Judas, a Biography
Long before Darth Vader, long before Lord Voldemort, long before Stephen Harper, Judas Iscariot reigned as the supreme icon of evil in Western mythology. Judas betrayed God. How much worse…
arts
The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproduction
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…
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,…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
#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…
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…
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,…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
Selling the electric upright bass
My first experience playing a bass guitar came when I was asked to join a local garage band in the mid-1960s. I was learning rhythm guitar back then, inspired by…
Coriolanus on Film
Coriolanus is a tough play, full of politics and angry people and shouting mobs. It has no comic relief, no jesters, no romance and no real heroes. No great soliloquies,…
The Fretful Porpentine
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine. That phrase just makes the modern reader stop and wonder. What, you ask yourself, is a porpentine? And why is it fretful? We never…
In Appreciation of Vintage Music
I was listening the other day to a song sung by Cliff Edwards, Cheating on Me, recorded from an old 78 RPM single. Scratchy, warbly, and a bit thin, but…