Tag: beautiful things

An eclectic bit of bookery

It’s been a while since I closed the various “book stuff” tabs, so let’s take a run through those, shall we? I came to this by the Lord Dunsany connection, but I don’t think you need to be on that page at all to enjoy H. E. Gowers’ HASCHISCH HALLUCINATIONS, posted over at the blog of master-designer-and-artist-of-the-eldritch John Coulthart. I’ve… Read more →

Keep Hitting Play

I like to think of myself as pretty musically eclectic: it’s not so much that I like one category of music or another, but rather that I like the good stuff. Which leads to lots of pockets of music that appeal to me throughout the entire space of music. There are areas I’ve kind of shied away from for one… Read more →

Birthday Present

Well, my big birthday present actually materialized today, so I guess I have to finally draw this year’s festivities to a close–I managed to stretch it out pretty well, but didn’t quite make it to a week. And what was that “big present” you may be asking–well, it’s the result of a collaboration between Dr. Wife and my best pal.… Read more →

Her Eyes Alone Are A 500 Page Novel

“The real voyage of discovery consists of not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” If I am recalling correctly, that’s a Proust line. I’ve always liked that formulation–it ties into both what I think one of the main points of travel isto help you see home properly, and into that Zen-ish notion of trying to always come… Read more →

Book Porn

Yesterday was a marvelous mail day at the McLaren household. Through a confluence of mail karma–or possibly because our mailman seems to be skipping a day whenever he gets bored with the route–I had several books arrive from several different publishers. This will consequently be one long post full of book porn. If you’re not interested in small presses and… Read more →

The Sky

After having lived in Nova Scotia for eight years now, I take most things in stride. However, there’s one area in which I seem to have kept my beginner’s mind: appreciating the sky. The sky here never lets me down–at least not on the days you can actually see it. Several times a week I am literally stopped in my… Read more →

My moment of Zen

Instead of focusing on the imminent end of my vacation, I chose–very explicitly–to enjoy the day as completely as possible. This was made somewhat easy by the fact that this morning I was able to sleep in until I awoke naturallyI can count the number of times this has happened since I became a parent on the fingers of one… Read more →

Monday Night Miscellany

Like real-time strategy games? Like science fiction? How about a real-time strategy game where you (and your units) can time travel. Imagine sending future units back to fight alongside themselves against an enemy in the past… you thought keeping track of your units and tech tree was a headache, wait for the fourth dimension. Maybe before you get too interested… Read more →

The Warrior’s Lament

Today I ordered a copy of Possibilities, an EP by Sierra Noble. I’d never heard of the ridiculously young Métis from Manitoba prior to today–which actually kind of surprises me–but as soon as I encountered her on the web today I knew I was going to buy the album. What I encountered today (indirectly, via Penguin Eggs) that made up… Read more →

Painfully limited

I’ve made no secret of the fact that Eddie Campbell is one of my favourite comic creators—not to mention one of the top five living people I’d want to spend a night drinking and talking BS with—and that I think Alan Moore is probably the best comic writer to have yet lived. So it’s probably not surprising that I’m a… Read more →

Have some art

Man, I like Scott Morse‘s work. I have mentioned that I have several pieces of his original art in the house. The stuff I have hanging, though, are Morse’s black and white ink style work (I have some originals of some of his more recent stuff not yet framed). Here’s one of his recent colour pieces. If I could find… Read more →

Limits Of Human Ability

Because I have a young daughter, I spend some time every week looking at various clips of dancers on YouTube, for her entertainment. I’ve seen some pretty amazing stuff, but today I saw one that is hands down the most amazing thing. It’s a performance at the Circus Festival of Monaco, by two dancers, Wu Zhengdan and Wei Baohua from… Read more →

Bookish Bits: Vance Integral

That’s Jack Vance over there. I’m a fan. I’m enough of a fan that I wanted to sign up for the Vance Integral Edition when they were taking subscriptions. It played into my two compulsions: collecting all the good writing, and collecting fine or rare editions of the good writing. At that time I didn’t have the money sitting around.… 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.