Santropol Roulant’s Iron Chef Cook-Off

For some inexplicable reason, I’ve been asked to guest-judge at Santropol Roulant’s Iron Chef Cook-Off this Thursday, September 2. I like to eat food, and I think I’m pretty good at it, so maybe that means I’m some kind of expert.

In any event, you should come too, if you happen to be in Montreal. Santropol …

Water Calligraphy

It was late on a chilly March afternoon as I wandered through a small plaza near Houhai Lake in Beijing. The air was struggling to stay above freezing and I shivered in my spring jacket. Looking down, I noticed some Chinese characters drawn in water on the plaza’s grey paving stones. Whoever drew them was long gone; the cool …

Montreal’s Most Overlooked Architectural Gem

My award for the most underlooked gem in Montreal goes to the Jacques Cartier Bridge Building. Built around 1930, it looks like an art deco take on a Moroccan kasbah. The windows are laid out under arches, in straight lines of narrow arrow slits, and some in diagonals. There are even traditional rub el hizb, or Islamic eight-pointed stars, around …

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: Not Quite.

I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World last night and as my series of immediate-reaction tweets indicate, I did not enjoy it. Actually, I did enjoy it until the second half began, where I feel the film goes from being an amazing adaptation to a complete bastardization of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s work.

Before I get into why I …

On Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs

Took a drive into the sprawl / To find the places we used to play

One of rock and roll’s most unfortunate tropes is the belief that it’s a young person’s game, forcing even well-aged acts to write with whatever remaining adolescent voice they have inside of them. At times, it feels like there is infinite space at …

More on Villains

Just a little while ago, I published an article on villains, about how badly written villains are plot twists and not characters, and well-written ones have humanity and motivations, even if they are loathesome.I have just come across a really great example of the kind of precisely worked, humanly rendered, utterly obnoxious fictional jerk I so admire–too bad …

Osheaga Recap Part Deux

Osheaga Recap

How does Montreal’s Osheaga festival do it?

Look, it’s not perfect. Yes, there certainly could have been more washrooms on-site for Saturday. Yes, the food and water could be cheaper. Yes, you have to put up with a crapload of corporate sponsorship.

But who else in Canada has been able to not only pull off, but grow and …