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- Mike Parker

First off, we’re giving away two free tickets to the Ani DiFranco show Jan. 25 in Fredericton, so tune in for your chance to win!

Then we’ll chat with architect John Leroux about architecture in Saint John. Though he lives in Fredericton he takes great interest in our city. He recently wrote an in-depth article about the world-class architect who is designing the proposed Irving building on the waterfront. Leroux has also been critical of the city’s plan to bury the steps of the Saint John Arts Centre in the proposed Peel Plaza development. He’s giving a public lecture about Saint John architecture Friday evening at Inprint Bookstore on King St.

Last but not least, we’ll interview Graeme Walker from Olympic Symphonium. The Fredericton-based trio will perform with Isaac and Blewett on Saturday night in Saint John. Walker, a Saint John native, will talk about their upcoming touring season, which includes an appearance at the Olympics in late February.

Tune in at 6:30 pm, Thursday, on CFMH 107.3 FM.

If you can’t tune into tonight’s show, but want to hear Biggar play some tunes and chat about his music, you can listen to the podcast here. You’ll also find video clips along the right side of this page.

Saint John has long had highly visible pieces of public art. The Hooper statues in Market Square and now at the foot of King Street come immediately to mind. So does Claude Roussell’s “Progression” on the front of the city hall building.

But it wasn’t until I took a trip to Prague in 2004 that I fully appreciated how public art transforms a cityscape. There the playful works of David Cerny captured my attention as I wandered city streets and cast my eye over the skyline. Two works in particular stood out.

One is called The Pissing Men, located in a centrally located public square. Two full-size sculpted men face each other, standing in an encased pool of water the shape of the territory of Czech Republic. They are fountains except that the water comes out through the penis rather than the mouth or some other opening.

Another Cerny work is called Tower Babies. A communist-era television tower dominates the Prague skline, marring the skyline of a city celebrated for its architectural heritage. Cerny designed giant sculpted, faceless babies in the crawling position. They were placed on the towers and can seen scaling it from a great distance.

These pieces are playful in nature, but are also communtaries on czech culture and politics.

I came back from that trip with a renewed appreciation for the place of public art in Saint John – be it the Hooper sculptures, or the murals of famous Saint Johners on the wall of Thandi’s restaurant on Cantebruy Street.

Happily, we now seem to be going through a renaissance in public art, thanks in part to a new city policy that sets money for public art at the site of new city buildings.

Earlier this year, Peter Powning designed a giant stainless steel bolt for the new Saint John Energy building on the west side. Powing’s bolt is visible from the highway.

And just last week, local architects Monica Adair and Stephen Kopp unvieled their work, ‘In Transit,’ which is located outside the new Saint John Transit building on the city’s east side.

On tonight’s show we’ll speak with them about their new work, which consists of a series a colourful aluminum panels along the cement retaining wall outside the new station. We also spoke with Chris Lloyd, a Saint John born artist living in Montreal, about the cultural significance of public art in our cities.

Listen to the full episode here.

Perhaps fitting for Saint John, Starbucks first opened a stand-alone, box-store-style outlet on the east side - a striking departure from their urban roots on big-city street corners. It comes as no surprise then that they would open uptown in a mall, rather than in an historic building with a street view. I spent this afternoon marking papers in the new outlet in Brunswick Square. Note to Randy and Glen: A loyal Java Moose person, I promise I won’t go to Starbucks during the week, and I’ll stop going at all if you open the Prince William Java Moose Sunday afternoons. - Mark Leger

Liberty represents nationally recognized musicians Jay Semko and Matt Anderson; locally he manages emerging musicians like Mike Biggar and Babette Hayward, both of whom played live on Serf City in the past year. He’s staged many memorable shows here, two of them featuring multiple ECMA award-winner Joel Plaskett. We spoke with Jeff on the December 3 edition of the show, which also happened to be Jeff’s 4oth birthday! Listen to that interview here.

Serf City also congratulates Jessica Rhaye and Stephanie Mainville, who were also nominated for ECMAs. Rhaye was nominated for best Folk Recording, Solo Female Artist and Visual Artist. Mainville was nominated for best Pop Recording.  - Mark Leger

By Mark Leger

Last Friday, I led a workshop with women from Saint John’s low-income neighbourhoods. We were talking about how get media outlets to do stories on initiatives that would improve the lives of people living below the poverty line.

They aired a list of long-standing complaints against a provincial government that made it harder for them to get off social assistance and back into the workforce.

If you’re on social assistance, for example, you get health coverage for prescription drugs, dental work and eye care. If you get a job, you lose the coverage after a year. This is a big deal because most low-wage, entry level jobs have a health plan for employees.

If you and a friend are both collecting social assistance, you’re not allowed to live together. This makes life difficult because assistance rates are often not high enough to help get your life on track by paying down debts, saving money and covering day-to-day living expenses.

So here we have two impediments to living a comfortable, secure life, things most of us take for granted – adequate health coverage and economic stability.

Just as we were talking through some of these challenges as a group, Brenda Murphy walked into the room. Brenda is the director of the Urban Core Support Network, the organization that set up the workshop.

She had just come from a poverty reduction forum organized by the province that included representatives from the business community, non-profit sector, government and people living in low-income neighbourhoods.

As a group, they proposed sweeping changes to the social assistance system – from income supports, to housing rights for people rooming houses, to education and employment initiatives – changes that would address many of the issues raised by the women in our session that day.

And guess what? Rather than brush them aside or make vague promise of future reform, the government committed itself to rectifying long-standing problems with the system, including the health card and housing policies.

Some the changes would take place immediately and some implemented by the spring.

As Brenda began to list the many reforms, people in the room were both happy and a little taken aback by the swift action to fix longstanding complaints.

On tonight’s show, we’re going to hear from one of the neighbourhood residents who took part in last week’s forum at the Trade and Convention Centre.

Juanita Black is a resident of Crescent Valley and a longtime community activist. She is the coordinator of Around the Block, a community paper serving the city’s low-income neighbourhoods.

I stopped by her home earlier this week for a chat. I started our conversation by asking about which reforms she considered to most important.

Listen to that interview here.