On the Canada Day theme, I just want to harp on one of my favourite targets: bad statistics in the media. The Globe and Mail has a prominently featured article, Canadian citzenship and the generational divide, which claims that something called “The Dominion Institute” has found there are “remarkably different attitudes among those between older…
Author: Eric, your haikuist
happy 140th, you big ol’ country, you
Is it shallow to feel a tinge of national hipster-geek pride just because my country happens to be producing a lot of great indie music right now? Probably, but still, I’m listening to the CBC Radio 3 all-request Canada Day podcast, and frankly, we rock. My recent proudest moments as a Canadian were when I…
favorite movie review of the week
I’m already a fan of the NYT film critics A O Scott and Manohla Dargis, but after reading the opening of his review of One to Another, I’m developing a new appreciation for Matt Seitz. It’s funny, pithy and tells you exactly what you’re in for. The notion that French cinema consists mainly of pretentious…
life outside the earphone bubble
While my iPod is probably my favourite gadget, it was the repurposing of musician’s in-ear monitors as consumer-level accessories that made it life-changing. Not only is the sound quality fantastic, but because they fit snugly into the ear canal, they also act as ear-plugs. This makes them invaluable at my gym (which plays awful, awful…
this blog has been rated R
Apparently, among my offenses: ‘fuck’, ‘shit’, ‘godfuck’, ‘bomb’, ‘murder’, ‘sex’, ‘sexy’, ‘zombies’, and many, many uses of the word ‘fucking’ — though I wish to emphasize, only as an adjective, never a verb. I wonder if all the swearing is really artistically necessary. Couldn’t I communicate the same things using family-friendly substitutes? I guess it’s…