Lewis (bleeping) Black

More than 12 hours after watching Lewis Black at the Centre of the Arts, and I'm still so enchated by his presence that every third (bleeping) word is a (bleeping) swear word. Since prairie dog doesn't like NSFW entries here, lets just say:

1. Black doesn't like Winnipeg.
2. The drive between Toronto and Winnipeg kind of got to him.
3. His friends in the United States don't understand where Regina is.
4. The iPhone is one of the reasons why the U.S. isn't energy self-sufficient in a ecologically balanced way.
5. Republicans and Democrats sodomize the American voter in a similar way.
6. He doesn't like getting old.
7. His parents are a hoot.
8. He's not that surprised that we don't seem to care much for Stephen Harper. A mention of Prime Minister Pillsbury Doughboy grew groans ... "You can't even work up the energy to properly boo the (bleeper), huh?"

All in all, this was the (bleeping) funniest 90 minutes of standup I've heard in years.

A Thirst Undone

Caught the opening performance of the final work in the 2008-09 Sandbox Series at the Globe Theatre last night. It's a bit of a departure from previous works in the series in that it's grounded--and I mean that semi-literally--in dance. Choreographer is Johanna Bundon, who also performs along with Joelle Arnusch, Branwyn Bundon, Natalie Zoey Gauld and Barbara Pallomina.

As the title, and the accompanying publicity image, suggest, water is a central theme of the piece. Prior to entering the space, in fact, we were warned to be on the lookout for glasses that had been placed on the floor. To get to our seats, we actually had to do a mini-detour around several dozen glasses partially filled with water. Even before the performers have appeared, therefore, we were physically and intellectually engaged with the work.

The first row of seats was open when we arrived. Typically, I'm not a first-row person, but we decided to sit there for simplicity's sake. That turned out to be a fortunate choice because a significant portion of Bundon's choreography involves floor work where the audience's view of the dancers from the back row is partially obscured by people sitting closer to the performance area. So if you go, don't be shy about sitting up front.

As the work opens, the five women, dressed in simple frocks and tights, are arrayed in a line to the audience's left. One by one they slip off their shoes and, as if entering the water, slide to the floor and begin almost to swim across the stage area. In terms of structure, the approximately 50-minute piece is divided into six chapters. By varying the tempo of the music, and having the dancers interact with each other in various combinations from solos and duos to five-person ensembles, Bundon inspires a host of interpretive possibilities. Being a non-literal art form, dance defies strict interpretation as everyone who views a piece will inevitably give it their own spin. For me, some of the dominant themes that emerged related to ideas of friendship, support, rivalry, fear, longing, physical and emotional enclosure, dominance, and even servitude through the offering, whether in a domestic or restaurant setting, of water for guests to drink.

Like the lunar-influenced ebb and flow of the tide in coastal waters, there are rhythms and repetitious elements in the piece that evoke the notion of cycles that are inherent in life, be they biological or socio-cultural. If you want to check the work out for yourself, it's on at the Globe until May 9. (Globe Theatre)

Three In The Afternoon

The following items are chewing on my ankles, demanding attention.

1. WE SHOULD BE TOLERANT OF OTHER CULTURES An eight-year-old Saudi Arabian child successfully divorces her 50-year old husband after courts originally said she'd have to wait until puberty to request permission to leave the union. Ha ha! Take that, you smarmy, preachy human rights advocates! I dare you to call Saudi Arabia a medieval backwater now! (Yahoo!)

2. ALBERTA: IGNORANT AND PROUD Live in Alberta? Have kids? Want to indoctrinate them in your extreme fundamentalist Christian beliefs, like evolution is pretend and gay people are made of satan, without some "public school" butting in and teaching them "facts"? Things are looking up. (CBC)

3. TORTURE 'TOON the new This Modern World is pretty good. If you haven't read TMW before, it's a long-running weekly political comic and maybe the best of its kind. Check it out here. (Salon)

J! E! T! S! Just end the season ...

Hoo boy. It turns out that the Phoenix Coyotes weren't taken over by the NHL at the end of the season, as most mainstream media reports.

They were actually taken over in mid-February, says the city manager of Glendale, AZ (where the Coyotes play). (National Post)

The NHL trade deadline was March 4th and the Coyotes were particularly active as "sellers", shipping off high-priced centre Ollie Jokinen and top-four D Derek Morris. But the team also added players: Petr Prucha, Dmitri Kalinen and Jordon Leopold, among others.

If the NHL took over the team before the Coyotes deadline fire sale/picking up other teams' bonus babies and salary cap casualties, then who knew? And what does that mean for Coyotes' fans? Both of them?

All in all, Garry Bettman's southern strategy is looking stupider and stupider all the time.

Hat tip to Puck Daddy

Don't worry, Colin. They've got your back

Governments have an interesting way to deal with the proceeds of crime. For example. prostitution -- the act of having sex with someone in exchange for money -- isn't illegal, but spending money earned through prostitution is illegal. And when police arrest and courts convict drug dealers, the proceeds of their crimes are impounded -- their money and goods are forfeited to the state.

But when someone murders his ex-wife the day after getting turfed from cabinet and the day before the first payment in what was then Saskatchewan's largest divorce settlement ... then writes a book about it, that's different, right? Especially if he's got friends in the right places. (CBC Saskatchewan)

On Losing Faith (Fighter)

Molleindustria pulled their year-old Flash game, Faith Fighter, off their website. Coverage in the media and on blogs suggests this was done in response to a brief statement by the Organization of the Islamic Conference condemning the game as incendiary and offensive. Turns out things might not be as clear cut as we're being led to believe.

The game, which is still available elsewhere on the internet, pitted all your favourite deities against one another, Mortal Kombat style. According to its makers -- who are also famous for creations such as Oligarchy and Operation: Pedopriest -- it was intended as a satire of the one-way islamophobic satire of those infamous Danish cartoons.

'Natch, this is playing out in the online media as a case of free speech being suppressed as a result of outrage from an islamic group. This Huffington Post article, despite its headline, suggests the reasons for the game being removed are more complicated. Yes, the OIC asked internet service providers to remove the game but it seems it was the game makers themselves who took the game down. According to a statement by Molleindustria:

In few hours this statement generated a way more heated reactions than the release of the game. We are not "bowing to the foundamentalists", we have no sympathy for any religion but we are aware that muslims are victim of widespread racism in the western world. This islamofobia is functional to the imperial interests in Middle East and all over the world. We just want to make clear that the game was not intended to contribute to the media-assisted narrative "islamic world vs freedom of speech".

(Forgive the bad grammar. They're Italian.)

Also of interest are comments by Molleindustria about how a Metro UK journalist may have had a hand in engineering the controversy and then went on to misrepresent the gamemaker's response to it (ie, made their responses up).

Molleindustria's final response seems to be to publish a sequel to the game.

UPDATE (May 1): Faith Fighter is back up on the Molleindustria site. It was apparently only taken down for 24 hours. Paolo, the game's designer, explains his reasoning this way: "In order to reassert control over the DISCOURSE AROUND the game I had to do something that would force the press to refocus on the intention of the game and defuse a potential turmoil based of false assumptions."

That's a clipping from his response to this article on the Play This Thing website. Paolo's comment is the second one after the article and is entitled You're Right It's the Streisand Effect. It's a very good read. He has some interesting things to say about the role of misinformation in creating a false conflict between islam and the west, and he sheds more light on the role of Metro UK in creating this Faith Fighter controversy.

Six in the Morning

Your morning dose of news comes to you today 100% swine-flu free.

1. MAYBE COLBERT IS TOO GOOD: A study from Ohio State University shows that many conservatives think Stephen Colbert is on the level. They think he's funny, sure, but tend to believe he is only pretending to be joking while genuinely meaning what he says. On the other hand, liberals, in general, get that the Colbert schtick is satire. (Huffington Post)

2. AN UNCIVIL BILL: When the Sask Party took power in 2007 and started firing civil servants they perceived as NDPers, few pointed out that severance package payouts could tally up to a hefty bill. Well, turns out they have. Saskatchewan taxpayers are on the hook for upwards of $10 million thanks to that bit of political nastiness. (Leader Post)

3. NORWAY TO BAN GAS CARS: Proving once again that anything worth doing (going to North America, making health care free, wearing pointy helmets) was done first and with a berserker rage by Vikings, the Norwegian government is considering a law to make gasoline-exclusive cars illegal by 2015. (Gas 2.0 blog)

4. LABOUR MARKS DAY OF MOURNING: People gathered outside city hall yesterday to honour those who've been injured or died while working. The International Day of Mourning is an annual event initiated by labour organizations 25 years ago. (Leader Post)

5. MASSIVE CHUNK OF ANTARTICA FALLS OFF: A piece of the Wilkins Ice Shelf the size of New York City has fallen off and become icebergs. This is in addition to 330 square kilometres of ice that broke up earlier this month. Global warming is the suspected culprit although some conservative pundits see in this a sign of God's displeasure with Arlen Spectre's treachery. (Globe and Mail)

6. LIBRARY BOARD ANNOUNCING PLANS FOR CENTRAL BRANCH: As I type, prairie dog editor Stephen Whitworth is at a press conference the Regina Public Library board is holding at which they will be announcing the firm they are retaining to refurbish/rebuild the central branch. More news as it becomes available. (Phone Call from Whitworth)

Murray Mandryk Today

There's a lively column by the L-P's political writer in today's paper. The topic: the Saskatchewan Party government's two-faced monkeyshines on the environmental file. For those who missed the news, last week the Saskatchewan Party said it was scrapping Saskatchewan's greenhouse gas reduction targets and harmonizing with federal targets--despite campaign promises to meet the NDP's 2020 targets. (Links to the Leader-Post)

Mandryk slams the government for saying one thing during the last election campaign, then doing another. Well, duh, there's a surprise. But this news isn't what matters. What matters is Mandryk's extremely entertaining prose.

Mandryk's outrage is a little bit misplaced (then again he's writing one column, not a comprehensive position paper, so cut him some slack, Whitworth). Anyone with a working brain now realizes that conservative politicians are the worst of a really bad bunch on environmental issues.* They don't understand/have contempt for science, they don't value conservation, they ruthlessley attack their critics and they consistently resist attempts to move their countries to sustainable energy systems like solar and wind power.

Bush was a monster. Harper is a monster. And anyone surprised by this just hasn't been paying attention.

It's also problematic that these issues fall under provincial jurisdiction rather than federal. Global warming is't a regional problem and the policy ought to come from the feds.

But I'm blahblahblahing here. Go read Mandryk's column, it's good and fun.


*Don't get me started on the federal Liberals, who should be jailed for their Kyoto failures.

Fulfilling a vow

According to promos we run for this blog in prairie dog, it's supposed to be up-dated daily. None of our other contributors have stepped forward today to honour that committment, so with only 53 minutes left in 4 . 28 . 2009 I've decided to grab the proverbial bull by the horn and post the following. (Canada.com) Riders open training camp June 7, by the way. And if you're grossed out by the accompanying photo, just be glad I had the patience and perseverance to wade through all the Britney, Lindsay and Paris crotch pix to get to it.

Morse the Merrier

Today marked the 218th anniversary of Samuel Morse's birth. For some reason, Google chose to commemorate it with a special graphic replicating the type of dot-dash system he invented to communicate via telegraph. That made me think of another famous Morse -- or, at least, relatively famous. Canadian actor Barry Morse. He's best known for his role as Lt. Philip Gerard in the American drama The Fugitive, but I'll always remember him for his role as Prof. Victor Bergman in the classic SciFi series Space: 1999. (YouTube)