Got a bit of a shock in the last day or so. Details here: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2010/02/20/telefilm-rules-change.html Personal opinion time. I’ve said it elsewhere, so I may as well say it here: Michel Roy committed an act of rudeness and contempt by wanting this rules change at all, never mind saying so publicly. One of the main…
Transit, Ages, the City and the Future
Seems a generic title, and it is. I grant you that right now. But there’s a point to the mundanity which we’ll get to right now: I spent this particular morning at Ottawa City Hall, watching the presentations to and deliberations of the city’s Transit Planning Committee. From Photos At issue this particular morning was…
VIA Rail: One Passenger’s Fantasy Map
I had some ideas on what the route map for VIA Rail ought to look like ten years from now. Granted that in several respects – costing out the details surely being among them – it is indeed a fantasy. Nonetheless, the choices made sense to me as I drew them up. So, for your…
Trudeau Stories: An Open Letter to the Author-Performer
Brooke, I went to see your show at the National Arts Centre tonight while it was in town as part of the Magnetic North Festival. Wanted very much to stick around for the Q & A session afterwards, but misunderstood what time it was by the time the show itself ended. Thus, my hasty –…
Movie Debate – An Open Thread
Since we’re on the subject of CanCon movies at the moment, here’s hoping you’ll forgive a bit of nosiness by way of this question: What’s your current Favourite Canadian Movie? Any particular reason(s)? Got more than one?
Some random notes: Politics to Comics to Movies
I note an opinion piece in yesterday’s Toronto Star by James Travers on the present state of our democracy. I have some concerns of my own about some of the issues Travers raises, and it makes me happy to note the elements of constructive-minded hope he included in that article. If there’s anything we need…
Some rambling on space exploration
Something else to thank Doug Drexler’s blogging in recent weeks for here. By way of introduction: Drexler’s been an award-winning makeup artist, scenic artist and now CGI designer/animator – please forgive me for not getting the titles precisely, Doug? – on shows from Star Trek: All the Modern TV Series from Next Generation to Enterprise…
Ottawa Transit: Subways Ahead?
Some of you will already be aware of the troubles we’ve faced in Ottawa in the course of expanding OC Transpo‘s light rail component. We’ve had at least one proposal get right up to the point of putting shovels in the ground…and then we got a sort of whiplash thanks to the election of Larry…
Comics and Canada: the Gene Day Award
Some among you already know about the Joe Shuster Awards, our own counterparts to the like of the Harveys and Eisners south of the border. They’ve added a new category: the Gene Day Award for Canadian Self-Publishing. I refer you to the Shuster Awards’ own page on the subject in the second link above. What…
Small Press at Risk – Quill & Quire via Robert J. Sawyer
Rob‘s one of our best-known SF writers, right up there with Gibson, Robinson, Hopkinson. He’s got Hugos, Nebulas, Auroras(our homegrown version of the first two awards) to his name. One of his novels, FlashForward, is being converted into a long-term US-produced TV series as I type this. Anyway, he’s spotted something in Quill & Quire,…