Another Archy Poem
Most of Don Marquis’ Archy pieces were written in lowercase. The literate cockroach, we learned, would stand on the typewriter and dive, head first, onto the keys. But this way,…
Culture
Killing Our Culture
Collingwood has killed Jazz & Blues at the Station – a popular, long-running, local cultural event second in audience only to the Elvis Festival. It brought some of Ontario’s top…
Great Minds, Small Minds
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people. That quote has been attributed online to Eleanor Roosevelt in the images shared by people too lazy to…
Prenzie Scamels
Four hundred years after he wrote them, we still use in everyday speech the many words and phrases Shakespeare coined. He gave us so many, it would be difficult, if…
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…
Too Many Books?
Tim Parks* wrote an intriguing essay in the New York Review of Books last week with that title. My first thought on seeing it was to wonder if one can…
Musical Sources
Trying learn a song from an old songbook or sheet music can be difficult unless you already know how the song goes. Many of our group are introduced to the…
Defining Classical Music
I listen to classical music a lot, even more than before since the arrival of the new classical FM station in Collingwood. But while my listening at home is through…
National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month in Canada. I don’t know if this gets widespread acknowledgement much less appreciation among the public and in the schools, but it should. Poetry is…
No One Is Free Until All Are Free
Illustration by Denitza Tchacarova This column is adapted from a talk Chris Hedges gave Friday night at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. VANCOUVER, British Columbia—The scourge of male violence against…
Bad Thinkers and the Unknown Knowns
I came across an interesting piece on bad thinking online recently. In it, the author argues some of the points I’ve mentioned in the past about people who believe in…
Reading Ukulele Tabs
One of the things I want to discuss in our upcoming CPLUG workshop is how to read tab sheet music. In this post I’ve give you some pointers so you…
Lucy and the 10% Brain Myth
We watched the film Lucy on iTunes last night and, while reasonably entertaining, its plot is founded on a persistent bit of pseudoscience: that people only use 10% of their…
Revised Chord Wheel
I have revised my transposing chord wheel/circle of fifths tool this week. It is now a three-ring version for use by all musicians (ukulele players who want to learn music…
Ukulele Festival Coming in May!
It’s official: the Canada Ukes ukulele festival will be held right around the corner from Collingwood: in Midland at the Midland Cultural Centre, May 22-24. Three days of ukuleleness, featuring…
Why Elvis Matters to Collingwood
There are some things that are pointless to argue, it seems. Creationism with a fundamentalist. Anti-vaccination with a New Age wingnut. Reason and logic with local bloggers. The value of…
Ukulele Workshop Today
I just returned from Orangeville where Broadway Music hosted a two-and-a-half hour musical workshop this Saturday by Manitoba Hal today (which will be followed by his concert tonight from 8-11…
Marx, Darwin and Machiavelli
What do these three men – three of the world’s greatest thinkers – have in common? Science? Economics? Politics? Their impact on culture and society? Their foresight or insight? Their…
‘Pornography Is What the End of the World Looks Like’
Bacchanal with a wine vat (c. 1475) by Andrea Mantegna BOSTON—Fifty Shades of Grey, the book and the movie, is a celebration of the sadism that dominates nearly every aspect…