Creed
It seems that by passing on the Rocky film franchise to new blood has been good karma for Sylvester Stallone.
Creed, the film reboot in which Stallone’s signature character Rocky is now an elder statesman/secondary character, recently earned the actor a Best Supporting Actor trophy at the Golden Globes this year.
Sarah wrote about this for Asian World Of Martial Arts.
To read the full story go here.
Filed under Films, Jock Stuff, Shameless Promotion
Ronda Rousey on Saturday Night Live
Former UFC champion Ronda Rousey recently hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live.
Sarah was tasked with recapping this event in the same style as a UFC pay-per-view event.
To read the full story head over to Fightland by clicking here.
Filed under Jock Stuff, Shameless Promotion, Television
The Lime Ridge Mall in Hamilton, Ontario
Previously:
Between the fifth and sixth grade I changed schools and entered a full time gifted program. Ostensibly, I did this because I was such a bloody genius and I needed more of a challenge than my local school and teachers could offer, but that was maybe one per cent of the reasoning behind my final decision. In reality, I was being viciously bullied and I needed to get the fuck out.
As a result of this, I adopted a scorched earth approach to everything that I thought might have made me a target in the past. I started wearing jeans because someone once made fun of my stirrup pants (oh, the early ‘90s) at the old school and I thought maybe that was part of the problem. And I completely turned my back on all things science fiction-related because my Dune and Star Trek love really hadn’t gone over well at all.
While I missed comfortable pants, I actually found it easy enough quit sci-fi cold turkey. Whatever enjoyment I’d received from the genre was too heavily weighted with baggage. Space and science just felt like victimization. I felt vaguely sick when I even tried to watch or read that shit. And I soon fell in love with indie rock and had no room for any other entertainment in my life, anyway, so it was a relatively painless break.
In grade eight, our teacher included a science fiction unit in our language arts studies. The majority of the class – male geeks who were allowed to stay in at recess to play D&D – were thrilled. The brilliant burnouts and academic overachievers were either apathetic or somewhat game.
I was mortified.
I was viciously disappointed in our naive teacher for even suggesting such a thing. Surely she could tell how vulnerable we were as a small class of gifties in a normal school. Why on earth would she bait all of those potential bullies by making us visibly read and engage with science fiction?
When it came time to write our own sci-fi stories I did the only thing in my power to protect myself: I sort of made it about indie rock. And, um, Hamilton, Ontario.
I was really, really, really, really into the Killjoys and the Sonic Unyon bands at the time and their hometown had taken on almost mythic proportions in my mind. I loved Hamilton beyond all rationality. Like, I used to tag along on my family’s (strangely frequent, in retrospect) road trips to the Lime Ridge Mall just so I could be in Hamilton.
Which is how I ended up writing a (not terrible?) science fiction short story about people with bright hair getting killed and committing suicide a lot set at the Lime Ridge Mall and named after the band Smoother to defend my coolness.
I showed them.
Filed under Art
The Besnard Lakes’ fifth album ‘A Coliseum Complex Museum’
The best way to quantify The Besnard Lakes’ fifth album is A Coliseum Complex Museum is to realize that they’ve distilled their sound down to its most Besnardian essence. A casual observer might misinterpret this as more of the same — and in many ways A Coliseum Complex Museum *is* similar to pass Besnard efforts, the band once again holding steady to their distinctly gauzy space rock sonic palette — but dismissing the record in this way ignores the sharper focus and refinements in The Besnard Lakes’ game. All of the band’s hallmarks are there: the pristine textures, the deliberate build-ups that pay off in explosive, technicolour crescendoes, and the dark, often otherwordly song subjects (this album appears to revolve around magic and mythical beasts, see “Necronomicon,” “The Bray Road Beast”).
It’s in the fine details, though, where The Besnards exceed the stiffer previous record, Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO. Primary vocalist Jace Lasek seems, improbably, to be singing even higher than previously, which works to great effect when paired against the deliberate mechanical chug of standouts “Golden Lion” and “Towers Sent Her to Sheets of Sound.” The Besnards near-defiant devotion to the classic rock guitar solo also yields wonderful results on “Pressure of Our Plans” and the dramatically good closer “Tungsten 4: The Refugee.” The revelation on A Coliseum Complex Museum, though, just may be the use of Olga Goreas’ bass. Deployed with strategic effectiveness on “Nightengale,” “The Plain Moon” and “Golden Lion,” these insistent pulsing thrums magnificently set up the band’s most melodramatic moments.
All that said, what might be most intriguing about A Coliseum Complex Museum is its air of craftsmanship. The album feels like something pieced together thoughtfully and methodically, all with the grand intention of blowing our minds.
Filed under Music
Broken Social Scene at Pemberton Music Festival
The organizers of the massive Pemberton Music Festival in the scenic mountain community of Pemberton, British Columbia recently gave $100,000 to local arts and community groups.
I spoke to Evan Harrison, the CEO of Huka Entertainment, the company behind the festival, to find out what motivated them to give back.
To read the full interview head over to Samaritan Mag by clicking here.
Filed under Concerts, Environment, Music, Shameless Promotion
I Overcame My Autism And All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder: A Memoir
Risky Fuel 