Entertainment

If Bird’s bebop finally did become the new pop music it just might sound like Allison Au and Tara Kannangara

Jul 15th, 2016 | By | Category: Entertainment

[CW EDITORS NOTE : Nos cÅ“urs et les esprits vont vers les gens du premier pays de mère européenne du Canada, à la suite de l’attaque terroriste épouvantable à Nice hier — un jour que tous ceux qui aiment la liberté et la démocratie dans le monde d’aujourd’hui célèbrent, épaule contre épaule avec le peuple […]



Nous le Nord : giving Drake a key to the city in “the most open-minded place you can find yourself”

Mar 12th, 2015 | By | Category: Entertainment

According to Paul Rimstead (I think), Bud Grant, the old Winnipeg Blue Bombers coach from the USA, used to say that “Canadians should be more like Texans.” Today it might be said that Stephen Harper from Alberta has now realized this dream. And whether you approve or not is the main ballot question in this […]



50 years in Toronto reading the New York Review of Books ..

Aug 11th, 2013 | By | Category: Entertainment

TORONTO, ONTARIO STREETCAR SUBURBS, AUGUST 11, 2013. When I bought the Summer Issue of the New York Review of Books at my local magazine store several days ago, it came wrapped in a plastic bag, with a red and white seal on the outside saying “FREE 1963 premier issue reprint!.” Technically, the summer of 2013 […]



Will George Clooney go back to Teri Hatcher now?

Jul 11th, 2013 | By | Category: Entertainment

Our Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper is supposed to be making a big cabinet shuffle this week, but I couldn’t care less. He is the only important person in his cabinet. And how many times can he shuffle himself? Anyway, it has been hot and humid in the summer in the city. We’ve had unexpected […]



Remembering Stompin’ Tom, Anne Murray, Gordon Lightfoot, and David Crombie at the Juno Awards in 1973

Mar 7th, 2013 | By | Category: Entertainment

Like many others in the true north, strong and free, I was saddened to hear that Stompin’ Tom Connors passed away, at the age of 77, on Wednesday, March 6,  2013. I can’t pretend to be any great fan of Stompin’ Tom’s, or any kind of expert on his life and times. All I can […]



Is popularity of ‘Downton Abbey’ right, left, or something completely different?

Feb 4th, 2013 | By | Category: Entertainment

A few nights ago I caught up with the second latest episode of “Downton Abbey” (ie season 3, episode 4), as received here in the wilds of North America (and stored on the “Recordings” section of our current Bell Fibe cable TV service, here in the particular deep wilderness of Southern Ontario, Canada!). I was […]



Discovering Canadian girl Alison Pill .. and probing women’s constitutional right to go topless in public

Sep 21st, 2012 | By | Category: Entertainment

GANATSEKWYAGON, ONTARIO. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2012. In my advancing age, it takes longer to catch up with the latest trends, racing by your brain at what sometimes seems close to the speed of light, etc.  So my apologies for starting with a post on the Think Progress website from last Friday (September 14, 2012). It’s […]



Hemingway & Gellhorn .. on the heels of brief encounters with the Spanish earth

Jun 6th, 2012 | By | Category: Entertainment

Ernest Hemingway was one subsidiary subject that crossed my mind during the Spanish sections of our recent counterweights Western Europe conference circuit. That no doubt had something to do with the editors’ message of this past May 9 : “We go to Europe for inside story (back for Hemingway and Gellhorn on May 28).”Â  [And […]



Splendor at the Hollywood theatre : remembering the Natalie Wood who would be 73 years old ..

Nov 29th, 2011 | By | Category: Entertainment

[UPDATED WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11,  AUGUST 22, 2012 ; TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2016 : scroll to bottom of page]. Tuesday, November 29, 2011 marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Natalie Wood, aka Natalia Zakharenko, aka Natasha Gurdin, aka Natalie Wood Wagner – “a movie star, from probably the last period when stars were still […]



The short unhappy life of Ernest Hemingway

Mar 19th, 2009 | By | Category: Entertainment

I discovered Ernest Hemingway’s lean and evocative writing as a teenager in high school. For a few years he was the hero of my adolescence. Then he blew his head off with a shotgun in 1961. By 1964, when his memoir of his triumphant young adulthood in Paris was published posthumously, I had left Hemingway […]