Two types of adult men in this world ...

Those who have prostate cancer, and those who are worried as hell about getting prostate cancer. Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Jack. (Kady O'Malley's CBC politics blog)

Jack Layton Has Prostate Cancer

Photo by Darrol Hofmeister, sharpshooter photography

The breaking story is on CBC here. And the Globe and Mail has the story here.

Pick of the Day: Daphne Odjig

Born in the village of Wikwemikong on Manitoulin Island in Ontario in 1919 of mixed Odawa-Potawatomi and English-Canadian heritage, Daphne Odjig (pictured) has been a practicing artist most of her life. In this touring exhibition which was curated by Bonnie Devine, and which opens at the MacKenzie Art Gallery with a reception tonight at 7:30 p.m., 58 drawings and paintings spanning more than 40 years of artistic production will be on display.

As Devine recounts in a catalogue essay, Odjig spent the first 45 years of her life minimizing and even denying her aboriginal heritage. But in 1964 she returned to her birthplace to dance in the annual powow, and from that point forward she became a leading member of the First Nations art community. Along with contemporaries like Norval Morrisseau and Alex Janvier, she founded the Professional Native Indian Artists Association in 1973. The next year, she opened the first Canadian commercial gallery representing First Nations artists in Winnipeg.

Prior to coming to Regina, this retrospective was shown at the Art Gallery of Sudbury, the Kamloops Art Gallery, the National Gallery in Ottawa, and at the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Now 90 years old, Odjig will be in attendance at tonight's reception. In addition to that event, there's a panel discussion at the gallery Saturday from 2-4 p.m. entitled Trailblazers that looks at the important role joint artist-curators like Odjig have played in the growth of First Nations and Metis art practice in Canada in the last forty years.

We'll have more on this exhibition in an upcoming issue of prairie dog. It runs at the MacKenzie until May 2.

Later that night, The Get Down and Royal Red Brigade are rocking O'Hanlon's Pub. Also tonight, Rah Rah and This Machine is a Fountain ae at the Distrikt.

Coming in March

Today an email reached our office from SaskMusic announcing the artists who had been selected to have tracks included on a compilation CD of Saskatchewan music due out in March -- just in time, SaskMusic notes, for Canada Music Week and SXSW in Austin.

Out of over 100 submissions province-wide, the jury selected the following artists: Volcanoless in Canada, The Deep Dark Woods, Library Voices, Carbon Dating Service, Rah Rah, Violent Kin, Shuyler Jansen, Codie Prevost, Wyatt, The Sheepdogs, Jordan Cook, Ultimate Power Duo, Karrnnel, Def 3 (pictured), Alexis Normand, Jen Lane, Jeffery Straker, Jason Plumb & the Willing and Semko/Fontaine/Taylor.

I don't know if they submitted, but missing Regina bands that come instantly to mind for me include Hot Blood Bombers, WestPort Murders and The Polymaths. Anyone else have any thoughts?

Pick of the Day: Delhi 2 Dublin

I have a story to tell. At this year's Regina Folk Festival, I arrived a little late to Victoria Park on Friday night when this Vancouver-based world-beat ts group with bhangra and celtic influences performed on the main stage, so I only caught half their set. I was backstage then, and from what I could see, the crowd was really into it. Then later I had a very nice chat with the fiddle player Kytami where we talked a bit about the band's origins in Vancouver, and their potential to become popular in large chunks of the world due to their cross-cultural appeal.

How calculated that all is, I'm not really sure. But it certainly reflects a trend that is surely only going to accelerate as society becomes increasingly globalized. For a band like Delhi 2 Dublin, who play the Exchange tonight as part of the Regina Folk Festival Concert Series, the world truly is their oyster. Here's the video for their song "Apples" off their self-titled 2007 debut album. (YouTube)

Also, at the Lazy Owl tonight there's a benefit for earthquake relief in Haiti that serves as a wrap-up to two weeks of fundraising by university students to raise money to send to the beleaguered country. Doors open at 8:30 p.m., with entertainment starting at 9:15. First up is an acoustic set from what organizers describe as "very special guests", followed by a second acoustic set by Valerie McLeod (aka Val Halla). Rounding out the evening will be a set by OYE!. $5 at the door.

When sign design goes awry

I'm sure I can't be the first person to have noticed the Pimpark sign near the corner of Broad and 11th, though I'm not sure if Pimpark noticed it when they were designing this sign (or the logos on their website, for that matter).

Pimpark.

Perhaps it's a reference to the ever-popular 'Pimp my Ark' chapter of Genesis wherein Noah totally puts a 52-inch plasma TV in the back of that shit ... for the unicorns, you understand.

Or maybe it simply proves that no matter how cute a company's pseudo-manga-inspired mascot is, no one is above a freudian slip.

Nonetheless, legend has it that if you stand near this building and listen closely on Monday mornings, you can hear a voice in the wind asking "Where my money at?"

More News Room Shenanigans

I'm not saying this wouldn't happen at prairie dog. A few years ago when I used to do the film listings I ignited a storm of Keeley Hazell (pictured) Googling with one blurb I wrote. But we never had cameras rolling as this Aussie TV station did when a news staffer decided to check out steamy nude photos from Aussie supermodel Miranda Kerr's recent cover shoot for GQ magazine. Hilarious. (Break)

Climate Cover-up Author at Selam Tonight

Richard Littlemore, one of the authors of Climate Cover-Up will be speaking tonight at Selam Restaurant (2115 Broad St). His talk runs from 7 to 9pm and the event is free.

This should be a nice palate cleanser after last year's assault of the climate crack-pots courtesy the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Littlemore is an environmental journalist who's worked at newspapers such as the Ottawa Citizen and the Winnipeg Tribune. He's also one of the minds behind DeSmog Blog, an invaluable resource for anyone interested in finding out about the climate change denial industry and its efforts to obstruct the work of legitimate scientists.

For our climate change feature, we interviewed Littlemore's Climate Cover-Up co-author, James Hoggan. You can read the complete transcript of that interview here.

Pick of the Day: A Brush With Genius

For my Monday pick-of-the-day, I featured Michelle Provost's show Selling Out at the Dunlop Art Gallery. With all the action figures, comic book covers, artist trading cards and sliding puzzles that she's assembled, there must be over 200 artists represented. Oddly, despite the vast catalogue of artists, which cover many of the most famous names in art history, there seems to be two curious ommissions.

Given that the show, at least on some level, critiques the way that the arts help sustain and even fuel consumer culture Salvador Dali is conspicuous by his absence. Truly, if you look up the word "whore" in an art dictionary, you will find his picture. Yet as far as I've been able to discern in two reasonably thorough visits to the show, he's not mentioned.

Neither did I detect any reference to Vincent van Gogh. That's surprising because among artists he is virtually universally revered as the antithesis of Dali-- an artist with impeccable integrity. The man, according to legend anyway, never sold a painting in his lifetime. Pretty hard to accuse him of selling out, isn't it? Which is perhaps why Provost seems to have elected not to include him.

If you're hungering for a van Gogh fix, though, you can always see this Imax flick which opens Feb. 5 at the Saskatchewan Science Centre. An admittedly unusual, but potentially intriguing, cinematic excercise, Brush With Genius retraces van Gogh's steps as he painted some of his most famous masterpieces -- first in his native Netherlands, where conditions are generally dark and gloomy; then later in sun-drenched Arles, Saint Remy and Auvers-sur-Oise.

Here's the trailer (YouTube). And for a bit of comic relief, here's the trailer for Vincent Minnelli's 1957 biopic Lust For Life which starred Kirk Douglas as van Gogh and Anthony Quinn as Paul Gaugin. (YouTube)

Narco Headed to the Hall

After having been tackled for a loss in the recent financial meltdown (Edmonton Journal), former Saskatchewan Roughrider wide receiver Don Narcisse, who played for the team from 1987-1999, and who still boasts a pro football record 216 consecutive-game-pass-reception streak, was inducted into the Canadian Football League Hall of Fame today. Joining Narco, as the diminutive number 80 was lovingly known by Rider faithful, are former Edmonton/Baltimore QB Tracy Ham, former Winnipeg/Montreal D-lineman Elfrid Payton, ex-Bomber punter Bob Cameron and some guy I've never heard of (Joe Pistilli).