I have been reading the essays of the late critic, Walter Benjamin, most famous for his 1936 piece, The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproduction (an earlier translation of this essay is available here). Wikipedia notes of this essay that it has been, …influential across the humanities,
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Scripturient: Anthony and Cleopatra
While Julius Caesar is my favourite of all Shakespeare’s plays, I think Anthony and Cleopatra is my second favourite. I know it’s hard to choose any favourites from his plays, they’re all so good, but this one seems to resonate with me more than most others, enough to encourage me
Continue readingScripturient: Strat Plan Part 6: Culture and the Arts
The fifth and final objective in Collingwood’s developing strategic plan (the woo-hoo plan) is culture and the arts. For something so important to the community, with such a huge potential, it encompasses a mere two goals. Disappointingly, neither of them relate to its huge economic potential, which everyone else seems to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the Saskatchewan Party’s devaluation of the music teacher (among other cultural and community-building parts of our schools). For further reading…– CBC reported on the Prairie Spirit School Division’s decision to eliminate school bands here, and Janet French did likewise here.– The Star-Phoenix’ editorial board weighed in here. And
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Shakespeare Changed Everything
I have been reading an entertaining little book called How Shakespeare Changed Everything, which, as the title suggests, is about the pervasive influence the Bard has had on pretty much everything in our lives ever since he started putting quill to paper. Stephen Marche’s book was described in the NatPost
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: DWR Friday Musical Interlude: Histoire du tango, Astor Piazzolla
On Sunday mornings, I get up shortly after Arb leaves for work, and move from the cozy, snuggly bed to the equally snuggly sofa. I make a cup of coffee and listen to Sunday Breakfast on CKUA, and half-doze under at least one cat (depending on Fiona and V’s current
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Sunday Disservice: Free Association at Choir Practice
Naturally for this time of year, the choir that Arb and I sing in is preparing for our Christmas concert, and there is Jebus-music aplenty. Really that’s OK by me; most of the shit about Santa seriously sucks. One of the beautiful carols we’re doing is Harold Darke’s arrangement of
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Friday Musical Interlude: The Intransigent One’s Favourite Band
This is VNV Nation, an Irish/English alternative electronic/industrial duo currently based out of Berlin, but touring to Canada this fall/winter – I’ve already got tickets – and plane tickets because the closest they’re coming is Vancouver. They were my first exposure to electronic/industrial music – I grew up in a
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Centre A fosters intergenerational and intercultural space for Chinatown
I sometimes write things and they get published in The Georgia Straight: Mrs. Chang is a 96-year old elder who calls Vancouver’s Chinatown her home. In a neighbourhood filled with poh-pohs (Chinese […]
Continue readingMelissa Fong: #VanCulturalSpaces @VisionVancouver event summary: “Protecting Vancouver’s Cultural Spaces: How we can preserve culture in a growing city”
I Live Tweeted the Vision Vancouver-sponsored event “Protecting Vancouver’s Cultural Spaces: How we can preserve culture in a growing city”- You can search the hashtag #VanCulturalSpaces for related tweets on the event. It […]
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Marcus Aurelius
I continue to be profoundly moved by the wisdom of the classical authors. It’s often hard to accept that some of them were writing two or more millennia ago: many seem so contemporary they could have been written this century. Of late – within the past year or so –
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Friday Musical Interlude
Tom Lehrer is a Renaissance Man of the twentieth century. He’s not only a composer, pianist, and singer, who lectures extensively on musical theatre; he’s also a published and teaching mathematician. Mystro is a particular fan of Dr. Lehrer’s work and has performed it on several occasions, when our choir
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Lucretius and the Renaissance
It’s fairly clear, even after reading only a few verses, why Lucretius’s didactic poem, On the Nature of Things – De Rerum Natura – made such an impact on thought, philosophy, religion and science in the Renaissance. It must have been like a lighthouse in the dark night; a “Eureka” moment for
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Crafty Update: Salute to Putin Gloves Completed
I set myself a challenge to get these done before the Olympics closing ceremonies, and I did! Filed under: Arts, Humour
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The 2013 Great Gatsby
Watched the 2013 film of The Great Gatsby last night. The first half was spectacular, grandiose and captivating, if somewhat over the top. Like Busby Berkeley meets The Fifth Element. Extravaganza, spectacle and excess. The film doesn’t feel like it’s set in New York of the Jazz Age. It’s too
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Saving Fubsy from Lexicographical Caliginosity
Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints. You were awfully holy, weren’t you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you might not have a red nose. You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Wild Women of Wongo
Who can resist a film with a title like that? Or Zontar, the Thing From Venus? Robot Monster? Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet? The Atomic Brain? Clearly, I can’t. I love this stuff. B-films, especially scifi B-films. But I am a tad disappointed with this Mill Creek package.* I recently
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Music of the Templars
For the past 25 years, I have had a mysterious page in Latin, held in a cheap picture frame, and stored in a closet for many years. It’s a two-sided page from a book, printed in black and red letters. I bought it at a used-book store in Toronto back
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: To err is human. And bureaucratic.
Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum, et tertium non datur. To err is human; to persevere in error is diabolical; there is no third option. Bit of a tough love phrase, that one. Most of us know this as the later paraphrase of Alexander Pope: to err is humane, to forgive
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Makes you feel happy, like an old time movie
There’s something touching about a classic film, something magical about a B&W movie, about a film shot between the wars in that period of recovery and optimism; a film that was new when my parents were young, full of life and hope. A movie from the days before CGI, before green
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