March 15, 2010 Brothers and Sisters: Rejoice, for the Vernal Equinox is NIGH! NIGH! When we think about March we think about spankings and bike rides. We have been to rock and or roll shows for Canadian Music Week for the last 6 days in a row, and have learned that goats are fantastic pets. They're very loyal and affectionate. March is about fighting with ourselves. March is about sitting in the bathtub reading the words of stuffy gay Frenchmen. March is about this breakdancing cat, whose name is Leonard. He will be at all of our parties for the next few years, until he ...Read More
Ladies, gents, and gentiles, this is the first round of In-Fighting, where Steel Bananas columnists wrestle with their own. You may not know this, but we do bicker on occasion, and sometimes heated insults are exchanged, tears are shed, feelings hurt, sense is undone, forgotten, trampled in the dust. And then there’s the make-up orgy. So I figured, why not let the fight spill onto the front lawn for all to see? Perhaps the orgy should be made public as well. The jury’s still out on that. The first target of my wrath is one Dennis (Danger-Dino the Dynamo, or, Chewable ...Read More
In as much as I want my super heroes to be moral exemplars, I also want them to be consistent characters, even when that means my super heroes have flaws. Really, as much as this may surprise you, I can dig protagonists with faults! That said… everyone get out your Amazing Spider-Man concordances, I’m about to go nerdy on you. [caption id="attachment_6295" align="aligncenter" width="380" caption="Cover | Amazing Spiderman #601 | Marvel Comics"][/caption] In Amazing Spider-Man #601 Peter Parker gets drunk and has sex with his roommate, whom he doesn't even particularly like. To boil down the responses to that event on the ...Read More
Editor's Note: Be mindful that this review contains spoilers. It is one of life’s greatest frustrations that resolutions are drawn out over time rather than delivered in moments of sudden realization. Only in the most contained situations – in theatres and in stadiums – do we get to live out our dreams of dramatic endings and absolute results. I walked into Up in the Air expecting such an ideal world of clear-cut cause and effect and in a sense it did not disappoint. However, even if the entire film hinges on one moment that occurs 93 minutes in, and it ...Read More
Late Sunday night slash early Monday morning: Canadian Music Week and my sixth straight night of concert going is now over. A thin sheet of mist is currently dusting Toronto like the produce aisle of a grocery store. I’m exhausted, my head is spacey – I feel like my brain has been effectively liquefied – and we are launching in mere hours. I’m wondering just exactly how I should take this article, this recap of the festival and my experiences within it. I’m wondering if I should go through what I saw day-by-day and give a chronological account of my ...Read More
If you walk into the Tranzac or any other comparable Toronto music venue on any night that the Om Tree Folk Collective are playing, you might be a little confused. There’s a dude centre-stage hammering away on an acoustic guitar, singing in a folk-troubadour-meets-Tom-Waits bark that’s as invigorating as it is melodic and cueing solos sections for the different band members that he’s leading through the songs. Each person on stage may have played the songs before or they could be newly arrived, winging an organic creation with the other members of the collective. The result is watching a relationship ...Read More
As this past January came to a close, the webcomic Axe Cop went pandemic over the internet. Of course a great many viral pandemics are sweeping the internet at any given moment, and under closer scrutiny they by and large develop little past the "How funny! I laugh!" first impressions (yes, I'm looking at you, sneezing panda) — but not Axe Cop. No, indeed my subject for this article, while still incredibly funny, rewards a closer, more critical look. Axe Cop is drawn by Ethan Nicolle, the 29 year-old creator of Eisner-nominated "Chumble Spuzz," and written by his little brother, Malachai ...Read More
Jamee Valin is a veritable bundle of energy sitting cross-legged on the couch opposite me. Moments before she had finished giving final notes on the dress rehearsal of locked on SHUFFLE, Valence Movement’s premiere performance of dance theatre, which received a stunning response after its one-night run at the Winchester Theatre on March 10. In the rehearsal studio she had been all business, exhibiting a calm and focused sense of leadership, giving concise and detailed notes. She then told the dancers to work on those sections for half an hour, all the time she had to give to this writer ...Read More
There is a world which exists somewhere between the living and the dead, the real and the surreal, the mundane and the absurd. This is the world in which reside the characters of And So it Goes, George F. Walker’s latest work for the stage which just finished an extended run at the Factory Theatre. The subject matter of this work is difficult to navigate, as exemplified by the lackluster result of Walker’s exploration of his world. [caption id="attachment_6349" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="And So it Goes | George F. Walker | Factory Theatre"][/caption] And So it Goes tells the story of a family ...Read More
My old basement had ugly faded flesh pink walls, bulging vein-like ripples moving along it. I had a ritual of staying up late at night every Friday, falling asleep in front of the TV, giving myself undeniable nightmares from watching whatever horror film the SPACE network was showing. To add to the awful essence was a scratching noise that came from the ceiling. Like clockwork clocking in around the same time Tales from the Crypt began, the sound of some nail glazing across a concrete surface echoed from the surface above me. I had a juvenile theory that the garage ...Read More
You may remember Dan Perjovschi from last month’s piece: Illustration Proclamation: Gary Taxali and Dan Perjovschi. After writing that piece, I decided to go down to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto to meet Perjovschi and tell him about the uproar that Libeskind’s Crystal caused after its grand opening in June 2007. By introducing myself to Perjovschi and giving him a copy of this article, I was hoping to add my voice to maelstrom of information that Perjovschi would condense into his cartoon installation. The illustrations for this article are a selection of the works that Perjovschi produced for Late ...Read More
And people wonder why there was a fare hike. It costs absurd amounts of money to operate a large-scale transit system, let alone to improve and upgrade it. I’ll never understand, though, why it seems to cost so much more to build new things here than it does in Europe, where subway extension is a given rather than a far off dream. Really, though, what do we expect, being in the country where owning a cellular phone is a serious investment – that improving our infrastructure should come cheap? Who do we think we are? The city’s streetcar fleet, which is ...Read More
She's Intoxicated by Herself A short film by Marshall Lau Toronto, 2010 Read More
Alexis Barattin is an illustration student and a freelance illustrator from Toronto. She spends most of her time drawing and enjoys experimenting with collage and other media. Alexis also likes really expensive cookies and is trying to learn how to do the cryptic crossword. Check out more of her work on her blog and in Steel Bananas' Spotlight Gallery. Read More
This article is about object identification. A lot of people download music. Whether legally, through iTunes and the like, or illegally, the fact that music is trafficked in a mainly non-physical format is a significant shift that has taken place largely within the last fifteen years. This isn’t really news to anybody. Just looking around at the people on the street in downtown Toronto quickly reveals the fact that everyone has significant white earbuds stuck in their ears, and even if they’re listening to other headphones, odds are that they aren’t attached to a CD player or tape deck. When the Compact Disc ...Read More
Sometimes the hilarious can turn serious fast. A case being brought to the Ontario Court of Appeals contains all the necessary elements for comedy: twins, a mistaken identity, lots of wine and sex. Such a set-up has turned ugly, as bitter questions of consent now pollute the otherwise humourous scenario known as The Old Switcheroo. In an unspecified southwestern Ontario city or town, an unspecified woman had sex with what she thought was her long-time lover. Turns out it was the lover's identical twin brother, who is now claiming that she gave proper consent. I do not wish to dwell ...Read More
The transition from post-secondary education to what many call ‘the REAL WORLD’ is certainly one of the most terrifying concepts young people can face. In theatre school, students are constantly bombarded with the idea that they will never be employed, that they will live below the poverty line, that there is no work to be had, that they will end up drunk and poor and destitute and alone. And THIS is what we pay $50,000 and spend four years of our lives for. The following is an account of how myself and a colleague said, “to hell with this,” and ...Read More
What this essay is about: intimate moments with an eloquent dead gay Frenchman, JD Salinger, the kinds of books that are appropriate to read in different spaces, sharing public spaces, books as fashion accessories, public transit, racism. Picture this: you are on a train full of people and you arrive at a busy stop where many people need to change vehicles to get where they are going. You are standing right in front of the doors; when they open the sea of people standing there parts and you walk through a tunnel of humans, their strange, impatient faces turned towards you. ...Read More
After seeing an ad posted on the TTC last month I attended the COG festival on February 20th, an organic growers conference held on Chestnut Street. I wanted to experience a gathering of the minority market in food production, a market vehemently protesting the dominant norm. I skipped down the road to the hotel conference center, ready to involve myself in a fight for the underdog and nab a free organic lunch for my trouble. Unfortunately, the conference itself is not an event geared towards a casually interested observer: an expensive ticket ($65-$85!) deters those who have only outside ...Read More
Jeff Magnum | Courtesy of dewdoobrefhugmachine.wordpress.com You know the old cliché: sensitive singer-songwriter, foot of the bed, softly strumming on an old acoustic guitar. The mood is quiet -- but the sound of the apartment bleeds through: old wood floors, maybe traffic outside. There is a conscious understanding of where the singer-songwriter is. For the listener, this is an open door into the artist’s immediate space of recording. The music is not simply a particular moment in time, but a brief aural snapshot of a performance setting. So many albums get dubbed “bedroom projects” because the image alone evokes an environment ...Read More
I feel somewhat hypocritical reporting this month’s weird news because it is all about people operating motor vehicles when they probably shouldn’t be and I’m fairly certain that I’m going to be one of those people quite soon. I don’t know how to drive. I remember nothing from driving lessons. I have trouble even walking near cars and other people – I kind of wish we could all give this horseback thing another try. But I have my G2 and I’ve driven on the highway with my entire family in the backseat screaming “YOU’RE GOING TOO FAST.” I have not, however, ...Read More
Does the above quote by Deleuze apply to Theatre? Or better yet: can it apply to theatre as an art form? I think it does apply. The state of contemporary theatre ranges roughly from the profit-driven musicals on Broadway to the more independent, thought-provoking theatre pieces. Yet theatre, as with any other art, is plagued by clichés. When Deleuze says “…it is first necessary to erase, to clean, to flatten, even to shred, so as to let in a breath of air from the chaos that brings us the vision,” he is undoubtedly referring to the need to escape clichéd ...Read More
It’s always a pleasure when a performer takes a risk, when an artist throws him or herself into wholeheartedly into a project. It’s moments like this that make any kind of art exciting. It’s moments like this that have the potential to change the way the world thinks. Unfortunately, moments like this aren’t always successful. Such was the case with Lost And Found, the world premiere that opened the latest show in the DanceWorks series at the Harbourfront Centre. Choreographed and performed by renowned dancer Denise Fujiwara, the performance was… interesting. And as a critic I mean that with all possible ...Read More
