Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
Flaubert’s Parrot is a literary romp by Julian Barnes that tracks the obsessive research of a widowed doctor named Geoffrey Braithwaite. Along the way, Dr. Braithwaite considers all kinds of arcane details about the famed French novelist: his sexual proclivities, plots for unwritten novels, and the use of animals in his writing.
As I was walking my dog this morning, I found myself reflecting on a few of the many ways prejudice infected my childhood and how political correctness saved me.
I have my own WOTS. It’s more literal-minded than the annual event that will return to our city this Sunday. I look for words on the street, or at the very least, words in public spaces. Words that don’t try to sell us anything. Words that don’t try to persuade us of anything. Words that don’t proselytize. Words that don’t regulate us: stop, yield, no parking.
As preparations got underway for the G20 Summit in Toronto, one of the fears critics had expressed was that heightened surveillance would become a permanent situation for residents after the event was over.
The first time I read Sons and Lovers, I was the same age as Paul Morel, the main character of D. H. Lawrence’s classic novel. The chief difference between me and my fictional nemesis is that Paul Morel was carrying on with the married Clara Dawes and I was carrying on with … well … a reading list for an undergrad degree in English literature. He seemed to be having more fun than me.
For the practice of censorship, this has been a banner week (so to speak), confirming yet again that after hundreds of years of book burning, muzzling, and downright ham-fistedness, banning remains the preferred method for institutional authorities to regulate behaviour they oppose.
On planet Dave, there is a special governmental agency called the Department of Epidemiology and Immigration. I’ve come to regard these two disciplines as sub-specialties of the same concern.
E-ink is a lie. It tries to persuade us that writing is black. While I don’t doubt that some of it is black, the very best writing appears in brown ink. That’s because the very best writing is smeared on the page in shit.
Opened on June 21, 2007, Ireland Park is a small memorial to the 38,000 Irish refugees who fled the potato famine of 1847 and were received in Toronto (which then had a population of 20,000).
While the question of cloud computing – is it a good thing? What are its benefits? How will it change the way we interact online? – sounds like it properly belongs in the province of geekdom, I’m of the view that it also deserves to be discussed as a social justice issue.
While searching through memorabilia, I found a magazine the hospital staff gave my mother when I was born (© 1959 by J.S. Hunt Publications Limited). The first item inside the front cover is a syrupy verse titled “God’s Masterpiece.” Yup, that’s me.
My grandfather did his undergraduate degree at Mt. Allison University in Sackville N.B. After his first year, he was seriously short of cash and thought he could make some easy money selling books door-to-door.
The protagonist, Raskolnikov, is an impoverished ex-student living in St. Petersburg. His chief supporter is fellow student, Razumihin, who earns a few roubles here and there translating European works. It is Razumihin who dreams of setting up his own publishing business.
This is a poem about copyright law and my fear (the chilling effect) of quoting other authors (eg. Pigeon & Page). There is something perverse about living in what some describe as the postmodern era, where quotation and mashup are cultural norms, while our laws increasingly operate to suppress these norms.
I love this little piece of graffiti I found near the intersection of Nassau St. & Spadina Ave. in Toronto. As graffiti, it’s not great. File this one under “it’s the thought that counts.”