A standard question during a psychiatric intake interview is: Do you ever feel that the people around you can read your mind? I wonder if our cultural habits have rendered this question obsolete.
Tag: Pop Culture
Ode To Spot
In an age when it’s increasingly easy to make technically “perfect” images, it’s correspondingly easy to be complacent about whether or not those images do what images are supposed to do. Do our images merely allay anxieties around formal requirements? Or do they satisfy deeper needs? While the two are not mutually exclusive, there are many photographs that move us deeply even though they are deeply “flawed”.
Love-locks Wreck Ponts des Arts
On Sunday evening a portion of the “Love-locks” bridge (Pont des Arts) in Paris collapsed. This is the pedestrian bridge that crosses the Seine connecting the Louvre museum to the St. Germain area.
When the shit hits
At the foot of the stairs, I did an about face and ran my hand along the wall until I found the door knob. I pulled open the door. Something smelled off, but I couldn’t say what. I felt inside for the light switch. I flicked the switch and leapt backwards. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
Bewitched DFW and Jerk-Off Culture
n my continued assault on my summer reading list, a few weeks ago I settled onto my balcony with David Foster Wallace’s Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. To appreciate what I’m about to disclose, you need to understand something about the layout of the condo my wife and I have chosen as our temporary residence…
Westworld and Computer Viruses
One of the things I like to do here at nouspique is pay homage to instances of extraordinary prescience. One such instance came forty years ago from the late Michael Crichton with his film, Westworld.
Anne Frank, Belieber
Poor Justin Bieber. He’s taking it hard for the comment he wrote in the guestbook at Anne Frank House: Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber. It’s tempting to call him a twit. To say he doesn’t get it. That he’s disrespectful. Yeah. But on the other hand …
All Aboot Writing Online In Canada Eh
When Canadians do the hokey-pokey, that’s what it”s all aboot. Can someone please tell me what it’s all aboot-er-about that there’s a proliferation of (American) TV shows that invent and then ridicule their invented version of the way Canadians speak? As a Canadian, I’ve never once said aboot.
Actually, Madly, Deeply
While wandering through the purgatory that is suburbia, I noticed a sign for a contracting company with the name: Actual Plumbing Ltd. I neither endorse nor disapprove of the contractor, and I assume they don’t mind free advertising on my blog. I think it’s an interesting name. What makes plumbing actual plumbing?
Titanic, Cats and Karma
I went last night to see James Cameron’s Titanic in Imax 3D. At least a couple times, I found myself dodging things that appeared to leap from the screen. There were the ice bergs, of course, and there were Kate Winslet’s tits.
RIP Steve Jobs
At the news of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ death, I pulled out my very first Mac computer and held an interment ceremony. This is one of the original 128k RAM Macs. No hard drive. It boots from a 3.5 inch floppy disc.
Mental Illness Stereotypes: Amy Winehouse and Anders Behring Breivik
Mad Pride Week finished more than a week ago. I had intended to write a piece on it but couldn’t find a hook. Until yesterday, that is, when two very different stories trended all over the social media universe. One story from the UK: soul singer, Amy Winehouse, had died at the age of 27.
The most unlikely movie scene ever
The most unlikely movie scene ever in the history of Hollywood (at least in my humble opinion) has to be the closing scene of Stand By Me, the Rob Reiner film based on a short story by Stephen King.
Charlie Sheen Poetry Reading
When you break a silent vow, does it count? I silently vowed I would never mention Charlie Sheen on my blog. It just seems too crass, too exploitative, too easy. But then I discovered that Sheen had self-published a book of poetry in the 90’s and all my integrity went out the window.
Dissing the Oscars – Inglorious Basterds & A Serious Man
Three more days until the Oscars and four more Best Pictures nominees to get through in my “Dissing the Oscars” series. If I’m going to look at them all before the winner is announced on Sunday, I’ll have to double up my reviews. So why not lump together the “quirky” films from the “quirky” directors?