Category: Personal Reminiscences

Reviewing Godzilla Films

Culture / Film & Reviews / Godzilla / Musings / Pop Culture2 Comments

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To pass the time doing two things I enjoy — writing and watching Godzilla films (and, yes… reading books about Godzilla films…) — I thought I would watch each Godzilla film in order, one per week, starting with the 1954 original, and write a synopsis/review of each one, trying to look at each one from my current perspective and knowledge (no comments about being in my dotage, please). I’m also preparing myself by renewing my knowledge of the franchise in preparation for the 70th-anniversary celebrations coming next year, as well as possibly two new Godzilla films coming out this year ……… click below for more ↓

Reading Animal Fairm

Books & Reviews / Language & Grammar / Musings / Translations & translating / What I'm Reading Now / Words & etymology5 Comments

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Animal Fairm is a 2022 translation into Scots of George Orwell’s classic satire on Stalinist (and in far too many ways, modern conservative) politics and ideology. As the cover of this edition says, it was “translatit intae Scots by Thomas Clark.” I recently purchased the book for my reading entertainment. And quickly discovered it’s so delightful that it makes me want to read more of and learn more about the language. The book is published by Luath Press, in Edinburgh. Scots (no, not Scottish) is a variant of English, but it’s a bit more complicated than that, because it owes ……… click below for more ↓

Not the Chaucer You’re Looking For

Books & Reviews / Chaucer / Classics / Musings / Poetry3 Comments

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I received a couple of new Chaucer books recently and, despite my love of reading Chaucer, frankly, I was disappointed by both. My expectations for both greatly exceeded what little joy I received from them. I was deeply disappointed by both. And I’m here to tell you why. Let me back up a bit, before I get into my reviews. I have a couple of dozen books by or about Chaucer and his language on my bookshelves, which suggests he is a serious interest to me, yet not quite built to the sort of obsession I have with Shakespeare and ……… click below for more ↓

Musings on Haiku

Books about books / Daily life / Literary pretensions / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / PoetryLeave a comment

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I can’t recall just when I first encountered haiku, that subtle, concise and often baffling Japanese poetry, but I suspect it was sometime in the late 1960s, not long after I was first introduced to Buddhism. I recall having the four-volume set of seasonal haiku by Blyth back in those days, but long since gone from my library for reasons I can no longer fathom. I’ve had several other books of haiku on my shelves since then, and turn to them to read now and then, as I do other forms of poetry. I quite enjoy poetry for many reasons, ……… click below for more ↓

Musings on Collecting and Reading ERB

Books & Reviews / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Scifi and fantasy / What I'm Reading Now5 Comments

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As some readers here know, I’ve been a lifelong aficionado of Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB, born 1875), particularly of his Barsoom (Mars) series, but also his Pellucidar and Caspak series. Well, I’ve enjoyed pretty much all of them, including, of course, the iconic Tarzan novels for which he is best known. Okay, maybe not so much his westerns (but then, I was never a fan of that genre). Burroughs wrote about 100 titles (and more information on them is here) between 1912 and his death in 1950. And I have most of them in my collection (and continue to look ……… click below for more ↓

Potato-Onion-Tarragon Bread

Bread & Baking / Daily life / Food & Drink / Personal Reminiscences3 Comments

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I recently hunted through my cookbooks and online for a simple recipe to make a potato-onion bread in my breadmaker machine. While I found quite a few recipes for potato bread, and others for onion bread, I didn’t find any that merged the two. I collected a lot of recipes and got some good ideas for loaves, but nothing was exactly what I wanted to make. So I decided to tweak a recipe from the 300 Best Canadian Bread Machine Recipes cookbook (by Donna Washburn and heather Butt, Robert Rose inc., Toronto, 2012). This book is my go-to recipe book ……… click below for more ↓

Musing on Universal Monsters

Culture / Daily life / Film & Reviews / Godzilla / Musings / Personal Reminiscences3 Comments

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I can’t recall exactly when I watched each of the great original monster films (the classic “Universal Monster” films) — Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, The Mummy, and the rest — some I saw before my teens, others in my very early teens and others throughout the ’60s. And I’ve seen them, their sequels, and many of their knockoffs since, often several times. I have numerous of the films on DVD and Blu-Ray; I sometimes watch them in the late afternoons, while Susan watches BBC and other British shows on our TV. We have a comfortable difference of opinion about what we ……… click below for more ↓

Breadmaker Tales: Blueberry Jam

Bread & Baking / Cooking / Daily life / Food & Drink / Musings2 Comments

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Longtime readers here know that baking bread is one of my passions (Susan might call it an obsession, one of my many), but I’m also I’m a reasonably competent cook (not as good as Susan, but I try…); I make my own fresh pasta and my own pizza, among other dishes. Of late, I have been branching out into new areas. None of them are terribly challenging, but they are new things for me to learn. And being retired, keeping my brain alive by learning new things is important. I’m trying more and different foods and dishes. I enjoy learning ……… click below for more ↓

Books for the Kaiju Aficionado

Film & Reviews / Godzilla / Musings / Pop Culture / What I'm Reading Now2 Comments

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With possibly two new Godzilla films coming to theatres in 2023*, it may be time to refresh your memory and appreciation of the previous films in the franchise. And what better way to do it than with a brand-new book about them? And perhaps re-reading some of the content in your older book and movie collection (especially that Criterion Collection of the first 15 Godzilla films on Blu-Ray — see below — which you can start watching now to build your anticipation for the new films!). Godzilla: The Official Guide to the King of the Monsters was released this week, ……… click below for more ↓

Bread Machine Cookbooks

Books & Reviews / Bread & Baking / Daily life / Musings / What I'm Reading Now4 Comments

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Among my shelves of books on baking bread by hand, is a smaller selection of books about using a bread machine to craft loaves and other items. I admit I’ve been somewhat lax in my creative uses of the bread machine, using it only to bake somewhat plain, whole loaves when I wasn’t up to or able to bake one entirely by hand. The results, I also admit, have been somewhat mixed, in large part because I tend to experiment with ingredients and settings rather than strictly follow recipes (cooking is for me a bit of a science lab…). But ……… click below for more ↓

Real Bread, Slow Dough, Bread Books

Books & Reviews / Bread & Baking / Musings / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Making bread is a small passion of mine, has been for many years as readers here will know*, although the results of my efforts do not always match my optimism. It’s always a bit of a guessing game what will result when I put the dough in the oven. That doesn’t stop me from trying, though, and I thoroughly enjoy the tactile process of making the bread, even if the end result is occasionally more brick-like than loaf-like. There’s something to be said about making bread as mindfulness therapy… Yes, making bread is also therapeutic: it involves focus, freedom from ……… click below for more ↓

Back to Horace

Classics / Musings / Poetry / Poetry & LyricsOne Comment

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During the pandemic lockdowns, I heard a lot of people bemoan their inability to travel; on vacation, to visit relatives, to shop, or just to get out of their homes and see new places. People felt isolated, some went stir-crazy. We are a not merely a culture easily bored with staying in one place: our entire species has wanderlust. Two millennia ago, the poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus — aka Horace — wrote a letter (Epistle I.XI) to his peripatetic friend, Bullatius, a man who travelled the known world looking for contentment. Horace chided him, saying, You can change the colour ……… click below for more ↓

The Science Fiction of Robert Frost

Musings / Poetry / Poetry & Lyrics3 Comments

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Robert Frost was a great American poet, and I’ve enjoyed many of his poems over the decades I’ve been reading poetry. Some are a tad bucolic for my taste, but many also plumb the depths of human emotions so succinctly as to make Frost more universal than simply American. But while he never wrote any science fiction, his words have been used in that genre. Recently I came across a verse in one of Ben Bova’s more recent scifi novels that made me re-appraise and re-read Frost. It was: They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars — ……… click below for more ↓

Yesterday’s Laughs

Culture / Daily life / Family history / Film & Reviews / Musings / Personal Reminiscences3 Comments

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It may be a small conceit to say I was brought up watching the Marx Brothers movies on TV, but there’s some truth in that claim. I remember seeing them on our small, B&W TV set on weekends when my brother and I were allowed to watch the programs of our choice. I also recall seeing the Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and others between the cartoons and kids’ shows in the 1950s and ’60s. The Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy were acceptable comedians in my house because, I suppose, they were somewhat more sophisticated comedy. ……… click below for more ↓

I have filed my papers

Collingwood / Council / Daily life / Municipal elections past4 Comments

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As of today, I am running for a seat on Collingwood Council, in 2022. I will use my new campaign website at www.chadwickforcouncil.ca to publish updates, comments on current issues, policy and position statements, pictures, upcoming events, and other relevant material. As many of you are aware, I served on Collingwood’s council previously, from 2003 to 2014. I would like to contribute my experience and understanding to a collaborative, cooperative council that focuses on the needs of the community first. Collingwood is our home and our community deserves nothing but the best effort from its council. If you would like ……… click below for more ↓

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