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Canada’s most famous Indigenous playwright, Tomson Highway, sets his latest theatrical achievement, The (Post) Mistress, in a not-so-distant past, when sending letters through the mail was still vital to communicating with friends and loved ones, and the small-town post office was often the only connection to faraway places longed-for or imagined.
Born and raised in Lovely, Ontario, a small French-Canadian farming village near Lake Huron, Marie-Louise Painchaud has never had occasion to venture much farther than the nearest community – Complexity, a copper-mining town and a somewhat larger dot on the map of the Georgia Bay area. For thirty years, Marie-Louise has worked at the local post office, and, through the many letters she sorts when they arrive and the ones that she stamps before they go out, she has come to know the lives of everyone in town and vicariously experience their various loves, losses, and personal dramas.
In this one-woman musical tour de force, Marie-Louise confides in us the interwoven stories sealed in the envelopes she handles every day. A samba beat offers the soundtrack for the tale of a local woman’s passion- ate but doomed affair with a man from Rio de Janeiro; a rhythmic tango plays as Marie-Louise divulges a friend’s steamy tryst in Argentina. All together, twelve unique musical pieces, ranging from Berlin cabaret to French café chanson to smooth bossa nova, accompany a multilingual French, Cree, and English libretto.
In The (Post) Mistress, Tomson Highway creates not only a rural comedy but also a sublime parody of small-town life – the northern Ontario version of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town or Stephen Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.
Cast of 1 woman.
Music from The (Post) Mistress is available at http://goo.gl/ivtwqA
Richard Crouse, film critic and host of television’s award-winning Reel to Real takes you on a journey through 70 years of cinema history, choosing his favorite overlooked films.
From the sublime – Monsoon Wedding – to the ridiculous – Eegah! The Name Written in Blood – The 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen covers a wide spectrum of films from the 1930s through to 2000s. Complementing the reviews are detailed descriptions of the movie’s plots, trivia, and interviews with the actors and filmmakers. Featured interviews include Bill Wyman discussing a little known Rolling Stones documentary, schlockmeister Lloyd Kaufman detailing the history of his most famous character, The Toxic Avenger, reclusive writer/director Hampton Fancher on his film The Minus Man and B-movie hero Bruce Campbell on playing Elvis Presley in Bubba Ho-Tep. Crouse also includes sidebars of top 10 lists, including favorite legal disclaimers (“All characters portrayed in this film are entirely fictitious and bare resemblance to anyone living or dead, except for one”) and favorite quotes (“I once thought I had mono for an entire year. Turns out I was just really bored.”)
If you’re a fan of off-beat cinema, or just looking for something different to rent the next time you go to the video store, The 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen is the perfect book for you.
A long-awaited history of this important Canadian regiment, The 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot in the War of 1812 looks at this military unit from its beginnings in the early days of the 19th century to its disbanding in 1817. Best known for its perilous Winter March through the wilderness of New Brunswick to the battlefields of Upper Canada, the 104th was a British unit whose early role in the War of 1812 was to defend the Maritimes. In 1813, it was ordered to Upper Canada and took part in a raid on the American naval base at Sackets Harbor, New York. From there, they were sent to the Niagara Peninsula and fought in the Battle of Beaver Dams. Returning to Kingston, parts of the regiment fought in the Battle of Lundy’s Lane and took part in the siege of Fort Erie, during which their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel William Drummond, was killed. The 104th fought its last action at Lyon’s Creek in October 1815. The end of the war in 1815 saw the regiment in Montreal, where it disbanded in 1817.
Although styled as a New Brunswick regiment, it drew its members from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Upper and Lower Canada, England, Scotland, and Ireland. The story of the 104th can be seen as a truly national endeavour, whereby “British Americans” in British North America, and Britons alike, defended those colonies from foreign aggression. After the war, many of the veterans remained in British North America and helped to build what would eventually become Canada. Today there are a few memorials, a bridge named in the regiment’s honour, and a few artifacts, but the story of the 104th has largely been forgotten. The bicentenary of the War of 1812 has revived interest in this regiment — the only regular regiment of the British Army to be raised and employed on this continent during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. This history of the 104th relies upon period correspondence, reports, diaries, and journals to describe the exploits of this famous unit.
The 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot in the War of 1812 is volume 21 of the New Brunswick Military Heritage Series.
A no-holds-barred, definitive look at the greatest pro wrestlers ever
Who were the best pro wrestlers of all time? What makes these 50 remarkable performers so special, and what were their contributions to the massively popular spectacle of wrestling? The 50 Greatest Pro Wrestlers of All Time has the answers. Bestselling author Larry Matysik shoots from the hip about who qualifies as the very best in history.
The complexity of choosing and ranking the 50 finest from a strong group of talented candidates also reveals a secondary tale about the evolution of pro wrestling and how this unique sport operates. This sure-to-be-controversial list and Matysik’s keen insights form a detailed, entertaining, and enlightening description of sports entertainment through the history of its legends.
A new and expanded version of Gord Hill’s seminal illustrated history of Indigenous struggles in the Americas.
When it was first published in 2010, The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book was heralded as a groundbreaking illustrated history of Indigenous activism and resistance in the Americas over the previous 500 years, from contact to present day. Eleven years later, author and artist Gord Hill has revised and expanded the book, which is now available in colour for the first time.
The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book powerfully portrays flashpoints in history when Indigenous peoples have risen up and fought back against colonizers and other oppressors. Events depicted include the the Spanish conquest of the Aztec, Mayan and Inca empires; the 1680 Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico; the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890; the resistance of the Great Plains peoples in the 19th century; and more recently, the Idle No More protests supporting Indigenous sovereignty and rights in 2012 and 2013, and the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. Canadian events depicted include the Oka crisis in 1990, the Grand River land dispute between Six Nations and the Government of Canada in 2006, and the Wet’suwet’en anti-pipeline protests in 2020.
With strong, plain language and evocative illustrations, this revised and expanded edition of The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book reveals the tenacity and perseverance of Indigenous peoples as they endured 500-plus years of genocide, massacre, torture, rape, displacement, and assimilation: a necessary antidote to conventional histories of the Americas.
The book includes a foreword by Pamela Palmater, a Mi’kmaq lawyer, professor, and political commentator.
“One day, not long ago, I was kidnapped by a bitter but fun-loving South Korean art collector named Mr. Jackie Lin who had been burned one too many times by art forgers and wanted a bit of revenge.”
So begins The Abduction of Seven Forgers, a brilliant and immensely entertaining novel with a colourful and unforgettable cast of characters. A group of artists are brought together under mysterious circumstances to a leafy London suburb. Once there, they are taken hostage by Mr. Lin, an angry art collector who demands that they create original works that will replace the forgeries he has obtained from each of them in the past.
Over the following days, the hostages discover that a twelve-year-old boy is hiding in crawl spaces behind the walls, and they agree to continue to keep him hidden from Mr. Lin. But things become immensely more complicated once Mr. Lin’s daughter appears, purportedly to learn from the forgers—there may be more to Mr. Lin’s artistic plan than first meets the eye.
With dazzling inventiveness, Sean Dixon explores the power of art, both in its creation and its acquisition, and creates a vivid world where artworks can—and do—come to life. The Abduction of Seven Forgers brings together the artistic obsession of The Goldfinch, the stakes of Bel Canto, and the intelligent imagination demonstrated by Yann Martel and David Mitchell, with a flair that is all Sean Dixon’s own.
Based on the novel by Bruce Allen Powe, The Aberhart Summer is a dark "coming of age" story where desperation, secrets, and tragedy affect the lives of the people in an Edmonton neighbourhood during the Depression. A mystery, a comedy, and a gripping look at Alberta history.
The Absence of Zero is a triumphantly-executed celebration of the long poem tradition. Consisting of 256 16-line quartets, and 34 free-form interruptions, this slow-moving haunting work is a beautiful example of thinking in language, a meditation that explores time and memory in both content and form. The 20th century is already more than 20 years past: The Absence of Zero is Kolewe’s elegy to that era, and the disparate fragments of its ideas that continue to affect and disrupt our present.
Cats, dogs, people — funny and heartbreaking stories from a pet veterinarian
With insight and humor, Dr. Philipp Schott shares tales from the unlikely path he took into his career of veterinary science and anecdotes from his successful small-animal clinic. Dr. Schott brings to his writing the benefit of many years of expertise. Wisdom he imparts on readers includes the best way to give your cat a pill, how to prevent your very handy dog from opening a fridge, and how to handle your fish when it has half-swallowed another.
Through these and other experiences, Dr. Schott also learned that veterinary medicine is as much, if not more, about the people as it is the animals. And he will have you laughing and crying as you embark on this journey of discovery with him.
From the street, New Westminster’s Hollywood Hospital didn’t look like much – just a rambling white mansion, mostly obscured behind the holly trees from which it took its name.
But, between 1957 and 1968, it was the site of more than 6000 supervised acid trips, as part of the burgeoning (and controversial) field of psychedelic psychiatry. Under the care of Medical Director J Ross MacLean, and ex-spy/researcher Al “Captain Trips” Hubbard, it became a mecca for alcoholics, anxiety patients, and unhappy couples (as well as celebrities like Andy Williams), its unorthodox methods boasting a success rate of nearly 80%. But the same media attention that brought the hospital to prominence also assured its downfall, as prohibition forces drove their work underground for more than 50 years.
Written by 49.2 regular Jesse Donaldson and academic historian Erika Dyck, The Acid Room takes readers into the hospital’s inner sanctum, charting its meteoric rise and fall as it opened up brave new worlds in medicine, and put Canada at the forefront of a movement that is only now being fully explored.
Ever since legendary hockey broadcaster Foster Hewitt’s “He shoots, he scores!” Canadian kids have been lacing up their skates, grabbing their hockey gear and heading out to the rink to see what they can do. Caraway Kim’s quest in The Adventures of Caraway Kim … Right Wing is to become the top goal scorer on his hockey team. He is highly motivated, skilled but not the rough and tumble kind of hockey player who dominates the ice. And, of course, there is such a player on his team – Bradley Rooks – a bigger, stronger, older rival who seems to dominate play and the puck and seems certain to take the crown. What Brandley Rooks doesn’t know is that Kim is truly a student of the game and when the curved stick becomes the latest innovation in hockey, Kim adopts “the secret weapon” revolutionizing the game.
The on-ice and off-ice action of boys is everything we have come to expect from a Truckey novel. The rivalries, humour, and dialogue ring as true as the sound of a puck off a goal post. And it’s not just that Kim’s curved stick gives him a advantage that allows him to compete with his tough and delinquent team-mate, Brad, it’s his genuine love of the game that gives him the championship edge.
The Adventures of Caraway Kim … Southpaw is a classic adventure story for boys. Set in a small Alberta town during a freer more adventurous time, this novel avoids the sentimental perspectives and the clichés of the genre by realistically capturing the quirks and inherent behaviours that make boys the amazing creatures they are.
During a carefree summer, Kim discovers that he must clear his name after being blamed for starting a riot that caused the destruction of a historical (haunted) house. From baseball games, to scout camp, to the annual fair, Kim and his friends are never far from adventure and excitement, and the reader is always held close to the action and the mystery that revs the story.
Truckey_s sense of place, his catch-phrases, the boys_ games, their quirky teases all ring with authenticity. So, too, do the mishaps that humorously torment kids on the cusp of adolescence. With honest and direct dialogue and skilful visual descriptions, Truckey reminds us that he is a screenwriter who knows how to engage an audience.
Book one in a new playful and trope-bending mystery series featuring a queer, nameless amateur detective.
“Candas Jane Dorsey’s terrific mysteries are what would happen if Raymond Chandler and Frank N. Furter collaborated on cozies and the heroine were a pansexual private detective with heart, smarts, and a T-shirt saying MASCARA IS THE NEW NOIR.” — Sarah Smith, author of the New York Times Notable Book The Vanished Child.
Rescued from torpor and poverty by the need to help a good friend deal with the murder of her beloved granddaughter, our downsized-social-worker protagonist and her cat, Bunnywit, are jolted into a harsh, street-wise world of sex, lies, and betrayal, to which they respond with irony, wit, intelligence (except for the cat), and tenacity. With judicious use of the Oxford comma, pop culture trivia, common mystery tropes, and a keen eye for deceit, our protagonist swaggers through the mean streets of — yes, a Canadian city! — and discovers that what seems at first to be just a grotty little street killing is actually the surface of a grandiose and glittering set of criminal schemes.
Zoe Du Plessis’s story unfolds against the backdrop of 1996 South Africa, caught in the turmoil of the transition from the Apartheid regime to the first democratically elected black government. A paleoanthropologist at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, her world collapses when her lover and colleague, Dario Oldani, is killed during a fatal carjacking.
Clinging to her late companion’s memory, Zoe sets off to the merciless Kalahari Desert to continue his fieldwork. It’s the beginning of an inner journey during which Zoe comes to terms with her sense of guilt as a privileged white Afrikaner while also confronting a secret that has hung over her family for generations. During a brief visit back home, Zoe meets an unlikely lover in Kurt, a legendary South African writer with a troubled past.
The conclusion spirals the reader into a new perspective, where atonement seems to be inextricably linked to an act of creative imagination.