Month: January 2013

2013, Basketball, Sports

On Your Way, Jose: Raptors Trade Calderon

You may wonder why I haven’t yet started a “Campaign to fire Bryan Colangelo” in this space. Well, there are two main reasons. To this day, I do not know basketball like I know hockey. At this moment, without cable and without league pass, I watch way more college basketball than NBA basketball, and I …

Politics, Society

Armchair Governing

For decades we have known about the phenomenon of “Armchair Quarterbacks”: fans who watch so much football that they decide – probably subconsciously at first – that they would be better at the offensive coordinator job than the experienced professional currently holding that position. And it extends to other football decisions and other sports decisions. …

Hockey, Sports, The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke

The Campaign to Fire Dave Nonis: Joffrey Lupul Extension. Plus my thoughts on the Leafs’ first game of 2013

Dave Nonis took a step in the wrong direction when he resigned Joffrey Lupul instead of trading him or letting him walk. Lupul becomes only the second Leafs player to be signed through the 2017-18 season, when he will be 34. (JVR is the other.) Lupul will make $5.25 million per season.

Hockey, Sports, The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke

The Campaign to Fire Dave Nonis – Matthew Lombardi

With Burke gone, and with Nonis as yet an unknown entity as a Leafs GM, I don’t really know what to call my latest evaluations of Leafs trades, so maybe I will retroactively change it to something else if I am indeed forced to launch a campaign to fire Nonis, but the way he has …

1989, Music

Variations, interlude et final; Prelude elegiaque; La plainte, au loin, du faune; Sonate (1989) by Paul Dukas, performed by Margaret Fingerhut

This is a quite surprising collection. Dukas – who apparently destroyed much of his output – used to be somewhat dismissed when it came to his piano music but I find what’s here – both the famous sonata variations and the less famous other two works – to be great, if not exactly life-changing. It’s …

2012, Movies

Django Unchained (2012, Quentin Tarantino)

As Inglorious Basterds was a somewhat delirious revenge fantasy about Nazism, Django is a somewhat delirious revenge fantasy about slavery. As with Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained is not Tarantino’s best movie – it’s a little too cartoonish and a little too schizophrenic for that – but I think Django Unchaine is slightly superior to Inglorious …

1997, Music

The Best of Tommy Dorsey and His Clambake Seven (1997 Retrieval)

Dorsey – along with his brother – was often accused of not playing “jazz”, something of a hurtful accusation to someone who felt he was a jazz musician. This was actually a fairly common thing in the ’30s when jazz and popular dance music were pretty tough to distinguish. (To this day, many people will …

Hockey, Sports, The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke

The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: Lockout to Lockout

Only one team in the entire 30 team NHL went from the last lockout (2004-05) to this one without a single playoff appearance: the Toronto Maple Leafs. Only four teams missed the playoffs at least 5 times: the Oilers (6 times), the Islanders and the Thrashers. One of these teams has a pretty good excuse: …