By Autumn Fox How many people do you know can claim Yo-Yo Ma taught them the cello in their after-school music class? Be it through movies, cartoons, lullabies, parents, older siblings, or an in-person tutorial with Yo-Yo Ma himself, early exposure…

Malpaiso With the ongoing SAG-ACTRA and Writer’s Guild strikes likely to cause a dearth of new movies or television series in the coming months, Calgarians would be well advised to take their search for quality content to the streets, taking…

A listener could be forgiven for assuming, based on exactly the first minute of Into the Night, track one of Shane Ghostkeeper’s new solo album, Songs For My People, that this might be his most ambitious, esoteric and experimental work yet. The…

Arts • Film It’s hard not to automatically associate the seedier side of things with the term “adult theatre.” Neon matinees shrieking “PEEP SHOW” and “LIVE! NUDE! GIRLS!” on a smoky New York street, as leather-jacketed, bell-bottomed, late night…

Arts • Festival • Music After a series of pandemic-related false starts resulting in a cancelled 2021 festival, and a revised format, multi-weekend festival in April 2022, Calgary’s BIG Winter Classic is back in a big way for 2023, with a stacked…

Arts • Festival • Film • Screen Meet Me In the Bathroom, the documentarized version of Lizzy Goodman’s 2017 oral archive of the late ’90s/early aughts trajectory of New York rock ‘n’ roll revivalists like The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the…

Arts • Music Upon first listen, Calgary’s own Preoccupations could easily have named Arrangements, their fourth studio album, Auspices instead. Even the band’s own name change from the controversial Viet Cong to Preoccupations would have been justly…

Around the same time Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! was experiencing serious episodes of gender dysphoria, Social Distortion played Calgary’s MacEwan Ballroom. A guy in a suit was getting picked on in the crowd when frontman Mike Ness stopped the…

Festival • Music I turn my camera on, but Britt Daniel does not. The Spoon frontman’s publicist insisted upon a Zoom interview, so I’m momentarily thrown when I realize the next 24 minutes and 46 seconds will be spent interviewing someone embodied…

Apropos of their name, Calgary duo Sargeant X Comrade are elusive and cagey, reluctant to divulge their mission in music, not unlike a Cold War military operation. Their social media presence would have you believe they're a soul food restaurant, and…

For years, Rick Mercer would smirk gleefuly into the camera as his popular vox pop segment on This Hour Has 22 Minutes would take to the streets, lampooning everyday Americans, university professors, U.S. senators and even George W. Bush into…

Arts • Lifestyle • Visual Arts The Czech have a euphemism for orgasm, Už budu, which roughly translates to: “I will be,” a rather Cartesian interpretation of an act perhaps more commonly known for its peak of completion, rather than a confirmation of…

While Gen Z and millennials duke it out over skinny jeans, some things remain perpetually cool. Like a tricked out, vintage boogie van. You can see it in the envious looks of almost anyone who passes one on the street. There’s just something about…

As the needle edges ever closer to "normal" and our lives steadily begin to resemble those of the beforetimes, many individuals, businesses and organizations have found some of the urgent and necessary pivots made in the last 16 months remain…

After a year of caution-taped playgrounds, off-and-on extracurriculars, and limited-at-best physical education, Calgary kids are desperately ready to shake off the cobwebs and move freely in the world once again. For Geoff Snider, founder and CEO of…

It is jarring now, as a viewer, to watch a musician standing in a darkened auditorium, facing an audience of none. How long has it actually been since Albertans have seen a stage? That moment must have been every bit as overwhelming for Calgary…

Festival • Screen Most horror film aficionados are familiar with the “final girl” trope. She’s the unlikely hero. The one who confronts the monster and lives to tell the tale. Bloodthirsty, set to feature at this year’s Calgary Underground Film…

The Black Cathedral by Marcial Gala Translated by Anna Kushner English edition 2020 Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Fiction) Do not, even for one moment, enter The Black Cathedral, imagining the Cuba of your all-inclusive dreams. With jovial hawkers and…

There’s a certain amount of pride and self-satisfaction in taking on a D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) project - something many Calgarians were wont to do, especially during early COVID lockdowns. For Calgary artists Caitlind r.c. Brown and Wayne Garrett,…

Alberta-born Joni Mitchell sang it best: "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone," and that could not ring more true for Calgary's arts community. Yet, despite unprecedented loss, many major Calgary fine arts organizations are facing an…