Wanda Waterman is a poet, spoken word artist, blogger, cultural journalist, and digital nomad. She’s been writing regularly for The Voice Magazine since 2004, not long after she began studying psychology at Athabasca. Her poetry has been published in Descant, The Talking Leaves, Chizine, Our Times, The Best of Tigertail, and Pottersfield Portfolio and her articles in Design is Political, Rawckus Magazine, Coastal Life, The New Internationalist, This Magazine, and in her blog, The Mindful Bard. She grew up in Nova Scotia, but after having lived in New Hampshire and North Africa she’s now settled in Montreal.
Film: Le Bonheur Writer: Agnès Varda Director: Agnès Varda “Yes! Got it! This is a happy family! Can we move to the next scene, please?” Viewing hundreds of fast-paced Hollywood films with machine gun editing does tend to spoil one for thoughtful films. Besides, some of the more arty films appear to pride themselves on… Read more »
Thanks to the Internet, access to pornography is faster and easier now than it’s ever been, which means that porn has branched out into ever weirder incarnations as users seek out more and more varied configurations of the cheap thrill. This can be seen as a normal development on the one hand, or a threat… Read more »
By the time I heard Rachid Taha and his band perform at the Olympia Theatre in Montreal, Id come to see musical syncretismthe mixing of various genresas an operating principle in music, something that music really couldnt do without. Syncretism: The way of all music From the dawn of history musical traditions have been developing… Read more »
A while ago we brought you some tips on how to live on a shoestring during your student years. These tips come compliments of the art world, where (at least in theory), passion for ones work supersedes avaricea circumstance compelling artists to pinch pennies like there wont be any more next week, which is often… Read more »
If you want to discern the secret ache of the Arab heart, you need look no further than the song “Aïcha,” co-written and sung by the iconic Algerian singer who popularized raï music, Cheb Khaled. In the year of its release, 1996, “Aïcha” topped the charts in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and France, and… Read more »
What do the rich and powerful do when family members need mental health care? If youre as ignorant of the lives of the upper crust as yours truly, the first image that comes to mind might be that of Rochesters first wife (in Charlotte Brontës 1847 novel Jane Eyre), shut off in one wing of… Read more »
At the edge of the world A series of bizarre and unforeseen events found me, on New Years’ Day, 2015, standing at the edge of the Sahara Desert. I stood, gazing, spellbound, over golden canyons radiant with the phantoms of the vegetation that had once thrived there and echoing the voices of peoples who’d traversed… Read more »
I know it’s only one of many factors, but I’m wondering if the American education system being seriously in decline helped Donald Trump convince so many working-class voters that he would work for their interests? What if I’d told Mr. Jamieson, my grade 11 political science teacher, that I believed a Republican would honour a… Read more »
And now to backtrack just a little, to just before the dawn of the Arab Spring. I was first drawn to Moroccan music in 2009 while reading The No-Nonsense Guide to World Music, by Louise Gray (Gray, 2009). Gray chose a thoroughly postmodern structure by building her book around the most moving and influential musical… Read more »
