The other day, my fried JP of Ottawa doom metal band Loviatar posted a link to this Calgary Herald article about changes to federal regulations related to foreign performance artists planning on entering Canada. And it's scary insane. Without getting hyperbolic about it, I actually echo JP's concern that this just might send Canada's indie arts scenes back to the dark ages.
Last year, I had the opportunity to interview Montreal author Kathleen Winter for the podcast we were doing back then. I'd brought her a kombucha mother, I left with some amazing kimchi kale which she felt was too sharp-tasting but which in fact was delicious. It was a sweet, awesome time, spent with her at her house. We started in the kitchen surrounded by the wonderful smells of the apple pies she'd just baked and eventually moved to the living room when her plummer came by to fix the sink. We spoke for about an hour about her personal blog and artistic practice, her thoughts on file sharing, her return from an epiphanic trip in northern Quebec and her novel Annabel - the story of a child with both male and female sexual characteristics, growing up in late 60s Labrador. And guess what - Annabel has just been translated into Hebrew!
