It drives Susan to distraction that I love B-flicks. She squirms and fidgets if I put one into the DVD player and can seldom sit through an entire movie. They get cut off mid-film, and saved for me some time … Continue reading →
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We just finished watching the 14-part BBC series of Little Dorrit. As usual with most BBC series, it was superbly cast, acted, paced and filmed. Each episode was a mere 30 minutes, and almost every one of them ended in … Continue reading → Malcolm Gladwell introduced the concept of the “10,000-hour rule” in his 2008 book, Outliers. As Wikipedia describes it, “…the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total … Continue reading → I was 8, maybe 9 years old, when my parents gave me a hardcover copy of Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship by Victor Appleton II. Probably a birthday or Xmas present. I can’t recall which. I just recall how … Continue reading → Take one part Brothers Grimm and one part Malory’s Morte d’Artur, add a dash of Tolkein, a pinch of Joan of Arc, a sprinkling of Robin Hood and a sprig of English folklore; mix it in a bowl with copious … Continue reading → Shakespeare’s canon, as it is known today, is incomplete. The Bard is known to have written several plays that were not, for various reasons, included in the First Folio printed shortly after his death. Other plays, several included in the … Continue reading → In the late 1950s, I came across a copy (1912; an original edition, I believe) of Edgar Rice Burrough’s first published novel, Tarzan, The Ape Man, on my parent’s bookshelf in the basement. A forgotten book, one my father had … Continue reading → I spent a pleasant morning, Saturday, browsing through the works of Plato, hunting for the source of a quotation I saw on Facebook, today.* I did several textual searches for words, phrases and quotes on sites that offer his collected … Continue reading → The National Museum of Iraq – known originally as the Baghdad Archaeological Museum – once housed some of the oldest works of literature in the world. Treasures from the origins of civilization, from the cities of Sumeria, Babylon, Assyria were on … Continue reading → In 1923, William Carlos Williams wrote one of the most profound poems in the English language: The Red Wheelbarrow. It reads like a Japanese Zen haiku: so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the … Continue reading → April, wrote T.S. Eliot in his remarkable poem, The Waste Land, is the “cruellest month.”* And not merely because of the inclement and unsettling weather that seems to mix winter with spring in unpredictable doses. Nor for the necessity of … Continue reading → Back in the late 1990s, I wrote an essay about the “controversy” over who actually wrote the works of Shakespeare. I wrote, then, Not everyone agrees that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. The challenge to his authorship isn’t new: for the last … Continue reading → I like Chinese films, particularly the epic wuxia films. They are often a refreshing change from the effects-driven/CGI monstrosities pumped out by Hollywood. Subtitles don’t bother me (better them than dubbed). They remind me of the westerns of the 1950s, … Continue reading → I see this in the classroom and I do my best to prevent it. Uphill battle yes, worth it, yes. A word poem with pictures – listen, watch and learn. Filed under: Arts, Education Tagged: Bullying, Shane Koyczan, Word Poem Been working the last two-and-a-half months on my latest book for Municipal World. A bit of a challenge, actually – trying to combine marketing, branding, advertising, public relations and communications topics into one coherent yet succinct package has been difficult. … Continue reading → Do scroll around and see what your mind is made of. Filed under: Arts Tagged: Floor plan, Subnormality When a friend recently told me he had joined the new Guelph ukulele group, it made me somewhat envious. After all, having a local support-performance-practice-chat-socialize group for any hobby is always great. When your hobby is a passion that requires … Continue reading → He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. That has to rank among the best opening lines in a novel, up there with Dickens’ “It was the best of times…” opening in … Continue reading → I have always liked sandbox stories; tales in which the author could stretch his of her imagination, place ordinary characters into a seemingly normal situation, then see what happened when the conditions were changed.* Sandbox environments are virtual places were … Continue reading → It has been too long since I featured a comic from Subnormality here on DWR. Filed under: Arts Tagged: Subnormality, The Bullied Coming to work today I was listening to the CBC morning news there was the usual doom and gloom, but what was remarkable was the amount of time devoted to telling Canadians about how awesome the commercials were going to be for the Superbowl and the lengths people were going to get the American cable feeds to be able to watch the commercials. To watch the commercials. I think of the amount of creative energy expended to make a mere advertising and despair. The creative genius of our society is not only being flushed down the crapper, but . . . → Read More: Dead Wild Roses: Advertising and the Superbowl – Rant Forgery. It’s something that one normally associates with criminals; passing counterfeit bills, scammers, online pirates, people selling fake relics or fake ID. It’s something I would not normally associate with religion. But it’s a significant problem in the book millions … Continue reading → Music is our great hope, the universal language, and the ultimate unifier. I can appreciate music from 1720 Venice just as easily as I can music from 1970 Toronto. Further, I’ve been doing so since before I could speak. Such is the power of music that distances of 7000 km and 250 years are rendered moot without the slightest effort. Yet, when one does apply effort, the tunnels of discovery are complex and endless. The study of music can reveal an immense amount about the people, the society, the generation, and the human experience involved in its creation. In nothing . . . → Read More: Dead Wild Roses: Virtual Choir – Bringing the World Together in Song Published in 1637, The Art of Worldly Wisdom is a collection of 300 aphorisms about life, behaviour, politics, morality, faith, philosophy and society. One comment, on Amazon.ca called it, somewhat unfairly to Machiavelli, “Machiavelli with a soul.” I have been … Continue reading → There are many books weighing down my bookshelves into soft, drooping curves, but not many of them have the privilege of tenure. Only a handful have travelled with me for more than a couple of decades; a small selection of … Continue reading → |
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