Verb Issue S238 (May 3-9, 2013)

ARTS CULTURE MUSIC SASKATOON

PHOTO: COURTESY OF BRETT REIDW

ISSUE #238 – MAY 3 TO MAY 9

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STARTING UP Stashbelts and the entrepreneurial revolution

PRAIRIE WINDS Q+A with Theresa Sokyrka

IRON MAN 3 + NO Films reviewed

CHRIS HOAND SEARCHING FOR HOPE

VERBNEWS.COMVERB MAGAZINE CONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

2MAY 3 – MAY 9

CONTENTSCONTENTS

LOVE AND ACTIVISMThe Traveling World Community Film Festival finds its footing. 4 / LOCAL

STARTING UPStashbelts, crowdfunding, and the entrepreneurial revolution. 6 / LOCAL

BRING THE UFC HERE Our thoughts on prize fighting sports in Saskatchewan. 8 / EDITORIAL

COMMENTSHere’s your say on changing percep-tions on bullying. 10 / COMMENTS

Q + A WITH THERESA SOKYRKAA global songstress. 12 / Q + A

NIGHTLIFE PHOTOS We visited Outlaws + Vangelis Tavern. 22-25 / NIGHTLIFE

LISTINGSLocal music listings for May 3 through May 11. 18 / LISTINGS

IRON MAN 3 + NOThe latest movie reviews. 20 / FILM

ON THE BUS Weekly original comic illustrations by Elaine M. Will. 26 / COMICS

THE HOME SHOWPopulism and art at the Mendel Art Gallery. 13 / ARTS

CHINESE AMERICAN DONE RIGHT We visit Auntie Jane’s. 16 / FOOD + DRINK

THE LARAMIE PROJECTYoung actors tackle a heart-wrench-ing project. 13 / ARTS

ENTERTAINMENT

NEWS + OPINION

VERBNEWS.COM@VERBSASKATOON FACEBOOK.COM/VERBSASKATOON

MUSICJesse and the Dandelions, This Hisses + Selena Gomez. 17 / MUSIC

GAMES + HOROSCOPESCanadian criss-cross puzzle, horoscopes, and Sudoku. 27 / TIMEOUT

EDITORIALPUBLISHER / PARITY PUBLISHINGEDITOR IN CHIEF / RYAN ALLANMANAGING EDITOR / JESSICA PATRUCCOSTAFF WRITERS / ADAM HAWBOLDT + ALEX J MACPHERSON

ART & PRODUCTIONDESIGN LEAD / ROBERTA BARRINGTONDESIGN & PRODUCTION / BRITTNEY GRAHAMCONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS / PATRICK CARLEY, ADAM HAWBOLDT + ISHTIAQ OPAL

BUSINESS & OPERATIONSOFFICE MANAGER / STEPHANIE LIPSITACCOUNT MANAGER / NATHAN HOLOWATYSALES MANAGER / VOGESON PALEYFINANCIAL MANAGER / CODY LANG

CONTACTCOMMENTS / [email protected] / 306 881 8372

ADVERTISE / [email protected] / 306 979 2253

DESIGN / [email protected] / 306 979 8474

GENERAL / [email protected] / 306 979 2253

ON THE COVER:

CHRIS HOSearching for hope. 12 / COVER

PHOTO: COURTESY OF LISA WU

CULTURE

VERBNEWS.COMNEWS + OPINION CONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

4MAY 3 – MAY 9

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE »

PHOTO: COURTESY OF LEILANI ROY-WRIGHT

t’s eight o’clock on Thurs-day night. A handful of people sit in the darkened

auditorium at Dr. Martin LeBoldus High School, watching a movie.

On the screen in front of them is an image of a man holding a spray-paint canister. He’s crouched down, spraying a black number 99 on a white piece of Bristol board. And in the background a voice-over is saying, “this movement isn’t about 99% toppling the 1%. You know the next chapter of that story is that the 99% create a new 1%. That’s not what it’s about.”

The image on the screen cuts to a cluster of red balloons floating in contrast against a grey urban sky. It cuts to a man wearing a mustachioed Guy Fawkes mask. It cuts to another man bent down, using a sharpie to make a protest sign.

And the voice-over continues: “What we want to do is create a more beautiful world, a world that our hearts tell us is possible. A sacred

world. A world that is healing. A world of peace.”

The voice is telling the movie viewers that something significant

is taking place. A shift in conscious-ness “that inspires such things is awakening in different people in different ways.” It is telling them, “love is expansion of the self to include the other. There’s no one to fight. No evil.”

The name of the film is Occupy Love — a documentary by Velcrow Ripper that was chosen as one of the films kicking off the 2013 Trav-eling World Community Film Festi-val. “It’s a really exciting film,” says Jennifer Krall. “When you leave a

film like this you leave changed. You want to make a change that helps inspire the feeling of love. That feeling of connectedness.

That’s what’s going to drive our next generation forward.”

And funny enough, it was a mem-ber of this next generation that started this film festival in the first place.

Rewind a few years, back to 2010. It was the year Wikileaks dominat-ed headlines. The year North Korea bombed the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. It’s also the year a teenager named Leilani Roy-Wright put on her first film festival.

I…with a festival like this, you watch [a film], and it turns into what can ‘we’ do.

LEILANI ROY-WRIGHT

LOCAL

LOVE AND ACTIVISMNow in its third year, the Traveling World Community Film Festival finds its footing BY ADAM HAWBOLDT

@VERBSASKATOON NEWS + OPINIONCONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

5MAY 3 – MAY 9

@AdamHawboldt

[email protected]

Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

“I was in Grade 11 and we had this project on something like globalization,” says Roy-Wright. “It was supposed to be community focused, so I decided to put on a little film festival.”

And when Roy-Wright says “little,” she isn’t kidding. Her festival consisted of two films about poverty, and not too many people showing up to watch them.

And while most people high-school age would view that as a failure, Roy-Wright was hellbent on doing better. So when she was on a road trip with her aunt that summer and found out about the Traveling World Community Film Festival, a light bulb snapped on in her head.

“While we were driving my aunt would talk about the film festivals she’d put on in the past, and she mentioned she brought the Traveling World Community Film Festival to Peterborough,” says Roy-Wright. “And I thought, ‘Hmm, maybe I should start a festival like that in Regina.’”

And that’s exactly what she did.The following year, during her

first semester in the 12th grade, Roy-Wright made her move to bring the film festival to Saskatch-ewan. While other people her age were out running the roads, hanging out, partying and think-ing about graduation, Roy-Wright was busy contacting the creators

of TWCFF in British Columbia and putting together a committee to oversee operations of the festival.

“One of my teachers in high school, who was fantastic, said they’d be on the committee and a couple of friends joined and some family friends,” says Roy-Wright. “Then in February I went to B.C. to see how they ran things. I learned a lot there, then brought what I learned back and incorporated as much as I could.

And, presto! The Traveling World Community Film Festival was estab-lished in Regina.

Fast forward three years, to the present day.

The film festival — which shows documentaries dealing with topics like climate change, food insecu-rity, exploitation and a host of other issues facing the world today — is still going, stronger and smoother than ever.

“It’s a lot easier when you’re into the third year of something,” says Krall, who took over as festival chair this year. “You already have a base of volunteers, people know about it, stuff like that. It was much harder for Leilani. A lot more work. It’s tough when you’re first starting something. You’re really passion-ate about it, but if people haven’t experienced it yet, it’s hard to get them excited.”

Slowly, though, this excitement has grown. Each year more people are attending the TWCFF. More students and teachers are paying attention to the documentaries and the issues they are bringing to the public’s consciousness.

“It’s really exciting to involve high school students,” explains Krall. “You want them to develop that passion, that excitement over issues and activism. Inspiring that can be kind of hard. But festivals like this can help.”

Roy-Wright wholeheartedly agrees. After all, that’s the reason she brought the TWCFF to Sas-katchewan in the first place.

“Film is a really good medium in getting messages across,” she explains. “People can watch a film and discuss it. It builds a sense of community because people go to these events and they have discussions after. They meet other like-minded people. If you watch a documentary at home you may enjoy it, but be like ‘so what can I do about it?’ But with a festival like this, you watch it and it turns into what can ‘we’ do.”


6MAY 3 – MAY 9


LOCAL

hen Jeff Davis was 16 his father gave him a gift.

Up to that point in Davis’ life, he’d never really been away from home. Never really traveled. But when the Rotary Club chose him to be an exchange student in France all that changed. And as a going-away present, his father gave him a money belt.

“My dad had it tailor-made for him back in the ‘70s,” says Davis. “It wasn’t really that great, but it had a pocket big enough to stash a couple hundred in there and a photocopy of your passport, health insurance, flight information … that kind of stuff.”

The belt came in handy more than once during the course of the next decade or so. But while Davis was in Kenya on a journalistic fellowship, the belt broke.

“It broke right where the hole is,” says Davis. “It was more than 30 years old, so that’s going to happen. But it snapped right off. There was no way to fix it, so the first thing I said to myself was, ‘Where am I going to get a new one?’”

At first the answer was ‘nowhere‘ — at least not in any stores in Nai-robi. But while on a tour of the Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute, Davis had an idea.

“There was a leather shop there, I talked to the leather master and he put me in touch with this artist named Jonnah Kandu,” says Davis. “He made

me a money belt to replace the one I had that broke.”

That’s when Davis started think-ing: “wait a second, there’s some potential here.”

Potential for what? Creating a company that makes money belts, of course.

But how does a journalist with zero business experience go about creating a company from the ground up?

At this moment in history, we’re in the midst of an entrepreneurial revolution

of sorts. And it’s not just here in Sas-katchewan. As economies around the world have faltered and declined, new small independent businesses have sprung up in cities and towns all over.

To get things up and running, some of these entrepreneurs turn to the banks for a start-up loan. Others opt for investment equity.

But to help launch Stashbelt — his new leather goods business — Jeff Davis turned to crowdfunding.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of crowdfunding, it’s basi-

cally a way for people to network and pool their money through websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The money raised has been used to fund disaster relief, political campaigns, citizen jour-nalism, and, in the case of Stashbelt, start-up companies.

“For us, it was basically a pre-sale,” explains Davis. “We were looking to get $10,000 to get things started.”

In the very first days their campaign was aimed solely at family and friends, who would pre-order products from Stashbelt.

From there, Davis and his partners expanded their reach using social media, word of mouth and tradi-tional media.

“People had the option to buy a bag, buy a belt or go with the stock-the-stash option,” says Davis. The stock-the-stash option — which was designed for businesses that wanted to carry the Stashbelt line in stores — led to a $2,500 boost from a waterfront business in Halifax, N.S.

35 days after the campaign be-gan, Stashbelt had achieved its goal

W

STARTING UPNew Saskatchewan company uses crowd funding to join the entrepreneurial revolution BY ADAM HAWBOLDT

I’m not going to lie to you, it seemed like a harebrained scheme…

JEFF DAVIS

PHOTO: COURTESY OF JONATHAN KALAN

/VERBSASKATOON NEWS + OPINIONCONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

7MAY 3 – MAY 9

of $10,000. “Actually,” says Davis, “we ended up with a bit more. Our final total was $10,191.”

Of that money about a quarter million Kenyan shillings went to leather purchases. Stashbelt is also in the process of hiring three more full-time staff in Kenya — where all the products are made.

“The experience using Indiegogo has been awesome,” says Davis. “In starting or growing a small inde-pendent like this cash flow is king, so crowd funding was a really good option for us. It really worked.”

And that explains how a young journalist from Canada can create a new start-up company in Kenya. Which now begs the question: why?

“I’m not going to lie to you, it seemed like a harebrained scheme when I first thought of it,” says Davis of his initial idea to start a company. “But there’s something very inspiring about the way Africans are. There’s no safety net there. It’s 2013 and people in Kenya are still starving to death. If you don’t hustle there, you don’t live.”

So all around the country people are running small businesses, doing what they can to get by.

Chatting over a pint the day after Stashbelt’s Indiegogo campaign hit their monetary goal, Davis talks about his time in Kenya, and the essence of African entrepreneurialism. “There’s got to be a million small businesses there,” he says. “And I’m not talking small business the way we think of it here. It can be as simple as the bus pulls up to the bus stop and a guy jumps on with a big bag of candy saying ‘three candy for five cents.’ It’s a simple little business, but that guy makes a living off it.”

And as this spirit of entrepreneur-ialism slowly seeped into Davis, he

decided to step out of his comfort zone into the world of business.

“A lot of people don’t get into business because they think ‘I’m not a businessman so I can’t do that,’” says Davis. “And that’s where I was, too. But after living in Africa, my thinking changed.”

Now Davis is hoping to change the way people carry their money when overseas.


@AdamHawboldt

[email protected]

STASHBELTS

Handcrafted by artists in Nairobi, Stashbelts are made of fine-quality Kenyan leather. And while they look like a normal belt on the outside, the inside of a Stashbelt consists of an 18-inch zipper pocket in

which you can stash money, keys, jewelry, whatever. Oh, and there’s also a hidden $GB micro USB stick on which to store documents like a pho-tocopy of your passport and insurance information.

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF JONATHAN KALAN


8MAY 3 – MAY 9


S n June, Winnipeg will host Manitoba’s first-ever UFC card. And

while that’s great for our neigh-bours to the east, we think it would be even better if Saskatch-ewan could play host to a similar kind of event.

Too bad we can’t. You see, Saskatchewan doesn’t have a provincial athletic commission to regulate fighting sports, which means the UFC can’t come to Saskatoon. And we think it’s time to change that.

After all, the event Manitoba will be hosting sounds pretty great. There’s a bantamweight title fight between champ Renan Barão and contender Eddie Wineland. UFC

legend Dan Henderson takes on Rashad Evans. And fan-favourite Maurício Rua does battle with An-tônio Rogério Nogueira. It threatens to be a night full of fireworks that

will, in all likelihood, pack the MTS Centre to the rafters and bring in millions of dollars in revenue.

And we need to be doing that here, because there’s a ton of

benefits to permitting fighting sports in our city. First of all, mixed martial arts is wildly popular in this province. After all, all you have to do is head out to your local sports

bar the next time there’s a UFC pay-per-view card playing, and look at how many people went out with the express intention of watching the fights.

EDITORIAL

BRING THE UFC TO SASKATCHEWANIt’s time to allow prize fighting events in our province

…if a UFC card were to be held here a sell-out would be guaran-teed to happen.

VERB MAGAZINE

@VERBSASKATOON NEWS + OPINION

9MAY 3 – MAY 9

CONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

@VerbSaskatoon

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And the timing works out quite well. You see, there are proposed changes to Section 83 (2) of the Criminal Code of Canada, changes that aim to expand the definition of prize fighting. At the moment, boxing is considered the only legal prize fighting allowed in Canada. But should the changes to Section 83 (2) pass — as is expected — then mixed martial arts, jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai boxing and the like would become prize fighting sports under the law. And here’s the thing: if Saskatchewan doesn’t create an athletic commission,then any and all combat sporting events will constitute Criminal Code violations.

So we’ve got the desire, and we’ve (potentially) got an enor-mous variety of fighting sports we could be hosting. But this all doesn’t mean much, unless the UFC wants to come here.

Good thing they do. Yes, you read that right. This

isn’t some Field of Dreams, “build

it and they will come” scenario we’re talking about here. Tom Wright, director of operations for UFC Canada, has gone on record publicly saying the organization wants to put a show on in Saskatchewan, but simply can’t do it until the sport is properly regulated here.

And how do you “properly regulate” it? You create a provincial athletic commission, of course.

In Ontario, back in 2010, they decided to properly regulate mixed martial arts and do you know what happened? The first UFC event they put on in Toronto following the decision packed the Rogers Centre to the tune of 55,724 fans paying a live gate of over $12 million. In case you’re wondering, that’s a record showing for a UFC card. It’s also part of the reason why UFC boss Dana White refers to Canada as the mecca of mixed martial arts.

See, whenever there’s a show in this country people go out to

see it. How many people? Well, let’s just say that the least amount of people to ever attend a UFC card in our country was 14,685.

To put that number into perspec-tive, the Credit Union Centre in Saskatoon holds about 15,000 people. Needless to say, given the popularity of mixed martial arts in this province, not to mention the enthusiasm our neighbours to the east and west have for the sport, if a UFC card were to be held here a sell-out would be guaranteed to happen. A live gate worth millions of dollars would also happen. Then there’s the economic spin-off for local business that an event like

this would generate — restaurants, hotels, pubs, bars, and more.

So that raises the question: what in the heck are we waiting for?

These editorials are left unsigned because they represent the opinions of Verb magazine, not those of the individual writers.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE UFC


10MAY 3 – MAY 9


COMMENTS

Text your thoughts to881 VERB

8372

ON TOPIC: Last week we asked what you thought about changing the way we perceive bullying. Here's what you had to say:

– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJo366tlDu4&feature=youtube_gdata_player: “Feedback” ; YouTube clip of Mark Wills anti-bullying country song “Don’t Laugh At Me” with lyrics. Every-one should have a listen to that song since it pretty well sums everything up about bullying!! 0:-)

– Heads up to Mr. Harper if you think bullying has the connotation of kid’s misbehaving it’s easy to see which end of the stick you were on back in the day..

– I completely disagree with your editorial on bullying. I am not sayin that bullies shouldn’t be pun-ished at all, but i think just puttin them in jail or whatever perpetu-ates and cements the behaviour that got them in trouble in the first place. There needs to be something in place to help them transition back into society after their time. After all, these are teens. Yeah they did something bad to get in trouble but strict punishment is not the only answer.

– I agree that if an adult was hostile to another adult then we wouldn’t stand for it. And I know that what those kids did in NS was horrifying and adult-like in be-haviour (allegedly did). But teens still don’t have a sense of things being bigger than themselves. How many kids would drink and drive as a teen and not worry about it, behaviour that would horrify us as adults knowing the tragic outcomes. This obviously doesn’t excuse the behaviour, but I just think it’s not as cut and dry as you presented. Interesting read though.

– Spare the rod spoil the child. Cy-ber bullying and what happened to that poor girl illustrates how out of control kids are these days.

OFF TOPIC

– That was a great feature on Gerry Armsworthy. Kinda reminded me of my old friend Dave who would always pick up porcupine roadkill so he could sell them to First Na-tion artisans.

In response to “Furry Fashion,” Local, #237

(April 26, 2013)

– I agree with the government doing takes its a lot faster and convenient at least we get too look over them to see if we agree or not. Mich*

In response to “It’s Too Taxing,” Editorial,

#236 (April 19, 2013)

SOUND OFF

– I can’t believe the city spends over $318,000 on a study to predict traffic flow. A growing city means that the traffic will only get worse. You do the math. We need a circle drive without lights and bridges to move traffic.

– If your checking the highway hotline before leaving toonerville on your trip to yorkton and its may 1, you don’t need a weatherman too tell you its an unusual spring.

– To the authorities organizing flood fighting. Its gonna be bad so try not to waste resources on lost causes. Focus on the critical infra-structure and where you know for sure resources won’t be wasted.

/VERBSASKATOON NEWS + OPINIONCONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

11MAY 3 – MAY 9

POWERED BY THE CREW AT MOGA MOBILE

– Well peeps Unfortunately we have “perfect storm” conditions like nothing in 50 yrs. Its gonna be at least 1 in 50 to 100 yr flood. Its gonna be bad! To those in the flood zone May God Bless and watch over your home and livliehood. To the rest do your best to help out or at least stay out of the way. People before property or money!

– I just read an article stating that Bonnie McLachlan, a teacher, is guilty of sexual exploitation of a 15 year old child student. I am angry and sick she only gets con-ditional sentence and community service. It is a serious breach of trust towards a child. She sexu-ally exploited a child and that is being a pedophile. Did she not get jail time because she is a woman? A male would definitely be off to federal penitentiary. Seriously hard jail time warranted for ALL people who are sexual predators. Bonnie McLachlan is a sexual predator who is selfish and wants to dominate and control children in a sexual way. Call your MP and your MLA tell them we won’t put up with light sentences for sexual predators.It disgusts me Bonnie got away with serious crime.

– Why does Safeway play “Rock the Casbah” over the sound system but not “Lost in the Supermart”??

NEXT WEEK: What do you think about bringing the UFC to Saskatchewan? Pick up a copy of Verb to get in on the conversation:

We print your texts verbatim each week. Text in your thoughts and reactions to our stories and content, or anything else on your mind.

VERBNEWS.COMCULTURE CONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

12MAY 3 – MAY 9

Q + A

PRAIRIE WINDS

I

World traveler Theresa Sokyrka can’t stop writing about Saskatchewan BY ALEX J MACPHERSON

…when I think back … I always knew I was going to be a musician…

THERESA SOKYRKA

n the years since Theresa Sokyrka finished second on the second series of Cana-

dian Idol, behind Kalan Porter, the Saskatchewan singer-songwriter has pushed back at the pop idiom. Prairie Winds, which will drop in June, is her first release of original material in more than six years. Written over a series of long trips, including a period spent working on cruise ships, and recorded in Madrid, Prairie Winds is softer and more thoughtful than anything the 32-year-old has done to date. I caught up with Sokyrka, who spends much of her time traveling and writing about her experiences, to talk about the new record, work-ing overseas, and the 10 years since her Canadian Idol debut.

Alex J MacPherson: It’s been a long time, almost seven years, since you released a record of original material. What has the lead-up to Prairie Winds been like?

Theresa Sokyrka: It was a long plan-ning period, for sure. Some of these songs I wrote about three or

four years ago. You just have to trust yourself after awhile, but it’s definitely a fearful thing. Definitely.

AJM: Does taking that long make it any easier?

TS: I think so. I think what I’ve really learned from being in the studio is to give it time. For the last albums of my career, the last four I’ve done, I’ve always kind of rushed into the studio

and realized that there’s so much to be said for doing preproduction. It’s so important to take that time to really concentrate on where you want the songs to go. I’ve figured out that the process that works best for me is to really just take my time.

AJM: The strange thing about Prairie Winds, an album about leaving and coming back to the prairies, is that you cut it in Spain.

TS: I did, yeah! I found some really great musicians just by going to jams

every day, pretty much. Everything just started coming together. Once you really fall in love with the way some-body plays, you realize that nothing can possibly go wrong. Once I picked my players and I picked my engineer, and made all those decisions, that’s when I sort of realized this album’s really going to be great, and I’m really excited.

AJM: So I assume being away sharp-ened your thoughts on home, but was making it so far away a struggle?

TS: No! I think what the record is about is leaving the prairies. There was that yearning to be back, but it was a good thing to cut the record while I was away because it gave me that yearning for the prairies, and it really

was nice to play with people that didn’t play folk music — the musicians are all jazz musicians. It was nice to give them a new type of music to play, and use their musicality to bring a new flavour. AJM: Your introduction to the music business was unconventional. Does your career today match up with what you were thinking back in 2004?

TS: I think I’ve realized how difficult it really is. I really had a lot of help from Idol, and when I think back 10 years ago I always knew I was going to be a

musician and I didn’t really think that Idol was something I needed in order to do that. But it definitely did help me make some investments in my career. Idol definitely made it so I could do it, so I could fathom the idea of having a career for sure. But if I think back before Idol? This was my only option in life. I really do believe it’s the only thing that makes me happy, the only thing I could see myself doing.

Theresa SokyrkaMay 12 @ Amigos CantinaTickets available at the door

@MacPhersonA

[email protected]


PHOTOS: COURTESY OF ANTHONY HEYWOOD / JEAN-HUGO ORD

@VERBSASKATOON CULTURECONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

13MAY 3 – MAY 9

ARTS

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PHOTOS: COURTESY OF THE MENDEL ART GALLERY

THE LARAMIE PROJECT Young actors tackle a modern classic BY ALEX J MACPHERSON

he Home Show is an exhibi-tion of works from the

Mendel Art Gallery’s extensive permanent collection. But unlike most permanent collection shows, which are curated by one person and developed around a single idea, the works in The Home Show were selected by a large group of people and limited by nothing except the word “home.”

“I was surprised by the diversity of choices and some of the more abstract work,” says Sandra Fraser, the Mendel Art Gallery associate curator who organized the crowdsourced exhibi-tion, explaining that she conducted interviews with gallery staff members and helped them select works to fill out the show. “I did encourage people to think broadly, but I wasn’t con-vinced they would take me up on it, so it’s really gratifying.”

Broad is an understatement. The Home Show contains a dizzying array of works, from paintings and photographs to sculptures and instal-lations. Some highlights include A. Y. Jackson’s magnificent “Farm at Ripon, Quebec” (selected by museum techni-cian Dave Duchscher) and a black and

white photograph of a woman peer-ing out of a car window by Gaston Vermosen (chosen by registrar Donald Roach). Program assistant Wendy Pa-terson chose Gordon Smith’s concen-tric colour field “V A,” and accounting coordinator Dean Summach picked an enormous streetscape by James Graham, “Visit Woolworth’s.”

Fraser chose John Boyle’s “RL207” for the exhibition, an arresting seri-graph featuring images of an Avro Ar-row and an aboriginal woman in front of the Barrie, Ontario skyline — her hometown. “I live here, but Saskatoon is not home,” she says. “It’s not a nega-tive thing, because I love Saskatoon, but it’s not home.”

Each work in the show was cho-sen because it reflects one person’s

interpretation of home. And like the people who chose them, the works in The Home Show are extraordinarily diverse. But they are also broadly similar. Each piece is part of the same collection, a group of works that has been accumulating since 1965.

“Everybody thought that it was important,” Fraser says of the gallery’s collection. “One of the things I was interested in was, well, why is the permanent collection important? One of the things that came through most of the time is something I also agree with: a collection is a place where the story of this place is represented through these objects.”

The Home Show June 2 @ Mendel Art Gallery

@MacPhersonA

[email protected]


n October 7, 1998, Matthew Shepard was tied to a fence,

beaten with the butt of a pistol, and abandoned on a desolate road near Laramie, Wyoming. He died five days later, a few months before his 22nd birthday.

Shepard’s murder became a water-shed in the gay rights movement, his name synonymous with the fight to end violence against homosexuals. The story of his death, and the story of how a small town grappled with his killing, are at the heart of The Laramie Project. Written by Moisés Kaufman and mem-bers of the Tectonic Theater Project, the play consists entirely of transcribed interviews — real words spoken by

real people in the wake of an event that became a national tragedy.

“The Laramie Project has been done quite a bit, certainly around North America, but the crazy thing is it’s still an incredibly important thing to say,” says Will Brooks, who is directing the play. “It’s not a problem that’s solved. When it comes down to it, the piece is really about hate, and what it does to people and what it does to communities.”

Brooks, a fixture of the Saskatch-ewan theatre community, is working with the Kinsmen Young Company, a group of young actors who earn the opportunity to taste life in a profes-sional theatre. The Laramie Project

addresses complex ideas head-on, and promises to challenge its young cast in new ways, but Brooks thinks the investment is worth the reward.

“I think it raises the level of respect in the room for those words, and then subsequently for the people who spoke them,” Brooks says, explain-ing that while the people of Laramie expressed a wide range of opinions after Shepard’s death, some of which are contemptible, all of the characters in the play are real people. “When you have a piece like this, that is very mov-ing and very powerful, you have to somehow find a way to appropriately, properly, and respectfully interpret those words — and that human being.”

The presence on stage of real characters speaking real words is more than a difficulty to be over-come in the name of entertainment, however. It is an exposure of the fault lines that continue to divide North America. But the young actors, devoid of cynicism and full of hope, hint at a future where the hatred and fury that animated Shepard’s killers can be eradicated forever.

The Laramie Project May 16-18 @ Remai Arts Centre$10 students, $15 adults@ the box office

THE HOME SHOW Populism and art at the Mendel BY ALEX J MACPHERSON


14MAY 3 – MAY 9


n 2010, Chris Ho traveled to Pennsylvania to work as a counsellor at a summer

camp. He didn’t agree to spend the summer away from his home in Vic-toria because he wanted to reinvent himself; he accepted the job for the reasons most people accept jobs — because he needed the money, and because he thought it would be fun. It didn’t occur to him that two months in the woods would reshape the arc of his life, and compel him to chase a career in music. But that is exactly what happened.

“There’s a lake that’s the cen-trepiece of this camp,” the young musician recalls. “You could go out on the little dock there and sit on this bench.” Ho spent a lot of time sitting on that bench, watching the sun set and idly strumming his guitar. His thoughts often turned to a friend — “someone who was very close to me, who I loved very much” — who had committed suicide several months earlier. The wound was still raw and painful. As the sun plunged below the horizon, he found himself contemplating the delicate balance between existence and oblivion.

“There was this realization that life is too fragile to not be truthful to your-self, in what you actually love versus what you think you should do,” he

explains. “I had a few moments within that quietness, just this feeling that things were falling into place. That this was something I was meant to do.”

Ho was already an accomplished musician and songwriter. Although stage fright kept him away from the coffee houses where aspiring singer-songwriters hone their craft, he had released a series of demos, gentle pop

and folk songs burned onto blank CDs and illustrated with hand-drawn covers. “I started developing my sound a little bit, and getting better about pro-ducing these demos in my bedroom,” he says. “And people were really relating to what I was going through: being out of university and entering a new world — and experiencing love or whatever in a more serious way for the first time.”

By the time he left for Pennsylva-nia, Ho had overcome his fear of the

stage and started playing shows. But music was never anything more than a sideline. He was determined to work as a high school teacher, and was com-pleting a degree in English literature at the University of Victoria when two months away changed his life. In the fall of 2010, he returned home deter-mined to cut a record, to carve out a career. “It’s that timeless universal story

where someone experiences some sort of hardship in their life, and it causes a lot of pain, but it also results in a realization,” he says. “A kind of rebirth coming out of the ashes of that pain.”

Chris Ho released his first album, a five-track EP called Answers, in early 2011. Although it hinted at Ho’s untapped potential, Answers suffered from a lack of direction. Instead of presenting Ho’s musical vision, a desire to move beyond the limits imposed by his voice and his guitar, the album me-

I

CITY OF DUST

It’s just looking past all the progress that we’ve made in society … and still finding something to hold on to…

CHRIS HO


Chris Ho’s search for hope in urban decay and environmental disaster BY ALEX J MACPHERSON

COVER

/VERBSASKATOON CULTURECONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

15MAY 3 – MAY 9

@MacPhersonA

[email protected]


andered across the landscape of folk and pop, going nowhere in particular. “I was trying to create something that was radio-friendly, almost more on the side of folk-pop,” Ho admits, alluding to the loud drum tracks that ovewhelm the delicate guitar lines and thoughtful lyrics that give the songs their shape. “I was getting so caught up in creating something that sounded accessible that I was selling the songs short, almost, by not really adding more to it. It seems to me that an album makes more of an impact when it’s accessible, but has a certain amount of musical depth.”

Ho was determined to do better. City Of Dust, which he released in January, is everything its predecessor was not. Produced by Sam Weber, a close friend, the album dulls the jagged edges that made Answers hard to han-dle without flattening out the peaks and valleys that create resonance and tension. “It was such a contrast from before, where it felt like there was someone hovering over me, saying we shouldn’t get too carried away,” Ho says of his newfound creative freedom and Weber’s expansive approach to production. “It clicked right away. He understood that it’s okay to spend an hour on the introduction and on blending a harmonica with a trumpet and making a trumpet sound like it’s not even a trumpet. To challenge the listener to listen even more closely, because if they’ll listen more closely

then maybe they’ll listen more closely to the lyrics — and understand it on a thematic level.”

The songs on City Of Dust ben-efited from a long incubation period. Ho spent a lot of time dreaming up the rich textures and complicated arrangements that give the songs their shape, and he made sure each track fit into the framework of his musi-cal vision. Many singer-songwriters flounder with a band behind them, the emotional weight of their songs

eroded by wave after wave of sound. Ho skirted this problem by working backward. Instead of building outward from a central riff or idea, he envi-sioned the whole before writing a note. City Of Dust embraces a wide variety of sounds, from sweeping indie rock to gentle acoustic pop, but the songs are linked together by the depth and open-ness of the music.

Although his acoustic guitar plays a pivotal role, each sound on the palette is structural: take one away and the song will collapse. “Trouble,” which opens the record, accentuates a sparse guitar chord with a wavering trumpet line. The title track features an angular guitar lick and the gentle swell of a synthesizer that contrast sharply with Ho’s liquid vocal line. “Doesn’t Make Sense” moves into rock and roll territory, with a pair of electric guitars weaving back and forth on top of a snappy drum beat and a series of joyous handclaps. But City Of Dust is much more than an exercise in blur-ring genres.

The record is a meditation on the human condition in the 21st century. “Because it was so broad on an instru-mental level, inevitably the themes had to also be broad,” Ho explains. “It’s by no means a concept album. It’s an album that ties together these themes of modernity and our impact on the environment, and what that means. And also how we respond to the world around us, and consequently how we respond in relationships we have with people and with nature.”

City Of Dust envisions a post-apocalyptic world where harmony has been washed away by the rise of tech-nology and the weight of loneliness. “With all the progress we’re pushing toward technologically, it’s simultane-ously making us more connected than ever and somehow more alienated than ever,” he says, pointing out that he is a member of the last generation that will remember life before the internet. “But this isn’t new; this is since the start of the 20th century. T.S. Eliot talks about it, all those modern poets do.”

But City Of Dust is not without hope. Although the album sprawls across urban wastelands and reced-ing icecaps, Ho finds redemption in the most uninviting places: “One day I’ll look up above the surface, see the simple notes dancing on the sea crest / Oh I’ll learn to live outside my head

and see what I’ve been missing out on,” he sings on “Simple Notes,” which closes out the album. And while it is never made clear whether hope and joy emerge from decay or in spite of it, the focus of City Of Dust meshes perfectly with the impulse that drove Ho to make music in the first place. “In those moments when I feel like others are going through similar obstacles, it’s such a good moment, you feel so con-nected at that moment,” he says. “The album is searching for it, I’m searching for it. It’s just looking past all the prog-ress that we’ve made in society, and the implications in how we live, and still finding something to hold on to.”

Chris HoMay 15 @ Spadina FreehouseNo cover



16MAY 3 – MAY 9

FOOD + DRINK

CHINESE AMERICAN DONE RIGHT

LET’S GO DRINKIN’ VERB’S MIXOLOGY GUIDE

SAN FRANCISCO COCKTAIL

The Golden Gate city is not only the birthplace of American Chinese food, it’s also one of the hippest cities on the continent, with more than its fair share of eating and drinking establish-ments. Here’s a cocktail bearing the city’s name.

INGREDIENTS

3/4 oz sweet vermouth3/4 oz dry vermouth3/4 oz sloe gin1 dash orange bitters1 dash bitters1 cherry

DIRECTIONS

Fill a tumbler with ice. Place all ingredients in tumbler, except for the cherry. Shake well. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with cherry and serve.

O

Auntie Jane’s has been serving Saskatoon well for 20 years BY ADAM HAWBOLDT

Photos courtesy of Adam Hawboldt

@AdamHawboldt

[email protected]


ne of the most popu-lar cuisines in North America is Chinese

food. And we’re not talking authentic, recipes-from-the-old -world Chinese food, either. We’re talking about the cuisine better known as Chinese American.

You know the dishes: sweet and sour chicken balls, chop suey, chicken chow mein — that kind of stuff. Eat in or take out, chances are you’ve tried this cuisine a time or two. But while you were cracking

open a fortune cookie, did you ever stop to wonder where American

Chinese cuisine originated from?Well, I’ll tell you.It all started back in the 19th

century, in a hilly little city called San Francisco, when a group of people

emigrated from the countryside out-side Canton. Many of these people opened restaurants. Some were large and opulent, others were smaller. And it’s in these smaller ones that American Chinese cuisine was born. See, without access to certain foods and spices native to their homeland, and with a foreign palate to please, these restaurateurs began adapting local ingredients in order to cater to customers’ tastes. And tada! Ameri-can Chinese food was born.

Now in nearly every city and town across the country you can find a “Chinese” restaurant. And no matter where it is, the menus are fairly similar. There’s always chow mein, there’s al-ways chop suey, there’s always wonton soup, chicken fried rice, and more.

The Chinese restaurant nearest my house is called Auntie Jane’s. It’s

been in the Lakewood neighbour-hood for two decades now, and I may be a tad biased but the food there is pretty darn good. With the origins of American Chinese cuisine on my mind, I ordered a feast of new-world Chinese food when I was there the other day.

First up was the wonton soup, which was excellent. The wontons were big and meaty, the broth was good, and there was a surprise piece of salty pork hidden underneath everything — yum. After that came the Szechuan chow mein. With its thick noodles, delicious BBQ pork and a slight spice, this dish was, I think, my favourite of the feast. I also sampled some almond chicken and vegetable

chop suey (tasty! and best of all, the vegetables were cooked to crisp perfection), and ginger chicken. Sweet and spicy, the ginger chicken was a refreshing take on the ginger beef you get everywhere.

When the feast was over, I wad-dled around the corner to my house, wondering why I hadn’t ordered the Moo Goo Gai Pan, too.

Auntie Janes 1945 McKercher Dr. | 306 373 3955

The wontons were big and meaty [and] the broth was good…

ADAM HAWBOLDT

@VERBSASKATOON CULTURECONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

17MAY 3 – MAY 9

MUSIC

PHOTOS COURTESY OF: THE ARTIST / THE ARTIST / THE ARTIST

COMING UPNEXT WEEK

JESSE AND THE DANDELIONS

Intimate. That’s the best way to describe the music of Jesse and the Dandelions. With sweeping, low-key vocals and songs that deal with ev-erything from heartbreak to friend-ship to coming home again, this Le-thbridge trio puts on a performance that is at once heartfelt, hip and cozy. Think John K Samson meets the Strokes with a bit of something else tossed in the mix. Their first album, The Lion’s Tooth, dropped in 2010, and since then the guys have honed their skills at venues across Western Canada, tightening their sound and developing a stage performance that is nothing if not engaging. The band — which consists of Jesse Northey, Tyler Stewart and Nick Vedres — will be in town next week to do their thing at Lydia’s. Don’t miss it.

@ LYDIA’S PUBFRIDAY, MAY 10 – $5

There’s something dark and beau-tiful about This Hisses’ latest album, Anhedonia. The music is haunting, full of dark themes and ghostly har-monies that will stick with you long after you hear them. But at the same time there’s also something light about it. Maybe that comes from the ethereal voice of frontwoman Julia Ryckman, who has the kind of pipes that can shatter glass. Whatever it is, this post-punk trio from Winnipeg is the kind of band that captures audiences’ attention. Consisting of Ryckman, Jean-Paul Perron and Patrick Short, This Hisses released their debut album, Surf Noir, in 2011, and are now out on the road promot-ing their sophomore effort. Head to Amigos Cantina next week to see what they’re all about.

THIS HISSES

Selena Gomez seems to be every-where these days. On the big screen in her new movie Spring Breakers, on entertainment websites, and splashed all over the news because of her are-they-or-aren’t-they rela-tionship with Justin Bieber. Oh yeah, and her new song “Come & Get It” broke into the top-5 on Billboard charts after she performed it on Dancing With the Stars a few weeks ago. Since 2009, Selena Gomez and the Scene (the group that she fronts) have put out three albums full of bright, fun pop songs that have garnered all kinds of awards. No doubt about it, Gomez has certainly come a long way since getting her big break on Barney & Friends in the early 2000s. She’ll be in Saskatoon in August.

– By Adam Hawboldt

SELENA GOMEZ

@ AMIGOS CANTINA SATURDAY, MAY 11 – TICKETS AT THE DOOR

Keep up with Saskatchewan music. saskmusic.org

@ CREDIT UNION CENTRESUNDAY AUGUST 18 – $50+

SASK MUSIC PREVIEWThe Next Big Thing: entry deadline reminder! All emerging country artists serious about a career in music are encouraged to enter Big Dog 92-7’s Next Big Thing contest. The prize package, valued at over $15,000, in-cludes cash, mentorship, and career-building opportunities. The deadline to enter is May 9 — see www.thenextbigthing2013.ca for more details.

VERBNEWS.COMENTERTAINMENT CONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

18MAY 3 – MAY 9

LISTINGS

The most complete live music listings for Saskatoon.

MAY 3 » MAY 11

3 4

10 118 96 75

S M T W T

FRIDAY 3HOUSE DJS / 6Twelve Lounge — Funk, soul

& lounge DJs liven up the atmosphere at

6Twelve. 9pm / No cover

KEITH HARKIN / Amigos — A talented

singer/songwriter from Ireland. 10pm

PIANO FRIDAYS: BRETT BALON, DAVID FONG / The Bassment — Feel like taking in

some smooth jazz stylings? Come check

out Balon and Fong tickle the ivories of the

Kinsman Yamaha S6 grand piano. 4:30pm

/ No cover

ROOTS SERIES: EILEEN LAVERTY / The

Bassment — One of the most beautiful

voices on the prairies. 9pm / $18/23

GONG SHOW / Béily’s UltraLounge — The

first Friday of every month! 9pm / $5 cover

SCREAMLYNE / Buds on Broadway — A

local rock quintet. 9pm / $6

DJ ECLECTIC / The Hose & Hydrant — Local

turntable whiz DJ Eclectic pumps snappy

electronic beats. 8pm / No cover

DJ SUGAR DADDY / Jax Niteclub — This lo-

cal crowd favourite has always been known

to break the latest and greatest tracks in

multiple genres. 9pm / $5 cover

GRAHAM TILSLEY / Lydia’s Pub — Time to

get jazzed up and rock out. 10pm / $5

DJ BIG AYYY & DJ HENCHMAN / Outlaws —

There’s no better country rock party around.

8pm / $5; ladies in free before 11pm

IT’S TOO LATE, BABY / Prairie Ink — Covers

of James Taylor and Carole King. 8pm /

No cover

DEAD CITY DOLLS, BYE BYE BABY / Rock

Bottom Sports Bar — Unfiltered rock n’ roll.

9pm / No cover before 9pm

THE REBELS / Stan’s Place — Come rock the

night away with with this local band. 9pm

/ No cover

DUELING PIANOS / Staqatto Piano Lounge

— Featuring Terry Hoknes, Neil Currie and

Brad King. 10pm / $5

PARTY ROCK FRIDAYS / Tequila Nightclub —

Featuring DJ Dislexik. 9pm / Cover TBD

AEROSOL CONSTELLATIONS / Vangelis —

Also appearing will be Caves, Surely I Come

Quickly, Greemist and VYXSYMS. 9pm / $8

SATURDAY 4HOUSE DJS / 6Twelve — Resident DJs spin

deep and soulful tunes. 9pm / No cover

SHOOTING GUNS / Amigos — It’s dark, it’s

loud, it’s oh so good.10pm / Cover TBD

CAIN/ANDREW DUO / The Bassment — A

piano duo that will make your jaw drop.

9pm / $15/20

DJ AASH MONEY + DJ CTRL / Béily’s — Ev-

ery Saturday night. 9pm / $5 cover

SCREAMLYNE / Buds on Broadway — A

local rock quintet. 9pm / $6

DJ KADE / The Hose & Hydrant —

Saskatoon’s own DJ lights it up. 8pm /

No cover

DJ SUGAR DADDY / Jax Niteclub — He is

sure to have you on the dance floor in no

time. 9pm / $5 cover

SKYLAB / Le Relais — Featuring DJ Czech,

Moodfood and Klen. 9pm / $10

SOLID COLLEGE, FORTUNATE ISLES, GO FOR THE EYES / Lydia’s Pub — Three talented

bands, one low price. 10pm / $5

DJ BIG AYYY & DJ HENCHMAN / Outlaws

Country Rock Bar — Round up your friends

‘cause there’s no better country rock party

around. 8pm / $5

TWO TALL DUDES / Prairie Ink — Acoustic

versions of ‘70s and ‘80s music. 8pm /

No cover

JOHNNY DON’T / Rock Bottom Sports Bar —

Also appearing will be Eli, for short, and All

Mighty Voice. 9pm / Cover TBD

THE REBELS / Stan’s Place — Come rock the

night away. 9pm / No cover


— Terry Hoknes, Neil Currie and Brad

King belt out classic tunes and audience

requests, from Sinatra to Lady Gaga.

10pm / $5

SEXY SATURDAYS / Tequila Nightclub —


(ladies get free cover before 11pm)

JP HOE / Vangelis — Also appearing will

be 100 Mile House and Six Moons Later.

10pm / $7

SUNDAY 5INDUSTRY NIGHT / Béily’s — Hosted by

DJ Sugar Daddy. 9pm / $4; no cover for

industry staff

DJ KADE / The Hose — Saskatoon DJ lights

it up with hot tunes. 8pm / No cover

IMAGINATION MOVERS / TCU Place — A

high-octane rock act from the Disney Chan-

nel. 1pm / $29.50+

BLUES JAM / Vangelis Tavern — The Vange-

lis Sunday Jam offers great tunes from blues

to rock and beyond. 7:30pm / No cover

MONDAY 6THREE STRING FRETLESS / Buds — Come

rock the night away. 10pm / $6

METAL MONDAYS / Lydia’s Pub — If hard,

heavy awesomeness is your thing, swing

by. 9pm

THE BODY POLITIC / Rock Bottom Sports Bar

— Prog rock/metal from Nanaimo. 10pm

SYNAPTIC / Vangelis — A great night of

electronic fun. 10pm / No cover

TUESDAY 7JOHNNY DON’T / Buds on Broadway — A

local band you DO have to see. 10pm / $6

THE TENNESSEE THREE / Dakota Dunes

— Johnny Cash’s old band are out on their

own. 6:30pm / $40

DJ SUGAR DADDY / The Double Deuce

— This crowd favourite has always been

known to break the latest and greatest

tracks in multiple genres. 9:30pm / $4

/VERBSASKATOON ENTERTAINMENTCONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

19MAY 3 – MAY 9

Have a live show you'd like to promote? Let us know!

GET LISTED

[email protected]

VERB PRESENTS OPEN STAGE / Lydia’s Pub

— The open stage is a chance for bands, solo

artists and even comedians to showcase

original material. 9pm / No cover

OPEN MIC / Somewhere Else Pub — Come

out to show your talent. 7pm / No cover

WEDNESDAY 8HUMP WEDNESDAYS / 302 Lounge & Disco-

theque — Featuring DJ Chris Knorr. 9pm /

No cover until 10pm; $3 thereafter

JOHNNY DON’T / Buds on Broadway — A

local band you DO have to see. 10pm / $6

DJ KADE / Hose & Hydrant — Saskatoon DJ

lights it up with hot tunes. 8pm / No cover

DR. J ‘SOULED OUT’ / Lydia’s Pub — Dr. J

spins hot funk and soul. 9pm / No cover

WILD WEST WEDNESDAY / Outlaws

Country Rock Bar — Hosted by DJ Big Ayyy

& DJ Henchman. Come out and ride the

mechanical bull! 9pm / $4; no cover for

industry staff.

CJWW KARAOKE / Stan’s Place — Your tal-

ent, aired on the radio! 9pm / No cover



Brad King. 10pm / No cover

F-HOLES, CLASSY CHASSYS / Vangelis —

Two excellent bands. 9pm / $5

THURSDAY 9’25 LIVE’ CONCERT SERIES / Amigos Cantina

— Featuring the Skydiggers. 10pm / $20

(ticketedge.ca)

THE WEBER BROTHERS / Buds — A badass

rock band from the U.S. 10pm / $6

BOB SEGER / Credit Union Centre — Come

show off your night moves. 8pm / $66.50+

(ticketmaster.ca)

THROWBACK THURSDAYS / Earls — Come

experience the best in retro funk and soul-

provided by Dr. J. 8pm / No cover

DJ KADE / The Hose & Hydrant — Saska-

toon DJ lights it up. 8pm / No cover

DJ SUGAR DADDY / Jax Niteclub — Local DJ

Sugar Daddy will be rocking! 8pm / $5; free

cover with student ID before 11pm

MGMT / Odeon Events Centre — A psych-

rock band from the U.S. 7pm / SOLD OUT

TRIPLE UP THURSDAYS / Tequila Nightclub

— Featuring DJ Stikman. 9pm / Cover TBD

ULTRA MEGA / Vangelis — Blending indie

rock, dark psychedelia, dreamy pop and

more. 9:30pm / $7

FRIDAY 10HOUSE DJS / 6Twelve Lounge — Funk, soul

& lounge DJs liven it up. 9pm / No cover

SHOTGUN JIMMIE / Amigos Cantina — A

talented singer/songwriter from New

Brunswick. 10pm / Cover TBD

PIANO FRIDAYS: JESSE BROWN / The

Bassment — Come check out Brown tickle

the ivories of the Kinsman Yamaha S6 grand

piano. 4:30pm / No cover

THE FOGGY HOGTOWN BOYS / The

Bassment — Bluegrass the way it’s meant to

be played. 9pm / $15/20

DJ AASH MONEY / Béily’s — DJ Aash

Money throws down a high-energy top 40

dance party. 9pm / $5 cover

7 STRAIGHT / Buds on Broadway — A night

of good ol’ rock and roll. 10pm / $6

DJ ECLECTIC / The Hose & Hydrant — Local

turntable whiz DJ Eclectic pumps snappy

electronic beats. 8pm / No cover


cal crowd favourite rocks. 9pm / $5 cover

PANDACORN, JESSE AND THE DANDELIONS / Lydia’s Pub — A night of sweet indie rock.

10pm / $5

BOONSTOCK BANDWARZ / Odeon Events

Centre — Forty bands, five shows, one win-

ner per show. 7pm / $10


Country Rock Bar — There’s no better

country rock party around. 8pm / $5; ladies

in free before 11pm

WAYNE BARGEN / Prairie Ink — Finger style

acoustic guitar. 8pm / No cover

URBAN OUTLAWS / Stan’s Place — Rock

music to get your weekend started. 9pm /

No cover



Brad King. 10pm / $5

PARTY ROCK FRIDAYS / Tequila Nightclub —


LORDS KITCHNER / Vangelis — A four-piece

rock band from Moose Jaw. 10pm / $5

SATURDAY 11HOUSE DJS / 6Twelve — Resident DJs spin

deep and soulful tunes. 9pm / No cover

JAWN RAW + DJ TORPEDO / Adobe Inn —

Rocking the hottest urban beats in Martens-

ville. 10pm / Cover TBD

THIS HISSES / Amigos — Dark post punk

music with sweeping vocals. 10pm

PIANO SERIES: RON PALEY / The Bassment

— A pianist and jazz legend from the Win-

nipeg scene. 9pm / $17/22

DJ AASH MONEY + DJ CTRL / Béily’s

UltraLounge — AAsH Money + CTRL throw

down a high-energy top 40 dance party.

9pm / $5 cover

OCD VARIETY SHOW / Broadway Theatre

— Featuring music from Brian Byrne, Night-

rain, The Seahags and The Expressions. 7pm

/ $20 (advance), $25 (at the door)

GONG SHOW / Buds on Broadway — A

band that gets the party started.10pm / $6

DJ KADE / The Hose & Hydrant — Saska-

toon’s own DJ lights it up. 8pm / No cover


cal crowd favourite rocks. 9pm / $5 cover

SHORT OF ABLE, JUMBO / Lydia’s Pub —

Modern indie rock out of Edmonton.

10pm / $5

BAY CITY ROLLERS / Odeon Events Centre

— Scottish pop group led by lead singer Les

McKeown. 7pm / $34.50-54.50 (theodeon.

ca)


Country Rock Bar — Round up your friends

‘cause there’s no better country rock party

around. 8pm / $5

JAMES STEELE TRIO / Prairie Ink — Fiddle

music you’ll love. 8pm / No cover

BABYSITTER / Rock Bottom Sports Bar —

Also appearing will be The Faps, Bastard

Poetry, + more. 9pm / Cover TBD

URBAN OUTLAWS / Stan’s Place — Rock to

get your weekend started right. 9pm /

No cover


— Terry Hoknes, Neil Currie and Brad King

belt out classic tunes and audience requests,

from Sinatra to Lady Gaga. 10pm / $5

SEXY SATURDAYS / Tequila Nightclub —


(ladies get free cover before 11pm)


20MAY 3 – MAY 9

FILM

PHOTO: COURTESY OF WALT DISNEY STUDIOS MOTION PICTURES

A

Super screenwriter breathes new life into Iron Man franchise BY ADAM HAWBOLDT

[I] thought it was the best Iron Man movie to date.

ADAM HAWBOLDT

SHANE BLACKTO THE RESCUE

@AdamHawboldt

[email protected]


s far as screenwriters in Hollywood go, they don’t get much bet-

ter than Shane Black. Seriously. Anyone who has seen The Long Kiss Goodnight, Lethal Weapon or Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang knows exactly what I’m talking about.

Especially Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.That was a hellfire, kingfish

of a movie. Fast and funny, with razor-sharp dialogue and wit for days, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is easily one of the coolest movies made in the past decade.

So when I heard that Marvel Stu-dios hired Shane Black as the screen-writer and director for Iron Man 3, I was excited. I mean, I figured that he’d come in, stick to the Marvel-movie-making blueprint while splashing a bit of his own style and panache subtly throughout the film.

Man, was I wrong.From top to bottom, beginning to

end, this is unquestionably a Shane Black movie. And personally, I loved it. Thought it was the best Iron Man movie to date.

Thing is: many comic purists out there will disagree.

But let’s come back to this in a minute. For now, let’s look at the plot of Iron Man 3.

The story picks up where The Avengers left off. After nearly dying during the alien invasion, we find Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) living as a recluse. Prone to panic attacks and suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress

Disorder, the eccentric billionaire has holed himself away from the world — so much so that he has even handed the reins of his beloved Stark Industries over to long-time confidant and lover, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).

Things go on like this for awhile, until an old friend comes back into Stark’s life. Okay, so it’s not really a friend. The guy’s name is Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a scientist with a

grudge who hooks up with a terrorist named Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) to attack the United States.

Because Stark is having a Raskol-nikovian-style existential crisis, he isn’t too quick to don the Iron Man suit and fly to the rescue.

But eventually he does, and that’s when the action picks up. From there on out there are quick quips, excit-ing action sequences, and a surprise that you’ll never see coming. This part is what the comic-book faithful will really dig. It’s what, to many people, a superhero movie should be. The good guy, kicking ass and taking names, foil-ing bad-guy schemes.

And while, as a comic-book geek at heart, I enjoyed the heck out of

this part of the flick, it was the first act that really shone. The character study Shane Black does of Tony Stark in the film’s beginning brings the

man to life in a way he never has been before. Much of the credit here goes to RDJ who, as always, plays the hell out of his role. But some of the credit has to go to Black, because his script makes for one of the most character-driven comic book movies ever made.

And trust me, that’s a good thing. A really good thing.

IRON MAN 3

Directed by Shane Black

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth

Paltrow, Ben Kingsley + Guy Pearce

109 minutes | PG

@VERBSASKATOON ENTERTAINMENTCONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

21MAY 3 – MAY 9

W

@AdamHawboldt

[email protected]


NO

DIRECTED BY Pablo Larrain

STARRING Gael García Bernal, Antonia

Zegers, Alfredo Castro

115 MINUTES | 14A

García Bernal … plays [Saavedra] with an understated charm and low-key humour…

ADAM HAWBOLDT

hen Augusto Pinochet died in De-cember 2006, there

were, oh, about 300 criminal charges still pending against him.

Why? Well, let’s just say he wasn’t what

you’d call a paragon of virtue.At various points in his life, Pino-

chet was a soldier, the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, and a despot who ruled his country with a heavy iron fist. During his 17-year reign, Pinochet brought that hand down hard on political opponents, so much so that thousands were killed, nearly 80,000 were interned, and around 30,000 were tortured for opposing him.

No is the story about how Pino-chet’s reign of oppression came to an end.

Directed by Pablo Larrain, this Spanish-language docudrama begins in 1988 with a scene straight out of Mad Men. In it, René Saave-dra — an adman so smooth he could sell religion to the Pope — is making a pitch. He’s talking about “truth” and “social context” and the future of Chile.

So what is he selling? Liberty to the oppressed people of Chile?

Nah. He’s introducing a com-mercial for a new soft drink called

Free. It may seem like a hokey idea, but Saavedra (played by the ever-watchable Gael García Bernal) is a master at what he does.

Such a master, in fact, that he’s soon asked to play a major role in a national plebiscite. In 1988, Pinochet agreed to have a refer-endum vote on whether or not

he should remain in power. If the majority voted “Yes,” his government would gain legitimacy in the interna-tional community. A “No” vote would lead to his downfall and open the way for free, democratic elections.

Common knowledge was that the fix was in and Pinochet would

win a “Yes” vote easy. That’s where Saavedra enters the picture.

Anti-Pinochet forces ask for his help to sell the “No” vote to the general public. Naturally Saavedra agrees, but this is no easy sell. How does a person sell something like “No,” a word with such nega-tive connotations?

What Saavedra does is turn into an urban guerrilla adman of sorts, using, ahem, interesting methods to turn a negative into a positive.

As Saavedra, García Bernal does a bang-up job. He plays him with an understated charm and low-key hu-mour, and really brings the character to life. But what else did you expect? After all, this is the same guy who blew audiences away in movies like Amores Perros, Y Tu Mamá También, and The Motorcycle Diaries.

But you want to know something else? García Bernal isn’t even the best part of No. That honour goes to director Pablo Larrain, who decided to shoot the film with vintage 1988 home camcorders. The result is a retro look that gives the movie

a very rough, nostalgic, VHS kind of feel.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, No isn’t just some bland, serious docu-drama. It’s also sort of a quasi-comedy that pokes fun at the political process. And did I mention it was also a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars?

How could you say no to a movie like that?

No is currently being screened at the Roxy Theatre; see rainbowcin-emas.ca for more information.

JUST SAY NO!New film about the ousting of Augusto Pinochet outstandingBY ADAM HAWBOLDT

PHOTO: COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES CLASSICS


22MAY 3 – MAY 9

NIGHTLIFE

CHECK OUT OUR FACEBOOK PAGE! These photos will be uploaded to

Facebook on Friday, May 10.

facebook.com/verbsaskatoon


23MAY 3 – MAY 9

Photography by Patrick Carley

SUNDAY, APRIL 28 @

OUTLAWSOutlaws Country Rock Bar710 Idylwyld Drive North(306) 978 0808

MUSIC VIBE / Country and rockFEATURED DEALS / Doubles for $8.50+, depending on what you were drinkingDRINK OF CHOICE / Vodka doublesCOMING UP / $1,000 bull rider challenge on Wednesday nights


24MAY 3 – MAY 9

CHECK OUT OUR FACEBOOK PAGE! These photos will be uploaded to

Facebook on Friday, May 10.

facebook.com/verbsaskatoon

NIGHTLIFE

@VERBSASKATOON ENTERTAINMENTCONTENTS LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENTS Q + A ARTS COVER FOOD + DRINK MUSIC LISTINGS FILM NIGHTLIFE COMICS TIMEOUT

25MAY 3 – MAY 9

Photography by Ishtiaq Opal

FRIDAY, APRIL 26 @

VANGELISTAVERNVangelis Tavern801 Broadway Avenue(306) 652 5173

MUSIC VIBE / Changes all the time, depending on the live showFEATURED DEALS / Pints of Alexander Keith’s for $6DRINK OF CHOICE / Copper beerTOP EATS / Pizza and calamariSOMETHING NEW / New stageCOMING UP / Music jam on Sun-days, trivia night on Tuesdays, and live bands on Saturdays


26MAY 3 – MAY 9

COMICS

© Elaine M. Will | blog.E2W-Illustration.com | Check onthebus.webcomic.ws/ for previous editions!


27MAY 3 – MAY 9

HOROSCOPES MAY 3 – MAY 9

© WALTER D. FEENER 2013

SUDOKU CROSSWORD ANSWER KEY

ARIES March 21–April 19

You’re going to be smacked in the

face by a sudden blast of inspira-

tion this week, Aries. Be sure to make the

most of it.

TAURUS April 20–May 20

You may have a bunch of different

people vying for your attention

this week, Taurus. Be sure to give as many

as you can the time of day.

GEMINI May 21–June 20

A long-lost friend may try to get

in contact with you this week,

Gemini. So be sure to keep avenues of

communication open.

CANCER June 21–July 22

A friend in need is a friend

indeed. Remember that this

week, Cancer. It may help you make an

important decision.

LEO July 23–August 22

You’ve been striving towards a

goal lately, Leo. Good news: some

time in the next few days you’ll reach it.

Brace yourself.

VIRGO August 23–September 22

You’re overdue for a rewarding

adventure, dear Virgo. Take a

trip with a new friend or allow yourself

that mini-vacation.

LIBRA September 23–October 23

It may be hard, Libra, but try to

be enthusiastic in everything

you do this week. A little excitement

goes a long way.

SCORPIO October 24–November 22

Feeling pulled in a lot of differ-

ent directions lately, Scorpio?

Rest easy. All the external pressure is

about to subside.

SAGITTARIUS November 23–December 21

Spring has sprung, Sagittarius. So

get off your posterior and get out

and do something. Active is the name of

the game this week.

CAPRICORN December 22–January 19

You may have a difficult time

committing to things this week,

Capricorn. And good for you. There’ll be

plenty of time for that later.

AQUARIUS January 20–February 19

Stay close to home this week,

Aquarius. Something that needs

your urgent and utmost attention is

bound to spring up.

PISCES February 20–March 20

It’s time to think outside the box

this week, Pisces. A creative solu-

tion to a predicament you’re facing could

reap untold benefits.

ACROSS 1. Going into overtime

5. Do some roadwork

9. Swarming fly

10. Due to be paid

12. Ride a horse fast

13. Playground toy

15. Wheel shaft

16. Place for a ring

18. Amount of space a

thing takes up

19. Make sure

20. Gesture of doubt

22. Pick up

23. Mentally prepare

25. Some to-do list items

27. Circle segment

29. John Hancock: abbr.

30. Pounds repeatedly

34. Pin worn for

Remembrance Day

38. Be incorrect

39. They grow where they

are not wanted

41. British washroom

42. Smell ___

44. Jug handle

45. Mountain top

46. Make up for a loss

48. Simultaneously

50. On edge

51. Form words silently

52. Animal with antlers

53. Crooked

DOWN 1. Father of Confederation

2. Doing nothing

3. Self-esteem

4. Distance downwards

5. Pretentious people

6. Mixture of wonder

and dread

7. Competes

8. Flag indicating

nationality

9. Uses up all the credit

on a credit card

11. Stared at stars

12. Utter breathlessly

14. Throws water on

17. Metal-bearing mineral

20. Mole relative

21. Handymen on movie sets

24. Mouse catcher

26. Before now

28. Plant that grows along

the ground

30. Carry the weight of

31. Word on a French

stop sign

32. Drew an outline of

33. Ocean

35. All that a person needs

36. Hunt illegally

37. Crosspiece fastened

over the necks of oxen

40. Film genre

43. Sound quality

45. Rain heavily

47. Wear and tear

49. Pull behind

TIMEOUT CROSSWORD CANADIAN CRISS-CROSS

A B 1 7 8 3 9 2 3 2 5 6 4 8 7 2 1 6 41 6 7 5 6 4 3 8 2 9 7 5 5 4 9 9 3 1 8

9 8 7 3 1 9 5 3 2 7 8 69 6 4 3 7 9 6 45 6 1 3 8 2 5 1 7 4 5 1 2 8 4 2

SUDOKU ANSWER KEY

A

B

4 1 7 8 5 3 9 2 69 3 8 7 2 6 4 5 12 5 6 4 9 1 8 7 33 7 2 5 1 8 6 9 41 6 4 9 3 7 5 8 25 8 9 6 4 2 3 1 78 4 1 2 6 9 7 3 57 2 5 3 8 4 1 6 96 9 3 1 7 5 2 4 8

2 9 1 8 5 6 4 7 38 7 6 3 1 4 2 9 54 5 3 2 7 9 8 1 69 6 7 4 8 3 5 2 11 3 8 5 2 7 9 6 45 2 4 9 6 1 7 3 83 8 2 6 9 5 1 4 77 4 5 1 3 2 6 8 96 1 9 7 4 8 3 5 2

Verb Issue S238 (May 3-9, 2013)

Documents

Transcript of Verb Issue S238 (May 3-9, 2013)