Vitamins

Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer

2008-09-29T15:39:00Z

Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer

Lehrer's book makes the claim that several great artists from recent times (in fields as disparate as symphony composition and french cuisine) anticipated some of this century's biggest leaps in neuroscience.

Lehrer brought my awe at the human situation into even sharper focus. The fact that we are aware that we are not fully aware of ourselves is a very special conundrum - ours is a way of knowing that can understand that this way of knowing is innately limited. Not just that it will never have enough time or brain space to acquire all knowledge, but that it is incapable of knowing some things - and to get even more epistemological on you, this way of knowing could never know it knew everything, it would have no way of knowing there was no more to be known. Ouch...

I digress - the point is we have ways of knowing that the conscious mind is not involved in, undeniably. Think of the easiest example - all involuntary bodily processes. I don't remember the last time I told my heart to beat. And it does, thankfully. And when you ate that bad pasta salad - threw up an hour later, right? Using rather prosaic examples I'm trying to expose a fact that we consider obvious and irrelevant - we have a kind of knowing in our very flesh, an "intelligence". I think Lehrer is saying that art too is an intelligence - a kind of knowing. It's almost as if, at the end of each fascinating character study on a brilliant artist, he is reminding science that the "self", the "mind" or a "person" cannot be investigated as a peptide or a salt ion can be, (as the Buddhist's say, it's like trying to bite your teeth) and that perhaps the only way to grasp these concepts is to fully surrender to the subjectivity of self - art. Even though art is created using the will and the conscious mind to a certain extent, something else creeps in there - a knowing that is beyond thought's reach. I think that's why the history of art has always served as a prophetic mirror to the changing way humans think about the world and their place in it...

The Shift

2008-09-29T15:35:00Z

The Shift

theshiftmovie.com

Fleet Foxes

2008-09-29T15:33:00Z

Fleet Foxes

Beach Boys, echoes of outer space and the very best of Neutral Milk Hotel all twisted into one waffle cone. And the most beautiful liner notes since Dylan's Blood on the Tracks.

myspace.com/fleetfoxes

David Suzuki Foundation

2008-09-29T15:31:00Z

David Suzuki Foundation

I am now officially a member!

davidsuzuki.org/

A Confession and Other Religious Writings by Tolstoy

2008-09-29T15:16:00Z

A Confession and Other Religious Writings by Tolstoy

This man will always be one of my heroes. Gandhi once referred to himself as Tolstoy's "humble follower". Reading A Confession, one can begin to understand why. A kinship with Spinoza's thoughts can be found throughout - notably, a call to reform the hypocritical religious institutions that twist and betray the core tenets of Judaeo-Christian teachings. Tolstoy makes the very important point that all of the great religious traditions have the same heart - do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and a responsibility to strive towards perfecting oneself morally. So much fascinating material... Too much to say here.

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

2008-07-04T07:40:00Z

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

Memoir of a holocaust survivor / brilliant psychiatrist / passionate human.
This book was mailed to me by one of my most treasured philosophical friends and guides, a man in the thick of it all working overseas as an epidemiologist.

This passage says everything:
"A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love."

Talks and Dialogues: J. Krishnamurti

2008-07-04T07:34:00Z

Talks and Dialogues by J. Krishnamurti

Challenging, provocative and resonant... at times frustrating...

German Expressionist Max Beckman

2008-07-04T07:33:00Z

German Expressionist Max Beckman

Such a signature mood. Could look at these every day. Creepy, but playful, and they change in tone and vibe as you, the viewer, get older.

www.tendreams.org/beckmann.htm

Swedish painter Carl Larsson

2008-07-04T07:32:00Z

Swedish painter Carl Larsson

Domestic bliss in exquisitely crafted watercolour... He made his home his masterwork - decorated and designed just whimsically enough to feel like a living painting, but without rendering the rooms uninhabitable or disturbing the rhythms of daily life. So lovely. What a concept - make your life art!

www.carllarsson.se/enstart.aspx

Pink Tartan and Andy The-Anh

2008-07-04T07:31:00Z

Pink Tartan and Andy The-Anh

"I enjoy being a girrrrl...." Dresses o beautiful dresses.
I would like to thank both designers for lending me their artful, inspired creations. I felt like a Baroness/good witch/wild princess for the entire May tour thanks to their many elegant frocks.
Please accept my deepest curtsy. We can't even imagine what beautiful perfumes and wallpapers adorn your magical factories.

www.pinktartan.com
www.andytheanh.com

The Sacred Self by Wayne Dyer

2008-07-04T07:28:00Z

The Sacred Self by Wayne Dyer

Dyer has a knack for weaving Hindu, Sufi, Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian thought together into simple, practical insights. Ignore that it appears, superficially, to be New Age-y. It's not.

youtube stars

2008-05-15T22:06:00Z

You Tube Stars!

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=geVDZGW-9B0
the abecedarian: Lucy Rupert, genius of dance

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=x-Vp9WiXhNs
Sweet Ones Cover (WOW!!)

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=3e12jJZGEts
"Get Home": Elizabeth Elming

Quantum Entanglement - "connectivity is THE property of quantum mechanics"

2008-05-15T21:40:00Z

Quantum Entanglement - "connectivity is THE property of quantum mechanics"

Physicists are going to be the new mystics. I feel it. What we are - what we exist within - what "reality" is, they refer to as a "field of pure potentiality". How incredible! Imagine the transformation that could take place if humans deeply discover this! When I think of how a fearful, cynical, divisive consciousness has manifested in the world, clips like these convince me that peaceful consciousness can manifest as pervasively.

This is Gandhi all over again. You are infectious - your mind is quantum-ly entangled with everything else that exists. By being in a present, love-motivated state, you emit it, you affect everything around you, and that is not a little thing, that is a beam of light! "Be the change" he said, just BE it, no need to scream it from the rooftops or pull your hair out trying to cause waves of awakening in the population.
Your aware presence, your stilled mind, your open heart - are so powerful, in ways we cannot even fathom.

Quantum physics shows that the state of a particle or particles is not a static, discriminately knowable thing. In fact, it is the opposite. Active, influential, mysteriously continuous and connected to the observer.

Are we going to realize in a few hundred years, like Copernicus did, that our senses are not the determiners of truth? - that our perception of reality is only a perception, and that underneath the vast and varied menu of forms in the world lies a single, eternal force that we all emanate from and eventually return to? Are we going to understand that our thinking, chattering minds are NOT the totality of what we deem our "selves" and that a vast "field of potentiality" exists beyond it? One that we all share - so in fact, we are not separate selves? Will this mean the dawn of compassion and the end of the frantic race? Man I love it when science and faith play nice together!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QcKDvcnZrE&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpSqrb3VK3c&feature=related

http://cam.qubit.org/articles/intros/entangle.php

Check out this excerpt from a paper by Michael Brooks:
http://www.biophysica.com/quantum.htm

"But these problems may be nothing compared to the bombshell that Caslav Brukner of the University of Vienna has just dropped. As if our current understanding of entanglement between widely separated particles were not sketchy enough, Brukner, working with Vedral and two other Imperial College researchers, has uncovered a radical twist. They have shown that moments of time can become entangled too (www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0402127).

They achieved this through a thought experiment that examines how quantum theory links successive measurements of a single quantum system. Measure a photon's polarisation, for example, and you will get a particular result. Do it again some time later, and you will get a second result. What Brukner and Vedral have found is a strange connection between the past and the future: the very act of measuring the photon polarisation a second time can affect how it was polarised earlier on. "It's really surprising," says Vedral.

This entanglement between moments in time is so bizarre that it could expose a hole in the very fabric of quantum theory, the researchers believe. The formulation does not allow messages to be sent back in time, but it still means that quantum mechanics seems to be bending the laws of cause and effect. On top of that, entanglement in time puts space and time on an equal footing in quantum theory, and that goes sharply against the grain.

Space and time have always been very different in quantum theory. A location in space is an "observable" - like momentum or spin, spatial coordinates are just another property any quantum particle can have. The passing of time, on the other hand, has always been part of the backdrop. An electron can have a particular value of spin, or momentum or location, but it cannot have a particular time.

But if time can become entangled, it should be considered as an observable, and there is no way to write that into quantum theory. "People have tried, but something in quantum mechanics always has to be violated if you want a proper time-observable," Vedral says. "So it could be that something in quantum mechanics has to be reformulated."

In other words, Brukner's result suggests that we might be missing something important in our understanding of how the world works. Maybe that shouldn't surprise us. After all, entanglement between two spatially separated objects already tells us that space doesn't really have the form that classical physics says it does: instantaneous cause and effect across cosmological distances is not something that any theory of the universe can cope with. And now Brukner's result seems to extend this "impossibility" to events separated in time as well.

It's not cause for despair, though. We know that relativity and quantum theory have to be meshed together if we are to create a "final" theory of how the universe works. It is too early to read much into Brukner's result, but maybe it is a clue about how to produce such a theory."

Zeitgeist

2008-03-31T14:10:00Z

Zeitgeist

I have never felt what I am feeling right now.
It is terror and anger and revulsion all mixed with tears.

After I watched this movie, I felt like I'd been kicked in the face - like my heart had been shattered... it might have broken, if not for the fact that I have deep abiding faith in the good in people - in the holy compassionate power that is within everyone.

We - all of us, have to awaken from the madness that has hijacked our world. Nothing else matters.

Please Google "North American Union" and take a look at what our "leaders" have planned for 2010. It is already underway. It started in 2005 - and do you remember any newspaper stories about it? TV news items? ME NEITHER.

It is truly horrifying. That CEOs and politicians can decide to agree on something of such devastating magnitude without the consent or involvement of the citizens who elected them is not only flagrantly undemocratic and an affront to our human rights, but threatens to make a mockery of Canada's treasured institutions of health care, education, food safety, environmental policy, etc. The greed and injustice and Orwellian implications are positively sickening.

Everything we cherish about Canada is at stake here.

Our Prime Minister has chosen big business and partnership with a disgraceful regime over the welfare of our nation and its people. Appalling. What more in the name of profit?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T74VA3xU0EA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H65f3q_Lm U&feature=related
www.stopspp.org/
www.stopspp.com/stopspp/
www.stopspp.ca/
www.spptruthwinnipeg.mb.ca/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4axRYJymHI&feature=related

Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 by Mahler

2008-03-06T18:19:00Z

Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 by Mahler

After the first three movements of this monster have thrown you around, made you cry or run for cover and then left you for dead, Mahler graciously inserts this "little Adagio" as sort of palatte-cleansing respite... but don't think you've reached dry land. The tempest takes on a different form - deeper, sadder and bigger than all the previous cacophony put together.

Mel Kadell

2008-03-06T18:18:00Z

Mel Kadell

The greatest new light in my art universe! O! go to Mel Kadel's website and enjoy the lonely, sad, Dahl-ish magic tricks... what a mind and hand can fashion with a pencil!! I believe again, all tears and drinks and cynics be damned! The frightful month when I lived in L.A. (2004?), I made a pilgrimage of sorts to the Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica, home of a meticulously gathered collective of gifted, unusual artists. The owner, affable, gregarious Richard himself, was kind enough to show me his giant secret stash of Marcel Dzama drawings....Gadzooks!! a seemingly endless supply of old-children's-book magic! -- as if Dahl, Grimm and Seuss met at a public camping site and played Ouija board... or something like that. Richard later took me for sushi and told bad jokes all night long. We drank scotch and didn't talk about art. It was surreal. Anyway --- Mel Kadel... o my goodness I am happy to have eyes again. Thank you, angel! www.melkadel.com/

La Vie En Rose by Oliver Dahan, starring Marion Cotillard

2008-03-06T18:16:00Z

La Vie En Rose by Oliver Dahan, starring Marion Cotillard

Everything about this film is superb. The story of Edith Piaf was destined for immortalization in cinema -- swinging from tragedy to triumph as if clinging to the end of some tireless violent pendulum... it is no wonder her singing voice can rouse us or reduce us to tears - she lived the very limits of despair and elation. Marion Cotillard richly deserved the Oscar for this performance - she portrays Piaf from about age 17 until death, convincingly altering her posture, voice and face to suit -- it fills me with awe to watch actors of this caliber perform such transformations. And of course... the music... It is a fabulous mess, life. Don't you love it? Even when it kicks you and makes you cry?

The Eraser by Thom Yorke

2008-03-06T18:15:00Z

The Eraser by Thom Yorke

Cedar twigs smoulder in lavender oil as I listen to you whisper about losing consciousness in that peculiar, menacing tone of yours. You computerize the air I am trying to fill with souvenirs from the natural world. Frantic, hypnotic rhythms, sleep-slurred murmurs from the lost and miserable. Yes, our dislocated age. A painful shoulder, jarred free from the cuddly joint. Freedom is as much a blessing as a condemnation. Oh Thom. You are Nietzsche's continuation, whether or not you know it or give a rat's ass. Your intention or the absence thereof has nothing to do with such an electric philosophical kinship. But where Freidrich calls on the Overman, you call on each of us to draw something heroic from Nothingness. It is hard to hear.

Elle Muliarchyk - photographer and model

2008-03-06T18:13:00Z

Elle Muliarchyk - photographer and model

Model. Sheesh. Does that even qualify as an occupation? Now now Sarah, play nice. This woman should definitely list "photographer and artist" before "model" on her resume.... Originally from Belarus, Elle came to New York to be a supermodel, but art came screaming into her mind and she had no choice but to obey its every command. Her unique twist is taking photographs in dangerous locations, sometimes the dressing rooms of posh boutiques, sometimes midnight forests in frightening suburban badlands... her photos conjure whole worlds and stories and emotions.... www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk

"How to Think About Science"

2008-03-06T18:12:00Z

"How to Think About Science"

www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/science/index.html

The Life and Times of George Sand, a biography by Frances Winwar

2008-03-06T18:11:00Z

The Life and Times of George Sand, a biography by Frances Winwar

All I can say is, what a life. No fiction could equal her magnificent true tale.

Midlake - The Trials Of Van Occupanther

2008-03-06T18:08:00Z

Midlake - The Trials Of Van Occupanther

One of my absolute favourite records of 2006. That's saying a lot, because frankly, that year was a wasteland, non? A rare top-to-bottom, warm, richly textured, satisfying, listenable, tuneful, (yes! TUNEFUL!) and original work. Bra-VO! midlake.net/

Quotes

2008-02-06T22:46:00Z

Quotes

Some fuel for your metaphysical fire. Shine bright fellow soldiers.
Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,
but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

-Marianne Williamson (quoted by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 Inaugural Speech)

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop and look
fear in the face. You must do that which you think you cannot do.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The more I learn of physics,
. . . the more I'm drawn to metaphysics."

-- Albert Einstein

"I decided early to give my life to
something eternal and absolute. Not
to these little gods that are here today
and gone tomorrow, but to God who is
the same yesterday, today,
. . . and forever."

-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fantasia on a Theme By Thomas Tallis: Vaughan Williams

2008-02-06T22:40:00Z

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams

...a grave, surging, soaring piece for double string orchestra in the Phrygian mode that premiered in the grandeur of Gloucester Cathedral... I can only imagine what that must have sounded like...

El Perro Del Mar and Asa Arnehead

2008-02-06T22:35:00Z

El Perro Del Mar and Asa Arnehead

El Perro Del Mar makes poetic miniatures in pop music comparable to Chopin's poetic miniatures in piano music - as lovely as tender as fragile.... I wonder if she's short and 'consumptive' like poor Frederic was.... Asa Arnehead, the amazing Swedish artist who animated El Perro's video for God Knows (You Gotta Give to Get) is a perfect visual accompaniment to this small, delicate musical universe. The drawings are brilliant but the animations are even more so... the tiniest movements can disarm. Magic....

Sue Kwock Kim

2008-02-06T22:33:00Z

Sue Kwock Kim

A brilliant poet. Look up and be moved by "Leaving Chinatown" or her other Governor General's Award winning pieces... masterful. "Monologue for an Onion", what to say.... sheeeeeeesh.

The Sound and the Fury/Nobel Prize address: Faulkner

2008-02-06T21:09:00Z

The Sound and the Fury and Nobel Prize address by William Faulkner

I didn't know very much about Faulkner before I dug right in to The Sound and The Fury, and now I plan on climbing the mountain of his output. This story didn't flatten me, but the writing did. It's like a feast of camera angles. He writes convincingly from mouths as disparate as a long-suffering black servant named Dilsey and a handicapped man-child named Benjy. Faulkner surprised everyone when he agreed to give an acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in 1949. It is remarkable... a compass of sorts.

Amalia Rodrigues

2008-02-05T20:11:00Z

Amalia Rodrigues

Many thanks to Miranda for the tip. Amalia is the goddess of Portugese traditional fado music. Basically, this sounds like passionate weeping set to music. Yes please.

And pass the Wild Turkey.

Anne Sexton

2008-02-05T20:10:00Z

Anne Sexton

So clear, fierce and potent. There is something so resonant for me in her work - the search, the struggle the aching, the frustrated urgency. Her throaty, dramatic-yet-leaden readings are absolutely captivating - like Burroughs but beautiful, sad. Images bloom so fast they overlap. Ruthlessly good. "God", "With Mercy For the Greedy", "Her Kind", "The Fury of Overshoes", "Jesus Walking" .... my new heroine of letters. Be wary of web sites with woefully inaccurate transcriptions.... Books, always trust the books.

Viola Concerto: William Walton

2008-02-05T20:08:00Z

Viola Concerto by William Walton

Viola concerto? Really, viola? Really... by an English twentieth century composer ... and it is sublime... a bit Bernstein, a bit cinematic-film-score, a bit poetry.... massive at the end... with extraordinary melodic lines that blur major and minor modes... one phrase actually sounds like a bereaved widow moaning... enjoy!

The God Delusion: Richard Dawkins

2008-02-05T20:07:00Z

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

This book is a tour-de-force eye-opener. I've described Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works" as an epiphany-a-page. The same applies to Dawkins' latest book. I've read some of his science writing, but this, this.... It could not be more relevant, more brave, more informed. Controversial, but difficult to refute. Some passages had me raising my eyebrows, but more had me lean back in reluctant awe, "he's right...." Basically, he is calling for the complete and utter separation of church and state, in that religious issues should have absolutely no place in the laws of a civilized society, and instead, we should seek to define one moral ideology that frees and protects all citizens equally. And for this, his angle (being an evolutionary biologist by trade) is of course reason, rationality, empiricism. Judging from the world's current state, how can we move elsewhere? "Imagine no religion....."

Mind Wide Open: Steve Johnson

2008-02-05T20:05:00Z

Mind Wide Open by Steve Johnson

Where do all sciences, arts and faiths meet to perform an elaborate ballet? The brain, of course, the mysterious, bewitching brain. Mind Wide Open is an expertly written, highly readable nugget on my favourite subject.

Winter's Tale: Mark Helprin

2008-02-05T20:03:00Z

Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin

Where have you been all my life Mr. Helprin. 'Peter Lake' is unforgettable... the most vivid character I've encountered in fiction since Holden Caulfield. So many moments from this book are still bright in my mind's eye.

Funny Face

2008-02-05T19:59:00Z

Funny Face

Starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire; music of the Gershwins

Sigh.... supremely cheesy , gag-worthy, pie-eyed optimism - irresistibly charming!!You can't not love it... love her! love him! the dancing! the Disney-ness! and the woman who plays Ms. Prescott, what a dynamo! It contains one of my favourite lines in any film, ever, "everybody wants to be kissed, even philosophers." The cheery glorification of the American tourist probably has Parisian's rolling their eyes but who cares, I could watch Astaire dance for hours.

Les Choristes

2008-02-05T19:57:00Z

Les Choristes

A beautiful film about an orphanage in rural France with a foul tyrannical, beast as headmaster. At first the troubled lads aren't too impressed with a new staff member... but with patience and respect, he wins their trust, and -- starts a choir (what a magical premise!)... the music is heavenly (Rameau's O Nuit for example) and, though not a totally novel plot line, it was still an absolute pleasure to experience.... oh le petit Pepinot!

Richard Feynman lectures

2008-02-01T21:50:00Z

Richard Feynman lectures

I love this physicist as much as the linguist Steven Pinker. Sometimes when one's world view succumbs to the myopia of despair or apathy, listening to one of these lectures is like a cold dish of water in the face. Expansion! Wake up, Miracle! Boom, I come back to the wild realization that the natural universe is in the process of being unfolded like a magnificent flower or symphony. Its complex, elegant mysteries are being tirelessly investigated by physicists and philosophers who though still perplexed, nevertheless behave like excited little kids... as should we, as often as we can.... the universe is amazing. AMAZING. Time passes. History forgets us. Lets not forget to watch in wonder. Look up The Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures : Richard Feynman.

Joyeux Noel

2008-02-01T21:48:00Z

Joyeux Noel

An invitation to great waves of beautiful emotion. This picture is the story of soldiers in the trenches during WWI who mutually agree to a cease fire for Christmas Eve, but they don't stop there.... I won't give it all away, but suffice it to say that I've expanded the mandatory Christmas Eve viewing repertoire by two hours. Move over Miracle on 34th Street. The best part is though - this event apparently actually happened.

The Pillowmaker: John Southworth

2008-02-01T21:47:00Z

The Pillowmaker by John Southworth

Oh. Oh oh oh. Be good to yourself and walk into this beautiful landscape...
"Life is Unbelievable", "Eyes are the Flowers" and "River Rations" make me catch glimpses of gnomes, skip and click my heels in public parks, use my pink umbrella, fall in love with, toadstools, say prayers to raindrops and believe my house keys have magic powers...
I think John is Buster Keaton with a four-leaf clover in his pocket. If the world could drink of him once a day there would be no world wars. Forgive my hyperbole. This is my favourite record of this year, and I don't foresee anything topping it.
OH. oh oh oh. Ohhhh.

Who's Got Trouble: Shivaree

2008-02-01T21:45:00Z

Who's Got Trouble by Shivaree

What Gwen Stafani would be if she hadn't hired a stylist, made that last joke of an album and married a rock star. She would be, yup, human, and therefore all her stories and music would wound us and lift us in a beautiful way, much like this record.

Gandhi

2008-02-01T21:44:00Z

Gandhi

Ben Kingsley so completely disappears into the walking, talking, living essence of Gandhi that I couldn't tell what was historical footage and what was movie-making. Gandhi won India's independence from Britain with persistent non-violent protest, and though failing at his quest to unify India's internal warring factions, he unified them in reverence and grief - it was said that at his funeral the entire country was silent. They called him "Mahatma" which means "Great Soul". It is unbelievable what he endured for his faith in peace and change - unfathomable. And Einstein was quoted as saying that generations to come would scarcely believe that" such a man, in flesh and blood, ever walked the face of the earth."

The Singing Detective

2008-02-01T21:43:00Z

The Singing Detective

This story, based on the writings of Dennis Potter, completely charmed me. Robert Downey Jr. is so good he makes a great script take flight into "even greater" territory. Keep off the booze Rob! You are too great! His character is a bitter writer hospitalized for a debilitating skin disease - from there you romp through his psyche literally, much like the films "Being John Malkovich" or "The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind" - (quite possibly my favourite title ever.. but I digress.) Smart and Funny. I love it when those two shack up.

Leontyne Price

2008-02-01T21:42:00Z

Leontyne Price

A voice from heaven.

Coming Through Slaughter: Michael Ondaatje

2008-02-01T21:40:00Z

Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje

Careful. When closing his books you will suffer, and suffer wildly. The aftershock is deep. Only because the book is gone and can't ever be new to you again. It's somewhat like the drawbridge closing after a waltz through the enchanted castle.

Dark Age Ahead: Jane Jacobs

2008-02-01T21:39:00Z

Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs

Urban planner, philosopher and Torontonian Jane Jacobs will scare you silly about the future of cities. Sometimes, while reading this cautionary tale, I wanted to drop everything and start an organic farm - jump off the grid altogether. But her chapters always propose simple effective solutions to the terrifying predicaments she describes, which prevents a book with this kind of title from being cynical and depressing. Smart smart smart.

Elbow (whole catalogue)

2008-02-01T21:38:00Z

Elbow (whole catalogue)

Sounds like a sleepy lovesick Peter Gabriel backed by Talk Talk (later days). I love this band. And the recordings sound so good it's creepy.

The Milk- Eyed Mender: Joanna Newsom

2008-02-01T21:36:00Z

The Milk- Eyed Mender by Joanna Newsom

.....one of the most unusual, beautiful voices I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. The closest approximation would be Lisa Simpson meets Melanie..... verse like fine scultpure - must have been a poetry major..... an American journalist called her part of the "New Weird America".... Did I mention she performs on the harp....

A History of Violence

2008-02-01T21:35:00Z

A History of Violence

I do. I admit it. I love Cronenberg. Just love him.... he examines human darkness without the filter of pity.... thus - not for the squeamish.... can't fathom how one could manage the lead role in this absorbing story (based on a graphic novel no less! ...must... find.. shelf space....) if anyone's up to this formidable task, it's Aragorn, err, I mean Viggo Mortenson... .he dips in and out of personalities with tiny detectable changes of vocal inflection, stance, expression... it's staggering..... acting with your eyeballs... I think I'm in love.

Neil Farber

2008-02-01T21:34:00Z

Neil Farber

www.richardhellergallery.com. I love this man's mind. He's now using weird gels and wax... so beautiful.... So L.A. is good for something, who knew? ..... kidding......

The Village

2008-02-01T21:12:00Z

The Village

I thought this was going to be a typical creepy Hollywood thriller... camera tricks and some gore. It turned out to be a thought-provoking meditiation on the nature of truth, innocence, how to live nobly in the modern world's chaos and horror, and whether some lies are morally just. I still think about this movie. What a brilliant plot and premise. So smart, so sincere.

Charles Simic

2008-02-01T21:10:00Z

Charles Simic

When one of your writing heroes highly recommends another writer, you run to the library like your clothes are on fire. Well, if you're me you do. That is how I discovered Charles Simic. Poems like "A Book Full of Pictures", "The White Room" or "The Oldest Child" will chill your blood with their startling images. I'm particularly fond of one about a pair of shoes. But the finest discovery so far - (SO FAR!) is "To The One Upstairs". Holy Moses. Look out.

Necessary Secrets and On The Side of the Angels - The Journals of Elizabeth Smart

2008-02-01T21:08:00Z

Necessary Secrets and On The Side of the Angels: The Journals of Elizabeth Smart

Ms. Smart - the unsung Canadian hero of poetic prose - records her struggle to write, her garden's progress, and the course of her tragic, doomed love affair with poet George Barker - with whom she had four children. She is the author of "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept". Sad... but lovely.... Reminds me of Plath a bit...

Trouble: Ray LaMontagne

2008-02-01T21:06:00Z

Trouble by Ray LaMontagne

Otis Redding and Van Morrison pass each other walking home from different bars on the same lonely night... or something to that effect... Soulful, heartbreaking, lyrically pure. Unforgettable songs. Unforgettable voice.

Babette's Feast

2008-02-01T21:05:00Z

Babette's Feast

Uptight pious Danes living on the coast of Jutland learn the value and redemptive power of PLEASURE.... thanks to a gifted master chef from Paris named "Babette". I laughed out of sheer delight - (which is particularly satisfying )- at the old woman trying not to sip her wine too eagerly, though she was clearly ready to bathe in it... The general's speech at dinner was so lovely it is now transcribed in my writing book. Resonant, timeless...

Herman Hesse

2008-02-01T21:04:00Z

Herman Hesse

Have I gone on too much about this author?... perhaps... Demian and Siddharta were short and powerful works, but Steppenwolf, Steppenwolf has even meatier wisdom. It's clear he was lingering in the Eastern mysticism aisle of the library.... psychology too...Jung and Freud are all over the place in this work.... he proposes a person is a fractured kaleidoscope of souls and to insist on singularity is not only foolish but harmful.... he also has comforting theories about professional loners... good for the heart of a cabin dwelling nerd. Mozart also has a cameo....

Leaving Mr. MacKenzie: Jean Rhys

2008-02-01T21:03:00Z

Leaving Mr. MacKenzie by Jean Rhys

In my Rhys-loving mind this book is not as perfect as Good Morning Midnight, but there is an episode with a pair of gloves that is worth the three hours you'll spend with this depressing story.

The Reprieve: Jean-Paul Sartre

2008-02-01T21:02:00Z

The Reprieve by Jean-Paul Sartre

In my quest to further plumb existentialism (without suffering the painfully dry Heidegger) I've been spending time with it's members' fiction and art.... Dostoevsky, Sartre, Kafka and Camus. Though Sartre is clearly working through his theories when he writes, and seems to be an intellectual before he's an artist (yes yes, send the hate mail) the writing is so masterful... so clear and fluid, even in the difficult formal structure he set out for himself in this book - simultaneous narrative - different events in different places unfolding in real time at the SAME time.... wow. The Reprieve is the second in a trilogy that starts with The Age of Reason and ends with Iron on the Soul....

The Vilde Affair: Martin Blumenson

2008-02-01T21:01:00Z

The Vilde Affair by Martin Blumenson

...the unbelievable story of an underground newspaper "Le Resistance" created by some fearless French during the German Occupation in WWII. Oh the fuel this gave me for my musical.... I cannot describe my awe of it, my joy, other than to note that it is truly amazing what humans can do for love - of their country, their ideals, eachother. Truly amazing. As they were being tied to the execution posts they started to sing "Le Marseillaise" (sp?) That is courage. They chose death instead of ratting out their friends. Heroism in real life is so much bigger, bolder, fiercer than in the movies. Sylvette Lelou actually said to her prosecutor in court "You don't have enough bullets to kill me and my kind." Chills.

That Summer In Paris: Morley Callaghan

2008-02-01T20:58:00Z

That Summer In Paris by Morley Callaghan

..sort of a memoir of this Canadian's life as a young writer starting out at the Toronto Star (very funny) and leaving for a summer to be in the thick of the Paris scene.... a lot of gossip, some name-dropping... insight into Hemingway and Fitzgerald's relationship... sometimes scandalous.... juicy you could say....

Some musique

2008-02-01T20:56:00Z

Some musique

2nd Mvmt - Beethoven's 7th Symphony
Goldberg Variations - Aria 1981 recording - Glenn Gould
New World Symphony - A. Dvorak
Senza Mamma - Callas singing an underloved Puccini one act opera. (i think it's Puccini) again, chillllls.

What the Bleep Do We Know

2008-02-01T20:55:00Z

What the Bleep Do We Know

A film by William Arntz, Betsey Chasse and Mark Vicente. I went to this movie solo when I lived in Los Angeles last July. The juxtaposition still rattles me. Such insight in such a starving place. What the Bleep is a study of quantum physics as it relates to human free will, our place in the universe, and our concept of reality. It proposes that we are the *creators* of our reality- that we are not adrift in a objective, external reality.... The section on peptides (proteins that form the communicative building blocks of emotions and emotional reactions) is a revelation... it suggests that our emotional habits are not unlike addicitons-- our brains and the neuro-receptors/transmitters become accustomed to certain chemical cocktails (that emotions produce) if they happen regularly enough - i.e. being quick to anger, habitual negativity, etc... Happily, the same goes for positive reactions -- it's as if they merely need to be practised!! And I've arrived at another piece of gold for my "practise-joy" theory!! Like a good monk, a good knight. This film will also wake you up to how graceful and miraculous a thing you are. Your thoughts directly affect your body chemistry. I think today's medical science still has this backwards. Thought and soul first, the body consequence follows. Think of how horrific you feel physically in a state of emergency or grief or trauma. Then think of how little things your mind says every day perform the same acts on a smaller, but much more consistent level. The mind is the mightiest, it has a direct line to the heart. They're the oldest friends in the universe. I am so much more aware of how I speak to myself... and how much stardust is in these dry, hardworking fingers of mine. Rent this movie! Run!

Waking Life

2008-02-01T20:54:00Z

Waking Life

Some like to slag this flick because of Ethan Hawke and that stubborn link between him and the unfortunate Generation X thing. Shudder. Well. He is simply an actor among many actors in this long conversation about philosophy, God and being alive, my favourite subjects. There is a bar scene where an older scientist/professor-type man poses a fascinating question -- Since the gulf between a Regular Joe and Nietzsche is comparable to - if not wider than - the gulf between man and APE, (YIKES...) what is it then, that prevents mankind from realizing its potential? Fear or Laziness? I think about this relelntlessly. Often in the shower. I bite my nails down thinking that it's both, or that fear and laziness are the same thing.....

Good Morning Midnight: Jean Rhys

2008-02-01T20:34:00Z

Good Morning Midnight by Jean Rhys

This is the closest thing to my inner narrative I've ever come across - the years where I was quite lost and drinking my face off...... it was frightening to read on a porch in the stifling Toronto summer heat... strange, sad...better with Scotch.... downright revelatory. Sasha, the main character/heroine (ha,...) is a major part of Emily and the creatures I call upon to write....Sasha is a bright colour in the paint box so to speak.....

Felt Mountain: Goldfrapp

2008-02-01T20:31:00Z

Felt Mountain by Goldfrapp

My favourite album of 2000. Horses crying in snowy forests. Damn.

Music for Egon Schiele: The Rachels

2008-02-01T20:25:00Z

Music for Egon Schiele by The Rachels

Egon Schiele is my absolute favourite visual artist. Two years ago I slapped down my credit card and got the hell outta dodge, as they say. My personal life was busted and bleeding so I decided to put some European salve on my North American wounds, pocket book be damned. I would recommend this crazy idea to anyone and everyone. Waves of that trip still come back to me, still soothe and astound and inspire me, and the greatest moment of them all was, hands down, walking into the museum where most of this man's work resides. It cannot adequately be described in feeble English, you must set your eyes upon them.....they are so stirring. After I'd had my fill, I walked out, dazed into the Viennese evening - star-filled and snowing softly on the little hanging lights between buildings......... This Rachels' album is a musical hommage to the artist -- his Romantic life and his tragic end. (He died of Spanish influenza when he was not yet thirty.) I did a small black/blue portrait of him.....

Tomorrow the Green Grass: The Jayhawks

2008-02-01T20:23:00Z

Tomorrow the Green Grass by The Jayhawks

I'm not normally inclined to give the "rootsy Americana" a chance, but this record came to me when I was 17 and became - the way only great music can - the soundtrack of that year. I've seen this band play before and it's glorious.

Oryx and Crake: Margaret Atwood

2008-02-01T18:03:00Z

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Brrr......Orwell and Huxley on a cold modern breeze.....our impending doom.....careful with this one kids.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

2008-02-01T18:02:00Z

Edna St. Vincent Millay

I came across this poet by reading "Savage Beauty" - a biography by Nancy Melford. Her life dances all over the globe, from Paris, to the Orient, to grungy apartments in Manhattan's east side....

Music at Night: Aldous Huxley

2008-02-01T18:01:00Z

Music at Night by Aldous Huxley

This man is another Leonard Bernstein/GlennGould - irrepressible curiousity and thirst for knowledge- endlessly inspired and troubled by the world. Sigh.......This volume holds ideas on Beethoven, the American beauty industry, art, tragedy....treasures all.....

Avro Part: Alina

2008-02-01T18:00:00Z

Avro Part by Alina

Stop everything you are doing and go find this. I'm shaky typing this. It will unfold you. I wept on first listen, no word of a lie. Reality transforms... the mind soars.....

Easter Parade

2008-02-01T17:58:00Z

Easter Parade

Judy Garland and Fred Astaire...MAN OH MAN. It's so good I can't stand it. Fred Astaire's dance sequence with the drums is so incredible you'll need a few rewinds to believe it actually happened. And Judy Garland singing about a broken heart is almost too much.... There's also the classic "I Love a Piano" number..... wink wink.

Howie Beck: Howie Beck

2008-02-01T17:56:00Z

Howie Beck by Howie Beck

..the beautiful follow-up to Closer - which was one of my favourite albums of 1999.... Songs like The Books Beside Her Bed and Don't Be Afraid are, I think, some of his greatest moments... Howie is blessed with the sweetest, most earnest singing voice and pens an equally earnest lyric to match..... ..... for fans of real songwriting....

Nine Stories: J.D. Salinger

2008-02-01T17:54:00Z

Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger

Just in case there's one person left on the planet who hasn't had the pleasure of knowing this thin, unassuming volume, I must express my much repeated, perhaps overzealous devotion to it and it's gifted author.

Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music

2008-02-01T17:53:00Z

Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music

I was just watching the Live Aid DVD. Yup. Just a few songs in and I'm reminded of their vast, illustrious catalogue....and the charisma....my knees are weak and he's old enough to be my dad. The voice, the lyrics, the demeanor. Come on, you know you love it. Avalon........

How The Mind Works: Steven Pinker

2008-02-01T17:31:00Z

How The Mind Works by Steven Pinker

I put this up on the previous site, but it deserves reiteration - this is a miraclous, jaw-dropping, epiphany-a-page masterwork.... Gets a bit thick in the middle when he delves into insanely complex ocular processes, but pass over the bridge, give the troll a few bucks - the other side is a gold mine.....from evolutionary hypotheses on marriage, cosmetics, religion, art, and aggression to staggering descriptions of how language is received and understood by our brains. Wonder is here, big portions.

The Birthday Letters: Ted Hughes

2008-02-01T16:32:00Z

The Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes

One of my all time, life-changer favourites. Phrases that astound.

Hot Fuss: The Killers

2008-02-01T16:29:00Z

Hot Fuss by The Killers

I lose my mind when this record comes on, all tracks (that never happens)...i can't NOT dance.....it can't be loud enough.....the most incredible rock climax I have ever heard in "Mr. Brightside"....story of a guy imagining his woman going home with her "other" date... "she's touching his chest now, he takes off her dress......it's killing me" OH! agony. pound pound pound the kick drum, his ex getting laid, his fist on the table near an endless glass of scotch....pound pound pound.....slean in a dance trance..... soo good. damn.

Wings of Desire: Wim Wenders

2008-02-01T16:28:00Z

Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders

...is set in a smokey post war Berlin...two fascinating actors Bruno Gantz and Otto Sander play angels who walk the Earth and listen to the thoughts of humans....one longs to participate in the mortal sphere, to feel the "weight of Now" growing inside of him....there are so many moments of light in this film, of revelation.....the angels long for something of *our* world, a world whose older inhabitants fail to see how glorious their reality is......there's some dramatic flashback war footage and poignant commentary on the subject.....also costars a beautiful trapeze artist and features a performance by Nick Cave...what more could you ask for..... Peter Falk --- that's right Peter Falk --- plays himself....oooooo...so good.

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories: Carson McCullers

2008-02-01T16:26:00Z

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories by Carson McCullers

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe is a masterwork in my humble opinion.....such a good story and such a well-made cast of characters...the build-up to the climax is perfectly paced.... sad and strange, beautiful and human....full of small, subtle magic, melancholy...wonder....it lingers...which is usually a reliable test for good works of art I think.... but the true gem in this collection is A Tree, A Rock, A Cloud. I have no words, you just have to read it. It'll take you 5 minutes. In fact, you could probably finish it in the book store without getting hassled. Do it.....your heart will swoon.

Naive. Super.: Erlend Loe

2008-02-01T16:22:00Z

Naive. Super. by Erlend Loe

What is it with Norwegians. Last time I ran into any they were fall down drunk in a hotel lobby clad in viking helmets and norwegian-flag boxer shorts getting ready to be zealots at a football match in Glasgow. But the two Norwegian books I've read have absolutely floored me. One is Sophie's World, and the other is this gem (many thanks to Zach from Vancouver). The narrator perfectly describes what I struggle to describe when I talk about leaving for the woods. It seems the 'bottom falling out' phenomenon is a common one. Suddenly, everything seems ridiculous. Why on earth would you want anything, try anything, go anywhere, ...what on earth for? Vanity? Kicks? Habit?It was not because I thought dying made living pointless, it was just that our lives, especially in Western civilization (I use the term loosely), seemed like a terrible, sad, shallow little joke. We are the gluttons of the world, and the saddest, greediest, most pill-popping garbage-making nations the world has ever known. And yet so much nothingness. This guy ends up with the same hole in his chest, and decides to start spending his days bouncing a ball. Right on. Anyway..He slides down, he climbs up, with beautiful child-like simplicity that recalls The Tao of Pooh. His redemption is glorious....aided quietly and unconsciously by a kid named Borre. It can be read in an hour.... and then put somewhere very important....for re-reading and re-reading...... oh it's a goody. A reeeeal goody. Felt fixed after I put it down. Thanks again.... "Now I have both thought, and non-thought."

Cosmic Consciousness (1901): Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke

2008-02-01T16:17:00Z

Cosmic Consciousness by Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke

Proof that the real knowledge is ancient and unchanging. this man was a doctor at the london ontario asylum for the insane. he believed walt whitman was as enlightened as Buddha or Muhammed or Jesus....expertly reveals the gossmaer threads between science, philosophy, religion, language, psychology, the origins of the species....fascinating.....

Al Purdy, 1960-1970s

2008-02-01T16:12:00Z

Al Purdy, 1960-1970s

Attention poets. here's one for the special shelf. found mr. purdy again by accident and this time it dazzled..... cold, vivid words, canadian humour... metaphysics.... this was a particularly good decade for Canadian poetry.....