Columns

Milk-Crate Bandit – My Trip to Japan

Japan is one of those places where anything goes, like public parks inside skyscrapers, used-underwear vending machines, second careers for failed North American bands, and ganguro troupes haunting the streets. The unabashed open-mindedness of the music scene in Japan breeds jealousy in the minds of small-town dwellers and city folk alike on this side of… Read more »

From Where I Sit – Functional? Beautiful?

Have you caught the de-cluttering bug? The message of urging (and urgency) on television and in books and magazines is relentless. That message is at cross-purposes with the pressure to buy, buy, buy. we’re bombarded with the benefits of purging: breathing space; a calming, zen-like setting; simplicity. we’re shamed into it by the hectoring advice… Read more »

The Mindful Bard – Shut Up and Sing

DVD: Shut Up and Sing Release date: 2007 Directed by Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger. And how in the world can the words that I said Send somebody so over the edge That they’d write… Read more »

From Where I Sit – The Open Road

Dear reader, I have a confession to make. I’ve been keeping something from you. I was hoping to have a good news, happy ending, victory-over-defeat story to share this week. Alas, it was not to be. Last year Roy bought a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle, thereby living out a dream. He took the Alberta Safety… Read more »

The Mindful Bard – Inland Empire

DVD: INLAND EMPIRE Release date: 2007 Written and directed by David Lynch. Starring Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, and Justin Theroux. “. . . as a rule the images of the unconscious are not produced by consciousness, but have a reality and spontaneity of their own. Nevertheless, we regard them as mere marginal phenomena.” Carl Jung… Read more »