Saturday Morning Cartoon

With James Cameron's latest movie Avatar blowing away moviegoers at theatres with it's amazing 3D CGI and it's eco-friendly message - it occurred to me that there is another hero who communed with the jungles of Earth, bonded with the animals and had a respect all living things in the forest - unless something was trying to eat him, then it was a free for all.

Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan.

And back in the 1970's Filmation studios had brought Tarzan to life for 36 episodes in Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle. This was also one of the more faithful adaptations of Tarzan, like the original novels he is intelligent and well spoken. The show often explored many of the lost cities that the novels featured unlike the movie that had him grunting and running around New York city for laughs.

Pick of the Day: Peppermint Glitz

Fresh off their performance of A Spoon We Are Not at the Globe Theatre in October (pictured), Misty Wensel, Fran Gilboy and Heather Cameron of FadaDance host their annual Christmas party at the Exchange tonight. Featured will be performances by several troupes who take classes at FadaDance's east-central Regina studio. Not sure if the FadaMen are still active, but if they are, they'll likely bust a move or two. The fun gets going around 9:30 p.m., and traditionally goes late, so bring your dancing shoes and have a good time.

If you feel like exercising your funny bone instead, a group of local comics will be performing at the Club tonight. That should kick-off around 8 p.m. And if you do happen to drop by, make sure you check out the exhibition P.A. Lowbrow a.k.a. Three Motherf****** from P.A. that's on display there until Jan. 8. It features work in a decidedly raunchy vein by Michel Boutin, Harley Kowalsky and John MacDonald.

And OYE! with Def 3 spinning pre and post-show tunes is at the Distrikt. $7 at the door.

(Not-So) New Dog!

Yesterday was busy and today your excellent prairie dog editor has been a little slow in the brain so this bi-weekly update on the AWESOME EXCITING NEW ISSUE OF PRAIRIE DOG EXCLAMATION POINT! is late (the new dog came out yesterday). But yeah, basically: new paper on the streets! To sum up: it's good. I don't' know if it's quite the must-read our last edition was--"how the Climate Liars F#@ked the Future" might be my favourite cover story of 2009--but I know that if I didn't work here I'd read it and like it.

So what do we have for you this issue? Well, we have (drumroll):

92 WAYS TO STUFF A STOCKING! Looking for ideas to fill your favourite person's Christmas sock (or non-denominational fabric-based foot garb or secular/atheist leg-end appendage receptacle)? We have ideas! A whole LIST of ideas! (Guess how many ideas ! Ninety-two you guess? Ding ding, that's right! (How did you know?) Basically, we talk about the stock-stuffy merit of items like coffee, cigars, hand lotion, harmonicas, condoms, rubber snakes and dead, frozen mice. As usual this is not a list anyone competent would print but hey it's what makes prairie dog so special and unique.

(Also, did you see how : I typed "a whole" up there? That's a very naughty homonym! Ha ha!)

We've also got news stories on CLAC, the controversial Christian union that wants workers to earn less, and a feature on the residents turfed from their Halifax St. apartment by the fire marshal, and a good Gywnne Dyer column and a great opinion piece by John "the "F' stands for "ferocious" Conway, and a lot more.

And a good review of the Fainting Goat, and a short column on parenting that we're already getting fan mail on. And probably the best, meanest letter we got this year, from a guy in Lumsden who finds our insult-hurling idiom a little stupid and childish (which it is!)

In short, good issue I think. I recommend you pick it up.

One-man band now playing under that one man's name

Unlike the video game he grabbed the name from, Owen Pallett will be retiring the name Final Fantasy. Future albums will be released under his own name, including his upcoming Jan. 12 release, Heartland. His two previous albums will be reissued as well.

Worse things have happened. Mostly, this will just make it slightly easier to Google his music. And five years bringing relative success without a lawsuit is a good run.

Friday Afternoon Kitty!

I don't know what Steve McQueen has to do with Macgyver (Scottish ancestry?), but that weirdness aside this video pretty much speaks for itself. Thanks to Alex for the link.

12 Days of Christmas: Fanny and Alexander

Fanny och Alexander (1982)

It's Christmas Eve at the Ekdahl family household. They are a large and extremely wealthy family and for the most part a happy family. But they are plagued with the usual family problems. The matriarch, Helena has three grown children. Gustav who constantly cheats on his wife. Carl whose German wife nobody likes and Oscar who is married to the beautiful Emilie and has two children - Fanny and Alexander. Oscar and Emilie are in the theatre. A couple days later Oscar mysteriously dies leaving Emilie alone and forced to make some difficult decisions that effect everyone, especially the children. All of this happens through the eyes of Fanny and Alexander, especially Alexander.

This was to be Ingmar Bergman's last movie and it was originally shot for television. The TV version is a whopping 312 minutes but it was also released in a condensed 188 minute theatrical version. This is the version that I've watched and it feels like a complete movie - I can't imagine what was cut out.

I don't know why but I like Bergman's movies. They can be pretentious as he tries to explore the human condition but there's always something more to them. And this is one of his more accessibly films. There is a bit of magic and the odd ghost thrown into the film but it all works seamlessly because it's all seen through the children Alexander and Fanny's eyes.

Six In The Morning

1 OBAMA SPEECH DISAPPOINTS The U.S. president arrives in Copenhagen, mumbles a bunch of vague crap about honouring commitments and basically lets everyone down. A draft text has been leaked that doesn't even commit countries to a two-degree warmig limit--which is absolutely the bare minimum needed to avoid climate castastrophe. Everything is so fucked Naomi Klein is saying that at this point it's better not to have a deal because the one we'll probably get would be a disaster. You can read so much more here, at the website of the world's best newspaper. (Guardian)

2 HERE'S AN IDEA: SHUT DOWN THE TARSANDS Alberta's zero-charisma premier throws a tantrum because he doesn't like his government depicted as environment-killing eco-vandals. Dudes, it's a choice between your dirty, sunset economy and planetary civilization--and the world can't can't let your economy win. Your stupid one-party-state political party should've leveraged oil wealth from the '90s and early '00s into a sustainable future. You didn't. Tough garbonzos. (Edmonton Journal)

3 CANADA TURNING INTO MINI-BUSHLAND An open-government expert describes how Stephen Harper's Canada is using George W. Bush administration tricks to ignore facts it doesn't like--particularly on the giving prisoners to torturers angle. (Globe And Mail) Not enough to piss you off? Here's a piece in the Ottawa Citizen about the Conservative government's atrocious attack on the public's right to know. Go. Read. Fume. Act.

4 NO NUKE POWER BUT MAYBE MINIATURE NUKE POWER AND, HEY, LET'S SORTA MAYBE TALK ABOUT WASTE? KINDA? The Saskatchewan government lays out the plan. (CBC)

5 VIOLENT CRIME IS DOWN, HUZZAH Good news for Regina. (Leader-Post)

6 A TALE OF TWO CATS a kitty who comforts the dying and a Tiger who paid off a tabloid.(Toronto Star)

Pick of the Day: Young Soul Xmas

One of several record labels that has sprung up in Regina in the last few years, Young Soul Records holds its Christmas shindig at the Exchange tonight. Featured will be buzz band Library Voices (pictured). I posted on them in October, here's a link (DogBlog). Also performing are poet Patrick Swan who I did a post on in September (DogBlog), Andy Shauf and Julia McDougall.

Also tonight, State of Shock is at the Drink Nightclub. Here's the video for a 2007 song of theirs called "If I Could" (YouTube). And Regina electronic rockers The Rabid Whole are at O'Hanlon's Pub. Here's the video for their song "All the Same" off their 2009 album Autraumaton (YouTube)

Diabolique Update

Earlier this year (July through October, to be precise), the Dunlop Art Gallery presented the two part exhibition Diabolique at its Central branch gallery. Curated by Amanda Cachia, the show featured 22 local, Canadian and international artists and explored the related themes of war and violence. We did two reviews on the show in prairie dog itself, and I did a couple or three blog posts as well. (DogBlog) If you check out the following link, you'll learn that the show made Canadian Art's top ten list of art exhibitions for 2009. So congrats to the Dunlop and to Amanda. Pictured above is a work by Scott Waters called Badlands that was in Diabolique II.

Regina Vacancy Rate Drops

You read that right. According to CMHC's October 2009 survey of the nation's rental market (released yesterday), the average vacancy rate in Regina is now a whopping 0.6 per cent.

0.6 per cent.

We are tied with Quebec City for the lowest vacancy rate in the country.

You will remember from our June coverage, CMHC reported that vacancies in Regina had reached 0.7 per cent in April, up from 0.5 per cent over October of 2008. CMHC predicted at the time that vacancy rates would continue to slowly climb.

They didn't.

You may also remember that back in the summer, developers who were hoping to speed along their condo conversions pointed to CMHC's somewhat rosy outlook for the rental market and argued that there is nothing more to worry about as the market is headed in the right direction.

It isn't.

We've been waiting on the provincial and the federal government for over a year now to do something about the appalling housing situation in this city. Well, the province's purse strings just cinched up tight. And housing is going to be the last thing on the minds of Harper's scandal plagued Conservatives.

It's looking like we're on our own here.

And 22 people were recently turfed from their homes in an office building and tasked with finding a place to live this winter. Expect to see more people living in hastily-converted and not-up-to-fire-code office buildings and other inappropriate structures. That's what happens when your vacancy rate essentially zero.

I'll write more on this when I've had time to go over the report in detail.