Festivities and Fires: A Guide to Getting Through the Holidays in One Piece
It’s the holidays and that means food, family, and tons more ways to get into trouble. I’m here to help. This article is going to be a guide on how to get through the holidays with the least amount of damage to your life, property, and freedom. For the purposes of this article, the laws […]
Don’t Let the Christmas Blues Bring You Down
It’s supposed to be the happiest time of the year. The lights are flashing, the Christmas trees are up and everyone is generally in a great spirit. Most of us reflect with family and friends about how grateful we are that we have them in our lives. We sing Christmas Carols, drink Eggnog and have […]
The Mountains We Climb By Accident: Solid Montreal-Based Storytelling
The Mountains We Climb By Accident, the first novel by Montreal writer, poet and occasoional FTB contributor Dawn McSweeney, is a real treat of a book. It would make a great last-minute Christmas gift for someone who likes well-told stories and supporting local talent. Full disclosure, I’m not just a reader, I was also the […]
FTB Survey: Should/Will Major League Baseball Return to Montreal?
The prospect of Major League Baseball returning to Montreal has gone from one out and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth to runners on first and second, but a rookie coming up to bat. If I bungled that baseball metaphor, it’s because I haven’t really watched that much baseball since the Montreal Expos […]
Don’t Ban Baby It’s Cold Outside
In light of the recent #MeToo Movement, several radio stations removed the duet Baby It’s Cold Outside, a holiday classic, from rotation. Some, like the CBC, later added it back. Critics consider it inappropriate and suggestive of date rape because of a line the woman has: “Say, what’s in this drink?” If you are familiar […]
More Than Just a Gallery: Usine 106U and the Plight of Montreal Artists
Usine 106U is not like other art galleries. It’s not immaculately clean or impeccably organized, and its outer mural is as colourful and eccentric as the art you’ll find within. Located in the Plateau next to the iconic Else’s Pub, the gallery attracts everyone from painters to sculptors to dollmakers and photographers. The gallery’s openings […]
An Intentionally Late Review of Solo: A Star Wars Story
I have grown accustomed to a new Star Wars movie around the holidays. Since there isn’t one this year, what better time to post my really late spoiler-filled review of Solo: A Star Wars Story, which I finally got around to watching about a month ago: This was the first time I had the chance […]
A Step Backward: US Federal Judge Strikes Down Law Banning FGM
November 20, 2018, can be seen as a sad day in the US and for women around the world in the fight against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). A US federal judge Bernard Friedman ruled against banning a practice that harms millions of young women globally. His ruling found a 1996 US federal law banning FGM […]
Untapped, Overqualified, and Underemployed: Quebec Immigrants and the Fight to Recognize Foreign Credentials
Unemployment in Quebec is the lowest it’s been in forty years. Despite this, Quebec has a massive labour shortage and it’s only getting worse. The baby boomers are retiring in ever increasing numbers and they and the generations that followed didn’t have enough children to fill the vacancies they leave behind. The newly elected Coalition […]
Jagmeet Singh Redefining Quebec’s Religious Symbol Ban May Be What the NDP Needs
Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh just put a new face on the opposition to Quebec’s religious symbol ban: his own. In an interview with CBC Radio Montreal’s Daybreak, host Mike Finnerty asked him about the new CAQ government’s promise vigorously enforce a religious symbol ban and fire civil servants (police, teachers, etc.) who wear religious […]
Shining Like the Brightest Star: Producer Noelle Hannibal talks Gender, Theater, and In the Wings Promotions’ Show Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is one of those shows with a cult following. Devotees of Rocky Horror and other Angry Inch fans (called “HedHeads”) love Hedwig for its nods to drag, gender bent characters, humor, queerness and glam rock. The story is at once heart wrenching and inspirational, with catchy tunes that make you […]
Catchy and Uplifting with a Hint of Sex: In the Wings Promotions Presents Hedwig and the Angry Inch
On a chilly night in November at Cabaret Mado in Montreal’s Gay Village, a band takes the stage. At a microphone on one side is a drag king, looking somber and sad as a solitary figure in a cloak covered in stars and stripes walks on stage to the tune of America The Beautiful. Suddenly […]