Category: Culture

Thoughts about culture; arts, music, writing, sculpture, photography and more.

One Million B.C.(E.)

Creationism / Culture / Film & ReviewsLeave a comment

Loading

You can’t help but chuckle when Tumak runs down the rocky slope to battle the baby Triceratops (about the size of a Sheltie) and ends up rolling in the dirt with the all-too-obvious rubber model. I half-expected it to squeak like a dog toy. It’s just one of the many scenes in the 1940 version of One Million BC that make makes it fun to watch. Corny, yes, cheesy, perhaps. But mostly fun. And it was the top-grossing film of the year; that’s no small accomplishment. The film is basically a Romeo-and-Juliet love story with a happier ending. Throw in ……… click below for more ↓

The slow death of media credibility

Collingwood / Culture / Local media / Media / Municipal Politics / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

Loading

A story in the recent issue of New Republic opens: “A decade of turmoil has left a weakened press vulnerable to political attacks, forced into ethical compromises, and increasingly outstripped by new forms of digital media.” This points to the continuing erosion of public confidence in traditional media. While this piece refers to national (American) and international media, it applies equally to local media – all types. Traditional media has been disappearing under the waves of digital media for the past two decades. In its fight to stay afloat and retain audience, a lot of media outlets have tried to ……… click below for more ↓

Baby, It’s Politically Correct Outside…

Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Culture / Memes; Internet & Social / Poetry & Lyrics / Political correctness gone wild / Political fads / Pop Culture / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

Loading

I must have travelled to another universe because when I awoke, the world had gone mad. Radio stations were pulling a popular, rather over-played, 74-year-old, playful holiday song because some folks thought it was about rape. Sexual assault. Or at least non-consensual sex. The media was full of Chicken Littles screaming that the cultural sky was falling if radio stations continued to play it. The song was subject of weighty opinions on editorial pages. What is going on in this strange, politically correct and apparently unhinged universe? Let me back up. Two items appeared simultaneously on my Facebook timeline this week: ……… click below for more ↓

Astrology: millennials in search of woo hoo

Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pop Culture / Pseudoscience & QuackeryLeave a comment

Loading

“Astrology is not a science; there’s no evidence that one’s zodiac sign actually correlates to personality.” I was disappointed to read that line in a story in The Atlantic, a piece titled, “The New Age of Astrology: In a stressful, data-driven era, many young people find comfort and insight in the zodiac—even if they don’t exactly believe in it.” Disappointed not because it isn’t true – it is: astrology is woo hoo – but rather that writers still feel the need to state the obvious. It’s like a movie reviewer starting with “There’s no evidence that Batman is actually a ……… click below for more ↓

The Mummy, the remake and the re-imagining

Culture / Film & Reviews / Pop CultureLeave a comment

Loading

Nineteen thirty-two. The year Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, was published. The Great Depression was at its worst. Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Pres. Herbert Hoover to become the American president in a landslide win. Gandhi went on a hunger strike. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Eighty-four-year-old Paul von Hindenburg was re-elected president in April, defeating Adolf Hitler. Charles Lindbergh’s 20-month-old son was kidnapped from his New Jersey home. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the first scifi radio show was first aired. Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Fats Waller, ……… click below for more ↓

Dictionary vs Dictionary.com

Books & Reviews / Daily life / Internet & Social Media / Literature / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Reading & Literacy / Style & usage / TV / What I'm Reading Now / Words & etymologyLeave a comment

Loading

Did you know that doxastic is a philosophical adjective relating to an individual’s beliefs? Or that doxorubicin was an antibiotic used in treating leukemia? Or that doxy is a 16th century word for mistress and prostitute? That drack is Australian slang for unattractive or dreary? Drabble means to make wet and dirty in muddy water? A downwarp is a broad depression in the earth’s surface? Drail is a weighted fish hook? Dragonnade means quartering troops on a population while dragonet is a small fish but a dragoman is an interpreter? That a dramaturge is a literary editor on a theatre ……… click below for more ↓

What’s wrong with local media?

Collingwood / Media / Media Issues / PoliticsLeave a comment

Loading

“It’s about trust. Our relationship with our readers is built on transparency, honesty and integrity.” So opens the front-page piece in this weekend’s Connection, titled in all-caps, “Local News Needs Support ‘Now More Than Ever’”. It echoes the theme of”now more than ever” written for National Newspaper Week, Oct. 1-7. And some of it is eerily similar to what Bob Cox wrote about journalism on Oct. 2. Imitation is the sincerest form, I suppose. Apparently the Connection only climbed on board six weeks later. But I suppose it’s better late than… well, no it’s not. At least during National Newspaper ……… click below for more ↓

Relevant poetry

Books & Reviews / Culture / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Poetry & LyricsOne Comment

Loading

I was standing in a bookstore in downtown Toronto a couple of weeks back, and opened The Essential Ginsberg, a collection of poems, songs and other writing by the late Allen Ginsberg, he of Howl fame*. I open the book at random and read the opening Ginsberg’s poem, Capital Air, which starts: I don’t like the government where I live I don’t like dictatorship of the Rich I don’t like bureaucrats telling me what to eat I don’t like Police dogs sniffing around my feet Even though Ginsberg wrote it in 1980, it felt like something he would be writing ……… click below for more ↓

Pollan’s Food fallacies

Books & Reviews / Cooking / Culture / Eating / Food & Drink / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

Loading

“Don’t overlook the oily little fishes,” is rule 32 in Michael Pollan’s small book, “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual” (Penguin Books, 2009). I recently acquired a copy. I’ve read Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and have his In Defence of Food on my shelves for summer reading and have two other titles by him on my wish list. I’ve enjoyed his work so far. Maybe not so much this time around. I am skeptical about any attempt to reduce any subject to a set of basic rules because life is way too complicated for that sort of ideology. I have ……… click below for more ↓

Found in translation

Books & Reviews / Literature / Poetry & Lyrics / What I'm Reading Now3 Comments

Loading

Language translation fascinates me. It’s a mix of language skill, art, interpretation, science and, apparently, divination. Maybe even magic. Going from one language into another is far from a simple step of swapping words in dictionary manner – Flaubert’s le mot juste. Any fool can do that. Hell, even Google can. A single word can be a fulcrum, and the decision to use one word instead of another can utterly change the meaning. I wrote about this in The Municipal Machiavelli. The translator’s choice of even a single word – in that case the choice between the English words ruin ……… click below for more ↓

Those we lost in 2017

Culture / Musings / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

Loading

It’s not just because I’m older that I am reading more of the obituaries than ever in my past. At least, I don’t think so. I seldom read local newspaper obituaries (in part because the delivery here is too sporadic to make it a habit), and I don’t regularly share death notices on social media unless they are of very well known figures. But I do admit I think seem to notice these reports more these days than in years past. It’s not a fear of death, either, just an awareness that it’s closer than it was and that it ……… click below for more ↓

Malory then and now

Books & Reviews / Language & Grammar / Literature / Translations & translating / Typography / What I'm Reading Now / Words & etymologyLeave a comment

Loading

I recently started reading Malory in the original – that is, the language that Caxton printed in. Not the typeface Caxton used, since that would be harder to read, but rendered in a modern serif face. Caxton initially used black letter type (aka gothic) – pretty much all the early printers used it, although each printer had his own dies and styles. However, he did move to a more easily-read, more-rounded typeface by around 1490, a few years after he printed Malory’s book. Still, the early typefaces used in all incunabula take a bit more mental effort to decipher because ……… click below for more ↓

La Bohème at the Galaxy

Arts / Culture / Music & Reviews / Opera & Classical Music / Pop CultureLeave a comment

Loading

Starving bohemian artists living in drafty Paris attics in the mid-19th century, struggling to produce their art, falling in and out of love, sharing and suffering, living and dying, all done while singing. That’s La Bohème in a nutshell. I am embarrassed, even ashamed to admit I’ve never been to the opera. Not to a live performance that is. For someone who has long enjoyed opera as music, and has a fair collection of opera on CD, that’s inexcusable.* I’ve seen a few of the “big” operas on video – I had Madame Butterfly on VHS and still have Boris ……… click below for more ↓

Reading as a forgotten art

Books & Reviews / Culture / Literature / Media / Reading & Literacy / TV / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

Loading

Earlier this month (February, 2018), the Globe & Mail published an essay by author Michael Harris titled, “I have forgotten how to read.” In it, he recounted how he recently tried to read a single chapter of a book, but failed. Frustrated, instead turned to TV: Paragraphs swirled; sentences snapped like twigs; and sentiments bled out. The usual, these days. I drag my vision across the page and process little. Half an hour later, I throw down the book and watch some Netflix. Which, I think, is the poor choice of alternatives. Giving up doesn’t improve the skill set or ……… click below for more ↓

Honderich’s hypocrisy

Canadian Politics / Media / PoliticsOne Comment

Loading

In late January, the Toronto Star published a lengthy opinion piece by board chair John Honderich, titled, “We should all be very concerned by the crisis facing quality journalism.” But just in case you thought this was really just about journalism and not a political screed, there’s the telling subhead: “The Trudeau government has either ignored or rejected virtually all the recommendations proposed to help support newspapers. What particularly stings is that the vast majority would not cost taxpayers anything.”* Honderich is the chair of the board of the TorStar corporation. His Wikipedia page says he worked at the Ottawa ……… click below for more ↓

Back to Top