Nikki Glaser has a lot on her plate. In addition to her stand-up and writing gigs, the New York comedienne is a popular tweeter and posts a hilarious Instagram photo stream of people slacking off on the subway. She also hosts a podcast, “You Had to Be There,”with collaborator Sara Schaefer, which MTV recently optioned as a talk show called The Nikki and Sara Show, to air starting in February 2013.
Ryoji Ikeda might not be on your radar, but he probably should be. Born in Japan,
the artist and composer now lives in Paris, where he crafts the haunting, rhythmic,
sometimes ear-splitting sculptural sonic masterpieces that have made him an icon
in the sound art and experimental music scenes, with a healthy crossover into the
world of high-brow visual arts. His pieces combine raw sounds, sine waves, white
noise and electronic bleeps, often alongside high-tech visual renderings and light
sculptures, in order to offer perspective on the ongoing digitization of our world.
This exhibit, curated by John Zeppetelli, is the first major survey and retrospective
of the artist in North America, running here and in Toronto. It includes elements
from Ikeda’s ongoing project, “datamatics,” which employs video, sculpture, new
media and, of course, sound to explore how data shapes our understanding of the
world around us. It deploys a system for converting any information into binary
codes and barcodes, revealing how easily material life slides into digitization.
For the uninitiated or justifiably confused, MEG (Montreal Electronique Groove) is a nine-day festival of eclectic music programming. Now in its 13th year, MEG has long parted with its initial, strictly electronic mandate and presents a wide variety of emerging artists in an equally diverse range of venues.
Norwegian crime flick Jackpot and British comedy Black Pond our latest picks.
First Position Until my late teens I was dancing five times a week, so watching First Position brought back vivid memories, both good and bad, of high-pressure ballet exams and competitions. Over the course of a year, filmmaker Bess Kargman (also a former bun-head) followed half a dozen ballet wannabes between the ages of 9 and 19 vying […]
When you’re a big game studio backed by a rich publisher, it’s a given you’ll release your game on as many platforms as possible. When you’re two-man (down from the original three) local indie studio Tribute Games, bringing your breakout indie hit Wizorb to XBox Live Indie Games marketplace, Mac, PC, Linux, Steam, and as of today the PlayStation Mini family (meaning PS3, PSP and PS Vita), is no easy task.
Tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders rose to prominence as John Coltrane’s late-period sparring partner, appearing on peak 1965–67 Trane recordings including Meditations, Ascension and his last Olatunji concert. Following Coltrane’s passing, Sanders kept the tradition alive with LPs of his own ensembles through the early ’70s, notably the superb Izipho Zam. But what did Sanders do prior to 1965 to attract Coltrane’s attention in the first place? This four-CD box set answers that question, with three sessions led by Don Cherry, Paul Bley and Sun Ra, and another dedicated to Sanders’ first session as leader.
At some point, every guy is told that he has to man up. Manning up, of course, can mean any number of things: putting on a suit, shaving with a blade, supporting a family by way of a grim office job, confronting a rival. For me, manning up meant watching UFC 148 at a sports bar two weeks ago. UFC, for the uninitiated, stands for Ultimate Fighting Championship. Its first event was held in 1993, presumably to answer one of the great existential questions of the day: Who would win in a fight — a kickboxer or a sumo wrestler? Matches, as you might imagine, were brutal and bloody. They instantly became the stuff of pay-per-view television legend.
Take a walk in the Village, on Ste-Catherine east of Berri, in all its pedestrian-friendly summertime splendour.
Check out the Canadian debut (en français) of the cutest little marsupial, from the director who brought you Astérix et Obélix. Cinéma Excentris (3536 St-Laurent), 7 p.m., $11
Save some bucks at Cheapie Tuesday (and movie theatre A/C) and catch the new Batman movie for what, the sixth time since its premiere last Friday? Just admit it.
For something less intense and more old-fashioned (and free!), see this year’s Oscar-sweeper The Artist outdoors in the Quartier des Spectacles. Vidéotron stage (on Jeanne-Mance just south of de Maisonneuve), 9 p.m.
ROC rocks! See Calgary producer/singer-songwriter Chad VanGaalen and Halifax indie dudes Cousins. Il Motore (179 Jean-Talon W.), 9 p.m., $17
It’s hard getting dressed in the morning when all you have to look forward to is wearing that ill-fitting yet strangely comfortable $6 t-shirt you picked up at Old Navy. Quality clothing is often associated with high cost, but not so, says Rosemary Hosson, a clothing designer and the emcee for two years running at Take Off Your Clothes, the annual massive clothing swap at Place-des-Arts.
