Category: Books

Hey look…other stuff is happening besides me moving!

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Found while trying to get control of the RSS tide:

  • BlogTO reviews The Ghosts Of Abu Ghraib. With all the packing and such I forgot to write the film when we saw it at Hot Docs a week ago.  It was an excellent documentary; director Rory Kennedy let the story tell itself by interviewing the Abu Ghraib guards who were convicted for their role in the torture, and gave context by framing the story with the findings of the Milgram experiment. Excellent documentary. Highly recommended.
  • I agree with Esquire’s Angry German’s rant on punctuality. Next to smoking, being late is the fastest way to make me think you’re an inconsiderate jackass. Not occasionally late, mind you; I know things sometimes happen. But there are those people who’re just perpetually late, and those people are asshats.
  • The Quill & Quire’s blog points to a discussion between Lynn Coady and Christy Ann Conlin. Both Nova Scotian writers, they wonder whether it’s easier to write about where you’re from, or to write about a place if you’re “from away.”
  • Kirsten Dunst likes The Arcade Fire and Regina Spektor. ‘Cause I didn’t think she was hot enough already…

[tags]ghosts of abu ghraib, hot docs, milgram experiment, esquire magazine, angry german, punctuality, quill & quire, lynn coady, christy ann conlin, kirsten dunst, arcade fire, regina spektor[/tags]

A light at the end of the scabby tunnel

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The shingles are almost gone. I still have the marks on my jaw and a few spots on my neck, and I’m still store, but I’m past the contagious stage. I’m out of the cave tomorrow. Never been so happy to get back to work.

.:.

Two piss-takes which make me very happy: the Quill & Quire’s blog analyzes the self-serving blurbs on Rebecca Eckler’s new book, and Alanis Morissette excoriates Fergie in her version of My Humps.

[tags]shingles, rebecca eckler, alanis morissette, fergie[/tags]

Clear plates, full tummies, can't lose

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I love love love spring. It was so nice out today that T-Bone and walked up to Summerhill and did a little food shoppin’ (some light rye, some banana loaf, some wine from the Loire Valley). I decided that we should just snack for dinner tonight so I popped over to Pusateri’s for some cheese and fruit, picked up a book (Friday Night Lights, the book which the movie was based on and the show was inspired by) at Indigo and returned home to blast some Hidden Cameras. I figure gay church folk music is well suited to the early days of spring.

I also sent off my first maple order of the season today. For some reason I thought this year’s order would be smaller, but I must’ve hit 60 litres easily. My poor dad.

[tags]spring, friday night lights, hidden cameras, maple syrup[/tags]

On Bedford and Grand

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Downloaded the Besnard Lakes album Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse tonight. I gave it a preview listen today at work and liked it as much as the one song I’d already heard: “For Agent 13”. I’m having a hard time classifying it, except to say that it’s…big. Lush is probably another word I’d use.

.:.

Sporting news: Montreal clawed back for a huge win tonight to stay in the playoff hunt. The Senators also did them a favour by beating the Rangers, but Toronto and Carolina both won to stay ahead of Montreal. If the Canadiens make the playoffs, it’ll be a minor miracle. Also: my March Madness picks are done and submitted. I never win these things, but it adds an interesting angle to the games.

.:.

Starbucks is launching its own music label. I figure this will be to music what the Oprah book club is to books…which is to say, not the ideal solution, but probably better than the alternative. Both Starbucks and Oprah tend to pick better than average, if somewhat safe, material (though some would disagree that Oprah’s latest pick The Secret falls into that category), and if people are going to slavishly follow some pop culture phenomenon, I’d rather it be Starbucks or Oprah than MTV or Britney Spears.

[tags]besnard lakes, montreal canadiens, march madness, starbucks music label, oprah, the secret[/tags]

I, on the other hand, do NOT want my Nancy Grace

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A new bookstore — a real bookstore — set to open in downtown Toronto this spring.

Ben McNally Books will sell that and only that – no magazines, no CDs or DVDs, no candles or stationery and no coffee (“There’s already a Tim Hortons down the block”) – and, in most instances, they’ll be sold at full price since “I think you do a disservice to publishers if you [discount],” he said.

I think bookstores like Nicholas Hoare (McNally used to manage the Toronto location) are fantastic for browsing, but unless the store carries titles difficult to find in Indigo or online, I question the business model. Still, it’ll be almost as close to the new condo as Nicholas Hoare, so I look forward to the opening.

.:.

One of the more interesting podcasts I’ve been listening to is the San Francisco Chronicle’s “Correct Me If I’m Wrong” series, where they publish voice mails left by customers. The episode from Feb 28th made me howl…you just have to listen to it.

[tags]ben mcnally books, nicholas hoare, san francisco chronicle, correct me if im wrong[/tags]

Hypocrites 1; Telus 0

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You may remember me talking about how Telus is now selling porn via their cellphones. Well, they bowed to pressure from some customers and the Catholic church — who, let’s face it, really are the moral yardstick by which we should measure ourselves — and stopped the service.

Russell Smith weighs in with a logical, sensible response. Not that I expect his column to change many minds; sense and logic haven’t exactly carried the day thus far.

The way I see it: you can hate porn, or you can love porn, or you can admit that (as Smith points out) the definition of what’s porn and what isn’t is fuzzy at best. What I don’t understand is how you can argue that porn on cellphones is somehow more evil or damaging than on TV, computer screens, magazines or phone lines.

.:.

I just finished my uncle’s WWI book; I don’t know exactly why, but this time around I found it even more engaging. Maybe it was that The Guns Of August provided such a good introduction, or maybe I could just keep all the place & officer names straight this time. Anyway, I blasted through it in record (since I started the MBA, anyway) time. I’ll start Paris 1919 today since I’m home on sick leave.

By the way, the best line from the book was the very last:

“When he read the peace treaty, Marshal Foch burst out, ‘This isn’t peace! This is a truce for twenty years!’ The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. Twenty years and sixty-seven days later, Great Britain and France declared war on Hitler’s Germany.”

[tags]telus, cell phone porn, russell smith, WWI, treaty of versailles[/tags]

Argh

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Apparently my last post got sucked into the wrong series of Internet tubes, so here’s the point-form version:

Dang.

[tags]eggstasy, moosewood, rebar, the queen, wordpress[/tags]

"Man, that's faster than my recovery after ACL surgery."

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Ted Haggard, he of the megachurch, meth addiction and male-on-male action, now claims to be cured of his homosexuality. This man is going to break the needle on his ridiculousometer.

The Onion weighs in.

.:.

Ridiculousness averted: according to the Quill & Quire’s blog (a great read for all things book-related, by the way) the Ontario Catholic school board* has decided not to pull Snow Falling On Cedars from school library shelves. The controversy (albeit minor) was due to the book being “full of dialogue that contained dozens of curse words, many of them modifying the nouns ‘God’ and ‘Jesus Christ.’”

* Remind me again why Ontario has a Catholic school board?

[tags]ted haggard, ontario catholic school board, snow falling on cedars[/tags]

Don't spare the horses. Devil take the hindmost.

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Today as I was reading my uncle’s WWI book I found something in one of the later chapters: a TTC transfer. It was from June 2004, and was printed at a station nowhere near my home. I remembered that Stanzi borrowed the book a few years ago; I guess she never made it past the Battle of the Jutland.

Two seconds later I picked up my Blackberry and noticed a new email…from Stanzi. Quel coincidence.

[tags]coincidence[/tags]