Synecdoche. Metonymy. Not exactly words that trip lightly off the tongue. Unless, I suppose, you’re Harold Bloom. Those are two of the four fundamental tropes in literature, Bloom tells us. Identified originally by Kenneth Burke, who, as Bloom calls him, was a “profound student of rhetoric.” Bloom references Burke in
Continue readingTag: Culture
Melissa Fong: Electronic music, raves & Toronto’s moral panic on drugs
…they do the work because they want to re-produce the type of city they want to live- the type of city that is worth living in. … …not all entertainment is built the same- some of these very worth while performers and promotors can’t jump through your hoops, or will
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Oooh, shiny….
Religious texts are full of admonitions about avoiding temptation. The Lord’s Prayer tells God to “lead us not into temptation.” Fat lot of good that does. Not only do we lead ourselves there, we go willingly and eagerly. Pushing and shoving aside those who stand in our way to reach
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Honing In On Friday’s #WaveOfAction
We need to think about two things for this Friday’s Occupy Movement reboot in the Worldwide #WaveOfAction: When thinking about pursuing social, political and economic equality, what is the list of things we need to change, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally? Who do we need to build coalitions with to
Continue readingThe Misanthropic Bird: Mad As Hell
I got up this morning to a fog rolling into the city. It’s not from rain, or from temperature change or any other natural reason for a hazy day. It’s because I live in Beijing, and the pollution levels are on the rise today. Jumping a few dozen points between
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Reading: A Canadian tragedy… or not?
The map above might show the making of a serious tragedy for Western and especially Canadian culture. It indicates in colour which nations read the most. Yellow is the second lowest group. Canada is coloured yellow. In this survey, Canada ranks 10th – from the bottom! Twenty countries above us
Continue readingThings Are Good: Indigenous Food and Cultural Protection
Food and ecosystem knowledge which has been passed down for centuries is constantly threatened by the modern mechanical market. To stymie this change in food (and knowledge) consumption there is a global effort to protect the sanity of food and related support systems. The significance of sacred foods. Many indigenous
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: If the 1% Has Russell Brand Killed…
If the 1% has Russell Brand killed, we will see it in the corporate media as a drug OD relapse, or a freak accident. Why? He is dangerous because he fearlessly tells the truth and challenges pretence. Let’s examine this in some detail here [with video]: His brain works twice
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Systemic Pressures Make Journalists Sloppy
Gosh, the corporate media sure can be sloppy. The heart-wrenching photo of a four-year-old Syrian refugee pictured alone crossing a desert into Jordan spread far and wide this weekend, but the fact that his family was just metres away was left behind. Photo of 4-year-old Syrian refugee triggers sympathy, confusion
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Harlem Renaissance is “Coming Back Again”
Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes dropped earlier this month. My esteem for Langston Hughes, his insight and vision, and the too-often ignored human/cultural catalyst that was the Harlem Renaissance came back again last night for me when I found Leyla McCalla on the internet. Merging Haiti, Hughes and
Continue readingMelissa Fong: “Oppressed Majority”: What’s missing?
At the risk of getting a whole lot of Feminist hateration on this- I’m just going to say this: People who are loving this video are people who already get it [1]. It won’t make a dent on a dude that doesn’t honestly understand or recognize his own male privilege.
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 readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: A religion disparaged by empire
The lwa sits in the corner on a wooden chair, holding a crutch in his hand. A respected general, Jal Bizango needs the crutch because his right leg has been amputated, a casualty of the battles that he has fought. In the circle in which he sits other lwa, or
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What’s Wrong with America, Billionaires and Corporations?
Riotously popular economist Umair Haque had a few interesting tweets about America, corporations and billionaires this week. [View the story “What’s Wrong with America, Corporations and Billionaires?” on Storify] December 30, 2013 How the Occupy Movement is Enriching People’s Lives (1) April 18, 2011 Embracing BC NDP Corporate Tax Increases
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Just How Lazy ARE Indigenous People, Anyway?
It’s a trick question. And let’s not forget how many of us are told we are inherently lazy because we are native. Hard to shake that. via Twitter / apihtawikosisan: And let’s not forget how many …. And if you want to read one person’s analysis of destructive, racist stereotypes,
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Facebook Is the New AOL/Compuserve Big Brother
The evolution of the decay of Facebook privacy. The late, great Neil Postman once wrote that we’d more likely voluntarily embrace the fascism of Huxley’s Brave New World than Orwell’s 1984. The corporate version of this is the crack-like addiction a billion people have to the Facebook. But it’s worse
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: Art in the Age of Fatalism
“What is the nature of art in a period of extreme ideological confusion and inverted political frustration?” That’s the question the iconic art critic John Berger struggled with in the aftermath of the defeats of 1968. Some four decades later the Left’s inability to take advantage of openings created by
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Canada Post writes its own obituary
Headline news this week: Canada Post moves to end home delivery. End home delivery? For me, both as a writer, a lay historian, and growing up in an era where letters were important for communication, business, family and for art, that’s just crazy. I mean really, seriously, way-more-insane-than-the-OLG crazy. But, in
Continue readingThe Misanthropic Bird: Faceless Adversaries
My mother often shares an underdog story from my childhood (beaming with pride and I with bemusement) that I had stood up against a bully at a young age. We were at a park, I was barely 5, and an older boy took a ball from a younger boy, which
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