The Consumption: December 12
December has been conspiring against me. Illness, funerals and car-related frustrations have abounded, but I’m currently rebounding, and set to continue my quest to document all the media I consume. All I need now is willpower. PS: Coming next week — a full transcription of my interview with Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus director Terry Gilliam. … Continue reading
Charlotte Gainsbourg – IRM (Because Music)
A recent post on the Fast Forward Weekly blog talked about the pointlessness of discussing an artist’s authenticity, and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s latest, IRM, is a perfect example. For the less than charitable, it’d be easy to dwell on Gainsbourg’s seemingly minimal contribution to the third album to bear her name, co-writing one of the songs … Continue reading
Catching up: More consumption
Personal life made it tricky to post in the last week or so, so here’s a bit of catch-up: CONCERT: Billy Bragg with Ron Hawkins and Kris Demeanor at Jack Singer: Uptown (Winnipeg’s alt.weekly) called Ron Hawkins one of the most underappreciated singer-songwriters in Canada, and if his opening set’s any indication, chalk me up … Continue reading
Desolation Road — Interview with John Hillcoat + post-apocalypse sidebar
Even within the pantheon of post-apocalyptic fiction, Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 novel, The Road, is bleak. The book’s heroes are an unnamed father and son, both perpetually verging on death in an inhospitable America. An unexplained disaster has drained the colour from the sky and left a coating of ash over the ground, transforming the landscape … Continue reading
Tom Waits: Glitter and Doom Live review
Official review ended up a touch more positive than the first impression… The last time Tom Waits went live, it was on the stone classic Big Time, which brought even more bark to the gravel-voiced singer’s tunes. That was back in 1988, only three albums into Waits’s transformation from off-kilter piano crooner to carnival barker … Continue reading
The Consumption: Nov. 23
CONCERT: Vic Chesnutt: Opener Liz Durrett held the crowd’s attention with just a classical guitar, a well-used distortion pedal and a lovely, expressive voice (which reminded me somehow of both Sarah McLaughlin and Feist). Apparently her album is more fully orchestrated, but the sparse setting suits her, and the distortion was more than enough to … Continue reading
The Consumption: Nov 19-22
Man… I need to stay on top of this. THEATRE: TheatreJunction – The Country: Martin Crimp’s script is a tongue-twister, looping back on itself, interrupting itself, repeating phrases and traveling on hairpin tangents. As delivered by Mark Lawes and Fiona Byrne, though, it’s not much more than two actors getting through their lines as best … Continue reading
The Consumption: Nov. 19-ish
FILM: The Third Man: First and foremost, the zither score is fantastic. I want it as a ringtone, which is not something that usually occurs to me, because I have never used a tone other than chimes. But the mood that it sets is so… off. The music is upbeat but not exactly happy. It’s … Continue reading
The Consumption: Nov. 15 and 16
Maybe someday I should start adding images into these, but for now, I just don’t particularly care. FILM: Gone With the Wind: For some reason, I’ve long been apprehensive about this one. It’s always portrayed as the uber-romance, a heartbreaking epic of southern chivalry, damsels swooning and “yessum, mastuh” servants, which didn’t much entice me. … Continue reading
The Consumption: Nov. 14
EVENT: 24th Annual Gemini Awards: Being in the press room was possibly even less exciting than watching the broadcast on TV. A few decent tidbits (learning that an award was actually turned down and packed away, finding out that they cut a joke about torture in Syria at the last second) and good/geeky to ask … Continue reading
The Consumption 