Month: August 2012

2012, Basketball, Sports

Dwight Howard Trade August 2012

Putting Howard’s ridiculous, childish behaviour – which perhaps only seems so childish because it has been amplified by our new “social media” technology – which caused this trade, I want to try to think about it from a purely practical perspective. Denver gets: Andre Iguodala (from Philly) Iguodala: 28, SG/SF: 37.7 MPG; 14.6 PP36, 5.6 …

2012, Music

Wolfe Island Music Festival 2012

This is my second year attending the Wolfe Island Music Festival, the 14th edition. Just like last year, I attended even though it is not really full of bands I would normally seek out. I like the vibe – how it is completely different from seeing something in Toronto, for example – and I have …

2012, Music

Laborintus II (2012 Ipecac) by Luciano Berio, performed by Ictus Ensemble, Nederlands Kamerkoor, Mike Patton

I should eat this up. This is a work written by my favourite Italian composer of the second half of the 20th century – and with Busoni and Puccini, a contender for my favourite Italian composer of the 20th century – performed, in part, by my favourite male rock singer of all time – and …

Personal, Psychology

On the sanity of living with another human being

I have vivid dreams. I mean: really, really vivid. Sometimes they are so vivid I am convinced I am living them, until I wake up. Sometimes they are so vivid they take the place of my memories and I occasionally get confused about whether or not something realistic that happened in a dream actually happened …

2012, Books, Non-Fiction, Philosophy, Science

On the nature of the universe

In the CS Monitor‘s book of review of Jim Holt’s Does the Universe Exist?, Troy Jollimore discusses the nature of the universe and the bizarre fact that most scientists and philosophers seem to assume that we have to prove how the universe appeared, as if what existed before the universe – if ever we can say something existed before the …

2007, Music

Children’s Corner: Debussy Orchestrations (2007 Atma) by Claude Debussy, performed by Orchestre symphonique de Quebec conducted by Yoav Talmi

The more I listen to so-called “classical” / “high art” music the more of a snob I become about it. And I guess that’s not surprising, after all I am a gigantic music snob (though I would argue that I am much less of a music snob – having let hooks into my life at …

Books, RIP

Gore Vidal was crazy but sometimes he was also awesome

I guess what I mean to say is RIP Gore Vidal. But I have a problem saying that, and my problem is that Gore Vidal believed a lot of stuff (particularly about the United States government) that was not true. Worse, he made those beliefs public. Worse, because he was Gore Vidal, he made it …