Today the Leafs extended RFA Nikolai Kulemin.
Shenanigans! On the public and communal regulation of fraud
In episode #213 of South Park, “Cow Days”, Kyle attempts to declare “Shenanigans” on a carny for a rigged game.
3* Reasonable Objections to All Conspiracy Theories
When I was in my late teens and early 20s, I was a big believer in conspiracy, particularly the “plot to kill Kennedy.” I ridiculed those around me who doubted a conspiracy in Kennedy’s death and regularly told them that they just didn’t know all the facts. Anyone who knew all the facts would clearly …
The Best Defense is a Good Offense: the Professional Hockey Writer’s Association and 57 Years of Screwing the Pooch on the Norris Trophy
The Best Defense is a Good Offense On Lidstrom’s retirement, I hypothesized that he might be one of the three best defencemen in NHL history. I did this based on one thing: Norris trophy wins. But the more I thought of it, the more I thought that was ridiculous. The PHWA had just awarded two …
RIP: Jon Lord
Jon Lord was one of the earliest rock keyboardists – along with people like Keith Emerson – to attempt to fuse so-called “classical” music (actually it was usually Romantic music) with rock. He convinced his band, Deep Purple, to cover Richard Strauss, among others, to include his string and wind arrangements, and to eventually perform …
Grand Sonata for Piano and Violin; 20 Variations… (2002, CBC Records) by Carl Czerny, performed by Anton Kuerti and Erika Raum
I am certainly not at the point where I can truly judge a performance of a work by the standards of professional musicians like these, and it is especially hard when I am unfamiliar with the work. But I like this. I feel like this CD – and another by Kuerti of straight-up piano sonatas …
Summer 2012 NHL Trades: Some Thoughts
Ducks: 2nd round pick; Islanders: Visnovsky How the Islanders got Visnovsky for a 2nd pick is beyond me. I guess he had his worst offensive year in nearly a decade last year, so that’s why. But given that he automatically becomes their 2nd best defenceman (that’s a guess), and is an underpay, and lets them …
My Favourite Music Scene
Throughout the years, New York has been a hot bed of the avant garde, the new, and the different. And London has also been a real centre of forward thinking music. (Though with London – even more so than NY – many of the bands that were doing the forward thinking originated in other communities …
Raptors’ 2012 NBA Draft
This year the Raptors clearly drafted by need and I can’t say I’m happy about it. In my recent review of the Leafs’ 2012 draft I examined the reasons to draft by talent and by need (and why, if you can determine who is the most talented, it makes sense to draft by talent and …
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: the 2012 NHL Draft
There are basically two approaches to drafting that GMs can take: drafting by need and drafting by talent. Let’s think about both briefly before looking at what the Leafs did this year.
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: Schenn for JVR
Aka: The Time Riley Was Totally Wrong About a Leafs Trade Toronto Maple Leafs get: James Van Riemsdyk, 23, LW: 47G, 52A for 99P in 196 games, +13 14:03 ATOI. That’s an 82 game average of 20G, 22A for 42P. Cap Hit: $4.25 million through 2018 Salary: $2.5 million per year in ’13 to $5 …
2012 NBA Champions
Here is my utterly irrational post about a basketball series I watched probably 15 (basketball) minutes of:
The Mirror Man Sessions (1971, 1999) by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band (1999 Buddha)
Aka It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper, which is one of the titles this music has been known by. Note: I have not heard the “original,” 1971 release of this album.
The Island President (2011, Jon Shenk)
This is an affecting movie about the potential crisis we as a world – and specifically, anyone living close to the ocean without a hill in the way – are likely facing in the next few decades. The filmmakers have found a very charismatic man to follow around and it makes the whole thing a …
A Few Thoughts on Suicide
I am pro-legalized suicide. I am well aware of the practical considerations regarding the legalization of assisted-suicide and I don’t intend to discuss that now. But thinking about it in terms of survival instead – or in some kind of utilitarian fashion – I think there is a practical case to be made in favour …
The Flaming Lips live at Yonge & Dundas Square, June 16, 2012
A brief word before this review: I am a music fan first and foremost and everything else is secondary. So I don’t put much stock in performance (beyond whether its musically good or not) and so don’t get the wrong idea.
The Bostonians by Henry James (1886)
I haven’t fallen in love in the teenage / young adult sense in some time. The last time I was 26 I think. But that being said, I still think I have a good idea of what it is like.
The 2012 LA Kings: Do I Have to Eat My Words? And Other Thoughts
Unlike virtually everyone I knew, I was very much on Philly’s side when they traded away their supposed franchise players last summer. (Though not so much when they signed their supposed franchise goalie.) And through the regular season, it certainly looked like I was right. Of course now the Kings have won the Cup and …
Last Call at the Oasis (2012, Jessica Yu)
This is not a happy film. I guess that’s what accounts for its low rating on Imdb. [At the time this post was published the rating was at least 2 lower than it is in 2019.] That or certain companies are rating it 1/10. (C’mon Riley, nobody does that! That’s crazy!)
The Big Ups at the Horseshoe, June 9, 2012
Or: Nothing like seeing a bad bar band to put you off music and onto psychology. I went to The Big Ups’ show last night. I knew nothing about them. That’s not why I went. But went I did. I have nothing to say about them really, they were fine. Not my type of music. …
RIP Ween
I found out about Ween’s demise last week, and I have been trying to think of how to sum up what they meant to me – and the world, but of course! – in some kind of measured way. I have a rather bizarre relationship with them: I came to them rather late (2001? 2002?) …
The Hockey Hall of Fame Bias towards “Last time we won the cup was…”
The more I went through previous Hockey Hall of Fame admissions for a previous blog entry, the more I became aware of a pattern: the sheer number of inductees who played for a franchise’s last cup winner. Memory is an extraordinarily powerful force and it seems like the memory of a franchise’s “last great team” …
Percussion Music: Works by Varese, Colgrass, Saperstein, Cowell, Wuorinen (1974, 1997, Nonesuch) by the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble
This is a fine selection of modern “art music” attempts to break out of western traditions by making percussive music. Not really knowing a ton about any of the composers, save Varese, that’s tough for me to say, but it seems a fair sample.
Bob Dylan
Though I regard the “medal of freedom” as a rather laughable thing – and would like to think that if I were as famous and inscrutable as Bob Dylan I would not have accepted it – I feel like now is as good a time as ever to say: Bob Dylan is the greatest “rock” …
The album isn’t dead…and if it is, that’s not a good thing
I reject the claim that the album is dead since I own hundreds and I know many who also own hundreds. Moreover, I live near multiple stores that sell albums. I bought one for my brother the other day. I intend to go by some this week for myself, as well. But if it is …
The Hunger Games (2012, Gary Ross)
So first, my general impressions: the film is pretty well-made, if a little long for its subject matter. I didn’t detect any glaring problems with the editing, direction, etc. The problem is, of course, the source material. As one would expect from a novel aimed at teens or tweens, there’s not much here for adults: …
Women in Jazz (1998, Retro Music) by Various Artists
The cheapie box set is an interesting phenomenon: Gather some recordings from major artists where the copyright has lapsed (or never existed), Put the recordings in any arbitrary order you choose, Use more discs than are necessary to convince the buyer they are getting a great bargain, Give it a catchy title.
The Conservative Majority: One Year Later (2011-12)
CBC had a very helpful little piece about what the Conservatives have and haven’t done in their first year. Here are my thoughts: What they have done so far:
Capitalism: A Love Story (2009, Michael Moore)
Full disclosure: I don’t like Michael Moore. I agree with him on many, many things, but I absolutely can’t stand the way he manipulates his audience. I am a political philosophy major and so a lack of clarity of concepts makes me insane. So…
The Invisible War (2012, Kirby Dick)
I hate to say it, but 2012 was my first year attending Hot Docs. And because I didn’t get my act together, I ended up seeing one movie. (The other two we tried to see were sold out, one a week in advance.) So what follows is my review of that movie, Invisible War: