JS Bach in 1746 This afternoon, while bicycling to Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Park, I was listening on my smartphone to a recording by John Williams – Bach: The Four Lute Suites (delighting would be more a more accurate description), when I decided to try and imagine, if not calculate, the number
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Paul S. Graham: My 2019 in Videos
This marks the 10th year of my YouTube channel. You can watch more than 350 videos here, but as it is the season to reflect on the past year, here is some of what I saw, through my unabashedly lefty lens, in 2019. Winnipeg Central American Migrant Caravan Benefit Concert
Continue readingPaul S. Graham: The Case for Electoral Reform – AGAIN!
Once again, the results of yesterday’s federal election demonstrate the unrepresentative nature of our Parliament. It also illustrates why the Liberals, who came second in votes but first in seats, were so willing to backtrack on their 2015 promise to bring in a system of proportional representation. The chart further
Continue readingLilian Nattel's Journal: Now Blogging Here
I’m currently blogging on my self-hosted website. But I’ll keep posting excerpts here! Or join me on Facebook or Instagram!
Continue readingLilian Nattel's Journal: Red Shoes
From my new blog: On a youngish woman riding the subway. She wore a winter coat, and blue leggings, and had a suitcase on wheels. Her shoes were so red and shiny, and the pointed toes–didn’t they squish hers? I wondered how she’d react if I asked to take a
Continue readingLilian Nattel's Journal: Now blogging at https://liliannattel.com
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Continue readingPaul S. Graham: Let My People Grow!
In two recent announcements the Manitoba Government has revealed how it intends to regulate cannabis when it is legalized in July 2018. In short, the province will source and regulate it and the private sector will retail it. So far, so good. Unhappily, Manitobans will continue to be criminalized if
Continue readingPaul S. Graham: Revolutionary Fecklessness
Have you ever noticed that the people who are the most vociferous proponents of radical social change are often the least competent in providing for the everyday needs of the people around them? By everyday needs, I’m talking about the goods and services that glue a society together, like building
Continue readingLilian Nattel's Blog: On Embarrassment
Being bipedal animals with consciousness, humans have this propensity for remembering and obsessing, but other animals get embarrassed, too. I had a housemate, once, with a mean cat. At the start of every summer, she’d have her cat shaved so he wouldn’t overheat. I always had to watch out for
Continue readingLilian Nattel's Old Blog: Moving!
I am now self-hosting my blog! If you’re following me here, please subscribe there! At one time, believe it or not, I had half a dozen different blogs. Life is too short, simplification is my new by-word. (PS Eventually, for…
Continue readingA Writer's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro My rating: 5 of 5 stars The Buried Giant is a different book from Ishiguro’s previous ones, and that’s something I admired before I read it. But it was an interview I saw with him that made me pick it up. By that time,
Continue readingA Writer's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro My rating: 5 of 5 stars The Buried Giant is a different book from Ishiguro’s previous ones, and that’s something I admired before I read it. But it was an interview I saw with him that made me pick it up. By that time,
Continue readingA Writer's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: Welcome!
I’d love to hear from you. Contact me here! Filed under: Miscellany
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: Review: A Stranger to Myself: The Inhumanity of War: Russia, 1941-1944
A Stranger to Myself: The Inhumanity of War: Russia, 1941-1944 by Willy Peter Reese My rating: 5 of 5 stars The powerful memoir of a German infantry soldier during WW2, A Stranger to Myself was written in 1944 a few months before the author died, drawn from his detailed journals
Continue readingA Novelist's Eye: Lilian Nattel Online: Toronto Ice Storm: Birch Tree
Mercifully we have power. So I can appreciate the beauty of this: (click to enlarge) That’s the birch tree leaning over our back balcony. Across the street the limb of a tree fell down on a power line. A neighbour set up orange pylons around it. I pray for the
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: Words on Wednesday
Passover is here, which means eating matzah, also chocolate and more eggs than usual. This year during the seder one line struck me from our (radically abridged) reading of the Hagaddah: “Today we are slaves; next year may we be free.” It contradicts a note I have taped to my
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: Leaves in January
That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. – Sonnet 73, W.Shakespeare click to enlarge There was a cute resident at the fracture
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: The Sun Keeps Rising
click to enlarge The world ain’t ending folks. View from my kitchen while getting kids their breakfast. Filed under: Miscellany
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: Coopers Hawk
Coopers Hawk 3, originally uploaded by colographicalchemy. I didn’t take this photo but I saw its match today. There is a family of Coopers Hawks nesting in the park a block from my house. This morning when I was out for a walk in the early morning, a young one
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: Web of Angels in Calgary
I’m in a whirlwind of travel. Thousands of KM west, 3 provinces, then back home. In an hour my taxi arrives to take me west again. So I’ll just leave you, my friends, with these pictures of Calgary, Alberta! (Click any pic to enlarge). Filed under: Miscellany
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