“Adjective salad is delicious, with each element contributing its individual and unique flavor; but a puree of adjective soup tastes yecchy.”— William Safire The American pundit William Safire was born in the same year as… Read More
Late in 2011, Kate Bush released her 10th album, 50 Words for Snow. The whole project is wintry, with all of the songs connected and fitting a seasonal theme. For the title song, Bush recruited… Read More
I got a good chuckle from a post on Facebook this morning. It imagined what the popular TV series Traitors might look like if everyone in the castle was a fictional character. Some months ago… Read More
“Beauty may be skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone.”— Redd Foxx Redd Foxx is best-known for playing Fred Sanford in the show Sanford and Son, although many people didn’t know that Sanford… Read More
No, Alan Alda did not get picked up by MASH co-star Mike Farrell for a warm-hearted reunion ride on a motorcycle for his 90th birthday. Nor did Alda have a warm-hearted reunion on a beach… Read More
“In the ’80s, there was a certain freedom, and a sense of immortality, that ended with that decade. AIDS cracked the earth. With everyone dying, everything shifted. Our history got cut off. We lost a… Read More
Curtis Mayfield’s Move On Up is a firecracker in every iteration, but you need to hear the album version — volume up, please — to get the full effect. Decades on, it still gets me…. Read More
“This thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.” — Mary Pickford Today’s quote o’ the day is from the Toronto-born actor and producer who became one of America’s… Read More
It’s been a month since New Year’s Day, and while it’s a bit late to add a chip to the pile of year-end retrospectives, I’ve been looking back at books I’ve read over the last… Read More
I reacted with disbelief yesterday afternoon when I saw the first push notification that Catherine O’Hara had died, at only 71. “No, no, no, no, no, no,” I uttered as I opened the story. It… Read More
“I’ve always been in the right place and time. Of course, I steered myself there.”— Bob Hope This quote, taken from comedian Bob Hope’s memoir Don’t Shoot, It’s Always Me, speaks to working hard and… Read More
Last week, the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra achieved a key performing goal — putting bums in seats — with three consecutive Winter Pops concerts at the Arts & Culture Centre in St. John’s. It was 70s… Read More
Taking all the politics and curious real estate backstory out of it, the proposed site for a new hospital in the St. John’s area made sense. Kenmount Crossing, as it’s called, nears the end of… Read More
“Magazines all too frequently lead to books and should be regarded as the heavy petting of literature.”— Fran Lebowitz The quote of today comes from Fran Lebowitz’s debut book Metropolitan Life, which established her in… Read More
In June 1970, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released a searing single called Ohio, just a few weeks after the shootings in Kent State, when the National Guard opened fire and killed students. “Four dead… Read More