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The errant blogger returns. Better late than never, I suppose.

I do have a topic for today, but before I get to it, I feel an odd compulsion to share with you the rather bumpy and circuitous route by which it arrived in my brain. Synapses work in mysterious ways, and this is a fairly good example.

Bear with me here. The link density in this first bit will be rather high.

One of my Twitter friends, who goes by the handle @AliasGrace (and whom I met in person for the first time at PodCamp Halifax two weekends ago), has a blog entitled East Coast by Choice, for which I wrote a guest post three weeks ago. She's had a number of guest posts over the time she's been blogging, the most recent of which, entitled "The Death of Barrington Street?" and written by Paul MacKinnon (Twitter handle @downtownpaul), was a really interesting read.

Paul's post mentioned a number of well-known buildings on Barrington Street, but the one that caught my attention was the Green Lantern building. Now, being the geek that I am (you knew that, right?), you'd think I'd have known Halifax had a Green Lantern building. For some reason, though, I didn't remember the name at all. But, of course, I was tickled by it. So I went to my dear friend Google to see if I could find some pictures.

And find them I did. The Coast (our local artsy/cultural/gritty/emo/freebie newspaper) has an article about the building, complete with historical pics from the time when the building actually housed the Green Lantern restaurant. The building's official name is the Keith building, and it currently houses Pogue Fado, a traditional Irish pub. Nice to know the green is still there, anyway.

Still with me? Good. 'Cause I'll be getting to the point any second now. Read the rest of this entry »

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When I first heard that Robert Downey, Jr. was going to be playing Sherlock Holmes, I was seriously conflicted. I mean, this is Sherlock Holmes we're talking about here, a much-loved, much-interpreted character firmly embedded in our collective literary consciousness. Is the recent Tony Stark really the right choice for a resurrection of this classic character?

But on the other hand, this is Robert Downey we're talking about here. One of the great actors of our time. I know it sounds hyperbolic, but I mean that in all sincerity. The man has serious chops. I'd watch him as a Teletubby.

Well, I've just come home from watching the movie, and it's the damnedest thing. I'm still conflicted.

I really don't know what to make of this movie. It was a spectacle, for sure, and it looked gorgeous, and Downey was fabulous, and Jude Law was fabulous, and there were lots of funny lines and lots of action and lots of brainy deduction going on.

But it all felt a bit off for me. There was something about the whole thing that just didn't ring true. It was all a bit… um… artificial, I guess, is the word I'm looking for.

One of my friends on Twitter posted a less-than-140-character review of Sherlock Holmes a couple of days ago, saying that the film tried too hard. I think that's a good and apt summation. I'll expand on that slightly by saying that this was a film that was entirely too stylish and clever for its own good. Read the rest of this entry »

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Stephen King doesn't need my accolades. He's doing quite well for himself. But I thought, since I've been in a rather retro frame of mind the last while, that I'd talk a bit about some of the stuff that King has come out with over the years.

I'm not a King expert. I haven't read everything he's written. Not by half. But what I have read, I've liked.

A lot.

There are those who like to dismiss Stephen King. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's his genre. Maybe it's the fact that he's sold a bazillion copies of every book he's ever come out with. Or maybe it's because he's not "literary" (whatever the hell that means). But there are definitely King-detractors out there. Read the rest of this entry »

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I wasn't sure what I was going to write about today until about about two hours before I started typing. Usually, on Mondays, I write about movies. I found myself a little on the dry side, however, when it came to ideas. I haven't been to a movie this week, and I haven't rented anything, either. So what to do…?

Then it came to me. I've been watching the first season of Trueblood (borrowed the DVD set and am now hooked), so I've slipped into "vampire" mode. (not literally… sheesh…) This got me thinking about a movie I watched a few months back, a little indy piece that made a bit of a splash, garnered some box office, and gave some exposure to its stars.

A crazy little thing called Twilight.

First off, let me state that I have not read the books, nor am I likely to. Teen vampire romances do not appeal to me. But I work in a bookstore and thus am fully and painfully cognizant of how insanely popular this four-part series by author Stephenie Meyer is.

It's off the scale. It's Harry Potter without the restraint. It's David Cassidy, Rex Smith, Justin Timberlake, The Bay City Rollers, and the Beatles all rolled into one.

Except… paler. And… uh… with fangs. Read the rest of this entry »

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"Karen ran quickly out her front door, frantically waving the small, brown package she held in her trembling hand, but the red, white, and blue Grumman van was moving rapidly away from her, carelessly kicking up a trail of dust as it lurched towards the intersection, where it turned sharply to the right and instantly disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Karen sighed and dropped her heavy arm to her side. What was she to do now? The smudged, stained label on the abused box did not have her name or address on it.

It belonged to someone else."

The above passage is, fortunately, not a quote from a novel I've read. I constructed it just now, and it's horrible.

Intentionally. Read the rest of this entry »

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Every once in a while, a book comes along that makes me remember why I love reading and writing so much. The Gargoyle, by Winnipeg author Andrew Davidson, is just such a book. It has elements of the fantastic, the historic, the real, the hyper-real, and the absurd. It's written with a tone of sardonic weltschmerz that belies the wonder that lurks just beneath the surface.

In short, it's a stunning book, and I'm sincerely glad that it dropped into my life.

The protagonist of the story, whose name is never revealed, is a porn actor and producer who suffers extreme burns in a car accident. The first third of the book takes place in the hospital where his lengthy treatment occurs. It is during this period that he first meets Marianne Engel, a sculptress and former mental patient who tries to convince him that they knew each other in a past life. Read the rest of this entry »

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On Sunday, I went to see The Time Traveler's wife. This was timely, not only because it was just released and it's nice to review a film before it's old news, but also because it was a screamingly hot day and you can only hang around in Chapters and Starbucks for so long before people start looking at you funny.

So, with my nicely air-conditioned brain settled into a nicely padded seat, I proceeded to view the cinematic remdering of my favorite book of all time.

I was prepared for trauma.

Well, there was a bit of trauma, but not delivered in quite the manner you might expect. It's almost peripheral, and I'll get to it in a minute.

For the moment, though, you can relax. The movie was good. Not great, mind you. Not a triumph of filmmaking, not a landmark, not a watershed event.

But it was good. I enjoyed it. Read the rest of this entry »

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