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For The Coast Weird Science “Funny theatre gets short shrift sometimes,” Griffin McInnes says as he sits in the depths of the King’s College Pit. Beside him, a wall of televisions looms large as the centrepiece of McInnes’ latest creation, Science Inaction: A Love Story. “People don’t take it seriously and it should be taken very very very seriously.” Produced and performed by Wit’s End Theatre, Science Inaction will be mounted at The Bus Stop Theatre from Thursday, June 28 to Sunday, July 1. And it will be seriously funny. It’s so serious, in fact, that before it opens at The Bus Stop it will be performed as part of the ninth Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science hosted by Dalhousie University, the University of King’s College and the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science. If that’s not serious I don’t know what is. “A big part of this show is breaking down reality versus expectations,” McInnes says. “It’s a very anachronistic look at Bruno Latour who was a philosopher and anthropologist [and] is still alive but was very active in the ’80s and ’90s during what was called the science wars, when there were a lot of sociologists, anthropologists and philosophers who were looking at science and scientific facts and a lot of scientists were saying, well, ‘Who are you to look at our work?’” So the show will be riffing off of this contentious academic moment but Liz Johnston—-co-founder of Wit’s End, who stars alongside Lewis Wynne-Jones—-explains that though the show deals with these scientific themes, it is at heart a love story. “Basically it’s just two people who are attracted to each other and find what the other person has to say interesting but there’s times when they just don’t mesh. It’s funny.” Those two people are Bruno, a doctoral candidate played by Wynne-Jones and Donna, an amphibian neurobiologist who has a life-long infatuation with television, played by Johnston. Donna’s TV obsession plays itself out in a number of ways with the play itself taking on various televisual tropes. “She has an obsession with TV that she’s had since she was a kid,” Johnston says. “I think it’s really to do with the fact that television episodes and whole series tend to follow a very specific ordered progression and a lot of the show is about her trying to force her life into these same patterns but it hasn’t really worked out.” This tension between structure and absurdity, science and art, reality and surreality weaves through the production in thought provoking and giggle-inducing ways. And that’s the point. After graduating from King’s a year ago, McInnes and Johnston birthed the Wit’s End Theatre Company as an antidote to what they saw as a malady in the Halifax theatre scene. “We decided to make Wit’s End Theatre with the mandate to make funny theatre in Halifax because we’ve sort of found that there’s not enough of it.” McInnes explains. “There’s some stand-up comedy, there’s some sketch…but there’s no funny theatre being done.” So they’re doing it. Science Inaction will be their fourth production and it’s clear that they have a lot of fun and laughs. But McInnes reiterates that it’s a serious undertaking. “We love the idea of being able to promote laughter for laughter’s sake but at the same time we want to sort of champion laughter as something that is just as artistically, intellectually and emotionally important as any other kind of theatre.”

For The Coast

Weird Science

“Funny theatre gets short shrift sometimes,” Griffin McInnes says as he sits in the depths of the King’s College Pit. Beside him, a wall of televisions looms large as the centrepiece of McInnes’ latest creation, Science Inaction: A Love Story. “People don’t take it seriously and it should be taken very very very seriously.”

Produced and performed by Wit’s End Theatre, Science Inaction will be mounted at The Bus Stop Theatre from Thursday, June 28 to Sunday, July 1. And it will be seriously funny.

It’s so serious, in fact, that before it opens at The Bus Stop it will be performed as part of the ninth Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science hosted by Dalhousie University, the University of King’s College and the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science.

If that’s not serious I don’t know what is.

“A big part of this show is breaking down reality versus expectations,” McInnes says. “It’s a very anachronistic look at Bruno Latour who was a philosopher and anthropologist [and] is still alive but was very active in the ’80s and ’90s during what was called the science wars, when there were a lot of sociologists, anthropologists and philosophers who were looking at science and scientific facts and a lot of scientists were saying, well, ‘Who are you to look at our work?’”

So the show will be riffing off of this contentious academic moment but Liz Johnston—-co-founder of Wit’s End, who stars alongside Lewis Wynne-Jones—-explains that though the show deals with these scientific themes, it is at heart a love story.

“Basically it’s just two people who are attracted to each other and find what the other person has to say interesting but there’s times when they just don’t mesh. It’s funny.”

Those two people are Bruno, a doctoral candidate played by Wynne-Jones and Donna, an amphibian neurobiologist who has a life-long infatuation with television, played by Johnston. Donna’s TV obsession plays itself out in a number of ways with the play itself taking on various televisual tropes.

“She has an obsession with TV that she’s had since she was a kid,” Johnston says. “I think it’s really to do with the fact that television episodes and whole series tend to follow a very specific ordered progression and a lot of the show is about her trying to force her life into these same patterns but it hasn’t really worked out.”

This tension between structure and absurdity, science and art, reality and surreality weaves through the production in thought provoking and giggle-inducing ways.

And that’s the point. After graduating from King’s a year ago, McInnes and Johnston birthed the Wit’s End Theatre Company as an antidote to what they saw as a malady in the Halifax theatre scene.

“We decided to make Wit’s End Theatre with the mandate to make funny theatre in Halifax because we’ve sort of found that there’s not enough of it.” McInnes explains. “There’s some stand-up comedy, there’s some sketch…but there’s no funny theatre being done.”

So they’re doing it. Science Inaction will be their fourth production and it’s clear that they have a lot of fun and laughs. But McInnes reiterates that it’s a serious undertaking. “We love the idea of being able to promote laughter for laughter’s sake but at the same time we want to sort of champion laughter as something that is just as artistically, intellectually and emotionally important as any other kind of theatre.”

10 months ago  1 note

For The Coast Get in OUTeast Pink champagne, popcorn and queer films take over the Neptune Studio Theatre for the OUTeast Queer Film Festival. by Veronica Simmonds “There are a lot of bad gay films out there,” Krista Davis says over drinks at Tom’s Little Havana. “And people will watch them because they are gay.” Jenna Dufton, sitting across from her, starts nodding, “Totally.” Beside Dufton, Andria Wilson joins in agreement; “We’re hungry to see that content whether it’s good or bad.” But from June 14 to 17, Wilson, Davis and Dufton are promising to show nothing but the best at the OUTeast Queer Film Festival. The festival will be satiating that hunger for queer content with internationally acclaimed features, shorts and documentaries all screened at the Neptune Studio Theatre. The idea for the fest came to the trio over another set of drinks, while they were discussing a film that had screened at the Atlantic Film Festival’s That’s So Gay series. Davis found the film to be problematic, portraying a one-dimensional view of what it is to be a lesbian. The discussion that came up from their disappointment with that film got these friends thinking. “We were just kind of like, there’s nothing here,” Wilson says. “Other than the That’s So Gay series there’s no festival dedicated to queer films, let’s do it before someone else does. So we did.” The doing part has been an organic exciting experience for these organizers. They each brought a solid set of honed skills to the table as they all work for the Atlantic Film Festival by day. Dufton is a programmer with “crazy” film knowledge, Wilson is a theatre and festival producer who can write a grant “like it’s no one’s business” and Davis is a filmmaker. Together they have put together a program to be reckoned with. From the award-winning (and tear-jerking) documentary, Wish Me Away about Chely Wright, the first country music singer to come out as gay, to the exquisitely exceptional work, I Am A Woman that reflects on the experiences of women who had their sex changed in Casablanca throughout the 1950s and ’60s, the festival will offer powerful, thought provoking work for Haligonian audiences. “We don’t want people to say ‘I went to a gay film festival and saw gay content’ but to say ‘I saw a film that was awesome,’” Wilson says. Another priority is to showcase and support local filmmakers. The Shorts Program will have exclusively Atlantic Canadian content and the festival is excited to have Morgan Strug as an emerging filmmaker-in-residence. With the support of OUTeast, Strug is working on a documentary project illuminating Halifax’s drag community. A matinee presentation and collaboration opportunity will be held for Strug’s film on Sunday June 17. Wilson, Davis and Dufton’s passion and excitement is contagious. Along with the support of their board they have worked tirelessly volunteering their time to make this thing happen. With parties and events every night, pink champagne flowing and adorable pink popcorn mascots OUTeast is set to be a fun and focused celebration of queer cinema. When asked whether this festival is needed more than ever in Halifax’s history, Dufton reflects on her past. “I grew up in a small-town in Ontario and I remember being completely starved for this type of content. I actually think that if I had had it it would have been easier for me. But I just didn’t have it. This is still really important. We need to get our stories out there. It means a lot to me that we’re able to do that.”

For The Coast

Get in OUTeast

Pink champagne, popcorn and queer films take over the Neptune Studio Theatre for the OUTeast Queer Film Festival. by Veronica Simmonds

“There are a lot of bad gay films out there,” Krista Davis says over drinks at Tom’s Little Havana. “And people will watch them because they are gay.” Jenna Dufton, sitting across from her, starts nodding, “Totally.” Beside Dufton, Andria Wilson joins in agreement; “We’re hungry to see that content whether it’s good or bad.”

But from June 14 to 17, Wilson, Davis and Dufton are promising to show nothing but the best at the OUTeast Queer Film Festival. The festival will be satiating that hunger for queer content with internationally acclaimed features, shorts and documentaries all screened at the Neptune Studio Theatre.

The idea for the fest came to the trio over another set of drinks, while they were discussing a film that had screened at the Atlantic Film Festival’s That’s So Gay series. Davis found the film to be problematic, portraying a one-dimensional view of what it is to be a lesbian. The discussion that came up from their disappointment with that film got these friends thinking.

“We were just kind of like, there’s nothing here,” Wilson says. “Other than the That’s So Gay series there’s no festival dedicated to queer films, let’s do it before someone else does. So we did.”

The doing part has been an organic exciting experience for these organizers. They each brought a solid set of honed skills to the table as they all work for the Atlantic Film Festival by day. Dufton is a programmer with “crazy” film knowledge, Wilson is a theatre and festival producer who can write a grant “like it’s no one’s business” and Davis is a filmmaker.

Together they have put together a program to be reckoned with. From the award-winning (and tear-jerking) documentary, Wish Me Away about Chely Wright, the first country music singer to come out as gay, to the exquisitely exceptional work, I Am A Woman that reflects on the experiences of women who had their sex changed in Casablanca throughout the 1950s and ’60s, the festival will offer powerful, thought provoking work for Haligonian audiences.

“We don’t want people to say ‘I went to a gay film festival and saw gay content’ but to say ‘I saw a film that was awesome,’” Wilson says.

Another priority is to showcase and support local filmmakers. The Shorts Program will have exclusively Atlantic Canadian content and the festival is excited to have Morgan Strug as an emerging filmmaker-in-residence. With the support of OUTeast, Strug is working on a documentary project illuminating Halifax’s drag community. A matinee presentation and collaboration opportunity will be held for Strug’s film on Sunday June 17.

Wilson, Davis and Dufton’s passion and excitement is contagious. Along with the support of their board they have worked tirelessly volunteering their time to make this thing happen. With parties and events every night, pink champagne flowing and adorable pink popcorn mascots OUTeast is set to be a fun and focused celebration of queer cinema.

When asked whether this festival is needed more than ever in Halifax’s history, Dufton reflects on her past. “I grew up in a small-town in Ontario and I remember being completely starved for this type of content. I actually think that if I had had it it would have been easier for me. But I just didn’t have it. This is still really important. We need to get our stories out there. It means a lot to me that we’re able to do that.”

11 months ago 

For OpenFile Word to Your Grandmother  - Hip Hop Gets Old Schooled “What we appear is not what we are.” That’s the name of the rhyme written and rapped by a group of seniors on Monday. After taking on rapper names like Sparkle, Ping Pong, Old Dutch, Mommy-C and Erosion (“if I try to breakdance, I’ll just wear away”), this group of about ten ladies and gents at the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection got to work making bling, sketching tags, writing raps and breakdancing, all as a part of the Heart & Soul summer camp for seniors. The rap the Heart & Soul hip-hop workshop cooked up—”Watch Your Back” A video by Ian Gibb of the dance session, taught by Drew Moore. From bouncing to the beats to spitting out their verses, this crowd was beaming ear to ear all day. Some were more mobile than others and some needed some assistance to participate, but everyone was engaged. Jesse Robson coordinates Heart & Soul, and with her team of volunteers, this church rec room transformed into a hip hop bonanza and these seniors became blanged out superstars. But, she explains, hip hop is just the theme of the day. “We like to center our workshops around a theme,” she says. “We like to do three or four different activities combining different artistic genres, and then individual and collaborative art work so we find it easier to do that when there is a theme.” Robson has a background in neuroscience and dance, and this combination led to the creation of a dance class with a fellow volunteer at the QEII hospital last year. Eventually, they decided to have a more consistent program, so with the help of the Robert Pope Foundation and now the Halifax Community Health Board, Heart & Soul was born. “There’s been a lot of literature in neuroscience recently about how important it is to remain physically active in later life for preventing both physical and cognitive decline,” Robson explains. “Dance is something that is really accessible to everyone. Everyone can bop along, even if that’s the only sort of movement they can do.” And this group did more than just bopping. Under the the tutelage of Drew Moore from Concrete Roots, the Heart & Soulers were up on their feet popping and locking but first they learned about the history of hip hop. Moore explained how it was birthed in the Bronx as an outlet for a generation of disempowered youth, how it helped break down barriers and let people express themselves. The greater message of hip hop culture struck a cord with this group. Oliver, a.k.a Erosion, told me his hip hop education has made him more open-minded. “I think it has possibilities—not only for the younger who are better equipped to respond to it. I think the older people can as well, myself included. And I do what I can, I have an arthritic hip, but there’s still a few moves I can make.” And making these moves is doing nothing but good things for this group—in fact, most of them are here on the recommendation of medical personnel. “After people have a bad fall or a surgery, they just don’t want to do anything for a really long time,” Robson says, “which is understandable, because they’re in pain, and they’re afraid they might fall again. We think this program is helping out.” “The thing about hip hop is it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.” Moore explained at the end of his B-Boy workshop. “So if you’re just walking around with some attitude, some swagger that’s what it’s all about.” Judging by the content of this group’s rhyme they’ve got swagger up the yin yang and they’ve got the jokes, too. “People see white haired ladies and bald-headed gents, we’ve lost our hair but not our underwear,” as they say in their poppin’ rap. Word up. photos by Ian Gibb

For OpenFile

Word to Your Grandmother  - Hip Hop Gets Old Schooled

“What we appear is not what we are.”

That’s the name of the rhyme written and rapped by a group of seniors on Monday.

After taking on rapper names like Sparkle, Ping Pong, Old Dutch, Mommy-C and Erosion (“if I try to breakdance, I’ll just wear away”), this group of about ten ladies and gents at the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection got to work making bling, sketching tags, writing raps and breakdancing, all as a part of the Heart & Soul summer camp for seniors.


The rap the Heart & Soul hip-hop workshop cooked up—”Watch Your Back”


A video by Ian Gibb of the dance session, taught by Drew Moore.

From bouncing to the beats to spitting out their verses, this crowd was beaming ear to ear all day. Some were more mobile than others and some needed some assistance to participate, but everyone was engaged.

Jesse Robson coordinates Heart & Soul, and with her team of volunteers, this church rec room transformed into a hip hop bonanza and these seniors became blanged out superstars. But, she explains, hip hop is just the theme of the day.

“We like to center our workshops around a theme,” she says. “We like to do three or four different activities combining different artistic genres, and then individual and collaborative art work so we find it easier to do that when there is a theme.”

Robson has a background in neuroscience and dance, and this combination led to the creation of a dance class with a fellow volunteer at the QEII hospital last year. Eventually, they decided to have a more consistent program, so with the help of the Robert Pope Foundation and now the Halifax Community Health Board, Heart & Soul was born.

“There’s been a lot of literature in neuroscience recently about how important it is to remain physically active in later life for preventing both physical and cognitive decline,” Robson explains. “Dance is something that is really accessible to everyone. Everyone can bop along, even if that’s the only sort of movement they can do.”

And this group did more than just bopping. Under the the tutelage of Drew Moore from Concrete Roots, the Heart & Soulers were up on their feet popping and locking but first they learned about the history of hip hop. Moore explained how it was birthed in the Bronx as an outlet for a generation of disempowered youth, how it helped break down barriers and let people express themselves.

The greater message of hip hop culture struck a cord with this group. Oliver, a.k.a Erosion, told me his hip hop education has made him more open-minded.

“I think it has possibilities—not only for the younger who are better equipped to respond to it. I think the older people can as well, myself included. And I do what I can, I have an arthritic hip, but there’s still a few moves I can make.”

And making these moves is doing nothing but good things for this group—in fact, most of them are here on the recommendation of medical personnel.

“After people have a bad fall or a surgery, they just don’t want to do anything for a really long time,” Robson says, “which is understandable, because they’re in pain, and they’re afraid they might fall again. We think this program is helping out.”

“The thing about hip hop is it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.” Moore explained at the end of his B-Boy workshop. “So if you’re just walking around with some attitude, some swagger that’s what it’s all about.”

Judging by the content of this group’s rhyme they’ve got swagger up the yin yang and they’ve got the jokes, too.

“People see white haired ladies and bald-headed gents, we’ve lost our hair but not our underwear,” as they say in their poppin’ rap.

Word up.

photos by Ian Gibb

11 months ago  View high resolution

For OpenFile Word of Mouth Sustains Illegal Restaurants On top of festooned tables and behind closed garden doors, food experiences are being created and shared across this city—only, secretly. Pop-up restaurants—as they’ve been called in other places—are popping up all over this town. At last count there were at least six establishments in HRM—and it seems more are popping up every day. Underground eateries and cafés are not legitimate by any municipal or provincial standard. They don’t abide by By-Law C-500, which means they can be fined up to $5,000. And, they don’t have provincial food establishment permits or health permits, or food handling training, generally. But that doesn’t seem to scare Halifax’s rogue restauranteurs—the same way it doesn’t seem to phase operators of this illegal speakeasy. OpenFile reached out to proprietors of these establishments to get a sense of who they are, what they are doing and how they see themselves. Entrepreneurs? Business owners? Renegades? Artists? Here’s what we found… Photo by Katie McKay. NINA’STwo friends living apart decided to come together one summer—Greg, living in Toronto at the time, and Al, living here in Halifax. Simple as that, Al and Greg birthed Nina’s Backyard Barbeque. “The community wants it,” Al said to Greg over the phone one day.” There’s a need for this.’” Greg, who came back to Halifax for the summer, “got some pig, got some waffle, some slaw, pickled some things, [and] made an invite,” he says. “Took it door to door to all the neighb’s, did the Facebook thing—told everyone I knew. Done deal.” No red tape, no waiting on accreditation. North End diners were treated to porky, pickle-topped waffles at affordable prices in a twinkly garden. This wasn’t Greg’s first venture—he ran a few businesses before Nina’s—some legal, some illegal. He sees the main difference between the two as the flexibility. “If we don’t run it one week, we just say, ‘Oh I just found out I can go to Denmark, so we’re not going to do it this week. And everyone will hear about it and someone might come by and be like, ‘oh it’s not running. OK!’” The only upside Greg sees to going legit with a business is to make it bigger—and make more profit, maybe. But with Nina’s, “it would be every night and it would be late night and I would worry about my health. Doing it once a week is a great time. That’s enough—there’s other projects to do.” Greg’s happy to see more pop-ups popping up. He’d even like to see training provided for people, so they could feel confident to put their ideas into action. But for now, he’s happy just to be making fun. “People running these things are recouping their costs but they’re not really making anything. It’s just about getting together and hanging out.” POTATO POTATOKira felt there was a lack of cozy winter venues in the city. So, she set up brunch in a friend’s one-bedroom apartment. “I thought of it as a winter project, not as a money-making scheme, she says. “In fact, I quickly grew uncomfortable with taking money from customers, as they were mostly people I knew, [and] considered my friends.” One complication of underground operations—word travels through friends, so it can often end up quite insular. “It’s easy enough to serve friends—people who are already on-board and familiar with the desire to run and attend a ‘pop-up.’” “It’s most exciting, I think, to serve someone who is new to the idea and experience, to see them try to understand the scene and the workings around them,” she says. Though it was hard to take money from friends, Kira put on many sumptuous feasts in that high-ceilinged abode and was paid to provide her community with a mid-morning hang out. Though she put the effort in, she shies away from the E-word. “Entrepreneur?…Someone who invests time and energy to actualize an idea? Am I such a person?” she asks. “Jesus Christ…I don’t think I would advertise myself as an entrepreneur. In the same breath, for the months that I ran Potato/Potato, I worked hard.” THE GENERALSam and Daina bought a fancy espresso machine, and now they’re using it. A friend was selling the machine because he and his partner were having a baby. On a whim, they bought it, Sam says, “with no certainty as to how we were going to use it.” The machine had its debut at Potato Potato’s underground brunch in January. Then, a pal offered them his house for February, so February at The General Café was born. At the end of March, they were in EyeLevel Gallery, finishing as resident coffee artists during the Reshelving Initiative. And April at The General Café was being hosted by the Roberts Street Social Centre, and for May, they’ve partnered with a store on Agricola Street. Though their digs are constantly in flux, The General maintains the same airy charm wherever they are. With a golden framed chalk menu and jazzy crooners crooning, visitors are instantly calmed and coffeed. These temporary café installments are helping pay off the machine, the pair says, but their priority is creating new spaces in the city. “I think there’s something missing here where I don’t feel comfortable going somewhere and sitting and reading a book—just hanging out in a space,” says Daina. “And I know that that is not financially viable. You know you can’t just have one person sit in your café all day. But, I like the idea of having that space.” That’s OK, they say, because the space doesn’t need to make money. Sam and Daina have other day jobs that they live off of, so they can afford to invite customers to buy a $2 espresso and sit around for hours. Do they feel they’re entrepreneurs? “I guess I don’t love the word,” says Daina. “I can see it in a negative light…if someone wants to open a business and it doesn’t even matter what business it is—[and] they just want to make money, that’s when it becomes a little less honourable. Sam isn’t quite sure. “I don’t feel that we are entrepreneurs at this point at all, but I feel good about people I know who are doing things that are entrepreneurial.” THE CASTLEKrista just started The Castle about a month ago. She’s always loved cooking and was getting rave reviews from roommates, so decided to open up her house and charge people for the pleasure of her cuisine. She provides an upscale experience—three course meals with elaborate recipes from all over the world. “Halifax doesn’t really have a lot of variety. I’m thinking of running a Cuban menu next month—Halifax doesn’t really offer that, as far as I know.” She’s learning as she goes. “I’m thinking about going to culinary school, and I’m not certain, so this is a way to see if I have what it takes to cook for that many people.” At this point, she’s not worried about the legalities of what she’s doing. The Castle seats about eight people and Krista can’t imagine anyone having a problem with that. “If it does reach the point where I am garnering a lot of interest and I’m exceeding what I can do, then I might consider renting out a space somewhere and doing this in a more legitimized manner. I just don’t have the money or really the inclination to do it right now.” But Krista doesn’t shrink away from the notion of entrepreneurship—she’s run other businesses. She’s a freelance photographer by trade and once owned a rental photobooth company in Florida. “For me, a lot of what I do with any sort of business venture is a lot more about a learning experience than anything else,” she says, “because I’m still at that point in my life where I’m not really certain what direction I’m going.” JESS’S BREADS, CANS AND CATERINGJess is a North End mover and shaker. She has three business, one of which she has the proper permits for, and the other two she keeps under the table. Sitting at her table as she’s slicing onions, Jess says she’s from a long line of entrepreneurs. “Historically, it kind of fits in my family,” she says. “On my dad’s side, they are all entrepreneurs. I’m not very close with that part of the family, but it is part of my family legacy.” For her it means being self-employed and working hard. “It means finding a market and then generating the energy it takes to produce something to sell and doing that repetitively, consistently and really excellently.” And that’s what she does. Her legit business is selling bread at one of the farmers’ markets and through a CSB (Community Supported Bakery) she started two years ago. Her not-so-legit businesses are a canning club (CSC, of course) she started with a friend last year, and a secretive catering company she developed with her cooking friend Ben. They’ve done some weddings and community events and, last summer, they were making door-to-door deliveries. In all of her businesses Jess works hard to maximize the pleasure she can get out of them. She’s taken unconventional routes to maintain her businesses debt-free. This means thinking about risks and gains a little differently than a conventional business. She has the risk of getting pregnant and not having maternity leave or of injuring herself on the job and not having the necessary insurance. But for Jess, the gains outweigh those risks. “I do things in a very unconventional way. I rebel against major social expectations and produce things in a pretty uncapitalistic way. Sometimes, I make no money from what I do—and I know that—and I do it because it makes me happy or because it’s something exciting.” “That’s another reason why entrepreneurism here is a good idea for people.” She tells me, mid onion slice, “There aren’t actually that many opportunities for me here, but I really want to live here and I’ve found a niche for myself and I really maximize it and it’s allowed me to stay here and I’m grateful for that.” Photo by Katie McKay.

For OpenFile

Word of Mouth Sustains Illegal Restaurants

On top of festooned tables and behind closed garden doors, food experiences are being created and shared across this city—only, secretly.

Pop-up restaurants—as they’ve been called in other places—are popping up all over this town. At last count there were at least six establishments in HRM—and it seems more are popping up every day.

Underground eateries and cafés are not legitimate by any municipal or provincial standard.

They don’t abide by By-Law C-500, which means they can be fined up to $5,000. And, they don’t have provincial food establishment permits or health permits, or food handling training, generally.

But that doesn’t seem to scare Halifax’s rogue restauranteurs—the same way it doesn’t seem to phase operators of this illegal speakeasy.

OpenFile reached out to proprietors of these establishments to get a sense of who they are, what they are doing and how they see themselves. Entrepreneurs? Business owners? Renegades? Artists? Here’s what we found…

Photo by Katie McKay.

NINA’S
Two friends living apart decided to come together one summer—Greg, living in Toronto at the time, and Al, living here in Halifax. Simple as that, Al and Greg birthed Nina’s Backyard Barbeque.

“The community wants it,” Al said to Greg over the phone one day.” There’s a need for this.’”

Greg, who came back to Halifax for the summer, “got some pig, got some waffle, some slaw, pickled some things, [and] made an invite,” he says. “Took it door to door to all the neighb’s, did the Facebook thing—told everyone I knew. Done deal.”

No red tape, no waiting on accreditation. North End diners were treated to porky, pickle-topped waffles at affordable prices in a twinkly garden.

This wasn’t Greg’s first venture—he ran a few businesses before Nina’s—some legal, some illegal. He sees the main difference between the two as the flexibility.

“If we don’t run it one week, we just say, ‘Oh I just found out I can go to Denmark, so we’re not going to do it this week. And everyone will hear about it and someone might come by and be like, ‘oh it’s not running. OK!’”

The only upside Greg sees to going legit with a business is to make it bigger—and make more profit, maybe. But with Nina’s, “it would be every night and it would be late night and I would worry about my health. Doing it once a week is a great time. That’s enough—there’s other projects to do.”

Greg’s happy to see more pop-ups popping up. He’d even like to see training provided for people, so they could feel confident to put their ideas into action. But for now, he’s happy just to be making fun.

“People running these things are recouping their costs but they’re not really making anything. It’s just about getting together and hanging out.”

POTATO POTATO
Kira felt there was a lack of cozy winter venues in the city. So, she set up brunch in a friend’s one-bedroom apartment.

“I thought of it as a winter project, not as a money-making scheme, she says. “In fact, I quickly grew uncomfortable with taking money from customers, as they were mostly people I knew, [and] considered my friends.”

One complication of underground operations—word travels through friends, so it can often end up quite insular. “It’s easy enough to serve friends—people who are already on-board and familiar with the desire to run and attend a ‘pop-up.’”

“It’s most exciting, I think, to serve someone who is new to the idea and experience, to see them try to understand the scene and the workings around them,” she says.

Though it was hard to take money from friends, Kira put on many sumptuous feasts in that high-ceilinged abode and was paid to provide her community with a mid-morning hang out.

Though she put the effort in, she shies away from the E-word.

“Entrepreneur?…Someone who invests time and energy to actualize an idea? Am I such a person?” she asks. “Jesus Christ…I don’t think I would advertise myself as an entrepreneur. In the same breath, for the months that I ran Potato/Potato, I worked hard.”

THE GENERAL
Sam and Daina bought a fancy espresso machine, and now they’re using it.

A friend was selling the machine because he and his partner were having a baby. On a whim, they bought it, Sam says, “with no certainty as to how we were going to use it.”

The machine had its debut at Potato Potato’s underground brunch in January. Then, a pal offered them his house for February, so February at The General Café was born. At the end of March, they were in EyeLevel Gallery, finishing as resident coffee artists during the Reshelving Initiative. And April at The General Café was being hosted by the Roberts Street Social Centre, and for May, they’ve partnered with a store on Agricola Street.

Though their digs are constantly in flux, The General maintains the same airy charm wherever they are. With a golden framed chalk menu and jazzy crooners crooning, visitors are instantly calmed and coffeed. These temporary café installments are helping pay off the machine, the pair says, but their priority is creating new spaces in the city.

“I think there’s something missing here where I don’t feel comfortable going somewhere and sitting and reading a book—just hanging out in a space,” says Daina. “And I know that that is not financially viable. You know you can’t just have one person sit in your café all day. But, I like the idea of having that space.”

That’s OK, they say, because the space doesn’t need to make money. Sam and Daina have other day jobs that they live off of, so they can afford to invite customers to buy a $2 espresso and sit around for hours.

Do they feel they’re entrepreneurs?

“I guess I don’t love the word,” says Daina. “I can see it in a negative light…if someone wants to open a business and it doesn’t even matter what business it is—[and] they just want to make money, that’s when it becomes a little less honourable.

Sam isn’t quite sure. “I don’t feel that we are entrepreneurs at this point at all, but I feel good about people I know who are doing things that are entrepreneurial.”

THE CASTLE
Krista just started The Castle about a month ago. She’s always loved cooking and was getting rave reviews from roommates, so decided to open up her house and charge people for the pleasure of her cuisine.

She provides an upscale experience—three course meals with elaborate recipes from all over the world.

“Halifax doesn’t really have a lot of variety. I’m thinking of running a Cuban menu next month—Halifax doesn’t really offer that, as far as I know.”

She’s learning as she goes.

“I’m thinking about going to culinary school, and I’m not certain, so this is a way to see if I have what it takes to cook for that many people.”

At this point, she’s not worried about the legalities of what she’s doing. The Castle seats about eight people and Krista can’t imagine anyone having a problem with that.

“If it does reach the point where I am garnering a lot of interest and I’m exceeding what I can do, then I might consider renting out a space somewhere and doing this in a more legitimized manner. I just don’t have the money or really the inclination to do it right now.”

But Krista doesn’t shrink away from the notion of entrepreneurship—she’s run other businesses. She’s a freelance photographer by trade and once owned a rental photobooth company in Florida.

“For me, a lot of what I do with any sort of business venture is a lot more about a learning experience than anything else,” she says, “because I’m still at that point in my life where I’m not really certain what direction I’m going.”

JESS’S BREADS, CANS AND CATERING
Jess is a North End mover and shaker. She has three business, one of which she has the proper permits for, and the other two she keeps under the table. Sitting at her table as she’s slicing onions, Jess says she’s from a long line of entrepreneurs.

“Historically, it kind of fits in my family,” she says. “On my dad’s side, they are all entrepreneurs. I’m not very close with that part of the family, but it is part of my family legacy.”

For her it means being self-employed and working hard. “It means finding a market and then generating the energy it takes to produce something to sell and doing that repetitively, consistently and really excellently.”

And that’s what she does. Her legit business is selling bread at one of the farmers’ markets and through a CSB (Community Supported Bakery) she started two years ago. Her not-so-legit businesses are a canning club (CSC, of course) she started with a friend last year, and a secretive catering company she developed with her cooking friend Ben. They’ve done some weddings and community events and, last summer, they were making door-to-door deliveries.

In all of her businesses Jess works hard to maximize the pleasure she can get out of them. She’s taken unconventional routes to maintain her businesses debt-free. This means thinking about risks and gains a little differently than a conventional business. She has the risk of getting pregnant and not having maternity leave or of injuring herself on the job and not having the necessary insurance. But for Jess, the gains outweigh those risks.

“I do things in a very unconventional way. I rebel against major social expectations and produce things in a pretty uncapitalistic way. Sometimes, I make no money from what I do—and I know that—and I do it because it makes me happy or because it’s something exciting.”

“That’s another reason why entrepreneurism here is a good idea for people.” She tells me, mid onion slice, “There aren’t actually that many opportunities for me here, but I really want to live here and I’ve found a niche for myself and I really maximize it and it’s allowed me to stay here and I’m grateful for that.”

Photo by Katie McKay.

12 months ago  1 note View high resolution

For The Coast Gimme science fiction  Out of This World showcases Hollywood’s greatest sci-fi artifacts at the Museum of Natural History Dear sci-fi fans: All your dreams are coming true. Your best friends are coming to town: Captain Kirk, Darth Vader, Batman and Robin. They’re all going to be at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History…sorry, they won’t be. But their clothes will. Opening this Friday and running until August 26, The Museum of Natural History will be hosting Out of This World: Extraordinary Costumes from Film and Television. The exhibit is based out of the EMP Museum in Seattle and has travelled all over the United States, everywhere from Oshkosh to Kalamazoo but with a little luck and some excellent timing Jeff Gray—-the curator at the Museum of Natural History—-was able to snag a viewing. “It was honestly one of those things,” Gray says. “It was open just at the time we could take it and it all just worked out.” Now it might not seem to be a natural selection for a natural history museum to display movie costumes, it could be argued that Hollywood is in essence detached from the natural world. But Gray explains that the exhibit is meant to pique Haligonian interest in science fiction and outer space more generally. Out of This World will be on exhibit in conjunction with the museum’s Science on a Sphere solar system show. “We have the only one in Canada.” Gray says of Science on a Sphere, “It’s a six foot round screen that runs on four projectors with a wide range of data. It shows live weather, it shows live earthquakes. It shows all these different things that happen on the earth but in addition to all those things it also shows the sun, the moon and all the planets of the solar system.” The museum will be showcasing the solar system on the sphere this summer and are hoping the Out of This World exhibit will get visitors excited about their world and the worlds beyond our planet. As Gray points out, so many of the costumes in the exhibit are meant to be from faraway galaxies but end up imbued with our earthly perceptions. “It is interesting that you start to look at all these costumes and how costumes are made, even if they are from different planets or they are other kinds of beings they’re all still somehow rooted in our understanding of earth.” He uses Gorn, the lizard man from Star Trek as an example. “Our notions of lizards being scary inform us when we see him.” Beyond the strictly sci-fi costumes of Star Trek and Star Wars the exhibit also has artifacts from other well-loved classics, like the Wicked Witch of the West’s hat from the Wizard of Oz and the leather jacket worn by Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Gray concedes that the natural science connection of the exhibit is a little tenuous. “At some levels it’s not natural history,” Gray says. “But in the absence of a cultural museum in Halifax we sort of fill that void at times too.” And maybe this exhibit questions the definition of natural, maybe it expands on our view of the natural world as we see it. These fantastic depictions of potential worlds have a way of reflecting our world back to us. Maybe in peering into the clothes of those from galaxies far far away we will find a way to see ourselves—-just as we are.

For The Coast

Gimme science fiction 

Out of This World showcases Hollywood’s greatest sci-fi artifacts at the Museum of Natural History

Dear sci-fi fans: All your dreams are coming true. Your best friends are coming to town: Captain Kirk, Darth Vader, Batman and Robin. They’re all going to be at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History…sorry, they won’t be. But their clothes will.

Opening this Friday and running until August 26, The Museum of Natural History will be hosting Out of This World: Extraordinary Costumes from Film and Television. The exhibit is based out of the EMP Museum in Seattle and has travelled all over the United States, everywhere from Oshkosh to Kalamazoo but with a little luck and some excellent timing Jeff Gray—-the curator at the Museum of Natural History—-was able to snag a viewing.

“It was honestly one of those things,” Gray says. “It was open just at the time we could take it and it all just worked out.”

Now it might not seem to be a natural selection for a natural history museum to display movie costumes, it could be argued that Hollywood is in essence detached from the natural world. But Gray explains that the exhibit is meant to pique Haligonian interest in science fiction and outer space more generally.

Out of This World will be on exhibit in conjunction with the museum’s Science on a Sphere solar system show.

“We have the only one in Canada.” Gray says of Science on a Sphere, “It’s a six foot round screen that runs on four projectors with a wide range of data. It shows live weather, it shows live earthquakes. It shows all these different things that happen on the earth but in addition to all those things it also shows the sun, the moon and all the planets of the solar system.”

The museum will be showcasing the solar system on the sphere this summer and are hoping the Out of This World exhibit will get visitors excited about their world and the worlds beyond our planet.

As Gray points out, so many of the costumes in the exhibit are meant to be from faraway galaxies but end up imbued with our earthly perceptions.

“It is interesting that you start to look at all these costumes and how costumes are made, even if they are from different planets or they are other kinds of beings they’re all still somehow rooted in our understanding of earth.”

He uses Gorn, the lizard man from Star Trek as an example. “Our notions of lizards being scary inform us when we see him.”

Beyond the strictly sci-fi costumes of Star Trek and Star Wars the exhibit also has artifacts from other well-loved classics, like the Wicked Witch of the West’s hat from the Wizard of Oz and the leather jacket worn by Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Gray concedes that the natural science connection of the exhibit is a little tenuous. “At some levels it’s not natural history,” Gray says. “But in the absence of a cultural museum in Halifax we sort of fill that void at times too.”

And maybe this exhibit questions the definition of natural, maybe it expands on our view of the natural world as we see it. These fantastic depictions of potential worlds have a way of reflecting our world back to us. Maybe in peering into the clothes of those from galaxies far far away we will find a way to see ourselves—-just as we are.

1 year ago 

For Halifax Local Connections The Business of Biking “It’s people that patronize businesses not automobiles. It sounds very straight forward but a lot of business owners don’t see that.” This is the message of local business owner Peter Williams.  Williams is an avid cyclist and when he talks bikes, he means business.   As the founder of Halifax based bicycle touring company Eastwind Cycle, he organizes bike trips throughout the Maritimes, Quebec and Mexico.  He also works as an advocate and consultant for the City and Province on strengthening bicycle infrastructure. “On long trips back and forth between here and Quebec City we started saying well what’s happened to NS why can’t we have this in NS?” says Williams, referring to Quebec’s Route Verte network of bicycle and multi-use trails that spans over 4,000 kilometers.  Williams and his business partner Suzanna Fuller have since been hosting presentations in public forms across the province with the result being a plan for a “Blue Route” in Nova Scotia. On the Municipal level, Williams is supporting the Crosstown Connector project proposed by the Halifax Cycling Coalition.  The current proposal for the Connector is a north south bike lane that would traverse the length of the peninsula reaching as far as the Bedford highway.  The route could be put along Connaught or Windsor streets but so far the momentum seems to be behind an Agricola corridor. Simple as this idea might seem, Williams is expecting a great deal of push-back from the business community that could be affected by a reduction in parking spaces.   The narrow nature of Agricola street could mean that one lane of parking might be removed or in some cases both lanes of parking. “I totally embrace the value of having a livable city and what that involves.” says mayoral candidate Fred Conners who is also the owner of FRED salon, café and gallery on Agricola St.  “Fortunately, I live and work in this neighbourhood, a lot of our customers live and work in this neighbourhood and I don’t see the loss of parking along this street to be as terrifying as other businesses do but I’m also Vice President of the Business Association and I hear from those businesses and I can understand how threatening that would be for them.” Conners proposes that instead of bike lanes the city should implement traffic controlled areas with reduced speed limits. “It would be easier to build a critical mass of bike friendly zones so that people don’t have to stick to just a narrow 36 inch wide lane, they have the entire street that they can occupy with automobiles and that’s a much better way to go.” As a business-owner himself Williams agrees that accommodations will need to be made for small businesses that could be effected but he sees the increase of slow moving bike traffic as an opportunity for Agricola businesses.  On this point Conners agrees with Williams. “People automatically think that cars equal business but when you really look at it cars don’t equal business, people equal business and if you can make neighbourhoods attractive to more people we do better business.”

For Halifax Local Connections

The Business of Biking

“It’s people that patronize businesses not automobiles. It sounds very straight forward but a lot of business owners don’t see that.”

This is the message of local business owner Peter Williams.  Williams is an avid cyclist and when he talks bikes, he means business.   As the founder of Halifax based bicycle touring company Eastwind Cycle, he organizes bike trips throughout the Maritimes, Quebec and Mexico.  He also works as an advocate and consultant for the City and Province on strengthening bicycle infrastructure.

“On long trips back and forth between here and Quebec City we started saying well what’s happened to NS why can’t we have this in NS?” says Williams, referring to Quebec’s Route Verte network of bicycle and multi-use trails that spans over 4,000 kilometers.  Williams and his business partner Suzanna Fuller have since been hosting presentations in public forms across the province with the result being a plan for a “Blue Route” in Nova Scotia.

On the Municipal level, Williams is supporting the Crosstown Connector project proposed by the Halifax Cycling Coalition.  The current proposal for the Connector is a north south bike lane that would traverse the length of the peninsula reaching as far as the Bedford highway.  The route could be put along Connaught or Windsor streets but so far the momentum seems to be behind an Agricola corridor.

Simple as this idea might seem, Williams is expecting a great deal of push-back from the business community that could be affected by a reduction in parking spaces.   The narrow nature of Agricola street could mean that one lane of parking might be removed or in some cases both lanes of parking.

“I totally embrace the value of having a livable city and what that involves.” says mayoral candidate Fred Conners who is also the owner of FRED salon, café and gallery on Agricola St.  “Fortunately, I live and work in this neighbourhood, a lot of our customers live and work in this neighbourhood and I don’t see the loss of parking along this street to be as terrifying as other businesses do but I’m also Vice President of the Business Association and I hear from those businesses and I can understand how threatening that would be for them.”

Conners proposes that instead of bike lanes the city should implement traffic controlled areas with reduced speed limits. “It would be easier to build a critical mass of bike friendly zones so that people don’t have to stick to just a narrow 36 inch wide lane, they have the entire street that they can occupy with automobiles and that’s a much better way to go.”

As a business-owner himself Williams agrees that accommodations will need to be made for small businesses that could be effected but he sees the increase of slow moving bike traffic as an opportunity for Agricola businesses.  On this point Conners agrees with Williams.

“People automatically think that cars equal business but when you really look at it cars don’t equal business, people equal business and if you can make neighbourhoods attractive to more people we do better business.”

1 year ago  View high resolution

For OpenFile Bargain Lover Bill Mont Dumping His 10-Truck, 52-Year Collection of Bargains It takes me five minutes to bike up to the “Bill’s” flea market showroom on Robie St. but it’s taken Bill Mont 52 years to get here—to the point where he’s ready to part with 10 tractor trailer loads of his “stuff.” Walking into Bill’s is instantly calming. The ceilings are high, the windows are wide and Nat King Cole is crooning, “When I fall in love.” This calm is contrasted by the frenzy of objects that fill not one but two giant store rooms. Lamps, radios, magazines, records, pipes, generators, throne chairs, the film set of 2007’s The Conclave—even an emergency hatch off an airplane—these treasures brim over long tables and pile up on shelves. And in amongst it all is 83-year-old Bill: The Collector. Bill Mont’s other lost treasuresThere aren’t just bargains at Bill Mont’s flea market. There are boxes and boxes of old unlabeled photographs. One blogger has started posting them to his Lost Lives blog. “I have a problem,” Bill tells me, “If it’s called a bargain, I just have to buy it.” And this doesn’t just apply to knick-knackery. Bill also collects really big things, too. He owns a cemetery in Lower Sackville, a WWI wreck of a hospital ship in Portuguese Cove, 19-acre Devil’s Island in the Halifax Harbour, a little plot of land in Shad Bay, and right now, he’s in conversations with the province about purchasing the lighthouse at Peggy’s Cove. Oh and he’s also owned two castles. In November 2011, Bill trucked (literally…trucked…) his massive collection of worldy items to a warehouse atDemone and Robie. The location is temporary—Banc Developments, Ltd. is waiting on approval from the province to develop an apartment complex on that site. So Bill has to get rid of this stuff. He thinks it’s time. “I’ve been gathering up stuff since 1960. So now I’m saddled with about ten tractor trailer loads of stuff—I’m just about to be 83 next month. My health’s not the best these days, so I’ve got a big job on my hands.” So he’s trying to get rid of it all. Or is he? “I don’t think he wants to get rid of anything,” says Dave Ewenson. He’s a customer of Bill’s and he thinks that whatever he may say, Bill just isn’t ready to sell his treasures. “You’ll be impressed by what’s out there, it’s a really random mix of stuff so you feel like you could find just about anything—then [Bill] always hints that he has so much more.” “And if you ask to look at it, he’s like, ‘Oh, [you’ve] gotta wait.’—I think there’s an inner battle going on there.” A storeroom with other yet-to-be-revealed sale items. Selling a collection like this can’t be easy. For Bill, it’s his life’s work. As extravagant as his collection has become, Bill started from humble roots. “I was born basically at the beginning of the depression, May 1st, 1929,” says Bill. His father left as the depression arrived, riding boxcars, and “ending up being the amateur boxing champion of Washington, DC, he says. “That left my mother and I being brought up by step-parents. So it was tough, I’ll tell you how tough it was.” He says his father died when Bill was nine, suffocated in a refrigerated box car. Bill ended up in reform school for two years because he couldn’t afford pencils, so had skipped class to avoid the embarrassment. He and his mother lived on the Halifax waterfront, “known as Greenbank at that time,” where the container pier is now. His first collection, when he was eleven, came from picking up bottles around the harbour. Select photos of Bill and his endless stuff. (Photos by Veronica Simmonds and Neal Ozano) Between (and during) his collections, he’s had a myriad of jobs. He’s been a red cap at the train station, an oil tank cleaner on ships, he built yachts and mobile homes, he did demolition work in Clayton Park, he’s been in 25 movies (including a cameo in Titanic (he says he didn’t eat the chowder—he’d brought his own lunch) and he’s been on Showcase’s Trailer Park Boys. But anyone who knows Bill Mont knows he also single-handedly brought flea markets to Nova Scotia in 1975. He says the first flea market happened at the drive-in theatre in Lower Sackville—where the Superstore is now. “We had about 400 dealers,” says Bill. “People would rent a table and bring their stuff. It cost a quarter back then, and it was the place to go on Sunday. There was no Sunday shopping, there was no Frenchy’s. People came from all over the Maritimes.” Bill explains to me how his collection of lands and truckloads evolved. The way he describes it makes it all seem so natural—A logical progression towards a colossal collection. “Over the years, you know, buying and selling real estate and other things gave me the money to play with, buying into apartment buildings with some of my friends and then I just got in the habit of buying odds and ends, odd stuff, niche stuff, collectors’ items and just plain bargains.” Part of what pushes Bill to collect (and keep) all his stuff might be based in his impoverished depression upbringing. Everything had value; nothing went to waste. “I don’t like to see things get destroyed, whether it’s a building being torn down or whatever. I’m from the old school. Now, it’s getting to be a throw-away society. They don’t care, they knock down a building and it means nothing.” But it all means something to Bill, that’s why he’s been saving it all. Not just by buying it up, but by sitting on dozens of historical boards and committees, including the Sable Island Preservation Trust and Heritage Canada. He believes the past should be preserved. And it’s worrying him that this ideal seems to the fading. “I find, quite frankly too, that a lot of the young people come in and they don’t seem to have the money to spend. And people aren’t buying antiques like they used to. It’s a whole different world.” This new world might not be able to handle the ten truck loads of nostalgia that Bill has on offer. He might not be able to sell it all before the apartments are set to go up. But Bill tells me he has a bit of a backup plan. “People say to me, ‘Bill, what are you going to do with all this stuff if you don’t sell it? You can’t take it with you.’ I say, ‘Sure I can, I have a cemetery. I can set aside five acres. I’ll have it go in tractor trailer loads and signs that say, ‘He did take it with him’.”

For OpenFile

Bargain Lover Bill Mont Dumping His 10-Truck, 52-Year Collection of Bargains

It takes me five minutes to bike up to the “Bill’s” flea market showroom on Robie St. but it’s taken Bill Mont 52 years to get here—to the point where he’s ready to part with 10 tractor trailer loads of his “stuff.”

Walking into Bill’s is instantly calming. The ceilings are high, the windows are wide and Nat King Cole is crooning, “When I fall in love.” This calm is contrasted by the frenzy of objects that fill not one but two giant store rooms. Lamps, radios, magazines, records, pipes, generators, throne chairs, the film set of 2007’s The Conclave—even an emergency hatch off an airplane—these treasures brim over long tables and pile up on shelves. And in amongst it all is 83-year-old Bill: The Collector.

Bill Mont’s other lost treasures
There aren’t just bargains at Bill Mont’s flea market. There are boxes and boxes of old unlabeled photographs. One blogger has started posting them to his Lost Lives blog.

“I have a problem,” Bill tells me, “If it’s called a bargain, I just have to buy it.” And this doesn’t just apply to knick-knackery. Bill also collects really big things, too. He owns a cemetery in Lower Sackville, a WWI wreck of a hospital ship in Portuguese Cove, 19-acre Devil’s Island in the Halifax Harbour, a little plot of land in Shad Bay, and right now, he’s in conversations with the province about purchasing the lighthouse at Peggy’s Cove. Oh and he’s also owned two castles.

In November 2011, Bill trucked (literally…trucked…) his massive collection of worldy items to a warehouse atDemone and Robie. The location is temporary—Banc Developments, Ltd. is waiting on approval from the province to develop an apartment complex on that site. So Bill has to get rid of this stuff.

He thinks it’s time.

“I’ve been gathering up stuff since 1960. So now I’m saddled with about ten tractor trailer loads of stuff—I’m just about to be 83 next month. My health’s not the best these days, so I’ve got a big job on my hands.”

So he’s trying to get rid of it all. Or is he?

“I don’t think he wants to get rid of anything,” says Dave Ewenson. He’s a customer of Bill’s and he thinks that whatever he may say, Bill just isn’t ready to sell his treasures.

“You’ll be impressed by what’s out there, it’s a really random mix of stuff so you feel like you could find just about anything—then [Bill] always hints that he has so much more.”

“And if you ask to look at it, he’s like, ‘Oh, [you’ve] gotta wait.’—I think there’s an inner battle going on there.”

A storeroom with other yet-to-be-revealed sale items.

Selling a collection like this can’t be easy. For Bill, it’s his life’s work. As extravagant as his collection has become, Bill started from humble roots.

“I was born basically at the beginning of the depression, May 1st, 1929,” says Bill. His father left as the depression arrived, riding boxcars, and “ending up being the amateur boxing champion of Washington, DC, he says. “That left my mother and I being brought up by step-parents. So it was tough, I’ll tell you how tough it was.”

He says his father died when Bill was nine, suffocated in a refrigerated box car. Bill ended up in reform school for two years because he couldn’t afford pencils, so had skipped class to avoid the embarrassment. He and his mother lived on the Halifax waterfront, “known as Greenbank at that time,” where the container pier is now. His first collection, when he was eleven, came from picking up bottles around the harbour.

Select photos of Bill and his endless stuff. (Photos by Veronica Simmonds and Neal Ozano)

Between (and during) his collections, he’s had a myriad of jobs. He’s been a red cap at the train station, an oil tank cleaner on ships, he built yachts and mobile homes, he did demolition work in Clayton Park, he’s been in 25 movies (including a cameo in Titanic (he says he didn’t eat the chowder—he’d brought his own lunch) and he’s been on Showcase’s Trailer Park Boys.

But anyone who knows Bill Mont knows he also single-handedly brought flea markets to Nova Scotia in 1975.

He says the first flea market happened at the drive-in theatre in Lower Sackville—where the Superstore is now.

“We had about 400 dealers,” says Bill. “People would rent a table and bring their stuff. It cost a quarter back then, and it was the place to go on Sunday. There was no Sunday shopping, there was no Frenchy’s. People came from all over the Maritimes.”

Bill explains to me how his collection of lands and truckloads evolved. The way he describes it makes it all seem so natural—A logical progression towards a colossal collection.

“Over the years, you know, buying and selling real estate and other things gave me the money to play with, buying into apartment buildings with some of my friends and then I just got in the habit of buying odds and ends, odd stuff, niche stuff, collectors’ items and just plain bargains.”

Part of what pushes Bill to collect (and keep) all his stuff might be based in his impoverished depression upbringing. Everything had value; nothing went to waste.

“I don’t like to see things get destroyed, whether it’s a building being torn down or whatever. I’m from the old school. Now, it’s getting to be a throw-away society. They don’t care, they knock down a building and it means nothing.”

But it all means something to Bill, that’s why he’s been saving it all. Not just by buying it up, but by sitting on dozens of historical boards and committees, including the Sable Island Preservation Trust and Heritage Canada.

He believes the past should be preserved. And it’s worrying him that this ideal seems to the fading.

“I find, quite frankly too, that a lot of the young people come in and they don’t seem to have the money to spend. And people aren’t buying antiques like they used to. It’s a whole different world.”

This new world might not be able to handle the ten truck loads of nostalgia that Bill has on offer. He might not be able to sell it all before the apartments are set to go up. But Bill tells me he has a bit of a backup plan.

“People say to me, ‘Bill, what are you going to do with all this stuff if you don’t sell it? You can’t take it with you.’ I say, ‘Sure I can, I have a cemetery. I can set aside five acres. I’ll have it go in tractor trailer loads and signs that say, ‘He did take it with him’.”

1 year ago  View high resolution

This is a piece that I just submitted to the Third Coast Short Docs Competition.  The parameters were that I had to tell a story about a neighbour of mine, it had to include 3 seconds of narrative silence and it needed to have a colour in the title. So here’s Fire Engine Red…my story about getting to know your neighbour, when your neighbour is a sound.

This is a piece that I just submitted to the Third Coast Short Docs Competition.  The parameters were that I had to tell a story about a neighbour of mine, it had to include 3 seconds of narrative silence and it needed to have a colour in the title.

So here’s Fire Engine Red…my story about getting to know your neighbour, when your neighbour is a sound.

1 year ago 

For The Coast The working’s on the wall  Agitate Educate Organise. This is the call to action that Emily Davidson has been spreading throughout the city. Posted on poles and boards, her stunning prints call on “Workingwomen, workingmen and artists” to gather at The Khyber on April 27. Though breathtakingly artful, it is as much a show of work as it is a show of art. Starting at the end of April and running through the month of May, Davidson’s Agitate Educate Organise exhibition will be part of the Mayworks Festival. In conjunction with International Workers Day, May 1—-May Day—-the Mayworks festival aims to bring together artists and workers to explore themes of social and economic justice. As a feminist, Davidson is especially interested in the experience of being a woman worker. For this show she has wheat-pasted the colossal 16.5-foot Khyber walls with wallpaper depicting moments in the past when working women agitated, educated and organized. “I feel very much that the history of artists is the history of workers,” she says in the Khyber Ballroom, where the once whitewashed walls are now rich with medieval-inspired designs. “In seeing myself as a worker I wanted to know what other women were doing at this time.” The choice to express the history of women workers is Davidson’s response to the work of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement that took place at the turn of the century and criticized the industrialization of decorative objects. “The Arts and Crafts movement was based on this idea that craft and labour were valuable, but at the same time it didn’t show what labour was about at the time. It just wanted to show nature and all these beautiful handcrafted things. It was escapist almost, interested in labour but not referring to that at all.” So to expand on this movement, Davidson is using the style and tropes of Arts and Crafts to refer directly to the labour conditions at that time. One of the images that covers the largest wall of the ballroom is of the Bread and Roses Strike of 1912. “It was a strike where women textile workers found that they had been short changed on their pay checks when the company cut their hours without giving them a wage increase,” she says. “So this group of Polish women shut down their machines and walked out—-which started a three month, very intense, strike that was fought and won by the women in the community.” These scenes of struggles and victories are being shown not just to educate viewers on what has happened—-Davidson is using the nostalgia to criticize notions of progress. In her view, these same fights are still being fought today. “The inequity in the art world is still very present…I want this show to not only make people think in an academic way but also to create an experience where people can say, ‘Should we have an artist- run centre that’s specifically about women? What is our artist run centre movement lacking? How could artists be more connected to workers?’” And people will have all month to ponder these questions. Regular Khyber programming will happen in and around the exhibit. But these images and their invitation to agitation will not fade into the background—- these women may be wallpaper, but they are far from wallflowers. photo by BRENDAN ANCKAERT

For The Coast

The working’s on the wall 

Agitate Educate Organise. This is the call to action that Emily Davidson has been spreading throughout the city. Posted on poles and boards, her stunning prints call on “Workingwomen, workingmen and artists” to gather at The Khyber on April 27.

Though breathtakingly artful, it is as much a show of work as it is a show of art. Starting at the end of April and running through the month of May, Davidson’s Agitate Educate Organise exhibition will be part of the Mayworks Festival. In conjunction with International Workers Day, May 1—-May Day—-the Mayworks festival aims to bring together artists and workers to explore themes of social and economic justice.

As a feminist, Davidson is especially interested in the experience of being a woman worker. For this show she has wheat-pasted the colossal 16.5-foot Khyber walls with wallpaper depicting moments in the past when working women agitated, educated and organized. “I feel very much that the history of artists is the history of workers,” she says in the Khyber Ballroom, where the once whitewashed walls are now rich with medieval-inspired designs. “In seeing myself as a worker I wanted to know what other women were doing at this time.”

The choice to express the history of women workers is Davidson’s response to the work of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement that took place at the turn of the century and criticized the industrialization of decorative objects. “The Arts and Crafts movement was based on this idea that craft and labour were valuable, but at the same time it didn’t show what labour was about at the time. It just wanted to show nature and all these beautiful handcrafted things. It was escapist almost, interested in labour but not referring to that at all.”

So to expand on this movement, Davidson is using the style and tropes of Arts and Crafts to refer directly to the labour conditions at that time. One of the images that covers the largest wall of the ballroom is of the Bread and Roses Strike of 1912.

“It was a strike where women textile workers found that they had been short changed on their pay checks when the company cut their hours without giving them a wage increase,” she says. “So this group of Polish women shut down their machines and walked out—-which started a three month, very intense, strike that was fought and won by the women in the community.”

These scenes of struggles and victories are being shown not just to educate viewers on what has happened—-Davidson is using the nostalgia to criticize notions of progress. In her view, these same fights are still being fought today. “The inequity in the art world is still very present…I want this show to not only make people think in an academic way but also to create an experience where people can say, ‘Should we have an artist- run centre that’s specifically about women? What is our artist run centre movement lacking? How could artists be more connected to workers?’”

And people will have all month to ponder these questions. Regular Khyber programming will happen in and around the exhibit. But these images and their invitation to agitation will not fade into the background—- these women may be wallpaper, but they are far from wallflowers.

photo by BRENDAN ANCKAERT

1 year ago 

For OpenFile End of an Era: The mobile library takes it’s last tour I find the bookmobile in the Nelson Whynder School parking lot in North Preston. It’s mid-morning and all the kids are in school. There’s no one around, so I hesitantly open the trailer door and enter another world. The floor is carpeted, the walls wooden, stacked with all varieties of book and at the far end of this travelling library is Debbie Lambert, sitting where she has sat for the last 23 years. “It’s the end of an era” she says, as we sit on her mini sofa, compete with a buckled-in teddy bear. After 51 years of service, Halifax’s Mobile Library will be making its last tour Saturday, Mar. 31. Known to most as the bookmobile, the Mobile Library serves the communities of Whites Lake, Enfield, Fall River, Eastern Passage, North Preston, West Chezzetcook, Porters Lake, Terence Bay and the Musquodoboit area.Bears, turtles and ducks mobile librarian Debbie Lambert occasionally saw on her route, between wheelbarrows and tractors her readers brought their books back in. (1:54) “It will certainly be missed.” Debbie tells me. She’s been supervising librarian on the Bookmobile since 1989, and has seen a lot of changes. When she started, there were no computers to help her organize her collection, and most of the communities she was serving were surrounded by farmland. Now the bookmobile stops in parking lots in town centres, in communities that still don’t have a permanent Library Branch. For some bookmobile readers, it can be a 66km round-trip to the nearest library (see map). Over the years Debbie has become an integral member of the communities she serves—seeing three generations of book-borrowers come through this tiny door, and she’s connected with every one, she says. “You become a part of their community,” Lambert says. “So it’s not just them going to the library, it’s really a community involvement thing. They come to the bookmobile, and they’re greeting their neighbours they may not see on a regular basis. And they’ve gotten to know me, because I’ve been here for so long, they consider me a friend…I mean, they might consider me family.” But Debbie’s family will soon be without this travelling hub. Low usage and tight library budgets have led to the end of this service. If this story sounds familiar, that’s because this is exactly what was said last year around this time. “This decision was basically made by the library board themselves,” says Eastern Shore-Musquodoboit councillor Steve Streatch. “For the last three or four years, they’ve wanted to discontinue the service out here in the rural communities.” Streatch was successful last year in getting additional funding “to keep it going for a year or two,” but he says the library board “simply can’t keep up with the repairs to the vehicle, et cetera.” Where does HPL’s Mobile Library go? Blue buses were bookmobile stops. Yellow houses are the nearest libraries. The mobile library has about 250 active users and the budget to run the service adds up to $290,000 a year. The vehicle also needs to be replaced, which would put HPL back another $400,000. “This is the end of the travelling library for us.” says Halifax Public Libraries’ Marlo Mackay. She says library patrons in these communities have the option to start using other services. “We have the books-by-mailservice, which has been around for quite a while. We have a lot of services online, so people who have Internet access can download e-books and audio books and videos from our Overdrive downloadable media service.” There are also online databases and homework help chat services during library hours. But Debbie tells me that some of the people coming onto the Bookmobile don’t have Internet access. And with the future of CAP sites still up in the air, it could become more difficult for people who rely on this service to access the books they want. “It’s very disappointing, to tell you the truth,” says Streatch. His community will be one of the hardest hit by the loss of the Mobile Library. Debbie says that from the time the bus arrives at the PharmaSave parking lot in Middle Musquodoboit, until it leaves five hours later, it’s always full. Councillor Streatch is hoping that there will be a silver lining for his constituents. “We’ve been looking into other potential opportunities and I think that there might be the good news story coming out of the closing of the bookmobile—a permanent satellite library branch here in the Musquodoboit Valley.” He says he spoke to a consultant who is looking into a facility and what it would need. “We’re very hopeful that that comes to fruition, and, at the same time, very disappointed that the bookmobile has deceased.” Meanwhile, though not out of a job, come April, Debbie will be processing library materials for the collections access department of the HPL. This will be a total change for her—a move from from public service for the first time in her career, and leaving this cozy bus that has been a second home for her. As I stand up from the couch and head back to the little door she tells me she’s trying to stay positive but she’s going to miss this place and all the people she’s connected with. “It’s always been a big part of my work life,” she says, “so it’s not going to be something that I’ll easily forget.”

For OpenFile

End of an Era: The mobile library takes it’s last tour

I find the bookmobile in the Nelson Whynder School parking lot in North Preston. It’s mid-morning and all the kids are in school. There’s no one around, so I hesitantly open the trailer door and enter another world. The floor is carpeted, the walls wooden, stacked with all varieties of book and at the far end of this travelling library is Debbie Lambert, sitting where she has sat for the last 23 years.

“It’s the end of an era” she says, as we sit on her mini sofa, compete with a buckled-in teddy bear. After 51 years of service, Halifax’s Mobile Library will be making its last tour Saturday, Mar. 31. Known to most as the bookmobile, the Mobile Library serves the communities of Whites Lake, Enfield, Fall River, Eastern Passage, North Preston, West Chezzetcook, Porters Lake, Terence Bay and the Musquodoboit area.
Bears, turtles and ducks mobile librarian Debbie Lambert occasionally saw on her route, between wheelbarrows and tractors her readers brought their books back in. (1:54)

“It will certainly be missed.” Debbie tells me. She’s been supervising librarian on the Bookmobile since 1989, and has seen a lot of changes. When she started, there were no computers to help her organize her collection, and most of the communities she was serving were surrounded by farmland. Now the bookmobile stops in parking lots in town centres, in communities that still don’t have a permanent Library Branch. For some bookmobile readers, it can be a 66km round-trip to the nearest library (see map).

Over the years Debbie has become an integral member of the communities she serves—seeing three generations of book-borrowers come through this tiny door, and she’s connected with every one, she says.

“You become a part of their community,” Lambert says. “So it’s not just them going to the library, it’s really a community involvement thing. They come to the bookmobile, and they’re greeting their neighbours they may not see on a regular basis. And they’ve gotten to know me, because I’ve been here for so long, they consider me a friend…I mean, they might consider me family.”

But Debbie’s family will soon be without this travelling hub. Low usage and tight library budgets have led to the end of this service.

If this story sounds familiar, that’s because this is exactly what was said last year around this time.

“This decision was basically made by the library board themselves,” says Eastern Shore-Musquodoboit councillor Steve Streatch. “For the last three or four years, they’ve wanted to discontinue the service out here in the rural communities.”

Streatch was successful last year in getting additional funding “to keep it going for a year or two,” but he says the library board “simply can’t keep up with the repairs to the vehicle, et cetera.”


Where does HPL’s Mobile Library go? Blue buses were bookmobile stops. Yellow houses are the nearest libraries.

The mobile library has about 250 active users and the budget to run the service adds up to $290,000 a year. The vehicle also needs to be replaced, which would put HPL back another $400,000.

“This is the end of the travelling library for us.” says Halifax Public Libraries’ Marlo Mackay. She says library patrons in these communities have the option to start using other services.

“We have the books-by-mailservice, which has been around for quite a while. We have a lot of services online, so people who have Internet access can download e-books and audio books and videos from our Overdrive downloadable media service.” There are also online databases and homework help chat services during library hours.

But Debbie tells me that some of the people coming onto the Bookmobile don’t have Internet access. And with the future of CAP sites still up in the air, it could become more difficult for people who rely on this service to access the books they want.

“It’s very disappointing, to tell you the truth,” says Streatch. His community will be one of the hardest hit by the loss of the Mobile Library.

Debbie says that from the time the bus arrives at the PharmaSave parking lot in Middle Musquodoboit, until it leaves five hours later, it’s always full.

Councillor Streatch is hoping that there will be a silver lining for his constituents.

“We’ve been looking into other potential opportunities and I think that there might be the good news story coming out of the closing of the bookmobile—a permanent satellite library branch here in the Musquodoboit Valley.” He says he spoke to a consultant who is looking into a facility and what it would need.

“We’re very hopeful that that comes to fruition, and, at the same time, very disappointed that the bookmobile has deceased.”

Meanwhile, though not out of a job, come April, Debbie will be processing library materials for the collections access department of the HPL. This will be a total change for her—a move from from public service for the first time in her career, and leaving this cozy bus that has been a second home for her.

As I stand up from the couch and head back to the little door she tells me she’s trying to stay positive but she’s going to miss this place and all the people she’s connected with.

“It’s always been a big part of my work life,” she says, “so it’s not going to be something that I’ll easily forget.”

1 year ago  View high resolution

This was a piece I produced for the Centre for Art Tapes Reels to Reels Competition. This piece is about time and expectation -specifically the morning time and expectations for the day to come. The beginning of the day always brings a certain amount of anticipation - what will happen, who will we meet, what will they say? But the first thing the morning brings is coffee. This is an ode to the first creation of the day - the creation of the first cup of coffee - it reflects that anticipatory morning feeling. In this piece all of the human actions are sped up, because they can be, because we have control over them and the speed at which they occur. We can grind our coffee and turn on our stoves in any order and at any pace that suits us. However, we do not control the temperature at which water boils. We do not choose the moment when that boiled water bursts forth from the lower chamber of the espresso pot and seeps through the metal filter above. We have no control over these physical variables. That is beyond us - much like the knowledge of what the day will hold. All we can do is wait. photo by InvernoDreaming

This was a piece I produced for the Centre for Art Tapes Reels to Reels Competition.

This piece is about time and expectation -specifically the morning time and expectations for the day to come. The beginning of the day always brings a certain amount of anticipation - what will happen, who will we meet, what will they say? But the first thing the morning brings is coffee.

This is an ode to the first creation of the day - the creation of the first cup of coffee - it reflects that anticipatory morning feeling. In this piece all of the human actions are sped up, because they can be, because we have control over them and the speed at which they occur. We can grind our coffee and turn on our stoves in any order and at any pace that suits us. However, we do not control the temperature at which water boils. We do not choose the moment when that boiled water bursts forth from the lower chamber of the espresso pot and seeps through the metal filter above. We have no control over these physical variables. That is beyond us - much like the knowledge of what the day will hold.

All we can do is wait.

photo by InvernoDreaming

1 year ago  View high resolution

For The Coast Rolling with the Stones  Zuppa Theatre’s new show, Slowly I Turn, brings together father, son and a living room. I walk into Java Blend early in the morning. Ben Stone and his dad John welcome me with big hugs and hot tea. Both bearded and bright-eyed, the Stones exude a familial warmth that wraps around me like a soft woven blanket. Their casual leans and finish-each other’s-sentence-style closeness is contagious. After my first sip I feel like I’m part of the family. And that’s the point. The Stones are going to be proffering this familial feeling to audience members at Zuppa Theatre’s latest creation Slowly I Turn. The father-son team, accompanied by Jess Lewis, will be performing this vaudeville piece in one act in Ben’s living room. “It’s essential to have it be a site-specific show, to give it that home and that family warmth kind of thing,” Ben says. “To have people sitting with us as were sitting in the living room hanging out will bring a casualness to it that is essential to the heart of the piece.” The piece, directed by Graham Percy, is full of heart. It chronicles every element of family experience, reflecting on love and life and death. John turns to Ben: “Did you already tell her about the ileoscopy?” To which Ben replies softly, “No, no I hadn’t.” John then recounts how since 1992 he has suffered from a variety of health conditions, including a heart attack and colon cancer. It was John’s illness that sparked Ben, Zuppa Theatre’s founder and principal actor, to realize a lifelong dream of his: performing a play with his parents. “We were at East Side Mario’s,” Ben says. “Which is like the loudest, most garish place, and I was trying to tell them about it over the music saying, ‘Anyway it’s about you dying,’ and my mom just started laughing and she said, ‘Oh dear don’t be silly’, and Dad was like, ‘Absolutely, yes.’ It was hilarious.” John is happy to be going back to the stage. In his university days, he was a member of the King’s Theatre Society and more recently he and Ben put on a production of Hamlet at Armbrae Academy, where they have both been teachers. John is now retired and happy to try something new. “At King’s you just had to learn your lines, there was no direction at all. The Zuppa process is absolutely marvelous but you can tell that I’m a sub-amateur.” Ben interrupts, “That’s absolutely not true at all.” He explains how as a kid he would see his dad and his uncle Carmen doing Jerry Lewis impersonations. Vaudeville was a huge part of their family life, the first films they ever saw were Abbott and Costello and Charlie Chaplin, all the classics that John’s father had showed him. And it was those bits and skits that formed the foundations of Slowly I Turn. “The title comes from a classic vaudeville sketch that duos would do,” Ben says. “They would go out and just riff and do their bits. There’s a loose structure which is kind of classic to the feeling and lightness of vaudeville—-a lot of it is the spark between the two.” The Stones have sparks in spades. They have a lifetime of intimacy to work with and it will show in their performance. Though the play is about grappling with the reality of death, it is also a rich and jovial account of the lightness of life. “It’s not morbid,” says John. “It’s reflective and poignant.” “I hope that people come away feeling that sense of warmth and love and family,” adds Ben. “Feeling the way I felt in that home growing up. That’s sort of my goal, showing people what that was like.”

For The Coast

Rolling with the Stones 

Zuppa Theatre’s new show, Slowly I Turn, brings together father, son and a living room.

I walk into Java Blend early in the morning. Ben Stone and his dad John welcome me with big hugs and hot tea. Both bearded and bright-eyed, the Stones exude a familial warmth that wraps around me like a soft woven blanket. Their casual leans and finish-each other’s-sentence-style closeness is contagious. After my first sip I feel like I’m part of the family. And that’s the point.

The Stones are going to be proffering this familial feeling to audience members at Zuppa Theatre’s latest creation Slowly I Turn. The father-son team, accompanied by Jess Lewis, will be performing this vaudeville piece in one act in Ben’s living room.

“It’s essential to have it be a site-specific show, to give it that home and that family warmth kind of thing,” Ben says. “To have people sitting with us as were sitting in the living room hanging out will bring a casualness to it that is essential to the heart of the piece.”

The piece, directed by Graham Percy, is full of heart. It chronicles every element of family experience, reflecting on love and life and death. John turns to Ben: “Did you already tell her about the ileoscopy?” To which Ben replies softly, “No, no I hadn’t.” John then recounts how since 1992 he has suffered from a variety of health conditions, including a heart attack and colon cancer.

It was John’s illness that sparked Ben, Zuppa Theatre’s founder and principal actor, to realize a lifelong dream of his: performing a play with his parents.

“We were at East Side Mario’s,” Ben says. “Which is like the loudest, most garish place, and I was trying to tell them about it over the music saying, ‘Anyway it’s about you dying,’ and my mom just started laughing and she said, ‘Oh dear don’t be silly’, and Dad was like, ‘Absolutely, yes.’ It was hilarious.”

John is happy to be going back to the stage. In his university days, he was a member of the King’s Theatre Society and more recently he and Ben put on a production of Hamlet at Armbrae Academy, where they have both been teachers. John is now retired and happy to try something new.

“At King’s you just had to learn your lines, there was no direction at all. The Zuppa process is absolutely marvelous but you can tell that I’m a sub-amateur.” Ben interrupts, “That’s absolutely not true at all.” He explains how as a kid he would see his dad and his uncle Carmen doing Jerry Lewis impersonations. Vaudeville was a huge part of their family life, the first films they ever saw were Abbott and Costello and Charlie Chaplin, all the classics that John’s father had showed him.

And it was those bits and skits that formed the foundations of Slowly I Turn.

“The title comes from a classic vaudeville sketch that duos would do,” Ben says. “They would go out and just riff and do their bits. There’s a loose structure which is kind of classic to the feeling and lightness of vaudeville—-a lot of it is the spark between the two.”

The Stones have sparks in spades. They have a lifetime of intimacy to work with and it will show in their performance. Though the play is about grappling with the reality of death, it is also a rich and jovial account of the lightness of life.

“It’s not morbid,” says John. “It’s reflective and poignant.”

“I hope that people come away feeling that sense of warmth and love and family,” adds Ben. “Feeling the way I felt in that home growing up. That’s sort of my goal, showing people what that was like.”

1 year ago  View high resolution

For OpenFilePhoto by Juan_Carlos_Cruz.Drawing Science and the Humanities together with Situating Science   How do science and technology affect us? Historians, social scientists and philosophers across the country are trying to answer this question as part of the Situating Science project. This week, the Atlantic node of Situating Science hosts “To See Where it Takes Us,” a series of talks, not unlike TedX talks. The first features Dr. Isabelle Stengers, a world-renowned philosopher of science with a background in chemistry, from the Université libre de Bruxelles at 7:30 p.m. tonight (Mar.5) Her keynote presentation at St. Mary’s University will be on ‘Cosmopolitics.’ Stengers’ notion of the ‘cosmopolitic’ encourages people of all disciplines to see sciences, their technologies, nature and politics as situated in a fluid ecology rather than held separate in silos. “The talk…is going to be radically interdisciplinary because it’s going to talk about the idea of nature and the idea of what it is to be modern and what is it to have a ‘cosmopolitic’ that doesn’t just include the human agent,” says Dr. Gordon McOuat, Situating Science’s project director, and a professor in the History of Science and Technology Programme and the Contemporary Studies Programme at King’s. Situating Science itself offers ”an open hand to people who are working in the sciences, but also people in policy and culture and the general public. It’s a wide network with all kinds of engagement,” McOuat says. The project, started in 2007, brings together various humanities scholars who are studying science and technology. There are six “nodes,” with Dalhousie and King’s hosting the Atlantic node. Experimental Wounds: Science and Violence in Mid-Century America, Susan Lindee Sept 18, 2009 from Situating Scienceon Vimeo. The University of King’s College is known for its interdisciplinary programs , but Dr.McOuat says that knowledge exchange across disciplines, like the kind fostered by the Situating Science project, is still in its infancy. “It’s very new. Humanist—especially humanities—scholars are often very atomized—they sort of stick to their specific research and interests and that becomes the center of their world. These silos existed very separately from each other, but the rise of the modern world, especially the modern interaction of technologies and modern sociability means that we can’t live like that anymore. “Interdisciplinarity has become the watch-word of modern scholarship.” Isaac Siemens is a Dalhousie med student, but used to be an arts student at King’s. Has he noticed any movement toward interdisciplinarity in the world of Medicine? He says he sees a push to integrate humanities and medicine, but says the programs “haven’t managed to escape the binary between science and humanities.” “For instance, they have lots of ‘medical humanities’ programming, and more and more programs to combine art and science, but it’s always extracurricular things like contributing photos or paintings to a competition or joining a band.” And, he says, old thoughts dominate the arts-science discussion right now. “When we do medical ethics, we use antiquated philosophy like Kant or various utilitarian thinkers as reference points. Imagine using Foucault or Derrida or more contemporary thinkers who actually wrote about modern medical practices.” But, when I ask Dr. McOuat if this notion of fluidity will enter academia more generally, he says it’s still a work in progress. “There has been so much talk at the university level across the country that we should break down the strong barriers of disciplines and offer interdisciplinarity, but remember that people find their self-legitimacy and their self-reflection within their discipline,” says McOuat. “We need to be bargers that jump through the breach and hopefully the rest will follow us.”

For OpenFile
Photo by Juan_Carlos_Cruz.

Drawing Science and the Humanities together with Situating Science  

How do science and technology affect us? Historians, social scientists and philosophers across the country are trying to answer this question as part of the Situating Science project.

This week, the Atlantic node of Situating Science hosts “To See Where it Takes Us,” a series of talks, not unlike TedX talks. The first features Dr. Isabelle Stengers, a world-renowned philosopher of science with a background in chemistry, from the Université libre de Bruxelles at 7:30 p.m. tonight (Mar.5)

Her keynote presentation at St. Mary’s University will be on ‘Cosmopolitics.’

Stengers’ notion of the ‘cosmopolitic’ encourages people of all disciplines to see sciences, their technologies, nature and politics as situated in a fluid ecology rather than held separate in silos.

“The talk…is going to be radically interdisciplinary because it’s going to talk about the idea of nature and the idea of what it is to be modern and what is it to have a ‘cosmopolitic’ that doesn’t just include the human agent,” says Dr. Gordon McOuat, Situating Science’s project director, and a professor in the History of Science and Technology Programme and the Contemporary Studies Programme at King’s.

Situating Science itself offers ”an open hand to people who are working in the sciences, but also people in policy and culture and the general public. It’s a wide network with all kinds of engagement,” McOuat says.

The project, started in 2007, brings together various humanities scholars who are studying science and technology. There are six “nodes,” with Dalhousie and King’s hosting the Atlantic node.

Experimental Wounds: Science and Violence in Mid-Century America, Susan Lindee Sept 18, 2009 from Situating Scienceon Vimeo.

The University of King’s College is known for its interdisciplinary programs , but Dr.McOuat says that knowledge exchange across disciplines, like the kind fostered by the Situating Science project, is still in its infancy.

“It’s very new. Humanist—especially humanities—scholars are often very atomized—they sort of stick to their specific research and interests and that becomes the center of their world. These silos existed very separately from each other, but the rise of the modern world, especially the modern interaction of technologies and modern sociability means that we can’t live like that anymore.

“Interdisciplinarity has become the watch-word of modern scholarship.”

Isaac Siemens is a Dalhousie med student, but used to be an arts student at King’s. Has he noticed any movement toward interdisciplinarity in the world of Medicine?

He says he sees a push to integrate humanities and medicine, but says the programs “haven’t managed to escape the binary between science and humanities.”

“For instance, they have lots of ‘medical humanities’ programming, and more and more programs to combine art and science, but it’s always extracurricular things like contributing photos or paintings to a competition or joining a band.”

And, he says, old thoughts dominate the arts-science discussion right now.

“When we do medical ethics, we use antiquated philosophy like Kant or various utilitarian thinkers as reference points. Imagine using Foucault or Derrida or more contemporary thinkers who actually wrote about modern medical practices.”

But, when I ask Dr. McOuat if this notion of fluidity will enter academia more generally, he says it’s still a work in progress.

“There has been so much talk at the university level across the country that we should break down the strong barriers of disciplines and offer interdisciplinarity, but remember that people find their self-legitimacy and their self-reflection within their discipline,” says McOuat. “We need to be bargers that jump through the breach and hopefully the rest will follow us.”

1 year ago  View high resolution

I curate a tumblr dedicated to spreading the glories of Strong Female Vocals

I curate a tumblr dedicated to spreading the glories of Strong Female Vocals

1 year ago  1 note

For OpenFile ANYONE WANT A STREET NAMED AFTER THEM?…ANYONE? Ever wanted to make your mark on this town? To make some kind of lasting impression? To honor a person, place or event close to your heart? Well, staff at HRM Civic Addressing have been hoping that their NameHRM policy will help you do just that. However, not many people have been taking them up on the offer. Started in September 2010, NameHRM is a commemorative naming policy that encourages Halifax citizens to suggest names for newly developed streets, parks, park features, commercial vessels and ferries in the municipality. These names can be associated with a person, historical event, geographic feature or tradition. “In the past, the ways streets got named is, if you build the street, you get to pick the name.” says Gayle MacLean, HRM’s civic addressing coordinator. “It was about the developer looking at an area and saying we want this all to be tree names or all birds—they often will choose names that they feel are attractive to potential clients. What it has created, particularly in the suburban areas, is generic street names that don’t reflect local history, geography or anything related to that community.” Edward Cornwallis:The founder of Halifax formally declared war on the Mi’kmaq people in 1749. He has a street and had a junior high named after him. (And, as OpenFile has seen recently, sometimes, classist and racist attitudes can change a street’s name, too.) In an attempt to address this shortcoming, MacLean and her colleagues at HRM adopted a commemorative naming policy that requires developers to pick fifty percent of the names for their new developments from a list of names suggested by HRM citizens. But there is a caveat. If the list of suggested names has less than five names on it, then the developer doesn’t have to choose from it. So far, the suggested names have been few and far between. Since the introduction of this policy in 2010, HRM Civic Addressing has only received 32 applications. I conducted an un-scientific survey of Haligonians to gauge interest in contributing to this initiative and aside from a few jokey suggestions (porn star names came up once or twice, the general consensus was disinterest and apprehension. “I just wouldn’t see it as an opportunity to meaningfully contribute to my city,” says local activist Catherine Abreu. “I think that I’d be more interested in attempting to rename something that’s already been named after a mass murderer.” Muriel Duckworth:Nova Scotian peace activist Muriel Duckworth died in 2009 at the age of 100. Abreu’s sentiment is shared by Mi’kmaq Elder, Dr. Daniel Paul. “I’m not too excited about the project,” he says. “I wish they had opened it up to rename some of the streets they have in Halifax named after people who were not exactly heroic in the colonial days and put some good modern names on them that reflect the greatness of more modern people. Muriel Duckworth, for instance. I’d like to see a street named after her.” UPDATE: Since the posting of this article, Gayle MacLean from HRM Civic Addressing has let OpenFile know that Muriel Duckworth’s name will be presented to council this March. Maclean says staff are recommending that her name be added to the commemorative names list. The Commemorative Naming project doesn’t really allow for renaming, only naming new developments and developments, or ones that have an “administrative name”—a name based on a location, like Terence Bay Playground. This comes as a disappointment to Paul, who was a strong proponent of the renaming of Halifax Junior High School from its previous name Cornwallis Junior High. He feels that before we start naming new developments, we should address problematic names that already exist. He points to the Gorham controversy of the late nineties—where part of a road between Rocky Lake Road and Cobequid Road was named for Capt. John Gorham, an English bounty hunter—as evidence that Nova Scotia still hasn’t shaken the habit of commemorating the wrong people. On the point of renaming, Maclean says, “Technically, our position around Cornwallis is that it is a commemorative name, whether it was commemorated correctly is not our place to comment. We do have a review committee made up of staff here at HRM, including an archivist, and we do a certain amount of research to assure that we’re not creating a potential Cornwallis issue.”

For OpenFile

ANYONE WANT A STREET NAMED AFTER THEM?…ANYONE?

Ever wanted to make your mark on this town? To make some kind of lasting impression? To honor a person, place or event close to your heart? Well, staff at HRM Civic Addressing have been hoping that their NameHRM policy will help you do just that. However, not many people have been taking them up on the offer.

Started in September 2010, NameHRM is a commemorative naming policy that encourages Halifax citizens to suggest names for newly developed streets, parks, park features, commercial vessels and ferries in the municipality. These names can be associated with a person, historical event, geographic feature or tradition.

“In the past, the ways streets got named is, if you build the street, you get to pick the name.” says Gayle MacLean, HRM’s civic addressing coordinator. “It was about the developer looking at an area and saying we want this all to be tree names or all birds—they often will choose names that they feel are attractive to potential clients. What it has created, particularly in the suburban areas, is generic street names that don’t reflect local history, geography or anything related to that community.”

Edward Cornwallis:The founder of Halifax formally declared war on the Mi’kmaq people in 1749. He has a street and had a junior high named after him.

(And, as OpenFile has seen recently, sometimes, classist and racist attitudes can change a street’s name, too.)

In an attempt to address this shortcoming, MacLean and her colleagues at HRM adopted a commemorative naming policy that requires developers to pick fifty percent of the names for their new developments from a list of names suggested by HRM citizens.

But there is a caveat. If the list of suggested names has less than five names on it, then the developer doesn’t have to choose from it. So far, the suggested names have been few and far between. Since the introduction of this policy in 2010, HRM Civic Addressing has only received 32 applications.

I conducted an un-scientific survey of Haligonians to gauge interest in contributing to this initiative and aside from a few jokey suggestions (porn star names came up once or twice, the general consensus was disinterest and apprehension.

“I just wouldn’t see it as an opportunity to meaningfully contribute to my city,” says local activist Catherine Abreu. “I think that I’d be more interested in attempting to rename something that’s already been named after a mass murderer.”

Muriel Duckworth:Nova Scotian peace activist Muriel Duckworth died in 2009 at the age of 100.

Abreu’s sentiment is shared by Mi’kmaq Elder, Dr. Daniel Paul. “I’m not too excited about the project,” he says. “I wish they had opened it up to rename some of the streets they have in Halifax named after people who were not exactly heroic in the colonial days and put some good modern names on them that reflect the greatness of more modern people. Muriel Duckworth, for instance. I’d like to see a street named after her.”

UPDATE: Since the posting of this article, Gayle MacLean from HRM Civic Addressing has let OpenFile know that Muriel Duckworth’s name will be presented to council this March. Maclean says staff are recommending that her name be added to the commemorative names list.

The Commemorative Naming project doesn’t really allow for renaming, only naming new developments and developments, or ones that have an “administrative name”—a name based on a location, like Terence Bay Playground.

This comes as a disappointment to Paul, who was a strong proponent of the renaming of Halifax Junior High School from its previous name Cornwallis Junior High. He feels that before we start naming new developments, we should address problematic names that already exist. He points to the Gorham controversy of the late nineties—where part of a road between Rocky Lake Road and Cobequid Road was named for Capt. John Gorham, an English bounty hunter—as evidence that Nova Scotia still hasn’t shaken the habit of commemorating the wrong people.

On the point of renaming, Maclean says, “Technically, our position around Cornwallis is that it is a commemorative name, whether it was commemorated correctly is not our place to comment. We do have a review committee made up of staff here at HRM, including an archivist, and we do a certain amount of research to assure that we’re not creating a potential Cornwallis issue.”

1 year ago  View high resolution

For The Coast Weird Science “Funny theatre gets short shrift sometimes,” Griffin McInnes says as he sits in the depths of the King’s College Pit. Beside him, a wall of televisions looms large as the centrepiece of McInnes’ latest creation, Science Inaction: A Love Story. “People don’t take it seriously and it should be taken very very very seriously.” Produced and performed by Wit’s End Theatre, Science Inaction will be mounted at The Bus Stop Theatre from Thursday, June 28 to Sunday, July 1. And it will be seriously funny. It’s so serious, in fact, that before it opens at The Bus Stop it will be performed as part of the ninth Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science hosted by Dalhousie University, the University of King’s College and the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science. If that’s not serious I don’t know what is. “A big part of this show is breaking down reality versus expectations,” McInnes says. “It’s a very anachronistic look at Bruno Latour who was a philosopher and anthropologist [and] is still alive but was very active in the ’80s and ’90s during what was called the science wars, when there were a lot of sociologists, anthropologists and philosophers who were looking at science and scientific facts and a lot of scientists were saying, well, ‘Who are you to look at our work?’” So the show will be riffing off of this contentious academic moment but Liz Johnston—-co-founder of Wit’s End, who stars alongside Lewis Wynne-Jones—-explains that though the show deals with these scientific themes, it is at heart a love story. “Basically it’s just two people who are attracted to each other and find what the other person has to say interesting but there’s times when they just don’t mesh. It’s funny.” Those two people are Bruno, a doctoral candidate played by Wynne-Jones and Donna, an amphibian neurobiologist who has a life-long infatuation with television, played by Johnston. Donna’s TV obsession plays itself out in a number of ways with the play itself taking on various televisual tropes. “She has an obsession with TV that she’s had since she was a kid,” Johnston says. “I think it’s really to do with the fact that television episodes and whole series tend to follow a very specific ordered progression and a lot of the show is about her trying to force her life into these same patterns but it hasn’t really worked out.” This tension between structure and absurdity, science and art, reality and surreality weaves through the production in thought provoking and giggle-inducing ways. And that’s the point. After graduating from King’s a year ago, McInnes and Johnston birthed the Wit’s End Theatre Company as an antidote to what they saw as a malady in the Halifax theatre scene. “We decided to make Wit’s End Theatre with the mandate to make funny theatre in Halifax because we’ve sort of found that there’s not enough of it.” McInnes explains. “There’s some stand-up comedy, there’s some sketch…but there’s no funny theatre being done.” So they’re doing it. Science Inaction will be their fourth production and it’s clear that they have a lot of fun and laughs. But McInnes reiterates that it’s a serious undertaking. “We love the idea of being able to promote laughter for laughter’s sake but at the same time we want to sort of champion laughter as something that is just as artistically, intellectually and emotionally important as any other kind of theatre.”

For The Coast

Weird Science

“Funny theatre gets short shrift sometimes,” Griffin McInnes says as he sits in the depths of the King’s College Pit. Beside him, a wall of televisions looms large as the centrepiece of McInnes’ latest creation, Science Inaction: A Love Story. “People don’t take it seriously and it should be taken very very very seriously.”

Produced and performed by Wit’s End Theatre, Science Inaction will be mounted at The Bus Stop Theatre from Thursday, June 28 to Sunday, July 1. And it will be seriously funny.

It’s so serious, in fact, that before it opens at The Bus Stop it will be performed as part of the ninth Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science hosted by Dalhousie University, the University of King’s College and the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science.

If that’s not serious I don’t know what is.

“A big part of this show is breaking down reality versus expectations,” McInnes says. “It’s a very anachronistic look at Bruno Latour who was a philosopher and anthropologist [and] is still alive but was very active in the ’80s and ’90s during what was called the science wars, when there were a lot of sociologists, anthropologists and philosophers who were looking at science and scientific facts and a lot of scientists were saying, well, ‘Who are you to look at our work?’”

So the show will be riffing off of this contentious academic moment but Liz Johnston—-co-founder of Wit’s End, who stars alongside Lewis Wynne-Jones—-explains that though the show deals with these scientific themes, it is at heart a love story.

“Basically it’s just two people who are attracted to each other and find what the other person has to say interesting but there’s times when they just don’t mesh. It’s funny.”

Those two people are Bruno, a doctoral candidate played by Wynne-Jones and Donna, an amphibian neurobiologist who has a life-long infatuation with television, played by Johnston. Donna’s TV obsession plays itself out in a number of ways with the play itself taking on various televisual tropes.

“She has an obsession with TV that she’s had since she was a kid,” Johnston says. “I think it’s really to do with the fact that television episodes and whole series tend to follow a very specific ordered progression and a lot of the show is about her trying to force her life into these same patterns but it hasn’t really worked out.”

This tension between structure and absurdity, science and art, reality and surreality weaves through the production in thought provoking and giggle-inducing ways.

And that’s the point. After graduating from King’s a year ago, McInnes and Johnston birthed the Wit’s End Theatre Company as an antidote to what they saw as a malady in the Halifax theatre scene.

“We decided to make Wit’s End Theatre with the mandate to make funny theatre in Halifax because we’ve sort of found that there’s not enough of it.” McInnes explains. “There’s some stand-up comedy, there’s some sketch…but there’s no funny theatre being done.”

So they’re doing it. Science Inaction will be their fourth production and it’s clear that they have a lot of fun and laughs. But McInnes reiterates that it’s a serious undertaking. “We love the idea of being able to promote laughter for laughter’s sake but at the same time we want to sort of champion laughter as something that is just as artistically, intellectually and emotionally important as any other kind of theatre.”

For The Coast Get in OUTeast Pink champagne, popcorn and queer films take over the Neptune Studio Theatre for the OUTeast Queer Film Festival. by Veronica Simmonds “There are a lot of bad gay films out there,” Krista Davis says over drinks at Tom’s Little Havana. “And people will watch them because they are gay.” Jenna Dufton, sitting across from her, starts nodding, “Totally.” Beside Dufton, Andria Wilson joins in agreement; “We’re hungry to see that content whether it’s good or bad.” But from June 14 to 17, Wilson, Davis and Dufton are promising to show nothing but the best at the OUTeast Queer Film Festival. The festival will be satiating that hunger for queer content with internationally acclaimed features, shorts and documentaries all screened at the Neptune Studio Theatre. The idea for the fest came to the trio over another set of drinks, while they were discussing a film that had screened at the Atlantic Film Festival’s That’s So Gay series. Davis found the film to be problematic, portraying a one-dimensional view of what it is to be a lesbian. The discussion that came up from their disappointment with that film got these friends thinking. “We were just kind of like, there’s nothing here,” Wilson says. “Other than the That’s So Gay series there’s no festival dedicated to queer films, let’s do it before someone else does. So we did.” The doing part has been an organic exciting experience for these organizers. They each brought a solid set of honed skills to the table as they all work for the Atlantic Film Festival by day. Dufton is a programmer with “crazy” film knowledge, Wilson is a theatre and festival producer who can write a grant “like it’s no one’s business” and Davis is a filmmaker. Together they have put together a program to be reckoned with. From the award-winning (and tear-jerking) documentary, Wish Me Away about Chely Wright, the first country music singer to come out as gay, to the exquisitely exceptional work, I Am A Woman that reflects on the experiences of women who had their sex changed in Casablanca throughout the 1950s and ’60s, the festival will offer powerful, thought provoking work for Haligonian audiences. “We don’t want people to say ‘I went to a gay film festival and saw gay content’ but to say ‘I saw a film that was awesome,’” Wilson says. Another priority is to showcase and support local filmmakers. The Shorts Program will have exclusively Atlantic Canadian content and the festival is excited to have Morgan Strug as an emerging filmmaker-in-residence. With the support of OUTeast, Strug is working on a documentary project illuminating Halifax’s drag community. A matinee presentation and collaboration opportunity will be held for Strug’s film on Sunday June 17. Wilson, Davis and Dufton’s passion and excitement is contagious. Along with the support of their board they have worked tirelessly volunteering their time to make this thing happen. With parties and events every night, pink champagne flowing and adorable pink popcorn mascots OUTeast is set to be a fun and focused celebration of queer cinema. When asked whether this festival is needed more than ever in Halifax’s history, Dufton reflects on her past. “I grew up in a small-town in Ontario and I remember being completely starved for this type of content. I actually think that if I had had it it would have been easier for me. But I just didn’t have it. This is still really important. We need to get our stories out there. It means a lot to me that we’re able to do that.”

For The Coast

Get in OUTeast

Pink champagne, popcorn and queer films take over the Neptune Studio Theatre for the OUTeast Queer Film Festival. by Veronica Simmonds

“There are a lot of bad gay films out there,” Krista Davis says over drinks at Tom’s Little Havana. “And people will watch them because they are gay.” Jenna Dufton, sitting across from her, starts nodding, “Totally.” Beside Dufton, Andria Wilson joins in agreement; “We’re hungry to see that content whether it’s good or bad.”

But from June 14 to 17, Wilson, Davis and Dufton are promising to show nothing but the best at the OUTeast Queer Film Festival. The festival will be satiating that hunger for queer content with internationally acclaimed features, shorts and documentaries all screened at the Neptune Studio Theatre.

The idea for the fest came to the trio over another set of drinks, while they were discussing a film that had screened at the Atlantic Film Festival’s That’s So Gay series. Davis found the film to be problematic, portraying a one-dimensional view of what it is to be a lesbian. The discussion that came up from their disappointment with that film got these friends thinking.

“We were just kind of like, there’s nothing here,” Wilson says. “Other than the That’s So Gay series there’s no festival dedicated to queer films, let’s do it before someone else does. So we did.”

The doing part has been an organic exciting experience for these organizers. They each brought a solid set of honed skills to the table as they all work for the Atlantic Film Festival by day. Dufton is a programmer with “crazy” film knowledge, Wilson is a theatre and festival producer who can write a grant “like it’s no one’s business” and Davis is a filmmaker.

Together they have put together a program to be reckoned with. From the award-winning (and tear-jerking) documentary, Wish Me Away about Chely Wright, the first country music singer to come out as gay, to the exquisitely exceptional work, I Am A Woman that reflects on the experiences of women who had their sex changed in Casablanca throughout the 1950s and ’60s, the festival will offer powerful, thought provoking work for Haligonian audiences.

“We don’t want people to say ‘I went to a gay film festival and saw gay content’ but to say ‘I saw a film that was awesome,’” Wilson says.

Another priority is to showcase and support local filmmakers. The Shorts Program will have exclusively Atlantic Canadian content and the festival is excited to have Morgan Strug as an emerging filmmaker-in-residence. With the support of OUTeast, Strug is working on a documentary project illuminating Halifax’s drag community. A matinee presentation and collaboration opportunity will be held for Strug’s film on Sunday June 17.

Wilson, Davis and Dufton’s passion and excitement is contagious. Along with the support of their board they have worked tirelessly volunteering their time to make this thing happen. With parties and events every night, pink champagne flowing and adorable pink popcorn mascots OUTeast is set to be a fun and focused celebration of queer cinema.

When asked whether this festival is needed more than ever in Halifax’s history, Dufton reflects on her past. “I grew up in a small-town in Ontario and I remember being completely starved for this type of content. I actually think that if I had had it it would have been easier for me. But I just didn’t have it. This is still really important. We need to get our stories out there. It means a lot to me that we’re able to do that.”

For OpenFile Word to Your Grandmother  - Hip Hop Gets Old Schooled “What we appear is not what we are.” That’s the name of the rhyme written and rapped by a group of seniors on Monday. After taking on rapper names like Sparkle, Ping Pong, Old Dutch, Mommy-C and Erosion (“if I try to breakdance, I’ll just wear away”), this group of about ten ladies and gents at the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection got to work making bling, sketching tags, writing raps and breakdancing, all as a part of the Heart & Soul summer camp for seniors. The rap the Heart & Soul hip-hop workshop cooked up—”Watch Your Back” A video by Ian Gibb of the dance session, taught by Drew Moore. From bouncing to the beats to spitting out their verses, this crowd was beaming ear to ear all day. Some were more mobile than others and some needed some assistance to participate, but everyone was engaged. Jesse Robson coordinates Heart & Soul, and with her team of volunteers, this church rec room transformed into a hip hop bonanza and these seniors became blanged out superstars. But, she explains, hip hop is just the theme of the day. “We like to center our workshops around a theme,” she says. “We like to do three or four different activities combining different artistic genres, and then individual and collaborative art work so we find it easier to do that when there is a theme.” Robson has a background in neuroscience and dance, and this combination led to the creation of a dance class with a fellow volunteer at the QEII hospital last year. Eventually, they decided to have a more consistent program, so with the help of the Robert Pope Foundation and now the Halifax Community Health Board, Heart & Soul was born. “There’s been a lot of literature in neuroscience recently about how important it is to remain physically active in later life for preventing both physical and cognitive decline,” Robson explains. “Dance is something that is really accessible to everyone. Everyone can bop along, even if that’s the only sort of movement they can do.” And this group did more than just bopping. Under the the tutelage of Drew Moore from Concrete Roots, the Heart & Soulers were up on their feet popping and locking but first they learned about the history of hip hop. Moore explained how it was birthed in the Bronx as an outlet for a generation of disempowered youth, how it helped break down barriers and let people express themselves. The greater message of hip hop culture struck a cord with this group. Oliver, a.k.a Erosion, told me his hip hop education has made him more open-minded. “I think it has possibilities—not only for the younger who are better equipped to respond to it. I think the older people can as well, myself included. And I do what I can, I have an arthritic hip, but there’s still a few moves I can make.” And making these moves is doing nothing but good things for this group—in fact, most of them are here on the recommendation of medical personnel. “After people have a bad fall or a surgery, they just don’t want to do anything for a really long time,” Robson says, “which is understandable, because they’re in pain, and they’re afraid they might fall again. We think this program is helping out.” “The thing about hip hop is it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.” Moore explained at the end of his B-Boy workshop. “So if you’re just walking around with some attitude, some swagger that’s what it’s all about.” Judging by the content of this group’s rhyme they’ve got swagger up the yin yang and they’ve got the jokes, too. “People see white haired ladies and bald-headed gents, we’ve lost our hair but not our underwear,” as they say in their poppin’ rap. Word up. photos by Ian Gibb

For OpenFile

Word to Your Grandmother  - Hip Hop Gets Old Schooled

“What we appear is not what we are.”

That’s the name of the rhyme written and rapped by a group of seniors on Monday.

After taking on rapper names like Sparkle, Ping Pong, Old Dutch, Mommy-C and Erosion (“if I try to breakdance, I’ll just wear away”), this group of about ten ladies and gents at the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection got to work making bling, sketching tags, writing raps and breakdancing, all as a part of the Heart & Soul summer camp for seniors.


The rap the Heart & Soul hip-hop workshop cooked up—”Watch Your Back”


A video by Ian Gibb of the dance session, taught by Drew Moore.

From bouncing to the beats to spitting out their verses, this crowd was beaming ear to ear all day. Some were more mobile than others and some needed some assistance to participate, but everyone was engaged.

Jesse Robson coordinates Heart & Soul, and with her team of volunteers, this church rec room transformed into a hip hop bonanza and these seniors became blanged out superstars. But, she explains, hip hop is just the theme of the day.

“We like to center our workshops around a theme,” she says. “We like to do three or four different activities combining different artistic genres, and then individual and collaborative art work so we find it easier to do that when there is a theme.”

Robson has a background in neuroscience and dance, and this combination led to the creation of a dance class with a fellow volunteer at the QEII hospital last year. Eventually, they decided to have a more consistent program, so with the help of the Robert Pope Foundation and now the Halifax Community Health Board, Heart & Soul was born.

“There’s been a lot of literature in neuroscience recently about how important it is to remain physically active in later life for preventing both physical and cognitive decline,” Robson explains. “Dance is something that is really accessible to everyone. Everyone can bop along, even if that’s the only sort of movement they can do.”

And this group did more than just bopping. Under the the tutelage of Drew Moore from Concrete Roots, the Heart & Soulers were up on their feet popping and locking but first they learned about the history of hip hop. Moore explained how it was birthed in the Bronx as an outlet for a generation of disempowered youth, how it helped break down barriers and let people express themselves.

The greater message of hip hop culture struck a cord with this group. Oliver, a.k.a Erosion, told me his hip hop education has made him more open-minded.

“I think it has possibilities—not only for the younger who are better equipped to respond to it. I think the older people can as well, myself included. And I do what I can, I have an arthritic hip, but there’s still a few moves I can make.”

And making these moves is doing nothing but good things for this group—in fact, most of them are here on the recommendation of medical personnel.

“After people have a bad fall or a surgery, they just don’t want to do anything for a really long time,” Robson says, “which is understandable, because they’re in pain, and they’re afraid they might fall again. We think this program is helping out.”

“The thing about hip hop is it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.” Moore explained at the end of his B-Boy workshop. “So if you’re just walking around with some attitude, some swagger that’s what it’s all about.”

Judging by the content of this group’s rhyme they’ve got swagger up the yin yang and they’ve got the jokes, too.

“People see white haired ladies and bald-headed gents, we’ve lost our hair but not our underwear,” as they say in their poppin’ rap.

Word up.

photos by Ian Gibb
For OpenFile Word of Mouth Sustains Illegal Restaurants On top of festooned tables and behind closed garden doors, food experiences are being created and shared across this city—only, secretly. Pop-up restaurants—as they’ve been called in other places—are popping up all over this town. At last count there were at least six establishments in HRM—and it seems more are popping up every day. Underground eateries and cafés are not legitimate by any municipal or provincial standard. They don’t abide by By-Law C-500, which means they can be fined up to $5,000. And, they don’t have provincial food establishment permits or health permits, or food handling training, generally. But that doesn’t seem to scare Halifax’s rogue restauranteurs—the same way it doesn’t seem to phase operators of this illegal speakeasy. OpenFile reached out to proprietors of these establishments to get a sense of who they are, what they are doing and how they see themselves. Entrepreneurs? Business owners? Renegades? Artists? Here’s what we found… Photo by Katie McKay. NINA’STwo friends living apart decided to come together one summer—Greg, living in Toronto at the time, and Al, living here in Halifax. Simple as that, Al and Greg birthed Nina’s Backyard Barbeque. “The community wants it,” Al said to Greg over the phone one day.” There’s a need for this.’” Greg, who came back to Halifax for the summer, “got some pig, got some waffle, some slaw, pickled some things, [and] made an invite,” he says. “Took it door to door to all the neighb’s, did the Facebook thing—told everyone I knew. Done deal.” No red tape, no waiting on accreditation. North End diners were treated to porky, pickle-topped waffles at affordable prices in a twinkly garden. This wasn’t Greg’s first venture—he ran a few businesses before Nina’s—some legal, some illegal. He sees the main difference between the two as the flexibility. “If we don’t run it one week, we just say, ‘Oh I just found out I can go to Denmark, so we’re not going to do it this week. And everyone will hear about it and someone might come by and be like, ‘oh it’s not running. OK!’” The only upside Greg sees to going legit with a business is to make it bigger—and make more profit, maybe. But with Nina’s, “it would be every night and it would be late night and I would worry about my health. Doing it once a week is a great time. That’s enough—there’s other projects to do.” Greg’s happy to see more pop-ups popping up. He’d even like to see training provided for people, so they could feel confident to put their ideas into action. But for now, he’s happy just to be making fun. “People running these things are recouping their costs but they’re not really making anything. It’s just about getting together and hanging out.” POTATO POTATOKira felt there was a lack of cozy winter venues in the city. So, she set up brunch in a friend’s one-bedroom apartment. “I thought of it as a winter project, not as a money-making scheme, she says. “In fact, I quickly grew uncomfortable with taking money from customers, as they were mostly people I knew, [and] considered my friends.” One complication of underground operations—word travels through friends, so it can often end up quite insular. “It’s easy enough to serve friends—people who are already on-board and familiar with the desire to run and attend a ‘pop-up.’” “It’s most exciting, I think, to serve someone who is new to the idea and experience, to see them try to understand the scene and the workings around them,” she says. Though it was hard to take money from friends, Kira put on many sumptuous feasts in that high-ceilinged abode and was paid to provide her community with a mid-morning hang out. Though she put the effort in, she shies away from the E-word. “Entrepreneur?…Someone who invests time and energy to actualize an idea? Am I such a person?” she asks. “Jesus Christ…I don’t think I would advertise myself as an entrepreneur. In the same breath, for the months that I ran Potato/Potato, I worked hard.” THE GENERALSam and Daina bought a fancy espresso machine, and now they’re using it. A friend was selling the machine because he and his partner were having a baby. On a whim, they bought it, Sam says, “with no certainty as to how we were going to use it.” The machine had its debut at Potato Potato’s underground brunch in January. Then, a pal offered them his house for February, so February at The General Café was born. At the end of March, they were in EyeLevel Gallery, finishing as resident coffee artists during the Reshelving Initiative. And April at The General Café was being hosted by the Roberts Street Social Centre, and for May, they’ve partnered with a store on Agricola Street. Though their digs are constantly in flux, The General maintains the same airy charm wherever they are. With a golden framed chalk menu and jazzy crooners crooning, visitors are instantly calmed and coffeed. These temporary café installments are helping pay off the machine, the pair says, but their priority is creating new spaces in the city. “I think there’s something missing here where I don’t feel comfortable going somewhere and sitting and reading a book—just hanging out in a space,” says Daina. “And I know that that is not financially viable. You know you can’t just have one person sit in your café all day. But, I like the idea of having that space.” That’s OK, they say, because the space doesn’t need to make money. Sam and Daina have other day jobs that they live off of, so they can afford to invite customers to buy a $2 espresso and sit around for hours. Do they feel they’re entrepreneurs? “I guess I don’t love the word,” says Daina. “I can see it in a negative light…if someone wants to open a business and it doesn’t even matter what business it is—[and] they just want to make money, that’s when it becomes a little less honourable. Sam isn’t quite sure. “I don’t feel that we are entrepreneurs at this point at all, but I feel good about people I know who are doing things that are entrepreneurial.” THE CASTLEKrista just started The Castle about a month ago. She’s always loved cooking and was getting rave reviews from roommates, so decided to open up her house and charge people for the pleasure of her cuisine. She provides an upscale experience—three course meals with elaborate recipes from all over the world. “Halifax doesn’t really have a lot of variety. I’m thinking of running a Cuban menu next month—Halifax doesn’t really offer that, as far as I know.” She’s learning as she goes. “I’m thinking about going to culinary school, and I’m not certain, so this is a way to see if I have what it takes to cook for that many people.” At this point, she’s not worried about the legalities of what she’s doing. The Castle seats about eight people and Krista can’t imagine anyone having a problem with that. “If it does reach the point where I am garnering a lot of interest and I’m exceeding what I can do, then I might consider renting out a space somewhere and doing this in a more legitimized manner. I just don’t have the money or really the inclination to do it right now.” But Krista doesn’t shrink away from the notion of entrepreneurship—she’s run other businesses. She’s a freelance photographer by trade and once owned a rental photobooth company in Florida. “For me, a lot of what I do with any sort of business venture is a lot more about a learning experience than anything else,” she says, “because I’m still at that point in my life where I’m not really certain what direction I’m going.” JESS’S BREADS, CANS AND CATERINGJess is a North End mover and shaker. She has three business, one of which she has the proper permits for, and the other two she keeps under the table. Sitting at her table as she’s slicing onions, Jess says she’s from a long line of entrepreneurs. “Historically, it kind of fits in my family,” she says. “On my dad’s side, they are all entrepreneurs. I’m not very close with that part of the family, but it is part of my family legacy.” For her it means being self-employed and working hard. “It means finding a market and then generating the energy it takes to produce something to sell and doing that repetitively, consistently and really excellently.” And that’s what she does. Her legit business is selling bread at one of the farmers’ markets and through a CSB (Community Supported Bakery) she started two years ago. Her not-so-legit businesses are a canning club (CSC, of course) she started with a friend last year, and a secretive catering company she developed with her cooking friend Ben. They’ve done some weddings and community events and, last summer, they were making door-to-door deliveries. In all of her businesses Jess works hard to maximize the pleasure she can get out of them. She’s taken unconventional routes to maintain her businesses debt-free. This means thinking about risks and gains a little differently than a conventional business. She has the risk of getting pregnant and not having maternity leave or of injuring herself on the job and not having the necessary insurance. But for Jess, the gains outweigh those risks. “I do things in a very unconventional way. I rebel against major social expectations and produce things in a pretty uncapitalistic way. Sometimes, I make no money from what I do—and I know that—and I do it because it makes me happy or because it’s something exciting.” “That’s another reason why entrepreneurism here is a good idea for people.” She tells me, mid onion slice, “There aren’t actually that many opportunities for me here, but I really want to live here and I’ve found a niche for myself and I really maximize it and it’s allowed me to stay here and I’m grateful for that.” Photo by Katie McKay.

For OpenFile

Word of Mouth Sustains Illegal Restaurants

On top of festooned tables and behind closed garden doors, food experiences are being created and shared across this city—only, secretly.

Pop-up restaurants—as they’ve been called in other places—are popping up all over this town. At last count there were at least six establishments in HRM—and it seems more are popping up every day.

Underground eateries and cafés are not legitimate by any municipal or provincial standard.

They don’t abide by By-Law C-500, which means they can be fined up to $5,000. And, they don’t have provincial food establishment permits or health permits, or food handling training, generally.

But that doesn’t seem to scare Halifax’s rogue restauranteurs—the same way it doesn’t seem to phase operators of this illegal speakeasy.

OpenFile reached out to proprietors of these establishments to get a sense of who they are, what they are doing and how they see themselves. Entrepreneurs? Business owners? Renegades? Artists? Here’s what we found…

Photo by Katie McKay.

NINA’S
Two friends living apart decided to come together one summer—Greg, living in Toronto at the time, and Al, living here in Halifax. Simple as that, Al and Greg birthed Nina’s Backyard Barbeque.

“The community wants it,” Al said to Greg over the phone one day.” There’s a need for this.’”

Greg, who came back to Halifax for the summer, “got some pig, got some waffle, some slaw, pickled some things, [and] made an invite,” he says. “Took it door to door to all the neighb’s, did the Facebook thing—told everyone I knew. Done deal.”

No red tape, no waiting on accreditation. North End diners were treated to porky, pickle-topped waffles at affordable prices in a twinkly garden.

This wasn’t Greg’s first venture—he ran a few businesses before Nina’s—some legal, some illegal. He sees the main difference between the two as the flexibility.

“If we don’t run it one week, we just say, ‘Oh I just found out I can go to Denmark, so we’re not going to do it this week. And everyone will hear about it and someone might come by and be like, ‘oh it’s not running. OK!’”

The only upside Greg sees to going legit with a business is to make it bigger—and make more profit, maybe. But with Nina’s, “it would be every night and it would be late night and I would worry about my health. Doing it once a week is a great time. That’s enough—there’s other projects to do.”

Greg’s happy to see more pop-ups popping up. He’d even like to see training provided for people, so they could feel confident to put their ideas into action. But for now, he’s happy just to be making fun.

“People running these things are recouping their costs but they’re not really making anything. It’s just about getting together and hanging out.”

POTATO POTATO
Kira felt there was a lack of cozy winter venues in the city. So, she set up brunch in a friend’s one-bedroom apartment.

“I thought of it as a winter project, not as a money-making scheme, she says. “In fact, I quickly grew uncomfortable with taking money from customers, as they were mostly people I knew, [and] considered my friends.”

One complication of underground operations—word travels through friends, so it can often end up quite insular. “It’s easy enough to serve friends—people who are already on-board and familiar with the desire to run and attend a ‘pop-up.’”

“It’s most exciting, I think, to serve someone who is new to the idea and experience, to see them try to understand the scene and the workings around them,” she says.

Though it was hard to take money from friends, Kira put on many sumptuous feasts in that high-ceilinged abode and was paid to provide her community with a mid-morning hang out.

Though she put the effort in, she shies away from the E-word.

“Entrepreneur?…Someone who invests time and energy to actualize an idea? Am I such a person?” she asks. “Jesus Christ…I don’t think I would advertise myself as an entrepreneur. In the same breath, for the months that I ran Potato/Potato, I worked hard.”

THE GENERAL
Sam and Daina bought a fancy espresso machine, and now they’re using it.

A friend was selling the machine because he and his partner were having a baby. On a whim, they bought it, Sam says, “with no certainty as to how we were going to use it.”

The machine had its debut at Potato Potato’s underground brunch in January. Then, a pal offered them his house for February, so February at The General Café was born. At the end of March, they were in EyeLevel Gallery, finishing as resident coffee artists during the Reshelving Initiative. And April at The General Café was being hosted by the Roberts Street Social Centre, and for May, they’ve partnered with a store on Agricola Street.

Though their digs are constantly in flux, The General maintains the same airy charm wherever they are. With a golden framed chalk menu and jazzy crooners crooning, visitors are instantly calmed and coffeed. These temporary café installments are helping pay off the machine, the pair says, but their priority is creating new spaces in the city.

“I think there’s something missing here where I don’t feel comfortable going somewhere and sitting and reading a book—just hanging out in a space,” says Daina. “And I know that that is not financially viable. You know you can’t just have one person sit in your café all day. But, I like the idea of having that space.”

That’s OK, they say, because the space doesn’t need to make money. Sam and Daina have other day jobs that they live off of, so they can afford to invite customers to buy a $2 espresso and sit around for hours.

Do they feel they’re entrepreneurs?

“I guess I don’t love the word,” says Daina. “I can see it in a negative light…if someone wants to open a business and it doesn’t even matter what business it is—[and] they just want to make money, that’s when it becomes a little less honourable.

Sam isn’t quite sure. “I don’t feel that we are entrepreneurs at this point at all, but I feel good about people I know who are doing things that are entrepreneurial.”

THE CASTLE
Krista just started The Castle about a month ago. She’s always loved cooking and was getting rave reviews from roommates, so decided to open up her house and charge people for the pleasure of her cuisine.

She provides an upscale experience—three course meals with elaborate recipes from all over the world.

“Halifax doesn’t really have a lot of variety. I’m thinking of running a Cuban menu next month—Halifax doesn’t really offer that, as far as I know.”

She’s learning as she goes.

“I’m thinking about going to culinary school, and I’m not certain, so this is a way to see if I have what it takes to cook for that many people.”

At this point, she’s not worried about the legalities of what she’s doing. The Castle seats about eight people and Krista can’t imagine anyone having a problem with that.

“If it does reach the point where I am garnering a lot of interest and I’m exceeding what I can do, then I might consider renting out a space somewhere and doing this in a more legitimized manner. I just don’t have the money or really the inclination to do it right now.”

But Krista doesn’t shrink away from the notion of entrepreneurship—she’s run other businesses. She’s a freelance photographer by trade and once owned a rental photobooth company in Florida.

“For me, a lot of what I do with any sort of business venture is a lot more about a learning experience than anything else,” she says, “because I’m still at that point in my life where I’m not really certain what direction I’m going.”

JESS’S BREADS, CANS AND CATERING
Jess is a North End mover and shaker. She has three business, one of which she has the proper permits for, and the other two she keeps under the table. Sitting at her table as she’s slicing onions, Jess says she’s from a long line of entrepreneurs.

“Historically, it kind of fits in my family,” she says. “On my dad’s side, they are all entrepreneurs. I’m not very close with that part of the family, but it is part of my family legacy.”

For her it means being self-employed and working hard. “It means finding a market and then generating the energy it takes to produce something to sell and doing that repetitively, consistently and really excellently.”

And that’s what she does. Her legit business is selling bread at one of the farmers’ markets and through a CSB (Community Supported Bakery) she started two years ago. Her not-so-legit businesses are a canning club (CSC, of course) she started with a friend last year, and a secretive catering company she developed with her cooking friend Ben. They’ve done some weddings and community events and, last summer, they were making door-to-door deliveries.

In all of her businesses Jess works hard to maximize the pleasure she can get out of them. She’s taken unconventional routes to maintain her businesses debt-free. This means thinking about risks and gains a little differently than a conventional business. She has the risk of getting pregnant and not having maternity leave or of injuring herself on the job and not having the necessary insurance. But for Jess, the gains outweigh those risks.

“I do things in a very unconventional way. I rebel against major social expectations and produce things in a pretty uncapitalistic way. Sometimes, I make no money from what I do—and I know that—and I do it because it makes me happy or because it’s something exciting.”

“That’s another reason why entrepreneurism here is a good idea for people.” She tells me, mid onion slice, “There aren’t actually that many opportunities for me here, but I really want to live here and I’ve found a niche for myself and I really maximize it and it’s allowed me to stay here and I’m grateful for that.”

Photo by Katie McKay.

For The Coast Gimme science fiction  Out of This World showcases Hollywood’s greatest sci-fi artifacts at the Museum of Natural History Dear sci-fi fans: All your dreams are coming true. Your best friends are coming to town: Captain Kirk, Darth Vader, Batman and Robin. They’re all going to be at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History…sorry, they won’t be. But their clothes will. Opening this Friday and running until August 26, The Museum of Natural History will be hosting Out of This World: Extraordinary Costumes from Film and Television. The exhibit is based out of the EMP Museum in Seattle and has travelled all over the United States, everywhere from Oshkosh to Kalamazoo but with a little luck and some excellent timing Jeff Gray—-the curator at the Museum of Natural History—-was able to snag a viewing. “It was honestly one of those things,” Gray says. “It was open just at the time we could take it and it all just worked out.” Now it might not seem to be a natural selection for a natural history museum to display movie costumes, it could be argued that Hollywood is in essence detached from the natural world. But Gray explains that the exhibit is meant to pique Haligonian interest in science fiction and outer space more generally. Out of This World will be on exhibit in conjunction with the museum’s Science on a Sphere solar system show. “We have the only one in Canada.” Gray says of Science on a Sphere, “It’s a six foot round screen that runs on four projectors with a wide range of data. It shows live weather, it shows live earthquakes. It shows all these different things that happen on the earth but in addition to all those things it also shows the sun, the moon and all the planets of the solar system.” The museum will be showcasing the solar system on the sphere this summer and are hoping the Out of This World exhibit will get visitors excited about their world and the worlds beyond our planet. As Gray points out, so many of the costumes in the exhibit are meant to be from faraway galaxies but end up imbued with our earthly perceptions. “It is interesting that you start to look at all these costumes and how costumes are made, even if they are from different planets or they are other kinds of beings they’re all still somehow rooted in our understanding of earth.” He uses Gorn, the lizard man from Star Trek as an example. “Our notions of lizards being scary inform us when we see him.” Beyond the strictly sci-fi costumes of Star Trek and Star Wars the exhibit also has artifacts from other well-loved classics, like the Wicked Witch of the West’s hat from the Wizard of Oz and the leather jacket worn by Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Gray concedes that the natural science connection of the exhibit is a little tenuous. “At some levels it’s not natural history,” Gray says. “But in the absence of a cultural museum in Halifax we sort of fill that void at times too.” And maybe this exhibit questions the definition of natural, maybe it expands on our view of the natural world as we see it. These fantastic depictions of potential worlds have a way of reflecting our world back to us. Maybe in peering into the clothes of those from galaxies far far away we will find a way to see ourselves—-just as we are.

For The Coast

Gimme science fiction 

Out of This World showcases Hollywood’s greatest sci-fi artifacts at the Museum of Natural History

Dear sci-fi fans: All your dreams are coming true. Your best friends are coming to town: Captain Kirk, Darth Vader, Batman and Robin. They’re all going to be at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History…sorry, they won’t be. But their clothes will.

Opening this Friday and running until August 26, The Museum of Natural History will be hosting Out of This World: Extraordinary Costumes from Film and Television. The exhibit is based out of the EMP Museum in Seattle and has travelled all over the United States, everywhere from Oshkosh to Kalamazoo but with a little luck and some excellent timing Jeff Gray—-the curator at the Museum of Natural History—-was able to snag a viewing.

“It was honestly one of those things,” Gray says. “It was open just at the time we could take it and it all just worked out.”

Now it might not seem to be a natural selection for a natural history museum to display movie costumes, it could be argued that Hollywood is in essence detached from the natural world. But Gray explains that the exhibit is meant to pique Haligonian interest in science fiction and outer space more generally.

Out of This World will be on exhibit in conjunction with the museum’s Science on a Sphere solar system show.

“We have the only one in Canada.” Gray says of Science on a Sphere, “It’s a six foot round screen that runs on four projectors with a wide range of data. It shows live weather, it shows live earthquakes. It shows all these different things that happen on the earth but in addition to all those things it also shows the sun, the moon and all the planets of the solar system.”

The museum will be showcasing the solar system on the sphere this summer and are hoping the Out of This World exhibit will get visitors excited about their world and the worlds beyond our planet.

As Gray points out, so many of the costumes in the exhibit are meant to be from faraway galaxies but end up imbued with our earthly perceptions.

“It is interesting that you start to look at all these costumes and how costumes are made, even if they are from different planets or they are other kinds of beings they’re all still somehow rooted in our understanding of earth.”

He uses Gorn, the lizard man from Star Trek as an example. “Our notions of lizards being scary inform us when we see him.”

Beyond the strictly sci-fi costumes of Star Trek and Star Wars the exhibit also has artifacts from other well-loved classics, like the Wicked Witch of the West’s hat from the Wizard of Oz and the leather jacket worn by Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Gray concedes that the natural science connection of the exhibit is a little tenuous. “At some levels it’s not natural history,” Gray says. “But in the absence of a cultural museum in Halifax we sort of fill that void at times too.”

And maybe this exhibit questions the definition of natural, maybe it expands on our view of the natural world as we see it. These fantastic depictions of potential worlds have a way of reflecting our world back to us. Maybe in peering into the clothes of those from galaxies far far away we will find a way to see ourselves—-just as we are.

For Halifax Local Connections The Business of Biking “It’s people that patronize businesses not automobiles. It sounds very straight forward but a lot of business owners don’t see that.” This is the message of local business owner Peter Williams.  Williams is an avid cyclist and when he talks bikes, he means business.   As the founder of Halifax based bicycle touring company Eastwind Cycle, he organizes bike trips throughout the Maritimes, Quebec and Mexico.  He also works as an advocate and consultant for the City and Province on strengthening bicycle infrastructure. “On long trips back and forth between here and Quebec City we started saying well what’s happened to NS why can’t we have this in NS?” says Williams, referring to Quebec’s Route Verte network of bicycle and multi-use trails that spans over 4,000 kilometers.  Williams and his business partner Suzanna Fuller have since been hosting presentations in public forms across the province with the result being a plan for a “Blue Route” in Nova Scotia. On the Municipal level, Williams is supporting the Crosstown Connector project proposed by the Halifax Cycling Coalition.  The current proposal for the Connector is a north south bike lane that would traverse the length of the peninsula reaching as far as the Bedford highway.  The route could be put along Connaught or Windsor streets but so far the momentum seems to be behind an Agricola corridor. Simple as this idea might seem, Williams is expecting a great deal of push-back from the business community that could be affected by a reduction in parking spaces.   The narrow nature of Agricola street could mean that one lane of parking might be removed or in some cases both lanes of parking. “I totally embrace the value of having a livable city and what that involves.” says mayoral candidate Fred Conners who is also the owner of FRED salon, café and gallery on Agricola St.  “Fortunately, I live and work in this neighbourhood, a lot of our customers live and work in this neighbourhood and I don’t see the loss of parking along this street to be as terrifying as other businesses do but I’m also Vice President of the Business Association and I hear from those businesses and I can understand how threatening that would be for them.” Conners proposes that instead of bike lanes the city should implement traffic controlled areas with reduced speed limits. “It would be easier to build a critical mass of bike friendly zones so that people don’t have to stick to just a narrow 36 inch wide lane, they have the entire street that they can occupy with automobiles and that’s a much better way to go.” As a business-owner himself Williams agrees that accommodations will need to be made for small businesses that could be effected but he sees the increase of slow moving bike traffic as an opportunity for Agricola businesses.  On this point Conners agrees with Williams. “People automatically think that cars equal business but when you really look at it cars don’t equal business, people equal business and if you can make neighbourhoods attractive to more people we do better business.”

For Halifax Local Connections

The Business of Biking

“It’s people that patronize businesses not automobiles. It sounds very straight forward but a lot of business owners don’t see that.”

This is the message of local business owner Peter Williams.  Williams is an avid cyclist and when he talks bikes, he means business.   As the founder of Halifax based bicycle touring company Eastwind Cycle, he organizes bike trips throughout the Maritimes, Quebec and Mexico.  He also works as an advocate and consultant for the City and Province on strengthening bicycle infrastructure.

“On long trips back and forth between here and Quebec City we started saying well what’s happened to NS why can’t we have this in NS?” says Williams, referring to Quebec’s Route Verte network of bicycle and multi-use trails that spans over 4,000 kilometers.  Williams and his business partner Suzanna Fuller have since been hosting presentations in public forms across the province with the result being a plan for a “Blue Route” in Nova Scotia.

On the Municipal level, Williams is supporting the Crosstown Connector project proposed by the Halifax Cycling Coalition.  The current proposal for the Connector is a north south bike lane that would traverse the length of the peninsula reaching as far as the Bedford highway.  The route could be put along Connaught or Windsor streets but so far the momentum seems to be behind an Agricola corridor.

Simple as this idea might seem, Williams is expecting a great deal of push-back from the business community that could be affected by a reduction in parking spaces.   The narrow nature of Agricola street could mean that one lane of parking might be removed or in some cases both lanes of parking.

“I totally embrace the value of having a livable city and what that involves.” says mayoral candidate Fred Conners who is also the owner of FRED salon, café and gallery on Agricola St.  “Fortunately, I live and work in this neighbourhood, a lot of our customers live and work in this neighbourhood and I don’t see the loss of parking along this street to be as terrifying as other businesses do but I’m also Vice President of the Business Association and I hear from those businesses and I can understand how threatening that would be for them.”

Conners proposes that instead of bike lanes the city should implement traffic controlled areas with reduced speed limits. “It would be easier to build a critical mass of bike friendly zones so that people don’t have to stick to just a narrow 36 inch wide lane, they have the entire street that they can occupy with automobiles and that’s a much better way to go.”

As a business-owner himself Williams agrees that accommodations will need to be made for small businesses that could be effected but he sees the increase of slow moving bike traffic as an opportunity for Agricola businesses.  On this point Conners agrees with Williams.

“People automatically think that cars equal business but when you really look at it cars don’t equal business, people equal business and if you can make neighbourhoods attractive to more people we do better business.”

For OpenFile Bargain Lover Bill Mont Dumping His 10-Truck, 52-Year Collection of Bargains It takes me five minutes to bike up to the “Bill’s” flea market showroom on Robie St. but it’s taken Bill Mont 52 years to get here—to the point where he’s ready to part with 10 tractor trailer loads of his “stuff.” Walking into Bill’s is instantly calming. The ceilings are high, the windows are wide and Nat King Cole is crooning, “When I fall in love.” This calm is contrasted by the frenzy of objects that fill not one but two giant store rooms. Lamps, radios, magazines, records, pipes, generators, throne chairs, the film set of 2007’s The Conclave—even an emergency hatch off an airplane—these treasures brim over long tables and pile up on shelves. And in amongst it all is 83-year-old Bill: The Collector. Bill Mont’s other lost treasuresThere aren’t just bargains at Bill Mont’s flea market. There are boxes and boxes of old unlabeled photographs. One blogger has started posting them to his Lost Lives blog. “I have a problem,” Bill tells me, “If it’s called a bargain, I just have to buy it.” And this doesn’t just apply to knick-knackery. Bill also collects really big things, too. He owns a cemetery in Lower Sackville, a WWI wreck of a hospital ship in Portuguese Cove, 19-acre Devil’s Island in the Halifax Harbour, a little plot of land in Shad Bay, and right now, he’s in conversations with the province about purchasing the lighthouse at Peggy’s Cove. Oh and he’s also owned two castles. In November 2011, Bill trucked (literally…trucked…) his massive collection of worldy items to a warehouse atDemone and Robie. The location is temporary—Banc Developments, Ltd. is waiting on approval from the province to develop an apartment complex on that site. So Bill has to get rid of this stuff. He thinks it’s time. “I’ve been gathering up stuff since 1960. So now I’m saddled with about ten tractor trailer loads of stuff—I’m just about to be 83 next month. My health’s not the best these days, so I’ve got a big job on my hands.” So he’s trying to get rid of it all. Or is he? “I don’t think he wants to get rid of anything,” says Dave Ewenson. He’s a customer of Bill’s and he thinks that whatever he may say, Bill just isn’t ready to sell his treasures. “You’ll be impressed by what’s out there, it’s a really random mix of stuff so you feel like you could find just about anything—then [Bill] always hints that he has so much more.” “And if you ask to look at it, he’s like, ‘Oh, [you’ve] gotta wait.’—I think there’s an inner battle going on there.” A storeroom with other yet-to-be-revealed sale items. Selling a collection like this can’t be easy. For Bill, it’s his life’s work. As extravagant as his collection has become, Bill started from humble roots. “I was born basically at the beginning of the depression, May 1st, 1929,” says Bill. His father left as the depression arrived, riding boxcars, and “ending up being the amateur boxing champion of Washington, DC, he says. “That left my mother and I being brought up by step-parents. So it was tough, I’ll tell you how tough it was.” He says his father died when Bill was nine, suffocated in a refrigerated box car. Bill ended up in reform school for two years because he couldn’t afford pencils, so had skipped class to avoid the embarrassment. He and his mother lived on the Halifax waterfront, “known as Greenbank at that time,” where the container pier is now. His first collection, when he was eleven, came from picking up bottles around the harbour. Select photos of Bill and his endless stuff. (Photos by Veronica Simmonds and Neal Ozano) Between (and during) his collections, he’s had a myriad of jobs. He’s been a red cap at the train station, an oil tank cleaner on ships, he built yachts and mobile homes, he did demolition work in Clayton Park, he’s been in 25 movies (including a cameo in Titanic (he says he didn’t eat the chowder—he’d brought his own lunch) and he’s been on Showcase’s Trailer Park Boys. But anyone who knows Bill Mont knows he also single-handedly brought flea markets to Nova Scotia in 1975. He says the first flea market happened at the drive-in theatre in Lower Sackville—where the Superstore is now. “We had about 400 dealers,” says Bill. “People would rent a table and bring their stuff. It cost a quarter back then, and it was the place to go on Sunday. There was no Sunday shopping, there was no Frenchy’s. People came from all over the Maritimes.” Bill explains to me how his collection of lands and truckloads evolved. The way he describes it makes it all seem so natural—A logical progression towards a colossal collection. “Over the years, you know, buying and selling real estate and other things gave me the money to play with, buying into apartment buildings with some of my friends and then I just got in the habit of buying odds and ends, odd stuff, niche stuff, collectors’ items and just plain bargains.” Part of what pushes Bill to collect (and keep) all his stuff might be based in his impoverished depression upbringing. Everything had value; nothing went to waste. “I don’t like to see things get destroyed, whether it’s a building being torn down or whatever. I’m from the old school. Now, it’s getting to be a throw-away society. They don’t care, they knock down a building and it means nothing.” But it all means something to Bill, that’s why he’s been saving it all. Not just by buying it up, but by sitting on dozens of historical boards and committees, including the Sable Island Preservation Trust and Heritage Canada. He believes the past should be preserved. And it’s worrying him that this ideal seems to the fading. “I find, quite frankly too, that a lot of the young people come in and they don’t seem to have the money to spend. And people aren’t buying antiques like they used to. It’s a whole different world.” This new world might not be able to handle the ten truck loads of nostalgia that Bill has on offer. He might not be able to sell it all before the apartments are set to go up. But Bill tells me he has a bit of a backup plan. “People say to me, ‘Bill, what are you going to do with all this stuff if you don’t sell it? You can’t take it with you.’ I say, ‘Sure I can, I have a cemetery. I can set aside five acres. I’ll have it go in tractor trailer loads and signs that say, ‘He did take it with him’.”

For OpenFile

Bargain Lover Bill Mont Dumping His 10-Truck, 52-Year Collection of Bargains

It takes me five minutes to bike up to the “Bill’s” flea market showroom on Robie St. but it’s taken Bill Mont 52 years to get here—to the point where he’s ready to part with 10 tractor trailer loads of his “stuff.”

Walking into Bill’s is instantly calming. The ceilings are high, the windows are wide and Nat King Cole is crooning, “When I fall in love.” This calm is contrasted by the frenzy of objects that fill not one but two giant store rooms. Lamps, radios, magazines, records, pipes, generators, throne chairs, the film set of 2007’s The Conclave—even an emergency hatch off an airplane—these treasures brim over long tables and pile up on shelves. And in amongst it all is 83-year-old Bill: The Collector.

Bill Mont’s other lost treasures
There aren’t just bargains at Bill Mont’s flea market. There are boxes and boxes of old unlabeled photographs. One blogger has started posting them to his Lost Lives blog.

“I have a problem,” Bill tells me, “If it’s called a bargain, I just have to buy it.” And this doesn’t just apply to knick-knackery. Bill also collects really big things, too. He owns a cemetery in Lower Sackville, a WWI wreck of a hospital ship in Portuguese Cove, 19-acre Devil’s Island in the Halifax Harbour, a little plot of land in Shad Bay, and right now, he’s in conversations with the province about purchasing the lighthouse at Peggy’s Cove. Oh and he’s also owned two castles.

In November 2011, Bill trucked (literally…trucked…) his massive collection of worldy items to a warehouse atDemone and Robie. The location is temporary—Banc Developments, Ltd. is waiting on approval from the province to develop an apartment complex on that site. So Bill has to get rid of this stuff.

He thinks it’s time.

“I’ve been gathering up stuff since 1960. So now I’m saddled with about ten tractor trailer loads of stuff—I’m just about to be 83 next month. My health’s not the best these days, so I’ve got a big job on my hands.”

So he’s trying to get rid of it all. Or is he?

“I don’t think he wants to get rid of anything,” says Dave Ewenson. He’s a customer of Bill’s and he thinks that whatever he may say, Bill just isn’t ready to sell his treasures.

“You’ll be impressed by what’s out there, it’s a really random mix of stuff so you feel like you could find just about anything—then [Bill] always hints that he has so much more.”

“And if you ask to look at it, he’s like, ‘Oh, [you’ve] gotta wait.’—I think there’s an inner battle going on there.”

A storeroom with other yet-to-be-revealed sale items.

Selling a collection like this can’t be easy. For Bill, it’s his life’s work. As extravagant as his collection has become, Bill started from humble roots.

“I was born basically at the beginning of the depression, May 1st, 1929,” says Bill. His father left as the depression arrived, riding boxcars, and “ending up being the amateur boxing champion of Washington, DC, he says. “That left my mother and I being brought up by step-parents. So it was tough, I’ll tell you how tough it was.”

He says his father died when Bill was nine, suffocated in a refrigerated box car. Bill ended up in reform school for two years because he couldn’t afford pencils, so had skipped class to avoid the embarrassment. He and his mother lived on the Halifax waterfront, “known as Greenbank at that time,” where the container pier is now. His first collection, when he was eleven, came from picking up bottles around the harbour.

Select photos of Bill and his endless stuff. (Photos by Veronica Simmonds and Neal Ozano)

Between (and during) his collections, he’s had a myriad of jobs. He’s been a red cap at the train station, an oil tank cleaner on ships, he built yachts and mobile homes, he did demolition work in Clayton Park, he’s been in 25 movies (including a cameo in Titanic (he says he didn’t eat the chowder—he’d brought his own lunch) and he’s been on Showcase’s Trailer Park Boys.

But anyone who knows Bill Mont knows he also single-handedly brought flea markets to Nova Scotia in 1975.

He says the first flea market happened at the drive-in theatre in Lower Sackville—where the Superstore is now.

“We had about 400 dealers,” says Bill. “People would rent a table and bring their stuff. It cost a quarter back then, and it was the place to go on Sunday. There was no Sunday shopping, there was no Frenchy’s. People came from all over the Maritimes.”

Bill explains to me how his collection of lands and truckloads evolved. The way he describes it makes it all seem so natural—A logical progression towards a colossal collection.

“Over the years, you know, buying and selling real estate and other things gave me the money to play with, buying into apartment buildings with some of my friends and then I just got in the habit of buying odds and ends, odd stuff, niche stuff, collectors’ items and just plain bargains.”

Part of what pushes Bill to collect (and keep) all his stuff might be based in his impoverished depression upbringing. Everything had value; nothing went to waste.

“I don’t like to see things get destroyed, whether it’s a building being torn down or whatever. I’m from the old school. Now, it’s getting to be a throw-away society. They don’t care, they knock down a building and it means nothing.”

But it all means something to Bill, that’s why he’s been saving it all. Not just by buying it up, but by sitting on dozens of historical boards and committees, including the Sable Island Preservation Trust and Heritage Canada.

He believes the past should be preserved. And it’s worrying him that this ideal seems to the fading.

“I find, quite frankly too, that a lot of the young people come in and they don’t seem to have the money to spend. And people aren’t buying antiques like they used to. It’s a whole different world.”

This new world might not be able to handle the ten truck loads of nostalgia that Bill has on offer. He might not be able to sell it all before the apartments are set to go up. But Bill tells me he has a bit of a backup plan.

“People say to me, ‘Bill, what are you going to do with all this stuff if you don’t sell it? You can’t take it with you.’ I say, ‘Sure I can, I have a cemetery. I can set aside five acres. I’ll have it go in tractor trailer loads and signs that say, ‘He did take it with him’.”

This is a piece that I just submitted to the Third Coast Short Docs Competition.  The parameters were that I had to tell a story about a neighbour of mine, it had to include 3 seconds of narrative silence and it needed to have a colour in the title. So here’s Fire Engine Red…my story about getting to know your neighbour, when your neighbour is a sound.

This is a piece that I just submitted to the Third Coast Short Docs Competition.  The parameters were that I had to tell a story about a neighbour of mine, it had to include 3 seconds of narrative silence and it needed to have a colour in the title.

So here’s Fire Engine Red…my story about getting to know your neighbour, when your neighbour is a sound.

For The Coast The working’s on the wall  Agitate Educate Organise. This is the call to action that Emily Davidson has been spreading throughout the city. Posted on poles and boards, her stunning prints call on “Workingwomen, workingmen and artists” to gather at The Khyber on April 27. Though breathtakingly artful, it is as much a show of work as it is a show of art. Starting at the end of April and running through the month of May, Davidson’s Agitate Educate Organise exhibition will be part of the Mayworks Festival. In conjunction with International Workers Day, May 1—-May Day—-the Mayworks festival aims to bring together artists and workers to explore themes of social and economic justice. As a feminist, Davidson is especially interested in the experience of being a woman worker. For this show she has wheat-pasted the colossal 16.5-foot Khyber walls with wallpaper depicting moments in the past when working women agitated, educated and organized. “I feel very much that the history of artists is the history of workers,” she says in the Khyber Ballroom, where the once whitewashed walls are now rich with medieval-inspired designs. “In seeing myself as a worker I wanted to know what other women were doing at this time.” The choice to express the history of women workers is Davidson’s response to the work of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement that took place at the turn of the century and criticized the industrialization of decorative objects. “The Arts and Crafts movement was based on this idea that craft and labour were valuable, but at the same time it didn’t show what labour was about at the time. It just wanted to show nature and all these beautiful handcrafted things. It was escapist almost, interested in labour but not referring to that at all.” So to expand on this movement, Davidson is using the style and tropes of Arts and Crafts to refer directly to the labour conditions at that time. One of the images that covers the largest wall of the ballroom is of the Bread and Roses Strike of 1912. “It was a strike where women textile workers found that they had been short changed on their pay checks when the company cut their hours without giving them a wage increase,” she says. “So this group of Polish women shut down their machines and walked out—-which started a three month, very intense, strike that was fought and won by the women in the community.” These scenes of struggles and victories are being shown not just to educate viewers on what has happened—-Davidson is using the nostalgia to criticize notions of progress. In her view, these same fights are still being fought today. “The inequity in the art world is still very present…I want this show to not only make people think in an academic way but also to create an experience where people can say, ‘Should we have an artist- run centre that’s specifically about women? What is our artist run centre movement lacking? How could artists be more connected to workers?’” And people will have all month to ponder these questions. Regular Khyber programming will happen in and around the exhibit. But these images and their invitation to agitation will not fade into the background—- these women may be wallpaper, but they are far from wallflowers. photo by BRENDAN ANCKAERT

For The Coast

The working’s on the wall 

Agitate Educate Organise. This is the call to action that Emily Davidson has been spreading throughout the city. Posted on poles and boards, her stunning prints call on “Workingwomen, workingmen and artists” to gather at The Khyber on April 27.

Though breathtakingly artful, it is as much a show of work as it is a show of art. Starting at the end of April and running through the month of May, Davidson’s Agitate Educate Organise exhibition will be part of the Mayworks Festival. In conjunction with International Workers Day, May 1—-May Day—-the Mayworks festival aims to bring together artists and workers to explore themes of social and economic justice.

As a feminist, Davidson is especially interested in the experience of being a woman worker. For this show she has wheat-pasted the colossal 16.5-foot Khyber walls with wallpaper depicting moments in the past when working women agitated, educated and organized. “I feel very much that the history of artists is the history of workers,” she says in the Khyber Ballroom, where the once whitewashed walls are now rich with medieval-inspired designs. “In seeing myself as a worker I wanted to know what other women were doing at this time.”

The choice to express the history of women workers is Davidson’s response to the work of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement that took place at the turn of the century and criticized the industrialization of decorative objects. “The Arts and Crafts movement was based on this idea that craft and labour were valuable, but at the same time it didn’t show what labour was about at the time. It just wanted to show nature and all these beautiful handcrafted things. It was escapist almost, interested in labour but not referring to that at all.”

So to expand on this movement, Davidson is using the style and tropes of Arts and Crafts to refer directly to the labour conditions at that time. One of the images that covers the largest wall of the ballroom is of the Bread and Roses Strike of 1912.

“It was a strike where women textile workers found that they had been short changed on their pay checks when the company cut their hours without giving them a wage increase,” she says. “So this group of Polish women shut down their machines and walked out—-which started a three month, very intense, strike that was fought and won by the women in the community.”

These scenes of struggles and victories are being shown not just to educate viewers on what has happened—-Davidson is using the nostalgia to criticize notions of progress. In her view, these same fights are still being fought today. “The inequity in the art world is still very present…I want this show to not only make people think in an academic way but also to create an experience where people can say, ‘Should we have an artist- run centre that’s specifically about women? What is our artist run centre movement lacking? How could artists be more connected to workers?’”

And people will have all month to ponder these questions. Regular Khyber programming will happen in and around the exhibit. But these images and their invitation to agitation will not fade into the background—- these women may be wallpaper, but they are far from wallflowers.

photo by BRENDAN ANCKAERT

For OpenFile End of an Era: The mobile library takes it’s last tour I find the bookmobile in the Nelson Whynder School parking lot in North Preston. It’s mid-morning and all the kids are in school. There’s no one around, so I hesitantly open the trailer door and enter another world. The floor is carpeted, the walls wooden, stacked with all varieties of book and at the far end of this travelling library is Debbie Lambert, sitting where she has sat for the last 23 years. “It’s the end of an era” she says, as we sit on her mini sofa, compete with a buckled-in teddy bear. After 51 years of service, Halifax’s Mobile Library will be making its last tour Saturday, Mar. 31. Known to most as the bookmobile, the Mobile Library serves the communities of Whites Lake, Enfield, Fall River, Eastern Passage, North Preston, West Chezzetcook, Porters Lake, Terence Bay and the Musquodoboit area.Bears, turtles and ducks mobile librarian Debbie Lambert occasionally saw on her route, between wheelbarrows and tractors her readers brought their books back in. (1:54) “It will certainly be missed.” Debbie tells me. She’s been supervising librarian on the Bookmobile since 1989, and has seen a lot of changes. When she started, there were no computers to help her organize her collection, and most of the communities she was serving were surrounded by farmland. Now the bookmobile stops in parking lots in town centres, in communities that still don’t have a permanent Library Branch. For some bookmobile readers, it can be a 66km round-trip to the nearest library (see map). Over the years Debbie has become an integral member of the communities she serves—seeing three generations of book-borrowers come through this tiny door, and she’s connected with every one, she says. “You become a part of their community,” Lambert says. “So it’s not just them going to the library, it’s really a community involvement thing. They come to the bookmobile, and they’re greeting their neighbours they may not see on a regular basis. And they’ve gotten to know me, because I’ve been here for so long, they consider me a friend…I mean, they might consider me family.” But Debbie’s family will soon be without this travelling hub. Low usage and tight library budgets have led to the end of this service. If this story sounds familiar, that’s because this is exactly what was said last year around this time. “This decision was basically made by the library board themselves,” says Eastern Shore-Musquodoboit councillor Steve Streatch. “For the last three or four years, they’ve wanted to discontinue the service out here in the rural communities.” Streatch was successful last year in getting additional funding “to keep it going for a year or two,” but he says the library board “simply can’t keep up with the repairs to the vehicle, et cetera.” Where does HPL’s Mobile Library go? Blue buses were bookmobile stops. Yellow houses are the nearest libraries. The mobile library has about 250 active users and the budget to run the service adds up to $290,000 a year. The vehicle also needs to be replaced, which would put HPL back another $400,000. “This is the end of the travelling library for us.” says Halifax Public Libraries’ Marlo Mackay. She says library patrons in these communities have the option to start using other services. “We have the books-by-mailservice, which has been around for quite a while. We have a lot of services online, so people who have Internet access can download e-books and audio books and videos from our Overdrive downloadable media service.” There are also online databases and homework help chat services during library hours. But Debbie tells me that some of the people coming onto the Bookmobile don’t have Internet access. And with the future of CAP sites still up in the air, it could become more difficult for people who rely on this service to access the books they want. “It’s very disappointing, to tell you the truth,” says Streatch. His community will be one of the hardest hit by the loss of the Mobile Library. Debbie says that from the time the bus arrives at the PharmaSave parking lot in Middle Musquodoboit, until it leaves five hours later, it’s always full. Councillor Streatch is hoping that there will be a silver lining for his constituents. “We’ve been looking into other potential opportunities and I think that there might be the good news story coming out of the closing of the bookmobile—a permanent satellite library branch here in the Musquodoboit Valley.” He says he spoke to a consultant who is looking into a facility and what it would need. “We’re very hopeful that that comes to fruition, and, at the same time, very disappointed that the bookmobile has deceased.” Meanwhile, though not out of a job, come April, Debbie will be processing library materials for the collections access department of the HPL. This will be a total change for her—a move from from public service for the first time in her career, and leaving this cozy bus that has been a second home for her. As I stand up from the couch and head back to the little door she tells me she’s trying to stay positive but she’s going to miss this place and all the people she’s connected with. “It’s always been a big part of my work life,” she says, “so it’s not going to be something that I’ll easily forget.”

For OpenFile

End of an Era: The mobile library takes it’s last tour

I find the bookmobile in the Nelson Whynder School parking lot in North Preston. It’s mid-morning and all the kids are in school. There’s no one around, so I hesitantly open the trailer door and enter another world. The floor is carpeted, the walls wooden, stacked with all varieties of book and at the far end of this travelling library is Debbie Lambert, sitting where she has sat for the last 23 years.

“It’s the end of an era” she says, as we sit on her mini sofa, compete with a buckled-in teddy bear. After 51 years of service, Halifax’s Mobile Library will be making its last tour Saturday, Mar. 31. Known to most as the bookmobile, the Mobile Library serves the communities of Whites Lake, Enfield, Fall River, Eastern Passage, North Preston, West Chezzetcook, Porters Lake, Terence Bay and the Musquodoboit area.
Bears, turtles and ducks mobile librarian Debbie Lambert occasionally saw on her route, between wheelbarrows and tractors her readers brought their books back in. (1:54)

“It will certainly be missed.” Debbie tells me. She’s been supervising librarian on the Bookmobile since 1989, and has seen a lot of changes. When she started, there were no computers to help her organize her collection, and most of the communities she was serving were surrounded by farmland. Now the bookmobile stops in parking lots in town centres, in communities that still don’t have a permanent Library Branch. For some bookmobile readers, it can be a 66km round-trip to the nearest library (see map).

Over the years Debbie has become an integral member of the communities she serves—seeing three generations of book-borrowers come through this tiny door, and she’s connected with every one, she says.

“You become a part of their community,” Lambert says. “So it’s not just them going to the library, it’s really a community involvement thing. They come to the bookmobile, and they’re greeting their neighbours they may not see on a regular basis. And they’ve gotten to know me, because I’ve been here for so long, they consider me a friend…I mean, they might consider me family.”

But Debbie’s family will soon be without this travelling hub. Low usage and tight library budgets have led to the end of this service.

If this story sounds familiar, that’s because this is exactly what was said last year around this time.

“This decision was basically made by the library board themselves,” says Eastern Shore-Musquodoboit councillor Steve Streatch. “For the last three or four years, they’ve wanted to discontinue the service out here in the rural communities.”

Streatch was successful last year in getting additional funding “to keep it going for a year or two,” but he says the library board “simply can’t keep up with the repairs to the vehicle, et cetera.”


Where does HPL’s Mobile Library go? Blue buses were bookmobile stops. Yellow houses are the nearest libraries.

The mobile library has about 250 active users and the budget to run the service adds up to $290,000 a year. The vehicle also needs to be replaced, which would put HPL back another $400,000.

“This is the end of the travelling library for us.” says Halifax Public Libraries’ Marlo Mackay. She says library patrons in these communities have the option to start using other services.

“We have the books-by-mailservice, which has been around for quite a while. We have a lot of services online, so people who have Internet access can download e-books and audio books and videos from our Overdrive downloadable media service.” There are also online databases and homework help chat services during library hours.

But Debbie tells me that some of the people coming onto the Bookmobile don’t have Internet access. And with the future of CAP sites still up in the air, it could become more difficult for people who rely on this service to access the books they want.

“It’s very disappointing, to tell you the truth,” says Streatch. His community will be one of the hardest hit by the loss of the Mobile Library.

Debbie says that from the time the bus arrives at the PharmaSave parking lot in Middle Musquodoboit, until it leaves five hours later, it’s always full.

Councillor Streatch is hoping that there will be a silver lining for his constituents.

“We’ve been looking into other potential opportunities and I think that there might be the good news story coming out of the closing of the bookmobile—a permanent satellite library branch here in the Musquodoboit Valley.” He says he spoke to a consultant who is looking into a facility and what it would need.

“We’re very hopeful that that comes to fruition, and, at the same time, very disappointed that the bookmobile has deceased.”

Meanwhile, though not out of a job, come April, Debbie will be processing library materials for the collections access department of the HPL. This will be a total change for her—a move from from public service for the first time in her career, and leaving this cozy bus that has been a second home for her.

As I stand up from the couch and head back to the little door she tells me she’s trying to stay positive but she’s going to miss this place and all the people she’s connected with.

“It’s always been a big part of my work life,” she says, “so it’s not going to be something that I’ll easily forget.”

This was a piece I produced for the Centre for Art Tapes Reels to Reels Competition. This piece is about time and expectation -specifically the morning time and expectations for the day to come. The beginning of the day always brings a certain amount of anticipation - what will happen, who will we meet, what will they say? But the first thing the morning brings is coffee. This is an ode to the first creation of the day - the creation of the first cup of coffee - it reflects that anticipatory morning feeling. In this piece all of the human actions are sped up, because they can be, because we have control over them and the speed at which they occur. We can grind our coffee and turn on our stoves in any order and at any pace that suits us. However, we do not control the temperature at which water boils. We do not choose the moment when that boiled water bursts forth from the lower chamber of the espresso pot and seeps through the metal filter above. We have no control over these physical variables. That is beyond us - much like the knowledge of what the day will hold. All we can do is wait. photo by InvernoDreaming

This was a piece I produced for the Centre for Art Tapes Reels to Reels Competition.

This piece is about time and expectation -specifically the morning time and expectations for the day to come. The beginning of the day always brings a certain amount of anticipation - what will happen, who will we meet, what will they say? But the first thing the morning brings is coffee.

This is an ode to the first creation of the day - the creation of the first cup of coffee - it reflects that anticipatory morning feeling. In this piece all of the human actions are sped up, because they can be, because we have control over them and the speed at which they occur. We can grind our coffee and turn on our stoves in any order and at any pace that suits us. However, we do not control the temperature at which water boils. We do not choose the moment when that boiled water bursts forth from the lower chamber of the espresso pot and seeps through the metal filter above. We have no control over these physical variables. That is beyond us - much like the knowledge of what the day will hold.

All we can do is wait.

photo by InvernoDreaming

For The Coast Rolling with the Stones  Zuppa Theatre’s new show, Slowly I Turn, brings together father, son and a living room. I walk into Java Blend early in the morning. Ben Stone and his dad John welcome me with big hugs and hot tea. Both bearded and bright-eyed, the Stones exude a familial warmth that wraps around me like a soft woven blanket. Their casual leans and finish-each other’s-sentence-style closeness is contagious. After my first sip I feel like I’m part of the family. And that’s the point. The Stones are going to be proffering this familial feeling to audience members at Zuppa Theatre’s latest creation Slowly I Turn. The father-son team, accompanied by Jess Lewis, will be performing this vaudeville piece in one act in Ben’s living room. “It’s essential to have it be a site-specific show, to give it that home and that family warmth kind of thing,” Ben says. “To have people sitting with us as were sitting in the living room hanging out will bring a casualness to it that is essential to the heart of the piece.” The piece, directed by Graham Percy, is full of heart. It chronicles every element of family experience, reflecting on love and life and death. John turns to Ben: “Did you already tell her about the ileoscopy?” To which Ben replies softly, “No, no I hadn’t.” John then recounts how since 1992 he has suffered from a variety of health conditions, including a heart attack and colon cancer. It was John’s illness that sparked Ben, Zuppa Theatre’s founder and principal actor, to realize a lifelong dream of his: performing a play with his parents. “We were at East Side Mario’s,” Ben says. “Which is like the loudest, most garish place, and I was trying to tell them about it over the music saying, ‘Anyway it’s about you dying,’ and my mom just started laughing and she said, ‘Oh dear don’t be silly’, and Dad was like, ‘Absolutely, yes.’ It was hilarious.” John is happy to be going back to the stage. In his university days, he was a member of the King’s Theatre Society and more recently he and Ben put on a production of Hamlet at Armbrae Academy, where they have both been teachers. John is now retired and happy to try something new. “At King’s you just had to learn your lines, there was no direction at all. The Zuppa process is absolutely marvelous but you can tell that I’m a sub-amateur.” Ben interrupts, “That’s absolutely not true at all.” He explains how as a kid he would see his dad and his uncle Carmen doing Jerry Lewis impersonations. Vaudeville was a huge part of their family life, the first films they ever saw were Abbott and Costello and Charlie Chaplin, all the classics that John’s father had showed him. And it was those bits and skits that formed the foundations of Slowly I Turn. “The title comes from a classic vaudeville sketch that duos would do,” Ben says. “They would go out and just riff and do their bits. There’s a loose structure which is kind of classic to the feeling and lightness of vaudeville—-a lot of it is the spark between the two.” The Stones have sparks in spades. They have a lifetime of intimacy to work with and it will show in their performance. Though the play is about grappling with the reality of death, it is also a rich and jovial account of the lightness of life. “It’s not morbid,” says John. “It’s reflective and poignant.” “I hope that people come away feeling that sense of warmth and love and family,” adds Ben. “Feeling the way I felt in that home growing up. That’s sort of my goal, showing people what that was like.”

For The Coast

Rolling with the Stones 

Zuppa Theatre’s new show, Slowly I Turn, brings together father, son and a living room.

I walk into Java Blend early in the morning. Ben Stone and his dad John welcome me with big hugs and hot tea. Both bearded and bright-eyed, the Stones exude a familial warmth that wraps around me like a soft woven blanket. Their casual leans and finish-each other’s-sentence-style closeness is contagious. After my first sip I feel like I’m part of the family. And that’s the point.

The Stones are going to be proffering this familial feeling to audience members at Zuppa Theatre’s latest creation Slowly I Turn. The father-son team, accompanied by Jess Lewis, will be performing this vaudeville piece in one act in Ben’s living room.

“It’s essential to have it be a site-specific show, to give it that home and that family warmth kind of thing,” Ben says. “To have people sitting with us as were sitting in the living room hanging out will bring a casualness to it that is essential to the heart of the piece.”

The piece, directed by Graham Percy, is full of heart. It chronicles every element of family experience, reflecting on love and life and death. John turns to Ben: “Did you already tell her about the ileoscopy?” To which Ben replies softly, “No, no I hadn’t.” John then recounts how since 1992 he has suffered from a variety of health conditions, including a heart attack and colon cancer.

It was John’s illness that sparked Ben, Zuppa Theatre’s founder and principal actor, to realize a lifelong dream of his: performing a play with his parents.

“We were at East Side Mario’s,” Ben says. “Which is like the loudest, most garish place, and I was trying to tell them about it over the music saying, ‘Anyway it’s about you dying,’ and my mom just started laughing and she said, ‘Oh dear don’t be silly’, and Dad was like, ‘Absolutely, yes.’ It was hilarious.”

John is happy to be going back to the stage. In his university days, he was a member of the King’s Theatre Society and more recently he and Ben put on a production of Hamlet at Armbrae Academy, where they have both been teachers. John is now retired and happy to try something new.

“At King’s you just had to learn your lines, there was no direction at all. The Zuppa process is absolutely marvelous but you can tell that I’m a sub-amateur.” Ben interrupts, “That’s absolutely not true at all.” He explains how as a kid he would see his dad and his uncle Carmen doing Jerry Lewis impersonations. Vaudeville was a huge part of their family life, the first films they ever saw were Abbott and Costello and Charlie Chaplin, all the classics that John’s father had showed him.

And it was those bits and skits that formed the foundations of Slowly I Turn.

“The title comes from a classic vaudeville sketch that duos would do,” Ben says. “They would go out and just riff and do their bits. There’s a loose structure which is kind of classic to the feeling and lightness of vaudeville—-a lot of it is the spark between the two.”

The Stones have sparks in spades. They have a lifetime of intimacy to work with and it will show in their performance. Though the play is about grappling with the reality of death, it is also a rich and jovial account of the lightness of life.

“It’s not morbid,” says John. “It’s reflective and poignant.”

“I hope that people come away feeling that sense of warmth and love and family,” adds Ben. “Feeling the way I felt in that home growing up. That’s sort of my goal, showing people what that was like.”

For OpenFilePhoto by Juan_Carlos_Cruz.Drawing Science and the Humanities together with Situating Science   How do science and technology affect us? Historians, social scientists and philosophers across the country are trying to answer this question as part of the Situating Science project. This week, the Atlantic node of Situating Science hosts “To See Where it Takes Us,” a series of talks, not unlike TedX talks. The first features Dr. Isabelle Stengers, a world-renowned philosopher of science with a background in chemistry, from the Université libre de Bruxelles at 7:30 p.m. tonight (Mar.5) Her keynote presentation at St. Mary’s University will be on ‘Cosmopolitics.’ Stengers’ notion of the ‘cosmopolitic’ encourages people of all disciplines to see sciences, their technologies, nature and politics as situated in a fluid ecology rather than held separate in silos. “The talk…is going to be radically interdisciplinary because it’s going to talk about the idea of nature and the idea of what it is to be modern and what is it to have a ‘cosmopolitic’ that doesn’t just include the human agent,” says Dr. Gordon McOuat, Situating Science’s project director, and a professor in the History of Science and Technology Programme and the Contemporary Studies Programme at King’s. Situating Science itself offers ”an open hand to people who are working in the sciences, but also people in policy and culture and the general public. It’s a wide network with all kinds of engagement,” McOuat says. The project, started in 2007, brings together various humanities scholars who are studying science and technology. There are six “nodes,” with Dalhousie and King’s hosting the Atlantic node. Experimental Wounds: Science and Violence in Mid-Century America, Susan Lindee Sept 18, 2009 from Situating Scienceon Vimeo. The University of King’s College is known for its interdisciplinary programs , but Dr.McOuat says that knowledge exchange across disciplines, like the kind fostered by the Situating Science project, is still in its infancy. “It’s very new. Humanist—especially humanities—scholars are often very atomized—they sort of stick to their specific research and interests and that becomes the center of their world. These silos existed very separately from each other, but the rise of the modern world, especially the modern interaction of technologies and modern sociability means that we can’t live like that anymore. “Interdisciplinarity has become the watch-word of modern scholarship.” Isaac Siemens is a Dalhousie med student, but used to be an arts student at King’s. Has he noticed any movement toward interdisciplinarity in the world of Medicine? He says he sees a push to integrate humanities and medicine, but says the programs “haven’t managed to escape the binary between science and humanities.” “For instance, they have lots of ‘medical humanities’ programming, and more and more programs to combine art and science, but it’s always extracurricular things like contributing photos or paintings to a competition or joining a band.” And, he says, old thoughts dominate the arts-science discussion right now. “When we do medical ethics, we use antiquated philosophy like Kant or various utilitarian thinkers as reference points. Imagine using Foucault or Derrida or more contemporary thinkers who actually wrote about modern medical practices.” But, when I ask Dr. McOuat if this notion of fluidity will enter academia more generally, he says it’s still a work in progress. “There has been so much talk at the university level across the country that we should break down the strong barriers of disciplines and offer interdisciplinarity, but remember that people find their self-legitimacy and their self-reflection within their discipline,” says McOuat. “We need to be bargers that jump through the breach and hopefully the rest will follow us.”

For OpenFile
Photo by Juan_Carlos_Cruz.

Drawing Science and the Humanities together with Situating Science  

How do science and technology affect us? Historians, social scientists and philosophers across the country are trying to answer this question as part of the Situating Science project.

This week, the Atlantic node of Situating Science hosts “To See Where it Takes Us,” a series of talks, not unlike TedX talks. The first features Dr. Isabelle Stengers, a world-renowned philosopher of science with a background in chemistry, from the Université libre de Bruxelles at 7:30 p.m. tonight (Mar.5)

Her keynote presentation at St. Mary’s University will be on ‘Cosmopolitics.’

Stengers’ notion of the ‘cosmopolitic’ encourages people of all disciplines to see sciences, their technologies, nature and politics as situated in a fluid ecology rather than held separate in silos.

“The talk…is going to be radically interdisciplinary because it’s going to talk about the idea of nature and the idea of what it is to be modern and what is it to have a ‘cosmopolitic’ that doesn’t just include the human agent,” says Dr. Gordon McOuat, Situating Science’s project director, and a professor in the History of Science and Technology Programme and the Contemporary Studies Programme at King’s.

Situating Science itself offers ”an open hand to people who are working in the sciences, but also people in policy and culture and the general public. It’s a wide network with all kinds of engagement,” McOuat says.

The project, started in 2007, brings together various humanities scholars who are studying science and technology. There are six “nodes,” with Dalhousie and King’s hosting the Atlantic node.

Experimental Wounds: Science and Violence in Mid-Century America, Susan Lindee Sept 18, 2009 from Situating Scienceon Vimeo.

The University of King’s College is known for its interdisciplinary programs , but Dr.McOuat says that knowledge exchange across disciplines, like the kind fostered by the Situating Science project, is still in its infancy.

“It’s very new. Humanist—especially humanities—scholars are often very atomized—they sort of stick to their specific research and interests and that becomes the center of their world. These silos existed very separately from each other, but the rise of the modern world, especially the modern interaction of technologies and modern sociability means that we can’t live like that anymore.

“Interdisciplinarity has become the watch-word of modern scholarship.”

Isaac Siemens is a Dalhousie med student, but used to be an arts student at King’s. Has he noticed any movement toward interdisciplinarity in the world of Medicine?

He says he sees a push to integrate humanities and medicine, but says the programs “haven’t managed to escape the binary between science and humanities.”

“For instance, they have lots of ‘medical humanities’ programming, and more and more programs to combine art and science, but it’s always extracurricular things like contributing photos or paintings to a competition or joining a band.”

And, he says, old thoughts dominate the arts-science discussion right now.

“When we do medical ethics, we use antiquated philosophy like Kant or various utilitarian thinkers as reference points. Imagine using Foucault or Derrida or more contemporary thinkers who actually wrote about modern medical practices.”

But, when I ask Dr. McOuat if this notion of fluidity will enter academia more generally, he says it’s still a work in progress.

“There has been so much talk at the university level across the country that we should break down the strong barriers of disciplines and offer interdisciplinarity, but remember that people find their self-legitimacy and their self-reflection within their discipline,” says McOuat. “We need to be bargers that jump through the breach and hopefully the rest will follow us.”

I curate a tumblr dedicated to spreading the glories of Strong Female Vocals

I curate a tumblr dedicated to spreading the glories of Strong Female Vocals

For OpenFile ANYONE WANT A STREET NAMED AFTER THEM?…ANYONE? Ever wanted to make your mark on this town? To make some kind of lasting impression? To honor a person, place or event close to your heart? Well, staff at HRM Civic Addressing have been hoping that their NameHRM policy will help you do just that. However, not many people have been taking them up on the offer. Started in September 2010, NameHRM is a commemorative naming policy that encourages Halifax citizens to suggest names for newly developed streets, parks, park features, commercial vessels and ferries in the municipality. These names can be associated with a person, historical event, geographic feature or tradition. “In the past, the ways streets got named is, if you build the street, you get to pick the name.” says Gayle MacLean, HRM’s civic addressing coordinator. “It was about the developer looking at an area and saying we want this all to be tree names or all birds—they often will choose names that they feel are attractive to potential clients. What it has created, particularly in the suburban areas, is generic street names that don’t reflect local history, geography or anything related to that community.” Edward Cornwallis:The founder of Halifax formally declared war on the Mi’kmaq people in 1749. He has a street and had a junior high named after him. (And, as OpenFile has seen recently, sometimes, classist and racist attitudes can change a street’s name, too.) In an attempt to address this shortcoming, MacLean and her colleagues at HRM adopted a commemorative naming policy that requires developers to pick fifty percent of the names for their new developments from a list of names suggested by HRM citizens. But there is a caveat. If the list of suggested names has less than five names on it, then the developer doesn’t have to choose from it. So far, the suggested names have been few and far between. Since the introduction of this policy in 2010, HRM Civic Addressing has only received 32 applications. I conducted an un-scientific survey of Haligonians to gauge interest in contributing to this initiative and aside from a few jokey suggestions (porn star names came up once or twice, the general consensus was disinterest and apprehension. “I just wouldn’t see it as an opportunity to meaningfully contribute to my city,” says local activist Catherine Abreu. “I think that I’d be more interested in attempting to rename something that’s already been named after a mass murderer.” Muriel Duckworth:Nova Scotian peace activist Muriel Duckworth died in 2009 at the age of 100. Abreu’s sentiment is shared by Mi’kmaq Elder, Dr. Daniel Paul. “I’m not too excited about the project,” he says. “I wish they had opened it up to rename some of the streets they have in Halifax named after people who were not exactly heroic in the colonial days and put some good modern names on them that reflect the greatness of more modern people. Muriel Duckworth, for instance. I’d like to see a street named after her.” UPDATE: Since the posting of this article, Gayle MacLean from HRM Civic Addressing has let OpenFile know that Muriel Duckworth’s name will be presented to council this March. Maclean says staff are recommending that her name be added to the commemorative names list. The Commemorative Naming project doesn’t really allow for renaming, only naming new developments and developments, or ones that have an “administrative name”—a name based on a location, like Terence Bay Playground. This comes as a disappointment to Paul, who was a strong proponent of the renaming of Halifax Junior High School from its previous name Cornwallis Junior High. He feels that before we start naming new developments, we should address problematic names that already exist. He points to the Gorham controversy of the late nineties—where part of a road between Rocky Lake Road and Cobequid Road was named for Capt. John Gorham, an English bounty hunter—as evidence that Nova Scotia still hasn’t shaken the habit of commemorating the wrong people. On the point of renaming, Maclean says, “Technically, our position around Cornwallis is that it is a commemorative name, whether it was commemorated correctly is not our place to comment. We do have a review committee made up of staff here at HRM, including an archivist, and we do a certain amount of research to assure that we’re not creating a potential Cornwallis issue.”

For OpenFile

ANYONE WANT A STREET NAMED AFTER THEM?…ANYONE?

Ever wanted to make your mark on this town? To make some kind of lasting impression? To honor a person, place or event close to your heart? Well, staff at HRM Civic Addressing have been hoping that their NameHRM policy will help you do just that. However, not many people have been taking them up on the offer.

Started in September 2010, NameHRM is a commemorative naming policy that encourages Halifax citizens to suggest names for newly developed streets, parks, park features, commercial vessels and ferries in the municipality. These names can be associated with a person, historical event, geographic feature or tradition.

“In the past, the ways streets got named is, if you build the street, you get to pick the name.” says Gayle MacLean, HRM’s civic addressing coordinator. “It was about the developer looking at an area and saying we want this all to be tree names or all birds—they often will choose names that they feel are attractive to potential clients. What it has created, particularly in the suburban areas, is generic street names that don’t reflect local history, geography or anything related to that community.”

Edward Cornwallis:The founder of Halifax formally declared war on the Mi’kmaq people in 1749. He has a street and had a junior high named after him.

(And, as OpenFile has seen recently, sometimes, classist and racist attitudes can change a street’s name, too.)

In an attempt to address this shortcoming, MacLean and her colleagues at HRM adopted a commemorative naming policy that requires developers to pick fifty percent of the names for their new developments from a list of names suggested by HRM citizens.

But there is a caveat. If the list of suggested names has less than five names on it, then the developer doesn’t have to choose from it. So far, the suggested names have been few and far between. Since the introduction of this policy in 2010, HRM Civic Addressing has only received 32 applications.

I conducted an un-scientific survey of Haligonians to gauge interest in contributing to this initiative and aside from a few jokey suggestions (porn star names came up once or twice, the general consensus was disinterest and apprehension.

“I just wouldn’t see it as an opportunity to meaningfully contribute to my city,” says local activist Catherine Abreu. “I think that I’d be more interested in attempting to rename something that’s already been named after a mass murderer.”

Muriel Duckworth:Nova Scotian peace activist Muriel Duckworth died in 2009 at the age of 100.

Abreu’s sentiment is shared by Mi’kmaq Elder, Dr. Daniel Paul. “I’m not too excited about the project,” he says. “I wish they had opened it up to rename some of the streets they have in Halifax named after people who were not exactly heroic in the colonial days and put some good modern names on them that reflect the greatness of more modern people. Muriel Duckworth, for instance. I’d like to see a street named after her.”

UPDATE: Since the posting of this article, Gayle MacLean from HRM Civic Addressing has let OpenFile know that Muriel Duckworth’s name will be presented to council this March. Maclean says staff are recommending that her name be added to the commemorative names list.

The Commemorative Naming project doesn’t really allow for renaming, only naming new developments and developments, or ones that have an “administrative name”—a name based on a location, like Terence Bay Playground.

This comes as a disappointment to Paul, who was a strong proponent of the renaming of Halifax Junior High School from its previous name Cornwallis Junior High. He feels that before we start naming new developments, we should address problematic names that already exist. He points to the Gorham controversy of the late nineties—where part of a road between Rocky Lake Road and Cobequid Road was named for Capt. John Gorham, an English bounty hunter—as evidence that Nova Scotia still hasn’t shaken the habit of commemorating the wrong people.

On the point of renaming, Maclean says, “Technically, our position around Cornwallis is that it is a commemorative name, whether it was commemorated correctly is not our place to comment. We do have a review committee made up of staff here at HRM, including an archivist, and we do a certain amount of research to assure that we’re not creating a potential Cornwallis issue.”

About:

Veronica is word-working sound-enthusiast currently jack-of-all-trading in Halifax, NS. A recent grad of the Transom Story Workshop her radio pieces have aired on CKDU, CBC’s Spark and various NPR stations. Her written work has been printed in The Coast, Macleans and Spacing. She’s currently making podcasts for Visual Arts News, building a public ping pong table, collecting strong female vocals and reminding herself to go for a swim.

e: veronica.simmonds@gmail.com
t: @VeeSimmonds



photo by Katie McKay