Magnificent Octopus

My assistant's favourite poem remains a secret, but I maintain that it's not an inappropriate discussion to have. To the contrary, I...

"Or take our situation, for instance, why do you say it isn't a manifestation of a supercivilization?" "Hmm, too human....

The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics — book by Norton Juster, adapted into animated short by Chuck Jones. (Via Brain Pic...

Malianov's wife is away, and a friend of hers comes to stay: ...then he poured her another glass of wine. The decision to toast the use...

The experience of Mikhail Bulgakov's short story Morphine is exquisite and hallucinatory, but its meaning is a little elusive. On the...

It's a futuristic mystery dystopian sci-fi action-adventure romance. More or less. Archetype , by M.D. Waters, is a terrifically engro...

Clever people have been pointing out for a long time that happiness is like good health: when it's there, you don't notice it. But w...

"Tango?" said Mrs Rupa Mehra in alarm. "What is tango?" "Bye, Ma," said Meenakshi. "Tango. A dance. We...

While I like to think I'm above judging a book by its cover, I do put some store by the jacket copy. Wonder , by R.J. Palacio, is not ...

It took me a long time to read The Graveyard , by Marek Hłasko, despite its being merely 140 pages long. It's dense with politics and...

One of the MOOCs I started last week — Content Strategy — is, ironically, less than engaging. The definitions — of content strategy, conten...

This weekend I saw the exhibition Splendore a Venezia . It was lush and overwhelming, probably very much like the times it was meant to de...

Having read, and absolutely loved, Roadside Picnic some time ago, I'm really excited about the upcoming release of Definitely Maybe , b...

I discovered the Hyperbole and Half webcomic blog several years ago and thought it was one of the funniest things I'd ever read. No hyp...

I recently completed my second massive open online course (MOOC). This time the course was User Experience for the Web offered by Open2Stud...

A corpulent man with a friendly face rose from his seat behind the desk. He had the clay-colored complexion of those who never get enough to...

Last week I went to Interzone. David Cronenberg: Evolution , an exhibition exploring the filmmaker's oeuvre, is on at TIFF until January...

Lata went for poetry. On the way, however, she paused by the science shelves, not because she understood much science, but, rather, because ...

In 2013 I read approximately 50 books. Some were very long, and some were very short. I say approximately because some were so short it does...

The Diary of Edward the Hamster 1990-1990 , by Miriam Elia and Ezra Elia, was waiting for me under the Christmas tree. Friday, September 26...