Art

Efforts at alien communication

2017-05-19

in Art, Bombs and rockets, Geek stuff, History, Language, Science, Space and flight

An interesting genre! And you can own a gorgeous-looking replica for $100.

Flowers grow in wastelands

2017-04-20

in Art, Bombs and rockets, History, Language, Massey College, Science, Teaching, Toronto, Writing

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. These seemingly grim lines may be the most optimistic in modern literature: life feeds into life, change is constant, and the spring’s rain helps complete the cycle.

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Look at your hands

2017-01-18

in Art, Bombs and rockets, History, Language, Politics, Security, Writing

This slam poem has been acutely and importantly confrontational for ten years or more, and it’s worth re-considering in light of Friday’s inauguration in Washington D.C.: “Homeland” by Marty McConnell

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Sacks on Auden

2016-08-31

in Art, Books and literature, History, Psychology, Writing

Staying at Oxford after my degree and often revisiting it in the late 1950s, I occasionally glimpsed W.H. Auden around town… He invited me to visit, and I would sometimes go to his apartment on St. Mark’s Place for tea. This was a very good time to see him, because by four o’clock he had […]

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Working on managing hatred toward drivers

2016-07-26

in Art, Language, Psychology

I think perhaps I need to undertake a befriending exercise with drivers. My universal doctrine is not to hate anybody, but I do hate people who drive cars, pickup trucks, military vehicles rebranded as family transport, motorcycles, and taxis (I would prefer an all-taxi world to one where people have private cars, but taxi drivers […]

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Remember the pollinators

2016-07-09

in Art, Photo of the day

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My shot

2016-06-15

in Art, History, Language, Law, Music, Politics, Psychology, Security, Writing

It’s strange that a stage show running in one city is affecting the whole continent, but New York isn’t a normal place and Lin-Manuel Miranda clearly isn’t a normal man. The killing in Orlando originally prompted my personal doctrine in response to political violence: refuse to be terrorized. One or a few people armed and […]

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The sky is royal blue

2016-04-04

in Art, Canada, Language, Music, Psychology

Jenny Ritter’s “A History of Happiness” is one of my all-time-favourite folk songs.

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Camilla Geary-Martin

2015-10-10

in Art, Canada, History, Massey College, Photography, Toronto

“It is a globe of simple branches. It represents canopy and the trees that surround and protect the globe, the Earth. Cast in bronze, it demonstrates the strength of the canopy, while the delicate twigs expose its more fragile nature.”

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