The Commercial vs the Artistic in writing – is there a genuine difference between these two philosophies or are they artifical attributes? Are they in opposition, and if so, can they meet? The difference seems to me very genuine. The error is to think them antithetical. The purely commercial writer writes for the editor. The purely artistic writer writes for… Read more →
Year: 2009
Another One Just For Me
When Youtube dies, this post will be very mysterious in my archives. Read more →
Happy Accidents
That’s “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère” by Édouard Manet. I spent a bit of time thinking about it recently because of a cut-and-paste error. It started when the guys over at SFFAudio pointed out that the podcasts of UCSD lectures are available for a limited time. Their intention was to direct us to quickly grab the MP3s (before the were… Read more →
Closing tabs from last year
You know the drill. I’m skipping the stuff that deals with Bush, Harper, or books, which should get their own posts. I had a weird fascination with Cass Elliot for a while there, primarily as a reaction to how much I was digging her tune California Earthquake. There were some weird side effects of this, from the relatively obvious, like… Read more →
Aside
Wow. Some people are so dumb it would take them an hour to make minute rice. I want to get that site’s customer list so I can do a tour and just slap people upside the head. Or possibly sell them them my air purifying apparatus, which takes advantage of non-commutative loop space in M5-branes to make air vibrationally harmonic.
UPDATE: That page appears to have disappeared, but you can still see some of the madness at the root page of the domain. Or, at lots of other domain names all for the same thing.
The Eldritch Dark
Now as the twilight’s doubtful interval Closes with night’s accomplished certainty, A wizard wind goes crying eerily, And on the wold misshapen shadows crawl, Miming the trees, whose voices climb and fall, Imploring, in Sabbatic ecstacy, The sky where vapor-mounted phantoms flee From the scythed moon impendent over all. Twin veils of covering cloud and silence, thrown Across the movement… Read more →
Some Movie Recommendations
I wrote this up for another online venue, but I might as well put it (lightly edited) here. The idea was to recommend five movies that you think are “good” and that people are less likely to have seen. I chose these: From the Heist/Caper/RomCom Of The Old School pile, I’d choose O’Toole and Hepburn in How To Steal A… Read more →
A few words about “ouch”
Since an online discussion brought this back to my mind today: That’s a habanero pepper. (It’s a close cousin of, and more or less interchangeable with, the scotch bonnet pepper.) For most people in North America, it’s the hottest pepper you can easily get your hands on–indeed, there are probably lots of people who think it’s the hottest pepper, hands… Read more →
How Did I Miss This?
Well, apparently I missed this year’s Massey Lectures. Quite a change from last year, when I was even part of the broadcast, eh? This may be in part because this year’s lecturer was Margaret Atwood, and I have a deep-seated and utterly irrational dislike of the woman. (I’m not saying that it’s irrational to dislike her, just that my particular… Read more →
Aside
No blogging tonight. I got distracted. In fact, I think probably not even enough sleep.
Dude has no fear of CSIS
You know, my feelings about our current PM, and his ideological associates are no secret around these parts, but my ability to rant certainly takes a back seat to that of Canadian SF author, and scientist, Peter WattsWatts has been mentioned here lots of times.. And more than being a better ranter, he appears to have no fear at all… Read more →
New Humanist Religion Trumps
Another of the magazines I pick up every couple of months is New Humanist. I haven’t actually picked up the latest issue yet, but based on checking out their God Trumps piece online, I really do want to try to grab a copy before it’s too late–just in case they’ve got got cardstock versions of these things in the actual… Read more →
I’ll take good news where I can get it
I was… um… unthrilled to read this story in the Globe earlier this week: MP wants to reopen abortion debate December 28, 2008 at 11:59 PM EST WINNIPEG — The abortion debate is about to enter a “new era” of advocacy for the rights of the unborn, says a Conservative MP who recently took over the chairmanship of a secretive,… Read more →
Defamyt, blamyt, schamyt
Boy, that Internet is just full of old bollocks and the utterly fascinating isn’t it? And sometimes the one will lead you right to the other. Take, for example, that article in the Telegraph earlier this week about the American professor who claims that rap battles are a Scottish invention. Or, to be more specific: Professor Ferenc Szasz argued that… Read more →
He dug it
“Don’t play everything (or everytime); let some things go by. Some music just imagined.“More background info here. Read more →
