Have I spoken of the Lapham’s Quarterly blog? It’s a fine, fine thing–they take current topical news stories, and link them to something contextual from history to provide a different view, or highlight a particular nuance, etc. A recent piece, contrasts some US election pandering with… well, that would be telling, but anyway you should check it out. The editors… Read more →
Year: 2008
What’s the -philia for books?
…because man I love books. I love the good stories, and I love the well-crafted physical objects as well. Love ’em. So let’s talk about a whole bunch of book-related topics, to give me a book fix. First I’d like to do a little bit of a rant about books as commercial objects. Actually, as I’m intelligent enough to understand… Read more →
Damn I Am Old
Nothing on this year’s Beloit College Mindset List hit me quite as hard as this one: Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born. Damn. Read more →
Indie Artist, multiple media
My pal Danny Michel just whipped up a homemade video for the track “Tell Sally” from his latest album. Check it out. Apparently the budget for making this video was… $9.00. I love living in the age of digital media. Speaking of making art with digital toys, Danny has also made the all the raw tracks from his latest album… Read more →
For the record
Time flies
How is it that four years have gone by so fast? Does it really only take four years to turn a gang-sign throwing newborn into a young lady who uses facepaints to make herself into a tiger? 2004-08-18: 2008-08-18: I found myself at breakfast this morning with the birthday girl, her mom, and her grandfather. During a moment alone with… Read more →
T-shirts from futures past
After four years of wearing only solid colourMostly black, I admit. t-shirts for everyday wear–primarily a habit I developed during my daughter’s infancy, as between her and I several shirts a day were suffering various stains, and I wanted cheap, “hot swappable” clothing–I am starting to pick up a few new interesting printed shirts. (Yes, I have lots of “not… Read more →
Silence Falls On Mecca’s Walls
And now, because I couldn’t turn up a copy of this online todayGoogle so rarely fails me these days, and ironically, once I had looked it up I was able to find a copy with a non-title search. when I wanted to refer to it during a heated discussion of US foreign policy, and I had to go pull out… Read more →
Still more on evolution
I read the drepessing statistic today that only 58% of people across Canada will support the notion of evolution. Actually, it’s 58% more or less consistently across Canada, except in Alberta, our little bit of Jesusland here in the heart of Canada, where the number is 38%. (Note: it’s not an accident that our current minority government of Bush/Cheney style… Read more →
And one last time
If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential — for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never. —Søren Kierkegaard Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking. —John Maynard Keynes… Read more →
And Again
The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of suffering. —Thomas Merton Life is thick sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through. The longer… Read more →
Commonplaces
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. —Edgar Allen Poe Reading furnishes the mind only with material for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. —John Locke, Of Reading Why shouldn’t things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and… Read more →
It’s actually not a joke, although it’s easy to come up with a punchline
I’ve been quick to criticize American history for HUAC, and CoIntelPro, and the general internal espionage of the early FBI, as well not recognizing the lessons of history when they swing around again, so I should probably also point out that we do a lot of the same stuff. As you can see in the story that broke this week… Read more →
They love us, they really love us.
Apparently the insidious KentuckianYeah, I know all you Yanks do this, but I first heard of this foul scheme as being based out of Kentucky. plan of using false Canadian flags while abroad to smear the international reputation of my nation has not worked. Canada takes No. 1 spot in global image poll Canada came out best in a globe-spanning… Read more →
And now, from the “headlines I never expected to see” category…
Knights Templar sue the Pope. Yeah. That’s what I said. The Daily Telegraph reports that The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ has launched a court case in Spain, demanding Pope Benedict “recognise” the seizure of assets worth €100bn. The Spanish-based group of Templars apparently says in a statement: “We are not trying to cause the… Read more →
