The bucket list, kicked
Nowadays the “bucket list” concept has become a wildly popular cultural meme, thanks to the movie of the same name. Subsequent marketing of the idea to millennials has proven a…
Culture
Hypergraphia
An article in the September, 2016, issue of Doctor’s Review looks at the curious, compelling affliction called hypergraphia: the obsessive need to write. I never knew before this that there…
Wrinkles: a review
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. It’s the phrase that highlights the entrance to Hell in Dante’s Inferno. It could just as easily by carved above the entrances to…
Neanderthals: a love story
Squat, hairy, broad shoulders, a big nose, beetle-browed with a low forehead. As Blind Willie McTell wrote in his classic song, Statesboro Blues, “I know ain’t good lookin’, but I…
Roadsworth Mural in Little Burgundy.
Stumbled on to this large mural that was apparently completed yesterday in Little Burgundy. The guys you see in the picture are applying anti graffiti coatings to the work and
Wolf Hall reviewed
I have just finished watching the six-part BBC series, Wolf Hall, based on the two novels by Hilary Mantel. I am also about halfway through my reading of the first…
Pope Francis: Capitalism is ‘Terrorism Against All of Humanity’
Photo by Thierry Ehrmann Pope Francis surprised reporters on a flight from Krakow to the Vatican late Sunday when he blamed the “god of money” for extremist violence in Europe…
Everything Flows
Tonight’s book-with-wine discussion is about Vasily Grossman‘s novel, Everything Flows (New York Review Book, USA, 2009). It was his final work, and left unfinished at the time of his death,…
Why Fonts Matter
The first problem I have when receiving a new book on typography is that I spend far too much time looking up the typefaces described or sampled therein, and searching…
Stampede!
“Sometimes you need a little break”—Ms Soapbox’s Mom The fun started when Ms Soapbox’s sister Roz and her husband Jay came to town. They flew in from Vancouver where it…
Transcendance
It’s not surprising that AI replaced the biological form in the popular Frankenstein monster trope. In fact the smart-evil-machine scenario has been done so often this past decade or so…
Power, ambition, backstabbing
Power grabs. Backstabbing. Lust. Ambition. Conniving. Hypocrisy. A weak but well-meaning ruler. A grasping second in command who viciously usurps power. A bureaucrat jealous of the nobles, jockeying for power…
Brexit and Trump: It’s All Your Fault
Ms Soapbox was just getting her head around the fact that Donald Trump was her fault when they blamed her for Brexit. Wait, what? Political philosophers and journalists on both…
Mildly Angry Max
The latest Mad Max movie isn’t so much about Max as it is about the political-feminist message of the film. Max himself seems somewhat perturbed, sometimes cross, but not really…
The Postmortal
Mortality. We all get it. It’s the one one incurable ailment all humans succumb to without a chance of succor. Mortality is always 100% fatal. No medicine, no therapy, no…
Responding to Orlando
Can we talk about that which cannot be named? On June 12 forty-nine people were massacred at a nightclub in Orlando. Alberta’s political leaders expressed their horror at the senseless…
Boris Godunov
I’m not sure why Boris Godunov, moves me like it does, but it has a curious, emotional effect on me. It’s a sprawling tragedy mixed with politics and betrayal, weighted…
Architecture Should Be A Story
For architect Ole Scheeren, the people who live and work inside a building are as much a part of that building as concrete, steel and glass. He asks: Can architecture…
Separate but equal: False equality and the political exclusion of children
Photo: Gordon Parks/ The Gordon Parks Foundation, from Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, exhibit. Earl Collins and his daughter, Doris Jean, in St. Louis. Posted on the newyorktimes.com, Dec. 24,…