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Barney’s Version – film vs. novel

I saw Barney’s Version, this afternoon.  Yesterday, I finished rereading Mordecai Richler’s novel.  Now, I’m sitting here with a glass of 14 year old Oban single malt scotch whisky and am toying with the idea of lighting a Montecristo while I reflect on the differences between the film and the novel.  I won’t light it, [...]

Dear Disney, about that Tron Legacy flick …

Dear Mr. Disney, I went to the local movie theatre and saw your latest offering called Tron Legacy.  Part way through, I had to pick the wax out of my ears.  Did I hear what I thought I heard?  Did you have your main character, played by Jeff Bridges (the older one), say:  “Information wants [...]

Did you know Stephen Harper leans to the left?

3 blogging blunders – plus one more for good measure

Every now and then, you read a blog post that pisses you off.  What makes the piss-off quotient worse is that everybody else thinks the post is wonderful.  You start to doubt your opinion.  More than that, you start to doubt your hold on reality.  But the piss-off factor eats away at you long enough [...]

J.M. Barrie’s Forgotten Sequel

NaNoWriMo Research pt 2 – The Loved One, by Evelyn Waugh

As of today, I’ve completed 48,000 of the 50,000 words required to “win” NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month.  It looks like my novel will be more in the 75,000 word range.  I feel like one of those marathon runners who doesn’t realize he’s crossed the finish line and keeps on going because his legs [...]

Arm The Lorax

I took this image by the Speed River in Guelph, Ontario. Remember the Lorax?  Remember how the Lorax speaks for the trees?  I bet you didn’t know that the Lorax has gone corporate.  A Canadian environmental consulting company has appropriated the name, Lorax, and all the warm fuzzy associations that go with it, so that [...]

White People and Their Horses – Proselytism at The Royal Winter Fair

Every year for the past 88 years, the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair has set up for 10 days at Exhibition Place in Toronto to bring a little bit of the country into the city.  I think it should be rebranded:  “White people and their horses.”  Seriously.  As a white city boy, this visit to the [...]

Help! NaNoWriMo is turning me into a Redneck

A friend once said a good reason for writing fiction is that, as you work on your characters, you work on yourself.  (He may have implied that this was the only good reason for writing fiction, but I can’t remember.)  It’s kind of like therapy.  Let’s say you’re a writer who struggles with social anxiety.  [...]

Nanowrimo research pt I – Embalming

After day 1 of the National Novel Writing Month contest, I’ve completed 4,488 words of the 50,000 word target. However, I’ve come up against an important issue: research. I don’t know what I’m talking about. As I mentioned in a previous post, the novel I’m planning features a character named George who becomes something of [...]

Tomorrow it begins … NaNoWriMo

This year, I took the plunge.  On the spur of the moment (one of a thousand clichés I’m sure to spew this month), I signed up for NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month contest.  It’s held every year in November, 30 days of intense writing with the goal of producing a 50,000 + word novel.  [...]

Experience Survival

I saw this ad on Queen Street:  Experience Survival, a Discovery Channel advertisement that shows a young bushman creeping through the grass with a bow and arrow.  I’ve seen the ad in different locations, but I was struck by its position here immediately below the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce logo.  CIBC ranks a paltry [...]

The ebook piracy experiment

A couple weeks ago, in the Telegraph, Adrian Hon announced:  “Your time is up, publishers. Book piracy is about to arrive on a massive scale.”  He conducted an experiment:  to see how long it would take to locate an unauthorized e-copy of a book he already owned but didn’t want to lug around.  It took [...]

Ten Words I Hate

Shard I hate the word “shard.”  A shard is a sliver of glass or a scrap of shattered pottery, but we never use it that way.  Now, we only use it as a simile to describe a state of mind:  “His thoughts were scattered like shards of a broken window across the sidewalk.”  People think [...]

Art of Time Abbey Road Concert

Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the Beatles’ Abbey Road released on September 26, 1969.  To celebrate, the Art of Time ensemble had performed a concert that went track by track through the album.  Thursday evening, Andrew Burashko and his select group of musicians gave a repeat performance.  No wonder.  I expect they’ve been [...]