Alex Boyd's Blog, page 23

A Paradise Built in Hell

A book by Rebecca Solnit examines the aftermath of disaster, and finds people don't necessarily add to the chaos out of self-interest, but in fact a sense of commonality binds people together:

"Rebecca Solnit agrees with one aspect of commonplace thinking about disasters: once a hurricane's winds subside, an earthquake's upheavals abate, or an explosion's concussive force dissipates, the trouble is far from over. But the premise of Solnit's forceful new book, A Paradise Built in Hell: The...

Conquest of the Useless

Giles Harvey writes an excellent review of a book by Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless, Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo:

"Herzog's views about filmmaking cannot be separated from his views about the world at large. One of his core beliefs as a director — that if you work under difficult circumstances you will create stranger, more vital films than you would otherwise — is also a belief he holds about life. The severe affliction suffered by so many of Herzog's characters — the...

Flickershow

I caught the CD release for Flickershow last night and they're a hugely enjoyable band. "Drawing a Blank" is a debut CD after years of work, and appears quite lovingly produced.  I liked their energy — it felt a little like some of the freshness and charm the Barenaked Ladies started off with had somehow spilled over into a different band. Lead singer Julian Sark is both funny and down to earth, and adds interesting but not distracting vocals. Never mind that U2 played the same night, a...

Asterios Polyp

A dictionary-heavy, hardcover graphic novel, Asterios Polyp manages to be visually impressive, and pack a few impressive ideas. David Mazzucchelli is no stranger to the graphic novel, having illustrated a graphic novel adaptation of City of Glass by Paul Auster, among other works. His style is interesting for being a curious balance of clean and detailed, neat and messy. I'm not sure exactly how that appeals, but it does. Mazzucchelli tells the story of architect and designer Asterios Polyp...

Paddle to the Sea

I haven't seen Paddle to the Sea since my childhood, so it was a pleasant surprise to find it on the National Film Board site. If you've never had the pleasure, it's a beautiful, well produced, short Canadian film about a carving making its way through the great lakes and out to sea. The film was made in 1966 and has lost none of its charm. Speaking of charming, as well as utterly Canadian, The Sweater can be found there too.  I also appreciated the compelling and wordless Afterlife, and the...

Isak Dinesen

Fiction writer Joanna Scott writes about Isak Dinesen (who suffers from "waning" popularity in recent decades), in a review that provides perceptive comments on fiction (and not just Dinesen) like this one:

"Dinesen is suggesting in this passage that a storyteller has a set of interrelated responsibilities. She should entertain and absorb her audience, and she should offer us some insight into our imaginative abilities. Ultimately, the fiction should return us to the world with sharpened...

100 Days to Change the World

Everything we care about most is threatened by the potential for catastrophic climate change. 100 days before "critical UN climate change talks" in Copenhagen, Denmark, Greenpeace has launched a new campaign. Learn more about signing a petition, donating or spreading the word here.

Darin Yorston: Back Home

Stopping to casually explain "At this moment I would like to pause to put on my hat," Darin Yorston is a musician that's about as down to earth as down to earth gets. Frequently playing live, he's also just released his first solo disc, Back Home. For a man in his thirties, his voice has remarkable depth, as though it has gathered the wisdom of a number of generations, and I admire the unashamedly straightforward and sincere lyrics here, in tunes that combine mellow Bluegrass Country (not to...

On creating vivid characters, plus a link or two more

Over at The National Post, Philip Marchand has an interesting article about the challenge of creating vivid characters, and the possibility it has become a lost art. There's some discussion about first person narration versus third person narration, with novelist and critic Mary McCarthy commenting, "All fictions, of course, are impersonations, but it seems to me somehow less dubious to impersonate the outside of a person — say, Mrs. Micawber with her mysterious 'I will never leave Mr...

Superman: Red Son

It isn't that hard to re-imagine Superman as a communist — it only really requires that on arrival, he crash land on a farm in the Ukraine instead of an American farm. I don't frequently read graphic novels, but the idea of taking the most famous American hero and turning him on his head was intriguing.  

Impressively enough, it manages to be a story about the kind of waste and sacrifice involved with political mismanagement and power struggles, as well as a story that's painfully aware of...