Year: 2008

Sunday Night Gallimaufry

You know the drill, this is the miscellaneous tab closing ceremony. Since I’m tired of politics today, there will be none in this list. I have had several discussions about this recent article on a particular form of elective surgery. All that I can conclude from these discussions is that I have different aesthetic than many of the people I’ve… Read more →

Aside

So, I didn’t get the complete and utter McCain meltdown or doddering that I was hoping for, but if the numbers at MediaCurves are right Obama grabbed the biggest slice of the undecideds on every issue. That makes me feel better.

I like Art

I also the The Arts. Of course I’m an elitist liberal scum, but this just gives me one more reason to despise Stephen Harper. I could rant, but let’s let George at BookNinja do it instead, since he’s so good at it: First, he tried to set up arts and culture producers, from dance companies to music groups to writers… Read more →

A Disorganized Office Is A Sign Of…

Did you see any of the new stories about John Jost and teams’s forthcoming research paper? The one about how “behavioural residue” can be used to predict political leanings? “Conservative rooms tended to be cleaner, more brightly lit, better organized, less cluttered, and also more conventional and ordinary in terms of decoration,” Jost said during a panel discussion on “The… Read more →

Spreading The Word On Harper

A surprising number of people have asked me why I am so strongly opposed to Harper and his lot getting a majority government. It’s like they weren’t paying attention. I would think that anyone who has had their eyes open for the last eight years would have had an object lesson already in what happens when you give a bunch… Read more →

SF Authors Say Smart Things: Speaking Of Wisdom…

You know what I’m tried of? Cynicism that blocks honest attempts to improve the situation. People trying to seem soooo “plugged in” and “been around the block” by acting like shock and anger are inappropriate and even childish reactions to deplorable, illegal, and occasionally reprehenisble behaviour. I could try to make this thought clear, but since immensely talented writer Emma… Read more →

Aside

“I always thought that inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.” That’s one of many, many tidbits to be found at the site for Andrew Zuckerman’s new book, Wisdom. Go there. Watch the clip. Then see if you can resist the urge to buy the book.

Screen Reading

“The inclination to read a huge Victorian novel, the capacity to untangle a metaphor in a line of verse, the desire to study and emulate a distant historical figure, the urge to ponder a concept such as Heidegger’s ontic-ontological difference over and over and around and around until it breaks through as a transformative insight — those dispositions melt away… Read more →

The Bricklayer’s Lament

The first time I encountered the Bricklayer’s Lament was in the 400 Bar in Minneapolis. Todd Menton had just played a set with a backing band consisting of a digeridoo and two tubas<ComicBrogue>”Two tubas. Two tubas are magic.”</ComicBrogue>. At some point after the set–possibly as part of the encore, although the years and the Guinness that night have conspired to… Read more →

Diverse practyk in many sundry werkes

My goal is to redefine the whole history of rhyme ‘Cause the only way to free the soul is to free the mind And no wisdom as old as this should be confined To total mystery, so we’ll just read the signs And DaVinci codes, and try to see the science In this linguistically-composed pristine design –extracted from Rhyme Renaissance… Read more →

Lazy Omnivore Post

Yes, that’s right, I’m going to the meme well again. This time for Andrew Wheeler’s Omnivore’s Hundred (which I’ve seen a lot of places, but first saw at the other Andrew Wheeler’s blog.). I think the “expected” result, in so far as there is one, is that people would find there are lots and lots things that they haven’t tried,… Read more →

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada
This work by Chris McLaren is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada.