In my previous post, some may have felt that I was being rather disparaging, in comparing the seemingly random piano-tinkling done by my cat in the video, with the work of German composer Arnold Schoenberg. However, as proof of Schoenberg’s less than enjoyable atonalities, there is one incident that comes to mind that I would [...]
I currently have no plans to see it, but couldn’t help but hear that blockbuster film Avatar is doing so successfully. This, despite a review which said, “Great entertainment puts plot first, character second, dialogue third, idea forth, music fifth, and spectacle last, as Aristotle noted. Cameron reverses this in Avatar.”
But, since being released on [...]
As someone who rarely gains an appreciation for newer music (past articles here indicate how I tend to have steeped myself in Schubert, hymns, and the Red Army Choir, with occasional forays into Johnny Cash and other classic bands), I would not have expected that a fresh new electronica-ish group (who doesn’t do Commodore 64 [...]
I greatly enjoyed the 1989 Jack Nicholson / Michael Keaton comic-book based superhero action thriller, Batman, when it originally came out to movie theaters. Nicholson’s performance as notorious archnemesis The Joker in that film was outstanding, and it is still worth watching twenty years later. The Joker’s overwhelming insanity and colours are a perfect foil [...]
The mailbox at our home is a depository for a large variety of advertisements – which can be an irritation at times – but one of the discoveries that sometimes makes it worth going through them is finding an ad full of deals from local pizza delivery places. So to our delight, we recently received [...]
I watched the Canadian party leader’s debate last week. This regular election campaign event always helps to shed light, not only on an extended discussion of the proposed policies of the various parties, but also on characterizing the dynamic between the five personalities involved. It was important for them to share their actual party platforms at the debate, but [...]
Occasionally, when the usual cycle of breaking news and on-going event coverage dies down, CNN will publish a piece at their website which deals with topics of a more special-interest bent. Not too long ago, an article of theirs described a particular blog written by a Los Angeles Times reporter, Jill Leovy. Basically, this crime-beat newspaper journalist decided that the clinical coverage of murders had to [...]
A recent newspaper article indicated that the knowledge of present-day U.S. teens is lacking when it comes to common historical and cultural references that most people ought to know. Based on the results of a study, a distressingly low percentage of them could identify the general theme of the book 1984, who Senator Joe McCarthy was, or when the American Civil War [...]
There’s a new entrant on the blogging scene. Brimming with fresh ideas to add to the ever-growing population of Internet users (currently estimated at 1.4 billion), it will be well worth checking out regularly. Not a rival, but a compatriot in generating astute observations (with the subtlest hint of sarcasm), be sure to visit him when you can to get [...]
I rarely buy the Toronto Sun newspaper, but I just had to get it last week, after seeing what was displayed on the front page. I actually did a double-take, walked back to the vending machine, and got myself a copy. It was really more out of morbid fascination that they would actually depict such a story on the front [...]