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You will remember her—singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan was born in Halifax, studied music from the age of four, started winning singing awards not much later, and was offered her first major record deal at seventeen. Throughout the nineties, she won a boatload of Grammys and Junos for her albums Solace, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, and Surfacing, and she founded and headlined the all-female music festival Lilith Fair. In 2006, she starred in the SPCA’s iconic commercial that broke all our hearts and raised millions, and soon after founded a music school for under-served children. Musician, actor and writer Kris Demeanor joins us for our first live show, in Calgary, where McLachlan proves a controversial figure, arousing every possible feeling, and making us “feel those feelings hard.” Some of us appreciate McLachlan more than others, but whether you’re a fan or not, surrender sweetly to our conversation about Canada’s mid-tempo ballad queen! If you enjoy Sweater Weather, consider supporting the show on Patreon. Patrons get early access to new episodes and other perks. And with your support, you'll help Sweater Weather last all year round! Join us Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022 for the first ever live recording of the Sweater Weather podcast, 7pm at The Rose and Crown Pub in Calgary! Naomi and Aaron will delve into the life and music of singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan. And if you're not already swooning in the arms of an angel, we'll be joined in our discussion by musician, actor and writer Kris Demeanor. Tickets are free, but seats are limited, so reserve your spot ASAP at our Eventbrite page. The Rose and Crown will be offering food and drink service during the show. Recording begins shortly after 7 pm, so please arrive by 7 pm. In episode 28, we revisit the antics of shock comic Tom Green. In the early nineties, Green rose to local Ottawa fame with a rap album, a radio show, and a program on public-access television. In 1998, The Tom Green Show gained a national following on the Canadian Comedy Network, and in 1999 it jumped to the American big time on MTV. Green was the network’s golden/meat-covered boy, a box office success in the films Road Trip (2000) and Charlie’s Angels (2000)—before being waylaid by testicular cancer, a short-lived marriage to actress Drew Barrymore, and the critical lambasting of his directorial debut, Freddy Got Fingered (2001). How did Green develop his innovative comedic methods? Why have some parts of his shtick aged like a fine wine, and others like a dead moose? Did his family ever forgive him for that stunt with his grandmother and the dildos? Also, Naomi remembers Tom razzing her as a teen on the not-so-mean streets of downtown Ottawa. If you enjoy Sweater Weather, consider supporting the show on Patreon. Patrons get early access to new episodes and other perks. And with your support, you'll help Sweater Weather last all year round! Screenwriter Abdul Malik (Peace by Chocolate, CTV’s Transplant) joins us to talk about Atom Egoyan’s 1997 film, The Sweet Hereafter, one of Canada’s most celebrated movies and the pinnacle of the Toronto New Wave moment. We revisit the melancholic, majestic, and morally compromised town of Sam Dent, a fictional community in BC’s interior that has lost almost all its children to a school-bus crash. Ian Holm plays a carpet-bagging lawyer with his own emotional baggage, while Sarah Polley portrays a young girl who survives both the bus accident and her father’s abuse. In this stark winter landscape, we warm to Egoyan's elegant filmmaking but are left cold by his moralizing vision. Should The Sweet Hereafter still be celebrated 25 years later? If you enjoy Sweater Weather, consider supporting the show on Patreon. Patrons get early access to new episodes and other perks. And with your support, you'll help Sweater Weather last all year round! We've got one question for you, Sweater Wearers: Are You Afraid of the Dark? This Montreal-produced kids' horror series aired on YTV in Canada, on Nickelodeon in the US, and on networks around the world—including in Norway, where our special guest, poet Tasnuva Hayden, eagerly watched every Saturday night circa 1992. We light the proverbial campfire and toss some metaphorical magic powder on the flames before discussing some stand-out episodes. There's one about dead Aunt Dora, an elegant equestrian from the 1950s who possesses her 16-year-old niece and makes her speak with a mid-Atlantic accent; another about a clown named Zeebo with a dangerous cigar addiction who teaches a kid named Josh a thing or two about stealing other people's red foam noses. We admire the show for its adventurous teens sneaking off into the woods, lament the disturbing creeps lurking around every corner, and wonder what scares kids these days. It's "The Tale of the Twenty-Sixth Episode of Sweater Weather"—submitted for your approval! Find out more about Tasnuva Hayden's new book, An Orchid Astronomy. If you enjoy Sweater Weather, consider supporting the show on Patreon. Patrons get early access to new episodes, bonus content, and other perks. And with your support, you'll help Sweater Weather last all year round!
From high school improv with Seth Rogen in Vancouver, to a spot on the CBC classic This Hour Has 22 Minutes, to his Comedy Central series Nathan For You, Nathan Fielder’s comedic vision has expanded from silly, semi-cruel satire to mirror-funhouse meta-reality TV. We discuss his latest, the HBO docu-comedy The Rehearsal, and ask whether it’s "reality" and whether it's comedy, whether his methods are immoral or merely show us our own dark, TV-shaped hearts, and whether Fielder, a former magician, has just pulled off a brilliant sleight of hand.
If you enjoy Sweater Weather, consider supporting the show on Patreon. Patrons get early access to new episodes, bonus content, and other perks. And with your support, you'll help Sweater Weather last all year round!
Today we’re talking about the novel that named a generation. In 1991, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Vancouver author and visual artist Douglas Coupland became a sleeper hit, an objet d’art that no student living room could do without. How, exactly, did this awkwardly floppy book manage to capture the zeitgeist of twenty-somethings struggling to find meaning in the shadow of the Boomers? What were its influences and what cultural floodgates did it open? Is it a good novel? Also, Aaron remembers an unfortunate youthful encounter with Douglas Coupland at the Canadian embassy in Paris.
If you enjoy Sweater Weather, consider supporting the show on Patreon. Patrons get early access to new episodes, bonus content, and other perks. And with your support, you'll help Sweater Weather last all year round!
Isn't it ironic that we finally decided to cover this essential Canadian artist? Alanis Morissette was one of the most successful musicians of the 1990s, selling 33 million copies of her album Jagged Little Pill. We trace her career from child actor to international rock superstar to Instagram mom. We consider the mass appeal of her music, with its cathartic rage, ear-wormy melodies, and therapeutic confessions. What does Morissette's popularity say about Generation X and the older Millenials who make up her fan base, past and present? Wait a minute...how is any of this "ironic"?
If you enjoy Sweater Weather, consider supporting the show on Patreon. Patrons get early access to new episodes, bonus content, and other perks. And with your support, you'll help Sweater Weather last all year round!
Naomi and Aaron speedboat through the CBC family adventure show Danger Bay (1984-1990). We discuss the show's infinite animal menagerie, its 1980s environmentalism, and the protagonist, Dr. Grant Roberts, who is both a Professional-Class Hero and Dad of the Year. We also rehearse our favourite lines of dialogue from Danger Bay, including Doc Roberts shouting, "We need a lactating otter!"
If you like what we do, consider supporting the show on Patreon. Patrons get early access to new episodes, bonus content, and other perks!
Inspired by the recently released sixth season of The Kids in the Hall, Naomi and Aaron talk about this legendary sketch comedy show (1988-1995). We discuss the Kids' paths to becoming comic actors, and how the show was too dark for us to appreciate when we were kids ourselves. We breakdown some of their most notorious sketches, including Cabbage Head and the Chicken Lady, and pay special attention to their unfairly maligned feature film, Brain Candy (1996), which is actually very good! Finally, we consider the dangers of nostalgia and decide that we'll do it anyway.
If you like what we do, consider supporting the show on Patreon. Patrons get early access to new episodes, bonus content, and other perks!
Aaron and Naomi talk about the classic teen drama Degrassi Junior High (1987-1989) and its immediate sequel, Degrassi High (1989-1991). We discuss the show's fascinating production history, our vivid memories of watching it as kids, and the labour conditions for the actors. We also dig into the details of one of our favourite episodes, "The All Nighter," and even re-enact a scene. You won't want to miss Naomi's uncanny Melanie impression!
If you like what we do, consider supporting the show on Patreon. Patrons get early access to new episodes, bonus content, and other perks! How Leonard Cohen's life and art was shaped by the Cold War. Plus, the political uses of his most famous song, "Hallelujah."
Cabins and cottages have come to represent summer in Canada--even though most Canadians spend the summer in hot cities. What does the fascination with cabins and cottages reveal about class, inequality and colonization in Canada?
This episode we welcome Tonya Davidson, a sociologist at Carleton University and co-editor of the essay collection Seasonal Sociology (University of Toronto Press, 2020). We discuss her essay in that book "Summer in Cottage Country."
I’m joined once again by my friends from the Alberta Advantage podcast: Joël, Clinton and Karen. We conclude our epic discussion of FUBAR, the classic Canadian and Calgarian comedy franchise, by discussing FUBAR II: Balls to the Wall (2010) in which our protagonists, Terry and Dean, head up to Fort McMurray to work in the oil sands, as well as the TV Series FUBAR: Age of Computer (2017), when the boys try to make a go of it in the online economy. The struggles of Terry and Dean as working class men really come to the fore in these latter two installments of FUBAR.
This is part 2 of our discussion of the FUBAR franchise. To see part 1, check out our last episode.
I'm joined by my podcast comrades from the Alberta Advantage: Clinton, Joël and Karen, for a deep dive into the classic Canadian and Calgarian comedy franchise FUBAR! It’s been nearly 20 years since the first FUBAR film (2002) introduced us to the endearing headbangers Terry and Dean. In our discussion we appreciate FUBAR’s depiction of working-class life and its wicked humour. And of course, we ponder what it really means to give'r.
This is the first of two episodes dedicated to the FUBAR franchise. Keep your eyes peeled for our next release when we discuss the sequel, FUBAR 2 (2010), and the TV series FUBAR: Age of Computer (2017). I talk with author and journalist Marcello Di Cintio about taxi drivers and the working class's cultural visibility. This is a clip from a longer interview. Find the full interview with Marcello here.
I talk to author and journalist Marcello Di Cintio about the people who drive cab for a living. He tells their stories in his fascinating new book, Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers (Biblioasis Books, 2021).
I asked Leah Cameron, creator of the CBC Gem comedy The Communist's Daughter, about the politics of laughter.
On today's episode, I talk to Leah Cameron, a television writer in Toronto. She is the creator, director and head writer of The Communist’s Daughter, a comedy series loosely based on her left-wing family in Toronto in 1989, now available on CBC Gem.
This is episode 14 of Sweater Weather with Aaron Giovannone. Tom Wayman, professor emeritus at the University of Calgary and the author of over 20 books, reads his poem, “O Calgary.” It’s a beautiful work in which the city becomes symbolic of a value system and a way of life under capitalism. "O Calgary" was published in Poetry, the world's most prestigious English-language poetry publication, and it appears in Wayman's recent book, Watching a Man Break a Dog's Back (Harbour Publishing). |
Sweater Weather is a podcast about Canadian arts & culture, co-hosted by Aaron Giovannone & Naomi K. Lewis. You can find the show on all major video, audio & social media platforms. If you enjoy Sweater Weather, consider supporting us on Patreon. Patrons get early access to new episodes & other perks! Support
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November 2022
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