It's tough to try and find the right words to promote something with 'Reality TV' in the description without giving off those same really awful vibes I feel when someone mentions Jersey Shore. And yet the latest project from Montreal live art collective MAP (Mind, Action, and Personality) has inspired me to write something quite positive about the Third Episode of their reality-tv series (named MAP: Season One), showing this Friday @ the Mainline Theatre at 9:00pm.

Fresh off her recent stint with En Masse at Nuit Blanche 2011, Midnight Poutine Guest contributor Cheryl Voisine is back in town and out to cover what's good in the Montreal Art Scene. Last weekend, she set out to cover the first ever ANIMAZE festival, and this is how she felt about it.

The more I think about Animaze, the more I wonder why it took so long for someone to arrive at the concept. As children, we loved animation, thrived on it, learned valuable life lessons through it. But somehow along the path to adulthood most of us left it behind. The festival itself is designed to reignite our passion by unveiling the grittier, sexier, and more intricate side of modern adult animation. Animaze was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see animations that are hard to come by in North America, and may never be shown again in theatres.

Just three shorts month ago I moved to Point St. Charles, the mysterious neighbourhood bordering Verdun and St. Henri. I say mysterious because as a non-Montreal native, I literally knew nothing about the area (other than the rent is insanely cheap, hence my decision to move there). After some Wikipedia articles and some bike rides, I discovered The Point to be a lot like it's neighbouring boroughs; very pretty, very quiet, and sometimes kind of unsafe looking.

In comes the announcement for a book launch on my RSS feed for Kathy Dobson's first novel, With a Closed Fist: Growing up in Canada's toughest neighbourhood, a book promising to details life in The Point back in it's blue collar Irish class days. Eager to learn about my new surroundings, I gave it a shot.

Last night, M83 rocked la SAT (Société des Arts Technologiques) along with Active Child to finish off the M for Montreal festival, whose first few days were closely covered by MP's own Katelyn (click here for Day 1 and here for Day 2).

Playing music from his latest album Midnight City, M83 (Anthony Gonzalez) and his band offered a steady dose of electronic synth tunes, along with a bit more rock sound than usual for him. They actually added a ton of drumming to some of the better tracks off Midnight City, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. It made the set feel very much jump-around-rock-the-house, rather than sit-there-and-dream-about-space-flight, but appropriately so considering how intimate la SAT can be when full (and it was definitely full). We missed Active Child's set unfortunately, but from what I heard they were equally as galactic.

Fresh off her recent stint with En Masse at Nuit Blanche 2011, Midnight Poutine Guest contributor Cheryl Voisine is back in town and out to cover what's good in the Montreal Art Scene. This week, she's out covering the first ever Animaze Animation Festival.

As an illustrator, the world of animation holds a warm spot in my heart. Considering the large amount of inspiration it has provided me over the years I was thrilled to hear about the Animaze Animation Festival taking place this coming weekend at Cinéma du Parc (Friday) as well as Concordia (Saturday & Sunday). This is a great opportunity for cartoon lovers to relive their childhood years and bridge the gap towards adult contemporary animation. Basically, if you're tired of Disney and Pixar and you want something more than your average cartoon, this is for you.

This Saturday will mark the 61st annual Santa Claus Parade in Montréal, a.k.a. Le Défilé du Père Noel. Since a Santa Claus parade only provides so much material for blogging purposes, this article will include two things: 1) the details necessary for you to attend/watch the parade, and 2) photos from the 2008 parade accompanied by my personal commentary.