Culture
Of monsters and men
Local author Andrew Hood delves into the gritty side of small-town Ontario in his debut short story collection Pardon Our Monsters
The title piece in Andrew Hood’s Pardon Our Monsters is arguably the most misanthropic story in what is an unabashedly misanthropic collection. The tale features a ...
We come in peace: Montreal’s Alien8 recordings
Talk of the Montreal indie sound that pioneered in the early 2000s by bands such as The Unicorns has been rendered acutely obsolete. Online dissemination has made this ...
Lost at the movies
Annual film series at the Goethe Institut places contemporary German film in dialogue with the country’s cinematic past
It’s been nearly half a century since the signing of the Oberhausen Manifesto, the proclamation that sparked a new wave of bold experimentation in German film – and ...
The fictions of soft and easy death
David Rieff, son of Susan Sontag, remembers his mother’s final struggle with leukemia in a new memoir
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” David Rieff quotes Joan Didion in the memoir of his mother’s death. Rieff is the son of Susan Sontag, an author, ...
Chefs are the new DJs
Montreal chef Nantha Kumar spices things up at Plateau restaurant Cash and Curry
“I was offered to go cook on a fucking boat for rich guys,” Nantha Kumar says. “I was also supposed to go cook for Jean-Claude van Damme.” He shrugs. “Working on ...
Tapeworms and collective memory just don’t mix
Nadine Gordimer fails to reinvigorate her pet themes in her new short story collection
Upon receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991 for her commitment to politics in fiction, Nadine Gordimer was described by the Nobel association as one “who ...
No access to Asia at fusion fest
Expat Asian artists fall short as cultural ambassadors of their motherlands
Remember two months ago, the day the internet lost its collective shit over pseudo-Soweto poppers Vampire Weekend? While you were out dancing, bloggers everywhere ...
The weakest line
Montreal’s Throw Slam Poetry Collective merges camaraderie and competition
When I heard about the Throw Slam Poetry Collective, a group of poets and spoken word artists in Montreal, I was intrigued. Not knowing very much about poetry slams ...
My girlfriend George (short for Georgina) pulls on some stockings. They’re black, with little red hearts on them. Her coworker gave them to her. “She got them as a kind ...
In the spot light
Amelia Schonbek delves into the dance scene in The Daily’s final installment on Montreal tastemakers
Rumour has it that in 1970, when Fernand Nault asked Ludmilla Chiraeff, founder of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, for permission to choreograph a ballet for the company ...
Show business is such a drag
The Daily’s Whitney Mallett gets the inside scoop on the Montreal drag queen scene
If Cher could turn back time, she would find herself in a period when drag was dominated by copycat Chers, Madonnas, and Barbara Streisands. However, in the early ...
All hail Duchess Says
Montreal band Duchess Says can command the party without a full command of the English language
Raucous shows, keytar riffage, and their own religious cult: dance punk darlings Duchess Says certainly have all the makings of Montreal’s Next Big Thing. Now, with ...
An anxiety-inducing read
Patricia Pearson’s personal narratives won’t put your mind at ease
The melting snow, sunlight, and fresh springtime smell convinced me to start reading Patricia Pearson’s A Brief History of Anxiety: Yours and Mine outdoors. I sat on ...
Goodbye lovely Mile End
A Silver Mt. Zion helped make their neighbourhood the cultural Mecca it is today. On their new album, they do something unexpected – apologize.
“I live by the railroad/I don’t get no sleep/Four corners resplendent/with indie rock creeps,” Efrim Menuck growls on A Silver Mt. Zion’s new album, 13 Blues for ...
Remembrance of times past: This is Montreal!
There’s something tragic about monuments built to an optimism that faded decades ago. The Soviet Union’s contribution to Expo ‘67, for instance: a large, concrete ...