This what we’re singing on March 29th. You should come hear the Requiem live, it is a powerful experience.
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Dead Wild Roses: Transactivists Are Annoying
Nothing gets the juices flowing more than a little woke hypocrisy in the afternoon. Scrolling through facebook I saw a post for a choral get together with the goal of showing “the transphobes” how wrong they are. My first reaction was one of exasperation because the individual who
Continue readingScripturient: Musings on The Lone Ranger, Tonto, and Cultural Appropriation
Yes, I get the reason some people might have been outraged that a white guy (Johnny Depp) played an indigenous person in the 2013 movie version of The Lone Ranger. It seemed, at least from the outside at the time — before watching it — to reinforce stereotypes and denigrate
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Kathleen Stock And Easy Queer “Credibility”
This except taken from Stock’s eassy on substack about the “The Family Sex Show”. If the grift fits run with it I guess. This is one of the many problems with the all the manufactured identities running around out there – the cache and relevance given to them
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Film Study Corner – The Dark Knight – Movies with Mikey
If John Wick can have layers, so can Batman. 🙂
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: I Hold A Knife To Your Throat – “Gender Studies” at the London School of Economics.
Ah, violent males expressing how violent they wish to be toward women who oppose their gender-magic. The previous link is to the abstract and transcript. This from the department of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics. Did you need an example of how far the Humanities in
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Film Studies – Movies with Mikey – John Wick
This is what happens sometimes when you fall down an youtube rabbit hole. You find an amazing person whose expertise and passion floor you, and the only thing you can do is watch more. 🙂 (Paraphrase) – ‘That is what is remarkable about the film John Wick, it is a
Continue readingScripturient: Musings on Art and Taste
Many years ago, I had a lengthy correspondence with a friend in another part of Canada about what constitutes art. His basic argument was that art was not neutral or generic, but was the final product of high achievement: real art was “good” art. That is, art was defined by
Continue readingScripturient: Point to Point: The Book From the Ground
A few years back, during one of our Toronto mini-vacations, I was browsing in the shop of the Art Gallery of Ontario, and I came across a small book that had no words, just pictures. No, it wasn’t a book with pictures of artworks or photographs: it was a story,
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: University of Alberta – Firing Kathleen Lowrey Whose Views Align With Material Reality.
How not to run an academic institution. My Alma mater is demonstrating some worrisome (read batshit fucking stupid) decisions regarding firing female staff for having the absolute gall of teaching the ‘unorthodox’ view that biological sex is important to women and their struggle against patriarchy. Her feminist views are apparently
Continue readingPostArctica: A Charter Poem
A Charter Poem A charter poem slipped onto the shore where I sat daydreaming about you it came from a flooded place back up the river and seemed happy to be on solid ground again landfilled ground containing the detritus that caused the flood upstream
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Friday Musical Interlude – What I’m Singing This Weekend.
Dress rehearsal tonight, been practising like a mad fool. We have a full line up. Starting with Rheinberger’s lovely Stabat Mater: Then a Schubert Mass : Some Mendelssohn: And some Mozart : It is going to be a great concert. 🙂
Continue readingScripturient: La Bohème at the Galaxy
Starving bohemian artists living in drafty Paris attics in the mid-19th century, struggling to produce their art, falling in and out of love, sharing and suffering, living and dying, all done while singing. That’s La Bohème in a nutshell. I am embarrassed, even ashamed to admit I’ve never been to
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Form is Harder than Formalism – The Wasteland that is the 5 Paragraph Essay.
I’ve written more than my fair share of five paragraph essays. Graded a few in my time as well. It would be nice if we could spend the time and teach people different ways of grappling with thoughts and ideas in their writing. The online Aeon Magazine has some
Continue readingScripturient: Our civic centre the Block forgot
During the January 15 council meeting, there was a lengthy presentation of a strategic planning exercise (a real one, not the bogus one The Block call our “community-based strategic plan,” which was neither community-driven nor strategic) for the Parks, Recreation and Culture department (read more about it here). The presenter
Continue readingScripturient: Does poetry make things happen in 2018?
I was thinking about how little poets seem to matter to modern political administrations. Maybe to modern society as a whole. Their light has, it seems, been waning for several decades as our collective attention shifts. I was thinking about what an odd, awkward fit it would be for a
Continue readingPostArctica: Some Sculptors
Subodh Gupta “Subodh Gupta (born in 1964) is an Indian Contemporary artist based in New Delhi. Trained as a painter, he went on to experiment with a variety of media. His work encompasses sculpture, installation, painting, photography, performance and video. He is married to artist Bharti Kher and is represented
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Leadership 2018 Links
The latest from Saskatchewan’s NDP leadership campaign as the entry deadline has passed and the membership deadline approaches. – While I haven’t tracked endorsements all that closely, it’s certainly worth keeping track of any changes since previous leadership campaigns between two candidates who have run before. And on that front,
Continue readingScripturient: Guillermo, monsters and me
Tucked away at the bottom of a tall display case in the ‘At Home With Monsters’ exhibit at the AGO is a small collection of seven old, well-thumbed books, all by the 19th century French naturalist and entomologist, Jean-Henri Fabre. At the very bottom of the pile, its title almost
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Scripting, Colours, and Online Services, Oh My!
Hard hitting social commentary to resume soon on DWR. Today, I have a bit of personal fluff that I hope will bring a smile to your day. TL;DR version provided at the end if you’re pressed for time. Just scroll all the way down. I do not do well with
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