I’m gradually, and in reverse chronological order, migrating over the posts from my old website. This page gathers most of my essayistic output from January 2002 – August 2008.

Dream journal: Ahmadinadream.
Fri, 15 Aug 2008

Arbuckle Avenue, Evelyn Waugh, and Graham Greene.
Wed, 13 Aug 2008

Confusingly (to some), 300 isn’t an anti-war movie.
Thu, 26 Jun 2008

An interactive map of my Texas vacation.
Wed, 4 Jun 2008

George Romero’s Diary of the Dead.
Thu, 28 Feb 2008

Letters from Texas: The Houston Rockets and Lakewood Church.
Thu, 14 Feb 2008

Right-wing blowhards and the ’08 election.
Tue, 12 Feb 2008

An evening at the races.
Mon, 20 Aug 2007

Deric Ruttan: Workin’ in a coal mine, or possibly a salt mine.
Tue, 03 July 2007

The ink ghost: Gravity’s Rainbow.
Sat, 5 May 2007

Alfonso Cuarón’s ideological Children of Men.
Mon, 30 Apr 2007

Dream journal: The hyperlink crossword and the mile-high skyscraper.
Sun, 25 Feb 2007

On being, deep down, a Liberal.
Sat, 02 Dec 2006

The Decemberists’ “Sixteen Military Wives” gets on my nerves.
Tue, 21 Nov 2006

Pandora and Malcolm Gladwell.
Mon, 06 Nov 2006

On reading Faulkner’s “The Bear”.
Thu, 26 Oct 2006

Old phone number.
Thu, 19 Oct 2006

The Conspiracy Artists: Syriana and V For Vendetta.
Sun, 24 Sep 2006

Right deviationism: My evolving position on Iraq.
Sun, Sep 24 2006

Heading for the exit in Afghanistan.
Tue, 12 Sep 2006

Something funny in Nezahuacoyotl: Mexico’s “stolen” election.
Fri, 08 Sep 2006

Mike Judge’s Idiocracy and my Revised Low Birthrate Theory.
Tue, 05 Sep 2006

Jon Stewart and that hilarious Kurdistan.
Tue, 22 Aug 06

X-Men: The Last Stand: Not as terrible as reported.
Thu, 06 Jul 2006

America unbound. (Visits to Wall, South Dakota; Santa Fe; Mesa Verde; Las Vegas; and Salt Lake City.)
Wed, 14 Jun 2006 – Mon, 26 Jun 2006

Da Ali G Show & Stephen Colbert’s speech.
Mon, 06 May 2006

More about low birthrates and the impending death of liberalism.
Thu, 16 Mar 2006

I can tell when I’m not wanted.
Wed, 15 Mar 2006

A tour of the Regional Psychiatric Centre.
Fri, 03 Mar 2006

Bring on the jellyfish babies.
Tue, 28 Feb 2006

Voting day, 2006.
Mon, 23 Jan 2006

Conservative forecasts: Mark Steyn and the decline of the West.
Fri, 13 Jan 2006

Did you stop peeing because of me?
Mon, 28 Nov 2005

My archnemesis, Kevin Chong.
Wed, 23 Nov 2005

Trudeau, the CBC miniseries.
Mon, 24 Oct 2005

Witness for the prosecution.
Mon, 12 Sep 2005

Plague vs. plague: The accidental conquest of the Americas.
Thu, 08 Sep 2005

Oot and aboot: Peter Jennings’ “Canadian accent”.
Mon, 08 Aug 2005

Nathan (the band).
Thu, 04 Aug 2005

Dickens – Chesterton – Waugh.
Fri, 15 Jul 2005

Spielberg’s War of the Worlds.
Mon, 04 Jul 2005

Do we still need the Batmobile?
Mon, 27 Jun 2005

The boring Royal Family at the boring Saskatchewan Centennial Gala.
Fri, 20 May 2005

Seashells on a beach: Our aging brains.
Fri, 13 May 2005

On “The Harvey Pekar Name Story” and American Splendor (the movie).
Sat, 07 May 2005

GM mango.
Sat, 16 Apr 2005

Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and non-crappy comic book adaptations.
Thu, 07 Apr 2005

Hotel Rwanda and humanitarian intervention.
Thu, 31 Mar 2005

H.G. Wells’ Outline of History.
Tue, 15 Mar 2005

Warren Beatty, Deborah Kerr: Reds, Bulworth, and The King and I.
Tue, 15 Mar 2005

Bono, President of the World Bank.
Tue, 08 Mar 2005

Michael reviews the weekend: 3 books. (Alongside Night, A Kiss Before Dying, and The Man in the High Castle.)
Mon, 07 Mar 2005

Michael reviews the weekend: 6 movies. (Goodbye Mr. Chips, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Shadow of a Doubt, Tea and Sympathy, and End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones.)
Mon, 07 Mar 2005

The Man clamps down.
Thu, 03 Mar 2005

9000 kilometres. (Visits to Chicago, Buffalo, New York City, and Shelburne Falls, MA; an evening with Dr. Dirty, and the U.S. debut of Dr. Science.)
Tue, 18 Jan 2005

Groucho in Canada.
Mon, 29 Nov 2004

Plato and Dion: A play.
Thu, 18 Nov 2004

Tuesday Weld: Thoughts on the ’04 election.
Wed, 03 Nov 2004

Birds falling from the sky: Iraq and the ’04 election.
Mon, 01 Nov 2004

Laurence Olivier is dead, dead, dead: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
Tue, 19 Oct 2004

Super-Size Me: Before and after.
Mon, 19 Jul 2004

The accidental wedding band.
Mon, 28 Jun 2004

Dream journal: Bee cereal.
Thu, 24 Jun 2004

Michael dreams the final episode of “Friends”.
Thu, 06 May 2004

An encounter with Black Francis.
Mon, 19 Apr 2004

Plato’s The Republic.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004

The great Third World tourism debate.
Tue, 29 Mar 2004

Dream journal: Exercise bike.
Fri, 12 Mar 2004

The dreadful, dreadful 2004 Academy Awards.
Mon, 01 Mar 2004

List-making.
Tue, 24 Feb 2004

Rumsfeld’s “known knowns” and the Plain English Campaign.
Monday, December 01, 2003

Scenes from the 2003 Saskatchewan leaders’ debate.
Wed, 29 Oct 2003

The unkillable Saskatoon public school board trustee.
Fri, 24 Oct 2003

Jungle Gym.
Fri, 22 Aug 2003

John Milton and the power of positive thinking.
April 7, 2003

Early Iraq war casualties.
Thu, 20 Mar 2003

Atom Egoyan’s Ararat.
Thu, 13 Mar 2003

Good and bad metaphor: Robert Graves and Preston Sturges.
Fri, 28 Feb 2003

The (sigh) anti-war demonstrations.
Tue, 18 Feb 2003

Anti-Americanism.
Wed, 18 Dec 2002

Adam and Eve: A work story.
Wed, 18 Dec 2002

Signs: God versus the aliens.
Fri, 06 Dec 2002

He is the stockboy that gathers the carts.
Mon, 02 Dec 2002

The argument from design.
Tue, 22 Oct 2002

My infamous work history: On revising my resumé.
Fri, 11 Oct 2002

Carfree.
Tue, 08 Oct 2002

M. Night Shyamalan.
Tue, 01 Oct 2002

Rezkallah and Bergstrom and Sumner and Bugg.
Mon, 23 Sep 2002

Rewriting Steinbeck: A parody.
Mon, 23 Sep 2002

Yo! Bum rush the Pope! (A scene from World Youth Day celebrations in Toronto.)
Sat, 03 Aug 2002

No sense of history.
Fri, 02 Aug 2002

Dream journal: I am Jesus.
Mon, 29 Jul 2002

RIP newts 1984-2002.
Tue, 02 Jul 2002

Crossroads: A short story.
Wed, 26 Jun 2002

Ta-ta, y’all: A Canadian accent in England.
Mon, 03 Jun 2002

Dendrochronology – A boon to archaeology!
Wed, 20 Mar 2002

Steve McQueen: A stay-at-home adventure.
Fri, 31 Jan 2002

Song of the splake.
Mon, 07 Jan 2002

 




Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.