, and region "to the brink of war."

North Korea was vastly poorer than the So what was US defence secretary Robold East Germany. ert Gates supposed to do? Cancel the South Koreans are more used to prosexercise (which has been scheduled for perity now, but the cost of reunification months, and was already postponed once would still be crippling, even if it hapto allay Chinese concerns)? Launch air pened peacefully. If it involved a North strikes against North Korea and risk a widKorean attack, launched by a military er war, maybe even one in which Pyongelite who saw their privileged position yang tried to use the primitive nuclear in society slipping away, the level of deweapons it claims to possess? Resign? struction would be so great that it would And what is North Korea's Chinese ally take a generation to repair. So in practice, supposed to do? Beijing is doubtless South Korea also wants the North Korean appalled by what Pyongyang is doing. A regime to survive. major war in the region is the very last thing it wants. But China cannot publicly In fact, everybody wants the weird condemn North Korea's actions without North Korean dictatorship to survive— risking the collapse of the Pyongyang even the United States, although it regime, which is the next-to-last thing would never admit it—because if the it wants. level of uncertainty in East Asia fell, it Beijing desperately does not want its would be utterly terrifying. That makes people to witness the collapse of anothit very hard to "punish" the North Korean er Communist regime: it is still haunted regime when it behaves badly. by the events of 1989. It does not want It wasn't punished for torpedoing a a huge flood of North Korean refugees South Korean warship just to the west coming across the long frontier between of Yonpyeong island last March (if that is the two countries. And it most certainly what actually happened: the "internationdoes not want a unified, democratic Korea al panel" that investigated the incident all as its neighbour along that frontier. So it came from South Korea's allies). Neither murmurs platitudes and does nothing. will it be punished for shelling YeonpeEven South Korea is deeply ambivalent ong island this month. about the prospective collapse of North And it won't even be punished severely Korea. In principle, every South Korean if, as the North Korean news agency wants a reunited country, but in practice promised, it makes "second and even third most of them don't want it quite yet. rounds of attacks without any hesitation I happened to be in Seoul, interviewing if warmongers in South Korea make reckpeople in government offices, on the day less military provocations again." Like the in 1994 when the death of the original current US-South Korean war games in North Korean dictator, Kim Il-sung, was the Yellow Sea, for example. announced. There was panic, understandThis year's North Korean attacks may ably, since he had been in power since be related to a power struggle within anybody in those offices could rememthe military, or they may be a display ber, and they had no idea what was comof determination by the newly anointed ing out of the box next. But one of the heir to the throne, Kim Jong-un, son of things they feared most, they discovered, current leader Kim Jong-il and grandson was unification. of "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung. Nobody I don't think most South Koreans had outside Pyongyang knows what is driving thought it through before that day, but this policy. But they are avoiding masfaced with the prospect of 25 million sive retaliation that would make matters poverty-stricken North Koreans landing worse, and hoping that the crazies are in their laps, they quickly realized that not in control. V this was not going to be good for them.

Like good patriots, they wanted the Gwynne Dyer is a London-based jourblessings of reunification eventually, but nalist. His column appears every week not on their watch. in Vue Weekly.

R DYEIG HT

STRA

As far as weekly snapshots go, the latest Cup. We won't mention who they beat. Too Oiler update isn't too bad. The Oilers soon. Gerber was shuffled to Ottawa had a two-game homestand and in 2006-07, where Gerber once beat the Avalanche 3-2 (after a again got to be the backup (this late Taylor Hall GWG) and fell time to Ray Emery) in a third to the Sharks in a 4-3 battle. om Cup final for a third team—Ot.c ly k e ewe The team then traveled to Ottawa lost. Get Gerber on your ox@vu intheb oung & Y e tawa and beat the Senators 4-1. team and seat him at the end v a D s e tl Bir of the bench. He'll sit there, open Bryan Hockey's Forrest Gump? and close the doors, put on his ball It's good to see Martin Gerber back in cap and get you to the Cup finals—he's the NHL, playing for the Oilers and getting a hockey's perennial bystander. I don't forecouple wins in the process. I've always been see another Cup final with our Oilers, but intrigued by Gerber's career. In his first NHL wouldn't that be a good sales pitch to other season (2002-03), he was Anaheim's backGMs come trade deadline day? DY up to JS Giguere and the Ducks made it to the Cup Finals—and lost. In 2005-06, GerOr Forrest Gump Worsley? ber was the starter for Carolina but during I said at the start of the season that with playoffs was moved to the bench in favour Nik Khabibulin's injury history—and posof Cam Ward and the Hurricanes won the sible looming jail sentence—that the Oilers

IN THE

BOX

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

hadn't seen the last of Martin Gerber and boy have I ever been happy to have been proven right. Ignoring a shaky first couple of minutes in his first starting game in the NHL since April of 2009, Gerber has been lights out for the Oilers, recording two wins in two starts. BB Dark Helmet

Another thing about Martin Gerber. I also love the minimalist white goalie helmet he's sporting. It has a throwback look to it. What would be better? If he dusted off the Darth Vader helmet he sported for a few games in Ottawa a couple years ago. DY Oiler players of the week

Jordan Eberle: That sweet pass to Taylor Hall for the GWG against the Avs. DY Andrew Cogliano: Cold as ice most of the season, the past three games have seen Cogliano come alive. Hopefully this perennial trade bait keeps it up because I really like his game and would be sad to see him go. BB

UP FRONT // 5

COMMENT >> HEALTH CARE

Issues

Issues is a forum for individuals and organizations to comment on current events and broader issues of importance to the community. Their commentary is not necessarily the opinion of the organizations they represent or of Vue Weekly.

The more things change

Administration upheaval won't mean much for Alberta's health care system Ricardo Acuña // ualberta.ca/PARKLAND

By the end of the current sitting of the Legislature, Alberta will have a new Health Act, a new Parliamentary Assistant for Health and Wellness and a new CEO of Alberta Health Services.

We will also still have overcrowded hospitals, a shortage of long-term-care beds, not enough family physicians to go around and emergency room wait times that don't even come close to meeting the government's already watered down targets.

It's tragic that after health care in the province has been front page news for a week, the subject of hours and hours of legislative debate and the cause of one firing, one dismissal and four resignations, none of it will have any impact on the health of the system at all.

Despite the fact that Premier Stelmach repeatedly blasted the opposition parties and the media for "theatrics," he and his government ultimately benefitted from the circus atmosphere that developed around Raj Sherman, Stephen Duckett and cookie-gate. Yes, Sherman

embarrassed the government, and yes, his firing from caucus made the Tories look even worse, but his firing, and that of Duckett, put the public's focus on the politics of the matter rather than the health care system itself.

This was not how this whole affair started. Raj Sherman's letter to doctors and MLA's expressing his frustration with the state of Alberta's emergency rooms, and the government's failure to do anything to remedy the situation, put the focus exactly where it should be: on the government's willful neglect of the healthcare system. That's exactly where the focus would have stayed, had it not been for cookie-gate. The carnival of jokes and politics that erupted from Mr Duckett's cookie incident ensured that nothing would change in our health care system, and that suited the government fine.

Their firing of Stephen Duckett himself further distracted from the real conversation that needed to happen. Yes, the cookie incident showed him to be arrogant and dismissive of the media, but you'd be hard pressed to find a seniorlevel government bureaucrat, or politi-

cian for that matter, that hasn't publicly exhibited those traits at some point in their career. Mr Duckett had done the job he was hired to do, as evidenced by his performance reviews and bonuses

It's tragic that after health care in the province has been front page news for a week, the subject of hours and hours of legislative debate and the cause of one firing, one dismissal and four resignations, none of it will have any impact on the health of the system at all. and the fact that both the Premier and Minister had on numerous occasions expressed their satisfaction with his work.

Mr Duckett was hired by the Alberta government to carry out its plans for the health care system: eliminate local health authorities, pay lip service to the public system and implement funding cuts and restructuring that will cripple and sabotage the system while justifying further privatization. He was doing that

BOB THE ANGRY FLOWER

6 // UP FRONT

job and doing it well.

Why not track down the caterer who put out the cookie and fire them? If the cookie wasn't there, the incident wouldn't have happened. As ridiculous as

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

that sounds, it would make no less sense than firing Duckett. And the almost three quarters of a million dollars we'll be spending on his severance and re-location could then be spent on long-term care beds, or spaces at the province's medical schools, which would really be a help to the system.

In the end, none of the events of the last two weeks will make one lick of difference to Alberta's health care system. People will continue to die because

they can't get timely care, seniors will continue to have to spend their life savings for inadequate care in privatized facilities, and Alberta families will have to continue to do without family physicians.

No number of letters from Raj Sherman, resignations from the AHS Board, or new bureaucrats will change that reality. This government has been on the same path for health care for over 20 years, and that's what needs to change.

If Albertans are genuine about their concerns, it needs to be properly directed.

If every bed closure, facility privatizaion and funding cut were to be met with the same level of outrage and anger from Albertans that the cookie incident and Raj Sherman's firing were, then we might actually see the government start to make some genuine changes to its health care philosophy. Until then, it's all theatrics and politics, and the government will continue on its path of destroying and privatizing our system. V Ricardo Acuña is the executive director of the Parkland Institute, a non-partisan public policy research institute housed at the University of Alberta.

SNOW ZONE

"But the longer it takes for the snow to accumulate, the slower the enthusiasm builds. No rush, I figured, it's coming. And it did, all of a sudden and with force."

SNOWMAD /10

NORDIC // GATINEAU PARK

Skinny sticks and politics Ottawa area ski trails unite what Meech couldn't SCOTT HARRIS

// Scott Harris

// SCOTT@vueweekly.com

E

ven with the mercury hovering at a frigid -25 C with wind chill, it's only through good timing—pulling in just as the tail-lights of a compact flick on—that we're able to find a spot in an over-packed parking lot just a stone's throw from the eastern edge of Meech Lake.

But within moments of joining the steady stream of skiers making their way up the kilometre-long ascent on the groomed trails of the Lac-Fortune Parkway, surrounded by trees ice-encrusted from a recent ice-storm glinting in the sun like crystals against the shockingly blue sky, it's easy to see why the crosscountry skiing trails of Gatineau Park are so popular.

Best known to many Canadians as the site of the ultimately fruitless constitutional accord that took place on the banks of Meech Lake, for cross-country ski enthusiasts Gatineau Park is something of a wintertime Mecca. Created in 1938 and now managed by the National Capital Commission—the crown corporation tasked with ensuring that OttawaGatineau lives up to expectations as the nation's capital region—the 360-squarekm nature reserve boasts some 200 km of ski trails taking in the forests, valleys and lakes of the southern Canadian Shield.

The northern edge of the park skirts the Gatineau River; its southeastern tip almost reaches the Ottawa River which separates Quebec from Ontario.

The buildings of downtown Ottawa— just a 20-minute drive from the heart of Gatineau Park—are visible from the crests of hills in the southern portion of the park. In the middle, the three main lakes, Meech, Mousseau and Philippe separate the southern portion of the park from the more distant, and less-crowded, northern section.

The Lac-Fortune Parkway, our chosen route, is just one stretch of a 30 km series of roads throughout the park which in winter are closed to traffic and converted into an autobahn-like network of

Former Vue managing editor Dan Rubinstein surveys the Ottawa River dividing Ontario and Quebec.

expertly groomed cross-country trails.

Two parallel tracks set for classical skiing on each side of the road flank the generously wide groomed skate-ski track. As we make our way up the parkway before cresting on the banks of Lac Fortune, the path littered with tiny shards shaken by the gentle breeze from the ice-heavy branches, families of skiers and spandexclad groups of skate-skiers glide down effortlessly in the other direction.

While it's possible to see most of the park on these primary trails—which are graded in a three-step range of difficulty—shortly after the top of the climb we opt to get off the main thoroughfare and head off onto a classic-only secondary

trail. While still groomed, single track sets, the secondary trails offer a distinctly different experience compared to the primary routes. With dramatically fewer skiers, the trail is a much more tranquil environment, the thin path weaving

Continuing west through the heart of the southern portion of Gatineau Park, we head off onto one of the backcountry routes, which only by the loosest of definitions could be considered a trail. Much more challenging and with sections

While still groomed, single track sets, the secondary trails offer a distinctly different experience compared to the primary routes.

trail from all sides. Steep uphills through tight trails of trees become blind-corner descents executed while ducking branches, but the solitude of the backcountry is its own reward; pausing in the deserted woods, the absolute silence is punctuated only by the faint sound of a distant plane.

Emerging from the backcountry onto groomed trails once again, we ski almost to the southern edge of the park and stop to warm up in one of the nine wood cabins spread throughout the park, this one overlooking the expanse of the Ottawa River valley. Inside, a wood-burning stove offers respite from the cold. Skiers much more familiar with the park's amenities cook massive sandwiches wrapped in tin foil on the burners, the aroma filling the cabin. Toques, gloves and jackets hang from every rafter and makeshift clotheslines, and strains of English and French conversations mix easily with the laughter at the tables.

Leaving the enticing warmth of the cabin, we circle the southern edge of the trail, following the Ottawa River, with Ottawa appearing in the distance between the trees as we move east for about five kilometres. As the sun tracks low towards the horizon, the temperature drops as we glide down the long, gentle decline of the primary trail we had first climbed four hours earlier, and the number of skiers on the trail picks up in marked contrast to the almost-deserted backcountry trails.

As we arrive back at the lower parking lot, anxious skiers carry their skis past us towards the trail. Despite the encroaching darkness there still isn't a spot to be had in the lot, and as we back out to return to Ottawa, another car is waiting to take our place. V Gatineau Park, Quebec Day pass $12 (adult)/$25 (family)/$8 youth/

through undulating hills under a close canopy of trees, the occasional herringbone long climbs rewarded with exhilarating, winding downhills.

of deep snow, the narrow path winds through a series of small lakes, at one point crossing an expansive bog, the icecovered bullrushes encroaching on the

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

Free (12 and under) ON the web canadascapital.gc.ca/gatineau

SNOW ZONE // 7

8 // SNOW ZONE

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

FALLLINES temporary terrain parks OPEN

Terrain parks consume a tremendous amount of snow. Some operators have started making huge piles with their snow guns while others patiently wait for mother-nature to do her job. Boarders don't care how it's made as long as something is up where they can hang and practise. At Sunshine they have opened a temporary park at the bottom of Birdcage, serviced by the Wawa chair. Consisting mostly of flatboxes, mailboxes and rollers, it should satisfy the crowds until Christmas, when their massive park kicks into operation. At Marmot there are several rails and boxes located on Old Road near midmountain. This too is only a stop-gap until their major terrain park on Lower Lift Line opens. Marmot Basin's park may not be quite the size of Sunshine's but the new lower location and the sheer number of park features has been a big surprise to snowboard enthusiasts.

The emergence of extreme skiing in these parks has been a big hit well. At Lake Louise they are preparing a ski and snowboard cross track that will be home to a race in December, but then will remain open to the public for the rest of the year. This is the same type of course you saw in last year's Olympics, steep and fast. Hopefully they will tone it down a bit because some of the public may be challenged by a few of the drops.

HART GOLBECK // HART@vueweekly.com

Skiing with the ladies It wasn't long ago when ladies-only ski and snowboard camps were popping up all over the place.

First there was Chicks with Stix, but they seem to have moved to Australia; then along came Chick N Stix but they've evolved into an all-ladies catskiing operation out of Rossland BC. The Ski Cellar and Snowboard shop in Calgary and Nakiska Ski Resort are getting back to the basics. Starting on Thursday January 20, every two weeks they'll be hosting a ladies-only ski and snowboard day at Nakiska. For $125 you get transportation from the Ski Cellar in Calgary, a full-day lift ticket, lunch with a guest speaker and a 1.5 hour lesson tailored specifically for women. If you're interested in booking, call Nakiska at 403.232.8477. If enough ladies out of Edmonton make some noise, maybe they can send the bus up here on occasion.

Epic snow at Fernie Fernie Ski Resort is officially opening on December 3. Sometimes they have to wait until mid-December before conditions are suitable, but not this year. For most of November, massive snowstorms fuelled by La Niña have rushed through the valley dropping a fluffy white blanket of nearly two metres. Last weekend they started their lifts early for a preview weekend and conditions didn't disappoint. Pow stashes were found everywhere and the faithful were thoroughly disappointed the fun was over for the rest of the week. The last La Niña year, Fernie had the most snow in our Rockies; it looks like they're off to the same kind of start. V

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

SNOW ZONE // 9

SNOWZONE >> SNOMAD

Opening weekend Ski season begins in Edmonton Jeremy Derksen is attempting to ski every day until winter's end. Here he is recording his trials and tribulations for posterity's sake.

But the longer it takes for the snow to accumulate, the slower the enthusiasm builds. No rush, I figured, it's coming. And it did, all of a sudden and with force.

So with little less than two hours The ski season began in Edbefore the close of the first day, monton on November 19 at I found myself scrambling. Last Snow Valley, with Edmonm season's boots were wrecked, o .c ly k uewee ton Ski Club and Rabbit Hill some of my gear stuffed into a one@v snowz quickly following suit on Nopack I hadn't seen since spring. r Je emyn vember 20. Sunridge, the last Never mind. Grab it and go.

Derkse of the four local hills, opened As test runs go, it was glorious.

November 23.

Okay, there were some minor hiccups.

I have never really marked the first day of Snow Valley's chairlift stalled for about half the season. Sure, I'll do a hasty rifle through an hour that first eve. Edmonton Ski Club the pack to ensure all my gear is there and had similar mechanical troubles two days in decent shape, a quick check of my skis later when I got there. and boots to make sure they're not too Far from stifling the mood, it just amped thrashed. the hunger. At Snow Valley, a chill -19 C

SNOM

10 // SNOW ZONE

AD

couldn't slow down the kids who hiked the hill while the chair was down. A perceptible vibe flowed under the floodlights' sombre glow. On one chair, I chatted with several parents whose children had dragged them out. Several boarders related their big plans for the season. I talked touring with a friend on patrol. Everyone had grand ambitions and was eager to share them.

Down at ESC, celebrating its 100th anniversary this season, a few kids had built a little kicker off the bunny tow. Hitting it, I felt the silly childish glee only attainable through a random act of foolishness. Mission accomplished.

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

So, in its fitful but persistent way, a season begins, an occasion worth marking with your own two feet.

There's time to iron out the kinks later. V

CHECK OUT VUEWEEKLY.COM/SNOMAD Follow along with Jeremy's daily snomad exploits.

DISH

Find a restaurant

ONLINE AT DISHWEEKLY.CA

One special salsa

Blue Kettle's success rests on its very first recipe RECIPE

Sharman Hnatiuk // sharman@vueweekly.com

Blue Kettle Chocolate Bananas

T

he origin of Blue Kettle Specialty Foods comes down to one thing: a really good salsa recipe.

Marcy Mydlak had been giving her salsa away to friends and family for years, and everyone told her it tasted so good she should sell it. While the idea of selling her salsa by the jar in her front yard had crossed her mind, the idea evolved into a family affair that has made Blue Kettle a regular feature on the local food scene.

The opportunity to turn her passion in the kitchen into an economic venture happened when Marcy found herself laid off from a sales job. Leaving a job that didn't really excite her, her sister Carol Olivieri offered to assist short-term to help get the ball rolling.

"Carol suggested that I create at least two more products, so I came up with the chili base and a pasta sauce." explains Marcy. "It's my one and only talent. I can invent recipes."

They skipped the front lawn salsa stand and instead made their debut at the St Albert indoor farmers' market in 2000. "We sold 43 jars and we were ecstatic," explains Carol. "Over the next two years we moved to the summer markets, but we had customers saying they were waiting all winter for us. We realized we had to start getting into smaller retail stores, do more events, and up production."

With Carol in charge of marketing

(for Chocolate Indulgence)

2 firm bananas 1 Tbsp butter 1 Tbsp brown sugar 2 oz amber or white rum (optional) Blue Kettle Chocolate Indulgence to taste (warmed in the microwave) Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream Sliced almonds

// Pete Nguyen

and distribution, Marcy was free to get more creative in the kitchen. Salsa may have been the start, but salad dressings soon took over as items most in demand.

"I started to create new products based on things we liked, but also based on customer requests," explains Marcy. "For a long time people were asking for a Caesar dressing,

but since there are so many options out there I didn't think it was necessary." Eventually she gave into consumer pressure and came up with an Asiago Caesar that is their second most popular item. Looking at a list of their goods, most were created as a result of what regulars asked Marcy to create.

Many of the Blue Kettle products

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

are attractive to clients with dietary restrictions. The three newest salad dressings are either sugar free or low sodium, and 13 products are gluten free. "We sort of stumbled into the gluten free goods market, but with sugar and sodium so big in health matters now, I will probably go back to some of my original recipes to find out how I can make them taste as

Preheat a large frying pan on medium high heat.

Add butter, melt but be careful not to burn.

Cut ends off the bananas and cut in half lengthwise. Carefully remove banana halves from peel and place in frying pan flat side down. Fry for one minute. Carefully flip bananas over, add brown sugar, rum and flambĂŠ.

Once flame extinguishes, slide two banana halves onto each plate.

Drizzle with a generous amount of warm Chocolate Indulgence. Top with vanilla ice cream and or whipped cream and a sprinkle of slice almonds.

Serves 2 good but with less sodium or sugar."

Those who walk by the tent at the St Albert farmers' market on Saturdays will see a crowd waiting for a taste.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 >>

DISH // 11

ONE SPECIAL SALSA

<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

Carol says, "Sampling is extremely important to us. We stand behind our products, and we want people to make a purchase of something they know they will like."

Between markets, retail sales and providing larger quantities for the food service industry, the duo has almost outgrown their location in the industrial area of St Albert. The kitchen is in production at least four days a week, and will move to five days a week during the busy season from September to December when winter craft shows and Christmas basket making have the women of Blue Kettle in full swing.

Carol was only planning on helping her sister for six months to get a little idea called Blue Kettle going, but that has turned into 10-year partnership with no end in sight. "Our father always said that working without a partnership is best, but if you have to have a partner, don't do it with family," laughs Carol. "But we both bring different things to the company, therefore it works," explains Marcy.

"If it ever stops being fun, we'll stop.

But so far it's still fun. And of course, it's great to come to a work place that tastes so good." V Marcy Mydlak and Carol Olivieri Blue Kettle Specialty Foods bluekettle.ca

Did You Know ...

Your hand should never directly touch the neck of a Champagne bottle. The heat of your hand, as well as the pressure from handling the foil and wiring is now on the neck of the bottle, the narrowest passage, which is already under the greatest pressure. Instead, put a napkin or handkerchief between your hand and the bottle. Point the bottle away from yourself and anyone else.

With the one hand holding the bottle through the handkerchief, grab the cork with the other and start turning the bottle away from the cork. Don't turn the cork. That way it'll pop perfectly for you. —Pete Desrochers

12 // DISH

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

WINE

Gift of vino

Wine as gifts need not be daunting As December's holiday season arrives, approach wine drinking, never mind the red meat/red wine" is a good starting you're likely starting to think ahead to act of giving. point, but don't let this guideline limit festive dinners, family gatherings If you know what your boss likes you. There are great wines to suit every and formal parties with workto drink, all the better. If you're budget, and if you want strong direction, I D VI ers and friends. The relentleft guessing what to bring to again, Edmonton's independent wine VENI, less partying and range of your co-worker's house party, shops are going to be a wealth of inforcompany you'll be keeping— keep in mind that almost 75 mation for recommendations in this dem o .c ly ek vuewe and possibly buying gifts percent of wine drinkers prepartment. This goes for bubbly as well, @ s u g n mikea for—can be daunting, even fer red. If you're still in doubt, selections are often limited and e k i M s ask a wine merchant to recom- where stressful. Thankfully, wine expensive, but don't panic. While bigger u g An can be a perfect starting point mend a great bottle of wine withliquor chains might be of some help, when showing up to cozy dinner parties or formal soirees at your boss' home. It's even an excellent, versatile, The idea of buying wine can be intimidating and affordable—even last minute—gift idea stressful, but it shouldn't be. The great thing about for co-workers, party hosts and anyone gifting wine is you don't have to break the bank in else at a holiday celebration. order to impress.

The idea of buying wine can be intimidating and stressful, but it shouldn't be.

The great thing about gifting wine is you don't have to break the bank in order to in your budget. Never be afraid of apspecialty wine shops have something impress. A tastefully gift-wrapped bottle pearing "cheap" when buying wine—wine for every taste and budget. And don't of wine carries an air of class and good merchants love great value as much as get discouraged or intimidated by the taste. I'll never forget my first Christmas anyone, and they should be happy to let selection. Bottom line? Have fun with working at a local independent wine you in on their personal favourites and the purchase! Bubbly is meant to mark shop, where a distressed woman charged best deals. the occasion with a bang and a burst of into the store and bawled, "I need to buy celebration. So head out, have fun, buy a bottle of wine for my boss, and I have When planning Christmas dinner, the confidently, enjoy your holidays and no idea where to start!" This is no way to old rule of "white meat/white wine, drink responsibly. V

VINO

Buying wine for others can be intimidating, but it can also be fun

Cultural mix

Pacific Café melds Asian and Caribbean influences // Bryan Birtles

Maria Kotovych // maria@vueweekly.com

F

ood can bring people together, or it can allow different cultures to come together. The Pacific Café, for example, serves Asian food, but also incorporates Caribbean foods.

Owner Robbin Lu explains that the idea for such a combination came from having friends of different backgrounds, as well as living in Canada's multicultural society.

"Just being in such a multicultural society ... I enjoy foods of many flavours, and just [wanted] to make it different for when people want to come in and they have a variety of tastes," she says.

"I like to pick up tips just from watching other people cook. And I just basically enjoy cooking all the time."

Lu herself learned to cook from her mother, who has been catering Asian food since the 1980s. As for the Caribbean items, Lu learned these from her Jamaican boyfriend's family. Lu then tests her cooking on him.

"He is my—I guess you would say— guinea pig," Lu laughs. He has told her that her Caribbean food is better than how he would make it.

Today, we are eating ackee and saltfish, a Caribbean item. As well, there is plantain, fried in a light batter. Lu notes that plantain is something that both Caribbean and Asian people eat, but they prepare it in different ways.

Pacific Café brings together a number of different influences into its cuisine

In Caribbean cooking, for example, the plantain can be served in soups when it's still green, while Asian people will caramelize it and serve it with coconut milk as a dessert. Today, I'm eating the Caribbean-style plantain, the texture of which is almost like a potato. And it's nice and soft, which I enjoy.

Joining us at the table is Lu's mother, Nhan Lu, who came from Vietnam.

Nhan helps in the kitchen, and her art also graces the walls. A beautiful statue standing at the front is one of her creations, too.

In addition to sculpting with materials such as aluminum, Nhan also uses foods as a medium. Two of her lovely creations sit on the tray before me. One is a small carrot, carved into a flower that contains spicy peppers.

The other is a slice of mango, shaped

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

like a flower, in the delicious mango salad. Nhan explains that she learned these skills from her own mother, who taught home economics.

In addition to having taught Robbin, Nhan teaches cooking classes at the restaurant, and has taught food-decoration classes to youth through the Action for Healthy Communities. Some of her other art was displayed at the Nina

Haggerty Centre in 2008 at the One Heart. One Voice display. In 2009, she displayed her art during the University of Alberta's International Week.

With mother and daughter both in the culinary business, things can get competitive, Robbin jokes.

"We have to sometimes fight for the kitchen," she laughs.

Enjoying Nhan's flowers that grow outside, we discuss the benefit of everything that comes from a garden, whether it's flowers or fresh vegetables. Nhan herself tends a rooftop garden, growing vegetables for making salads.

"I think that food brings people together," she says. "Even the garden, too—when you work the long day, and you come home and see the garden, and you want to smell [flowers]."

As I sample the crunchy coconut cookies, I can understand why eating them was a social activity for students in Vietnam, as Nhan relates to me.

Indeed, as a student, she and others would hang around, eating these cookies with ice cream.

"And the Vietnamese coffee, we call 'dating coffee,' because it's drop by drop by drop. You count the drops, and you forget the time," she laughs. V Robbin Lu Pacific Café 10874 - 97 St, 780.462.1270

DISH // 13

ARTS

"I really think that when Dickens wrote this piece, he was like Shakespeare: he understood the human condition probably better than anyone else in the world."

A CHRISTMAS CAROL /17

Waiting no more Surreal SoReal Theatre puts Beckett to the test by paul blinov

"Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness."

I

t's hard to know quite what to make of Samuel Beckett, the speaker of that quote, who made his name and legend on words yet seemed to dismiss their meaning just as quickly. His minimal, absurdist plays and books are intentionally avante garde, intensely vague, rigidly open-ended; the go-to examples are Waiting For Godot or Endgame, I suppose, but the streak of meaningful meaninglessness spans most of his oeuvre.

All the same, he's considered a classic in both the literary and theatrical worlds. But has the theatrical world moved on? For whatever good it is to be considered "classic," it certainly doesn't mean that many companies actually stage him with any sort of regularity. In Edmonton it's been years since anyone's done a mainstage Beckett. (The closest is probably Theatre Network's spin-off Alias Godot of 2008, where Godot, it turned out, was being detained by the anti-terrorism squad, but the Citadel, our bastion of classic works, hasn't staged a Beckett since 1978). Outside the Fringe, there's been little else.

Which seems to be at least partly the appeal for Surreal SoReal Theatre's co-artistic directors to go through the effort of staging him now, as a kick off to the indie5 season as well as their own.

"Beckett is rarely ever done, and yet he's called a classic in theatre," explains Jon Lachlan Stewart. "And

14 // ARTS

I started wondering why he's called "One of the plays is six minutes, or you need and just do it, because everya classic if people in this day and age seven minutes, and it's 60 percent thing's laid out for you. But what's infind him pretty weird. The average of our budget in this show," Lachlan teresting to have different directors is person in this day and age has never Stewart notes, "because it requires to see what they'll do with that." heard of him. And so I know it might things flying in. Lots of crazy stuff seem weird to want to do this as a we've never done before."

That, in and of itself frames an interpiece of theatre, but I wanted to put Shorts hasn't been easy to program— esting question: what do we want from it to the test, in weird way. I wanted to Forcier notes, "Scheduling the reour classics? Classic presentations? bring it to say, 'Is this good? Do peohearsals was more like scheduling a Shakespeare's well beyond that at this ple like this, in a weird way?'" festival,"—but curiously, once Surreal point, Lachlan Stewart points out.

"It seems like most people at some SoReal put it on the calendar, they had You'd be lucky to find a historicallypoint study his plays, but you never reno shortage of artists eager to get intethered Bard production outside of a ally get to see them," Vincent Forcier volved, despite what the general avoidmajor festival, and even then, chances adds.

Together are slim. Everythey've assem"Beckett is rarely ever done, and yet he's called a classic in where else, it's bled eight of the Second World theatre ... And I started wondering why he's called a Beckett's shortest War version, or works—ranging the prairie verclassic if people in this day and age find him pretty weird." sion; a modern from the seconds long "Breath" to angle someone's the 40-minute "Krapp's Last Tape"— ance seems to suggest. crafted to reinvigorate the story, or to and given them to eight Edmonton Some are staging Beckett as the man use that well-known story's framework directors to assemble as they see fit. himself would've done (his scripts are to highlight something about its new And thus Beckett's Shorts are here. In filled with meticulous stage directions, setting. Yet Beckett's modern classic Edmonton. For the first, and possibly and his estate has a notorious reputastatus seems to be moreso as a literary last time. tion for refusing to grant production master than a staged playwright.

For this little experiment in minimalrights to anyone looking to take a work "We did a lot of research when we ism, Surreal's made an eclectic mix too far), while others are pushing the were putting this together. And a lot both of people involved and scripts material in different directions. of different essays say that Beckett’s chosen. Ainsley Hillyard, directing "I think the audience is going to get work is actually meant to be read," the movement-based "Quad " is new to make up their mind as to whether Forcier says. "and then a lot of difto theatre, coming from the dance Beckett wrote it right the first time, ferent essays say that it’s meant to be world as a choreographer. Michael or whether he can be interpreted," performed."

Kennard (of Mump & Smoot) and Forcier explains "Because I think with "I think Beckett is poetry," adds MFA-candidate Dave Horak are tackalmost any play, that's usually why Lachlan Stewart. I think Beckett's a ling the mimed "Act Without Words" I you get a director: to interpret the real man of words, and a real classic and II respectively, and Forcier himself play. Otherwise, you could just give Irish poet, you know? I think it's the directs "Play," wherein its three charthe play to a bunch of actors, and they same debate with poetry: when people acters are encased within giant urns, could just meet and do it. Every Beckread poems they're like 'well poetry's only their heads exposed to share their ett play, if you wanted to just be true to meant to be read. And then other grievances. it, you could meet up with the people people are like 'you don't get it until

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

you go to a reading and hear the music.' I agree with that, and I think it's the same with Beckett: that it's poetry that's meant to be heard. You hear the music and the rhythms.

And while there will definitely be some by-the-book Beckett in the production, Shorts might function most interestingly as a tentative litmus test, for deciding just how malleable Beckett is to new and inventive stagings. "[Seeing] Beckett's almost like seeing performance art, I feel," he continues.

"It's a way I can relate to it today. For somebody who doesn't see very much performance art, I think no matter what it is all the time—like it's usually in the middle of a party, or an art gallery—I can usually sit there and enjoy it for the experience, rather than trying to understand what I'm seeing. If it's a guy sitting naked in a suitcase covered in chocolate sauce, I can go 'wow, I've never seen that.' And I feel like if you come at this playwright like that, just going to see something kind of wild, a weird experience you go and be a part of , it just gives an in to this writing today. Because you won't understand it; he talked about himself, how if he knew the meaning of his plays, he'd tell you, but he doesn't. And it's solely like an experience, this visceral thing you sit down and take in." V Thu, Dec 2 – Sat, Dec 11 (7:30 pm) & Sat, Dec 4, Sat, Dec 11 (2 pm) Beckett's Shorts Presented by Surreal Soreal Theatre Varscona Theatre (10329 - 83 ave), $15 – $18

ARTIFACTS

THEATRE // PREVUE

Caught in limbo

Savage in Limbo explores faith of a non-religious kind Paul Blinov

// Ed Ellis

// paul@vueweekly.com

T

o call John Patrick Shanley prolific seems like an almost unfair snub to the veracity of his pen. He's written 24 stage plays and 10 films to his name, for which he's earned a pair of Academy awards, the Pulitzer prize, an Emmy, some Tonys and pretty much any other dramatic award that gets given out. And he's still producing work consistently, as though his life depended on it.

That last note might not be total embellishment, either: his works seem unified, not in content or style—ranging from the massively acclaimed, pragmatic Doubt to the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan-driven '90s comedy Joe Versus the Volcano—but by the way they subtly wrestle through some pretty big questions about life behind their drama, as if Shanley was working out his own feelings on life's big-ticket issues by putting pen to paper.

His one-act Savage In Limbo is a matter of faith. Not so much the religious kind of belief, moreso the crises of doubt that befall ordinary people, once they fall into the rhythm of adulthood and realize they're just going through the motions, alone, instead of finding any kind of upward emotional mobility or lasting bond.

"Certainly in this play, he's wrestling

Just another Savage night at the bar

with what it means to be alone in the world, and in a sense, on one level all of us are always alone in the world, and yet we have this desperate need to connect with other people. I think he's trying to understand that," explains director Kim McCaw. "I think he's trying to find where we find meaning in general. And, obviously for some people in some ways, religion can provide that and sometimes it doesn't, and I think he examines the points where faith or belief or security and anxiety all collide.

"In this play it's not overt, by any means. There's virtually nothing of overt religion in there. But it is about people who are going, 'I'm 32 years old

and I have to change.' It's more about trying to find a belief in themselves, in that case."

The five wayward inhabitants of Savage, all aged 32, have taken up shelter in a seedy Bronx bar for another night of drinking and dreaming on—a virgin hoping to lose that title, a saddened, promiscuous regular, a drunkard of a nun, a boastful macho man and the tough barkeep.

It's a set-up that seems ripe for some hard-life working class drama, but Savage has what McCaw calls a magical sensibility at work. Drinks, he points out, don't so much get poured as they

do appear, mixed, iced and ready. The rest of the play possesses a similarly dreamlike state of which Shanley gives no real explanation, though he's quizzically subtitled Savage in Limbo "A Concert Play," which McCaw has developed his own theories to explain.

"I decided what the playwright was suggesting is that this isn't just an ordinary play in which people live in a bar, and eat peanuts and all that," he says. "This is a bit more stylized than that: it really is about the words and about the ideas that are going on, and the problems that these people are trying to express, and the fears that they're wrestling with. And that there's a bit of a presentational quality to it that's not quite naturalistic.

"So we've been exploring that aspect of it; at times people almost deliver sections of the text [like] there's a sensibility of it being a song, or being a duet, or a kind of musical sensibility to it. " V

The Bard won the Walterdale's first-ever donor vote // Douglas Dollars

A pair of marriages go awry in Much Ado Bryan Saunders // bryanSAUNDERS@vueweekly.com

A

lways give the audience what they want. At least, that's the idea behind Walterdale Playhouse's first ever donor-voted show wherein donors to the Walterdale voted on the play they'd most like to see produced.

"Last year anybody who was a donor for Walterdale could vote for one of

three plays: Much Ado About Nothing was one, Hedda Gabler by Ibsen was another and The Seagull by Anton Chehkov was the third," director Anne Marie Szucs explains.

"So the artistic director Kristen Finlay asked me to be the director for this unknown show, and my fingers were crossed for Much Ado because I'm a big Shakespeare fan. I think there are a lot of Shakespeare buffs in our audience,

because they stuffed the ballot box for Much Ado!" she laughs.

Szucs adds that the fact that it was the only comedy on the ballot may have also had something to do with its overwhelming victory.

"I think people just need some lightness and some comedy and some fun, especially at this time of year; it's just insane: getting ready for Christmas and all of that. So, this is just a little bit of a break, some fun, you know?"

This idea of winter is also where Szucs drew her inspiration for some of the lighting and costume design elements of the play. While Much Ado is historically more of a spring-like play, Szucs thought that subtly adapting it to fit its December-time run would feel more genuine for the audience.

"So the theme that we're playing with is the idea of Winter Solstice, and the idea that there's great light in this play but there's also great dark, and these forces of light win out over the forces of dark.

In addition to this small change to the play, Szucs also cut quite a bit of text to make the play more fast-paced.

"There was some pushback in the be-

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

Mostly Water Presents: Metro Shorts / Sat, Dec 4 (9 pm)

Thu, Dec 2 – Sat, Dec 11 (7:30 pm) Thu, Dec 9 (12:30 pm) Savage in Limbo Written by John Patrick Shanley Directed by Kim McCaw Starring Tiffany Ayalik, Matt Brault, Jamie Cavanagh, Nicola Elbro, Samantha Hill Timms Centre (87 Ave & 112 St) $10 – $20

THEATRE // PREVUE

Much ado about winter

Jack and the Beanstalk / Fri, Dec 3; Sat, Dec 4; Fri, Dec 10; Sat, Dec 11 (7 pm) Sat, Dec 4; Sun, Dec 5; Sat, Dec 11; Sun, Dec 12 (2 pm) Sure, it's a pretty well-known fable. But in the hands of Alberta Opera Musical Theatre for Young People, Jack and the Beanstalk is also a Sterling-winning adaptation that Fringe Theatre Adventures is using to kicking off their family series. Jack, his mother, some magic beans and a couple of Giants get coloured in new dimensions with song and live piano accompaniment. Only time and attendance will tell if the cow sold for beans gets his big exit number. (Westbury Theatre (10330 - 84 Ave), $15 – $18)

ginning from a lot of the Shakespeare purists in the cast, but my rationale is that there is so, so much repetition built into Shakespeare's plays. As an audience member, that's when I start to tune out, and I don't want my audiences to tune out, so that's my selfish bias there."

That said, even without these edits Much Ado is already one of Shakespeare's most accessible plays. As Szucs notes, the play is full of jokes and is written almost entirely in conversational English that anybody can understand.

"It causes me to stop quite a bit and realize that life really is 'much ado about nothing,'" she says. "We have so much side drama in our day-to-day life, and you just have to let it go, because it is much ado about nothing. We spend so much of our energy on nothing.

"Instead of doing that and being stressed out about it, why not come out and see this play instead?" V Thu, Dec 2 – Sat, Dec 4, Thu, Dec 7 – Sat, Dec 11 (8 pm); Sun, Dec 5 (2 pm) Much Ado About Nothing Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Anne Marie Szucs Starring Rob Johnstone, Murray Cullen, Patrick Errington, Justin Deveau, Dale Wilson, Leah Paterson, Erika Conway Walterdale Playhouse (10322 - 83 Ave),

The sketch/film/comedy types over at Mostly Water Theatre have been hosting these short film screenings for a few seasons: they're battles of filmmaking wits, and Saturday marks round two of five. Local filmmakers make their films, Mostly Water screen them at the Metro and the assembled audience votes in conjunction with some judges, with the nightly winners taking home $100 for their troubles. The culmulative winners take home a big prize at the end of the season, but let's not get ahead of ourselves: on Saturday night, their triple-digit financial fates are in your hands. (Citadel Theatre, 9828 - 101A Ave) Latitude 53: The Fine Art of Schmoozy / Sat, Dec 4 (8 pm) Schmoozing is indeed a delicate art, one that artist-run centre Latitude 53 has long ago mastered.

Now in its 12th annual fundraiser, a night of silent art auctioning and beverage imbibing. For proof, look no further than the theme: visual imagery inspired by Mad Men, with art up for bidding from the classy likes of Raymond Biesinger and Alexa Mietz (among many more).

Bust out your best Don Draper attire and support some art like a real schmoozer should.

(Latitude 53 (10248 – 106 St), $15 [members], $25 [non-members) –Paul Blinov

$12 – $16

ARTS // 15

DANCE // PREVUE

Dance meets punk

Boom! opens Mile Zero Dance's Salon season // Shinya Ochida

Boom! isn't your usual dance show Fawnda Mithrush // fawnda@vueweekly.com

W

ith a stage persona like "KO," it comes as a surprise when choreographer Kathy Ochoa describes herself as a "nerdy lady."

This September, the intrepid traveller returned to Edmonton from a residency in Marseilles, France, where she studied and performed impromptu shows with a group of rotating artists—her stories from the trip sound something like a cross between the 1980s Vancouver punk scene and the set of a Jean Luc Godard film.

It was these experiences, she says, that informed how she curated the line-up for Mile Zero Dance's first salon of the season, BOOM!. When she returned, she brought with her the spirit of entrée libre, a key to the mentality of the artists living in Marseilles.

"I sort of went through this total so-

cialist revolution while I was there.

Being an artist in Alberta, I am totally a capitalist, and I had no idea how much I really was until I went there and realized, 'OK, so they share everything. OK, there's no consumerism.'

Because of that and the sense of how free expression was, that's really what inspired me," Ochoa says.

"I totally love the spirit of people just doing it: getting together and collaborating. To me the work they were doing in Marseilles was a total decentralizing of power. Instead of going to some sort of board or granting body on the top of our power structure to try and get money or resources, people are just getting together and collectively creating. The punk spirit is totally that you don't have to have a degree, you don't have to even know how to play your instrument— you don't have to have anything backing you up saying that you can do this, it's just you are doing it."

Armed with a desire to blast everyone with a taste of this newfound punk spirit, Ochoa sought out a group of performers in town that could help do just that.

For BOOM!, she's lined up physical theatre artist Richard Lee, improvisational dance from Jen Mesh, a "loud" band put together from a mix of local musicians and, for the first time ever in a Mile Zero Salon, a group of Pecha Kucha speakers.

"When I first tried to find people who would speak about Pecha Kucha, they asked, 'Does this have anything to do

16 // ARTS

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

with dance?' And that's a little bit of a beef of mine [about] people's image of dance. For me dance is anything to do with the human body and how we organize the body in time and space and in our relationships. Dance artists in communities like New York are very conscious of how they are creating art and the power structures that are happening, and how that is all totally tied into what's happening socially in contemporary society. We're all having the same conversation, it doesn't matter what genre we're in."

It's here where the "KO" really starts to shine through in Ochoa's spirit: as the conversation wraps up, it becomes clear that she's not particularly interested in maintaining any notions of "same old" creativity.

"I find that when I go to a dance performance or an environmental talk or a certain concert, often it's so much people preaching to the converted, and we're always going to the same places," she says. "I wanted to mix that up, and mix up who's going to see what. That's what I wanted to do with this: get a whole bunch of different people in the room so we can have a conversation about how they are expressing themselves." V Sat, Dec 4 (8 pm) BOOM! Curated by Kathy Ochoa Catalyst Theatre, (8529 Gateway Boulevard), $10 – $15

THEATRE // PREVUE

Brand new Scrooge

Richard McMillan dons the miserly top hat for A Christmas Carol Paul Blinov // paul@vueweekly.com

I

t's the biggest change to A Christmas Carol since it first became a seasonal staple 10 years ago.

After a decade of reprisals (and even share the role with John Wright for alternating dates the last few years), Tom Wood won't be donning the top hat of Scrooge for the Citadel's 11th incarnation of the Dickens classic. The character's miserly cap will be perched on a brand new wrinkled scowl.

"I guess I found out about five months ago," explains Richard McMillan, the Ontario-born actor who, by his own admission, has some pretty big shoes to fill.

"I think Tom came to the decision that he wanted to hang his top hat up. And I understand; it's an exhausting role," he says, "but it's truly a remarkable role too."

McMillan was the hand-picked to take over by Wood and director Bob Baker.

(And, for the record, Wright will continue to play Scrooge on some shows). He's not an unfamiliar face to the Citadel stage: McMillan was most recently in town for the 2007 production of Paul Ledoux and David Young's Fire!, but looking farther into the past, he saw a fair amount of work at the theatre in the '80s, trodding the boards in Three Men on a Horse, The

Miser, A Flea in Her Ear, Henry V, King Lear, Talking Dirty and Dracula.

McMillan hadn't seen the Citadel's version of Scrooges' overnight transfor-

lights—which, beyond the production itself, speaks to the still-universal themes Dickens' was ruminating on more than 150 years ago.

"But I really think that when Dickens

I think Tom came to the decision that he wanted to hang his top hat up. And I understand; it's an exhausting role ... but it's truly a remarkable role too. mation from curmudgeon to kindly old man (though he's watched a recording of Wood's performance). But his experience in taking over the role hasn't been weighed down by any too-great expectations.

"I think the most wonderful thing about it was, when I found out that I had the role, John Wright sent me an email," McMillan explains, "and he said 'Rick, this is a gift. It's a truly beautiful show. And that was the first time I heard the word 'gift' used in terms of the show. And then from other actors, as soon as we started rehearsing, that's the common word that came up."

McMillan himself calls it a world class production, and Edmonton audiences have, for the past 10 years, wholeheartedly agreed. It's as much a local x-mas tradition as shovelling the walk and icicle

wrote this piece, he was like Shakespeare: he understood the human condition probably better than anyone else in the world as far as being a playwright," McMillan says. "Dickens and I think Shakespeare are in the same class. And because of the brilliance of the writing, it's transcended time to be ... it's as appropriate now as it was in the beginning, because it talks about human nature in its essential form.

And I think that's why it connects." V Until Thu, Dec 23 A Christmas Carol Adapted by Tom Wood Directed by Bob Baker Starring Richard McMillan, John Wright, Julien Arnold, April Banigan Citadel Theatre (9828 - 101A Ave) $62 – $82

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

ARTS // 17

COMMENT >> BOOKS

Painful insights

The Mind's Eye surprisingly personal In a sense, famed septuagenarian stories of neurological disorders afAnglo-American neurologist and stofiliated with the listening to or producryteller Oliver Sacks' The Mind's tion of music, while The Mind's Eye Eye (Knopf, $32) picks up right ropes together its varied narwhere his earlier Musicophratives within the theme of elia left off: the new book's sight—and, most especially, first story concerns a conthe absence of sight, how m .co weekly e cert pianist who one day those of us who know what u v @ cotch discovers that she can no hops it is to see clearly, to see in f e s o J longer read music, a puzzling three dimensions, to be able Braun to understand what we see, and handicap that represents only the first of many similar impairto be able to hold visual images in ments related to the interpretation of our minds, cope with the loss of one symbols and objects in everyday life. or all of these abilities. We all wonder These two books initially appear to be sometimes about sound and vision, almost designed as a diptych, employand these books, written in Sacks' acing fairly similar devices of assembly: cessible, endlessly curious, imminently Musicophelia finds its unity in real-life compassionate prose, feed the imagina-

HOP H C SCOT

tion's hunger for stories that enlighten us about the how our senses function, while somehow simultaneously making the myriad ways these senses are heightened, subverted or lost only more deliciously shrouded in mystery.

The key difference between these books is that, while nothing Sacks writes is ever less than fascinating, the earlier book benefited from feeling like a single essay with multiple facets all leading up to one or two major ideas. Musicophelia was also bound by its interrogation of the phenomenon of what is for many of us the greatest art. Music arguably plays a singular role in our lives, the one least yielding to dissection and intellectualization. The first half of this new book feels a little looser by contrast, moving through disparate case studies that are interesting—and sometimes alarming— yet don't quite build toward something especially meaty on a piece-by-piece

basis. It's only in the second half of The Mind's Eye that we see emerge a truly extraordinary entry in Sacks' immense body of literary work. What makes it extraordinary is the degree to which it comes close to memoir.

Though Sacks has written memoir before, he's most famous for telling other peoples'—ie: his patients'—stories. The most satisfying parts of The Mind's Eye are very personal, very much about Oliver Sacks. He reveals firstly that he's one of many people who suffer from faceblindness, or the inability to recognize faces: he has people wear name tags to his birthday parties; he once wrote a book about his uncle and actually put a photograph of the wrong uncle on the cover; and he occasionally stops by windows to groom his beard, only to realize that it isn't his reflection he's standing before but rather some bearded dude on the other side of the window who's wondering why this weirdo is combing

his beard in front of him.

Sacks also reveals that he's been suffering for several years now with ocular cancer, an ailment that's rendered this life-long lover of stereoscopic devices—he belongs to a club and everything—unable to see the world in depth, and struggling to come to terms with the potential loss of vision altogether. In the book's final essay he searches through world literature for testimonies that might grant him hope as to our endurance in the face of encroaching blindness. Yet what hope he finds lies not in any consensus as to how blindness is dealt with but just how radically different each person's coping methods are from one and other. It's diversity and particularity of experience that imbues this essay with its sense of inspiration, and it's a pleasure to find Sacks generating this particularly from personal experience, however painful it might sometimes be. V

BOOK // REVUE

A realistic self-help book How Should a Person Be? skirts fact and fiction Michael Hingston // MICHAELHINGSTON@vueweekly.com

T

here are two basic types of books that intentionally play around with genre and categorization: those that muddy the waters for literary purposes, and those for purely financial ones. Are you trying to make an artistic point about how arbitrary and misleading our systems of taxonomy are? Or are you just trying to pass off the kind of book you wrote as that which you wish you'd written, siphoning some of that other genre's virtues in the process?

A prime example of the latter is someone like James Frey, who, after failing to sell his novel A Million Little Pieces, rebranded it as a memoir and tried again, with far better luck (obviously). The book became a runaway success—until Frey was ceremoniously depantsed by Oprah in 2006.

But don't let these charlatans sour you on the whole idea of blurring the line between truth and fiction. When done for the right reasons, this kind of writing can be provocative and almost thrillingly alive—you tiptoe from page to page, feeling at any minute as though the ground might give way beneath you. When the truth of everything is uncertain, you can't take anything for granted.

Sheila Heti's new novel, How Should a Person Be?, is, happily, the noble type of genre muddle. It follows a Toronto-based writer named Sheila as she struggles in all kinds of ways: to finish writing a play, to maintain and sometimes repair her social relationships, and to find a way to live properly—to find out how a person should be in the world.

"I noticed the way people dressed," Sheila says in the opening pages, "the way they treated their lovers—in everyone, there was something to admire. You can admire anyone for being themselves.

18 // ARTS

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

How Should a Person Be? is the good kind of genre muddle

It's hard not to, when everyone's so good at it." The trouble, of course, is that there are billions of prototypes to choose from, and most of them tend to contradict one another. Sheila dryly imagines a future for herself living "a simple life, in a simple place, where there's only one example of everything."

How Should a Person Be? is demanding and accessible at the same time, not to mention utterly beguiling. You want to rattle around inside the real-life Heti's head long after the pages go blank. I imagine this book will net her a disproportionate number of new Facebook friends and followers on Twitter. But, once again, that nagging question rears its head: Is it real?

Honestly, I'm not all that interested in the answer. The ambiguity is the thing. It's exciting, in almost a voyeuristic sense, to know that Heti might be using this thinnest of fictional veils to confess so many intimate details—among them stuff about sex and blowjobs, but also far more elemental neuroses, such as her fear that she's the least accomplished person in her group of friends. A bevy of found materials, including taped conversations and emails reprinted in their entirety, dare

the reader into assuming it's all culled straight from Heti's inbox and filing cabinet. Then again, you can't quite make that assumption, can you? It's in the fiction section, after all ...

All of this constant head-scratching is a useful exercise, though, because it leads to the same road Sheila wanders along—in search of selfhood, and a sturdy identity that won't blow away at the first breeze.

The book's biggest shortcoming, as it were, is that this road turns out to be a cul-desac. Coming out of it, I felt like my brains were 10 times further scrambled than they were going in. (Though part of that was probably just separation anxiety at leaving Heti's shrewd inner monologue behind.)

Or maybe the problem really lies in our unconscious expectation that a character's quest for such huge answers will come so easily to fruition. Life tends to be a life-long project, and the fact is that big, symbolic gestures—taking an all-night bus ride to New York, trying to reinvent one's self overnight as a hair stylist— don't always fix our problems as tidily as we might hope.

In that sense, How Should a Person Be? emerges as part of an entirely different genre: the realistic self-help book. You might not want to follow in Sheila's footsteps, but tagging along on her quixotic mission will be as useful as anything else you're likely to read this year.

Or, as she explained in an email when I asked her about all of this, "[A self-help book] doesn't end when you finish reading it. That's when it begins; when you begin to live differently as a result of having read it." V Now Available How Should a Person Be?

By Sheila Heti House of Anansi 288 pp, $29.95.

ARTS WEEKLY FAX YOUR FREE LISTINGS TO 780.426.2889 OR EMAIL LISTINGS@VUEWEEKLY.COM DEADLINE: FRIDAY AT 3pm

DANCE

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9Zgja_afYd N]l]jYfk <akhdYq ?a^l K`gh >af_]j o]Ynaf_ Yf\ kYk` \akhdYq Zq ;]dafY Dgq]j Ongoing MILDWOOD GALLERY ,*.$ ..--%)/0 Kl E]d @]Yl`$ BgYf @]Yd]q$ >jYf @]Yl`$ DYjjYaf] GZ]j_$ L]jjq C]`g]$ <Yjd]f] 9\Yek$ KYf\q ;jgkk Yf\ Na[lgjaY$ Hgll]jq Zq FYZgjg CmZg Yf\ Na[lgj @Yjjakgf Ongoing MISERICORDIA HOSPITAL ).1,(%0/ 9n] 9jlogjck Zq e]eZ]jk g^ l`] =\egflgf 9jl ;dmZ Dec 4-Jan 29 MULTICULTURAL CENTRE PUBLIC ART GALLERY (MCPAG) -,))%-) Kl$ Klgfq HdYaf /0(&1.+&11+- HYaflaf_k Yf\ \jYoaf_k Zq EYjq Bgq[]3 Dec 3-Jan 113 gh]faf_ j][]hlagf2 Dec 5 Dining Room Gallery2 HYafl% af_k Zq <Yh`f] ;gl]3 until Jan 6 MUSÉE HÉRITAGE MUSEUM - Kl 9ff] Kl$ Kl 9dZ]jl /0(&,-1&)-*0 PATTERNS IN GLASS2 E lak <]ka_f af :]Y\k3 until Jun 2011 NAESS GALLERY�Paint Spot )((+*%0) 9n] /0(&,+*&(*,( LANDSCAPES OF ALBERTA2 HYaflaf_k Zq FYlYda] K`]o[`mc%HYj]3 through Dec3 gh]faf_ j][]hlagf2 Dec 4$ *%,he Free art demos2 KYl ))Ye gj *he2 ?dYkk Yf\ Lad] HYaflaf_ gf Dec 4 PETER ROBERTSON GALLERY )*+(, BYkh]j 9n] /0(&,--&/,/1 GHOST IN THE MACHINE2 9jlogjck Zq HYmd :]jf`Yj\l ?9L@=J JMEHD= >D=P 9F< >GD<2 9jlogjck Zq K[gll ;meZ]jdYf\ PROFILES GALLERY�St Albert )1 H]jjgf Kl$ Kl 9dZ]jl /0(&,.(&,+)( VESSELS2 ;]jYea[k Yf\ hYaflaf_k Zq ;Yf\a[] Jaf_$ Eaf\q 9f\j]ok$ Kmr]ll] Cfm\k]f$ Ha]jj] :YlYaddYj\$ Yf\ EYjq KoYaf3 Dec 2-Jan 293 gh]faf_ j][]hlagf2 Dec 3$ .%1he 9jlakl 9l @]Yjl2 <jgh%af Yjl ^gj Y\mdlk3 Dec 11$ *%,he3 )* PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES OF ALBERTA 0--- Jgh]j J\ /0(&,*/&)/-( 9j[`anYd J][gj\k Yf\ ;daeYl] ;`Yf_] =p`aZal Until Dec 18 RED DEER COLLEGE NakmYd 9jl <hl$ >gmj ;]flj]k :d\_ FAREWELL RECEPTION: 9jlogjck Zq naklalaf_ Yjlaklk DYmj]f ;god]k Yf\ Kl]h`Yfa] @Yf]k Through Dec Gh]faf_ j][]hlagf2 Dec 3$ +%,2+(he RED DEER MUSEUM ,-*-%,/9 9n]$ J]\ <]]j ,(+&+(1&0,(- GLASS 2009: 9jlogjck ^jge l`] [gdd][lagf g^ l`] 9dZ]jlY >gmf\Ylagf ^gj l`] 9jlk TOP SECRET: MISSION TOY2 mflad Jan 9 MAGNIFICENT TOYS2 until Jan 9 BERT FORS: FqY :Y[c]fºl`] F]o DYf\2 until Jan 9 ALBERTA FARM WOMEN2 HgjljYalk g^ >Yje Oge]f Zq <Yof KYmf\]jk <Y`d FARM FRAGMENTS2 9jlogjck Zq B]Yf H]\]jkgf O] Yj] E9?khYjck E9?khYjck hYjla[ahYflk!

ROYAL ALBERTA MUSEUM )*0,-%)(* 9n] /0(&,-+&1)(( WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR3 until Jan 9 THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ2 DYj_]j l`Yf da^] hgh%mh Zggc ]p`aZalagf3 until Jan 2 SCOTT GALLERY )(,))%)*, Kl /0(&,00&+.)1 CHRISTMAS TREASURES2 HYaflaf_k Zq _Ydd]jq Yjlaklk Until Dec 23 SELFRIDGE STUDIO 10,,%00 9n] /0(&,+1&1*1. Oafl]j gh]f `gmk] Dec 4-53 Dec 11-12$ ))Ye%-he SIDESHOW GALLERY 1.(1%0* 9n] /0(&,++&),+( MENAGERIE2 ?jgmh ]p`aZalagf g^ keYdd Y^^gj\YZd] Yjlogjck Until Jan 8 SNAP GALLERY )()*+%)*) Kl PRINT AFFAIR 2010: WELCOME TO THE MAGIC FACTORY SPRUCE GROVE GALLERY E]d[gj ;mdlmjYd ;]flj]$ +-%- 9n]$ Khjm[] ?jgn] /0(&1.*&(.., ;`jakleYk \][gjYlagfk3 until Dec 23 SUN AND MOON VISIONARIES GALLERY <gfYd\ Jgkk K[`ggd$ )()*-%1/ 9n] /0(&,++&+(1/ TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS ART and CRAFT SALE2 K`go[Ykaf_ 9Zgja_afYd Yf\ E]lak Yjl$ [jY^lk$ emka[ Yf\ ^gg\ Dec 4-5$ )(Ye%.he TELUS WORLD OF SCIENCE ))*))%),* Kl /0(&,-)&++,, Inventor’s Workshop2 \Yadq$ )*2+(%,2+(he WHEELS, WINGS AND WAVES-A LEGO® WORLD OF TRANSPORTATION Mflad Jan 2 TU GALLERY )(/)0%)*, Kl LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON2 9jl% ogjc Zq QYj\d]q Yf\ Khq\]j Bgf]k3 af e]egjq g^ EYjq$ hYjl g^ l`] hjg[]]\k ^jge kYd]k g^ ogjck lg 9dr`]ae]j k Kg[a]lq g^ 9dZ]jlY Yf\ Fgjl` O]kl L]jjalgja]k Until Dec 14 U OF A MUSEUMS’ GALLERY A L]dmk ;]flj]$ 0/ 9n]$ ))) Kl POLAR IMPACT CONVERSATIONS2 H]jkh][lan]k gf Fgjl`]jf H]ghd]k Yf\ L`]aj =fnajgf% e]flk2 k]ja]k g^ [gfn]jkYlagfk2 Dec 9$ /%0he3 af l`] L]dmk ;]flj] 9m\algjame PIONEERING SPIRITS2 =eadq ;Yjj$ l`] ?jgmh g^ K]n]f Yf\ l`] Mfan]jkalq g^ 9dZ]jlY3 jYj]dq%k]]f =eadq ;Yjj Yf\ ?jgmh g^ K]n]f

Yjlogjc3 until Dec 11 =\egflgf hj]ea]j] l`] Çde Winds of Heaven: Emily Carr, Carvers, and the Spirits of the Forest3 Dec 6$ /2+(he VAAA GALLERY +j\ >d$ )(*)-%))* Kl /0(&,*)&)/+) PERSONA2 9jlogjck Zq <]ZjY :Y[`eYf Keal` Yf\ JgpYff] <ja]\a_]j3 until Dec 18 VAAA BAY: N999 ^mf\jYak]j2 HYaflaf_k Yf\ al]ek l`Yl [Yf Z] Za\ gf until Dec 163 =__fg_ Af L`] 9^l]jfggf2 Dec 4$ )*%,he3 Ea\ Oafl]j Emdd]\ Oaf]2 Dec 10$ ,%/he VASA GALLERY ^gje]jdq Klm\ag ?Ydd]jq! )) H]jjgf Kl$ Kl 9dZ]jl /0(&,.(&-11+ WET PAINT: HYaflaf_k Zq N9K9 Yjlaklk Dec 3-24 VELVET OLIVE�Red Deer ,1*0 Jgkk Kl CANCIAS PERDIDOS2 9jlogjck Zq Lj]flgf D]Y[` Through Dec Gh]faf_ j][]hlagf2 Dec 3$ ,he%[dgkaf_ WEST END GALLERY )*+(0 BYkh]j 9n] /0(&,00&,01* 9jlogjck Zq ;Yjgd] 9jfklgf 0 Until Dec 9 WUNDERBAR 0)*(%)() Kl /0(&,+.&**0.

SASQUATCH PHOTOGRAPHIC ART SHOW: Ogjck Zq :jaYf RY`gjg\famc$ L]jjq Keal`$ LjY[q G¿;Ye]jY$ Bg`f 9jekljgf_$ Kl]n]f L]]mok]f$ :jY\^gj\ H]lla_j]o º L`] @mf_jq =q] Until Dec 3$ gh]f Yl ,he \Yadq

LITERARY AUDREYS BOOKS )(/(* BYkh]j 9n] /0(&,*+&+,0/ Bg[]dqf :jgof$ l`] f]o Ojal]j%af%J]ka\]f[] Yl 9m\j]qk :ggck ]n]jq Lm] Yf\ O]\ *%-he KYf\a Ja[`Yj\ oal` `]j Zggc$ Eating Forward3 Dec 2$ )*%)he H]l]j Kadn]j% klgf] oal` `ak Zggc$ World's Greenest Oil: Turning the Oil Sands from Black to Green; Dec 2$ ,%.he BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ 1.*,%/. 9n] /0(&,.1&0/-- Klgjq KdYe2 *f\ O]\ ]Y[` egfl` ROUGE LOUNGE )()))%))/ Kl /0(&1(*&-1(( Hg]ljq ]n]jq Lm] oal` =\egflgf k dg[Yd hg]lk ROSIE’S BAR )(,/-%0( 9n] KLGJQ ;9>z2 A Gift To Last2 L`] )kl L`m g^ l`] egfl` mflad Bmf3 gh]f ea[ ghhgjlmfalq Dec 2$ /%1he .

STANLEY A. MILNER LIBRARY / Kaj Oafklgf ;`mj[`add Ki /0(&,1.&/((( Centre for Reading2 >jge :ggck lg >ade3 ]n]jq >ja$ *he Teen Movie Scene2 egna] [dmZ ^gj l]]fk3 )kl Yf\ +j\ L`m ]n]jq egfl` Centennial Rm2 Lak¿ l`] K]Ykgf lg Z] J]Y\af_2 :ggc dgn]jk ;`jakleYk kYd] `gkl]\ Zq l`] Ojal]jk ?mad\ g^ 9dZ]jlY O?9!3 ^]Ylmjaf_ Yml`gjk$ Zggc j]Y\af_k$ Yf\ Zggc ka_faf_k Dec 4$ )*%-he STRATHCONA COUNTY LIBRARY ,() >]klanYd DYf]$ ;geemfalq ;]flj]$ K`]jogg\ HYjc Ogj\k af l`] HYjc :ggc KYd] Yf\ >Yaj2 How I Shot My Brother, Leads to Christmas Chaos$ oal` ojal]j CYjY <gfY\l Dec 4$ )%he >j]] T.A.L.E.S. MONTHLY MEETING AND TEL� LAROUND KlYfd]q Eadf]j DaZjYjq$ Je /$ . >d /0(&1+*&,,(1 L]dd klgja]k gj [ge] lg dakl]f *f\ >ja g^ l`] egfl` Until Jun 2011$ /%1he >j]] T.A.L.E.S. STORY CAFÉ Jgka]¿k :Yj$ )(,/-%0( 9n] /0(&1+*&,,(1 Gh]f Eac] ghhgjlmfalq )kl L`m ]Y[` egfl`$ /he .

UPPER CRUST CAFÉ )(1(1%0. 9n] /0(&,**&0)/, L`] Hg]lk¿ @Yn]f O]]cdq J]Y\af_ K]ja]k2 ]n]jq Egf$ /he hj]k]fl]\ Zq l`] Kljgdd g^ Hg]lk Kg[a]lq >]Ylmjaf_ khgc]f ogj\ Yjlaklk @Yfc :aff]eY$ 9flgf ;Yhja$ JYf\q Cg`Yf$ Dq\aY H]l]jk$ Yf\ Bmda] JgZafkgf3 Dec 63 - ]Y[`

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

THEATRE

AN ELVIS CHRISTMAS <go$ K`]dd L`]Ylj]$ 0/((%0, Kl$ >gjl KYkcYl[`]oYf KlYjjaf_ Ogjd\ ;`Yehagf =dnak$ Jgq D]:dYf[ Dec 3$ /2+(he THE ASH GIRL ;gf[gj\aY Mfan]jkalq ;gdd]_]$ JgZ]jl L]_d]j 9m\algjame$ /+ Kl$ ))) 9n] /0(&,/1&1*/( BECKETT’S SHORTS: A STUDY OF LITERARY GE� NIUS NYjk[gfY L`]Ylj]$ )(+*1%0+ 9n] Kmjj]Yd KgJ]Yd L`]Ylj]& :q KYem]d :][c]ll$ \aj][l]\ Zq faf] =\egflgf \aj][lgjk Dec 2-12$ /2+(he3 fg k`go <][ . )0 Y\mdl!' )- klm\]fl'Yjlakl'k]fagj! Yl LAP gf l`] KimYj] CHIMPROV NYjk[gfY L`]Ylj]$ )(+*1%0+ 9n] =n]jq KYl ))he fg k`go gf l`] dYkl KYl g^ l`] egfl`! )(' - @a_` K[`ggd Klm\]flk! Yl LAP gf l`] KimYj]$ \ggj A CHRISTMAS CAROL ;alY\]d EY[dYZ L`]Ylj]$ 10*0% )()9 9n] /0(&,*-&)0*( Lge Ogg\¿k Y\YhlYlagf g^ ;`Yjd]k <a[c]fk¿ [dYkka[ lYd] Until Dec 23 DIE�NASTY NYjk[gfY L`]Ylj]$ )(+*1%0+ 9n] /0(&,++&++11 Dan] aehjgnak]\ kgYh gh]jY =n]jq Egf$ /2+(he3 mflad May 30 DISNEY HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL�ONSTAGE 9j\]f L`]Ylj]$ - Kl 9ff] Kl$ Kl 9dZ]jl /0(&,-1&)-,* Kl 9dZ]jl ;`ad\j]f¿k L`]Ylj] Until Dec 5 La[c]lk Yl La[c]lEYkl]j FALL FESTIVAL OF SCENES AND ONE ACTS ;gf% [gj\aY Mfan]jkalq ;gdd]_] g^ 9dZ]jlY L]_d]j 9m\algjame$ /)*0 9\Y :gmd]nYj\ /0(&,/1&1*.1 Dec 3-4$ /2+(he3 Dec 5$ *he HYq%o`Yl%qgm%[Yf HARD CORE: LOGO Jgpq L`]Ylj]$ )(/(0%)*, Kl /0(&,-+&*,,( Ogjd\ hj]ea]j] hj]k]fl]\ Zq L`]Ylj] F]logjc$ \aj][l]\ Zq :jY\d]q Egkk$ Y\Yhl]\ Zq Ea[`Y]d K[`gdYj$ Bj gja_afYd emka[ Zq Bg] ¼K`al`]Y\½ C]al`]dq!

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SAVAGE IN LIMBO Laeek ;]flj]$ ))* Kl$ 0/ 9n] M g^ 9 Klm\ag L`]Ylj] Zq Bg`f HYlja[c K`Yfd]q Until Dec 11$ /2+(he$ Dec 9$ )*2+(3 ka_f dYf_mY_] afl]jhj]lYlagf2 Dec 4$ /2+(he -% *( Yl LAP gf l`] KimYj] THE SUPER GROOVY 70'S PART 2: KEEP ON TRUCKIN' EYqÇ]d\ <aff]j L`]Ylj]$ )..)-%)(1 9n] /0(&,0+&,(-) Ojall]f Yf\ [gehad]\ Zq Oadd EYjck Until Feb 6 THEATRESPORTS NYjk[gfY L`]Ylj]$ )(+*1%0+ 9n] JYha\ >aj] L`]Ylj] k +(l` 9ffan]jkYjq =\alagf =n]jq >ja Yl ))he )( Yl LAP gf l`] KimYj]$ \ggj TOM JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM BmZadYlagfk <aff]j L` lj]$ 000*%)/( Kl /0(&,0,&*,*, Until Jan 223 k]Ylaf_2 O]\%KYl2 .2)-%.2,(he3 Kmf2 -he THE VIP KID’S SHOW NYjk[gfY L`]Ylj]$ )(+*1%0+ 9n] >gj [`ad\j]f o`]j] qgmf_ Yf\ gd\ [Yf ]fbgq Y nYja]lq$ aehjgn Yf\ hmhh]l k`go Dec 11, 18$ ))Ye -

ARTS // 19

FILM

"You'll say it's a shame that Laughton never directed again, yet when someone does it so perfectly once perhaps that's enough."

DVD DETECTIVE Online AT VUEWEEKLY.COM

A real Nowhere Boy

Aaron Johnson embodies a young John Lennon Josef Braun // josef@vueweekly.com

A

dapted by scenarist Matt Greenhalgh from the memoir by John Lennon's sister, Julia Baird, Nowhere Boy chronicles the point in Lennon's adolescence when he was briefly reunited with his mother, from whom he seems to have inherited both his musical instincts and his wild side, after spending his life thus far being raised by his very buttoned-down aunt and uncle. The directorial debut of Sam Taylor-Wood, this is a biopic that wisely limits its biographical scope, covering only the time leading up to Hamburg and the Beatles and to what would finally be a heavily documented celebrity existence.

Nowhere Boy inhabits a more intimate space within a spectacular life, and benefits from not feeling pressured to imitate or recreate well-known history.

At its most compelling and provocative, Nowhere Boy draws connections between sexual desire and the need for maternal love, between barely containable youthful angst and release through joyous expression. The wounds Lennon bears from his troubled and confusing familial situation, and most especially the two deaths that occur over the course of Nowhere Boy, pulsate, raw and untreated, and are channeled so quickly into making music—not to mention a nasty fit of rage or two—that what emerges is a story where pain becomes the catalyst for ambition. It's thrilling at times, more conventionally melodramatic at others. The music is charged, the sex is intriguing and the big, mightily dramaturged scenes of confrontation are tolerable, largely because the performances are so bold and particular—the aunt is played by Kristen Scott Thomas, the mother by Anne-Marie Duff.

Actor Aaron Johnson, seen earlier this year as the titular self-made super hero in Kick-Ass, is clearly older than the 15 years Lennon is meant to be at the start of Nowhere Boy—Thomas Brodie Sangster's Paul McCartney looks prepubescent next to him—but his grasp of the character's tumultuous inner life could hardly feel more immediate. In reality, Johnson, at the ripe age of 20, is already a father. He began a relationship with Taylor-Wood during the making of Nowhere Boy in 2009, and the couple now share a baby daughter. So Johnson is clearly somewhere, and clearly no longer a boy, yet the film's psychological terrain isn't too far behind him, as is evidenced in his performance.

I met with Johnson and Taylor-Wood— separately, back-to-back, in different rooms of the same hotel—when they were making the rounds to promote Nowhere Boy's belated North American premiere. Johnson seemed weary from a full day of press, pacing the room like a caged cat, but settled down and became quite

20 // FILM

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

John Lennon, just lettin' it be

articulate about his work on the film once our conversation started. "It's that moment in your life when you're just starting to understand things and come into your own," Johnson says, of the period covered in the film. "I didn't have the same issues he did—my parents are together—but I found it easy to relate to John's sense of abandonment, maybe because I started working at such a young age. I'd leave home for six months and spend time with another family, and when that was done that was it. I was cut-off."

For Johnson, the biggest challenge in embodying Lennon was never one of impersonation but of vulnerability, how to tackle this young man so full of hurt and anger but who typically clouded his feelings behind ironic, sometimes bullying humour. "John was quoted once as saying that there was a moment when he was with his mother, when he felt her brush past him, and he said, 'I knew I could have had her.' She caught the other boys' eyes, and I think that drove him fucking mad, even if he never came out and said it. He wanted her for himself, because he didn't get to have her, in that other sense of the word, for the first 15 years of his life. She was eccentric and wonderful, so out there and fucking cool.

And then, before they had a chance to really develop, she was gone again."

Taylor-Wood began her career as a photobased artist. In 1993 she and artist Henry Bond—who's also the author of Lacan at the Scene, which was the subject of Hopscotch earlier this year—made a very eerie and, as it turns out, prescient piece entitled 26 October 1993, a recreation of the famous Annie Lebovitz photo of Lennon and Yoko Ono taken only hours before Lennon's assassination. Morbid as that work would seem, Taylor-Wood is herself a delightful presence, cheerful and seemingly renewed as an artist for having entered into the busy world of feature films after two decades working in more containable media.

"The bizarre thing is that I'd completely forgotten about that piece until it was brought up in an interview," Taylor-Wood

says of 26 October 1993. "I don't remember what drove us to make it. Must have been high concept in there somewhere, but God knows what it was. I guess there's a running interest in male vulnerability in my work, so maybe it's just that."

Taylor-Wood claims she had no special interest in Lennon growing up, at least no more so than that of most people. "I remember my mum crying when Elvis died and I remember her crying when Lennon died," she explains, "but not much in-between. His music was in our house and I liked it, but I wasn't at all an obsessive fan. That only happened in making the film, as I grew to know him more and more."

What drew Taylor-Wood to the script for Nowhere Boy had less to do with its famous subject than it did with its web of relationships. "The heart of it was more important to me than what it was about," she says. "Specificity of emotion was the key, and I'd be working with an actor quite literally down to the flicker of an eyelash to get an emotion conveyed the right way."

Like Johnson, Taylor-Wood found that she could relate to the material fairly directly. "I had abandonment issues," she explains, "though Lennon's were significantly different, maybe worse, I don't know. I could understand what it was for him to grow up amidst such turbulence and retreat into the safety of imagination. It might seem an odd choice for my debut, but tracking that imagination, seeing something of the inner workings of the mind that created songs like 'Imagine,' that made such monumental decisions, that became so flamboyantly politically active as he did, was too alluring to resist." V OpenS Fri, DEC 3 Nowhere Boy Directed by Sam Taylor-Wood Written by Matt Greenhalgh Starring Aaron Johnson, Anne-Marie Duff, Kristen Scott Thomas Princess Theatre (10337 - 82 Ave)



Soul Kitchen

At least they've got soul

Fri, Dec 3; Mon, Dec 6 (9 pm); Sat, Dec 4; Sun, Dec 5; Tue, Dec 7 (7 pm) Directed by Fatih Akin Starring Adam Bousdoukos Metro Cinema (9828 -101A Ave)

 Flirting with so many clichés that it ought to be a capital offence, Fatih Akin's Soul Kitchen is redeemed by one very important detail: it's European. German, to be precise.

And facile as it may seem, the fact that this 2009 film isn't a product of the Hollywood sausage factory means, almost automatically, that it's stylish, subtle and unpredictable—a good-natured roll in a ball pit that adds up to nothing at all.

Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos) is a hapless cook trying to keep his restaurant, in Hamburg's out-of-the-way warehouse district, afloat.

The place is called Soul Kitchen, and serves unflashy comfort food on mismatched plates. The staff are capable, but not exactly motivated. Zinos rents out part of the ware-

house to a grouchy old man named Socrates, who spends all day fixing his old wooden boat and not coming up with his rent.

But Socrates turns out to be the least of Zinos's problems. His brother, just out on day parole from jail, needs a job, though he'd prefer if most of his duties are strictly hypothetical. An old classmate who wants to buy up the land and redevelop it is getting aggressive. His new, gourmet-trained chef is scaring off the regulars with his overly fancy meals. His girlfriend is moving to Shanghai.

And Zinos himself badly hurts his back while moving a dishwasher, but can't afford to get it treated—so he spends most of the film lurching around like a hobbled toy soldier.

For the most part, Akin is content to let all

of these plots and styles intermingle, blissfully unconcerned with consistency. If a particular scene calls for a maniacal back-door chiropractor named the Bone Cruncher, or a late-night heist (complete with balaclavas), or a magic Honduran tree bark that makes everyone who eats it insanely horny, so be it.

As a director, he seems to be entirely following his nose.

Sure, it's all way too much, but at least it's the pleasant kind of excess. Admittedly, there isn't a lot of depth to these many tangents, so when Akin misses the mark—as in a scene where a crowd of hardcore punks go crazy for a cover of "Ain't That Good News" that's about as generic alt-rock as possible— it misses hard. But there are enough visual

Burlesque

of divine decadence that makes history for both the film and the queer-minded viewer.

Christina Aguilera stars as Ali, who hops off the bus in Los Angeles as the opening credits grace the screen—framed photo of her dead mother in tow and a Zip-Loc baggie of cash ready to be hidden in the toilet tank of a fleabag hotel room. We know the drill, just like Ali knows the dance routines, those which she discovers at a Sunset Strip burlesque lounge where she lands a job as a sassy waitress. But if only she could get through to her seen-it-all matron of a boss Tess (Cher, if you dare), she just might prove that she can sing, dance and strip it off as well as any other ironic tart on the stage, including Dita Von Teese-lookalike Nikki (Kristen Bell).

Well, she gets her shot, and there are no surprises, aside from how predictable it is— Ali gets caught between two studly men, Tess is frantic about losing the club, and Stanley Tucci is, yet again, the gay wardrobe manager. Burlesque is neither a Cabaret revision or a faithful portrayal of the striptease phenomenon; instead, it's a laugh-out-

loud mix of Coyote Ugly and Aguilera's previous corseted turn in the video for "Lady Marmalade." It's too bad, really, because the politics of burlesque performance are loaded with potential for a sustainable dialogue about femininity, sexuality and in this case, the transformative edge of celebrity.

So what's missing? On the Showgirls end—tits. The raw, sexual decadence of Verhoeven's masterpiece sold to the Bgrade erotic thriller that doesn't come round these parts no more, considering the box office's dependency on age-diverse audiences. And Burlesque's take on Cabaret, to which there are clear stylistic references, forgets the significance of Nazis in relation to the glitz that sold Bob Fosse's timely musical; aside from a sleazy real estate developer (Eric Dane), there is no meaty threat that merits such a spin-off. But as far as Razzie contenders go that rival M Night Shyamalan, Aguilera and Cher are a worthy match of desperate divas, even if they prove that dancing really ain't fucking.

Written and directed by Steve Antin Starring Christina Aguilera, Cher, Kirsten Bell, Stanley Tucci

 Nothing says "it gets better" for a gay kid in junior high than an inspiring tale of a farm girl who heads to the big city to become a star. Perhaps it's the sheer message that suggests life's unused potential, though maybe it's Hollywood glamour's affective power for tweens that charts beyond a weepy video letter from Ellen Degeneres. Lucky for me—I had Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls growing up, the mind-blowing sort of camp that comes along once in a lifetime and whose life-changing properties can never be wholly replicated. Steve Antin's Burlesque, however, is merely a polite attempt at a musical homage that should tide over the Jonny Jenkins type until he gets his first apartment, but fails to speak the language

flourishes and tight-as-a-drum editing to make up the difference.

Bousdoukos is an OK male lead and an above-average straight man, so it makes sense that he's constantly upstaged by Moritz Bleibtreu (who North American audiences will recognize from Run Lola Run and Munich) as his pocketwatch-twirling brother Illias. And Bleibtreu, in turn, meets his match in Soul Kitchen's feisty server Lucia, played

by Anna Bederke, an alluringly exhausted Shannen Doherty type.

Zinos and his team spend most of the movie ducking from various pursuers, including the tax authority, building code inspectors and, after a pyrrhic book-burning in Zinos's home sink, the Hamburg fire department. But they also chase their fair share of rainbows. In this sense, Akin is very much a kindred spirit: never standing in one spot too long, lest he sink, or get stuck there for good.

Michael Hingston

// Michaelhingston@vueweekly.com

Jonathan Busch

// Jonathan@vueweekly.com

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

FILM // 21

Love and other drugs

Clichéd love is their drug of choice

Now Playing Written by Charles Randolph, Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz, Jamie Reidy Directed by Edward Zwick Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway



A movie about Big Pharma, Love and Other Drugs seems like a clinical trial run by genre-doctors. How much can a romance be injected with a cold, bottom-line mood, with a main character who only wants to get rich and have sex, before the necessary pain and messiness of a realistic relationship relapse? Quite a lot, as it turns out—but Love and Other Drugs still lacks the spark to get it off the script-table and out into the illuminating daylight of real-life cinema.

From the moment we see him selling boomboxes in an electronics store, before selling himself to his boss's girlfriend atop a pounding speaker in the backroom, Jamie

Randall seems like a dick. The movie's all about dickishness: the Internet-porn addiction of Jamie's sad-sack schlub of a brother (Josh Gad); Jamie, turned Pfizer rep, pushing Zoloft by getting into bed with Dr Knight's secretary; Dr Knight (Hank Azaria) wanting to get hooked up with hot women; Jamie falling for Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway), a patient whose breasts he and Knight ogle, though she reciprocates with Jamie because she just wants sex, too; Jamie becoming a pusher of Viagra.

All this dickishness makes the movie's actual masking of Gyllenhaal's dick— twice with a cushion, as if out of a bad British sex farce—seem limply dishonest.

Hathaway, meanwhile, exposes much of herself, but the camera violates her, and us, with gratuitous nudity in that leering doctor's office scene.

The first half cruises with Jamie as he smooth-talks his conscience-less way through a system of pushing drugs on

Christmas on Mars Fri, Dec 3; Mon, Dec 6 (7 pm) Sun, Dec 5; Tue, Dec 7 (9 pm) Directed by Wayne Coyne, Bradley Beesley, George Salisbury Metro Cinema (9828 - 101A Ave)



It's fitting that The Flaming Lips' feature, Christmas On Mars, had a long gestation period, being filmed in stops and starts over a seven-year stretch: the whole thing has a non-subtle obsession with birth (and, I suppose, rebirth), or maybe just the birth canal.

Either way, vaginal imagery will be all over the metro screen this weekend, from the first shot of a shooting star flyingly through explicit constellation crotches to a woman emerging from a plastic sleeping pod's slit and into a clear cooking pod, where the yolk of an egg cooks itself in bright neon colours in a pot. Nearby a baby grows in some kind of forcefield, getting food from its mother through an umbilical

22 // FILM

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

hook up that she plugs into herself. Even the underlying premise—colonizing mars, leaving the oxygenated safety of blue earth's womb to make a new mark in an unforgiving atmosphere—is about strange new beginnings. The Lips are certainly trying to give us one, not just narratively but visually as well. How you did with the images described in this paragraph would be a good test for how much you'll buy in.

Christmas on Mars is at times outrageously wacky (usually in neon blasts of sight gag), and other times intriguingly meditative. It's always weird, but in a way that seems to tractor-beam you in. Sure, the plot is pretty off-the-rack: it is, yes, Christmas on a tiny, human outpost of Mars, and morale is at an all-time low. Major Syrtis (played by Flaming Lip Steven Drozd) is attempting to organize a Christmas pageant to celebrate the colony's upcoming baby birth. The guy playing Santa Claus just killed himself, though, and half the crew doesn't seem far behind him:

doctors. But with the movie—based on a memoir by top-selling '90s insider Jamie Reidy—neither offering the heady immoral rush of that life nor an uncomfortably deep probing of the profit-infected industry, it comes off as merely a soulless grind.

(A nastier take might've suggested the copious copulation here can be capitalized on

by Big Pharma in their development of a drug for sex-addiction.) At most, Love and Other Drugs suggests that Big Pharma is bad (with prescriptions so expensive that Maggie regularly takes a busload of seniors to Canada for cheaper meds), but many drugs are vital. Huh. There is the sense of the late '90s as a hollow corporate world of med-drugpushing and dot-com bubble-blowing.

Also interesting, genre-wise, is what Jamie's and Maggie's casual lust-making masks—not so much his (clichéd) fear of commitment as her growing pain of Parkinson's. When her guilt and self-loathing comes, in those few moments of lacerating honesty and anxiety and fear, Hathaway rises above the conflicted material here and the movie's indulgence in her seemingly shallow fling with dickish Jamie makes poignant sense.

Still, the cooing music and the old "I love you" grand speech kick in like bad sideeffects. A Hefner-ish pajama party is risible softcore stuff. And the ending voiceover, about Jamie's bizarre resolution to pursue the one profession the movie seems most jaded about, reminds us just how overstated (dialogue-wise and visually—the movie's mostly close-ups) and underwhelming a trip Love and Other Drugs has been.

Brian Gibson

// Brian@vueweekly.com

everyone's ruminiating on deeper philosophies, bleakly trying to justify their redplanet existences. "Life needs symbols! symbols, that vibrate!" says one, while another goes, "Humans aren't meant to live in space, brother. It destroys your internal beliefs." Hope and vision are in short supply out there, though the more pressing issue is a damaged oxygen generator. And the silent, otherworldly being wandering around (though not from Mars, it seems, judging by the space ship that he stores in his mouth while not using it for transit), who might be able to help with it all.

Then again, there's also nightmarish vision sequence of a hellish marching band with (not making this up, folks) vaginas for heads, marching towards an infant with intent to trample, and shots of glistening fetal infants that wouldn't be out of place in Eraserhead.

Yet Christmas on Mars is so confident in its weirdness, its oddities done as much for for shock value as to present something startlingly new and strangely graphic, that it compels rather than repels.

PAUL BLINOV

// PAUL@vueweekly.com

FILM WEEKLY FRI, DEC 3 – THU, DEC 9, 2010

UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) FRI 12:50, 3:10, 5:40, 8:10, 10:40; SAT 5:40, 8:10, 10:40; SUN�THU 12:50, 3:10, 5:40, 8:10, 10:30

LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) FRI 4:15, 7:05,

FASTER (14A brutal violence) FRI�TUE, THU 11:45,

SKYLINE (14A violence) Digital Cinema FRI�SAT 8:15,

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence,

TANGLED 3D (G) Digital 3d, No passes DAILY

11:00; SUN�TUE, THU 8:15, 10:25; WED 10:25

s

CHABA THEATRE�JASPER 6094 Connaught Dr, Jasper, 780.852.4749

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not recommended for young children) FRI�SAT 6:30, 9:05; SUN�THU 8:00

MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter, coarse

language) FRI�SAT 7:00, 9:05; SUN�THU 8:00

BANFF MOUNTAIN FILM FESTIVAL WORLD TOUR (STC) THU, DEC 9: 7:30 CINEMA CITY MOVIES 12 5074-130 Ave, 780.472.9779

DATE OF ISSUE ONLY: THU, DEC 2 TERE ISHQ NACHAYA (STC) Punjabi W/E.S.T. THU,

MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter, coarse

language) FRI�WED 1:45, 7:10; THU 1:45

MEGAMIND 3D (G) Digital 3d FRI�TUE, THU 12:30,

2:50, 5:20, 7:35, 10:00; WED 12:30, 2:50, 5:00, 8:00, 10:00

9:55; SAT�SUN 1:20, 4:15, 7:05, 9:55; MON�THU 7:05, 9:55

not recommended for young children) FRI 3:40, 7:00, 10:15; SAT�SUN 12:15, 3:40, 7:00, 10:15; MON�THU 7:00, 10:15

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not

2:20, 4:50, 7:30, 10:15; WED 4:50, 7:30, 10:15; Star & Strollers Screening: WED 1:00

11:30, 2:10, 4:40, 7:10, 9:30

LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) DAILY 1:10,

4:10, 7:20, 10:10

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence,

not recommended for young children) DAILY 11:30, 12:00, 3:00, 3:30, 6:30, 7:00, 10:00, 10:30; Digital Cinema: DAILY 1:00, 4:30, 8:00

DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse) FRI�

SAT 12:10, 3:50, 6:15, 8:40, 11:10; SUN�THU 1:20, 3:35, 5:50, 8:05, 10:20

recommended for young children) Digital Cinema FRI 3:00, 6:30, 9:50; SAT�SUN 11:45, 3:00, 6:30, 9:50; Digital Cinema: MON�THU 6:30, 9:50

FAIR GAME (PG coarse language) FRI�SAT 12:45, 3:15, 5:45, 8:15, 10:50; SUN�THU 12:40, 3:20, 6:20, 9:20

UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) FRI�SUN 3:40,

9:45; MON�THU 9:45

THE NEXT THREE DAYS (PG violence, coarse language) DAILY 12:30, 3:40, 6:50, 9:50

RED (14A violence) FRI�WED 4:30, 10:20; THU 4:30 THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: DON PASQUALE ENCORE (Classification not available)

MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter,

UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) FRI�TUE 1:30, 4:20, 7:40, 10:40; WED 1:30, 4:20, 10:40; THU 1:30, 4:20, 7:40

MEGAMIND 3D (G) Digital 3d FRI 4:00, 6:30, 9:20;

SKYLINE (14A violence) FRI, SUN�WED 1:40, 5:00,

NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE: HAMLET (Classifica-

SAT�SUN 1:15, 4:00, 6:30, 9:20; MON�THU 6:30, 9:20

SAT 11:00

tion not available) THU 8:00

coarse language) FRI, MON�THU 6:55; SAT�SUN 1:10, 6:55

DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse) FRI

7:50, 10:45; SAT 5:00, 7:50, 10:45; THU 1:40, 5:00, 10:45

4:10, 7:25, 9:50; SAT�SUN 1:30, 4:10, 7:25, 9:50; MON� THU 7:25, 9:50

MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter, coarse language) DAILY 12:20, 6:40

BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recommended

6:30, 9:10

GUZAARISH (PG mature subject matter) Hindi W/E.S.T.

for children) Dolby Stereo Digital, Stadium Seating, No passes FRI�WED 12:30, 3:30, 7:15, 10:15; THU 12:30, 3:30

RED (14A violence) FRI 4:20, 7:10, 10:00; SAT�SUN 1:45, 4:20, 7:10, 10:00; MON�THU 7:10, 10:00

TILL MY HEARTACHES END (PG) THU, DEC 2: 1:25,

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not

127 HOURS (14A gory scenes, disturbing content)

DEC 2: 1:05, 4:10, 7:00, 10:00

BREAK KE BAAD (STC) Hindi W/E.S.T. THU, DEC 2

1:45, 4:35, 7:15, 9:35

THU, DEC 2: 1:15, 4:20, 7:10, 10:00 4:05, 7:00, 9:30

GOLMAAL 3 (PG violence) THU, DEC 2: 1:35, 4:25, 7:30 WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS (PG

coarse language) THU, DEC 2: 9:25

YOU AGAIN (G) THU, DEC 2: 1:40, 4:15, 6:40, 9:05 THE TOWN (14A coarse language, violence) THU, DEC 2: 1:50, 4:40, 7:20, 9:50

CITY CENTRE 9 10200-102 Ave, 780.421.7020

recommended for young children) Dolby Stereo Digital, Stadium Seating DAILY 12:00, 3:15, 6:30, 10:00

LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) Dolby Stereo

Digital FRI�TUE, THU 12:45, 3:45, 6:45, 9:45; WED 12:45, 3:45, 6:45, 10:25

TANGLED 3D (G) Digital 3d, No passes, Stadium Seating DAILY 12:15, 2:50, 5:20, 7:50, 10:30

EASY A (14A, language may offend) THU, DEC 2: 1:55, 4:45, 7:35, 9:55

DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse)Dolby Stereo Digital, Stadium Seating DAILY 12:10, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40, 10:10

EAT PRAY LOVE (PG language may offend) THU, DEC

UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language)

2: 1:10, 4:00, 6:50, 9:40

INCEPTION (PG violence) THU, DEC 2: 1:00, 4:30, 8:00 DESPICABLE ME 3D (G) Digital 3d THU, DEC 2: 1:30, 3:55, 6:30, 9:00

TOY STORY 3 (G) THU, DEC 2: 1:20, 3:45, 6:45 CINEPLEX ODEON NORTH 14231-137 Ave, 780.732.2236

BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recommended for children) FRI�TUE, THU 1:20, 4:10, 7:00, 9:50; WED 4:10, 7:00, 9:50; Star & Strollers Screening: WED 1:00 FASTER (14A brutal violence) DAILY 12:20, 2:50, 5:30, 8:00, 10:20

TANGLED (G) No passes DAILY 1:10, 4:00, 6:45, 9:20 TANGLED 3D (G) Digital 3d, No passes DAILY 12:00,

Dolby Stereo Digital, Stadium Seating DAILY 12:20, 3:00, 5:30, 8:00, 10:40

THE NEXT THREE DAYS (PG violence, coarse

language) DAILY 12:40, 3:40, 6:40, 9:40

UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) Digital Cinema

Stadium Seating DAILY 12:05, 2:35, 5:05, 7:35

MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter,

coarse language) Dolby Stereo Digital, Stadium Seating DAILY 10:05

4:40, 7:25, 9:55; SAT�SUN 2:00, 4:40, 7:25, 9:55; MON�THU 5:50, 8:40

UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) FRI�SUN 4:25,

6:55, 9:25; MON�THU 5:15, 8:15

TANGLED 3D (G) Digital 3d, No passes FRI 4:15, 6:45, 9:15; SAT�SUN 1:40, 4:15, 6:45, 9:15; MON�THU 5:00, 7:45

language) DAILY 1:50, 4:40, 7:40, 10:10

8:40

DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse) Digital Cinema DAILY 12:10, 2:40, 5:15, 7:50, 10:15 RED (14A violence) DAILY 12:50, 3:20, 6:30, 9:10 IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (STC) WED 7:00 CINEPLEX ODEON SOUTH 1525-99 St, 780.436.8585

BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recommended

for children) FRI�SAT 12:10, 2:50, 5:30, 8:20, 11:15; SUN� THU 11:30, 2:15, 5:00, 7:50, 10:30

FASTER (14A brutal violence) FRI�SAT 1:50, 4:15, 6:45, 9:00, 11:15; SUN�THU 11:40, 2:00, 5:00, 7:50, 10:30

TANGLED (G) No passes FRI�SAT 12:00, 2:30, 5:00, 7:45,

10:10; SUN�WED 12:00, 2:30, 5:00, 7:45, 10:00; THU 1:00, 5:00, 7:45, 10:00

TANGLED 3D (G) Digital 3d, No passes FRI 11:30,

12:45, 2:00, 3:00, 4:30, 5:30, 7:15, 9:45; SAT 11:30, 12:45, 2:00, 3:00, 4:30, 5:30, 6:50, 9:45; SUN�THU 11:30, 1:00, 2:00, 3:20, 4:30, 5:40, 7:15, 9:45

LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) FRI�SAT 1:10,

3:40, 6:10, 8:35, 11:10; SUN�THU 11:40, 2:15, 4:40, 7:20, 9:50

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence,

not recommended for young children) FRI�SAT 11:30, 12:30, 2:45, 3:45, 6:15, 7:15, 9:45, 10:45; SUN�THU 11:30, 12:00, 2:40, 3:15, 6:00, 6:45, 9:15, 10:15; Digital Cinema: FRI�SAT 1:00, 4:15, 7:45, 11:00; SUN�THU 1:00, 5:00, 8:30; Ultraavx: FRI�SAT 12:00, 3:15, 6:45, 10:15; Ultraavx: SUN�THU 12:15, 3:30, 7:00, 10:15

THE NEXT THREE DAYS (PG violence, coarse

language) FRI�SAT 1:10, 4:10, 7:00, 10:00; SUN�THU 1:15, 4:15, 7:15, 10:15

MEGAMIND (G) Presented In 3d DAILY 7:05, 9:15;

SAT�SUN 2:05

TANGLED (G) DAILY 6:50, 9:00; SAT�SUN 1:50 BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recommended

for children) DAILY 6:45 9:10; SAT�SUN 1:55

FASTER (14A brutal violence) DAILY 7:00, 9:05; SAT� SUN 2:00

GALAXY�SHERWOOD PARK 2020 Sherwood Dr, 780.416.0150 Sherwood Park 780-416-0150

BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recom-

mended for children) FRI 3:50, 6:50, 9:40; SAT�SUN 1:00, 3:50, 6:50, 9:40; MON�THU 6:50, 9:40

FASTER (14A brutal violence) FRI 4:30, 7:00, 9:35;

SAT�SUN 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:35; MON�THU 7:00, 9:35

TANGLED 3D (G) Digital 3d, No passes FRI 4:45,

7:15, 9:45; SAT�SUN 11:50, 2:20, 4:45, 7:15, 9:45; MON� THU 7:15, 9:45

DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse) DAILY 12:10, 2:40, 5:10, 7:45, 10:20

LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not recommended for young children) SAT�SUN 12:40, 3:45; DAILY 6:40. 9:45

RED (14A violence) DAILY 3:10, 9:20 THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: DON PASQUALE ENCORE (Classification not available) SAT 11:00

NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE: HAMLET (Clas-

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL�

FASTER (14A brutal violence) DAILY 7:10, 9:35; SAT�SUN 1:10, 3:35

TANGLED 3D (G) DAILY 7:00, 9:25; SAT�SUN 1:00, 3:25

sification not available) THU 8:00

SUN 1:10, 3:35

3:25

METRO CINEMA 9828-101A Ave, Citadel Theatre, 780.425.9212

SUN, TUE 9:00

tent) FRI, MON 9:00; SAT�SUN, TUE 7:00

DOC SOUP: LENNON NYC (STC) THU 7:00 TURKEY SHOOT: SHOWGIRLS (STC) THU 9:00 PARKLAND CINEMA 7 130 Century Crossing, Spruce Grove, 780.972.2332 (Spruce Grove, Stony Plain; Parkland County)

TANGLED (G) DAILY 7:00, 9:20; SAT�SUN, TUE 1:00,

recommended for young children) DAILY 7:30; SAT�SUN 1:45

matter) DAILY 6:55; SAT�SUN 12:55

TANGLED 3D (G) DAILY 7:00, 9:25; SAT�SUN 1:00,

MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter, coarse language) SAT�SUN 1:30 6601-48 Ave, Camrose, 780.608.2144

MEGAMIND 3D (G) Digital 3d DAILY 12:40, 3:20,

FASTER (14A brutal violence) DAILY 7:10, 9:35; SAT�

BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recom-

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not

coarse language) DAILY 9:30; SAT�SUN 3:25

HEREAFTER (PG coarse language, mature subject

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL�

LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) FRI 4:05, 6:50,

DUGGAN CINEMA�CAMROSE

Wetaskiwin, 780.352.3922

MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter,

Leduc, 780.352.3922

FASTER (14A brutal violence) FRI 4:50, 7:10, 9:50; SAT� 9:30; SAT�SUN 12:50, 4:05, 6:50, 9:30; MON�THU 5:40, 8:25

WETASKIWIN CINEMAS

ed for children) DAILY 6:55, 9:30; SAT�SUN 12:55, 3:30

FASTER (14A brutal violence) DAILY 6:50, 9:15; SAT�

SUN 1:50, 4:50, 7:10, 9:50; MON�THU 5:30, 8:30

language) DTS Digital FRI 6:25, 9:25; SAT�SUN 12:15, 3:10, 6:25, 9:25; MON�THU 5:10, 8:30

LEDUC CINEMAS

SOUL KITCHEN (14A coarse language, sexual con-

MEGAMIND 3D (G) Digital 3d DAILY 1:00, 3:30, 6:15,

THE NEXT THREE DAYS (PG violence, coarse

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL�

THE NEXT THREE DAYS (PG violence, coarse

BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recommended for children) No passes FRI 4:00, 7:00, 9:45; SAT�SUN 1:00, 4:00, 7:00, 9:45; MON�THU 5:20, 8:20

mended for children) No passes, DTS Digital: FRI 6:55, 9:40; SAT�SUN 12:30, 3:35, 6:55, 9:40; MON� THU 5:25, 8:05

BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recom-

MOSTLY WATER PRESENTS: METRO SHORTS (STC) SAT 9:00; MON 6:00 CHRISTMAS ON MARS (STC) FRI, MON 7:00;

language) FRI 3:45, 6:40, 9:40; SAT�SUN 12:40, 3:45, 6:40, 9:40; MON�THU 5:10, 8:10

BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recom-

2:55, 5:05, 7:10, 9:20

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not

recommended for young children) On 2 Screens: FRI 4:30, 6:30, 7:50, 9:35; SAT�SUN 12:10, 1:10, 3:15, 4:30, 6:30, 7:50, 9:35; MON�THU 4:25, 4:50, 7:40, 8:00

FRI 7:10, 9:50; SAT�SUN 12:45, 3:50, 7:10, 9:50; MON�THU 5:35, 8:40

7:15, 9:15

LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not recommended for young children) DAILY 6:40, 9:45; SAT�SUN 12:40, 3:45

SAT�SUN 1:20, 4:10, 6:35, 9:00; MON�THU 4:45, 7:30

FASTER (14A brutal violence) Dolby Stereo Digital

LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) DAILY 12:50,

CLAREVIEW 10 4211-139 Ave, 780.472.7600

not recommended for young children) Dolby Stereo Digital: FRI 8:20; SAT�SUN 1:30, 5:00, 8:20; MON�THU 5:00, 8:20

FASTER (14A brutal violence) DAILY 1:15, 3:15, 5:15,

BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recommend-

Stadium Seating FRI�TUE, THU 12:25, 2:55, 5:25, 7:55, 10:25; WED 12:25, 2:55, 9:45

111 Ave, Groat Rd, 780.455.8726

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence,

DAILY 9:05

FASTER (14A brutal violence) Dolby Stereo Digital,

MORNING GLORY (PG mature subject matter, coarse

FRI�TUE, THU 1:15, 4:20, 6:50, 9:30; WED 1:15, 4:20, 9:45

MEGAMIND (G) DAILY 1:00, 3:00, 4:55, 7:00 DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse)

LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not recommended for young children) DAILY 12:55, 3:40, 6:20, 9:00

DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse) FRI

recommended for young children) Ultraavx: DAILY 12:30, 3:50, 7:10, 10:30

Grandin Mall, Sir Winston Churchill Ave, St Albert, 780.458.9822

MEGAMIND 3D (G) Digital 3d, Dolby Stereo Digital,

LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (18A) FRI�TUE, THU 1:40, 4:30, 7:20, 10:05; WED 4:30, 7:20, 10:05; Star & Strollers Screening: WED 1:00

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not

GRANDIN THEATRE�ST ALBERT

mended for children) No passes DAILY 12:45, 3:05, 5:10, 7:20, 9:30

substance abuse) Dolby Stereo Digital, Stadium Seating DAILY 12:35, 3:25, 7:00, 10:20

MEGAMIND 3D (G) Digital 3d FRI 4:10, 6:35, 9:00;

recommended for young children) DAILY 11:50, 1:30, 3:00, 4:50, 6:20, 8:15, 9:45

8712-109 St, 780.433.0728

DAILY 7:00, 9:00; SAT�SUN 2:00

THE SOCIAL NETWORK (PG coarse language,

2:30, 5:00, 7:30, 10:00

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL� LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not

GARNEAU

WESTMOUNT CENTRE

SUN, TUE 1:10, 3:30

mended for children) DAILY 6:40, 9:10; SAT�SUN, TUE 1:00, 3:30 3:15

UNSTOPPABLE (PG coarse language) DAILY 7:10,

9:40; SAT�SUN, TUE 12:50, 3:45

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HAL�

LOWS: PART 1 (PG frightening scenes, violence, not recommended for young children) DAILY 6:30, 9:30; SAT�SUN, TUE 12:20, 3:25 MEGAMIND 3D (G) DAILY 6:45, 9:00; SAT�SUN, TUE 12:30, 3:00

DUE DATE (14A crude content, substance abuse)

FRI�WED 7:20, 9:40

MEGAMIND 2D (G) SAT�SUN, TUE 1:20, 3:40 PRINCESS 10337-82 Ave, 780.433.0728

NOWHERE BOY (14A coarse language, sexual content) DAILY 7:00, 9:00; SAT�SUN 2:00

FAIR GAME (PG coarse language) DAILY 7:10; SAT�SUN 1:00

INSIDE JOB (PG language may offend) DAILY 9:10;

SUN 3:00

SCOTIABANK THEATRE WEM WEM, 8882-170 St, 780.444.2400

BURLESQUE (PG coarse language, not recommended for children) Digital Cinema: FRI�TUE, THU 12:50, 3:50, 6:45, 9:40; WED 3:50, 6:45, 9:40; Star & Strollers Screening: WED 1:00

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

FILM // 23

MUSIC

AT VUEWEEKLY.COM

SLIDESHOW >> Wool on Wolves

Bourne identity

// Francis A Willey

Bill Bourne's latest album a departure caught on film ... sort of Bryan Birtles // bryan@vueweekly.com

D

eparting from the worldly folk influences of his past work, venerable Edmonton musician Bill Bourne's latest album, free radio dance Band is a foray into the electric blues, its licks skipping hot out of the speakers with an impressive urgency. For any other musician, such a departure might be a well-planned-out decision, a deliberate effort to stretch into fields not yet entered, but for Bourne it was, as he puts it, largely an accident, the doings of the muse whose fickleness is a fact of life.

"Songs: how do they come along?

That's a big mystery for me," he says, mentioning that free radio dance Band came together in the studio with somewhat little rehearsal. "I've sat for two weeks writing and writing and writing and have nothing, and sometimes in 10 minutes have a song suddenly, 'boom!' it's there. I don't know where it comes from. Don't ask me about songwriting, I really don't know that much about it."

After further probing, Bourne admits that working with his son Pat might have had something to do with the

harder edge displayed on free radio dance Band. Known for his work in rock 'n' roll outfits like Les Tabernacles and the Get Down, this was the first time Pat Bourne and his father had ever collaborated together musically.

"We were living together last fall and over the winter a bit and so once in a while we got to jam a bit and that had something to do with the songs I brought forward," explains the elder Bourne. "Pat's used to playing in a certain context, a blues-rock thing, so that had something to do with the songs that we recorded. There were some other tunes that were more world-beat influenced that just didn't seem to work out so well and it didn't seem to make any sense to bring them into the picture. So that context that Pat brought to the picture had a big influence on what was actually recorded."

Another curious aspect of the recording process was the fact that it was documented for a film entitled For the Record, which came out this past summer. The experience of having his every move recorded while trying to

make this latest album was one that Bourne explains was a bit uncomfortable; the hot lights and the cramped space meant that most of the album was recorded after the film crew went home for the day.

"What happened was they got footage of one song that made it to the album, but they were in there everyday for six hours, but we would record all the takes after they left every day," says Bourne. "It was too distracting. I think part of that, and it was nobody's fault, but I think the studio was too small for that kind of scenario. If you're gonna do that you need a big space so they can do their camera thing and you don't even notice it, but in this case the studio just wasn't big enough and they put the lights up and we proceeded to just cook." V Sun, Dec 5 (2 pm) Bill Bourne as part of SIRENS' Blues for Christmas Blues on Whyte, $10 plus a non-perishable food item Tickets at Blues on Whyte or SIRENS (780.439.7460)

Holy Grail

The electric spirit of Bill Bourne's latest album emerged out of some off-the-cuff jams with his son Pat (of the Get Down and Les Tabernacles)

The Devil Wears Prada Tue, Dec 7 (6 pm) With Silverstein and guests Starlite Room, $32.50

Old-school metal charm finds its way into Crisis in Utopia

Sat, Dec 4 (7 pm) With Blind Guardian Starlite Room, $36.50 (all ages) Holy Grail plays metal the way it's meant to be played—fast, loud and just in control enough to put it over the top—but for the band's debut album, Crisis in Utopia, the members did something a little rare for a metal band: they sat back and took their time. Their slow process does make some sense, though: they had more than 187 riffs to whittle down courtesy of shred wizard Eli Santana, and also a touring schedule far more hectic than the average group working on its first full-length.

"It was definitely a drawn-out process: if we would have just stayed home and nailed it down it could have been knocked out in two months," explains vocalist James Paul Luna, he of the soaring, operatic vocals that give Holy Grail much of its old-school charm.

"But the good thing was that we got to step away from it for a bit and come back at it with fresh ears. It

24 // MUSIC

was nice to be able to reanalyze it from that point."

The analysis has definitely contributed to Crisis in Utopia's bigger, more complex sound, one that harkens back to the legends of metal while still carving out a modern niche. It's a sound that, curiously, seems to be getting even bigger responses outside the States than in it, including from the Canadian metal scene, something that Luna attributes to music fans around here being a bit more open-minded than in the genre-cliques that sometimes develop Stateside.

"If you were in Europe, I don't think many people could tell the difference between someone from Canada and someone from the States, so it's a similar culture, but it's kind of more of an open-minded view of music in Canada," he explains. "It's closer to a European mind set—whereas in the States the mass media kind of takes over, up there people kind of dig deeper into and are hungrier for it, a little more willing to explore on their own."

David Berry

// david@vueweekly.com

For Ohio metalcore band the Devil Wears Prada, 2010 couldn't have been a better year: named band of the year by Alternative Press' readership, the band spent the year touring with Killswitch Engage; it played to sold-out audiences around the world in support of its latest full-length album With Roots Above and Branches Below; and the band even found time to crank out the Zombie EP as a prelude to an upcoming full-length in 2011.

"Our Back to the Roots tour was really huge for us as well," notes singer Mike Hranica. "We got back to playing small, cramped rooms that were intimate, versatile and in your face, which was another huge part of the year for us after playing huge festivals."

For fans looking forward to the upcoming record, Hranica explains how the Zombie EP offers a preview of what to expect.

"I'm really stoked on it. It falls between Roots Above and Zombie, and I know a lot of people liked the heaviness and intensity of Zombie," the singer offers. "The different sound behind [Zombie] wasn't anything unnatural for us, it was just us focusing on fast and heavy and thrashy. So it wasn't like we went out of our way. As we write for the new record, we're being natural—really emotional, some brighter parts—so it's a little bit in between. I know some people want it to be as heavy as Zombie and it's not."

The biggest challenge for the six-piece can be

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

Finely dressed devils

the songwriting process, where too many opinions can stall the creative process.

"Like any band, there's always frustration and always differing opinions," he admits. "Our guitarist Chris [Rubey] writes a lot of the music, brings in these skeleton demos and everyone puts their parts on top of it, which makes it easy. Compared to when we used to sit down and all do everything, there was more frustration and since then we've all grown up. Now we're at a place where it's so much easier and we've just gotten used to it."

Mike Angus

// mikeangus@vueweekly.com

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

MUSIC // 25

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

THU DEC 2 ARTERY Bahamas, Doug Paisley; 8pm; $12 (adv) at Blackbyrd and foundationconcerts.com AVENUE THEATRE Shai Hulud, Lionheart, Counterparts, Hundredth, Withdrawal, As Bold As Lions (EP release); 6:30pm (door); all ages; tickets at Gateway Screen and Press, avenuetheatre.ca BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ Bossa, guests; 7.30pm; $8 BLUES ON WHYTE Boogie Patrol

HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB Dave Vertesi (Hey Ocean!), Aidan Knight, guests; 7:30pm (door); $10 (adv)/$12 (door) at YEG Live HOOLIGANZ Open stage Thu hosted by Phil (Nobody Likes Dwight); 9pm-1:30am J AND R Classic rock! Woo! Open stage, play with the house band every Thu; 9pm JAMMERS PUB Thu open jam; 7-11pm JEFFREY'S CAFÉ Ben Sures (rock singer/songwriter); $15 L.B.'S PUB Thu open jam with Kenny Skoreyko, Fred Larose and Gordy Mathews; 9pm-1am

DJs BILLY BOB’S LOUNGE Escapack Entertainment BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Big Rock Thu: DJs on 3 levels– Topwise Soundsystem spin Dub & Reggae in The Underdog BRIXX BAR Radio Brixx with Tommy Grimes spinning rock and roll BUDDY'S Thu Men’s Wet Underwear Contest with DJ Phon3 Hom3; 9pm (door); no cover before 10pm CHROME LOUNGE Every Thu: 123 Ko CENTURY ROOM Underground House every Thu with DJ Nic-E COMMON LOUNGE Thu night residency - Boom the box: Allout DJs THE DRUID IRISH PUB DJ every Thu at 9pm FILTHY MCNASTY’S Punk Rock Bingo with DJ S.W.A.G. FLUID LOUNGE Girls Night out FUNKY BUDDHA�Whyte Ave Requests with DJ Damian

LIVE WIRE BAR Open Stage Thu with Gary Thomas

GAS PUMP Ladies Nite: Top 40/ dance with DJ Christian

LYVE ON WHYTE Old Wives, Mars and Venus

HALO Thu Fo Sho: with Allout DJs DJ Degree, Junior Brown

CARROT CAFÉ Zoomers Thu afternoon Open Mic; 1-4pm

MARYBETH'S COFFEE HOUSE�Beaumont Open Mic Thu; 7pm

KAS BAR Urban House: with DJ Mark Stevens; 9pm

COLAHAN'S Back-porch jam with Rock-Steady Freddy and the Bearcat; every Thu 8pmmidnight

NAKED CYBERCAFÉ Open stage every Thu; bring your own instruments, fully equipped stage; 8pm

CHRISTOPHER'S PARTY PUB Open stage hosted by Alberta Crude; 6-10pm

NEW CITY LEGION Monotonix; 8pm; no minors; $20 (door)

BRIXX BAR Radio Brixx: rock and roll with Tommy Grimes; 8pm CAFÉ HAVEN Assault of Knowledge; 7pm

CROWN PUB Crown Pub Latin/ world fusion jam hosted by Marko Cerda; musicians from other musical backgrounds are invited to jam; 7pm-closing

NORTH GLENORA HALL Jam

by Wild Rose Old Time Fiddlers PAWN SHOP Econoline Crush, Flash Jam, Needles to Vinyl; no minors; tickets at Blackbyrd

DUSTER'S PUB Thu open jam hosted by the Assassins of Youth (blues/rock); 9pm; no cover

RIC’S GRILL Peter Belec (jazz); every Thu; 7-10pm

DV8 Open mic Thu hosted

by Cameron Penner/ and/or Rebecca Jane

SECOND CUP�Sherwood Park Mike Chenoweth (blues/ roots)

ELECTRIC RODEO�Spruce Grove Open Stage Thu: Bring an instrument, jam/sing with the band, bring your own band, jokes, juggle, magic; 8-12 ENCORE CLUB With A Latin Twist: free Salsa Dance Lessons at 9pm

RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES Tacoy Ride; 9pm; $5

SECOND CUP�Varscona Live music every Thu night; 7-9pm WILD BILL’S�Red Deer TJ the DJ every Thu and Fri; 10pm-close

BLUES ON WHYTE Boogie Patrol BRIXX BAR Sagittarium IV, Smokey Bandits, WAV Occupation, Joy One, Siriusly Twisted, Wadjit; 9pm (door); $7 (door) CARROT Live music Fri: all ages; Remco Dalmaijer; 7pm; $5 (door) CASINO EDMONTON Catalyst (Caribbean) CASINO YELLOWHEAD The Rum Brothers (showband) COAST TO COAST Open Stage every Fri; 9:30pm COSMOPOLITAN MUSIC SOCIETY The Best of Alberta Music Roadshow: Colleen Brown, Jeff Stuart and the Hearts, Trevor Tchir; $12 (adv at Blackbyrd, Listen, Acoustic Music, foundationconcerts.com DOW'S SHELL THEATRE�Fort Saskatchewan Professional Series: An Elvis Christmas starring Roy LeBlanc; 7:30pm; $37.50 (adult)/$34.50 (senior/ youth) at TicketMaster ELECTRIC RODEO�Spruce Grove Maple Tea EMPIRE BALLROOM First State, Sarah Howells ENCORE CLUB 4 Play Fri

LUCKY 13 Sin Thu with DJ Mike Tomas

FESTIVAL PLACE A Freddy Cole Christmas (jazz); 7:30pm; Raymond Baril pre-concert Jazz appreciation session at 6:45pm; $30-$36 at Festival Place box office, TicketMaster

ON THE ROCKS Salsaholic Thu: Dance lessons at 8pm; Salsa DJ to follow

FRESH START BISTRO Miguel Angel Casas (Brazillian jazz); 7pm

PLANET INDIGO�St Albert Hit It Thu: breaks, electro house spun with PI residents

HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB Cowpuncher, Dojo Workhorse, guests; 7:30pm (door); $10 (door)

PLAY NIGHTCLUB Gameshow every Thu with Patrick and Nathan; 9pm RENDEZVOUS PUB Mental Thurzday with org666 SPORTSWORLD Roller Skating Disco: Thu Retro Nights; 7-10:30pm; sports-world.ca STOLLI'S Dancehall, hip hop with DJ Footnotes hosted by Elle Dirty and ConScience every Thu; no cover

IRISH CLUB Jam session; 8pm; no cover IVORY CLUB Duelling piano show with Jesse, Shane, Tiffany and Erik and guests JEFFREY'S CAFÉ Rollanda Lee (Christmas concert); $15 JEKYLL AND HYDE PUB Every Fri: Headwind (classic pop/ rock); 9pm; no cover

TAPHOUSE�St Albert Eclectic

L.B.’S Deadly Pretty, Simon Bennett

FRI DEC 3

LYVE ON WHTYE Early Show: Hollywood Assassyn, The Hallow 09, Givenstone; Late Show: Line of Sight

mix with DJ Dusty Grooves every Thu

WILD WEST SALOON Robert Rowan

BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ The Rault Family (annual Christmas show); 8pm; $12

Performing Arts Centre, 8426 Gateway Blvd CROWN AND ANCHOR 15277 Castledowns Rd, 780.472.7696 CROWN PUB 10709-109 St, 780.428.5618 DIESEL ULTRA LOUNGE 11845 Wayne Gretzky Drive, 780.704.

CLUB DEVANEY’S IRISH PUB 9013-88 Ave, 780.465.4834 DOW'S SHELL THEATRE�Fort Saskatchewan 8700-84 St, Fort Saskatchewan, 780.992.6400 DRUID 11606 Jasper Ave, 780.454.9928 DUSTER’S PUB 6402-118 Ave, 780.474.5554 DV8 8307-99 St, DV8TAVERN.com EARLY STAGE SALOON 4911-52 Ave, Stony Plain EDDIE SHORTS 10713-124 St, 780.453.3663 EDMONTON EVENTS CENTRE WEM Phase III, 780.489.SHOW EDMONTON MORAVIAN CHURCH 9540-83 Ave ELECTRIC RODEO�Spruce Grove 121-1 Ave, Spruce Grove, 780.962.1411 ELEPHANT AND CASTLE�Whyte Ave 10314 Whyte Ave ENCORE CLUB 957 Fir St, Sherwood Park, 780.417.0111 ENTERPRISE SQUARE 10230 Jasper Ave, 780.435.9569 EXPRESSIONZ CAFÉ 9938-70 Ave, 780.437.3667 FIDDLER’S ROOST 8906-99 St FILTHY MCNASTY’S 10511-82 Ave, 780.916.1557 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 10025-105 St FLOW LOUNGE 11815 Wayne Gretzky Dr, 780.604.CLUB FLUID LOUNGE 10105-109 St, 780.429.0700 FUNKY BUDDHA 10341-82 Ave, 780.433.9676 GAS PUMP 10166-114 St,

780.488.4841 GOOD EARTH COFFEE HOUSE 9942-108 St HALO 10538 Jasper Ave, 780.423.

HALO HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB 15120A (basement), Stony Plain Rd, 780.756.6010 HILL TOP PUB 8220-106 Ave, 780.490.7359 HOOLIGANZ 10704-124 St, 780.452.1168 HYDEAWAY 10209-100 Ave, 780.426.5381 IRON BOAR PUB 4911-51st St, Wetaskiwin IVORY CLUB 2940 Calgary Trail South JAMMERS PUB 11948-127 Ave, 780.451.8779 J AND R 4003-106 St, 780.436.4403 JEFFREY’S CAFÉ 9640 142 St, 780.451.8890 JEKYLL AND HYDE 10209-100 Ave, 780.426.5381 JUNCTION BAR AND EATERY 10242-106 St, 780.756.5667 KAS BAR 10444-82 Ave, 780.433.6768 L.B.’S PUB 23 Akins Dr, St Albert, 780.460.9100 LEGENDS PUB 6104-172 St, 780.481.2786 LEVEL 2 LOUNGE 11607 Jasper Ave, 2nd Fl, 780.447.4495 LION’S DEN PUB�Red Deer Quality Inn North Hill, 7150-50 Ave, Red Deer LIVE WIRE 1107 Knotwood Rd. East LOIS HOLE LIBRARY 17650-69 Ave, 780.442.0888 MARYBETH'S COFFEE HOUSE–Beaumont 5001-30 Ave, Beaumont MCDOUGALL UNITED CHURCH 10025-101 St MORANGO’S TEK CAFÉ 10118-79 St MUTTART HALL Alberta College,

ON THE ROCKS Heather McKenzie Band; 9pm; $5

PAWN SHOP Easy Club Christmas Party: Warrior Music, Daphütur, Zach Downie, Dj Tron, Optimixx Prime, Miyuru Fernando, Miguel Amador, Audio Sex; $5 (door); no advance tickets RED PIANO BAR Hottest dueling piano show featuring the Red Piano Players; 9pm-2am RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES Jimmy D. Lane; 9:30pm; $15 SNEAKY PETE'S The Greggs (family band, blues/rock); 9:30pm-1am; no cover Fri-Sat STARLITE ROOM Unsigned, Black Mastiff, The Whitsundays, The Switchmen, Future Echoes; 9pm (door); $5 (adv)/$8 (door) STEEPS�Old Glenora Live Music Fri TOUCH OF CLASS�Chateau Louis Dwayne Cannon; 8:30pm-12:30am UNCLE GLENNS Teresa James and the Rhythm Tramps; 8pm (show; $35 WILD BILL’S�Red Deer TJ the DJ every Thu and Fri; 10pm-close WILD WEST SALOON Robert Rowan WOK BOX Fri with Breezy Brian Gregg; 3:30-5:30pm YARDBIRD SUITE Hot Club Edmonton; 8pm (door)/9pm (show); $14 (member)/$18 (guest) at Ticketmaster.ca

Classical WINSPEAR CENTRE Handel’s Messiah: Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Bruce Pullan (conductor), Richard Eaton Singers, soloists; 7:30pm; $20$71 at Winspear box office

DJs 180 DEGREES Skinou *Wear*Red* Fri: with Femcee DJ Eden Lixx AZUCAR PICANTE Every Fri: DJ Papi and DJ Latin Sensation BANK ULTRA LOUNGE Connected Fri: 91.7 The Bounce, Nestor Delano, Luke Morrison BAR�B�BAR DJ James; no cover BAR WILD Bar Wild Fri BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Fri DJs spin Wooftop and Main Floor: Eclectic jams with Nevine–indie, soul, motown, new wave, electro; Underdog:

VENUE GUIDE 180 DEGREES 10730-107 St, 780.414.0233 ARTERY 9535 Jasper Ave AVENUE THEATRE 9030-118 Ave, 780.477.2149 AXIS CAFÉ 10349 Jasper Ave, 780.990.0031 BANK ULTRA LOUNGE 10765 Jasper Ave, 780.420.9098 BILLY BOB’S Continental Inn, 16625 Stony Plain Rd, 780.484.7751 BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE 1042582 Ave, 780.439.1082 BLACKSHEEP PUB 11026 Jasper Ave, 780.420.0448 BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ 9624-76 Ave, 780.989.2861 BLUES ON WHYTE 10329-82 Ave, 780.439.3981 BOHEMIA 10575-114 St BOOTS 10242-106 St, 780.423.5014 BRIXX BAR 10030-102 St (downstairs), 780.428.1099 BUDDY’S 11725B Jasper Ave, 780.488.6636 CASINO EDMONTON 7055 Argylll Rd, 780.463.9467 CASINO YELLOWHEAD 12464153 St, 780 424 9467 CHATEAU LOUIS 11727 Kingsway, 780 452 7770 CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY 10255-97 St, 780.425.3662 CHRISTOPHER’S 2021 Millbourne Rd, 780.462.6565 CHROME LOUNGE 132 Ave, Victoria Trail COAST TO COAST 5552 Calgary Tr, 780.439.8675 COLAHAN'S 8214-175 St, 780.487.8887 COMMON LOUNGE 10124-124 St CONVOCATION HALL Arts Bldg, U of A, 780.492.3611 COPPERPOT Capital Place, 101, 9707-110 St, 780.452.7800 COSMOPOLITAN MUSIC SOCIETY Old Strathcona

26 // MUSIC

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

10050 Macdonald Dr NAKED CYBERCAFÉ 10354 Jasper Ave NEST NAIT Main Campus, 11762-106 St NEWCASTLE PUB 6108-90 Ave, 780.490.1999 NEW CITY LEGION 8130 Gateway Boulevard (Red Door) NIKKI DIAMONDS 8130 Gateway Blvd, 780.439.8006 NORTH GLENORA HALL 13535109A Ave O’BYRNE’S 10616-82 Ave, 780.414.6766 OLD STRATHCONA PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE 8426 Gateway Blvd ON THE ROCKS 11730 Jasper Ave, 780.482.4767 ORLANDO'S 1 15163-121 St OVERTIME Whitemud Crossing, 4211-106 St, 780.485.1717 PAWN SHOP 10551-82 Ave, Upstairs, 780.432.0814 PLANET INDIGO�Jasper Ave 11607 Jasper Ave; St Albert 812 Liberton Dr, St Albert PLAY NIGHTCLUB 10220-103 St PLEASANTVIEW COMMUNITY HALL 10860-57 Ave REDNEX BAR�Morinville 10413100 Ave, Morinville, 780.939.6955 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 RIC’S GRILL 24 Perron Street, St Albert, 780.460.6602 ROBERTSON�WESLEY UNITED CHURCH 10209-123 St, 780.467.6531 ROSEBOWL/ROUGE LOUNGE 10111-117 St, 780.482.5253 ROSE AND CROWN 10235-101 St RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES 12402-118 Ave, 780.451.1390

ST ANDREW’S UNITED CHURCH 9915-148 St ST JOSEPH’S BASILICA 10044113 St SECOND CUP�Mountain Equipment 12336-102 Ave, 780.451.7574; Stanley Milner Library 7 Sir Winston Churchill Sq; Varscona, Varscona Hotel, 106 St, Whyte Ave SECOND CUP�Sherwood Park 4005 Cloverbar Rd, Sherwood Park, 780.988.1929 SIDELINERS PUB 11018-127 St, 780.453.6006 SNEAKY PETE'S 12315-118 Ave SPORTSWORLD 13710-104 St SPORTSMAN'S LOUNGE 8170-50 St STARLITE ROOM 10030-102 St, 780.428.1099 STEEPS�College Plaza 11116-82 Ave, 780.988.8105; Old Glenora 12411 Stony Plain Rd, 780.488.1505 STOLLI’S 2nd Fl, 10368-82 Ave, 780.437.2293 TAPHOUSE 9020 McKenney Ave, St Albert, 780.458.0860 TREASURY 10004 Jasper Ave, 7870.990.1255, thetreasurey.ca UNCLE GLENNS 7666-156 St, 780.481.3192 WHISTLESTOP LOUNGE 12416132 Ave, 780. 451.5506 WILD BILL’S�Red Deer Quality Inn North Hill, 7150-50 Ave, Red Deer WILD WEST SALOON 12912-50 St, 780.476.3388 WINSPEAR CENTRE 4 Sir Winston Churchill Square; 780.28.1414 WOK BOX 10119 Jasper Ave WUNDERBAR 8120-101 St, 780.436.2286 Y AFTERHOURS 10028-102 St, 780.994.3256, yafterhours.com YESTERDAYS PUB 112, 205 Carnegie Dr, St Albert, 780.459.0295

Perverted Fri: Punk and Ska from the ‘60s ‘70s and ‘80s with Fathead

FILTHY MCNASTY'S Brewski and Hutch; 4pm; free afternoon show

BLACKSHEEP PUB Fri Bash: DJ spinning retro to rock classics to current

GAS PUMP Blues Jam/open stage every Sat 3-6pm, backline provided

BOOTS Retro Disco: retro dance

HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB Me Next, The Have Nots, Daedelus, guests; 7:30pm (door); $10 (door)

BUDDY’S Fri: DJ Arrow Chaser; 8pm (door); no cover before 10pm CENTURY ROOM Underground House every Fri with DJ Nic-E CHROME LOUNGE Platinum VIP Fri THE DRUID IRISH PUB DJ every Fri at 9pm EMPIRE BALLROOM Rock, hip hop, house, mash up; no minors ESMERELDA'S Ezzies Freakin Frenzy Fri: Playing the best in country FUNKY BUDDHA�Whyte Ave Top tracks, rock, retro with DJ Damian GAS PUMP Top 40/dance with DJ Christian JUNCTION BAR AND EATERY LGBT Community: Rotating DJs Fri and Sat; 10pm LEVEL 2 LOUNGE Release of Formula Series by David Stone; free copies at door with paid cover NEWCASTLE PUB Fri House, dance mix with DJ Donovan PLAY NIGHTCLUB Pretty People Get Nasty with Peep n Tom, Showboy and rotating guest; DJS; every Fri; 9pm (door) REDNEX�Morinville DJ Gravy from the Source 98.5 RED STAR Movin’ on Up Fri: indie, rock, funk, soul, hip hop with DJ Gatto, DJ Mega Wattson ROUGE LOUNGE Solice Fri SPORTSWORLD Roller Skating Disco Fri Nights; 7-10:30pm; sports-world.ca STOLLI’S Top 40, R&B, house with People’s DJ TEMPLE Options Dark Alt Night; Greg Gory and Eddie Lunchpail; 9pm (door); $5 (door) TREASURY Treasury In Style Fri: DJ Tyco and Ernest Ledi; no line no cover for ladies all night long Y AFTERHOURS Foundation Fri

SAT DEC 4 180 DEGREES Dancehall and Reggae night every Sat ALBERTA BEACH HOTEL Open stage with Trace Jordan 1st and 3rd Sat; 7pm-12 AXIS CAFÉ�Metro Room AleeCountry (pop/rock), Charlotte and Sarah; 8pm; $10 BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Hair of the Dog: Jenny Allen and Leslie Alexander (live acoustic music every Sat); 4-6pm; no cover BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ The Prairie Kats with princely guests, 8pm; $10 BLUES ON WHYTE Sat Afternoon Jam with Rotten Dan; Boogie Patrol BOHEMIA No Ego DJs present Paint My Decks; no minors; 8pm (show); donation for the Edmonton Foodbank BRIXX BAR Early Show: Dirty City Hearts, The Rebellion at 7pm (door), $10 (door); Late show: Oh Snap with Degree, Cobra Commander, Battery, Jake Roberts, Ten-O, Cool Beans, John Ohms, P-Rex; 9pm (door); $5 (door) CARROT Open mic Sat; 7:3010pm; free CASINO EDMONTON Catalyst (Caribbean) CASINO YELLOWHEAD The Rum Brothers (showband) COAST TO COAST Live bands every Sat; 9:30pm CROWN PUB Acoustic Open Stage during the day/Electric Open Stage at night with Marshall Lawrence, 1:30pm (sign-up), every Sat, 2-5pm; evening: hosted by Dan and Miguel; 9:30pm-12:30am DOUBLE D'S Raw Sugar ELECTRIC RODEO�Spruce Grove Maple Tea

HILLTOP PUB Open stage/mic Sat: hosted by Sally's Krackers Sean Brewer; 3-5:30pm IRON BOAR PUB Jazz in Wetaskiwin featuring jazz trios the 1st Sat each month; $10 IVORY CLUB Duelling piano show with Jesse, Shane, Tiffany and Erik and guests JAMMERS PUB Sat open jam, 3-7:30pm; country/rock band 9pm-2am L.B.’S Gordy Matthews, GB Roots LYVE ON WHYTE Late Show: Line of Sight MORANGO'S TEK CAFÉ Sat open stage: hosted by Dr. Oxide; 7-10pm NEST The Christmas Carol Project: Pre-Tour Club Show; 7pm (door), 8pm (song circle), 9pm (The Carol); $25 (adv at Blackbyrd)/$30 (door) naitsa.ca/aspnet/thenest.aspx blackbyrd.ca/ O’BYRNE’S Live band Sat 3-7pm; DJ 9:30pm PAWN SHOP Big John Bates and the Voodoo Doolz, White Cowbell Oklahoma, The Schomberg Fair; tickets at Blackbyrd RED PIANO BAR Hottest dueling piano show featuring the Red Piano Players; 9pm-2am RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES Jimmy D. Lane; 9:30pm; $15 SNEAKY PETE'S The Greggs (family band, blues/rock); 9:30pm-1am; no cover STARLITE ROOM Blind Guardian, Holy Grail, Seven Kingdoms; 8pm (door); sold out TOUCH OF CLASS�Chateau Louis Dwayne Cannon; 8:30pm-12:30am Fri-Sat UNCLE GLENNS Teresa James and the Rhythm Tramps; 8pm (show; $35 WILD WEST SALOON Robert Rowan

DJs AZUCAR PICANTE Every Sat: DJ Touch It, hosted by DJ Papi BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Sat DJs on three levels. Main Floor: Menace Sessions: alt rock/electro/trash with Miss Mannered

DEVANEY’S IRISH PUB Celtic Music Session, hosted by KeriLynne Zwicker, 4-7pm

BLACKSHEEP PUB Sat DJ

DOW'S SHELL THEATRE�Fort Saskatchewan Fort Series: A Country Christmas: The Gates Family, Visions Country Gospel; 7pm; $ 25 (adult)/$ 22 (senior/youth)

BOHEMIA Paint My Decks: No Ego DJs and Joe Clarke; no minors; 8pm; entry by donation BUDDY'S Sat: Feel the rhythm with DJ Phon3 Hom3; 8pm (door); no cover before 10pm CENTURY ROOM Underground House every Sat with DJ Nic-E THE DRUID IRISH PUB Sat DJ at 9pm EMPIRE BALLROOM Rock, hip hop, house, mash up ENCORE CLUB So Sweeeeet Sat ESMERALDA’S Super Parties: Every Sat a different theme FLUID LOUNGE Sat Gone Gold Mash-Up: with Harmen B and DJ Kwake FUNKY BUDDHA�Whyte Ave Top tracks, rock, retro with DJ Damian HALO For Those Who Know: house every Sat with DJ Junior Brown, Luke Morrison, Nestor Delano, Ari Rhodes JUNCTION BAR AND EATERY LGBT Community: Rotating DJs Fri and Sat; 10pm NEWCASTLE PUB Top 40 Sat: requests with DJ Sheri NEW CITY LEGION Black Polished Chrome Sat: with DJs Blue Jay, The Gothfather, and Anonymouse; no minors; free (5-8pm)/$5 (ladies)/$8 (gents after 8pm) PALACE CASINO Show Lounge Sat night DJ PAWN SHOP SONiC Presents Live On Site! Anti-Club Sat: rock, indie, punk, rock, dance, retro rock; 8pm (door) PLANET INDIGO�Jasper Ave Suggestive Sat: breaks electro house with PI residents PLAY NIGHTCLUB Every Sat with DJ Showboy; 8pm (door) RED STAR Sat indie rock, hip hop, and electro with DJ Hot Philly and guests

YARDBIRD SUITE Amos Garrett Jazz Trio; 8pm (door), 9pm (show); $22 (member)/$26 (guest)

RENDEZVOUS Survival metal night

Classical

STOLLI’S ON WHYTE Top 40, R&B, house with People’s DJ

CONVOCATION HALL U of A Music: Trio Voce; 8pm; $20 (adult)/$15 (student/senior) EDMONTON MORAVIAN CHURCH Strathcona String Quartet, It's A Wonderful Life; 8pm; $20/$15 at TIX on the Square, door OLD STRATHCONA PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE A Very Cosmopolitan Christmas: Cosmopolitan Music Society; 7:30-10pm; adv: $10 (adult)/$7 (student/senior); door: $12 (adult)/$9 (student/senior) FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH Advent/Christmas concert: First Presbyterian Senior Choir, friends; 4pm; free, free-will offering donated to the Edmonton Christmas Bureau; 780.422.2937 MCDOUGALL UNITED CHURCH Hallelujah! Sing Noël: Chorale Saint-Jean Christmas concert; 8pm; tickets at la Librairie le Carrefour (Cité Francophone), 780.466.1066 ROBERTSON�WESLEY UNITED CHURCH A Festive Mosaic: The Ukrainian Male Chorus of Edmonton, Viter Choir, Shumayela, Robertson-Wesley Ringers, UMCE; 7pm; $15 (adult)/$10 (youth)/free (child under 10) at 780.619.0558, Ukrainian Bookstore WINSPEAR CENTRE Handel’s Messiah: Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Bruce Pullan (conductor), Richard Eaton Singers, soloists; 7:30pm; $20$71 at Winspear box office

CROWN PUB Latin/world fusion jam hosted by Marko Cerda; musicians from other musical backgrounds are invited to jam; 7pm-closing

SPORTSWORLD Roller Skating Disco Sat; 1pm-4:30pm and 7-10:30pm

TEMPLE Oh Snap! every Sat Y AFTERHOURS Release Sat

SUN DEC 5 BEER HUNTER�St Albert Open stage/jam every Sun; 2-6pm BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Who Made Who–The Rock and Roll Resurrection: The Maykings (revive The Who), The Dirty Dudes (revive AC/ DC); 10pm; no cover BLUE CHAIR CAFÉ Sun Brunch: Jim Findlay Trio; 10am-2:30pm; donations BLUE PEAR RESTAURANT Jazz on the Side Sun: Don Berner (sax); $25 if not dining

DOUBLE D'S Open jam every Sun; 3-8pm

EDDIE SHORTS The Saucy Wenches FESTIVAL PLACE A Jazzy Christmas: The River City Big Band; 7:30pm; $28-$32 at Festival Place box office HAVEN SOCIAL CLUB The Breakmen, guests; 7:30pm (door); $10 (door)

MON DEC 6 BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Sleeman Mon: live music monthly; no cover BLUES ON WHYTE Consonance DEVANEY'S IRISH PUB Open stage Mon with Ido Vander Laan and Scott Cook; 8-12 EDDIE SHORTS Saber Jets, The Frolics; no cover JOHN L. HAAR THEATRE MacEwan Music Big Band Concert (Grant MacEwan University and U of A big bands); $10 (adult)/$8 (student/ senior) at TIX on the Square PLEASANTVIEW COMMUNITY HALL Acoustic instrumental old time fiddle jam hosted by the Wild Rose Old Tyme Fiddlers Society; 7pm

J AND R BAR Open jam/stage every Sun hosted by Me Next and the Have-Nots; 3-7pm

ROSE BOWL/ROUGE LOUNGE The Legendary Rose Bowl Mon Jam: hosted by Sean Brewer; 9pm

LOIS HOLE LIBRARY Sun Afternoon Music: live musical performance; 2-3pm, drop-in

RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES Triple Grief, Lionel Rault, Rusty, Fred LaRose; 8pm

NEWCASTLE PUB Sun Soul Service (acoustic jam): Willy James and Crawdad Cantera; 3-6:30pm O’BYRNE’S Open mic Sun with Robb Angus (Wheat Pool); 9:30pm-1am ON THE ROCKS Seven Strings Sun: Souljah Fyah (CD release party), The Soulicitors, Fender Case, Jeff Morris; $10 (adv)/$12 (door) ORLANDO'S 2 PUB Sun Open Stage Jam hosted by The Vindicators (blues/rock); 3-8pm RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES Sun open stage with the Rusty Reed Band; 3-6pm SECOND CUP�Mountain Equipment Co-op Live music every Sun; 2-4pm

Classical MUTTART HALL Edmonton Recital Society: Daniel Bolshoy (classical guitar); 7:30pm; $30 (adult)/$20 (senior/student) at TIX on the Square OLD STRATHCONA PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE A Very Cosmopolitan Christmas: Cosmopolitan Music Society; 2:30-4pm; adv: $10 (adult)/$7 (student/senior); door: $12 (adult)/$9 (student/ senior) ROBERTSON�WESLEY UNITED CHURCH Music for a Festive Season: Alberta Baroque Ensemble: Jolaine Kerley (soprano), U of A Madrigal Singers; 3pm and 7:30pm; $25 (adult)/$20 (senior/student) at the Gramophone, TIX on the Square, door ST ANDREW’S UNITED CHURCH A Canadian Christmas: Vocal Alchemy; 7:30pm; $15 (adult)/$12 (student/senior) at TIX on the Square ST JOSEPH’S BASILICA Hymns and Readings for Christmas: Greenwood Singers; 7:30pm; $10 at St Joseph’s College, 780.492.7681 ext 231, door WINSPEAR CENTRE Sing We Nowell: Cantilon Choirs; 2:30pm; $20 (adult)/$17 (student/senior) at TIX on the Square

Classical BERNSARD SNELL AUDITORIUM FOYER Hear's to Your Health: Trio Voce: Patricia Tao (piano), Jasmine Lin (violin), Marina Hoover (cello); 5pm; free FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH The Many Moods of Christmas: Greenwood Singers, U of A Faculty of Education Handbell Ringers, Helen Stuart (piano), Marnie Giesbrecht (organ); 8pm; $20 (adult)/$18(student/senior) at TIX on the Square, door WINSPEAR CENTRE The Canadian Tenors perform music from their holiday album, The Perfect Gift, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Lucas Waldin (conductor), Jens Lindemann (trumpet); $20-$71 at Winspear box office

DJs BAR WILD Bar Gone Wild Mon: Service Industry Night; no minors; 9pm-2am BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Eclectic Nonsense, Confederacy of Dunces, Dad Rock, TJ Hookah and Rear Admiral Saunders FILTHY MCNASTY'S Metal Mon: with DJ S.W.A.G. FLUID LOUNGE Mon Mixer LUCKY 13 Industry Night with DJ Chad Cook every Mon

TUE DEC 7 BLUES ON WHYTE Consonance BRIXX BAR Troubadour Tue Second Hand Smoke, James Renton, host Mark Feduk; 8pm (door), $5 (door) CROWN PUB Underground At The Crown: underground, hip hop with DJ Xaolin and Jae Maze; open mic; every Tue; 10pm; $3 DRUID IRISH PUB Open stage with Chris Wynters; 9pm EDDIE SHORTS Open stage with Rob Taylor, all gear provided L.B.’S Tue Jam with Ammar; 9pm-1am

BLUES ON WHYTE Blues for Christmas: The Jack Semple Band, A Fist Full of Blues, Rusty Reed, The Raults, Boogie Patrol, Johnny Tornado's Storm Riders, Dave Babcok, Lost Poets, Bill Bourne, World Famous "Gin Pills", Paula Perro and No Foolin', One Soul Thrust, Hardline Blues Band, Debbie Spence, The Cameron Brothers; 2-12; $10 and nonperishable food item; tickets at Sirens, Blues on Whyte; benefit for SIRENS

DJs

O’BYRNE’S Celtic Jam with Shannon Johnson and friends

BACKSTAGE TAP AND GRILL Industry Night: with Atomic Improv, Jameoki and DJ Tim

PADMANADI Tue open stage with Mark Davis; all ages; 7:3010:30pm

BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Sun Afternoons: Phil, 2-7pm; Main Floor: Got To Give It Up: Funk, Soul, Motown, Disco with DJ Red Dawn

RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES Triple Grief, Lionel Rault, Rusty, Fred LaRose; 8:30pm

B�STREET BAR Acoustic-based open stage hosted by Mike "Shufflehound" Chenoweth; every Sun evening

SAVOY MARTINI LOUNGE Reggae on Whyte: RnR Sun with DJ IceMan; no minors; 9pm; no cover

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY Open stage; blues and original, all welcome every Sun; 7-9:30pm

FLOW LOUNGE Stylus Sun PLAY NIGHTCLUB Rotating Drag shows; every Sun; 9pm (door)

SPORTSWORLD Roller Skating Disco Sun; 1-4:30pm; sports-world.ca

SECOND CUP�124 Street Open mic every Tue; 8-10pm SECOND CUP�Stanley Milner Library Open mic every Tue; 7-9pm SIDELINERS PUB Tue All Star Jam with Alicia Tait and Rickey Sidecar; 8pm SPORTSMAN'S LOUNGE Open Stage hosted by Paul McGowan and Gina Cormier; every Tue; 8pm-midnight; no cover

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

MUSIC // 27

STEEPS�Old Glenora Every Tue Open Mic; 7:30-9:30pm STARLITE ROOM Silverstein, The Devil Wears Prada, For Today, My New Enemy; all ages; 6pm (door); $26.50 at TicketMaster, Blackbyrd, UnionEvents.com YARDBIRD SUITE Tue Night Sessions: Tim Mulligan Quartet, followed by an open Jam Session; 7:30pm (door), 8pm (show); $5

Classical ENTERPRISE SQUARE The Music of Franz Schubert: The Enterprise Quartet (cello quintet) with Tanya Prochazka; 4:30pm; free WINSPEAR CENTRE The Canadian Tenors perform music from their holiday album, The Perfect Gift, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Lucas Waldin (conductor), Jens Lindemann (trumpet); $20-$71 at Winspear box office

DJs BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: CJSR’s Eddie Lunchpail; Wooftop: with DJ Gundam BRIXX BAR Troubadour Tue: The Balconies and Sean Brewer, hosted by Mark Feduk; 9pm; $8

28 // MUSIC

BUDDYS Tue with DJ Arrow Chaser; free pool all night; 9pm (door); no cover ESMERALDA’S Retro Tue; no cover with student ID FUNKY BUDDHA�Whyte Ave Latin and Salsa music, dance lessons 8-10pm RED STAR Tue Experimental Indie Rock, Hip Hop, Electro with DJ Hot Philly

WED DEC 8 BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Glitter Gulch Wed; Joey Only Outlaw Band BLUES ON WHYTE Consonance BRIXX BAR Really Good…

Eats and Beats: DJ Degree every Wed, Edmonton’s Bassline Community; 6pm (music); no cover

Wed (unless there's an Oilers game); no cover EXPRESSIONZ CAFÉ Wed Open stage; 7-11pm; admission by donation

RUSTY REED'S HOUSE OF BLUES Little Charlie Trouble, Rusty Reed Unplugged; 8:30pm

FESTIVAL PLACE A Maritime Christmas: The Rankin Sisters; 7:30pm; $56-$60 at Festival Place box office

SECOND CUP�Mountain Equipment Open Mic every Wed; 8-10pm

FIDDLER'S ROOST Annual Christmas Party Little Flower Open Stage Wed with Brian Gregg; 8pm-12; donation for the Edmonton Food bank GOOD EARTH COFFEE HOUSE Wed with Breezy Brian Gregg; 12-1pm HAVEN SOCIAL Open stage with Jonny Mac, 8:30pm, free HOOLIGANZ Open stage Wed: with host Cody Nouta; 9pm

CROWN PUB Creative original Jam Wed (no covers): hosted by Dan and Miguel; 9:30pm-12:30am

PLEASANTVIEW COMMUNITY HALL Acoustic Bluegrass jam presented by the Northern Bluegrass Circle Music Society; Slow pitch for beginners on the 1st and 3rd Wed prior to regular jam every Wed, 6.30pm; $2 (member)/$4 (non-member)

EDDIE SHORTS Wed open stage with Will Coles, all gear provided

RED PIANO BAR Wed Night Live: hosted by dueling piano players; 8pm-1am; $5

ELEPHANT AND CASTLE� Whyte Ave Open mic every

RIVER CREE Wed Live Rock Band hosted by Yukon Jack;

COPPERPOT RESTAURANT Live jazz every Wed night

7:30-9pm

STEEPS TEA LOUNGE� College Plaza Open mic every Wed; 8pm TEMPLE Wyld Style Wed: Live hip hop; $5

Classical WINSPEAR CENTRE Lo, In The Time Appointed: King's University College Concert, Chamber and Community Choirs, Melanie Turgeon, (conductor), ABJ High School Choirs, All City Youth Choir; 8pm; $20 (adult)/$15 (student/senior)/$5 (child 12 and under)

DJs BANK ULTRA LOUNGE Wed Nights: with DJ Harley BLACK DOG FREEHOUSE Main Floor: Blue Jay’s Messy Nest Wed Night: Brit pop, new wave, punk, rock ‘n’ roll with LL Cool Joe BRIXX BAR Really Good...

Eats and Beats with DJ Degree and Friends BUDDY'S Wed: DJ Dust 'n' Time; 9pm (door); no cover COMMON LOUNGE Treehouse Wed: Guest DJs every Week; 7pm (music) DIESEL ULTRA LOUNGE Wind-up Wed: R&B, hiphop, reggae, old skool, reggaeton with InVinceable, Touch It, weekly guest DJs FLUID LOUNGE Wed Rock This IVORY CLUB DJ ongoing every Wed; open DJ night; 9pm-close; all DJs welcome to spin a short set LEGENDS PUB Hip hop/R&B with DJ Spincycle NIKKI DIAMONDS Punk and ‘80s metal every Wed PLAY NIGHTCLUB Movie Night every Wed; 9pm (door) RED STAR Guest DJs every Wed STARLITE ROOM Wild Style Wed: Hip-Hop; 9pm STOLLI'S Beatparty Wed: House, progressive and electronica with Rudy Electro, DJ Rystar, Space Age and weekly guests; 9pm-2am; beatparty.net Y AFTERHOURS Y Not Wed

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

MUSICNOTES also be joined on the Edmonton stage by flame-shooting—literally—southern rock band, White Cowbell Oklahoma.

(The Pawn Shop, $12) Strathcona String Quartet / Sat, Dec 4 (8 pm) The captivating violin, viola and cello concoction will be breathing new life into Brahms' first quartet, which he allegedly worked on for over 20 drafts before being satisfied with the result. Along with the classical masterpiece, the group will be performing works of contemporary masters Galen Noland, Colin Labadie and acclaimed local composer, George Andrix. (Moravian Church, $15 [advance], $20 [door]) Kemo Treats / Sat, Dec 4 (9 pm) Local costumed rap duo Kemo Treats is unveiling its first music video and headlining Eleazar Records' "It's A Hell Of A Party" event at the Artery this week. Not much else you can say about guys that dress like this, really. You either get it or you don't. Check it out if you do. (Artery, $10) —Eden Munro The Schomberg Fair / Sat, Dec 4 (8 pm) The term "speed-gospel," used to describe Toronto roots-rock trio the Schomberg Fair, may conjure images of church music on steroids, but the group's energycharged roots melodies are anything but.

The guitar and banjo accompaniment, which rocks at a feverish pace, is all the more impressive when you're informed that Matt Bahen, the man behind the strings, had to regain the use of his hand after having all five digits reattached following a work accident. The trio will

Versus the Nothing / Sun, Dec 5 (8 pm) What do a Tom Green movie, Mazda and SEGA all have in common? Not much, except that they've all used music by Vancouver-based rock quintet, Versus the Nothing. The group is currently blazing across Canada to promote the 2011 release of its Black Gloves EP. Give yourself a little pre-show preview and check out the video for "Let It All Come Down" on YouTube. Guarantee you the song will get stuck in your head. (DV8 Pub) Cantilon Choirs Present: Sing We Nowell / Sun, Dec 5 (2:30 pm) Children and Christmas concerts go together like Santa and cookies. Traditional carols and contemporary pieces will be brought to life by five different choirs, with performers ranging in age from four to 19. (Winspear Centre, $17–$20)

Souljah Fyah / Sun, Dec 5 (8 pm) Cheap tickets, four bands and a free CD all wrap up into a pretty sweet deal.

Souljah Fyah has been crowned with the title of Canada's best reggae band, and even received a Juno nod last year. The group is now celebrating the release of its third studio album, I Wish. (On the Rocks, $10 [advance], $12 [door])

Daniel Bolshoy / Sun, Dec 5 (7:30 pm) Classical guitar virtuoso and Concordia Univeristy instructor Daniel Bolshoy will be lighting frets on fire in an engaging, diverse performance of guitar prowess. He has played at every major concert venue in Canada, and after making his mark abroad, is returning to Edmonton for a show that will not disappoint. (Muttart Hall, $20–$30) —Meaghan Baxter

Sheree Plett Thu, Dec 9 (7:30 pm) With Eisenhauer, Greg Amundson, Caity Fisher Haven Social Club, $10 Since her 2009 release, The Road to My Family, life for Vancouver folk-pop songstress Sheree Plett (and her husband Jeremy Eisenhauer, who performs his own solo material under the moniker Eisenhauer) has been wrapped up mostly raising a newborn son. Interestingly, though, the release of The Road had little to do with expecting a family of her own.

"Randomly enough, it didn't," she laughs when explaining the writing process. "I had written all the songs already before we even knew we were expecting, but it all ended up tying in quite well together."

Known for her song-based stories about growing up in the Prairies, the sensual, emotive artist is able to conjure up powerful images of love, loss and Canadian winters.

"A lot of the songs are telling stories of growing up in the Prairies, and trying to find my family roots and hear stories from my grandparents. It's a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in the songs."

Looking for a winter wonderland: Sheree Plett and husband Eisenhauer head inland in search of snow

Having moved to the West Coast 10 years ago, she met Eisenhauer and decided to stay. This doesn't stop the couple from touring relentlessly, however—especially with what's become their annual Christmas tour.

"We've been doing it for the last four years, and I think a lot of people think it's crazy that we're so pumped to drive treacherous roads and head east, but it's because Vancouver never gets snow, so

we just wanna go where it's cold."

Alongside The Road, she's also put out a Christmas album and has plans for a record of lullabies for the new year.

"Whenever I get the chance to sit down with a guitar, that's what I've been writing," she offers. "We plan to keep on touring, including a bigger tour in the spring all the way out east."

Mike Angus

// mikeangus@vueweekly.com

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

MUSIC // 29

NEWSOUNDS Mark Ronson & the Business Intl Record Collection (Columbia) 

Roland Pemberton // roland@vueweekly.com

W

hen you are an avid collector of records, you are often presented with the dilemma of value. Even if I try to control my habit by only procuring albums that have "historical merit" or "sentimental importance," I am still somehow stuck with bad-sounding disco compilations with Village People songs on them and records composed solely of wacky sound effects. I trim and try to keep my crates as focused and neat as possible, but there always manages to be some extraneous trash in my house. When it comes to filler and unnecessary songs, Mark Ronson's Record Collection turns out to be quite similar to my own.

Eschewing the brassy, retro sound of his 2007 debut Version and the massive Amy Winehouse album he produced, Ronson has now taken to '80s new-wave affectations, a hip-hop drum ethos and more accessible electro-pop flourishes.

One thing that has been maintained is a penchant for collaboration and excess. Twelve guests show up over 47 minutes of polished pop reference, but

their contributions are often slight, as if they were given little direction and just told to do their thing.

All of this collecting and bombast shares the same problems as Rolodexscanning NASA's The Spirit of Apollo.

Like a distant party with a familiar Facebook guest list, Record Collection features a bunch of people you know but you probably won't have fun if you go out of your way to check it out.

"Glass Mountain Trust" has D'angelo singing on it. He hasn't released an album or played a live show in a decade.

The song is an interesting view into the psychedelic soul he has reportedly been working on obsessively for years but is more important for the fact that it exists, rather than for the merit of the song itself. I find myself thinking, "Wow, Mark Ronson got D'angelo to complete a song!" instead of being able to absorb what they actually made. Unlike Kanye West's similarly feature-heavy My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, the guests are obstructions, not additives, to a homologous album core. That album was recorded with everyone in the same studio in Hawaii, eating and living together during the production process. Record Collection is obviously phoned in, stapled together by Ronson and his studio band.

The single "Bang Bang Bang" presents the formula in the best way, a subtle funky electro groove with vocals from Q-Tip and MNDR that change from half to full time in the chorus to great effect. Unfortunately, Record Collection is a bloated album that is expertly produced but conceptually messy. It sounds tailor-made for UK pop radio but doesn't have any of the experimental hallmarks that makes the European airwaves so exciting and eccentric when compared to those of North America. It's an album that is superficially innovative without actually taking any chances. V

Black Dub Black Dub (Jive) 

From the infamous loins of Daniel Lanois (producer for U2, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Willie Nelson and more) comes Black Dub, equipped with Trixie Whitley, Brian Blade and Daryl Johnson. Given the notoriety of this all-star cast, a listener probably expects some fireworks.

The production is excellent. The musicianship is expert. But the songs themselves don't seem to take off anywhere. The melody lines are predictable. The lyrics are a lump of clay that doesn't take a real shape by the end of a song, notwithstanding instances of tiring repetition. There are exceptions ("Canaan," "Last Time") but overall we are left waiting for something.

Joe Gurba

// joe@vueweekly.com

Subtle Lip Can Subtle Lip Can (Drip Audio) 

One star for creativity. I'll keep the other four for rhythm, melody, content and inspiration. I can't believe I listened to this all the way through. Don't get me wrong, I get it, but this is just painful. There is not one beautiful moment. The only reason I am even giving this a review is to point out the irresponsibility of The Canadian Council For The Arts who so liberally spent our Canadian tax dollars to pay for this faux-avant garde violin torture. And I am pretty sure at the end of the song "Runst From Thag," one of them is making farting noises with his mouth.

Joe Gurba

// joe@vueweekly.com

David Lynch Good Day Today / I Know (Sunday Best Recordings) 

Filmmaker/professional oddball David Lynch is now making pop music. His debut pair of songs, released digitally, have a lot in common with last year's Sparklehorse/Dangermouse collaboration, Dark Night of the Soul; creeping melodies, electro-tinges and empty space, but here Lynch adds danceable rhythms. Seriously. The lapping synth notes and repetitive vocoder croon on "Good Day Today" build into a trance, while "I Know" is a little murkier, but could easily be some dark HBO show theme, a slow carnival tune met halfway by a funeral procession. Though it's surprisingly accessible for him, Lynch is out of his comfort zone here and probably playing it safe. But for the most part he's succeeding, and it offers hope that the flip-side to the auto-tuned saturation of modern pop means more genuine artists from other fields will try their hands.

Paul Blinov

// paul@vueweekly.com

30 // MUSIC

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

Tiny Ruins & a Singer of Songs Little Notes (HI54LOFI) 

Our local and ever proliferating HI54LOFI has brought together the kiwi Tiny Ruins with the Belgian a Singer of Songs on a tour of Spain that resulted in this slumbering folk EP. Guided by a calculated minimalism underneath quiet engulfing voices, a Singer of Songs' liquid baritone cuddles the haunting velour of Tiny Ruins femme fatale vocals for a solid six songs. You can hear the warm summer sun of Barcelona on every song, save the capstone finale, "Please Don't Forget Me," which must surely have been written and recorded at dusk.

OLDSOUNDS

Gin Blossoms

Joe Gurba

// joe@vueweekly.com

Three Mile Pilot The Inevitable Past Is The Future Forgotten (Temporary Residence Ltd) 

Three Mile Pilot has reunited for its first record in 13 years.

When the band split vocalist/guitarist Pall Jenkins spearheaded the Black Heart Procession and bassist Zach Smith started Pinback with Rob Crow. By the record label's own admission, those bands were influenced by 3MP and now 3MP sounds as if influenced by them. Unfortunately, the classic 3MP '90s indie sound (occasionally infused with sci-fi) is contradicted by the big round contemporary recording style. I would have loved to hear this tracked a little more carelessly.

Nonetheless, Jenkins and Smith are on point with their dark harmonies and reverberating chord structures. Inevitable is a solid comeback.

Joe Gurba

New Miserable Experience (A&M) Originally released: 1992

When one thinks of the early '90s and music, Gin Blossoms doesn't necessarily figure prominently on "best of" lists; it's true the group had a number of hits that are sure to evoke nostalgia in music fans of a certain age, but the poppy melodies the band had a penchant for writing have seen the group dismissed over time from the likes of "serious" music from the grunge heyday. Unlike bands that similarly created bright sounding music in the face of a more dirt-encrusted musical milieu—Coldplay for instance— Gin Blossoms' first major-label album, 1992's New Miserable Experience, has an undercurrent of dread, a dark and poetic longing on many of the songs penned by the band's spiritual leader Doug Hopkins that gets overlooked when later work— such as the outside songwriter-penned "Til I Hear It From You"—is considered.

Hopkins' depression and his problems with alcohol are what spurred on some of the bleaker lines in the songs he penned for the group. A line like, "If you don't expect too much from me / You might not be let down,"

in the album's first single "Hey Jealousy" points toward the myriad of problems that Hopkins was experiencing while the group wrote the album. During the recording sessions, Hopkins could barely stand up and was kicked out of the group at the urging of Gin Blossoms' major label, A&M, which threatened to drop the band if it didn't drop Hopkins.

After being kicked out of the group, Hopkins returned to Tempe, Arizona, where the band formed, and watched as the band took off, scoring a number of top-10 hits with his songs—songs like "Hey Jealousy," "Found Out About You" and "Hold Me Down"—songs that documented the very reasons he wasn't in the band anymore. "Hold Me Down," in particular, documents the fact that Hopkins desperately wanted to escape from the problems he was suffering from, with lyrics like, "I can't remember why I like this feeling / When it only seems to let me down," and "When those doors swing open / And all the drinks are passed around / When half the party moves into the bathroom / Hold me down."

When "Hey Jealousy" went gold, Hopkins put his gold record—the achievement he'd always dreamed about—up on his wall for two weeks before taking it down and smashing it. Nine days after that, he shot himself, having snuck away from an alcoholism treatment centre.

Hopkins' suicide loomed over the band through to its demise in 1997 and its subsequent resurrection in 2002. The group's second album—filled with songs that strove for Hopkins' complex mix of poppy melodies and dour lyrics but fell short—was entitled Congratulations I'm Sorry, after the two things the band heard most from friends following its success and Hopkins' death. Even the group's comeback record, 2007's Major Lodge Victory, was named after an inside joke started

by Hopkins. The Gin Blossoms achieved a significant level of beauty on its first major label album, but without its leader the band has never been the same. V Bryan Birtles

// bryan@vueweekly.com

// joe@vueweekly.com

The Breakmen Heartwood (Independent) 

There's an urge to describe the music on Heartwood as lazy, but that wouldn't be right. The rhythms tend towards languid, to be sure, but that's a strength here as the band finds its path carefully: when treading in the deep waters of folk, it's easy to get lost in the standard tropes, spinning wheels while trying to recreate something that was lived by someone else. Here, though, the Breakmen's sound is an experienced one and the band deftly avoids the pitfalls of modern folk music, the members' smooth voices cautious in their tales without being fearful, while the music is aged just right, a blend of today tempered with the past.

Eden Munro

QUICKSPINS

WHITEY HOUSTON // QUICKSPINS@vueweekly.com

Underoath Ø (Disambiguation) (Tooth and Nail)

Abandon All Ships Geeving (Underground Operations)

Screamin' and croonin' And Pickin' and distortin' And eyeball-rollin'

Synth pop kid's screamo Brutal genre mind-fuck meets Grade 6 poetry

El Guincho Pop Negro (Young Turks)

Escape The Fate Escape The Fate (DGC)

Spanish masterpiece Chopped up Tropicalia Peppy and Pepe

I'm an old man now I might break my hip when I Fall over laughing

Black Milk Album of the Year (Fat Beats)

Old Wives See You In Hell (Sonic Iguana)

Keepin' it real dog Tell 'em how tough life must be In your huge mansion

Edmonton's finest Sweeeet! But as their name implies These songs will nag you!

// eden@vueweekly.com

The Breakmen play the Haven Social Club on Sunday, December 5.

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

MUSIC // 31

PREVUE >> AOK

Cowpuncher

Do it for love

AOK couples music with a children's book Relaxing at the side of the road after punching some cows

Fri, Dec 3 (7:30pm) With Dojo Workhorse and guests Haven Social Club, $10 For Matt Olah, frontman for Calgary-based cowpunk band Cowpuncher, collaboration and networking have always been his strong suits. When he started Cowpuncher five years ago, it was basically him and pedal-steel player Shawn Canning. Slowly but surely the rowdy, energetic songwriter's project ballooned to a seven-piece, thanks to members from Matt Masters, the Dudes, Dojo Workhorse, 5 Star Homeless, the Smokin' 45s and Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir. Basically, a who's who of Calgary's indie live-music scene. So how did Olah manage to moonlight so many great players from established bands?

"We had something cool going on," he offers. "When you're a solo guy, you're the band leader, but I prefer the collaboration, so I think people appreciate their input and ideas being heard."

"About last year it finally clicked. We got Harley [Hoeft, upright bass] from 5 Star Homeless, and Tynan [Groves, guitar] and

32 // MUSIC

Jeff [Sulima, drums] from Matt Masters' band, and just this amazing lineup that's now a seven-piece. It just kinda happened."

Rounded out by guitarists Ryan Kelly and Scott Martin, the chaotic Cowpuncher is on tour supporting its debut, The Brown Album. Recorded live off the floor with engineer Ryan Saddler at Calgary's Beatroute Magazine office (the location of a failed recording studio), the writing and recording process proved to be just as chaotic, though Olah was happy to jam everything out as a group. The formula worked so well, in fact, that the band has already started working on material for the next release which should—minus a few roadblocks— come out in mid-2011.

"We're starting our second album," Olah concludes excitedly. "We're a lot better prepared heading into this one. We're charting everything out, so we'll be able to get in there and knock it off. It worked really well last time, but there's some things that didn't work, like, y'know, having 10 flats of beer in the studio. That probably didn't help."

Mike Angus

// mikeangus@vueweekly.com

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

Edmonton writer/rapper AOK—also during those transient 15 seconds known as Omar Mouallem—recently when a listener decides they like me released a tag team of a new alenough to spend money on me. bum coupled with a children's Concertgoers don't want CDs, book, both titled Q Without they want MP3s, but if I tell U. AOK spoke with Vue them to go to iTunes when Weekly about the project's they get home, chances are om eekly.c creation. their interest has fleeted. w e u v eden@ It just so happens that I am n e Ed o a writer with a strong, funny, VUE WEEKLY: How long did r Mun it take to make Q Without educational, genuinely sweet U, from the initial songwriting children's story that I've worked through to the end of the recording? and reworked for year. And it happens AOK: Though it's a concept album that I have a good friend, Josh Holinaty, about love, I didn't realize I had a conwho is a tremendously gifted artist and cept until I was looking through my has already illustrated a protozoic verbanks of recorded songs, scraps of sion of Q Without U before. Last April, lyrics, half-written or half-recorded after the rush of performing at Edmontracks. Between 2008 and April 2010, ton Poetry Festival and wanting to reI had amassed about six songs that lease more music, I realized that I could were all about some man (likely me) merge these two and solve the musichasing some woman. cian's dilemma, at least for me. And I could also get this story out that I'm VW: Why did you pair this album with so proud of. It's a love story, the songs a children's book rather than releasare love stories. So it's just as much a ing them as two unrelated projects? child's tale with a soundtrack as it is an AOK: I think more and more, musialbum with fun packaging. V cians are faced with the challenge of Thu, Dec 2 (7 pm) selling CDs to people who don't want AOK CDs. I wanted to offer something tanCafe Haven, donation gible—a keepsake or novelty—that's worth taking home from a concert

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VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

BACK // 33

COMMENT >> LGBTQ

COMMENT >> ALT SEX

Home for the holidays My grandma passed away last week. It was her time and that seems to be alright until I contemplate the first holiday season without her. As far as I can tell, my Gran is the reason that gender expectations didn't exist in our household. She's the one who sent me GI Joes in the mail when I was four and played hockey with me in the back alley.

I've been lucky, my family has always supported my identity in every way. So many people have it tougher.

I decided to survey a bunch of folks from all over the spectrum to find out how queerness is treated at their holiday gatherings.

Do you feel safe, accepted and supported at home?

My Grandmother wrote me a rather lengthy letter when I first came out discouraging my decision. My father kicked me out of the house. When I moved out things began to smooth over. —Megan I feel safe enough. My parents aren't horrible people.

They're just different. They don't understand my life, my love, or really anything about me and I don't need them to. —Bart Being MtF, it stabs me to the heart that the only pictures that have me in them around the house are all of my former presentation.

—Leslea

EERN Q UN TO MO

Are you out to your extended family? m ekly.co vuewe When relatives ask about my love life I tell For the heteros, does a person's sexual tam@ a them I'm just too into my career. However, or gender identity impact whether you Tamar ka invite them to celebrations?

I'm finally in a relationship and I wish I could Gorzal say "Actually, I met this really great guy and Our doors are open to anyone who needs a we've been boyfriends for three months." I want my home-cooked meal. We are totally accepting of boyfriend/future husband to have a place with my famany relationship that is positive and promotes hapily. —Jordan piness. —Kay I'm out to my immediate family as bisexual and polyamorous. —Nancy Could a family member attend a function living as We don't talk about the gay in my family. My brother their chosen, non-biological gender? has a friend and my uncle, who lives in Poland and is a It would create a rift between that person and other successful doctor, has a roommate. —Bart family members. —Beth My coming out was amazing, my Italian Catholic family I think, in all fairness, it would take some getting used to. were fantastic. —Jen And depending on the family member they would probably make some hurtful comments. —Corrin Are you comfortable bringing your partner to the holiday dinner or being visibly gender variant?

How do you try to make relatives feel accepted as We host holiday celebrations for both of our families at equal members of your family? our home as well as attend family functions as a couple.

Every member of our family is welcomed with a loving —Keith heart. Each family member is unique and appreciated for My whole family connects well with my fiancée, so their strengths and diversities, for who they are on the much so that sometimes I need to talk to her in order to inside. —Elizabeth find out how my family's doing. —Megan I changed my name legally over 10 years ago and some For an extended edition of this column go to still use the wrong name, wrong pronouns. —Leslea vueweekly.com V

Playing politics

Age of consent change hasn't increased protection Two years ago, our federal government changed the teenager consents to is in a position of trust or auage of legal consent to sex from 14 to 16. I followed thority over them. The criminal code states that the the lead-up to this change closely as I have worked activity can be deemed to be exploitive depending in sexual violence education for many years. My exon a number of factors, one of them being the age perience taught me that there are a lot of misconof people involved and the age difference between ceptions around what our criminal code says about them. This means that, anyone who had a concern teenagers and sex. I've always felt that the issue is about an inappropriate sexual relationship between not with our consent laws but with our lack of eduan underage person and an adult, could report cation and enforcement of them. When the that relationship and charges could be laid proposal to increase the age of consent under that section of the code. That young came forward, I was worried that the person's consent is not legal if it can be Conservatives were simply using this shown that, merely by the fact of a difissue as a way to score easy popularity ference in age and experience, that young m o .c ly k ee @vuew points with a public that didn't necesperson was manipulated or exploited. a d n re b sarily understand the complexity of the Brendear issue. A study released last week may The study's authors conclude that what Kerb have proved my cynicism warranted. was, and is needed is not a change to the conThe reason for the change, according to the sent laws but rather better enforcement of the exgovernment, was to protect more teenagers from isting laws. I have to agree. If we simply outlaw adult adult sexual predators. I'm sure most people consex with teenagers, we can breathe a sigh of relief sidered the change to be positive because it apand believe that our children are magically protected peared to extend this protection to a larger number when in effect, we really haven't done anything at all. of teenagers by making adult sex with teenagers The laws are appropriate; what we need is broader illegal all the way to age 16. But this new study, and more effective public education on what those based on the British Columbia Adolescent Health laws are, particularly for young people who may be Survey from 2008, found that only two to three at risk of exploitation and abuse. We need education percent of teenagers aged 14 and 15 who were sexufor our law enforcement and judicial systems so that ally active have had sex with an adult, as opposed they understand and interpret our consent laws corto 39 percent of sexually active teens aged 12 to 13. rectly, making it easier for victims to make complaints The study suggests that the most vulnerable group and get proper justice. is teenagers under 14, the group that was already Rather than this simple fix that makes it look like protected by the previous age of consent. we've made progress, we need real change to the way If we are still concerned about those two to three we deal with sexual violence against young people. V percent of 14 to 15 year-olds who may need that protection, we never had to be because the existBrenda Kerber is a sexual health educator who has ing law addressed them. The consent of anyone worked with local not-for-profits since 1995. She is the under 18 is not considered valid if the sexual activowner of the Edmonton-based sex-positive adult toy ity exploits the young person or if the person the boutique, The Traveling Tickle Trunk.

LUST E LIF

FOR

FREEWILL ASTROLOGY ARIES (Mar 21 – Apr 19) Physicist Stephen Hawking believes that, "If aliens visit us the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans." Those who've studied the teeming evidence for UFOs would say that Hawking's warning is too late.

Some mysterious non-human intelligence has been here for a long time, and the fact that we are still around proves they're no Spanish conquistadors. Aside from that, though, let's marvel at the stupidity of Hawking's lame advice. As any mildly wise person knows, exploring the unknown is not only an aid to our mental and spiritual health—it's a prerequisite. That'll be especially true for you Aries in the coming weeks.

TAURUS (Apr 20 – May 20) "At times, although one is perfectly in the right, one's legs tremble," wrote philosopher V.V. Rozanov. "At other times, although one is completely in the wrong, birds sing in one's soul." That may have been the case for you last month, Taurus, but these days it's the exact reverse. If your knees are wobbly, you're off-centre. If, on the other, birds are singing in your soul, it's because you're united with the beautiful truth. There are a couple of caveats, though: the beautiful truth won't be simple and bright; it'll be dense, convoluted, and kaleidoscopic. And the birds' songs will sound more like a philharmonic orchestra pounding out Beethoven's Fifth Symphony than a single flute playing a quaint folk song.

34 // BACK

GEMINI (May 21 – Jun 20) Are there any actors who have impersonated as many different types of characters as Gemini chameleon Johnny Depp? From rogue agent to chocolatier, from psychotic barber to astronaut, he is a model of inconsistency—a master of not imitating himself. According to my reading of the omens, you now have a poetic license to follow his lead. There have been few times in the last two years when you've had this much freedom and permission to be so multiple, mercurial, and mutant.

CANCER ( Jun 21 – Jul 22) A tattoo now adorns the neck of pop star Rihanna. It says "rebelle fleur," which is a French phrase meaning "rebel flower." The grammar police protested her new body art, desiring the use of the proper "fleur rebelle.” But I'm guessing Rihanna knew that. In reversing the order, she was double-asserting her right to commit breezy acts of insurrection. Let's make "rebelle fleur" your keynote in the coming days, Cancerian. Break taboos, buck tradition and overthrow conventional wisdom -- always with blithe grace and jaunty charm.

LEO ( Jul 23 – Aug 22) Research by German psychologists suggests that positive superstitions may be helpful. Reporting in the journal Psychological Science, "superstition-induced confidence" seems to act in ways akin to how placebos work to heal sick people: it can provide a mysterious boost. Just for the fun of it, Leo, put this finding to the test. Get yourself

ROB BREZSNY // FREEWILL@vueweekly.com a magical object that stimulates your power to achieve success.

VIRGO (Aug 23 – Sep 22) Psychologist Carl Jung said that we are all connected to each other via the collective unconscious. Your psyche and my psyche have taproots that sink deep into the memories and capacities of the entire human race. According to my reading of the omens, your taproots are now functioning more vigorously than they have in a long time. You're in more intimate contact than usual with the primal pool of possibilities. It means you have the power to draw on mojo that transcends your personal abilities. Could you make use of some liquid lightning, ambrosial dreams, or healing balm from the beginning of time?

LIBRA (Sep 23 – Oct 22) If you want to get a gallon of milk directly from the source, you have to squeeze a cow's udder over 300 times.

I recommend you use that as a metaphor for your task in the days to come. It's going to take a lot of squirts or tugs or tweaks to get the totality of what you want. Be patient and precise as you fill your cup little by little. There's no way you can hurry the process by skipping some steps.

SCORPIO (Oct 23 – Nov 21) "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," says the Bible. That doesn't mean what most people think it does. The word translated as "meek" is the Greek word praus, which in ancient times

VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010

didn't mean "weak-willed, passive, mild." Rather, it referred to great power that was under rigorous control. For example, soldiers' warhorses were considered praus. They heeded the commands of their riders, but were fierce warriors that fought with tireless fervor. In this spirit, Scorpio, I'm predicting you're about to get very "meek": offering your tremendous force of will and intelligence in disciplined service to a noble cause.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 – Dec 21) Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a book called Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is. I'd love it if in the next few weeks you would think a lot about how you are on your way to becoming what you were born to be.

Current astrological omens suggest you will have special insight into that theme. For inspiration, you might want to borrow some of Nietzsche's chapter titles, including the following: "Why I Am So Wise," "Why I Am So Clever," and "Why I Am a Destiny."

CAPRICORN (Dec 22 – Jan 19) During some of her concerts, Capricorn singer Hayley Williams has worn a tank top that bears the phrase "Brand New Eyes." I encourage you to consider making that your own guiding principle. By pointedly declaring your intention to view the world with refreshed vision, you will be able to tune in to sights that have been invisible to you. You will discover secrets hidden in plain view and maybe even carve out a

window where before there had been a thick, blank wall.

AQUARIUS ( Jan 20 – Feb 18) Much of my recent book, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia, is rated PG. But there's one story that's X. It's a feminist meditation on spiritual intimacy, not a heap of vulgar stereotypes. Still, when the book came out, I couldn't bear the thought of sending copies to certain relatives of mine who are a bit prudish. So I came to an honorable compromise: Using a razor blade, I sliced out the nine pages in question and gave my loved ones the mostly-intact remainder. May I suggest you consider a comparable editing of your efforts, Aquarius? Your main object right now is to win friends and influence people.

PISCES (Feb 19 – Mar 20) In the waters off the southwest coast of Africa, the small fish known as the bearded goby has always been preyed upon by jellyfish—until recently. Now this formerly mild-mannered species has overthrown the ancient status quo: it is feasting on the jellyfish that once feasted on it. I foresee a metaphorically comparable development in your life, Pisces. How it will play out exactly, I'm not sure. Maybe you'll gain an advantage over someone or something that has always had an advantage over you. Maybe you will become the topdog in a place where you've been the underdog. Or maybe you'll begin drawing energy from a source that has in the past sucked your energy.

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Musicalmania! needs experienced violinist w/strong acting/communication skills for upcoming musical theatre production. Call 780.460.2937 Want to be part of Edmonton's New Art community collective? Send info ASAP to d_art_man@hotmail.com for jury in upcoming show Expressionz Café: looking for visual artists and creative business/wellness, green vendors for the Monthly Marketplace. Located south of Whyte Ave, 9938-70 Ave. Info/book vendor space E: expressionzcafe@gmail.com Profiles Art Gallery–St Albert are looking for functional and decorative pieces and are interested in hearing from fibre artists and artists working in wood and glass. E: jennyw@artsheritage.ca for info Free art demo Saturdays: Naess Gallery–Paint Spot, 10032-81 Ave, 780.432.0240 Novastarz. Singing / songwriting competition. cash prizes and more. Pre-register at novastarz.com; 587.989.6243 Musicalmania! needs strong supporting cast members for upcoming shows. All ages welcome. Call 780-460-2937

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HELP WANTED Change your life! Travel, Teach English: We train you to teach. 1000’s of jobs around the world. Next in-class or ONLINE by correspondence. Jobs guaranteed. 7712-104 St. Call for info pack 1.888.270.2941 The Cutting Room is looking for Assistants and Stylists Please drop off your resume at 10536-124 Street

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MUSICAL INSTRUCTION MODAL MUSIC INC. 780.221.3116 Quality music instruction since 1981.

Guitarist. Educator.

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Night 32 Productions Inc. seeks a qualified screen writer for a TV pilot titled “Dogs 'n Snakes and Innocent Women”, a comedy set at the Blues on Whyte, Sat afternoon jam. The first draft has been written. Contact us with contact info and sample of work. Kevin Sisk, Associate Producer, drsiskphddd@msn.com Any artist, musician, or performance artist interested in being featured for the Local Art Showcase @The Old Strathcona Antique Mall, please be inspired to contact Jenn@oldstrathconamall.com Expressionz Café is looking for café and special concert events volunteers. T: 780.437.3667. General kitchen help: front of house, food prep, baking, etc. Shifts available MonFri, 9am-12pm, 11am-2pm, 1-4pm, and evening shifts for special concert events (Wed-Sun 6-10pm) Call for entries: 2011 Dreamspeakers; Deadline: Mar 31, 2011; Info E: info@dreamspeakers.org. Send entries to: Attn: Executive Director, Dreamspeakers Festival Society, 8726-112 Ave, Edmonton, AB, T5B 0G6 Musicalmania! needs a strong tenor with musical theatre experience. Paid position, some touring involved. Call 780.460.2937 Call to local artists, musicians, performers for Yuk Yuk's new "Thursday Night Variety Show". Call 780.481.9857 and ask for Chas or email: chaz_beau@hotmail.com for info

MUSICIANS Musicalmania! needs a strong tenor with musical theatre experience. Paid position, some touring involved.

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Latin/Gypsy/jazz guitarist, bassist and percussionist wanted for original band. Practice twice/wk, music theory a must. Songs are ready. Alin 780.237.2546 Vocalist wanted – Progressive/Industrial/metal; age 1721. Contact justinroyjr@gmail.com

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Contact: Denis Lapierre, DowntownCentre, 780.429.0675, E: dl.learningcentre@shaw.ca; Susan Skaret, Abbottsfield Mall Centre, 780.471.2598, E: sskaret@telus.net Cityfarm Growing Assistants: Volunteer with children and see their fascination with plants, seeds and soil; help a teacher/leader feel successful in growing plants indoors.

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Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers, need volunteers to help immigrant children and youth of all ages–volunteer in a homework club. Phillip Deng at 780.423.9516, pdeng@emcn.ab.ca

Bluebird North: Where Writers Sing and Tell: Sun, Nov 28 at The Haven Social Club with Brian McLeod, Kim Wempe, Dave Newberry, Karyn Ellis; MC Ann Vriend; $15 at door or TIX on the Square/$12 (door for S.A.C. member)

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Morango's Tek Café is looking for bands and musicians for shows on Friday nights....contact Dr. Oxide at .....doctoroxide@shaw.ca

SHARE THE WARMTH WINTER LIGHT

Warm socks, mittens, parkas, scarves and toques are redistributed to people in need, and to agencies that serve the inner city community Items should be clean and warm. Wool socks are particularly useful Donations for Share the Warmth will be accepted at the Winter Light office adn festival sites, and at Snow Valley. To donate used clothing before the festival starts, The United Way will take them through their Coats For Kids program. Drop-off your new or used coats at any Page the Cleaner location www.coatsforkids.ca

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COSMOPOLITAN MUSIC SOCIETY Opportunity for amateur adult musicians and singers to learn and perform concert band and choral music under professional music direction. Contact Darlene at 780.432.9333; generalmanager@cosmopolitanmusic.org

Carrot Café seeks volunteers: baristas to serve coffee, tea and carrot muffins; full training given on making specialty coffees and teas. Also need volunteer to clean daily from 7:30am, Tue-Fri, or once a week on Sun. For info contact Irene Yauck at Irene@ehenri.ca, 780.471.1580

Singer-songwriter, playwriter, dancer, R&B funk, director, voice actor, actor stuntman, ready for anything, Katz 587.785.4481; OKatz33@telus. blackberry.net

BACKWORDS

Mechanics needed: The Edmonton Bicyle Commuters' Society operates a volunteer-run community bike workshop called BikeWorks, 10047-80 Ave (back alley), also accepting bicycle donations; E: volunteer@edmontonbikes.ca; W: edmontonbikes.ca

The war is waged everyday, all in the name of esthetics. It is a constant battle for beauty.

Street artists are the paratroopers of the art world. Where the art in museums and galleries speaks in diplomatic tones and hushed voices, art on the ground stalks us like a guerilla movement, hitting our consciousness when we least expect it.

This artist belongs to a generation that owns the urban environment and inhabits it on its own terms. This work of art is part of a resistance,

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making its presence felt and heard by any means available, in this case, paper, ink and wheat paste.

Some would have you believe it is vandalism. True, the medium is unconventional, and the imagery is reminiscient of what many would consider criminal. But how does it differ from ancient paintings on cave walls? Most would agree that that is art.

If we are to truly dwell in a city, we must make it our own and be free to colour our walls with the expressions of our experiences. V

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VUEWEEKLY // DEC 2 – DEC 8, 2010