So the Fringe opening party is tonight at Park des Ameriques at the corner of Rachel & St-Laurent. I can’t go cause I’m too busy talking on the phone and drinking coffee like this serene oriental squeeze toy, but you totally should.

I haven’t really heard any buzz about which plays to catch yet, but some non-theatre highlights this year include a Never Surrender fan appreciation show on the 11th, a premiere screening of the fringe movie on the 12th, various performances by the New Humourists and an outdoor concert by Wolf Parade on the 18th. These are all to be held at fringe central Parc des Ameriques, and did I mention they are all free! Wow!

And, returning from last year, is the 13th hour, every night during the fest at 1am at the Bayou (12 Rachel Ouest) where you can catch up with the latest Fringe gossip and get drunk with all the actors and sexy volunteers.

The Fringe takes over the better half of the plateau til the 19th.

Penny Lang‘s house concert saturday was a beautiful thing. Picture twenty or so senior hippies gathered together on a hot night in Verdun, singing along to the songs of peace they used to listen to in the 60′s and bidding farewell to one of Montreal’s great voices as she prepares for a move to the west coast. I swear you could cut the nostalgia with a knife, but it was more sweet than bitter or mournful.

My favourite moment, though, was when the youngest listener there, a little boy likely dragged along by his dad, plopped down next to one of the older women and just started rambling about life as a 4 1/2 year old these days: “I have a darth vader t-shirt and my friend Ben has a darth vader t-shirt and sneakers and we play to see who’s stronger and sometimes when I don’t think I’ll be the strongest I don’t want to play anymore but then I play anyways just for fun”. Right on, kid.

As for Penny, that woman has just got too much soul.

You scored as Postmodernist. Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis.

What is Your World View? (updated)
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I was just reading part of an interesting essay in Harper’s magazine exerpted from a booklet written by Pastors Steve Wilkins and Douglas Wilson. And by interesting of course I mean extremely frightening and offensive. These guys claim that slavery in the south was, and I quote, “a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence. There has never been a multiracial society that has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world.” They go on to insist that abolitionists are ‘patently racist’ for thinking that black people might not be content serving “their white folks” but then continue to say that “civil rights propaganda” is going against the gospel by denying the natural distinctions between the races. They also take a jab at the women’s rights movement by stating that “feminists, in rebellion against God, invert the order of the home…in a way that seeks to rob women of their beauty in submission and their security in being loved”.

I don’t know about you, but this shit makes me hate religion so much sometimes, and I find that really unfortunate.

You can read the whole booklet entitled ‘Southern Slavery, As it was’ here. Apparently this was required reading for ninth graders attending a Christian School in North Carolina up until 2004.