Arguments | Books | Movies | Music | Self-indulgent nonsense
Arguments
Robert Heinlein and the basic theorem of population mechanics.
December 7, 2012
Um, has anyone noticed this Muhammad video is hilarious?
September 15, 2012
Noise pollution and negative externalities.
September 18, 2011
So did the Red Army really singlehandedly defeat the Third Reich?
June 24, 2010
Flemings and Quebeckers, united in resentment.
June 15, 2010
In defense of the beauty bias.
June 12, 2010
The MetaFilter sex slavery story: Can anyone actually verify this?
May 31, 2010
Those fast-breeding religious conservatives again.
April 2, 2010
Ryan Meili, guy I know, finishes a strong second.
June 6, 2009
Ryan Meili, guy I know, running for NDP leader.
February 5, 2009
Motel Indians, Hollywood Jews.
January 18, 2009
The ill-advised Liberal-NDP coalition.
December 6, 2008
Right-wing blowhards and the ’08 election.
Tue, 12 Feb 2008
On being, deep down, a Liberal.
Sat, 02 Dec 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
More about low birthrates and the impending death of liberalism.
Thu, 16 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
Plague vs. plague: The accidental conquest of the Americas.
Thu, 08 Sep 2005
Oot and aboot: Peter Jennings’ “Canadian accent”.
Mon, 08 Aug 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
Bono, President of the World Bank.
Tue, 08 Mar 2005
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
The great Third World tourism debate.
Tue, 29 Mar 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
Early Iraq war casualties.
Thu, 20 Mar 2003
The (sigh) anti-war demonstrations.
Tue, 18 Feb 2003
Anti-Americanism.
Wed, 18 Dec 2002
Yo! Bum rush the Pope! (A scene from World Youth Day celebrations in Toronto.)
Sat, 03 Aug 2002
Books
Crossing over: Allan Bloom, Saul Bellow, and Christopher Hitchens.
October 27, 2012
Paul Theroux and the Hanoi Christmas bombings.
September 19, 2012
Stanley and the Women, and why Martin Amis didn’t like it.
July 24, 2012
Under weigh? Right away! (Observations on language in Dickens’ American Notes.)
March 4, 2011
John Howard Griffin and other people’s music.
October 26, 2010
Finding myself in a book.
October 3, 2010
Solzhenitsyn, funnyman.
September 29, 2010
Peter Watts is a jerk (but Blindsight is awesome).
September 27, 2010
The Red and the Black: Julien’s game.
July 17, 2010
“Someone knocked at the door as foreigners do” – a question regarding Tolstoy.
May 16, 2010
John Wayne and Girl In Landscape, by Jonathan Lethem.
March 15, 2010
People who write in the margins of books.
November 28, 2009
Catch-22: Not as great as remembered.
November 11, 2009
Homage to Catalonia: George Orwell is not like you or me.
October 11, 2009
Highlights from The Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux.
July 1, 2009
New Maps of Hell, by Kingsley Amis.
June 20, 2009
Good books in ugly covers.
May 31, 2009
The Brideshead Generation: Humphrey Carpenter doesn’t get Evelyn Waugh.
May 18, 2009
Voltaire in favour, temporarily: More on Nancy Mitford’s Voltaire in Love.
May 13, 2009
…In which I perform a Ron Rosenbaum on Ron Rosenbaum.
May 12, 2009
Voltaire in Love, by Nancy Mitford.
May 10, 2009
Milan Kundera and the ostriches: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.
May 2, 2009
My favourite scene in Flaubert’s Sentimental Education…
April 5, 2009
The Master and Margarita: The best translation?
February 9, 2009
From Dawn To Decadence, by Jacques Barzun.
January 12, 2009
Nancy Mitford (and Milk In First).
December 7, 2008
Holden Caulfield.
December 5, 2008
The Terror, by Dan Simmons.
November 24, 2008
Triumph, by Philip Wylie.
November 23, 2008
Arbuckle Avenue, Evelyn Waugh, and Graham Greene.
Wed, 13 Aug 2008
The ink ghost: Gravity’s Rainbow.
Sat, 5 May 2007
On reading Faulkner’s “The Bear”.
Thu, 26 Oct 2006
Dickens – Chesterton – Waugh.
Fri, 15 Jul 2005
H.G. Wells’ Outline of History.
Tue, 15 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
Groucho in Canada.
Mon, 29 Nov 2004
Plato and Dion: A play.
Thu, 18 Nov 2004
Plato’s The Republic.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
John Milton and the power of positive thinking.
April 7, 2003
Good and bad metaphor: Robert Graves and Preston Sturges.
Fri, 28 Feb 2003
Rewriting Steinbeck: A parody.
Mon, 23 Sep 2002
Movies (& occasionally TV)
Why Anna Faris will never take a wrench to the face.
October 3, 2011
Dren / Not Dren: The unsatisfying ending of Splice.
June 22, 2010
Spike Jonze’s I’m Here will melt your callous human heart.
March 27, 2010
Reviewing John Podhoretz, movie critic for the Weekly Standard. (My takes on Watchmen, the Star Trek reboot, and Rachel Getting Married.)
June 14, 2009
Drag Me To Hell – heck of an ending.
June 13, 2009
That sex scene in Watchmen.
March 21, 2009
Let The Right One In: The crotch shot and other unanswered questions.
January 18, 2009
Southland Tales is a spoof…isn’t it?
January 14, 2009
Some movies I’ve seen. (Keanu’s The Day the Earth Stood Still; The X-Files: I Want To Believe; and Stuart Gordon’s Stuck.)
January 8, 2009
Kristin Scott Thomas, continued: Tell No One and I’ve Loved You So Long.
January 5, 2009
I’ve Loved You So Long.
January 2, 2009
Confusingly (to some), 300 isn’t an anti-war movie.
Thu, 26 Jun 2008
George Romero’s Diary of the Dead.
Thu, 28 Feb 2008
Alfonso Cuarón’s ideological Children of Men.
Mon, 30 Apr 2007
The Conspiracy Artists: Syriana and V For Vendetta.
Sun, 24 Sep 2006
X-Men: The Last Stand: Not as terrible as reported.
Thu, 06 Jul 2006
Da Ali G Show & Stephen Colbert’s speech.
Mon, 06 May 2006
Trudeau, the CBC miniseries.
Mon, 24 Oct 2005
Spielberg’s War of the Worlds.
Mon, 04 Jul 2005
Do we still need the Batmobile?
Mon, 27 Jun 2005
On “The Harvey Pekar Name Story” and American Splendor (the movie).
Sat, 07 May 2005
Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and non-crappy comic book adaptations.
Thu, 07 Apr 2005
Hotel Rwanda and humanitarian intervention.
Thu, 31 Mar 2005
Warren Beatty, Deborah Kerr: Reds, Bulworth, and The King and I.
Tue, 15 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
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
Michael dreams the final episode of “Friends”.
Thu, 06 May 2004
The dreadful, dreadful 2004 Academy Awards.
Mon, 01 Mar 2004
Atom Egoyan’s Ararat.
Thu, 13 Mar 2003
Signs: God versus the aliens.
Fri, 06 Dec 2002
M. Night Shyamalan.
Tue, 01 Oct 2002
Music
Deric Ruttan: Workin’ in a coal mine, or possibly a salt mine.
Tue, 03 July 2007
The Decemberists’ “Sixteen Military Wives” gets on my nerves.
Tue, 21 Nov 2006
Pandora and Malcolm Gladwell.
Mon, 06 Nov 2006
Nathan (the band).
Thu, 04 Aug 2005
An encounter with Black Francis.
Mon, 19 Apr 2004
Self-indulgent nonsense
Sea Water Bliss voted off The Duo competition.
September 21, 2011
It’s 2011 and I’m still lazy.
January 26, 2011
Caveat.
September 21, 2010
Who’s the asshole?
June 7, 2010
UPDATE: Not too depressing after all.
March 24, 2010
This interview is too depressing for Colombian web TV.
March 12, 2010
Side roads in Death Valley.
February 8, 2010
The lost “Sea Captain” video.
January 28, 2010
More about that Mendel gig.
January 3, 2010
Truth at 0.25 frames per second.
December 7, 2009
Flipapalooza & LUGO.
November 25, 2009
Dream journal: The vending machine.
November 15, 2009
The Sexy Mathematics origin story.
November 11, 2009
My new thing.
September 29, 2009
Tiny humiliations.
August 25, 2009
Dream journal: Swimming to Filmbodia.
August 8, 2009
Cartoon news.
June 23, 2009
Blogging into the void.
June 2, 2009
Dream journal: Tom Cruise.
April 25, 2009
On being offensive.
January 10, 2009
On negativity.
December 2, 2008
Dream journal: Ahmadinadream.
Fri, 15 Aug 2008
An interactive map of my Texas vacation.
Wed, 4 Jun 2008
Letters from Texas: The Houston Rockets and Lakewood Church.
Thu, 14 Feb 2008
An evening at the races.
Mon, 20 Aug 2007
Dream journal: The hyperlink crossword and the mile-high skyscraper.
Sun, 25 Feb 2007
Old phone number.
Thu, 19 Oct 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
I can tell when I’m not wanted.
Wed, 15 Mar 2006
A tour of the Regional Psychiatric Centre.
Fri, 03 Mar 2006
Did you stop peeing because of me?
Mon, 28 Nov 2005
My archnemesis, Kevin Chong.
Wed, 23 Nov 2005
Witness for the prosecution.
Mon, 12 Sep 2005
GM mango.
Sat, 16 Apr 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
The accidental wedding band.
Mon, 28 Jun 2004
Dream journal: Bee cereal.
Thu, 24 Jun 2004
Dream journal: Exercise bike.
Fri, 12 Mar 2004
List-making.
Tue, 24 Feb 2004
Jungle Gym.
Fri, 22 Aug 2003
Adam and Eve: A work story.
Wed, 18 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
Rezkallah and Bergstrom and Sumner and Bugg.
Mon, 23 Sep 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
