Shakespeare Changed Everything

Arts / Books & Reviews / Culture / Pop Culture / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

Loading

I have been reading an entertaining little book called How Shakespeare Changed Everything, which, as the title suggests, is about the pervasive influence the Bard has had on pretty much everything in our lives ever since he started putting quill to paper. Stephen Marche’s book was described in the NatPost as a, “sprightly, erudite sampling of Shakespeare’s influence on absolutely everything.” Reviewer Robert Cushman isn’t always that laudatory about all of Marche’s claims, however. He concludes the book is full of, …rash generalizations balanced by elegant insights. Rightly, he links Shakespeare’s frankness about sex to our own; wrongly, he asserts ……… click below for more ↓

Too Many Books?

Books & Reviews / Culture / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

Loading

Tim Parks* wrote an intriguing essay in the New York Review of Books last week with that title. My first thought on seeing it was to wonder if one can ever have too many books. But of course, Parks – an author himself  – is looking at the bigger picture, not the ever-growing collection that clutters my bookshelves and litters my house. He asks: Is there a relationship between the quantity of books available to us, the ease with which they can be written and published, and our reading experience? I worked in book publishing as both an editor and ……… click below for more ↓

Rethinking John Carter

Film & Reviews / Pop Culture / Scifi and fantasyOne Comment

Loading

After recently going through the first five of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 11 Barsoom books, I decided to give the 2012 Disney film, John Carter, another viewing. This two-hour-eleven-minute film bombed at the box office, and when I first saw it, I was deeply disappointed. But on reflection after a second viewing, it isn’t all that bad. It’s not great, but it deserves a better rating than it received, and it wears well in a second viewing. It isn’t quite the Barsoom I grew up with, true, but it borrows heavily from Burroughs, enough to make it a close cousin in ……… click below for more ↓

We Need a Different Integrity Commissioner

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviourOne Comment

Loading

Monday night’s council meeting again underscored why the town needs someone new in the role of integrity commissioner. Lawyer Robert Swayze presented his report about a complaint filed against councillor Deb Doherty and it was accepted by council in a recorded 6-2 vote*. But his report shared the same flaws his previous report about former Deputy Mayor Lloyd had, and kudos to the two (mayor Cooper and Coun. Lloyd) for rejecting it. The IC’s report was presented to the public (and thus to the media) before it was presented to the council member (Doherty) about whom it had been made. The ……… click below for more ↓

Musical Sources

Culture / Music & Reviews / Musical Instruments / Ukulele: instruments & musicLeave a comment

Loading

Trying learn a song from an old songbook or sheet music can be difficult unless you already know how the song goes. Many of our group are introduced to the music in our songbook only through my version when I play in at our meetings. And, I admit, my version may not always reflect the original accurately. It’s good to be able to hear the song so you can  appreciate how it is arranged and where the chord changes will be. Here are a few of the online resources I recommend, you can go to where music from the 1920s and 30s ……… click below for more ↓

Defining Classical Music

Culture / Language & Grammar / Music & ReviewsLeave a comment

Loading

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3SBzmDxGk] I listen to classical music a lot, even more than before since the arrival of the new classical FM station in Collingwood. But while my listening at home is through a selected collection of CDs, the content played on radio – internet radio included – is more eclectic. Airplay often includes soundtracks, music from musicals, even some modern pieces (the other day I heard a well-known tenor singing a somewhat romanticized version of Besame Mucho in Spanish, with orchestral backup). While I don’t object to this mix – in fact I enjoy it most of the time – it did ……… click below for more ↓

Another TEOTWAWKI

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Christianity / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Faith2 Comments

Loading

TEOTWAWKI – The End Of The World As We Know It – has been predicted ever since humans looked up in wonder at the sky and decided it was peopled with invisible beings. Beings who wanted to do us harm, it seems. And as quickly as we people the sky, there developed an industry predicting when they would harm us, which soon led to the invention of the cash register. Wikipedia has a long list of dates predicted for the end of the world over the last two millennia. So far, every prophecy has been wrong. But because we’re here ……… click below for more ↓

Rest In Peace, Mary Chadwick

History & Biography / Personal ReminiscencesOne Comment

Loading

Mary Mabel Bernice Chadwick passed away quietly in the morning of April 13, 2015 in her room in the Tony Stacey Veterans’ Care Centre. She had awakened that morning, and spoke briefly to staff, but nodded off shortly after. She never awoke. She was 95 years old and lived a full, rich life, one of remarkable resilience and strength. Mary was born shortly after WWI, and grew up in Canada during the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression and the years of recovery that followed. But then war came back. She was a young woman when WWII broke out. She soon followed the ……… click below for more ↓

Lovecraft’s Tales of Terror

Books & Reviews / Personal Reminiscences / Scifi and fantasy / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

Loading

No new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace. Ex Oblivione, 1921. Along with Edgar Rice Burroughs, my teenage reading covered a lot of genres, but I gravitated to scifi and fantasy. Fantasy in those days didn’t offer the same overflowing bookshelves of cookie-cutter tales we find in today’s bookstores. But they took me out of the miseries and difficulties of my little world so easily that I made the effort to find them. Back then, fantasy was an addendum to the scifi section. You often had to hunt for the rare titles in stores and libraries where ……… click below for more ↓

Master Shih Te’s Words

Buddhism / Poetry & Lyrics / Politics / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

Loading

I see a lot of silly folks who claim their own small spine’s Sumeru, the sacred mountain that supports the universe. Piss ants, gnawing away at a noble tree, with never a doubt about their strength. They chew up a couple of Sutras, and pass themselves off as Masters. Let them hurry and repent. From now on no more foolishness. This is poem XI* from Master Shih Te, a hermit on Cold Mountain; contemporary of and close friend to the Tang dynasty poet, Han Shan. This verse is translated by J. P. Seaton from his book, Cold Mountain Poems (Shambhala, Boston, ……… click below for more ↓

Spring Breads

Bread & Baking / Food & Drink / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

Loading

It’s been a while since I wrote about baking bread. During the election campaign last fall, my baking was sidetracked somewhat, but I did manage to get a few loaves in. Last month I got back to baking in earnest. However, along the way, I ignored my levain and it went off. I had to toss it, and have not yet started a new one. The loaf on the right is the last one I made with my levain. It was good and crusty, with a great acidic taste, so I need to restore a levain to get that flavour ……… click below for more ↓

Cold Camembert, Collingwood Style

Canadian Politics / Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Municipal Politics / Politics5 Comments

Loading

Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth made comments last week about how awful it is to eat normal airplane food as an excuse why she billed more sumptuous meals to her taxpayer-funded expense account. Cold camembert and broken crackers, she whined, were not acceptable breakfast fare for the likes of a Senator. As the NatPost quoted her: “There are a couple of times when my assistant put in for a breakfast when I was on a plane, and they say I should have not claimed because I should have eaten that breakfast… Those breakfasts are pretty awful. If you want ice-cold Camembert with broken crackers, ……… click below for more ↓

Ontario’s Assault on Health Care

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Critical Thinking / Provincial Politics / Pseudoscience & QuackeryLeave a comment

Loading

Earlier this month, the Ontario government took a shot at real medicine when it became the first province in Canada to regulate homeopathy. What the government should have done, if it had any real concern about our collective health or our health care system, is ban it. Instead, although it at first seemed an April Fool’s joke, on April 1 the Wynne government announced legislation that will do nothing but legitimize and help spread this dangerous pseudoscience. Clearly this was a political move,  since it is not motivated by scientific, medical or health-related concerns (nor, apparently information informed by actual science or ……… click below for more ↓

ERB and Barsoom

Personal Reminiscences / Scifi and fantasy / What I'm Reading Now3 Comments

Loading

Tara of Helium rose from the pile of silks and soft furs upon which she had been reclining, stretched her lithe body languidly, and crossed toward the center of the room, where, above a large table, a bronze disc depended from the low ceiling. Her carriage was that of health and physical perfection—the effortless harmony of faultless coordination. A scarf of silken gossamer crossing over one shoulder was wrapped about her body; her black hair was piled high upon her head. With a wooden stick she tapped upon the bronze disc, lightly, and presently the summons was answered by a ……… click below for more ↓

Gated Communities

Collingwood / Council / Development & GrowthLeave a comment

Loading

I’m not a big fan of gated communities, but even if I don’t personally want to live in one myself, I understand the reason for them, and sympathize with homeowners in those zones. Apartments are basically gated towers that restrict access to residents or keyholders and no one complains that they isolate the residents. Few people who live in one would welcome strangers walking up and down their halls. If a home owner in other parts of town has the right to fence in his or her property and keep people out or otherwise restrict access, then why shouldn’t a part ……… click below for more ↓

Back to Top